By MICHELLE ROBERTS – 13 hours ago (4/24/2008 09:00)

SAN ANGELO, Texas (AP) The 437 children taken from the polygamist compound in West Texas are being scattered to group homes and boys' and girls' ranches across the state, plunged into a culture radically different from the community where they and their families shunned the outside world as a hostile, contaminating influence on their godly way of life.

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Government agency, CPS, oversteps its bounds. CPS decides what is right and wrong for your children. Remind anyone of 1984?

Clearly, marrying underage women and polygamy is against the law and should be prevented. But taking these children, who are ahead of their mainstream peers in education and manners, away from their mothers is another issue. On what basis does the CPS take these children away from their mothers and from their homes?

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Dr. Bruce Perry, a child psychiatrist who testified for the children last week, said FLDS children may be easily taken advantage of by outsiders because of the strict control church leaders have had over their daily lives.

People who have left the sect "felt emotionally incapable of decision-making," he said.

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Do you think that a psychiatrist’s opinion on something as subjective as emotional capability to make decisions is a good basis for taking away these children from their mothers? If you think it is…don’t be surprised when a psychiatrist comes to CPS with evidence that conservative children are incapable of making decisions. It wasn’t too long ago that the UC Berkeley psychology department came out with a study showing that children that grew up to be conservatives were mal-adjusted and isolated individuals.

Am I on a slippery slope? You would have been called crazy years ago, if you thought that smoking in the street could be outlawed in a CA town (Calabasas), but it is. Laws are becoming stricter. The nanny state is growing. To liberals, just not voting for a Democrat is enough evidence of incapability of making decisions. And as you know, liberals only care about choice when it comes to killing babies. Just don’t say you weren’t warned.

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court justices fiercely debated the constitutionality of the "millionaires' amendment" of federal campaign finance law Tuesday in a case that revealed the justices' tensions over congressional latitude to regulate campaign financing.

As we have already discussed on this blog, this government control on our lives is an affront to the American value of freedom of speech, which is of greatest importance on matters of politics. One would not want to live under a government that prohibits criticism or redress of grievances.

Justice Scalia questioned the government’s role in “leveling the playing field” this way: “What if one candidate were more eloquent, he asked in a hypothetical vein, could the government make him speak with pebbles in his mouth?”

The bigger problem illustrated by this discussion is that when the government takes it upon itself to set controls on the American public, it is resigned to revise and amend the established provisions endlessly. The original law had the unintended consequence of allowing only the incredibly wealthy to run for office. So, an amendment has been proposed to correct for that consequence. One must wonder, why introduce the regulations in the first place? Government has overstepped its bounds and it only continues to grow. More laws breed more laws. Restrictions breed more restrictions. The freedom of the American people hangs in the balance.

I finally understand what this whole “hope” thing is about with Obama. He has locked into the defective thinking of the left. He thinks that unless the government solves our problems, the problems will forever remain. His whole message is that your hope can be found only in the government.

If you don’t agree with Obama, then he says you participate in a politics of cynicism. I find great dissonance between this view and the view that our hope comes from God. The psalmist writes:

 16 No king is saved by the size of his army;
       no warrior escapes by his great strength.

 17 A horse is a vain hope for deliverance;
       despite all its great strength it cannot save.

 18 But the eyes of the LORD are on those who fear him,
       on those whose hope is in his unfailing love,

 19 to deliver them from death
       and keep them alive in famine.

 20 We wait in hope for the LORD;
       he is our help and our shield.

 21 In him our hearts rejoice,
       for we trust in his holy name.

 22 May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD,
       even as we put our hope in you. (Psalm 33)

Does the psalmist participate in the politics of cynicism? Our Lord Jesus Christ provides hope for Christians. I think it a virtue to find our hope in God and not government. Why? God has proved that He is faithful and just.

Our government:

 - just shipped missile components to Taiwan by accident (25 March 2008).

- can’t balance a budget and is as efficient at spending money as a sift is at carrying water.

- can’t match the outcomes of students attending private schools.

- didn’t do such a great job with the Katrina disaster.

- Look! The list goes on and on.

What is the big problem with big government? Big government control has been tried in the former Soviet Union and it resulted in 100,000s murdered. It is the same with Cuba under Guevara and China under Mao. North Korea under Jong Il is a tale of starvation, poverty, and zero human rights.

Granted, Western Europe has not been involved in any genocide over the last 50 years. The problem is that if we go the route of Western Europe, we will have the same opportunities as Western Europeans. Western Europeans do not have the opportunities Americans have. America as it stands is still the land of opportunity. It is a land full of tales of rags to riches, social mobility, and great progress. That is the story of hope. You live in a land where you can worship as you please in America. It is a land where you can become anything you want to become through decency, hard work, and a little ambition.

That is why I have since the publication of his book, The Audacity of Hope (2006), found his words to be incredibly pretentious. Americans are hopeful. Americans are good people. It does not take audacity to have hope. What does take audacity is calling a nation of hopeful people, “cynics.”