Thousands of years ago Moses was commissioned by God to return to Egypt to free the Jews from servitude to a cruel and oppressive Pharaoh. God’s people were living under a tyrannical system from the time of Joseph, slaves to a relentless Master who gave the children of Abraham little in return for toil and tears.
Yahweh felt it was time to ask Moses to follow specific instructions, return to the land where Moses was raised, and demand the release of God’s people.
“So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” (Exodus 3:10).
Moses obeyed God and demanded Pharaoh set the Israelites free. Laughing at the request, Ramses exercised authority and instead increased the burden of labor upon Egypt’s Israelite slaves. A similar state of affairs is presently occurring in the birthplace of democracy, which is now home to Grecian “debt financed socialism.”
The nation of Greece for years has been toiling under the cruel taskmaster of socialism. The type of servitude Greeks are subjected to, although different than making bricks without straw, is slavery all the same. Socialism is a type of Egypt; the only difference is Prime Minister Papandreou doesn’t wear a khepresh.
Like slaves, the Greek people labor under a controlling system that doles out sustenance in the form of health care, pensions and early retirement. Greeks are sustained for usefulness in a governmental system where Pharaoh-like leaders are in charge. Workers’ wages are evenly distributed and tax dollars squandered on a “bloated state sector and its employees.”
Like Moses delivering the Jews, the crisis in Greece could have ushered in deliverance. Like a Mosaic admonition issued to a “lifestyle superpower,” if bankrupt Greece heeded the call and rejected failed socialism the Greek people, though hesitant, could be free.
Amazingly, as the Greek economy collapsed, instead of slaves running toward the desert they took to the streets and rioted to retain the right to eat gruel, retire at fifty-three and take a nap in the middle of the workday.
Socialist serfdom is a lifestyle many Greek people have come to cherish. Bondage to handouts is all they know. Seems Greeks, like Egypt’s slaves, enjoy the life of indentured servitude in return for “pots filled with meat” and the promise of all the “bread they want.” Now the Greek people view pension reform, spending cuts and “harsh austerity measures” on par with being “brought into the wilderness to starve to death.”
Oftentimes, slave vision is obscured from the concept of freedom. Affection develops between slaves and socialistic oligarchies because bondservants, who make collectives thrive, fail to recognize entitlement culture as bondage. With that in mind, it wasn’t the Israelites Moses addressed directly with warnings of impending doom. Moses issued edicts to Ramses to “Let the people go,” or suffer the consequences.
Presently, disaster has descended on Greece because of addiction to “generous vacations, early retirement, national health care and extensive welfare benefits.” Instead of fleeing Egypt, slaves fight to remain in a state of thralldom by begging to pull boulders to the top of a bureaucratic pyramid the Pharaoh insists on building, while being crushed by bankruptcy.
In addition, though engulfed in financial collapse, Prime Minister George Papandreou of the Panhellenic Socialist Party is not about to set the captives free. Standing amidst a cloud of tear gas Greece’s socialist, Prius-driving, Prime Minister envisions “Greece [becoming] the Sweden of the Mediterranean – powered by green energy and boutique tourism –and says it is possible to have both a generous welfare system and a competitive economy.”
Meanwhile, Sweden’s foreign minister Carl Bildt claims socialism has driven Sweden into “rescue mode.”
Nevertheless Georges Papandreou, in an effort to contain “unrestrained spending,” raised legal retirement age by a couple of years from 53 to 55, froze public sector pay, canceled end-of-year bonuses for public employees and reduced pensions by 14%.
Papandreou answered the crisis by spending money on minor pyramids instead of doing away with socialism and instituting a free market system.
Interestingly, “Ancient Egypt is considered by some to have been the most heavily taxed nation and to have collapsed under the weight of the levies imposed on the populace,” which brings us to Greek taxes.
Tax evasion, according to a UK Telegraph article entitled “Analyzing the Real Greek Failure,” is “endemic among Greece’s wealthy middle classes,” so Georges Papandreou went after tax evaders.
Still, fully committed to socialism, the Premier “raised the VAT tax from 21 to 23% and taxes on fuel, tobacco, alcohol and property.” In other words, Pharaoh Papandreou refused to free the captives and, instead, increased the burden on the slaves who continue to demand more at no cost and who refuse to look elsewhere for the Promised Land.
For the Egyptians the first plague was one that brought blood. Water turned into blood when Pharaoh refused to let the Israelites go the first time. Likewise, when Greeks rioted to stay in their own little Egypt, blood visited the Hellas peninsula. Greece’s “water” was pumped from a working class who, rather than viewing the collapse of the system as deliverance, reacted to pension reform with a “national tantrum.”
Thus, the plague of bloodshed and loss of life visited the streets of Athens as crowds rioted, demanding the continuance of government provision.
A protester hurled a Molotov cocktail into the first floor of the faded yellow, three-storey structure. As the fire spread, some bank employees escaped outside while others fled upstairs… three people were found inside dead of asphyxiation. Among them: a woman who was three months pregnant.
Greeks went to what was perceived a bottomless well to draw forth government-financed welfare and instead of limitless water, found blood. Then, rather than willingly fleeing the system when given the chance, helots yoked with buckets of waste pledged continued allegiance to a European Ramses.
Then the Lord said to Moses, “Go to Pharaoh and say to him, Thus says the Lord, Let My people go, that they may serve Me. But if you refuse to let them go, behold, I will smite your whole territory with frogs.” (Exodus 8:2-4).
Greek officials say a horde of frogs forced the closure of a key northern highway for two hours…millions of amphibians covered the tarmac … near the town of Langadas, some 12 miles east of Thessaloniki. There was a carpet of frogs [that] left a nearby lake to look for food.
Therefore, as it was in Egypt, so it appears to be happening in Greece. Hopefully before the next eight plagues follow up blood and frogs, slaves will come to understand the difference between wanting freedom and wanting more for free; and how the collapse of socialism takes away nothing but, instead, provides deliverance from captivity to an entitlement system that can never be sustained.
Cross posted at Regular Folks United
