There comes a time in every man’s life when he has to make a fundamental decision about the direction his life will take. This point can be called the “free will” turning point of a person’s life that happens very rarely, usually only once in a lifetime. It delineates a turning point when someone is finally faced with the decision about what kind of person he will be. Once made, the choice can only be changed with extreme difficulty.

The same can be said for countries. There comes a point in every country’s life when that country has to make a fundamental decision about which direction it will take, how the country will define itself.

As Ron Paul repeatedly states (for there really is nothing he says that isn’t repeated), America made her decision in 1913 as to what kind of country she was going to be, and that is a country with an unstoppable and ever expanding central government.

1913 introduced the income tax and the Federal Reserve to America, which established the precedent that not only could the government print money whenever it wanted, but it could actually take away whatever percentage of your income from you that it wanted as well. This paved the inexorable path to the erosion of the gold standard and the adoption of money backed by…the word of the Government.

Such was the road paved for big government in America, and now, not only are Americans OK with the fact that they don’t own their own incomes except by government benevolence; some actually expect, even DEMAND that the government take MORE of their money. And not only are Americans OK with the fact that a group of 12 people can conspire in secret meetings to print trillions of dollars in currency, effectively devaluing the money that people have in their bank accounts. Americans are actually THRILLED when the Fed says they are going to “do more” to “stimulate” the economy by running the printing presses.

America made a decision in 1913 on big government. To change that direction requires not simply a change in style. It requires a 180 degree paradigm shift in the way America thinks about itself as a country. It will require huge amounts of pain when the country realizes that it’s entitlement system is broken, that it is not all-powerful, that it can no longer pass out checks like water. This requires another free will decision about its own identity, and as we said at the beginning of this post, free will decisions are rarely made twice in a lifetime, be it of an individual, or of a country.

When America decided on Big Government in 1913, that paved the way for that government’s hubris in assuming that she runs the world and can meddle in global affairs with impunity, without declaring war, without consulting Congress, just on a presidential whim go in and do something.

As for Israel, our problem isn’t fiscal. Unlike America, Jews have a constant fear that they are about to be destroyed, so being fiscally irresponsible is not an option for us. Our problem is our sense of self.

In 1993, Israel made a free will decision. When she signed the Oslo Accords with a people that claimed we are living in its land and not our own land, she made the decision that Israel is not Jewish land. From that point on, everything Israel has done has been on the premise that every Jew here is an occupier of Arab land.

Every time we are attacked, we withdraw. Every time we withdraw, we are attacked. And then we tell everyone that we want to give the land away, but that we’re worried we’ll get killed if we do. Every political party in Israel is built on the premise that we have no choice but to give away our country. Right and Left strive together towards the same goal, for there is no alternative without a complete paradigm shift. Just as both Democrats and Republicans strive towards big government, Likud, Labor, and Kadima strive towards Oslo.

To change the Oslo perspective will take another free will decision by Israel as to the purpose of its existence as the Jewish State. The only one trying to make this paradigm shift is Moshe Feiglin.

Feiglin, like Ron Paul with the Republicans, is running in the main “Right Wing” party, the Likud, which once stood for Israel as the land of the Jewish People. Ron Paul and Moshe Feiglin are both despised and feared by their respective partys’ establishment. Both Ron Paul and Moshe Feiglin are trying to bring their parties back to their roots. Both Ron Paul and Moshe Feiglin even bike several miles every morning.

Both Ron Paul and Moshe Feiglin are trying to do the impossible and change the way their countries think about themselves.

And both Ron Paul and Moshe Feiglin want America to stop giving foreign aid to Israel. Read Feiglin’s position on this here.

Finally, both Ron Paul and Moshe Feiglin know this: If their respective countries continue in the paths that they are on now, the future of the free world is quite dim.

But I suspect that both know the following as well: At some point, both will wake up. The only question is, how much will we all have to lose before they both do.

Whether we like it or not, America and Israel are all that’s left of the free world, and both countries are in existential quandaries. Both, with God’s help, will get back to their roots and find themselves, with the help of Ron Paul and Moshe Feiglin, who I hope in the very near future will become very close friends.