Land of Our Fathers-Part I

Mississippi is dangerously close to becoming a totally foreign owned and managed state. Why should you care? Studying the purchasing, acquiring, leasing, and holding interests in Mississippi agricultural land by foreign governments should be on your radar for several reasons. One main reason is that food security is national security. However, that is not the only security threatened because of foreign purchases and management. To really grasp the importance of the national treasures we are to defend and preserve, we must first understand why we have national treasures in the first place.

America was founded on Judeo-Christian principles. Our entire American Jurisprudence is founded on the Ten Commandments and Higher Moral Law. Because of this, the United States of America is the greatest experiment in the history of civilized governments. We flipped ancient models upside down when in the American founding era, We the People became Caesar.

We understood leading up to the Revolutionary War, during, and after, that the correct and Biblical model of governance was the “bottom up” model whereby a moral and virtuous self-governing people were the foundational pillars of good government. Therefore, stewarding well the sacred gifts we were entrusted with was respected, treasured, and defended both nationally and personally.

When we grasp the intended “bottom-up” model, we take personal responsibility to select from among us worthy representatives. We entrust stewardship and leadership to them according to Exodus 18:21. That scripture lays out how we are to elect our servant leaders. It requires three quarters character and one quarter competence. The Biblical form of government is a Constitutional Republic, but we can smell the decay and rot that sweeps over our nation. It is caused by the universal downfall of man—the unquenchable thirst for power and self-promotion. Exodus 18:21 has been ignored.

Our inseparable founding documents are on life support. They are not “living documents” subject to change based on times and culture, the urgencies and emergencies of other nations, or whims of unprincipled men and women. They live only when we sustain them with our own lives as we preserve the founding intent. Original intent is our owner’s guide. It identifies what application and tools we are to use. When you understand the original intent and meaning of the Constitution, you then understand the principle. The principle is eternal, never changing, and fully applicable today. There is no guesswork as to what the Founders meant and intended, because they took painstaking efforts to write down their intent quite clearly through monumental volumes of notes found in the annals of the United States Congress. A gift!

One of the paramount reasons the war for independence was waged was to be able to declare fully and officially that “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.”

The meaning of the “Pursuit of Happiness” is the ability to seek out property of a vast array that contributes to the joy of the individual. This includes land, but it also includes personal property that may not be taken into consideration as often.  Intellectual property is the most sacred of all properties because it houses our conscience. Conscience drives our morals, our values, and our ethics. Intellectual property is also what births our creativity and allows us to produce the work from our hands known as our labor and the fruit thereof.  Labor and tending to things are sacred because “tending to” is the first scriptural mandate given to Adam and Eve in Genesis 1 and 2. What is the duty of man?  It is to tend our garden, to steward well the gifts we have been entrusted with.

Without land, intellectual property, and money, for example, you are most likely not going to acquire necessities by which to live. Property is also inclusive of buildings on the land, fruit, animals, grains, inventory, machinery, seeds, and the list goes on. Harvesting the fruit of our labor is supremely crucial to the wholistic wellbeing of mankind.  This is partially how we find and maintain happiness. It is part of personal responsibility and the Biblical and Constitutional stewardship mandate.

Founding Father and second U.S. President, John Adams, stated that “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God, anarchy and tyranny commence.” Part of that is because our nation only thrives under the lives of virtuous and moral people. If you sell your posterity to foreigners who wish to see your way of life destroyed, or only want to serve the interests of their nation, how long do you think our homeland can survive? What we are witnessing in America regarding selling out our posterity, our sacred lands, and our consciences, is dangerous. And that is exactly what we are doing.

There are indeed repercussions that nations will face when entangling with foreign nations and entertaining “aliens” in the process.  Deuteronomy 28: 43 says, “they rise above you higher and higher, but you will go lower and lower.” Verse 33 paints a vivid picture: “A people whom you do not know shall eat up the produce of your ground and all your labors, and you will never be anything but oppressed and crushed continually.” Just read the entire book of Deuteronomy or better yet, the entire Old Testament to learn lessons on what God has to say about land. Believe it or not, it is a very important subject.

To reiterate, Mississippi is dangerously close to becoming a totally foreign owned and managed state.  I will lay out concrete information in the next article for your serious consideration regarding selling out not only our physical property, but our intellectual properties, our assets, and our commodities to foreign nations. This is a Homeland Security issue of utmost priority and demands our time, attention, and swift remedy.

There is only so much land, commodity, assets, and intellectual property that can be sold off before Americans can no longer do as God commanded. Sure, anything is permissible, but is it profitable by principled standards?  What is the current price we pay for “free trade, commerce, and treaties with foreign nations” when we drop our guard with enemy and combatant nations? Where is the morality in our dealings?  Is it even important anymore? What is the real profitability and/or risk associated with the entangling of America by throat gripping edicts and subjections? Well, slavery comes to mind.

We are less free today than when the Signers of the Declaration of Independence pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to defend and assert their consciences against only seventeen usurpations committed by the British Crown. We no longer can count the ways we are enslaved because there are too many!

Mississippi is in trouble as deep and as wide as our namesake River, and it will be no small feat to reverse her course. We are literally selling Mississippi out to enemy and combatant foreign nations and nations who cover for them and manage for them. We are lacking discernment. Plenty of people know yet do not care. Where do you stand on this issue?

Our state is on dangerous ground by not having more affirmative and clear laws in place to protect our lands, intellectual property, our technology, our seeds, our dairy, our grains, our citizens, and our future generations. Our state is also in trouble because politicians and citizens alike are worried about profits above principle. One day soon, this will catch up to us, but our children and grandchildren will pay the price in our stead.

How is it catching up to us? During the 2023 Mississippi Legislative session, proposed House Bill 280 originally sought to “grandfather-in” almost 800,000 acres controlled by foreign interests, but Mississippi’s Agricultural Commissioner, Andy Gipson, was able to get that stopped on the floor where it eventually became a study committee bill that Mississippi Governor, Tate Reeves, approved. Had this not been stopped, all agricultural land, commodities, and assets to foreign nations sold before July 1, 2023 would have remained as is since the “grandfather” provision rule will still apply to existing situations while new laws or rules apply to future cases. In other words, that roughly 800,000 acres would remain foreign owned and/or controlled.

The problem remains that while the bill sought some restrictive measures against foreign entities owning our lands, commodities, and assets, what has already been sold is grossly negligent and puts our state at very real risk. We are indeed now supremely vulnerable to enemies foreign and domestic. And, we have almost no enforcement of the laws we have. This is also a major problem.

With allowable data and intel, the next article will expose ominous and grave threats to our “state of the state.”   The hopeful news is that we can do much to secure our state. We will plow that information as well for you. The question you need to ask is what does this nation, this state, and your future generations mean to you? God is not making any more land; once lost, it is lost forever. Why do you think other nations are after our richest resources? Critically ask: 1) Why do they want our resources? 2) How do they go about capturing them?

Knowing what is wrong is the first step in bringing remedy. But you also must firmly grasp what is right, good, and true to be able to maintain the solution. Principled freedom is not easy to maintain, but it IS worth it. Freedom to do what you wish without morals and principle and virtue always leads to anarchy and tyranny and great loss. The lack of proper stewardship, coupled with the natural propensity of man’s nature, is dealing us a losing hand in Mississippi.

People have flocked to our shores because of what they lacked in their own homelands. Why would we sell our national treasures back to those nations who care nothing for Biblical stewardship of their own lands and people? We have time to correct the grave issues at hand, but that time is running out, and we will need YOU!

*The deadline for the committee to develop and report findings to the Mississippi Legislature is December 1, 2023.

https://www.mdac.ms.gov/farmland/

https://www.mdac.ms.gov/wp-content/uploads/MS%20Study%20Committee%20on%20Foreign%20Purchase%20of%20Farmland%20Meeting%20Presentation%208.24.23.pdf