In regards to a great historical lesson regarding the forgotten aspects of the French Revolution over at ZMan's blog, I note the following:
The 800-pound gorilla in the room every time someone wants to compare the French Revolution with our own (largely fuelled by the same Enlightenment thinkers) then, or our situation nowadays, is that their elites went out of their way to extinguish religion and espouse atheism, whereas ours embraced religion and relied on it for no small amount of underpinning (modern revisionism be damned, literally). We know where ours went. How did that work out for them?
Diderot, Voltaire, and Rousseau begat Robespierre and Napoleon, just as surely as Darwin, Neitzsche, and Freud begat Lenin, Hitler, and Mao.
Hitler eventually persecuted his own Useful Idiot atheists, but primarily because he wanted to keep the trappings of German religion after dethroning the subject, to ride that parade right up to the steps of the Nuremburg rallies. Just like thieves and the IRS, Government always hates competition.
And, on a smaller scale, the likes of Jim Jones, David Koresh, and any number of colleagues back to before even Roman emperors illustrate the same lesson: tyranny must needs not be merely obeyed, but worshipped.
Like Baal and the Aztecs, human sacrifice is always involved, at some point.
Once man is the only measure, everything is permissible, and only might makes right.
This is where the Trumpistas are literally doing God’s work: their existence bypasses the log in the eyes suffered by the Cult of Obama, and now the Rabid Left has noticed the splinter in the alt Right’s eye of sticking with Trump no matter what, and they began to mouth once again (however insincerely, and purely for show and personal advantage) the platitudes of “a nation of laws, not men”.
The scary part is when they bare their actual fangs, and merely note their displeasure that they didn’t get to pick the emperor of their own choice this time around, that one sees their whinging is mainly fueled by envy and jealousy, and not freedom-loving horror. After the diaper-wetting and poo-flinging episodes abate, they will begin counting the days when they can and will have their way with the country again, and laying out the scope of how much farther they can push the pendulum when it’s once again their turn to grasp the levers of power and turn us back toward the cliffs of insanity.
Which is why you don’t have enough allies or ammo, nor biceps, bullets, beans, and band-aids for what’s to come, and should be building the infrastructure to accommodate as much of them as you can amass and secure beforehand.
Sportiness cometh.
I applaud the bracing thoughts and the clarity of your vision. Also the PB reference is apt. As a recovering refugee from Weaponsman I have found that there are few sites available to get my daily fix. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteAesop,
ReplyDeleteYour foundational premise is correct, but so is/are the implication(s) thereof. That country (the past) had a shared structure produced by a shared faith. The definite article refers to a structured doctrine: "the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints...". Whether all truly believed is immaterial; sufficient that the overwhelming majority placed nominal credence in it created a culture that produced what we are. Why were there no "Pride" parades in that era; it is not because that particular expression of sin did not exist. Back then, drunks were called drunkards, with the correct understanding of it as a moral failure, not a "sickness". When our ancestors viewed things as defined by the Author, instead of trying to excuse ourselves for our depravity, society was held more in check. Yes, the sin in the heart of man is the same, but the outworking, or not, of it into a society is also part of God's order. The purpose of guardrails is twofold; to highlight a danger area, and to help mitigate against said danger. Good drivers never touch them; bad drivers have been saved by them. We have tossed many of them away, and in doing so have condemned many to the reality of the dangers.
Just as difficult as it is today to have a HS graduate fill in a blank map of the U.S., so too is it for the "average" Christian to elaborate upon the primary tenets of "the faith". Not knowing it, how could they possibly, as God commanded in Jude, contend for the faith?
Discarding that foundational, culture shaping requirement is why we are where we are.
Absent a great outpouring of mercy from our Creator, in the face of rank denial, not just of His commands, but of His very existence, we cannot expect much of any success.
For the record, I am not criticizing your preparedness suggestions; I am simply expressing my lack of optimism absent a fully orbed embrace of first principles.
Gray
And after all, we are so much smarter because we have toasters.
ReplyDeleteEntrance testing (HS graduate) for Harvard 1869
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/education/harvardexam.pdf
Gray