Paul's Passing Thoughts

One can get worn out and totally burned out with following American politics. The temptation is to turn off the constant bickering and tune into something else more pleasant. Besides, the following is obvious: Republicans and Democrats are not going to come together to find common ground for purposes of serving the American people.

Why is that? The original intent of the American Constitution is a government elected by the people to find common ground for better serving the people. When a politician can say something like, “Do not ask what your country can do for you, but rather what you can do for your country,” and such is made political folklore, you know what part of the problem is: ignorance concerning what America is really about. Perhaps that’s the whole problem.

What we see in American politics is a power struggle. No, not between two parties, but between people who stand for Americanism and those who stand against it, or want a watered down version of it.

Many who have pro-American principles have a vague understanding about what really drove the framers of the American Constitution. If not most. The core leaders of the American Revolution were philosophers. They pondered the deep questions of metaphysics and presuppositions about mankind.

Their conclusions were unlike any that dominated world thought prior to their time, and religion never got onboard. Before America, religion and presuppositions about mankind were mutually inclusive. The American Revolution redefined man’s nature, and divorced government from religion. In addition, the founding fathers of Americanism knew the church was disingenuous concerning its claim that orthodoxy originates from the Bible; they knew religion in general, and the church in particular are predicated on philosophy. There has never been a theology developed that marries American philosophy with religion and backed by the Bible. Perhaps John Locke and  Søren Kierkegaard flirted with it, but the work remains undone.

The fact that America happened is really a significant miracle. It is based on the collective rule of individuals. It is what we call, “self-rule.” And before I forget, let me add that the framers were geniuses and the world will never see another group like them assembled together at the same time for a common purpose. And, when it gets right down to it, they built such a strong foundation that such a return of men like them is unnecessary; we only need a defense of what they established. There is no need to reinvent the wheel of government.

Americanism is not outdated, and never will be because it is the only defense, in the political sense, against something that has never changed and never will change: sin. No, believing in America will not save your soul, but it will save you from the present political consequences of sin. The Bible states that God’s kind of government is his “minister.” Hence, we should pay our taxes to support God’s minister. God’s kind of government, “rewards good and punishes evil,” and those who do right should not fear such a government, but should only fear God’s kind of government if they do wrongly. That’s what the Bible says. And by the way, if a government is not God’s kind of government, we are not obligated to obey it; in fact, obeying it may be a sin. See, “Nazi Germany” for an example in the encyclopedia of your choice. In addition, the framers even insisted on a well armed populous to defend against any people who attempt to overthrow Americanism. That’s what the Second Amendment is about. Any government that seeks to overthrow the people should be overthrown by the people…if it’s God’s kind of government.

The Bible also says that every individual has a responsibility before God to be all they can be, and to love God and others with all of their heart, soul, and mind. So, God’s kind of government frees people to do that. We don’t ask what we can do for the government, we ask what the government can do for us so we can be better equipped to help others.

This all boils down to individualism versus collectivism, ability of man versus the inability of man, and the basic goodness of man versus total depravity. There is only ONE mediator between God and man, Christ. Institutions that support individualism are God’s ministers, but trust me, God isn’t employing any mediators other than Christ. Church and Communism/Socialism represent the same thing: mediation, because the individual is unable and totally depraved. When America destroyed the church-state, Communism filled the void, the historic timeline is not a coincidence.

Before America, darkness and death was the historical motif. The world is a demonstrably better place to live since the American Revolution. Hardly anything is more obvious. This is because of how Americanism defines the individual. Technology exploded in the world after America because individuals were set free to think, dream, and explore. Man was told that he can understand reality, and learn about it from empirical observation. America made the individual the sole judge of what he/she can accomplish and know. This is why other countries steal our technology. When people are told they are unable to understand reality and unable to rule their own lives, they will act like it.

What are we fundamentally talking about here? How do we boil down the present-day political mess to its least common denominator? Folks, it’s all about the freedom. We were created to be free, and love doesn’t fear freedom. What is your presupposition concerning mankind? Here is a test: do you fear that more freedom will lead to the destruction of mankind, or will more freedom lead to a better world? And who do you trust to oversee the freedom of mankind?

I am going to keep this really, really basic. Before America, the prevailing philosophy was the total depravity of mankind; man is basically evil. Hence, the rigid caste system that ruled the world and still does to a significant degree. And since man is totally depraved, he must be ruled over by those who understand man’s depravity. But who should these people be? Who should rule over mankind to prevent too much freedom from destroying humanity? It was mostly determined by pedigree. A good example would be the British Royal Crown. Before America, these folks weren’t just figureheads for the most part as they are today, they ruled the world because their lineage was worthy to oversee the great unwashed. This is who America went to war with to create a government never seen before on the face of the earth.

Let’s back up a little. Social classes dictated by the marriage of politics and religion determined the order of things. Here, we are talking about caste systems. This system was seen as critical for precuring the survival of mankind. Till this very day, marrying across social class lines is a crime in many cultures, and this was the case in Colonial America just prior to the American Revolution as well. Weakening the upper social classes with the lower ones was/is seen as a threat to the survival of mankind. And by the way, you can add race to that as well. It can be fairly said that this basic tenet was the most significant primer for Nazism during WWII.

Yes, America blew that up, but it didn’t go far enough. Though the American Constitution has no tenet that would bolster any caste system, but instead has laws against its prejudice, such mentalities die hard. Americanism propagates the idea that status in a caste system can be earned by any individual regardless of race and social class, but it’s still a caste system. America made social mobility possible, and this alone transformed the world for the better. The core value of social mobility based on a different presupposition about humankind slowly transformed the world and America. Hence, the difference between freedom in America now versus the 40’s and 50’s and the elimination of segregation.

However, America traded despotism for expertism. Don’t get me wrong, we will happily take it as opposed to what the world was, but nevertheless, this is the case: ruling over others is no longer a birthright, but it can be earned through education, social pandering, and in some cases, outright monetary purchase. In our day, the Clintons are a good example of that.

But, America’s soft-slavery is also for the better in another way: being enslaved by experts is a choice. In America, the experts must use manipulation to control you. This is different from the despotism of the past where ideas were even against the law upon pain of death. Trust me, there is only one thing standing between your ideas that upset others and your death; American jurisprudence. America replaced the murdering ruling despots with Elitism. Despotism is now limited to the arena of ideas, not the arena where gladiators and lions slew slaves for entertainment, or those who dared question the overseers of the great unwashed.

Hence, the despots of our time restrained by the American Constitution hate the freedom of ideas. Point is case, Silicon Valley icon Jason Pontin who stated,

Do you see everything we are talking about here? The total depravity of mankind? The expertism? The Elitism? Curiously, we may be seeing a furthering of the American core value towards individualism in regard to the following: people are beginning to question the high value put on formal education. Obviously, highly educated people are often dumber than a box of rocks. We must remember that much of formal education, and especially in the religious realm, is all about purchasing an elitist pedigree for the purpose of having power over others. Also, in all of this, it often confuses people when elitists are anti-capitalism when capitalism made them rich to begin with. The reason for this is really very simple: they think capitalism is for the elitists only. Putting monetary power in the hands of the great unwashed puts humanity at risk and steals food from the mouths of the precious victims who know their place in the elitist caste system. This is directly related to the size, freedom, and empowerment of the middleclass. A capitalism not limited to the uppercrust creates a robust middleclass which is also indicative of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

This is all driven by a desire to control others. But why would people want to control others?

Freedom/slavery is a major biblical thesis. In the Bible, Sin is personified as a slave master as set against another master who is Christ. Yes, yes, sin is about doing naughty things God doesn’t like, but what is often missed is what the Bible states as the very essence of sin: it’s driven by a desire to control/enslave others. Complicating matters as well is what people will do in efforts to not be controlled, viz, victimhood, and using that victimhood to actually control people themselves. You are unmerciful if you hold them to any standard, and by the way, you are also unmerciful, and therefore immoral, if you don’t capitulate to their every perceived need due to the fact that they are a victim of…fill in the blank.

In the Bible, law-breaking is really a secondary issue. Sin uses law-breaking to control people, so Christ came to die on the cross to end the law. Because Sin hates God, it uses God’s law to incite people to break it leading to guilt which enslaves people. Guilt leads to condemnation which increases in the face of future judgement by God. The Bible states that people primarily fear death because they know a judgement by God follows. Christ removed the guilt on the cross and stripped the Sin master of his ability to enslave. Hence, any Christian who has a proper understanding of the new birth does not ask, “Did you sin today?” but rather, “Did you love today?” This gospel part of the post is also egregiously simplified, but suffice to say that we shouldn’t sin according to what the Bible calls sin because sin is not a true loving of self and others. It should be rather evident that all self-destructive behavior flows from self-hate and doesn’t much regard people who care for you which certainly falls short of loving others as well. As the Bible states, sin is pleasurable for a season but eventually leads to present death by a thousand cuts and ultimate death followed by God’s judgement.

Please note: as stated by the Bible, there is sinful desire and godly desire; the former hates and the latter loves according to the truth. A desire to control others is sin…period. This is why marriage counseling is ALWAYS two people coming with their condemnation lists that argue for why one should be able to control the other. Or, one thinks the other is their slave/servant. Few slave masters see themselves as unloving. More than not, they see you as someone who needs their care and oversight for your own good. “Without me, you could never make it.” Sound familiar?

Now you should understand the hatred for Donald Trump that we see in our day. He is a political outsider that doesn’t play by Washington’s political caste system. Worse yet, he threatens to empower the middleclass which is a deathblow to Elitism. It is bad enough that Americanism eliminated outright control-lust manifested by overt social caste systems, Trump now threatens to overthrow Despotism Light in the form of earned expertism that is the ruling class of Elitism. Humanity stands on the brink of annihilation because Trump is empowering the dumb hillbillies who occupy middle America which should be ruled over by West Coast elitism and East Coast elitism and their consummate experts who gained their pedigree through the likes of Yale, Harvard, and Berkeley.

We might touch on one more question here. How does Despotism Light gain such a huge following of zealots who take the authority of expertism as gospel truth? Answer: they have bought into the gospel of human depravity and the necessity of the great unwashed to be overseen for the prevention of humanity’s annihilation. They see America’s success as the great housing bubble or the .com crash. They see America thriving on unsecured credit. Since self-rule is obviously an insane idea, America’s force for good in the world is obviously an illusion because its basic ideology is not politically correct. Trump, and others like him, are setting up America for a hard fall whereas keeping people as miserable as possible is a truthful representation of the human condition, and empowering undeserved losers is an injustice to boot.

Lets look at some examples on ground level. I am a nurse aide presently endeavoring to obtain a certification in medication. This is known as a “medication aide” or STMA (state tested medication aide).  I am presently a STNA (state tested nurse aide). I plan to go further in becoming a LPN (licensed practical nurse) or RN  (registered nurse). The biggest obstacle in becoming a STMA is the pushback from the healthcare profession. Why is that? LPNs see it as an unfair invasion into their territory. Most of what an LPN does is the administration of Medications and one can become a STMA in about 6 weeks and a thousand dollars. Becoming an LPN is a year and 20,000 dollars. But remember, LPN programs received the same kind of pushback from the RNs. Is it a kind of social class struggle of sorts? Yes. I have many LPN/RN friends, and lost several of them upon endeavoring to become a STMA. It has become personal.

Here is another example. During the electronic security boom of 1960-2000, alarm technicians, who for the most part only had high school educations, where making anywhere from 40,000 to 60,000 dollars per year. The company administrators who were normally college educated were making half that much. As one familiar with that industry, I can tell you that technicians had to put up with constant harassment from company administrators. Class envy and human worth assessment are very real. As a college educated person, you may not lay claim to the authority to rule over others, but at the very least, the “uneducated” should give up their place in line at Starbucks for you since they are not even worthy enough to be in Starbucks to begin with. An insurance salesman who worked in a large office in Dallas, TX once shared this with me: an administrator who resented what many of the salesmen made monetarily had a huge life-size memorial of her college diploma displayed by her desk.

Yet, another example. When I was in home health care, I cared for a lower middleclass couple. I was often treated like a lowly servant which perplexed me because “what do these people have to be uppity about?” This perplexed me to the point that I began to observe our interactions more carefully in order to make sense of it. I finally came to the following conclusion: it was their liberal worldview. This made them better than me. You see, the Lager version of despotism has a huge middleclass that may not have power, but see themselves as morally superior because of their hatred of humankind. They are morally superior because they see their need to be ruled over by the experts they worship. They are part of the Elitist kingdom, and therefore morally superior, but not of the expert ruling class. The church counterpart describes this as “humbleness” and “meekness.” Whether secular or religious, they see the experts as the “knights of the reality-based community.”

I would that all believe the gospel and be reconciled to God, but the biblical definition of sin and all that it means is not confined to the subject of religion. Perhaps understanding why culture behaves like it does will lead one to be part of God’s family because all of reality is connected to biblical truth in some way.

But regarding secular politics, it is a simple matter of believing or not believing in the gospel of self-rule, and no country has implemented that political gospel for the betterment of the world than America. It took some 10,000 years of misery for a group of men to finally stand up and say, “NO” to the Elitist caste systems that has always ruled the world.

It is a fight that can make one weary indeed, but at least America has reduced the fight to the arena of ideas. In this arena, we fight for freedom because we were created for freedom, not slavery. And because of that fact, being manipulated into believing the ideas of slavery will always lead to the arena of blood and death. There are no exceptions.

paul