When I was a kid, my second grade teacher had a way of punishing trangressions that even to this day sticks in my craw. If someone in the class acted up, we all had to stay after school and put our heads down on the desk for fifteen minutes. Looking back, I've guessed the object of group punishment was to put pressure on the offending party so he wouldn't act up again. The "good" kids were supposed to convince the "bad" kid to get in line.
Of course, it didn't work. One reason it didn't work was because no one was going to confront the class cutup because he was usually the class bully. Who wanted to get beat up in some dark corner during recess?
But the main reason group punishment didn't work was that it merely created deep resentment toward the teacher. All of us knew she was the one who was supposed to keep order by doling out punishment to the guilty one. Every kid, head down on the desk, simmered with resentment at the injustice of being punished for someone else's misdemeanor. Why should all of us suffer for the sin of one person?
In Parts I and II concerning the national debt, the issue of collective and trangenerational obligations were discussed, with the emphasis on the injustice of enslaving our own and future generations with debt unpayable. It is, as Thomas Jefferson noted time and again, unfair to burden generations no even yet living with another generation's debt.
But as the illustration from my third grade class illustrates, there's even more to the bascially unjust theory and practice of collective guilt. Were the theory confined to a third grade class room, perhaps the damage would not be irreparable.
But the truth of the matter is that within American society, assuming society as a whole is guilty because of the transgression of others is now a staple of the legislative, judicial and executive branch. That is because the leftist view of justice now prevails; namely, that group guilt is the cause of injustice; that society as a whole is responsible for the behavior of each member of society; that we Americans are all responsible for everybody's behavior and welfare. The view is illustrated by such slogans as:
"If there's even one child in America who is hungry, we are guilty as a society."
"As long as a single person is on death row, we in society have failed him."
"As long as one homeless person is on the streets, no one who has a bed should rest until the homeless are housed and fed."
The above is not to say that charity and compassion should not voluntarily be extended to individuals who are in need of aid. What is being said is that the idea that if there is a problem within society, we are collectively responsible and should be punished for our collective failures is unjust. To put it another way, the idea that we should all stay after school and keep our heads down in remorse and repentance for behavior we did not commit; that we, too, are automatically guilty because of someone else's transgressions is just plain wrong. There are a number of terms for group guilt, one of which is "guilt by association;" but no matter what one terms it, the fact remains that group guilt is unjust. [And as pointed out in Part I and II, group guilt overturns a chief principle of Western jurisprudence; namely, that the individual is responsible for his own transgressions, including his own debt.]
But let's take this overturning of individual responsibility and the establishment of group guilt in the place of individual responsibility for one's actions a step further.
Collective guilt vitiates another principle of Western justice; namely the Rule of Law.
Rule of Law Explained
Americans love sports, and one reason they love sports is that the Rule of Law, which should pertain to society as a macrocosm, is followed in sports in microcosm. Any given sport has set rules for the game. Within the rules, players are free to strategize and outhink and outplay the other team. Referees are appointed to make sure the rules are followed and penalties are exacted for transgressions. Everyone knows what fair play is, and the rules are rarely changed. If someone trashes the rules, he/she is the one who is benched, not the whole team.
Ideally, the Rule of Law which applies to team sports should also extend to society at large. There should be a set of minimal rules for the operation of society. Everyone should know what the rules are and should also know what penalites are exacted if the rules are broken.
The concept of the Rule of Law is particularly pertinent to the discussion on national debt and the taxes necessary to pay the debt off. Citizen should know just what the debt is, what their share of taxes will be to pay off the debt within their lifetime; and they should also know the consequences of not paying those taxes. Everything should be known in order that a just solution prevail.
Suspension of Rule of Law
But exorbitant and runaway national debt shatters the concept and practice of the Rule of Law, for debt establishes universal, collective guilt. Because everybody owes, everybody is automatically guilty. All are benched; all have their heads on the desk.
Because all are guilty, no one knows who will be punished next. A given citizen doesn't know what the rules are concerning an unpayable debt and thus doesn't know what constantly changing schemes, regulations and measures the government will take to collect the monies necessary to collect the debt. Rules will be arbitrarily made up as the government sees fit. Society is collectively in debt and collectively guilty; each citizen mortgaged to its own government. The inevitable result is suspension of the Rule of Law and the establishment of arbitrary law and persecution of those who "owe." That persecution usually begins with excessive and arbitrary taxation.
In brief, if justice concerning debt is not established for and within the present generation, if the Rule of Law does not extend to the living as well as to future generations, then arbitrary and dictatorrial measures against a collectively guilty populace will inevitably be enacted. Government will make up the rules as it goes along; its arbitrariness will put it at war with its own citizens, particularly those perceived to be "wealthy."
Americans have been warned about and fought against the dangers of the dictatorial and arbitrary suspension of the Rule of Law, especially as it concerns national debt. The issue has arisen time and again within our Republic. It is good to heed once again the wise words of Thomas Jefferson, who while recognizing the need for public credit, warned strongly against the two chief dangers of national debt outlined in Parts I, II and III.
He wrote:
I sincerely believe...that the principle of spending money to be paid by posterity under the name of funding is but swindling futurity on a large scale."
--Thomas Jefferson to John Taylor, 1816
[With the decline of society] begins, indeed, the 'bellum omium in omnia [war against all], which some pholosophers observing to be so general in this world, have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man. And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression."
--Thomas Jefferson to Samuel Kercheval, 1816
Since future generations cannot rise up and voice their objections to the oppression and arbitrariness of our government, we must be their voice against the albatross of national debt our current government is fastening around our and their necks.
Add to that duty to defend future generations the responsibility to refuse to accuse any class or sub-population as being collectively guilty, and Americans may be on their way to governmental reform in which the Rule of Law applies to all without exception.
Sunday, January 31, 2010
Friday, January 29, 2010
The Abandoned Road
As I've been thinking over Part III of my series on the national debt and it implications, I've been re-reading F.A. Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, written toward the end of World War II. The man's genius is amazing; and his trenchant insights hold as much wisdom for our contemporary scene as they did in 1944-45.
In the chapter entitled "The Abandoned Road," he warns Europeans of slowly accepting the precepts of socialism which many European intellectuals embraced despite the horrible outcome of socialist precepts. Some still optimistically embraced socialist principles despite the fact that socialism requres force, force which led to horrors of Nazism and Stalinism. The intellectuals to whom Hayek was writing still clung to the belief that in their own countries, matters would turn out differently.
He wrote:
"The crucial point of which our people are still so little aware is...not merely the magnitude of the changes which have taken place during the last generation, but the fact that they mean a complete change in the direction of the evolution of our ideas and social order. For at least twenty-five years before the specter of totalitarianism became a real threat, we had progressively been moving away fromt he basic ideas on which Western Civilization has been built...We have progressively abandoned that freedom in economic affairs without which personal and political freedom has never existed in the past. Although we had been warned by some the the greatest political thinkers of the nineteenth century, by Tocqueville and Lord Acton, that socialism means slavery, we have steadily moved in the direction of socialism. And now that we have seen a new form of slavery arise before our eyes, we have so completely forgotten the warning that it scarcely occurs to us that the two things might be connected.
How sharp a break not only with the recent past but wth the whole evolution of Western civilization the modern trend toward socialism means becomes clear if we consider it not merely against the backgroun of the nineteentth century but in a long historical perspective. We are rapidly abandoning not the views merely of Cobden and Bright, of Adam Smith and Hume, or even of Locke and Milton, but one of the salient characteristics of Western civilization as it has grown from the foundations laid by Christianity and the Greeks and Romans. Not merely nineteenth and eighteenth-century liberalism, but basic individualism inherited by us from Erasmus and Montaigne, from Cicero and Tacitus, Pericles and Thucydides, is progressively relinquished.
Hayek's lament could well be our own as "progressive" thinking has ignored or attacked the foundations of Christianity and conservative political thought in our own country, with the deleterious effects so clearly observable over the last century.
One of the most damaging concepts of progressivism is the idea of societal (communal) rather than individual guilt. I hope to elaborate on the effects of such an idea as regards the Rule of Law, and national indebtedness. (Hayek elaborates on this concept, and I will be borrowing from him.)
In the chapter entitled "The Abandoned Road," he warns Europeans of slowly accepting the precepts of socialism which many European intellectuals embraced despite the horrible outcome of socialist precepts. Some still optimistically embraced socialist principles despite the fact that socialism requres force, force which led to horrors of Nazism and Stalinism. The intellectuals to whom Hayek was writing still clung to the belief that in their own countries, matters would turn out differently.
He wrote:
"The crucial point of which our people are still so little aware is...not merely the magnitude of the changes which have taken place during the last generation, but the fact that they mean a complete change in the direction of the evolution of our ideas and social order. For at least twenty-five years before the specter of totalitarianism became a real threat, we had progressively been moving away fromt he basic ideas on which Western Civilization has been built...We have progressively abandoned that freedom in economic affairs without which personal and political freedom has never existed in the past. Although we had been warned by some the the greatest political thinkers of the nineteenth century, by Tocqueville and Lord Acton, that socialism means slavery, we have steadily moved in the direction of socialism. And now that we have seen a new form of slavery arise before our eyes, we have so completely forgotten the warning that it scarcely occurs to us that the two things might be connected.
How sharp a break not only with the recent past but wth the whole evolution of Western civilization the modern trend toward socialism means becomes clear if we consider it not merely against the backgroun of the nineteentth century but in a long historical perspective. We are rapidly abandoning not the views merely of Cobden and Bright, of Adam Smith and Hume, or even of Locke and Milton, but one of the salient characteristics of Western civilization as it has grown from the foundations laid by Christianity and the Greeks and Romans. Not merely nineteenth and eighteenth-century liberalism, but basic individualism inherited by us from Erasmus and Montaigne, from Cicero and Tacitus, Pericles and Thucydides, is progressively relinquished.
Hayek's lament could well be our own as "progressive" thinking has ignored or attacked the foundations of Christianity and conservative political thought in our own country, with the deleterious effects so clearly observable over the last century.
One of the most damaging concepts of progressivism is the idea of societal (communal) rather than individual guilt. I hope to elaborate on the effects of such an idea as regards the Rule of Law, and national indebtedness. (Hayek elaborates on this concept, and I will be borrowing from him.)
Monday, January 25, 2010
Building a New Coalition: A Way Ahead for the GOP
A friend and I were discussing the dividing line that occurs whenever Sarah Palin's name is mentioned or she appears on televsion: people either love or loathe her. Leftists see her as congenitally stupid.
We both agreed that thopugh she may not be an "intellectual,"--whatever that means-- she certainly is not stupid; so what explains the egregious hostility?
I told my friend it wouldn't matter if Sarah Palin were an Einstein, leftists would still loathe her because she is, among other things, deeply religious. Her core values are diametrically opposed to the left elite--indeed to some of the Republican elite. They hate her because of her faith.
It is a fact that many in political circles still buy into the enlightenment critcisms of faith; namely, that one who adheres to faith is superstitious and, well, so regrettably unenlightened; and, therefore, just not as smart as other, more educated people. Among such, if faith is tolerated, it is tolerated as purely personal and as having no bearing on the "real" world of politics. Politics and religion are seen as separate endeavors not to be mentioned in polite political circles.
As my friend noted, Palin's rise smashes such ideas, disrupting the very core of politcs as usual. She disturbed and continues to disturb the power grid of politics.
My friend and I went on to discuss the tendency for leadership of both parties to discriminate against people of faith. She noted that though such discrimination is forbidden in the work place as unconstitutional, it remains alive and well in political circles. Both Democrats and Republicans tend to have leaders who are most often led by a totally secular agenda, have found power within the secular paradigm and are loathe to give it up to or accommodate religious upstarts. If faith is noted, it most often is lip service.
[At this point, a disclaimer: The above is not to say there are not people of integrity and honor within GOP party leadership. If that were not true, I would have exited the GOP long ago. It is to say there is an underlying prejudice--a sort of vacuum, actually--against people of faith, especially people of faith who put their faith into practice in politics.]
But to put it bluntly, both parties tend to ignore or sideline--to their own peril--the 85% of Americans who derive their values from their religion, not from secularism. I suggest that as long as both parties conintue to embrace secularist ideals while jettisoning, sidelining or seducing religious people for poltical purposes, they do so unconstitutionally and to their own peril.
In the wake of the Scott Brown victory in Massachusetts, some GOP leadership has felt encouraged to concentrate on building coalitions with "moderates" and independents, concentrating on the issues which Brown emphasized in his campaign: taxes, the health care plan and terrorism. While I certainly don't discourage outreach; once again, some in the GOP continue to think along the lines of a secular pragmatic politics which ignores or sidelines people of faith.
Brown managed to seize on populist issues which at least temporarily unified a diverse coalition which was dependent on the circumstances peculiar to Massachusetts. But none should be deluded into thinking such a coalition is permanent or a set template for future victories.
It is worth noting Brown had not one word of thanks for the Tea Partiers who helped elect him. Perhaps that is why more than one observer has cautioned against the GOP assuming that just because the Tea Partiers got behind the Scott Brown campaign, the partiers' enthusiasm can be co-opted by other campaigns supporting basically liberal candidates.
Tea Partiers and other conservative groups springing up all over the nation do not want a repeat of the times when the Republican establishment co-opted evangelical enthusiasm in the 1980's and 90's. Evangelicals soon found that issues important to them were ignored while the GOP leadership retained their grip on a party machinery terming itself "moderate" while dropping social and other evangelical values from their political agenda once victory was assured.
In sum, conservatives who are deeply motivated by religious convictions have felt ignored by, cynically used by and tehn dropped by the Republican Party, which they see as sidelining conservative candidates in favor of "moderates" who resemble liberal Democrats.
However, matters do not have to remain at such an impasse. The GOP has the opportunity to think about long term future strategy. It may well have an opportunity to form a new coalition. It may have the chance to get together people of faith and other conservatives by articulating and promoting core values consonant with those disaffected groups.
The GOP already has good leadership in the area of government transparency, growing the business middle class, growing jobs, belief in lowering the tax burdens on citizens, encouraging a climate of growth in industry, reforming our educational system and much else. None of those efforts has to be jettisoned. All are praiseworthy.
But to those excellent goals the GOP can articulate and support the right to life of the unborn. It can affirm the Western traditional definition of marriage without resorting to a persecutorial or prosecutorial attitude toward gays. It can grant increased tax relief to parents--and much more.
In sum, the party can put itself in the position of a chief reforming influence in society and can by so doing, gather together a broad coalition of likeminded people who will wrok to elect candidates who believe in core values and who will work to put those values into law.
For example, the issue of abortion is not just a moral question sitting out there in no man's land. It is not just a personal choice. Like the issue of slavery, it cuts into the moral and political fiber of our entire society. It is a political issue that needs to be addressed, not shelved.
While a worthy moral cause in it own right, it has deep political implications. Those implications can be translated into a political coalition that has the potential to split the Democratic party in two while uniting and gathering the energy of the new conservative movements springing up with the GOP.
About 55% of Americans believe that abortion is morally wrong. Many of those Americans are Roman Catholics and evangelicals, who together comprise about 55% of the population. Both the Catholic Church and evangelicals are adamantly against abortion even though most of the Catholic Church members are Democrats. The GOP, if it takes a strong position against abortion, would also be in the position of being able to woo Catholics away from their support of the Democratic Party, which adheres strongly to a pro-abortion position. The church also resonates with traditional definition of family and marriage. Further, Hispanics and blacks are also overwhelmingly pro life and pro school choice. They could be part of the new coalition.
How to put the coaltion together? First, reach the churches. I repeat, reach out to the churches. The GOP would find the goals it already pays primary attention to (outlined above) are readily suported by almost all conservative leaning congregations. Adding to those goals the social issues which also motivate and stir Tea Partiers and other conservative movements would allow rapproachment and make the GOP a united and strong force for a much needed peaceful, and moral revolution in our beloved country.
We both agreed that thopugh she may not be an "intellectual,"--whatever that means-- she certainly is not stupid; so what explains the egregious hostility?
I told my friend it wouldn't matter if Sarah Palin were an Einstein, leftists would still loathe her because she is, among other things, deeply religious. Her core values are diametrically opposed to the left elite--indeed to some of the Republican elite. They hate her because of her faith.
It is a fact that many in political circles still buy into the enlightenment critcisms of faith; namely, that one who adheres to faith is superstitious and, well, so regrettably unenlightened; and, therefore, just not as smart as other, more educated people. Among such, if faith is tolerated, it is tolerated as purely personal and as having no bearing on the "real" world of politics. Politics and religion are seen as separate endeavors not to be mentioned in polite political circles.
As my friend noted, Palin's rise smashes such ideas, disrupting the very core of politcs as usual. She disturbed and continues to disturb the power grid of politics.
My friend and I went on to discuss the tendency for leadership of both parties to discriminate against people of faith. She noted that though such discrimination is forbidden in the work place as unconstitutional, it remains alive and well in political circles. Both Democrats and Republicans tend to have leaders who are most often led by a totally secular agenda, have found power within the secular paradigm and are loathe to give it up to or accommodate religious upstarts. If faith is noted, it most often is lip service.
[At this point, a disclaimer: The above is not to say there are not people of integrity and honor within GOP party leadership. If that were not true, I would have exited the GOP long ago. It is to say there is an underlying prejudice--a sort of vacuum, actually--against people of faith, especially people of faith who put their faith into practice in politics.]
But to put it bluntly, both parties tend to ignore or sideline--to their own peril--the 85% of Americans who derive their values from their religion, not from secularism. I suggest that as long as both parties conintue to embrace secularist ideals while jettisoning, sidelining or seducing religious people for poltical purposes, they do so unconstitutionally and to their own peril.
In the wake of the Scott Brown victory in Massachusetts, some GOP leadership has felt encouraged to concentrate on building coalitions with "moderates" and independents, concentrating on the issues which Brown emphasized in his campaign: taxes, the health care plan and terrorism. While I certainly don't discourage outreach; once again, some in the GOP continue to think along the lines of a secular pragmatic politics which ignores or sidelines people of faith.
Brown managed to seize on populist issues which at least temporarily unified a diverse coalition which was dependent on the circumstances peculiar to Massachusetts. But none should be deluded into thinking such a coalition is permanent or a set template for future victories.
It is worth noting Brown had not one word of thanks for the Tea Partiers who helped elect him. Perhaps that is why more than one observer has cautioned against the GOP assuming that just because the Tea Partiers got behind the Scott Brown campaign, the partiers' enthusiasm can be co-opted by other campaigns supporting basically liberal candidates.
Tea Partiers and other conservative groups springing up all over the nation do not want a repeat of the times when the Republican establishment co-opted evangelical enthusiasm in the 1980's and 90's. Evangelicals soon found that issues important to them were ignored while the GOP leadership retained their grip on a party machinery terming itself "moderate" while dropping social and other evangelical values from their political agenda once victory was assured.
In sum, conservatives who are deeply motivated by religious convictions have felt ignored by, cynically used by and tehn dropped by the Republican Party, which they see as sidelining conservative candidates in favor of "moderates" who resemble liberal Democrats.
However, matters do not have to remain at such an impasse. The GOP has the opportunity to think about long term future strategy. It may well have an opportunity to form a new coalition. It may have the chance to get together people of faith and other conservatives by articulating and promoting core values consonant with those disaffected groups.
The GOP already has good leadership in the area of government transparency, growing the business middle class, growing jobs, belief in lowering the tax burdens on citizens, encouraging a climate of growth in industry, reforming our educational system and much else. None of those efforts has to be jettisoned. All are praiseworthy.
But to those excellent goals the GOP can articulate and support the right to life of the unborn. It can affirm the Western traditional definition of marriage without resorting to a persecutorial or prosecutorial attitude toward gays. It can grant increased tax relief to parents--and much more.
In sum, the party can put itself in the position of a chief reforming influence in society and can by so doing, gather together a broad coalition of likeminded people who will wrok to elect candidates who believe in core values and who will work to put those values into law.
For example, the issue of abortion is not just a moral question sitting out there in no man's land. It is not just a personal choice. Like the issue of slavery, it cuts into the moral and political fiber of our entire society. It is a political issue that needs to be addressed, not shelved.
While a worthy moral cause in it own right, it has deep political implications. Those implications can be translated into a political coalition that has the potential to split the Democratic party in two while uniting and gathering the energy of the new conservative movements springing up with the GOP.
About 55% of Americans believe that abortion is morally wrong. Many of those Americans are Roman Catholics and evangelicals, who together comprise about 55% of the population. Both the Catholic Church and evangelicals are adamantly against abortion even though most of the Catholic Church members are Democrats. The GOP, if it takes a strong position against abortion, would also be in the position of being able to woo Catholics away from their support of the Democratic Party, which adheres strongly to a pro-abortion position. The church also resonates with traditional definition of family and marriage. Further, Hispanics and blacks are also overwhelmingly pro life and pro school choice. They could be part of the new coalition.
How to put the coaltion together? First, reach the churches. I repeat, reach out to the churches. The GOP would find the goals it already pays primary attention to (outlined above) are readily suported by almost all conservative leaning congregations. Adding to those goals the social issues which also motivate and stir Tea Partiers and other conservative movements would allow rapproachment and make the GOP a united and strong force for a much needed peaceful, and moral revolution in our beloved country.
Saturday, January 23, 2010
The Immorality of National Debt: Part II
We’ve all read the stories: A family, children included, is wiped out by gunman whose vendetta is inclusive. His rage has grown so hot that punishing the man who "owes" him is not enough to assuage his wrath. The entire family must be wiped out. The innocent perish with the guilty.
Such a scenario is an intolerable, outrageous travesty of justice. Everything within us revolts against the targeting of innocents, for we believe only the guilty should be judged and punished.
Yet, as pointed out in Part I of this two part series, our national debt unjustly targets future generations by loading them with debts they did not authorize. None was permitted a voice. Even the voiceless unborn are burdened with debt as the sins of the fathers are passed down to the next generations.
For make no mistake, making debt trans-generational is one of the most disastrous and far- reaching mistakes our government can make. That is because such a policy violates the principle that each person is responsible as an individual before the law. It overturns a basic foundation of Western jurisprudence, which from time immemorial has stood for the Judeo-Christian principle that the innocent are not responsible for the errors, crimes and debts of preceding generations.
For hundreds of years, Westerners have believed that children are not to be condemned or held responsible for the errors of their parents. For instance, children are not required to pay off their parents’ debts. The IRS is not allowed to arrest family members because grandad hasn’t paid his income taxes in thirty years. In a similar manner, wives are not to be held responsible for the sins of their husbands. They are not thrown in jail if their husbands get drunk and wind up in jail on a DUI charge. And a third example: Parents are not to be punished for the wayward ways of an errant son or daughter. They are not sent to jail when their teenager commits murder.
In brief, our gargantuan national debt turns the entire Western system of jurisprudence on its head, calling into question the very foundations of our system of justice. After all, why should any person be punished for reckless assumption of debt if our own government has proved itself to be the most reckless debtor in the history of the nations?
The matter goes beyond mere bad example. It even goes beyond punishing the provident and encouraging the profligate. In fact, the government’s reckless and disastrous borrowing corrupts by example and policy public morality as concerns fiscal responsibility. In point of fact, the innocent are punished along with the guilty, for through taxation, all are paying back others’ debts. The entire populace is treated as if guilty.
Further, in order to fortify itself against changing its disastrous policies, the government extends its own immorality to the entire populace by creating policies which encourage individual indebtedness. This it has done in the form of bailouts of individuals and of institutional entities which have engaged in profligate behavior. Debt is garnered without painful consequences.
Our government has been working overtime to relieve its citizens of the consequences of irresponsible behavior. It has seduced the people into following its own example of reckless borrowing by offering money to relieve credit card debt, reduction of mortgage payments, and bailouts of institutions which have engaged in reckless financial behavior, thus rewarding the profligate while punishing the prudent. In so doing, the government encourages the people to imitate in microcosm what it does on the macro scale. The psychological effect is to diffuse and vitiate any protest by the people. Governmental policies achieve the moral seduction and corruption of the very people it professes to be "helping."
In other words, our government is enabling and abetting a debtor’s mentality similar to its own in an effort to deflect criticism and to make the public dependent on government "aid."
To put it another way, the seduction and corruption of the populace, the effort to make people accept the debtors’ path as legitimate, is very similar to that of an alcoholic who gives his baby beer in a bottle to suckle so that by the time the child himself is a teen, he, too, is an alcoholic. The child will not reproach by example or word the father who addicted him, for from infancy on the child has now become dependent and an addict himself.
Our government is that bad parent. It encourages the people to accept and to imitate its bad behavior.
Meanwhile, the size of the debt and the fact it exceeds any particular generation’s ability to pay it off means that within a short span of time, the profligacy of our government will seem normal. Massive indebtedness will be an accepted means of governing; a normal function of government. Further, all the while the government is encouraging by its example and policies its own indebtedness and the indebtedness and the dependency of its people, it will continue to stoke the fires of class warfare in order to distract them from the real villain; namely, the government itself.
Next article coming up:
PART III: Spreading the Guilt Around.
Such a scenario is an intolerable, outrageous travesty of justice. Everything within us revolts against the targeting of innocents, for we believe only the guilty should be judged and punished.
Yet, as pointed out in Part I of this two part series, our national debt unjustly targets future generations by loading them with debts they did not authorize. None was permitted a voice. Even the voiceless unborn are burdened with debt as the sins of the fathers are passed down to the next generations.
For make no mistake, making debt trans-generational is one of the most disastrous and far- reaching mistakes our government can make. That is because such a policy violates the principle that each person is responsible as an individual before the law. It overturns a basic foundation of Western jurisprudence, which from time immemorial has stood for the Judeo-Christian principle that the innocent are not responsible for the errors, crimes and debts of preceding generations.
For hundreds of years, Westerners have believed that children are not to be condemned or held responsible for the errors of their parents. For instance, children are not required to pay off their parents’ debts. The IRS is not allowed to arrest family members because grandad hasn’t paid his income taxes in thirty years. In a similar manner, wives are not to be held responsible for the sins of their husbands. They are not thrown in jail if their husbands get drunk and wind up in jail on a DUI charge. And a third example: Parents are not to be punished for the wayward ways of an errant son or daughter. They are not sent to jail when their teenager commits murder.
In brief, our gargantuan national debt turns the entire Western system of jurisprudence on its head, calling into question the very foundations of our system of justice. After all, why should any person be punished for reckless assumption of debt if our own government has proved itself to be the most reckless debtor in the history of the nations?
The matter goes beyond mere bad example. It even goes beyond punishing the provident and encouraging the profligate. In fact, the government’s reckless and disastrous borrowing corrupts by example and policy public morality as concerns fiscal responsibility. In point of fact, the innocent are punished along with the guilty, for through taxation, all are paying back others’ debts. The entire populace is treated as if guilty.
Further, in order to fortify itself against changing its disastrous policies, the government extends its own immorality to the entire populace by creating policies which encourage individual indebtedness. This it has done in the form of bailouts of individuals and of institutional entities which have engaged in profligate behavior. Debt is garnered without painful consequences.
Our government has been working overtime to relieve its citizens of the consequences of irresponsible behavior. It has seduced the people into following its own example of reckless borrowing by offering money to relieve credit card debt, reduction of mortgage payments, and bailouts of institutions which have engaged in reckless financial behavior, thus rewarding the profligate while punishing the prudent. In so doing, the government encourages the people to imitate in microcosm what it does on the macro scale. The psychological effect is to diffuse and vitiate any protest by the people. Governmental policies achieve the moral seduction and corruption of the very people it professes to be "helping."
In other words, our government is enabling and abetting a debtor’s mentality similar to its own in an effort to deflect criticism and to make the public dependent on government "aid."
To put it another way, the seduction and corruption of the populace, the effort to make people accept the debtors’ path as legitimate, is very similar to that of an alcoholic who gives his baby beer in a bottle to suckle so that by the time the child himself is a teen, he, too, is an alcoholic. The child will not reproach by example or word the father who addicted him, for from infancy on the child has now become dependent and an addict himself.
Our government is that bad parent. It encourages the people to accept and to imitate its bad behavior.
Meanwhile, the size of the debt and the fact it exceeds any particular generation’s ability to pay it off means that within a short span of time, the profligacy of our government will seem normal. Massive indebtedness will be an accepted means of governing; a normal function of government. Further, all the while the government is encouraging by its example and policies its own indebtedness and the indebtedness and the dependency of its people, it will continue to stoke the fires of class warfare in order to distract them from the real villain; namely, the government itself.
Next article coming up:
PART III: Spreading the Guilt Around.
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Christians and the World, Part III: The Mind of Christ and the Peaceable Kingdom
For the Christian, the mind of Christ is inextricably linked with on-going creation and with acts of mind and will that affect the world order continuously and powerfully, calling all that is to an order of justice and righteousness. The divine mind of Christ, creator of the cosmos, thinks continually, not futile musings, but powerful, creative actualization of events cosmic and earthly.
As Christ thinks, so things are. His thought is no mere abstraction, but thought, will and creation are interwoven into one powerful entity known as the Trinity.
Christians are told by the apostle Paul that they have the mind of Christ; that is, as Thomas a Kempis points out, they are to be an imitation of Christ; an expression of the divine image as exhibited and actualized in the person of Christ Jesus.
It follows that each believer is not a being who is divided into the spiritual and the material; is not a being who is divided between the earthly (body) and the divine (spirit/soul). Division of the material and the spiritual has more to do with neo-Platonism and gnosticism than it does with Christian belief.
Each believer is called to be and is in fact a unity who in mind, body and spirit participates in Christ’s continual effectuation of justice and righteousness, both within him/her self and within the society in which he/she lives. Any split of the Christian’s being; any compartmentalization, any division into the material and the spiritual is a distortion of our reflection of the perfect unity of the Trinity--God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The Mind of Christ effectuates and upholds a moral order, an order which is written into the very cosmos. Christians seek through righteous and just actions to effectuate the moral order of the cosmos within human society. The Kingdom of God is the template for earthly societies. Christians seek to bring the Kingdom of Heaven down to earth. That is the reasons Christians should refuse to heed the siren call to separate themselves from the society in which they are placed. Preaching separatism is not only faulty theology. Separatism spells disaster for Christians and the society in which they live.
Those Christians who are nervous about involvement with a world afflicted by evil, or those non-Christians who object to the idea of Christians’ views on the Kingdom of Heaven might want to know what the Christian’s vision of the Heavenly Kingdom brought down to earth might look like. Perhaps it looks like the "Peaceable Kingdom" painted by Edward Hicks, whose enchanting oil paintings–he painted over one hundred versions--depict with charming and endearing simplicity the vision of the great Hebrew prophet Isaiah. (For a visual of Hicks 1834 version of the "Peaceable kingdom, go to the following link and enlarge the picture.)
http://www.squidoo.com/the-peaceable-kingdom#module12942168
To the left of the painting, Hicks, a Quaker, depicts William Penn negotiating a treaty with native Americans in accordance with the larger vision depicted in the center and right of the painting. Peace is achieved among humans. Although the lion and the leopard appear startled or at least puzzled to be in the company of animals they usually would eat for breakfast; among them, too, all is peace. A little child, the symbol of innocence, is leading, just as Isaiah wrote:
"The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the
yearling together;
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like an ox.
The infant will play near the hole of the cobra,
and the young child put his hand
into the viper’s nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea."
There is scarcely a person who loves peace who would not wish the earthly order to resemble such a tranquil scene. One would even venture to say those who would wish to destroy societies which bear even a faint resemblance to the "Peaceable Kingdom" are the definition of evil.
The vision of Isaiah has inspired leaders of many nations, among them Martin Luther King, Jr., whose "I Have a Dream" speech echoes the longing for a world order in which all races live at peace with one another. His vision was a profoundly Christian vision. The list of those who share the vision is long.
But what is often left unnoticed is that Isaiah 11 indicates the divine messenger of God, whom Christians associate with Jesus Christ, brings the "Peaceable Kingdom" into reality by fighting for it. The "Suffering Servant" with whom Christians identify and whom they imitate does not achieve righteousness and justice without fighting the evil powers which mitigate against the establishment of the "Peaceable Kingdom."
Isaiah writes the servant is empowered by the Spirit of wisdom, of understanding, of counsel and power that comes from a humble acknowledgment of his dependency on and love for God. The servant of God believes in a divine, perfectly moral order which transcends and informs his actions. He adheres to the eternal verities of justice and righteousness and is willing to fight for them on behalf of the oppressed, the needy and poor.
As Isaiah writes:
"He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he ill judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist."
In other words, the Peaceable Kingdom must be fought for, as there are forces which seek to keep it from transpiring; forces which would trample the poor and needy underfoot.
While there are many Christians who decry the use of any force to achieve peace, believing fighting for peace is an oxymoron, such must come to terms with the God of the scripture, whose church militant and whose chief commander, Jesus Christ, are portrayed time and again as warriors against evil. While Christians are cautioned that their primary weapons are not like those of the world; nonetheless, they are called to confront and combat evil wherever it rears its ugly head. The Christian is called to combat oppression of the poor and needy, the helpless and the despised of the earth.
The concept of the holy warrior has been much abused in the past and continues to dismay those committed to pacifism. It is entirely true that the militancy of the church has in the past been misdirected and sometimes disastrous. But by and large, the church has repented of its errors.
In fact, the current swing of the pendulum toward isolation and total pacifism has been equally if not more disastrous, for the retreat of the church into itself has resulted in a distancing from the world and its problems. The Christian subculture has wound up ministering to itself and to certain approved ministries, which while they may be completely worthy, are often too narrowly defined.
The result is that whole sections of the "world" have been cordoned off, including the political order. Governmental structures have often been considered regarded as unworthy of inclusion in the fight to extend the "Peaceable Kingdom" as they are seen as "of the world" and therefore inherently evil.
But that is not how Isaiah and the other great prophets saw matters. For them, the "Peaceable Kingdom covered the entire earth, infiltrating and transforming all societal structures. That is why the prophet Amos, who was an inspiration to Martin Luther King, excoriated the people of Israel, citing their contempt for justice and righteousness in governance, their trampling underfoot the oppressed, even selling them into slavery; the corruption of their courts, riddled with bribery, deceit and with lawyers’ tricky and devious stratagems. That is why Amos called on the people to restore justice and righteousness to their entire society, declaring, "Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a mighty stream."
It is up to every Christian to find just where his or her primary battle for justice and righteousness might be. Only one’s relationship to God can determine what God calls one to do to effectuate in some way the "Peaceable Kingdom." But each and every Christian must beware of exempting any part of the world order from the fight for and establishment of the domain of the "Peaceable Kingdom."
The battle to actualize Isaiah’s vision "Peaceable Kingdom" has been engaged from time immemorial. It remains for Christians to heed the call to participate in it.
As Christ thinks, so things are. His thought is no mere abstraction, but thought, will and creation are interwoven into one powerful entity known as the Trinity.
Christians are told by the apostle Paul that they have the mind of Christ; that is, as Thomas a Kempis points out, they are to be an imitation of Christ; an expression of the divine image as exhibited and actualized in the person of Christ Jesus.
It follows that each believer is not a being who is divided into the spiritual and the material; is not a being who is divided between the earthly (body) and the divine (spirit/soul). Division of the material and the spiritual has more to do with neo-Platonism and gnosticism than it does with Christian belief.
Each believer is called to be and is in fact a unity who in mind, body and spirit participates in Christ’s continual effectuation of justice and righteousness, both within him/her self and within the society in which he/she lives. Any split of the Christian’s being; any compartmentalization, any division into the material and the spiritual is a distortion of our reflection of the perfect unity of the Trinity--God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
The Mind of Christ effectuates and upholds a moral order, an order which is written into the very cosmos. Christians seek through righteous and just actions to effectuate the moral order of the cosmos within human society. The Kingdom of God is the template for earthly societies. Christians seek to bring the Kingdom of Heaven down to earth. That is the reasons Christians should refuse to heed the siren call to separate themselves from the society in which they are placed. Preaching separatism is not only faulty theology. Separatism spells disaster for Christians and the society in which they live.
Those Christians who are nervous about involvement with a world afflicted by evil, or those non-Christians who object to the idea of Christians’ views on the Kingdom of Heaven might want to know what the Christian’s vision of the Heavenly Kingdom brought down to earth might look like. Perhaps it looks like the "Peaceable Kingdom" painted by Edward Hicks, whose enchanting oil paintings–he painted over one hundred versions--depict with charming and endearing simplicity the vision of the great Hebrew prophet Isaiah. (For a visual of Hicks 1834 version of the "Peaceable kingdom, go to the following link and enlarge the picture.)
http://www.squidoo.com/the-peaceable-kingdom#module12942168
To the left of the painting, Hicks, a Quaker, depicts William Penn negotiating a treaty with native Americans in accordance with the larger vision depicted in the center and right of the painting. Peace is achieved among humans. Although the lion and the leopard appear startled or at least puzzled to be in the company of animals they usually would eat for breakfast; among them, too, all is peace. A little child, the symbol of innocence, is leading, just as Isaiah wrote:
"The wolf will live with the lamb,
the leopard lie down with the goat,
the calf and the lion and the
yearling together;
and a little child shall lead them.
The cow will feed with the bear,
their young will lie down together,
and the lion will eat straw like an ox.
The infant will play near the hole of the cobra,
and the young child put his hand
into the viper’s nest.
They will neither harm nor destroy
on all my holy mountain,
for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord
as the waters cover the sea."
There is scarcely a person who loves peace who would not wish the earthly order to resemble such a tranquil scene. One would even venture to say those who would wish to destroy societies which bear even a faint resemblance to the "Peaceable Kingdom" are the definition of evil.
The vision of Isaiah has inspired leaders of many nations, among them Martin Luther King, Jr., whose "I Have a Dream" speech echoes the longing for a world order in which all races live at peace with one another. His vision was a profoundly Christian vision. The list of those who share the vision is long.
But what is often left unnoticed is that Isaiah 11 indicates the divine messenger of God, whom Christians associate with Jesus Christ, brings the "Peaceable Kingdom" into reality by fighting for it. The "Suffering Servant" with whom Christians identify and whom they imitate does not achieve righteousness and justice without fighting the evil powers which mitigate against the establishment of the "Peaceable Kingdom."
Isaiah writes the servant is empowered by the Spirit of wisdom, of understanding, of counsel and power that comes from a humble acknowledgment of his dependency on and love for God. The servant of God believes in a divine, perfectly moral order which transcends and informs his actions. He adheres to the eternal verities of justice and righteousness and is willing to fight for them on behalf of the oppressed, the needy and poor.
As Isaiah writes:
"He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes,
or decide by what he hears with his ears;
but with righteousness he ill judge the needy,
with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth.
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth;
with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked.
Righteousness will be his belt
and faithfulness the sash around his waist."
In other words, the Peaceable Kingdom must be fought for, as there are forces which seek to keep it from transpiring; forces which would trample the poor and needy underfoot.
While there are many Christians who decry the use of any force to achieve peace, believing fighting for peace is an oxymoron, such must come to terms with the God of the scripture, whose church militant and whose chief commander, Jesus Christ, are portrayed time and again as warriors against evil. While Christians are cautioned that their primary weapons are not like those of the world; nonetheless, they are called to confront and combat evil wherever it rears its ugly head. The Christian is called to combat oppression of the poor and needy, the helpless and the despised of the earth.
The concept of the holy warrior has been much abused in the past and continues to dismay those committed to pacifism. It is entirely true that the militancy of the church has in the past been misdirected and sometimes disastrous. But by and large, the church has repented of its errors.
In fact, the current swing of the pendulum toward isolation and total pacifism has been equally if not more disastrous, for the retreat of the church into itself has resulted in a distancing from the world and its problems. The Christian subculture has wound up ministering to itself and to certain approved ministries, which while they may be completely worthy, are often too narrowly defined.
The result is that whole sections of the "world" have been cordoned off, including the political order. Governmental structures have often been considered regarded as unworthy of inclusion in the fight to extend the "Peaceable Kingdom" as they are seen as "of the world" and therefore inherently evil.
But that is not how Isaiah and the other great prophets saw matters. For them, the "Peaceable Kingdom covered the entire earth, infiltrating and transforming all societal structures. That is why the prophet Amos, who was an inspiration to Martin Luther King, excoriated the people of Israel, citing their contempt for justice and righteousness in governance, their trampling underfoot the oppressed, even selling them into slavery; the corruption of their courts, riddled with bribery, deceit and with lawyers’ tricky and devious stratagems. That is why Amos called on the people to restore justice and righteousness to their entire society, declaring, "Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a mighty stream."
It is up to every Christian to find just where his or her primary battle for justice and righteousness might be. Only one’s relationship to God can determine what God calls one to do to effectuate in some way the "Peaceable Kingdom." But each and every Christian must beware of exempting any part of the world order from the fight for and establishment of the domain of the "Peaceable Kingdom."
The battle to actualize Isaiah’s vision "Peaceable Kingdom" has been engaged from time immemorial. It remains for Christians to heed the call to participate in it.
Monday, January 18, 2010
Americans Are Indentured Servants: The Immorality and Consequences of National Debt
From the very beginning of our country’s journey, officially begun in 1776, there’s something in the American spirit that has been revolted by slavery; and by all involuntary servitude, no matter what name it goes by; no matter what form it takes. Americans treasure their independence. It’s why they broke away from Britain.
At the time of the Revolutionary War, Americans, most of whom considered themselves good British subjects, revolted against being taxed without being represented in the British parliament. They saw correctly that if taxed without their consent for the expenses of the British Empire, their freedom was jeopardized; that they were instantly relegated to an inferior position and an inferior class–that of mere colonists, not British citizens. They saw the British empire had an agenda entirely apart from the people of the colonies; to whom the rulers of Britain were almost entirely indifferent except as the colonists met their demands and needs. Britain saw the colonists in purely exploitative terms, as serfs who worked to supply the coffers of an empire bent on expansion. Americans were seen as hewers of wood and water bearers; suppliers of raw materials--and of tax monies.
But typically, Americans did not see themselves as serfs who worked for the master of Great Britain. They saw themselves as citizens who were equal to, shared the privileges of those who resided within Great Britain itself. So they were infuriated. It wasn’t the size of the tax that mattered; it was the precedent, which once established, made the entire population of the colonies indentured servants, bound to pay off British debts they had no part in engendering and did not approve of.
It’s well to remember Americans of the time were intimately familiar with indentured servitude. While it was an established practice, free citizens wanted no part of it, for the abuses were known first hand. An indentured servant was merely a debt bondage worker, a laborer under contract of an employer. For three to seven years, the person who signed off his/her freedom had to work in exchange for their transportation, food, drink, clothing, and a roof over their heads–and that was the ideal situation.
We know the results of the British Empires attempts to tax their colonies without their consent: a whole people refused to become indentured servants, rose up and fought for the right to be free, to form a government which was to serve the people-- not the other way around. Americans decided against servitude in any form. And they have done so again and again.
Since the Revolution, the American revulsion toward servitude has manifest itself in may forms. Indentured servitude itself was eventually was banned as a practice banned by the US as inimical to freedom. As was slavery. As is human trafficking.
Time and again Americans have risen to free those whom the rapacious and cruel–always present in every culture--would enslave. To their credit, they have done so at considerable sacrifice of blood, sweat and tears. When Americans have awakened to the oppression of minorities in their midst–admittedly often far too slowly--they have risen to free the oppressed among them. The American Civil War, fought to save the union as well as to free slaves, cost the loss of 10% of our country’s population. The great civil rights movement of the 1960's moved mountains.
We Americans have even fought for others’ freedoms. WWII, as close to a perfectly righteous war as wars ever get, was fought in order that the world not fall into slavery imagined by the Aryan fanatics who saw the rest of the world as inferior, worthy only of servitude.
But in a vicious turn of fate, particularly over the two years of the Bush and Obama administrations, the American people and at least two successive generations have now themselves become indentured servants, slaves to the very government they elected to maintain the principles of the founding fathers of this great nation. Americans now work for the masters they have put in office.
How has this happened? A congress deaf to the voices of the very people who elected its representatives has enslaved generations of Americans to a unpayable debt. Without their even knowing it Americans very homes have become a debtor’s prison. Their freedom is an illusion. They are sold into indentured servitude. But their servitude does not end in two or three or seven years. Their servitude, just by order of the magnitude of the debt, is permanent.
Think about it. Up until a very short time ago, the average worker worked for the governments, federal and state, an average of four months of the year--January through May to pay the government. Thus he or she has been an indentured servant of the government for almost half of each year. But even that burden seems a halcyon scenario as the debt accumulated during the last part of the Bush administration and now by the Obama administration makes all taxes and debt that came before seem minuscule.
As of this July 6, 2009, the national debt was $11,503,557,424,736.83. The US population, at most recent count, is 306, 498, 146. If the debt is divided up among the population, each and every person in the US owes $37,532.23. This means a family of four owes $150,128.92. That’s just today’s figures, as the debt has increased 3.86 billions per day since September 28, 2007.
Since the first writing of this article in the fall, the debt has increased exponentially. It is hard to say just how much each person owes, as the amount of debt and debt service has become a runaway figure that only goes up, up and away.
It is a fact of life that debt represents work and productivity. It is Americans’ work, Americans' productivity, that are hijacked to pay off our national debt. Unless, of course, the Federal Reserve prints more money to pay off the debt, in which case you will wind up paying it off anyway in the form of inflation.
As noted above, one of the most horrific things about our government’s behavior is that it is imitating a savagely cruel practice of ancient and even modern times. It is enslaving future generations–America’s children. Each American child who is born is born an indentured servant, saddled with debts he or she neither knew or approved of–enslaved by feckless and rapacious governments, federal and state.
Did anyone ever dream our country would resort to such a practice? Just think of it: We and generations after us have been sold into slavery to our own government. Our wages present and future are permanently garnished--stolen. A yoke of taxation is fixed on our necks as securely as if our necks were in stocks.
But there is another factor to consider. Americans are not just slaves to their own government. They also have been sold to another people. Our country’s debt is largely owned by the Peoples Republic of China, whose ruthless government will extract every possible concession from the United States. Our debt puts us in the power of a government which is inimically opposed to the foundational beliefs of our country. China, whatever its concessions to a runaway capitalistic sphere may be, remains communist and is run by draconian authoritarians who have little to no empathy for their own people, much less hated foreigners.
All one has to do is to take a look at Communist China’s human rights record in order to know just what the Chinese government thinks of freedom of speech, religion and dissent. It is well to recall the consequences of the Tianamen Square revolt. The government of China is ruthlessly repressive, and pays little heed to the international community’s pleas for human rights. Does anyone seriously think the Chinese government will be as generous as Americans concerning debtors? Does anyone think there will be debt forgiveness? Or drastic consequences should America try to escape debt by inflating the currency or by defaulting?
Since ancient times, no greater fate befalls a free people than to be handed over to a repressive government. Yet such is the government to which the American people have been sold. What greater cruelty can a government commit than that of selling its own people into debt bondage to those who repress their own people?
Exaggeration? No. Debt hands control over to the lender. Recall what happens to an ordinary U.S. citizen who gets into debt. He becomes a bond servant to those to whom he owes money. Suddenly he finds himself under the control of his creditors. He is automatically subject to control and oppression, harassed by calls and threatened by legal proceedings. His possessions are no longer his own. His work is no longer for his own benefit. In short, he is no longer a free man, but a man who has become another’s indentured servant.
Even so, a nation which is indebted to another is no longer a free nation. It and its citizens are now obligated to a task master who makes the rules. The American people have become indentured servants to China.
While American citizens will no doubt escape the fate of ancient peoples who were summarily carted off to exile when they refused to pay tribute or taxes to a given empire, our indebtedness will supply China leverage to extract concessions from us while it freely expands its sphere of influence over the far East, intimidating even our most loyal allies such as Japan, its old enemy. The U.S. will be powerless to protest, especially as its indebtedness is being matched with deliberate vitiation of its armed forces by the current administration.
Of course, indebtedness and its consequences will show up as weakness elsewhere, for inevitably, an indebted nation loses its power on the entire world stage. Mikhail Gorbashev recognized that fact, and it is one of the chief reasons he began his policy of glasnost. He knew a nation with unsustainable expenditures and debt automatically lost its primacy among the nations. A similar fate awaits the United States if drastic action is not taken.
It is time to wake up.
The government for the people and by the people is perishing from the face of the earth as we watch ourselves and our fellow citizens shackled by a government determined to expand an already vast bureaucracy and to enrich themselves, their cronies and global institutions–all the while crushing and enslaving the great American middle class and America itself by unsustainble debt. The sovereign future of the United States is at risk domestically and internationally.
Americans must rise up and throw off the yoke of debtors’ slavery by protesting peacefully en masse by marching on Washington and state capitals, for it is probably too late to write letters and to petition.
It is time for a united, peaceful revolution; for yet more million man marches and protests.
It is time to throw out the task masters who have sold us and generations after us into bondage and to replace them with fiscally and morally responsible representatives.
Fay Voshell
.
Friday, January 15, 2010
An Open Letter to Pat Robertson
An Open Letter to Pat Robertson: A response to your comments on Haiti
Dear Mr. Robertson,
I have read you said the following about the earthquake in Haiti:
"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French . . . and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, "We will serve you if you'll get us free from the French." True story. And so the devil said, "OK, it's a deal." . . . Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after another, desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It's cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti; on the other side is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is, is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, et cetera. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island."
There are several implications which can be garnered from your statement.
One is that the people of Haiti somehow deserved being hit with an earthquake as punishment for making a pact with the Devil some two hundred years ago. Another is that you can make a judgement because you have an insider’s knowledge of God’s ways.
Both assumptions are not supported by Jesus Christ or the scriptures. In the gospel of Luke 13, Jesus’ disciples tell him about a tragic events, doubtless seeking his reaction and explanation as to why the men were slaughtered. The butchering of the innocents was perpetrated by the Roman consulate Pontius Pilate, whose fame has endured because he later was to condemn Christ to death.
No doubt the disciples’ implicit question was what did these men do wrong to meet such a terrible end? After all, they had asked the question outright concerning a man who had been born blind. (John 9) "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
Jesus made it clear that personal sin was not the reason for the man’s blindness, but that the work of God would be displayed in the blind man’s life. He healed the man, who went home seeing.
Addressing the case of the slaughtered Galileans, Jesus replied, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too all will perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them–do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."
Jesus’ admonition cut right to the heart of the ancient assumption that calamity only falls on those who by their sin deserve it. His message was that all people sin, are in need of repentance and all need salvation, which he offered freely and without condemnation to all who would receive it.
An implied message is we can't elevate ourselves to the status of divinity, as absolute diviners of God’s will and purposes. That is because as mere limited mortals, we are bound to get it wrong.
We begin to get it right, Christ is saying to his disciples, when we start with the evil within our own hearts.
Jesus also made the order of judgement clear in his parable of the mote and the beam, in which he advised the pharisees to look at themselves before they generously handed out blanket condemnation to others.
The above is not to say there can be citadels of evil which grip whole nations, keeping their peoples impoverished and oppressed. But excoriation of Haiti’s admittedly corrupt government and implying an earthquake is God’s just wrath surely seems like the vilest hypocrisy when our own nation is riddled with the rot of Chicago style thuggery, bribery, and onerous taxation. According to the parable of the mote and the beam, surely we need to get our own house in order. Surely, we and our nation, like the disciples, need repentance, forgiveness and restoration.
In the meantime, thankfully, there are attributes of the Deity we can imitate without adding to ourselves the sins of hubris, hypocrisy and false judgement. We can imitate Christ’s compassion and kindness in reaching out to the beleaguered Haitians. Acts of kindness and compassion never bring condemnation. Acts of mercy never are wrong, especially when we extend them even to our enemies as Christ commanded. If he has ordered we give a cup of cold water to our enemy when he is thirsty, how much greater our obligation to those whose hearts and minds we know nothing about.
For the people of Haiti, like the rest of the world’s nation, tribes and peoples, are divided into the good and the bad. From afar we lack the capacity and wisdom to discern the difference. Even if we did have that discernment, we must leave the final judgement to God while we work to obey his command to rescue the perishing regardless of their sins, real or perceived; past or present.
Praise God and give thanks to the men and women of our country who have rushed to aid the desperate without thinking about who does or does not deserve it. They are giving their time, energy and resources without expectation of reward. They are grateful to be rescuing the perishing and caring for the dying.
In their response as rescuers without discrimination or condemnation, they are imitators of Christ.
After all, isn’t God also rescuing each of us each and every day of our lives?
Sincerely,
Fay Voshell
Dear Mr. Robertson,
I have read you said the following about the earthquake in Haiti:
"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French . . . and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, "We will serve you if you'll get us free from the French." True story. And so the devil said, "OK, it's a deal." . . . Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after another, desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It's cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti; on the other side is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is, is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, et cetera. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island."
There are several implications which can be garnered from your statement.
One is that the people of Haiti somehow deserved being hit with an earthquake as punishment for making a pact with the Devil some two hundred years ago. Another is that you can make a judgement because you have an insider’s knowledge of God’s ways.
Both assumptions are not supported by Jesus Christ or the scriptures. In the gospel of Luke 13, Jesus’ disciples tell him about a tragic events, doubtless seeking his reaction and explanation as to why the men were slaughtered. The butchering of the innocents was perpetrated by the Roman consulate Pontius Pilate, whose fame has endured because he later was to condemn Christ to death.
No doubt the disciples’ implicit question was what did these men do wrong to meet such a terrible end? After all, they had asked the question outright concerning a man who had been born blind. (John 9) "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
Jesus made it clear that personal sin was not the reason for the man’s blindness, but that the work of God would be displayed in the blind man’s life. He healed the man, who went home seeing.
Addressing the case of the slaughtered Galileans, Jesus replied, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too all will perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them–do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."
Jesus’ admonition cut right to the heart of the ancient assumption that calamity only falls on those who by their sin deserve it. His message was that all people sin, are in need of repentance and all need salvation, which he offered freely and without condemnation to all who would receive it.
An implied message is we can't elevate ourselves to the status of divinity, as absolute diviners of God’s will and purposes. That is because as mere limited mortals, we are bound to get it wrong.
We begin to get it right, Christ is saying to his disciples, when we start with the evil within our own hearts.
Jesus also made the order of judgement clear in his parable of the mote and the beam, in which he advised the pharisees to look at themselves before they generously handed out blanket condemnation to others.
The above is not to say there can be citadels of evil which grip whole nations, keeping their peoples impoverished and oppressed. But excoriation of Haiti’s admittedly corrupt government and implying an earthquake is God’s just wrath surely seems like the vilest hypocrisy when our own nation is riddled with the rot of Chicago style thuggery, bribery, and onerous taxation. According to the parable of the mote and the beam, surely we need to get our own house in order. Surely, we and our nation, like the disciples, need repentance, forgiveness and restoration.
In the meantime, thankfully, there are attributes of the Deity we can imitate without adding to ourselves the sins of hubris, hypocrisy and false judgement. We can imitate Christ’s compassion and kindness in reaching out to the beleaguered Haitians. Acts of kindness and compassion never bring condemnation. Acts of mercy never are wrong, especially when we extend them even to our enemies as Christ commanded. If he has ordered we give a cup of cold water to our enemy when he is thirsty, how much greater our obligation to those whose hearts and minds we know nothing about.
For the people of Haiti, like the rest of the world’s nation, tribes and peoples, are divided into the good and the bad. From afar we lack the capacity and wisdom to discern the difference. Even if we did have that discernment, we must leave the final judgement to God while we work to obey his command to rescue the perishing regardless of their sins, real or perceived; past or present.
Praise God and give thanks to the men and women of our country who have rushed to aid the desperate without thinking about who does or does not deserve it. They are giving their time, energy and resources without expectation of reward. They are grateful to be rescuing the perishing and caring for the dying.
In their response as rescuers without discrimination or condemnation, they are imitators of Christ.
After all, isn’t God also rescuing each of us each and every day of our lives?
Sincerely,
Fay Voshell
An Open Letter to Pat Robertson
An Open Letter to Pat Robertson: A response to your comments on Haiti
Dear Mr. Robertson,
I have read you said the following about the earthquake in Haiti:
"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French . . . and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, "We will serve you if you'll get us free from the French." True story. And so the devil said, "OK, it's a deal." . . . Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after another, desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It's cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti; on the other side is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is, is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, et cetera. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island."
There are several implications which can be garnered from your statement.
One is that the people of Haiti somehow deserved being hit with an earthquake as punishment for making a pact with the Devil some two hundred years ago. Another is that you can make a judgement because you have an insider’s knowledge of God’s ways.
Both assumptions are not supported by Jesus Christ or the scriptures. In the gospel of Luke 13, Jesus’ disciples tell him about a tragic events, doubtless seeking his reaction and explanation as to why the men were slaughtered. The butchering of the innocents was perpetrated by the Roman consulate Pontius Pilate, whose fame has endured because he later was to condemn Christ to death.
No doubt the disciples’ implicit question was what did these men do wrong to meet such a terrible end? After all, they had asked the question outright concerning a man who had been born blind. (John 9) "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
Jesus made it clear that personal sin was not the reason for the man’s blindness, but that the work of God would be displayed in the blind man’s life. He healed the man, who went home seeing.
Addressing the case of the slaughtered Galileans, Jesus replied, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too all will perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them–do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."
Jesus’ admonition cut right to the heart of the ancient assumption that calamity only falls on those who by their sin deserve it. His message was that all people sin, are in need of repentance and all need salvation, which he offered freely and without condemnation to all who would receive it.
An implied message is we can't elevate ourselves to the status of divinity, as absolute diviners of God’s will and purposes. That is because as mere limited mortals, we are bound to get it wrong.
We begin to get it right, Christ is saying to his disciples, when we start with the evil within our own hearts.
Jesus also made the order of judgement clear in his parable of the mote and the beam, in which he advised the pharisees to look at themselves before they generously handed out blanket condemnation to others.
The above is not to say there can be citadels of evil which grip whole nations, keeping their peoples impoverished and oppressed. But excoriation of Haiti’s admittedly corrupt government and implying an earthquake is God’s just wrath surely seems like the vilest hypocrisy when our own nation is riddled with the rot of Chicago style thuggery, bribery, and onerous taxation. According to the parable of the mote and the beam, surely we need to get our own house in order. Surely, we and our nation, like the disciples, need repentance, forgiveness and restoration.
In the meantime, thankfully, there are attributes of the Deity we can imitate without adding to ourselves the sins of hubris, hypocrisy and false judgement. We can imitate Christ’s compassion and kindness in reaching out to the beleaguered Haitians. Acts of kindness and compassion never bring condemnation. Acts of mercy never are wrong, especially when we extend them even to our enemies as Christ commanded. If he has ordered we give a cup of cold water to our enemy when he is thirsty, how much greater our obligation to those whose hearts and minds we know nothing about.
For the people of Haiti, like the rest of the world’s nation, tribes and peoples, are divided into the good and the bad. From afar we lack the capacity and wisdom to discern the difference. Even if we did have that discernment, we must leave the final judgement to God while we work to obey his command to rescue the perishing regardless of their sins, real or perceived; past or present.
Praise God and give thanks to the men and women of our country who have rushed to aid the desperate without thinking about who does or does not deserve it. They are giving their time, energy and resources without expectation of reward. They are grateful to be rescuing the perishing and caring for the dying.
In their response as rescuers without discrimination or condemnation, they are imitators of Christ.
After all, isn’t God also rescuing each of us each and every day of our lives?
Sincerely,
Fay Voshell
Dear Mr. Robertson,
I have read you said the following about the earthquake in Haiti:
"Something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French . . . and they got together and swore a pact to the devil. They said, "We will serve you if you'll get us free from the French." True story. And so the devil said, "OK, it's a deal." . . . Ever since, they have been cursed by one thing after another, desperately poor. That island of Hispaniola is one island. It's cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti; on the other side is the Dominican Republic. Dominican Republic is, is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, et cetera. Haiti is in desperate poverty. Same island."
There are several implications which can be garnered from your statement.
One is that the people of Haiti somehow deserved being hit with an earthquake as punishment for making a pact with the Devil some two hundred years ago. Another is that you can make a judgement because you have an insider’s knowledge of God’s ways.
Both assumptions are not supported by Jesus Christ or the scriptures. In the gospel of Luke 13, Jesus’ disciples tell him about a tragic events, doubtless seeking his reaction and explanation as to why the men were slaughtered. The butchering of the innocents was perpetrated by the Roman consulate Pontius Pilate, whose fame has endured because he later was to condemn Christ to death.
No doubt the disciples’ implicit question was what did these men do wrong to meet such a terrible end? After all, they had asked the question outright concerning a man who had been born blind. (John 9) "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?"
Jesus made it clear that personal sin was not the reason for the man’s blindness, but that the work of God would be displayed in the blind man’s life. He healed the man, who went home seeing.
Addressing the case of the slaughtered Galileans, Jesus replied, "Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than other Galileans because they suffered this way? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too all will perish. Or those eighteen who died when the tower in Siloam fell on them–do you think they were more guilty than all the others living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all perish."
Jesus’ admonition cut right to the heart of the ancient assumption that calamity only falls on those who by their sin deserve it. His message was that all people sin, are in need of repentance and all need salvation, which he offered freely and without condemnation to all who would receive it.
An implied message is we can't elevate ourselves to the status of divinity, as absolute diviners of God’s will and purposes. That is because as mere limited mortals, we are bound to get it wrong.
We begin to get it right, Christ is saying to his disciples, when we start with the evil within our own hearts.
Jesus also made the order of judgement clear in his parable of the mote and the beam, in which he advised the pharisees to look at themselves before they generously handed out blanket condemnation to others.
The above is not to say there can be citadels of evil which grip whole nations, keeping their peoples impoverished and oppressed. But excoriation of Haiti’s admittedly corrupt government and implying an earthquake is God’s just wrath surely seems like the vilest hypocrisy when our own nation is riddled with the rot of Chicago style thuggery, bribery, and onerous taxation. According to the parable of the mote and the beam, surely we need to get our own house in order. Surely, we and our nation, like the disciples, need repentance, forgiveness and restoration.
In the meantime, thankfully, there are attributes of the Deity we can imitate without adding to ourselves the sins of hubris, hypocrisy and false judgement. We can imitate Christ’s compassion and kindness in reaching out to the beleaguered Haitians. Acts of kindness and compassion never bring condemnation. Acts of mercy never are wrong, especially when we extend them even to our enemies as Christ commanded. If he has ordered we give a cup of cold water to our enemy when he is thirsty, how much greater our obligation to those whose hearts and minds we know nothing about.
For the people of Haiti, like the rest of the world’s nation, tribes and peoples, are divided into the good and the bad. From afar we lack the capacity and wisdom to discern the difference. Even if we did have that discernment, we must leave the final judgement to God while we work to obey his command to rescue the perishing regardless of their sins, real or perceived; past or present.
Praise God and give thanks to the men and women of our country who have rushed to aid the desperate without thinking about who does or does not deserve it. They are giving their time, energy and resources without expectation of reward. They are grateful to be rescuing the perishing and caring for the dying.
In their response as rescuers without discrimination or condemnation, they are imitators of Christ.
After all, isn’t God also rescuing each of us each and every day of our lives?
Sincerely,
Fay Voshell
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Treason by Any Other Name: Our administration is deliberately destroying our country on the altar of revolution
I remember when the Berlin wall went up in 1961. Even today I can re-run mind films of the desperate attempts of men and women who tried to leap over the wall and were shot to death by their own countrymen. I still have video clips in my head of the East Germans who tunneled their way to freedom in the West, risking suffocation from collapsed piles of earth. They literally clawed their way out like partially blind moles seeking light.
Never did I think that ugly wall would come down–not in my lifetime. So when it tumbled in 1989 and jubilant, weeping East Germans flooded across the forbidden zone, I watched with joyful incomprehension. Then, as one communist state after another collapsed, falling before the wind of freedom’s heady contagion, I breathed a sigh of relief to know the beast of Communism was slain.
Twenty years later, a memorial ceremony commemorating the fall of that dread wall was celebrated by freedom loving heads of state from all over the globe. It was a great and glorious day of remembrance. But our own president was conspicuously absent from the celebration of that historic day. Why didn’t he attend? Why the tepid response?
Perhaps our president did not attend because his sympathies resonate less with the desperate prisoners escaping from behind the wall than with the statist governments from which they were fleeing. Perhaps his deepest empathy lies with the communist revolution, not with those who defeated it. Certainly in thought and action, he is in almost complete alignment with socialist/communist ideology. Most ominously, perhaps his sympathies lie with anarchistic revolutionaries of all stripes, including Islamists.
Who would have thought the U.S., so instrumental in holding back the forces behind the Cold War, so forceful in opposing communism, so strong in its defeat of the Soviet Union, would ever elect a head of state who sympathizes with and fosters the program of communist ideology?
It seems to defy the imagination. But as reluctantly as one may be persuaded of our administration latent and overt support of a socialist/communist agenda, our president’s actions along with those of the radical ideologues who surround him offer little encouragement to believe otherwise.
Though communism suffered an apparently fatal blow when it collapsed in Eastern Europe and Russia, it obviously still retains a certain potency and attraction. Formerly almost entirely confined to Western academia–from whence our president and many of his advisors come--like Frankenstein’s zombie corpse, it has awakened and is enlivening a coterie of Washington power players who seem determined to force their ideological agenda on a deluded American public. To put it in bald terms, our nation is in danger of being dragged down into the abyss of communism with no guarantee of being resurrected from the pit of that ideology unless a redemptive miracle occurs.
It is well to remind ourselves that communism is a combination of the theory of natural law plus moral relativism. Science was married to the communist theory of the inexorability of socialist progress. The result is that historical progress of communism is inevitable. However, that inevitability is to be advanced by sheer power gathered in the hands of a few powerful elite .
The new force of nature is to be made manifest in new societal orders built on the destruction of the old orders. The new society was not to be confined to any one nation, which was the belief of the fascists, but was to be universal, international, global in scope. The ultimate goal is a classless society and total, radical egalitarianism.
Such are the beliefs of our president and many of the people who surround him. Most are products of an academia still in thrall to Marxist or neo-Marxist beliefs. None of the ideologues have been, until elevated to power, more than armchair philosophers; that is, none have actually lived under the oppression of a communist state. They love the idea of revolution as long as they can live safely in their own world. They have a hankering for tinkering with and effectuating revolutionary ideas, but actually live in unperturbed safety as surely as did the aristocratic, perfumed and satin clad devotees of the Enlightenment just before the French Revolution.
So it must create some lip smacking to see the disturbance of the masses they seek to control when the inhabitants of the White House hang from the national "Holiday Tree" ornaments plastered with the countenance of Mao Tse Tung; or, like Anita Dunn, give lectures to captive groups of high school students about the virtues of the author of the Little Red Book. How deliciously radical. It is truly delightful to be inflammatory when there are seemingly no consequences.
But the power enjoyed by our present administration has gone beyond mere provocation of the sensibilities of the unwashed and unenlightened masses. It even has gone beyond the collection of a group of henchmen who resemble in their statements and writings the corrupt sycophants who surrounded Stalin and Hitler. The odious Czars– a story in themselves– and ludicrously inept heads of agencies such as Janet Napolitano are a mere side show when it comes to the agenda for destroying American institutions, for transforming America into a quasi-communist state and for eliminating American exceptionalism on the international stage.
For as students of history and philosophy can discern, the actions of the Obama administration are intended to achieve the socialist/communist intent to level the capitalist U.S. to the status of any other nation and to hand its sovereignty over to global international organizations which have at their basis the radical egalitarianism which typifies Marxism. Just as all individuals are to be the same, even so nations must all be the same. In Obama’s words, "No one nation should dominate another."
That is also why Obama kowtows to the authority of the U.N. The United Nations is filled with third world countries who believe as he does; namely, that the U.S. should have no more authority than any other nation, but should be subject to the deliberations and policies of an organization promoting world governance.
It is why he is anxious to ratify a global warming treaty that would take wealth from the West and redistribute it to the poorer nations in order to level the international playing field. The idea is to impoverish the West in order to bring up the status of third world countries. That way, citizens of the world will all be equal.
It is why he favors international treaties such as the Treaty of the Sea, which would distribute wealth of the seas "equally" while diminishing the Western nations control over the coasts of their countries.
It is why he ignores the problems of unchecked immigration to the U.S. For if the world’s citizens are to be equal, no one nation has the right to establish its borders and thus create a disadvantage to those who would like to participate in the wealthier countries largess.
For those who protest they are not culpable and therefore not worthy of extinction as a nation or as a given class to which socialist/communist sympathizers are automatically hostile, it is well to remember there is no forgiveness or redemption possible for existing societal orders which do not find legitimacy of existence in the communist ideological structure. No expiation of guilt or reformation of character is possible for despised classes of a given society. Any targeted class is automatically guilty as charged. Guilt is by fiat.
Therefore, entire classes must be punished or eliminated in order the given societal structure t be demolished. Their patrimony, cultural and political, must be extinguished so it may never rise again to repeat the offenses of the past. Whole classes are guilty just because they are members of their particular class. Whole classes are virtuous just by being members of their particular class. A totally new man; a completely new and just socieity will rise from the ashes.
The Obama administration’s domestic policies follow the communist rationale. He wants to radically transform the classes of American society and to redistribute the wealth of the nation in order to establish egalitarian "fairness." In his own words to Joe the Plumber, "We want to spread the wealth around." Joe, it might added, represents the bourgeoisie which stands in the way of the elevation of the oppressed classes represented by the minorities of this country.
The drastic realignment of the U.S. domestically and internationally must occur because the capitalist system is considered to be irretrievably corrupt. According to communist ideology, wealth is inherently evil unless it is in the hands of laborers, not the capitalist factory builders and owners.
While the president is deeply indebted to labor unions for their campaign contributions, he also favors unions because of his ideological belief that the "workers" are the true creators of wealth. Unions, not the greedy "fat cat" bankers he recently vilified are the truly righteous producers of wealth. Union workers are virtuous, not the middle class, which is comprised of voracious capitalist entrepreneurs who enslave those they hire.
Not coincidently unions are also a means of achieving power over society, as they have the ability to cripple a nation’s economy, especially if they are in charge of sensitive economic entities such as airport security–which is one reason the TSA should not become unionized, as unionized workers can act as shock troops to close down vital services such as air transportation. The resulting chaos would then "require" more control from the administration, perhaps backed up by army maneuvers to "control" the situation.
Obama’s adherence to ideology also explains his attacks on American small businesses via taxes and a nationalized universal health plan. Again, for the socialist ideologue, the most hated class is the bourgeoisie, which is regarded as worthy of suppression and eventual elimination in favor of the ruling class (an elite who are better by virtue of education and ideological conviction than other mortals) and the proletariat (the "worker").
All the above tendencies and policies are more than worrisome. But perhaps most alarming of all, Obama’s socialist/communist/anarchist approach to domestic and international policies combined with his penchant for surrounding himself with extreme radicals may be the reason he takes a weak and appeasing posture toward Islamists who seek to destroy the United States and indeed all of Western civilization.
Revolutionaries have a sometimes not so secret admiration for other revolutionaries, be they religious or political or a combination of both, as their stated goals are similar; namely, to bring a given society to its knees by any means possible. Obama’s words and actions indicate he empathizes with and supports the Islamists. He and his administration are aiding and abetting those who are determined to destroy us.
Aiding and abetting the enemy is the very definition of the word "treason."
Treason is a very grave charge to level at the commander in chief of our armies and the head of our great country, but the actions taken in the first year of Obama’s presidency certainly can be considered bordering on if not deliberately treasonous.
First, his posture toward the international community has been so apologetic and so overtly conciliatory toward the countries infiltrated with and supportive of radical Islamists as to amount to subliminal alliances not approved by congress. The new shadow alliances have been accompanied by the repudiation, overt and symbolic, of traditional U.S. allies such as England, whose prime minister Obama has insulted time and again; and Eastern Europe, whom he has betrayed by depriving it of promised protection by dismantling the missile defense shield.
In addition, the administration has consistently taken a bullying attitude toward Israel, our most reliable Mid-East ally, all the while taking a conciliatory posture toward Iran, whose peoples have risen in revolt against their odious regime while the president refuses to aid them in any significant way other than through tepid, vague bromides. Iran’s nuclear program proceeds apace.
Concerning the war in Afghanistan, he has signaled acceptance of stalemate and withdrawal while leaving our beleaguered soldiers to fight on without any specific goals, cynically timing withdrawal in accordance with mere political ends.
Obama’s behavior and policies toward Islamists’ attacks here in the U.S. have been shameful. He has sent Gitmo detainees back to their countries of origin, whence they may plot our destruction at leisure amongst empathetic and powerless governments. He has given terrorists the rights of American citizens, bypassing the legitimate apparatus of the military tribunals and granting trials within our civilian court system, thus disheartening and vitiating our military while causing grave concerns and fears among our people.
The attacks at Fort Hood and the recent attempt to take down one of our civilian aircrafts have been acts of war deliberately redefined by our president as mere individual attacks rather than as acts of war fomented and supported by an enemy force. Valuable information about our enemies terrorist networks now has been locked away in our civilian court process, while the enemies who have attacked our military and our civilians are given constitutional rights belonging only to U.S. citizens.
In addition, he has given INTERPOL full protection and immunity within our own country, thus ensuring it can gather information and sit on it indefinitely without fear of search or seizure of important facts which may have bearing on the safety of U.S. citizens.
In the meantime, Obama ties up the media and congress with interminable and incomprehensible deliberations over "health care." While the legislative package contains goals dear to the heart of this administration, the constant attention given it serves as a smoke screen which protects the a administration from media and the congress, both of whom should be the watchdogs sniffing out and exposing his traitorous actions.
All of the above actions and stances, domestically and internationally indicate Obama is not living up to his oath of office, an oath which insists our president put the interests and safety of our nation and its peoples first. Instead, we see our nation’s interests and its sovereignty and power being sacrificed by our president in order that global organizations prevail; that new shadow alliances have primacy over old and respected alliances and treaties with allies; that our military is vitiated while aid and comfort are offered to our sworn enemies; that our citizens are being shepherded into a holding pen run by the federal government; that federalism itself be destroyed; and that the constitution itself become a mere footnote of American history.
It is treasonous for any president to put the interests and safety of our nations’ sworn enemies and international entities above the interests and safety of our country. It is treasonous to adhere by belief and actions to a philosophy that is inimical to the traditions and historic documents which define our country. It is treasonous to empathize with and to aid and abet those who hate our country and who wish to destroy it.
As outlined above, our president, his advisors and his administration are guilty of all three treasonous behaviors. It is up to U.S. citizens to continue to expose the treason, to confront and to remove from office a president who sabotages by thought, word and deed the core constitutional values and interests of our great nation.
–Fay Voshell
Copyright: January 11, 2010
I remember when the Berlin wall went up in 1961. Even today I can re-run mind films of the desperate attempts of men and women who tried to leap over the wall and were shot to death by their own countrymen. I still have video clips in my head of the East Germans who tunneled their way to freedom in the West, risking suffocation from collapsed piles of earth. They literally clawed their way out like partially blind moles seeking light.
Never did I think that ugly wall would come down–not in my lifetime. So when it tumbled in 1989 and jubilant, weeping East Germans flooded across the forbidden zone, I watched with joyful incomprehension. Then, as one communist state after another collapsed, falling before the wind of freedom’s heady contagion, I breathed a sigh of relief to know the beast of Communism was slain.
Twenty years later, a memorial ceremony commemorating the fall of that dread wall was celebrated by freedom loving heads of state from all over the globe. It was a great and glorious day of remembrance. But our own president was conspicuously absent from the celebration of that historic day. Why didn’t he attend? Why the tepid response?
Perhaps our president did not attend because his sympathies resonate less with the desperate prisoners escaping from behind the wall than with the statist governments from which they were fleeing. Perhaps his deepest empathy lies with the communist revolution, not with those who defeated it. Certainly in thought and action, he is in almost complete alignment with socialist/communist ideology. Most ominously, perhaps his sympathies lie with anarchistic revolutionaries of all stripes, including Islamists.
Who would have thought the U.S., so instrumental in holding back the forces behind the Cold War, so forceful in opposing communism, so strong in its defeat of the Soviet Union, would ever elect a head of state who sympathizes with and fosters the program of communist ideology?
It seems to defy the imagination. But as reluctantly as one may be persuaded of our administration latent and overt support of a socialist/communist agenda, our president’s actions along with those of the radical ideologues who surround him offer little encouragement to believe otherwise.
Though communism suffered an apparently fatal blow when it collapsed in Eastern Europe and Russia, it obviously still retains a certain potency and attraction. Formerly almost entirely confined to Western academia–from whence our president and many of his advisors come--like Frankenstein’s zombie corpse, it has awakened and is enlivening a coterie of Washington power players who seem determined to force their ideological agenda on a deluded American public. To put it in bald terms, our nation is in danger of being dragged down into the abyss of communism with no guarantee of being resurrected from the pit of that ideology unless a redemptive miracle occurs.
It is well to remind ourselves that communism is a combination of the theory of natural law plus moral relativism. Science was married to the communist theory of the inexorability of socialist progress. The result is that historical progress of communism is inevitable. However, that inevitability is to be advanced by sheer power gathered in the hands of a few powerful elite .
The new force of nature is to be made manifest in new societal orders built on the destruction of the old orders. The new society was not to be confined to any one nation, which was the belief of the fascists, but was to be universal, international, global in scope. The ultimate goal is a classless society and total, radical egalitarianism.
Such are the beliefs of our president and many of the people who surround him. Most are products of an academia still in thrall to Marxist or neo-Marxist beliefs. None of the ideologues have been, until elevated to power, more than armchair philosophers; that is, none have actually lived under the oppression of a communist state. They love the idea of revolution as long as they can live safely in their own world. They have a hankering for tinkering with and effectuating revolutionary ideas, but actually live in unperturbed safety as surely as did the aristocratic, perfumed and satin clad devotees of the Enlightenment just before the French Revolution.
So it must create some lip smacking to see the disturbance of the masses they seek to control when the inhabitants of the White House hang from the national "Holiday Tree" ornaments plastered with the countenance of Mao Tse Tung; or, like Anita Dunn, give lectures to captive groups of high school students about the virtues of the author of the Little Red Book. How deliciously radical. It is truly delightful to be inflammatory when there are seemingly no consequences.
But the power enjoyed by our present administration has gone beyond mere provocation of the sensibilities of the unwashed and unenlightened masses. It even has gone beyond the collection of a group of henchmen who resemble in their statements and writings the corrupt sycophants who surrounded Stalin and Hitler. The odious Czars– a story in themselves– and ludicrously inept heads of agencies such as Janet Napolitano are a mere side show when it comes to the agenda for destroying American institutions, for transforming America into a quasi-communist state and for eliminating American exceptionalism on the international stage.
For as students of history and philosophy can discern, the actions of the Obama administration are intended to achieve the socialist/communist intent to level the capitalist U.S. to the status of any other nation and to hand its sovereignty over to global international organizations which have at their basis the radical egalitarianism which typifies Marxism. Just as all individuals are to be the same, even so nations must all be the same. In Obama’s words, "No one nation should dominate another."
That is also why Obama kowtows to the authority of the U.N. The United Nations is filled with third world countries who believe as he does; namely, that the U.S. should have no more authority than any other nation, but should be subject to the deliberations and policies of an organization promoting world governance.
It is why he is anxious to ratify a global warming treaty that would take wealth from the West and redistribute it to the poorer nations in order to level the international playing field. The idea is to impoverish the West in order to bring up the status of third world countries. That way, citizens of the world will all be equal.
It is why he favors international treaties such as the Treaty of the Sea, which would distribute wealth of the seas "equally" while diminishing the Western nations control over the coasts of their countries.
It is why he ignores the problems of unchecked immigration to the U.S. For if the world’s citizens are to be equal, no one nation has the right to establish its borders and thus create a disadvantage to those who would like to participate in the wealthier countries largess.
For those who protest they are not culpable and therefore not worthy of extinction as a nation or as a given class to which socialist/communist sympathizers are automatically hostile, it is well to remember there is no forgiveness or redemption possible for existing societal orders which do not find legitimacy of existence in the communist ideological structure. No expiation of guilt or reformation of character is possible for despised classes of a given society. Any targeted class is automatically guilty as charged. Guilt is by fiat.
Therefore, entire classes must be punished or eliminated in order the given societal structure t be demolished. Their patrimony, cultural and political, must be extinguished so it may never rise again to repeat the offenses of the past. Whole classes are guilty just because they are members of their particular class. Whole classes are virtuous just by being members of their particular class. A totally new man; a completely new and just socieity will rise from the ashes.
The Obama administration’s domestic policies follow the communist rationale. He wants to radically transform the classes of American society and to redistribute the wealth of the nation in order to establish egalitarian "fairness." In his own words to Joe the Plumber, "We want to spread the wealth around." Joe, it might added, represents the bourgeoisie which stands in the way of the elevation of the oppressed classes represented by the minorities of this country.
The drastic realignment of the U.S. domestically and internationally must occur because the capitalist system is considered to be irretrievably corrupt. According to communist ideology, wealth is inherently evil unless it is in the hands of laborers, not the capitalist factory builders and owners.
While the president is deeply indebted to labor unions for their campaign contributions, he also favors unions because of his ideological belief that the "workers" are the true creators of wealth. Unions, not the greedy "fat cat" bankers he recently vilified are the truly righteous producers of wealth. Union workers are virtuous, not the middle class, which is comprised of voracious capitalist entrepreneurs who enslave those they hire.
Not coincidently unions are also a means of achieving power over society, as they have the ability to cripple a nation’s economy, especially if they are in charge of sensitive economic entities such as airport security–which is one reason the TSA should not become unionized, as unionized workers can act as shock troops to close down vital services such as air transportation. The resulting chaos would then "require" more control from the administration, perhaps backed up by army maneuvers to "control" the situation.
Obama’s adherence to ideology also explains his attacks on American small businesses via taxes and a nationalized universal health plan. Again, for the socialist ideologue, the most hated class is the bourgeoisie, which is regarded as worthy of suppression and eventual elimination in favor of the ruling class (an elite who are better by virtue of education and ideological conviction than other mortals) and the proletariat (the "worker").
All the above tendencies and policies are more than worrisome. But perhaps most alarming of all, Obama’s socialist/communist/anarchist approach to domestic and international policies combined with his penchant for surrounding himself with extreme radicals may be the reason he takes a weak and appeasing posture toward Islamists who seek to destroy the United States and indeed all of Western civilization.
Revolutionaries have a sometimes not so secret admiration for other revolutionaries, be they religious or political or a combination of both, as their stated goals are similar; namely, to bring a given society to its knees by any means possible. Obama’s words and actions indicate he empathizes with and supports the Islamists. He and his administration are aiding and abetting those who are determined to destroy us.
Aiding and abetting the enemy is the very definition of the word "treason."
Treason is a very grave charge to level at the commander in chief of our armies and the head of our great country, but the actions taken in the first year of Obama’s presidency certainly can be considered bordering on if not deliberately treasonous.
First, his posture toward the international community has been so apologetic and so overtly conciliatory toward the countries infiltrated with and supportive of radical Islamists as to amount to subliminal alliances not approved by congress. The new shadow alliances have been accompanied by the repudiation, overt and symbolic, of traditional U.S. allies such as England, whose prime minister Obama has insulted time and again; and Eastern Europe, whom he has betrayed by depriving it of promised protection by dismantling the missile defense shield.
In addition, the administration has consistently taken a bullying attitude toward Israel, our most reliable Mid-East ally, all the while taking a conciliatory posture toward Iran, whose peoples have risen in revolt against their odious regime while the president refuses to aid them in any significant way other than through tepid, vague bromides. Iran’s nuclear program proceeds apace.
Concerning the war in Afghanistan, he has signaled acceptance of stalemate and withdrawal while leaving our beleaguered soldiers to fight on without any specific goals, cynically timing withdrawal in accordance with mere political ends.
Obama’s behavior and policies toward Islamists’ attacks here in the U.S. have been shameful. He has sent Gitmo detainees back to their countries of origin, whence they may plot our destruction at leisure amongst empathetic and powerless governments. He has given terrorists the rights of American citizens, bypassing the legitimate apparatus of the military tribunals and granting trials within our civilian court system, thus disheartening and vitiating our military while causing grave concerns and fears among our people.
The attacks at Fort Hood and the recent attempt to take down one of our civilian aircrafts have been acts of war deliberately redefined by our president as mere individual attacks rather than as acts of war fomented and supported by an enemy force. Valuable information about our enemies terrorist networks now has been locked away in our civilian court process, while the enemies who have attacked our military and our civilians are given constitutional rights belonging only to U.S. citizens.
In addition, he has given INTERPOL full protection and immunity within our own country, thus ensuring it can gather information and sit on it indefinitely without fear of search or seizure of important facts which may have bearing on the safety of U.S. citizens.
In the meantime, Obama ties up the media and congress with interminable and incomprehensible deliberations over "health care." While the legislative package contains goals dear to the heart of this administration, the constant attention given it serves as a smoke screen which protects the a administration from media and the congress, both of whom should be the watchdogs sniffing out and exposing his traitorous actions.
All of the above actions and stances, domestically and internationally indicate Obama is not living up to his oath of office, an oath which insists our president put the interests and safety of our nation and its peoples first. Instead, we see our nation’s interests and its sovereignty and power being sacrificed by our president in order that global organizations prevail; that new shadow alliances have primacy over old and respected alliances and treaties with allies; that our military is vitiated while aid and comfort are offered to our sworn enemies; that our citizens are being shepherded into a holding pen run by the federal government; that federalism itself be destroyed; and that the constitution itself become a mere footnote of American history.
It is treasonous for any president to put the interests and safety of our nations’ sworn enemies and international entities above the interests and safety of our country. It is treasonous to adhere by belief and actions to a philosophy that is inimical to the traditions and historic documents which define our country. It is treasonous to empathize with and to aid and abet those who hate our country and who wish to destroy it.
As outlined above, our president, his advisors and his administration are guilty of all three treasonous behaviors. It is up to U.S. citizens to continue to expose the treason, to confront and to remove from office a president who sabotages by thought, word and deed the core constitutional values and interests of our great nation.
–Fay Voshell
Copyright: January 11, 2010
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
The Corruption of Science, Part II: When Politics Determines Medical Parctice
Obama’s Universal Health Care Plan: The end of separation of medical science and politics
If Americans believe health care and medical science itself will not radically change under the Obama administration’s proposed health plan, they are deluded.
Lost in the current debate on universal health care is the fact that when the state runs medical care, political ideology rather than true science and individual conscience determines medical science and practice. When government becomes responsible for medical practice, the corruption of the medical community is inevitable. That is because medicine becomes an instrument of the government to achieve political goals, which are subject to the ideological vagaries of the moment rather than to the rigorous demands of the scientific method. Instead of orthodox science, pseudo-science, that perverted offspring of real science, finds a foothold in political circles. That is because pseudo-science is easily malleable, easily sold to the populace and easily distorted toward political ends. Just as bad, the hijacking of the medical professions means the entire medical system is subject to the demands and ends of the state.
For the above reasons, the acceptance of the American Medical Association of the Obama universal health care plan–to say nothing of the health care plan itself-- is grave cause for alarm, as it indicates a large part of the medical profession has accepted the re-casting of medical science and practice espoused by the far left political elite now running the US government. To put it bluntly, the entire medical profession is in immanent danger of being politicized and controlled by far left ideologues. The capitulation may have potentially horrific results not foreseen even by the Obama administration, the AMA; or, most importantly, by the American people.
For one thing, if the proposed health care plan passes with the blessing of the AMA, reorganization of the medical professions along leftist political lines can now safely proceed apace.
While examples selected from the Nazi and Soviet regimes may provoke "here we go again" reactions because so often cited, the both the Soviet and Nazi governmental paradigms still speak strongly to the dangers of medical care and medical science being pre-empted by politics. The fact of the matter is that what is presently occurring in the US as relates to medical practice is along the lines of the National Socialists’ agenda for medical practice in Germany of the 1930's.
As Michael Hayes notes in "Recasting the German Elites," Hitler achieved through his political lackey Gerhard Wagner a through reorganization of the medical profession via the German Health Insurance initiative, a universal plan which, when established in 1933, quickly absorbed the thousands of regional and local public and private insurance funds. By 1936 a new centralized Reich Physicians Chamber assured full Nazi control of the entire medical profession. The former self-regulated groups of physicians that were part of the medical conscience of Germany for decades were instantly out of business. The result was that the rigorous criticism necessary to the scientific method and the practice of medicine were erased.
Hayes writes that in addition to the Reich Physicians Chamber, a National Socialist Physicians’ League (NSAB) melded the medical profession under one governmental organization. So in addition to eliminating private medical insurance, Wagner sought to unify medical practice throughout the nation. Thus his ultimate goal was to destroy traditional, autonomous regional health care institutions as well as regional insurance funds..
The medical putsch under Wagner purged politically and racially undesirable doctors from insurance lists, and the Reich Physicians Ordinance of 1935 centralized German medicine for the first time in its history. Among other requirements it compelled all practicing physicians to join the RAK.
Once the reorganization of the German medical profession was achieved (by 1936), Wagner ordered doctors to report on mentally and physically handicapped patients in preparation for forced sterilization and euthanasia programs. Wagner also required doctors to attend medical extension seminars, which offered indoctrination courses in racial biology. Here in present day America, we can already see some of the directions the government might take. Czar Eric Holdren has written he favors forced abortion and teh adding of sterilizing agents to public water supplies in order to achieve population control. In addition, the conscience cluases protecting doctors from being forced to perfomr abortions are under severe attack.
How bad can things get when medicine and government are unified?
Very, very bad.
While most readers will be familiar with the atrocities of individual doctors such as Joseph Mengele, whose medical practices were approved by the Nazi regime, many will not know the extent the medical profession was involved in the extermination of Slavs and Jews during operation Barbarossa. The SS was peopled with doctors who considered the extermination of Slavs and Jews in the Soviet Union a medical necessity because Slavs and Jews polluted the human gene pool.
The reason for pointing out the involvement of German doctors in the einsatzgruppen campaigns aimed at eradicating certain undesirable populations is to point out how unbelievably corrupted medical "practice " can become when run by a state in the grip of an ideology captured by pseudo-science that furthers its political ends.
While matters in our own country certainly are not at the level reached by Germany until the end of World War II, all US citizens should be extremely wary as they watch the US medical profession, represented by the AMA, cooperating with and capitulating en masse--with very few exceptions--to leftist ideology demanding universal and uniform health care and health insurance.
Certainly as of this moment, endorsing the Obama universal health plan, almost certainly ensures procedures similar to Germany of the 1930s to completely unify medical theory and practice with politics.
Note the German reorganization of the medical profession required reporting cases of mental deviance. This should be a particular worry to US citizens, as mental health which is defined by government bureaucrats can easily become a tool for persecution. Do American citizens really want the government to be in charge of a vast medical bureaucracy which has the capacity to define and mandate "cures" for mental health problems? For make no mistake, the government will be in charge of mental as well as physical health.
Americans should take a lesson from USSR history, the second societal paradigm which offers instruction concerning universal care run by the state.
It is well documented that the universal Soviet health care system, which included psychiatrists devoted to curing mental health problems, turned out to be a useful tool in silencing political opponents. For decades, dissidents who opposed the communist regime were simply declared insane. As Sidney Block and Peter Raddaway write in Russia’s Political Hospitals: The use of Psychiatry in the Soviet Union: "The abuse of psychiatry...presents an Orwellian nightmare because the standard political or religious dogma is self-evidently correct, any dissent can only be a manifestation of mental disorder...Dissent is regarded as a symptom of madness, in many cases dissent is the only symptom of madness."
A former NKVD "chemist" cited in Kolyma Tales writes: "It is possible to quell the human will by injections, with pure pharmacology and chemistry, without any "physics such as breaking suspects’ ribs...The physicists and chemists-- these were the two schools of interrogation."
Alexander Solzhenitsyn commented on the above practices in 1970, protesting against the arrest and detention of Zhores Medvedev and Natalya Gorbanevskaya:
"Last Tuesday, a Moscow court found Natalya Gorbanevskaya, a young poetess prominent in the civil rights movement in the USSR, to be of unstable mind and committed her to an insane asylum for an undetermined period of time...If one does not think along the prescribed lines, they say, "You are not normal!" And compatibility means that everyone must think the same thing...Obliging, perjured psychiatrists characterize mental illness in the following manner: "concern for social problems, excessive vehemence or excessive indifference, too much ability or too little."
Anyone who has read some of the responses of the present administration to those who disagree with their political ideology will recognize the concerns of Solzhenitsyn should also be our concerns.
Solzhenitsyn concluded: "...the detention of free-thinking people in insane asylums is spiritual murder, is a variant of the gas-chambers and even more cruel: the torture of those who are being killed is worse and lasts longer."
Lest any reader be thinking such atrocities couldn’t happen here under a US universal government run mental health program, he/she should seriously consider the recent attacks on Francis Collins, the great Christian scientist whose towering work on the human genome project is considered suspect by far leftists merely because Collins is a Christian. Being a Christian is considered mental aberrance by some leftists such as Richard Dawkins. This unsustainable prejudice is very similar to the attacks on "Jewish" science during the Hitler regime. Jews, too, were considered mentally ill and inherently inferior because of their faith and supposedly irrevocably polluted racial makeup.
Further, the enactment of "hate crime" legislation is an invitation to the establishment of a mental health bureaucracy with powers to persecute those with different beliefs than the prevailing political ideology by declaring them mentally ill. It is no secret, for instance, that honest discussion of race problems within the US is impossible, as the term "racist" has become as ubiquitous and politically useful tool for silencing dissent as the terms "hooligan," "enemy of the people," and "rabble rouser" were in the former Soviet Union.
The above is to say nothing of the potential for the establishment of mental health monitors in the public school system. It is not out of the realm of legitimate concern to consdier just what bureuacracy might be established ot ensure our children are mentally "healthy:" that is, to ensure they and their parents toe the current idological line. It is not inconceiveable that Johnny and Mary might be encouraged to report on their parents' ideological abberations. Such things have happened before and can happen here.
Actually, no one has to limit him/herself to examples from the history of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. No one has to limit one's self to speculative scenarios in order to become alarmed at the proposed erasure of distinctions between the spheres of politics and medicine/science.
American history is rife with examples of miscarriages of justice due to the incorporation of junk science, particularly eugenics, into public policy, be those unjustifiable and unscientific theories touting inferior races, inheritable criminal tendencies, genetic determinism, survival of the fittest, craniology, biological destiny and a host of other theories amounting to sheer quackery.
Even our august judicial system has been guilty of endorsing junk scientific theories aimed at promoting the public "health."
One has only to consider the infamous case of "Buck vs. Bell," in which Oliver Wendell Holmes approved of the sterilization of a young woman deemed an imbecile (she wasn’t), writing in his one page decision supporting the state’s right to sterilize her:
"We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the state for these lesser sacrifices...Three generations of imbeciles is enough."
As Stephen Jay Gould points out in his classic The Mismeasure of Man, the law Holmes upheld remained in effect for forty-eight years.
It was overturned only because government and medical practice were not yet one unit. Protest from independent scientists and medical authorities as well as thoughtful citizens was still possible because of the tradition of independent hospitals and institutions devoted to scientific research and practice still relatively unsullied by government domination.
And that is the crux of the matter.
D..P. Agin, author of Junk Science writes that the main reason the eugenics movement Holmes supported had different results in Germany and the US is because the two countries had different governments in the years following World War I. If the US had become a dictatorship like Germany during the 1920s and 1930s; if medicne had been put completely under the aegis of government, "the programs advocated by American eugenicists might have–indeed probably would have–been implemented by an American government that had already incorporated many of the ideas of eugenics into government policies."
It is my belief that our present government is being radically and rapidly transformed into something formerly unthought of; namely, a completely socialist state with an all powerful executive branch. It certainly doesn’t look like the US government of the 1920s and 1930s, a government which had at least a braking effect on the eugenics movement; a government which still recognized the separate spheres of medicine and politics. As transforming as the decades of the 20's and 30's were, there still remained a fairly distinct separation between the practice of medicine, scientific research and that of politics.
The erasure of the remaining distinctions between medicine/science and politics is happening before our eyes with the proposed universal health care system; and, as noted in "The Corruption of science, PartI" in the appropriation of a dubious theory of "global Warming' into the poltical process. The resutl of the erasure of former barriers between government and medicine means the stellar accomplishments of American medical science and practice will be a thing of the past.
Miguel Faria sums it up well when he stated, "Whenever science and medicine have been subordinated to the state...the results have been as perverse as they have been disastrous."
The conclusion: Universal health care, with its accompanying bureaucratic nightmare and intrusion of political ideology and the effectuation of an ideological/political agenda intruding into and dictating the mores of medical science and practice must be resisted at all costs.
Fay Voshell
If Americans believe health care and medical science itself will not radically change under the Obama administration’s proposed health plan, they are deluded.
Lost in the current debate on universal health care is the fact that when the state runs medical care, political ideology rather than true science and individual conscience determines medical science and practice. When government becomes responsible for medical practice, the corruption of the medical community is inevitable. That is because medicine becomes an instrument of the government to achieve political goals, which are subject to the ideological vagaries of the moment rather than to the rigorous demands of the scientific method. Instead of orthodox science, pseudo-science, that perverted offspring of real science, finds a foothold in political circles. That is because pseudo-science is easily malleable, easily sold to the populace and easily distorted toward political ends. Just as bad, the hijacking of the medical professions means the entire medical system is subject to the demands and ends of the state.
For the above reasons, the acceptance of the American Medical Association of the Obama universal health care plan–to say nothing of the health care plan itself-- is grave cause for alarm, as it indicates a large part of the medical profession has accepted the re-casting of medical science and practice espoused by the far left political elite now running the US government. To put it bluntly, the entire medical profession is in immanent danger of being politicized and controlled by far left ideologues. The capitulation may have potentially horrific results not foreseen even by the Obama administration, the AMA; or, most importantly, by the American people.
For one thing, if the proposed health care plan passes with the blessing of the AMA, reorganization of the medical professions along leftist political lines can now safely proceed apace.
While examples selected from the Nazi and Soviet regimes may provoke "here we go again" reactions because so often cited, the both the Soviet and Nazi governmental paradigms still speak strongly to the dangers of medical care and medical science being pre-empted by politics. The fact of the matter is that what is presently occurring in the US as relates to medical practice is along the lines of the National Socialists’ agenda for medical practice in Germany of the 1930's.
As Michael Hayes notes in "Recasting the German Elites," Hitler achieved through his political lackey Gerhard Wagner a through reorganization of the medical profession via the German Health Insurance initiative, a universal plan which, when established in 1933, quickly absorbed the thousands of regional and local public and private insurance funds. By 1936 a new centralized Reich Physicians Chamber assured full Nazi control of the entire medical profession. The former self-regulated groups of physicians that were part of the medical conscience of Germany for decades were instantly out of business. The result was that the rigorous criticism necessary to the scientific method and the practice of medicine were erased.
Hayes writes that in addition to the Reich Physicians Chamber, a National Socialist Physicians’ League (NSAB) melded the medical profession under one governmental organization. So in addition to eliminating private medical insurance, Wagner sought to unify medical practice throughout the nation. Thus his ultimate goal was to destroy traditional, autonomous regional health care institutions as well as regional insurance funds..
The medical putsch under Wagner purged politically and racially undesirable doctors from insurance lists, and the Reich Physicians Ordinance of 1935 centralized German medicine for the first time in its history. Among other requirements it compelled all practicing physicians to join the RAK.
Once the reorganization of the German medical profession was achieved (by 1936), Wagner ordered doctors to report on mentally and physically handicapped patients in preparation for forced sterilization and euthanasia programs. Wagner also required doctors to attend medical extension seminars, which offered indoctrination courses in racial biology. Here in present day America, we can already see some of the directions the government might take. Czar Eric Holdren has written he favors forced abortion and teh adding of sterilizing agents to public water supplies in order to achieve population control. In addition, the conscience cluases protecting doctors from being forced to perfomr abortions are under severe attack.
How bad can things get when medicine and government are unified?
Very, very bad.
While most readers will be familiar with the atrocities of individual doctors such as Joseph Mengele, whose medical practices were approved by the Nazi regime, many will not know the extent the medical profession was involved in the extermination of Slavs and Jews during operation Barbarossa. The SS was peopled with doctors who considered the extermination of Slavs and Jews in the Soviet Union a medical necessity because Slavs and Jews polluted the human gene pool.
The reason for pointing out the involvement of German doctors in the einsatzgruppen campaigns aimed at eradicating certain undesirable populations is to point out how unbelievably corrupted medical "practice " can become when run by a state in the grip of an ideology captured by pseudo-science that furthers its political ends.
While matters in our own country certainly are not at the level reached by Germany until the end of World War II, all US citizens should be extremely wary as they watch the US medical profession, represented by the AMA, cooperating with and capitulating en masse--with very few exceptions--to leftist ideology demanding universal and uniform health care and health insurance.
Certainly as of this moment, endorsing the Obama universal health plan, almost certainly ensures procedures similar to Germany of the 1930s to completely unify medical theory and practice with politics.
Note the German reorganization of the medical profession required reporting cases of mental deviance. This should be a particular worry to US citizens, as mental health which is defined by government bureaucrats can easily become a tool for persecution. Do American citizens really want the government to be in charge of a vast medical bureaucracy which has the capacity to define and mandate "cures" for mental health problems? For make no mistake, the government will be in charge of mental as well as physical health.
Americans should take a lesson from USSR history, the second societal paradigm which offers instruction concerning universal care run by the state.
It is well documented that the universal Soviet health care system, which included psychiatrists devoted to curing mental health problems, turned out to be a useful tool in silencing political opponents. For decades, dissidents who opposed the communist regime were simply declared insane. As Sidney Block and Peter Raddaway write in Russia’s Political Hospitals: The use of Psychiatry in the Soviet Union: "The abuse of psychiatry...presents an Orwellian nightmare because the standard political or religious dogma is self-evidently correct, any dissent can only be a manifestation of mental disorder...Dissent is regarded as a symptom of madness, in many cases dissent is the only symptom of madness."
A former NKVD "chemist" cited in Kolyma Tales writes: "It is possible to quell the human will by injections, with pure pharmacology and chemistry, without any "physics such as breaking suspects’ ribs...The physicists and chemists-- these were the two schools of interrogation."
Alexander Solzhenitsyn commented on the above practices in 1970, protesting against the arrest and detention of Zhores Medvedev and Natalya Gorbanevskaya:
"Last Tuesday, a Moscow court found Natalya Gorbanevskaya, a young poetess prominent in the civil rights movement in the USSR, to be of unstable mind and committed her to an insane asylum for an undetermined period of time...If one does not think along the prescribed lines, they say, "You are not normal!" And compatibility means that everyone must think the same thing...Obliging, perjured psychiatrists characterize mental illness in the following manner: "concern for social problems, excessive vehemence or excessive indifference, too much ability or too little."
Anyone who has read some of the responses of the present administration to those who disagree with their political ideology will recognize the concerns of Solzhenitsyn should also be our concerns.
Solzhenitsyn concluded: "...the detention of free-thinking people in insane asylums is spiritual murder, is a variant of the gas-chambers and even more cruel: the torture of those who are being killed is worse and lasts longer."
Lest any reader be thinking such atrocities couldn’t happen here under a US universal government run mental health program, he/she should seriously consider the recent attacks on Francis Collins, the great Christian scientist whose towering work on the human genome project is considered suspect by far leftists merely because Collins is a Christian. Being a Christian is considered mental aberrance by some leftists such as Richard Dawkins. This unsustainable prejudice is very similar to the attacks on "Jewish" science during the Hitler regime. Jews, too, were considered mentally ill and inherently inferior because of their faith and supposedly irrevocably polluted racial makeup.
Further, the enactment of "hate crime" legislation is an invitation to the establishment of a mental health bureaucracy with powers to persecute those with different beliefs than the prevailing political ideology by declaring them mentally ill. It is no secret, for instance, that honest discussion of race problems within the US is impossible, as the term "racist" has become as ubiquitous and politically useful tool for silencing dissent as the terms "hooligan," "enemy of the people," and "rabble rouser" were in the former Soviet Union.
The above is to say nothing of the potential for the establishment of mental health monitors in the public school system. It is not out of the realm of legitimate concern to consdier just what bureuacracy might be established ot ensure our children are mentally "healthy:" that is, to ensure they and their parents toe the current idological line. It is not inconceiveable that Johnny and Mary might be encouraged to report on their parents' ideological abberations. Such things have happened before and can happen here.
Actually, no one has to limit him/herself to examples from the history of Nazi Germany or Soviet Russia. No one has to limit one's self to speculative scenarios in order to become alarmed at the proposed erasure of distinctions between the spheres of politics and medicine/science.
American history is rife with examples of miscarriages of justice due to the incorporation of junk science, particularly eugenics, into public policy, be those unjustifiable and unscientific theories touting inferior races, inheritable criminal tendencies, genetic determinism, survival of the fittest, craniology, biological destiny and a host of other theories amounting to sheer quackery.
Even our august judicial system has been guilty of endorsing junk scientific theories aimed at promoting the public "health."
One has only to consider the infamous case of "Buck vs. Bell," in which Oliver Wendell Holmes approved of the sterilization of a young woman deemed an imbecile (she wasn’t), writing in his one page decision supporting the state’s right to sterilize her:
"We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the state for these lesser sacrifices...Three generations of imbeciles is enough."
As Stephen Jay Gould points out in his classic The Mismeasure of Man, the law Holmes upheld remained in effect for forty-eight years.
It was overturned only because government and medical practice were not yet one unit. Protest from independent scientists and medical authorities as well as thoughtful citizens was still possible because of the tradition of independent hospitals and institutions devoted to scientific research and practice still relatively unsullied by government domination.
And that is the crux of the matter.
D..P. Agin, author of Junk Science writes that the main reason the eugenics movement Holmes supported had different results in Germany and the US is because the two countries had different governments in the years following World War I. If the US had become a dictatorship like Germany during the 1920s and 1930s; if medicne had been put completely under the aegis of government, "the programs advocated by American eugenicists might have–indeed probably would have–been implemented by an American government that had already incorporated many of the ideas of eugenics into government policies."
It is my belief that our present government is being radically and rapidly transformed into something formerly unthought of; namely, a completely socialist state with an all powerful executive branch. It certainly doesn’t look like the US government of the 1920s and 1930s, a government which had at least a braking effect on the eugenics movement; a government which still recognized the separate spheres of medicine and politics. As transforming as the decades of the 20's and 30's were, there still remained a fairly distinct separation between the practice of medicine, scientific research and that of politics.
The erasure of the remaining distinctions between medicine/science and politics is happening before our eyes with the proposed universal health care system; and, as noted in "The Corruption of science, PartI" in the appropriation of a dubious theory of "global Warming' into the poltical process. The resutl of the erasure of former barriers between government and medicine means the stellar accomplishments of American medical science and practice will be a thing of the past.
Miguel Faria sums it up well when he stated, "Whenever science and medicine have been subordinated to the state...the results have been as perverse as they have been disastrous."
The conclusion: Universal health care, with its accompanying bureaucratic nightmare and intrusion of political ideology and the effectuation of an ideological/political agenda intruding into and dictating the mores of medical science and practice must be resisted at all costs.
Fay Voshell
Tuesday, January 5, 2010
The Corruption of Science
It’s an historical certainty that once a particular paradigm of truth–an accepted model of thinking about what is true and what is false--is accepted without much question by the general public, it will be appropriated by ideologues and used to delude and to abuse a credulous people.
Examples of paradigms of truth used by leaders to deceive and to control society abound, but only two will be noted; one from Renaissance times and one from our own time.
In the very late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the Roman Catholic church reigned supreme. It permeated the religious and political reality of European culture. Many benefits flowed from the power of the church and from its institutions. However, as its power over the lives of European Christians became almost complete, as powerful institutions of any stripe tend to do when absolutely powerful, the church descended into disastrous corruption. The rot within the church eventually to the Protestant Reformation.
By the time of the Reformation, papal taxes and regulations overburdened burdened a groaning populace. One of the most devious means of getting money from the poor and credulous was the papal issuance of indulgences in order to get money for the building of St. Peter’s church in Rome. Indulgences were held out as a means fo delivering one’s deceased family members from purgatory.
Redemption was for sale.
The most famous purveyor of indulgences was Johannes Tetzel, a salesman of forgiveness who was given a papal commission to sell indulgences in Germany. He is everlastingly known for his little rhyming couplet "As soon as a coin in the coffer rings/ the soul from purgatory springs."
Tetzel and other representatives of the Catholic church used its adherents’ faith, devotion and trust to fleece credulous believers of money for the pope’s building project.
How could the public have been so deceived? The answer to that question is that most believed the church and the pope were trustworthy conveyors of truth. They did not question, but believed; and the leadership of the church cooperated in plundering belief, relying on its control of people of faith.
Dostoevsky points out the problem, still extant in Russia of his day, in the "Grand Inquisitor" speech, in which the grand Inquisitor questions Jesus Christ’s return, perceiving the Messiah’s appearance would upset the status quo by threatening the autonomy and control of the church. The inquisitor states that people allowed the church to take over their freedom because it was easier and more comfortable than to go through the difficult process of attaining true freedom. They handed over faith and trust to the formulaic control of the church.
The tendency of the faithful to hand over issues of truth to the control to the church may have been eroded over the last century and a half, but the actual tendency to blindly believe has not been vitiated.
What has changed is the paradigm of truth.
In our own times, the discipline most representative of truth is science. To say something is "scientific" is to say it is true. The scientific paradigm has replaced religion in many folks’ minds as the most credible belief system.
The unarguable successes of the scientific revolution have fortified and buttressed faith in science and in the scientific method. Of course, the faith in science extends to scientists themselves. They are held up to admiration and receive the respect priests once automatically enjoyed.
But time and again this powerful and productive paradigm which has blessed so many with incredible advances in technology, medicine and other fields has been appropriated, as was the faith and trust of Christians of old, by the unscrupulous for nefarious and often fatal ends.
Those familiar with the history of the West know the racial theories of Nazism and the economic theories of Marxism were both considered "scientific" and therefore unarguable. Human carnage was the result. Percentage wise, more people died because of "scientific" racial and economic theories than ever perished under the banner of religion.
While many scientists in the West largely upheld the integrity of the scientific method and its application, particularly that of the "hard" science of physics; the "free" nations of the West, such s Britain and the United States, were also susceptible to less deadly but equally erroneous nostrums. For example, phrenology and eugenics postured as science while the fields of biology, psychiatry and sociology suffered from the theories and postulates of "scientists" who were no more than heretical kooks but who found refuge under the aegis of science in general. The "soft" sciences suffered most, as hard and irrefutable data proved to be difficult to gather. Whole fields of study became weedy variants and corrupt offshoots of true science.
All along, in spite of the heresies abounding in the "soft" sciences, the "hard" sciences flourished, seemingly impervious to the corruption of the scientific method.
But ironically, it would be physics, the Queen of the sciences, which ushered in the most deleterious paradigm shift, a shift that would affect all of Western civilization. It would be the misappropriation and misapplication of the theory of relativity as put forth by Albert Einstein that would bring the Judeo/Christian moral consensus of the entire West to its knees.
It was said of Mrs. Einstein, when asked by a reporter if she understood her husband’s theory of relativity that she replied, "Oh, no, my dear. I only know how to make his cup of tea."
Likewise, this author does not pretend to understand the intricacies of Einstein’s discoveries.
What is understood is that his postulate that two frames of reference are equally valid in describing the world, that time itself is relative and that the way one sees things is a matter of which point of view you take.
The popularization of Einstein’s observations concerning time and space and the speed of light trickled down and were understood by the general public to apply in areas in which they held no authority other than in the popular imagination, which took hold of the idea that "Everything is relative," including morality.
The results of the misapplication of Einstein’s theory of relativity continue to play out in the West’s societal structures in ways that can only be described as catastrophic. One such catastrophe has been the corruption and general disregard of mores based on the Judeo/Christian concept of an overarching, transcendent morality that informs all personal and societal behavior.
What was originally a novel misunderstanding of Einstein’s theory that promised personal "freedom" from morality become over a century’s time, an entrenched mind set that resulted in philosophical constructs which permeated all of society and most societal institutions, including the church.
Such constructs include radical multi-culturalism, the basic premise of which is that no one cultural construct is better than another. The conclusion is that Western mores and Western exceptionalism are no better than the societal constructs of a lost tribe in the Amazon, regardless of whether that particular tribe or cultural entity practices things morally abhorrent to Westerners. The tribe is its own judge and no outside viewpoint has validity. No judgement is desirable or even possible, as morality and excellence are relative concepts and purely dependent on the viewpoint of the person immersed in a particular culture.
The concept of relativity is also behind the current rage for political correctness. As standards of morality and behavior differ markedly, and no judgement is possible in a relative world, no overarching moral standards may applied to any person or any subculture.
Of course, the ultimate playing out of relativism is moral and societal anarchy which will eventually crush into irrelevancy the scientific paradigm itself, including the integrity of the theory of relativity. That is because, as we have seen above, the scientific paradigm and the scientific method depends on a rigorous morality. It depends on truth telling, on relentless comparisons of data and observations and on the integrity of scientists themselves. Once the integrity is gone, all that is left is pseudo science which is used to buttress ideology and to service sheer power.
We have an example of such corruption in the present scandal concerning global warming. The outlines of the scandal are available in countless articles, and will not be reviewed here.
However, it should be pointed out that the theory of relativity misapplied to morality has come full circle to bite a the relatively "hard" science of climate study, which is dependent on the hard data of temperature measurements. It is clear from the purloined emails that hard data was distorted to produce the results desired to bolster the claims that climate change is manmade.
In brief, the truth claims of the scientific method and of science itself were sacrificed to political expediency and used to delude a credulous and trusting public as surely as the sale of indulgences was used to extract monies from the trusting faithful of the church.
One can scarcely overstate the catastrophic effects of the discovery that the scientific method was deliberately sacrificed and perverted in order to satisfy transient political ends which included the the extraction of Western wealth in order that the world order ostensibly be made more equitable.
Once science is subjected to purely political ends, it is no longer science, and even more importantly, it is no longer worthy of trust.
That the August paradigm of Western science, particularly as practiced by the free nations of Britain and the U.S., both of which have contributed so much truth about our world and universe, would be brought to such a pass would have been virtually unthinkable even a few decades ago.
As the magnitude of this moral catastrophe continues to unfold, the re-examination of the bases of science and the scientific method must begin now. What makes science truly science; what makes it a truthful paradigm worthy of respect and trust must be established anew in order the public not be ensnared either by their own blind credulity or the charlatanism of scientists parading as truth tellers while all the while they practice in secret a corrupting deception.
A start in the right direction would be the repudiation of moral relativity and a return to acknowledgment and practice of the morality which transcends and informs all human discourse and all societal orders, including those institutions devoted to the pursuit of scientific endeavors..
–Fay Voshell
Examples of paradigms of truth used by leaders to deceive and to control society abound, but only two will be noted; one from Renaissance times and one from our own time.
In the very late Middle Ages and early Renaissance, the Roman Catholic church reigned supreme. It permeated the religious and political reality of European culture. Many benefits flowed from the power of the church and from its institutions. However, as its power over the lives of European Christians became almost complete, as powerful institutions of any stripe tend to do when absolutely powerful, the church descended into disastrous corruption. The rot within the church eventually to the Protestant Reformation.
By the time of the Reformation, papal taxes and regulations overburdened burdened a groaning populace. One of the most devious means of getting money from the poor and credulous was the papal issuance of indulgences in order to get money for the building of St. Peter’s church in Rome. Indulgences were held out as a means fo delivering one’s deceased family members from purgatory.
Redemption was for sale.
The most famous purveyor of indulgences was Johannes Tetzel, a salesman of forgiveness who was given a papal commission to sell indulgences in Germany. He is everlastingly known for his little rhyming couplet "As soon as a coin in the coffer rings/ the soul from purgatory springs."
Tetzel and other representatives of the Catholic church used its adherents’ faith, devotion and trust to fleece credulous believers of money for the pope’s building project.
How could the public have been so deceived? The answer to that question is that most believed the church and the pope were trustworthy conveyors of truth. They did not question, but believed; and the leadership of the church cooperated in plundering belief, relying on its control of people of faith.
Dostoevsky points out the problem, still extant in Russia of his day, in the "Grand Inquisitor" speech, in which the grand Inquisitor questions Jesus Christ’s return, perceiving the Messiah’s appearance would upset the status quo by threatening the autonomy and control of the church. The inquisitor states that people allowed the church to take over their freedom because it was easier and more comfortable than to go through the difficult process of attaining true freedom. They handed over faith and trust to the formulaic control of the church.
The tendency of the faithful to hand over issues of truth to the control to the church may have been eroded over the last century and a half, but the actual tendency to blindly believe has not been vitiated.
What has changed is the paradigm of truth.
In our own times, the discipline most representative of truth is science. To say something is "scientific" is to say it is true. The scientific paradigm has replaced religion in many folks’ minds as the most credible belief system.
The unarguable successes of the scientific revolution have fortified and buttressed faith in science and in the scientific method. Of course, the faith in science extends to scientists themselves. They are held up to admiration and receive the respect priests once automatically enjoyed.
But time and again this powerful and productive paradigm which has blessed so many with incredible advances in technology, medicine and other fields has been appropriated, as was the faith and trust of Christians of old, by the unscrupulous for nefarious and often fatal ends.
Those familiar with the history of the West know the racial theories of Nazism and the economic theories of Marxism were both considered "scientific" and therefore unarguable. Human carnage was the result. Percentage wise, more people died because of "scientific" racial and economic theories than ever perished under the banner of religion.
While many scientists in the West largely upheld the integrity of the scientific method and its application, particularly that of the "hard" science of physics; the "free" nations of the West, such s Britain and the United States, were also susceptible to less deadly but equally erroneous nostrums. For example, phrenology and eugenics postured as science while the fields of biology, psychiatry and sociology suffered from the theories and postulates of "scientists" who were no more than heretical kooks but who found refuge under the aegis of science in general. The "soft" sciences suffered most, as hard and irrefutable data proved to be difficult to gather. Whole fields of study became weedy variants and corrupt offshoots of true science.
All along, in spite of the heresies abounding in the "soft" sciences, the "hard" sciences flourished, seemingly impervious to the corruption of the scientific method.
But ironically, it would be physics, the Queen of the sciences, which ushered in the most deleterious paradigm shift, a shift that would affect all of Western civilization. It would be the misappropriation and misapplication of the theory of relativity as put forth by Albert Einstein that would bring the Judeo/Christian moral consensus of the entire West to its knees.
It was said of Mrs. Einstein, when asked by a reporter if she understood her husband’s theory of relativity that she replied, "Oh, no, my dear. I only know how to make his cup of tea."
Likewise, this author does not pretend to understand the intricacies of Einstein’s discoveries.
What is understood is that his postulate that two frames of reference are equally valid in describing the world, that time itself is relative and that the way one sees things is a matter of which point of view you take.
The popularization of Einstein’s observations concerning time and space and the speed of light trickled down and were understood by the general public to apply in areas in which they held no authority other than in the popular imagination, which took hold of the idea that "Everything is relative," including morality.
The results of the misapplication of Einstein’s theory of relativity continue to play out in the West’s societal structures in ways that can only be described as catastrophic. One such catastrophe has been the corruption and general disregard of mores based on the Judeo/Christian concept of an overarching, transcendent morality that informs all personal and societal behavior.
What was originally a novel misunderstanding of Einstein’s theory that promised personal "freedom" from morality become over a century’s time, an entrenched mind set that resulted in philosophical constructs which permeated all of society and most societal institutions, including the church.
Such constructs include radical multi-culturalism, the basic premise of which is that no one cultural construct is better than another. The conclusion is that Western mores and Western exceptionalism are no better than the societal constructs of a lost tribe in the Amazon, regardless of whether that particular tribe or cultural entity practices things morally abhorrent to Westerners. The tribe is its own judge and no outside viewpoint has validity. No judgement is desirable or even possible, as morality and excellence are relative concepts and purely dependent on the viewpoint of the person immersed in a particular culture.
The concept of relativity is also behind the current rage for political correctness. As standards of morality and behavior differ markedly, and no judgement is possible in a relative world, no overarching moral standards may applied to any person or any subculture.
Of course, the ultimate playing out of relativism is moral and societal anarchy which will eventually crush into irrelevancy the scientific paradigm itself, including the integrity of the theory of relativity. That is because, as we have seen above, the scientific paradigm and the scientific method depends on a rigorous morality. It depends on truth telling, on relentless comparisons of data and observations and on the integrity of scientists themselves. Once the integrity is gone, all that is left is pseudo science which is used to buttress ideology and to service sheer power.
We have an example of such corruption in the present scandal concerning global warming. The outlines of the scandal are available in countless articles, and will not be reviewed here.
However, it should be pointed out that the theory of relativity misapplied to morality has come full circle to bite a the relatively "hard" science of climate study, which is dependent on the hard data of temperature measurements. It is clear from the purloined emails that hard data was distorted to produce the results desired to bolster the claims that climate change is manmade.
In brief, the truth claims of the scientific method and of science itself were sacrificed to political expediency and used to delude a credulous and trusting public as surely as the sale of indulgences was used to extract monies from the trusting faithful of the church.
One can scarcely overstate the catastrophic effects of the discovery that the scientific method was deliberately sacrificed and perverted in order to satisfy transient political ends which included the the extraction of Western wealth in order that the world order ostensibly be made more equitable.
Once science is subjected to purely political ends, it is no longer science, and even more importantly, it is no longer worthy of trust.
That the August paradigm of Western science, particularly as practiced by the free nations of Britain and the U.S., both of which have contributed so much truth about our world and universe, would be brought to such a pass would have been virtually unthinkable even a few decades ago.
As the magnitude of this moral catastrophe continues to unfold, the re-examination of the bases of science and the scientific method must begin now. What makes science truly science; what makes it a truthful paradigm worthy of respect and trust must be established anew in order the public not be ensnared either by their own blind credulity or the charlatanism of scientists parading as truth tellers while all the while they practice in secret a corrupting deception.
A start in the right direction would be the repudiation of moral relativity and a return to acknowledgment and practice of the morality which transcends and informs all human discourse and all societal orders, including those institutions devoted to the pursuit of scientific endeavors..
–Fay Voshell
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