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What Must We Do When the Foundations Are Being Destroyed?

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The twentieth century was drenched in blood. Totalitarian governments cruelly slaughtered over 100 million people and consigned tens of millions more to the camps, where their bodies were broken and their spirits crushed. As the years dragged by in that most miserable of centuries, time and again the world convulsed in the grip of a malignant evil that was unprecedented in its scope and brutality.

Yet, for all its horror, as the century came to a close there were reasons for hope and even optimism. Memories of the Nazi horror were fading. The Soviet Union had collapsed not, as many had feared, in a paroxysm of fire and blood, but with a whimper. In China, Deng Xiaoping unleashed the power of free markets to set his country on a path of stunning economic growth that lifted hundreds of millions out of poverty, and in the West, it was almost universally believed that political freedom would inevitably follow in the wake of this new economic freedom.

Those were heady times. Who can forget Francis Fukuyama’s famous announcement that the world was on the cusp of the “end of history” and the “universalization of Western liberal democracy”? Fukuyama was wrong, of course, and a mere 30 years later, the totalitarian impulse he believed vanquished has reasserted itself with a vengeance. The euphoria of the 90s has been replaced in this century by a simmering miasma of fear and dread. No one believes we are on the verge of a time of peace and prosperity. Instead, there is a widespread sense that the great evil is stirring again, and the world seems to be teetering on the edge of an abyss of madness and destruction.

The resurgence of authoritarianism was demonstrated with startling clarity a few months ago at the UC Hastings Law School. Professor Ilya Shapiro was invited to speak on campus, and on the night of the lecture, dozens of students showed up to disrupt the event. When Shapiro tried to speak, the students screamed and banged on the tables. After enduring this for nearly an hour with no help from the university dean standing in the room, Shapiro gave up and left. More shocking still, UC Hastings Professor Rory Little who was also in the room endorsed and encouraged the students’ actions. This is not an isolated event. We now routinely hear about students at our elite universities shouting down speakers while school officials stand by and do nothing or, worse, actively encourage them.

Some might argue we have nothing to fear from mere college students. If so, they have forgotten their history. Mao’s Red Guard – his shock troops in the Cultural Revolution – consisted mostly of young people who were led by students from China’s elite universities. Millions died. Never underestimate the power of energized youth to wreak havoc.

Still, if the authoritarian contagion were limited to college campuses, I might be more optimistic about our prospects. But it is not. Campus authoritarians are part of a wider resurgence of the authoritarian impulse in our culture. For the first time in American history, an administration is legally persecuting the prior administration. Who thought taking us down the road to banana republic status was a good idea? That same administration took the nation’s first fitful steps at establishing a Ministry of Propaganda.1 People are being hounded from their jobs for refusing to celebrate the radical transgender agenda. Cancel culture reflects the authoritarian desire to silence opposition. Antifa and BLM thugs riot and burn while ruling progressives tell police to stand down.

All of this is chilling because we are not writing on a blank slate. If the twentieth century taught us anything, it is that from small sparks such as these, an all-consuming authoritarian conflagration can be ignited seemingly overnight. In the 1920s, the Brown Shirts showed up at their opponents’ meetings and shouted them down. A few short years later, they were rounding their opponents up, and those not murdered outright were put in camps. In the 2020s wild-eyed barbarians burn cities and silence anyone who tries to stand up to them. Who is to say what the future holds? History has shown it is but a short step from stamping out a man’s voice to stamping out his freedom, or his life.  

In 1935 archeologists digging in the ruins of the city of Lachish found a piece of clay with a message written on it 2,500 years earlier when the Babylonian army was rampaging through the land of Judah. An official from a town near Lachish ominously warned his superior that he could no longer see the signal fires from the town of Azeqah. I feel a certain affinity with that ancient official. He surely knew the situation was dire and was probably going to get worse. But so long as he could see the signal fire in Azeqah, he could cling to hope. Day after day, night after night, he looked out from his watchtower, saw that signal, and knew he had time. Then one night he looked, and the fire was gone. How his heart must have fluttered at that moment when he realized his way of life, if not his life itself, was soon to end. And end it did. The message was found in the pile of ash that was left when the city burned.

Hemingway wrote of a man who went bankrupt, and when asked how it happened, he replied, “gradually and then suddenly.” The West has been in the gradual phase of its collapse for several decades. When I see rampant authoritarianism and thuggery running through our culture, sometimes abetted by those charged with protecting the vulnerable, I wonder how far off the sudden part can be. Thankfully, I still see the signal fire from Azeqah. People of goodwill are putting up a stiff resistance, but I must confess that I am afraid. When our cities are put to flame and our institutions are overrun by barbarians, I am reminded of lines from Yeats’ most famous poem which seem to have been pulled from today’s headlines:

Things fall apart; the center cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

The Prophet Hosea declared that his people are destroyed for lack of knowledge. My purpose in writing this article is to hopefully equip the people who are resisting the tyranny with knowledge about how we came to be in this place in history, expose the tactics of our adversaries, and suggest strategies for resisting the evil that has descended upon us.

Men Have Forgotten God

What is the cause of the rise of the new authoritarianism? The answer lies in Tocqueville’s observation that there is hardly any human action that does not originate in some general idea men have conceived about God.2 Such ideas, he wrote, are “the common spring from which everything else emanates.”3 More recently, it has often been noted that politics is downstream from culture which is downstream from religion. This can be shortened to “politics is downstream from religion.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn knew this all too well. In his 1983 speech accepting the Templeton Prize, Solzhenitsyn recalled hearing as a child, older people explaining the great disasters that had befallen Russia with the observation “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” Solzhenitsyn continued:

Since then I have spent well-nigh 50 years working on the history of our Revolution; in the process I have read hundreds of books, collected hundreds of personal testimonies, and have already contributed eight volumes of my own toward the effort of clearing away the rubble left by that upheaval. But if I were asked today to formulate as concisely as possible the main cause of the ruinous Revolution that swallowed up some 60 million of our people, I could not put it more accurately than to repeat: ‘Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.’

Lenin declared that “Marxism is materialism. As such, it is relentlessly hostile to religion.”4 In the decades that followed, the Soviet government he founded murdered 60 million people. That is not a coincidence. What does a law student shouting down a speaker have in common with Lenin? They are both thoroughly convinced materialists.5 The overwhelming majority of the intellectual elites in our county (and the world) are thoroughgoing materialists. Our universities, our legal institutions, the media, and just about every other institution in our country are now dominated by people who take materialism for granted. For them, it is hardly even a philosophical theory; it is a settled fact known for certain by all intelligent people.

This should chill you to the core, because, as Stalin and Mao demonstrated with the blood of millions, there is an undeniable link between materialism and the authoritarian impulse. To understand why requires an understanding of what materialism teaches about the human condition. Let us begin by reciting what could be the materialist creed:

In the beginning were the particles, and the particles were in motion, and in the entire universe there is and never has been and never will be anything other than the particles.

Materialism is an anti-god and Carl Sagan is its prophet: “The Cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be.”

If this is true, certain conclusions inevitably follow. The first of these is that humans are not, in essence, different from non-living things. The standard model of cosmology posits that the universe began in an infinitely hot dense singularity that began expanding with the “big bang.” As the universe expanded, gravity pulled lighter elements together to form stars, and in the nuclear furnaces at the center of those stars heavier elements were fused. Eventually, some of those stars burned out, leaving the heavier elements behind.  Planets were formed from these heavier elements, and eons later on one of those planets a simple single celled living organism somehow spontaneously arose from non-living matter. The descendants of that first simple cell evolved into more and more complex living things until, at last, a species of clever hairless apes arose. Those hairless apes call themselves “humans.”

Many of those humans believe they are special because they have an immaterial spirit, but the materialist says they are wrong. He insists that like everything else in the cosmos, humans consist only of the particles that make up their bodies. Ultimately, like everything else, a human is nothing but an amalgamation of burnt-out star dust.6

What about consciousness (i.e., the state of being self-aware) and free will? Surely even a materialist will concede that these attributes set humans apart from mere particles in motion. Not so says the materialist. The second conclusion compelled by his premises is that “mental” is not a separate category from “physical.” This means that when a person perceives his own consciousness, what he is perceiving can be explained solely by the electro-chemical processes of his physical brain. Everything about us, including our sense of having an inner self and free will, is caused by those purely physical processes. Particles are not aware, and they do not choose.

Materialists do not deny that everyone feels they are conscious, but as famous atheist Sam Harris explains, a person’s experience that he is “an autonomous individual with a coherent identity and sense of free will” is an illusion. Harris’ statement is the ultimate counterintuitive conclusion. But, to his credit, Harris does not run from the conclusions compelled by his materialist premises. He admits that he feels self-awareness like everyone else, but he insists that feeling is a trick played on him by the burnt-out star dust that makes up his physical body.

What about morality? Surely that sets us apart from the rocks. No, replies the materialist, it does not. The third conclusion that follows inevitably from materialist premises is that objective morality cannot exist. Have you ever met an immoral rock? Your body is nothing but burnt-out star dust, and dust is neither good nor bad. It just is. Richard Dawkins assures us that in a universe of blind physical forces, “there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil, no good, nothing but pitiless indifference.” Of course, every sane person feels strongly that some things are “right” and some things are “wrong.” Again, materialists do not deny that strong moral feelings exist. But, as with consciousness and free will, they insist that anyone who believes that those feelings point to something real beyond physical brain processes is deluded. Morality, like everything else, is the product of blind, purposeless material processes. The moral feelings a person has are an evolutionary holdover, like their appendix. A person has an appendix because at some point in evolutionary history it somehow gave his ancestors a reproductive advantage. He has a strong moral feeling that torturing kittens is wrong for the same reason.

At this point you might think I am exaggerating what materialism teaches. I assure you I am not, and to demonstrate this I will allow arch-materialist William Provine to sum up the materialist worldview. He wrote: “Humans are complex organic machines that die completely with no survival of soul . . . [Their choices] are determined by the interaction of heredity and environment and are not the result of free will. No inherent moral or ethical laws exist, nor are there absolute guiding principles for human society. The universe cares nothing for us and we have no ultimate meaning in life.”7

Stalin believed the road to his collectivist utopia would need to be paved with the corpses of the kulaks, and so he ordered the “liquidation of kulaks as a class.” Millions were slaughtered. History teaches us that authoritarian leftist utopians like Stalin and Mao never hesitate to order murder on an industrial scale when it suits their purposes. How can any sane person command the liquidation of millions with such breathtakingly insouciant disregard for human life? The point of the discussion so far has been to lay a foundation for answering that question. And the answer is simply this: Stalin and Mao were committed materialists who took their materialism seriously. Materialist beliefs, taken to their logical extreme, have consequences, some of which I explained in an article titled Psychopath As Übermensch Or Nietzsche At Columbine8

Let us assume for the sake of argument that metaphysical naturalism is a true account of reality.  What if a person were able to act based on a clear-eyed and unsentimental understanding of the consequences outlined above?  If that person had the courage not to be overwhelmed by the utter meaningless of existence, he would be transformed. He would be bold, self-confident, assertive, uninhibited, and unrestrained.  He would consider empathy to be nothing but weak-kneed sentimentality.  To him others would not be ends; they would be objects to be exploited for his own gratification.  He would not mind being called cruel, because he would know that “cruelty” is an empty category, the product of mere sentiment.  Is the lion being cruel to the gazelle?  No, he is merely doing what lions naturally do to gazelles.  In short, he would be what we call a psychopath.

Materialism taken to its logical end effectively turned Stalin and Mao into psychopaths. That is why millions died at their hands. Think about that the next time you see a video of rampaging wild-eyed social justice warriors. Is it so hard to believe that given their passionate hatred for everyone who refuses to toe the DEI line, they would be tempted by a similar impulse?

The “Universal Acid” of Materialist Philosophy

It is impossible to overestimate how radically transformative materialist ideas are if one follows them through to their logical entailments. If it is true that in the entire universe nothing exists but particles in motion, all traditional ideas about practically everything are overthrown. Vocal atheist academic Daniel Dennett puts it this way: Materialism is a “universal acid” that “eats through just about every traditional concept, and leaves in its wake a revolutionized worldview, with most of the old landmarks still recognizable, but transformed in fundamental ways . . .”9 Many volumes could be written about how this Universal Acid has corroded the ideas and institutions of Western civilization, leaving a hollowed-out teetering shack where once stood a magnificent edifice. For my present purposes, I will limit the discussion to what happens when the Universal Acid of materialism is poured on our laws and politics.

            The Declaration of Independence

The basic principles on which the United States was founded are set forth in the preamble to the Declaration of Independence, which famously states:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

For nearly 200 years after the American Founding, it was almost universally recognized that the American form of government rests on two self-evident transcendent truths: (1) All men are created equal. (2) The Creator has endowed all men with certain rights. But the rise of materialism among our intellectual elite in the last several decades has undermined that consensus. Under the materialism they take for granted, Jefferson’s propositions are not self-evidently true. Indeed, they are self-evidently false. If the universe is a closed system of natural causes, there is no room for a creator who creates men with equal moral status and endows them with rights.

Where do universal rights come from if not from God? For the materialist, they come from nowhere because they simply do not exist. Instead, what we all “rights” are privileges rulers extend to those they rule, and those privileges can be revoked at any time. To be sure, materialists talk about rights all the time. But it is important to keep in mind that materialists often use the same words the rest of us use while meaning vastly different things. For example, when I say, “murder is evil,” I mean that the act of murder transgresses a transcendent unchangeable objective moral law woven by God into the very warp and woof of the universe. When a materialist says, “murder is evil,” he means his evolutionary programing has caused him to have strong feelings of revulsion by the act of murder.

Suppose a materialist were asked on what basis his subjective revulsion to murder is superior to the Nazi’s subjective preference in favor of murder in some instances? The materialist has no answer, because his principles preclude him from acknowledging the existence of an objective moral code by which to judge between his preferences and the Nazi’s. “Holocausts are not my cup of tea,” the materialist says, “but I cannot explain to you why my tea preferences are superior to a national socialist’s.”

So what do materialists mean when they engage in “rights” talk? Political scientists often say rights are correlative of duties. This means that for any right there is a corresponding moral duty to respect that right. “I have a right to life” is another way of saying “You have a duty not to murder me.” Your right to free speech implies my moral duty not to silence you. But as we have seen, under materialism, moral duties are not objectively real. They are strong feelings caused by evolutionary programing. And these feelings can be discarded where they do not serve the materialist’s purposes.

The materialist says there are no universal moral principles guiding our relations in society. It follows from this premises that the Declaration is wrong when it insists that self-evident universal rights exist. This is why a progressive can assert mutually contradictory positions regarding rights without a hint of irony. For example, not long ago, progressives were the great champions of the right to freedom of expression. Now, howling progressive barbarians try to stifle all dissenting speech. For a progressive, this is not a contradiction. When they were not in charge, they championed freedom. Now that they have power, they crush their opponents. They never regarded freedom of expression as a universal principle to be upheld for its own sake. It is a tool to be used in the power game, and when that tool has served its purpose, it is put on the shelf like a wrench after the bolt is tightened. All that matters ultimately is to have and wield power.

The Declaration derives its logical force from the fundamentally Christian idea of the equality of all persons as image bearers of God. Dennett’s Universal Acid has chewed through this concept as well, and I hope you will pardon a lengthy quotation as we watch atheist Yuval Noah Harari pour on the acid in his international bestseller Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind:

[T]he American Founding Fathers . . . imagined a reality governed by universal and immutable principles of justice, such as equality or hierarchy. Yet the only place where such universal principles exist is in the fertile imagination of Sapiens, and in the myths they invent and tell one another. These principles have no objective validity.

It is easy for us to accept that the division of people into ‘superiors’ and ‘commoners’ is a figment of the imagination. Yet the idea that all humans are equal is also a myth. In what sense do all humans equal one another? Is there any objective reality, outside the human imagination, in which we are truly equal? . . .

According to the science of biology, people were not ‘created’. They have evolved. And they certainly did not evolve to be ‘equal’. The idea of equality is inextricably intertwined with the idea of creation. The Americans got the idea of equality from Christianity, which argues that every person has a divinely created soul, and that all souls are equal before God. However, if we do not believe in the Christian myths about God, creation and souls, what does it mean that all people are ‘equal’? Evolution is based on difference, not on equality. Every person carries a somewhat different genetic code, and is exposed from birth to different environmental influences. This leads to the development of different qualities that carry with them different chances of survival. ‘Created equal’ should therefore be translated into ‘evolved differently’.

Just as people were never created, neither, according to the science of biology, is there a ‘Creator’ who ‘endows’ them with anything. There is only a blind evolutionary process, devoid of any purpose, leading to the birth of individuals.

Harari’s analysis is remarkably candid. He admits that under materialism, human dignity does not exist; universal principles of justice and equality do not exist; human rights do not exist; liberty does not exist. All of these things are social constructs resulting from entirely contingent physical processes. Is it any wonder that dictators who actually believe this do not blanch at the death of millions?

            The Constitution

The Constitution sets forth the fundamental law of the United States. It does so by means of language. It is a text. The words of that text mean one thing and not another. But this commonsense conclusion is hotly disputed, even denied, every time a progressive talks about the “living constitution.” Of course, there is no such thing as a “living constitution.” The progressive lawyers, judges and law professors who use that phase recognize that the text of the real Constitution limits their power to impose their policy preferences on the people. They don’t like that and to get around those limits they created the idea that the Constitution is a sort of magical “living” document whose words may mean one thing today and something completely different tomorrow. A progressive judge is not bothered even a little when he uses this ruse to usurp the power that is reserved to the people.

As Judge Bork noted in The Tempting of America, the moment of temptation for a judge comes when he is faced with the choice between whether he or the people should rule. That choice is fundamentally a moral choice. Given materialism, morality is an illusion, a mere adaptive mechanism foisted on us by blind natural forces. And if a judge really believes that, then shouldn’t he do “wrong” in service of the higher “good” of imposing by judicial fiat whatever progressive policy his progressive colleagues could not get legislatively enacted? When “wrong” and “right” do not exist in any meaningful sense, power is all there is. The “living constitution” is not a method of interpretation. It is a mask progressive judges use to cover their usurpation of power that belongs to the people.

            Law

For centuries the English (and subsequently the American) common law was based on the “premise that the law existed before any attempts to express it,” and a judge’s job was not to “make” law but to “find” preexisting law.10 The moral principles of natural law were the preeminent source from which law was to be found.11

The application of the Universal Acid to our institutions usually takes place over a long period of time and involves many actors. This is not the case in this instance. Here, we can identify the man who poured out the acid. Enter Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., perhaps the most consequential judge in American history. Holmes was a convinced materialist who took his philosophy to its logical conclusions. As we have seen, one of the conclusions compelled by materialist premises is that morality is not based on an objective moral code, but is an evolutionary adaptation. Holmes took this view, as demonstrated in a letter he wrote to a friend in which he said “[I] think morality a sort of higher politeness, that stands between us and the ultimate fact – force…. Nor do I see how a believer in any kind of evolution can get a higher formula than organic fitness at the given moment.”12

Holmes did not believe morality was real. Therefore, in a monumentally consequential 1897 article entitled The Path of the Law, he announced that it was time to jettison any notion that the law has anything to do with morality. Holmes wrote, “For my own part, I often doubt whether it would not be a gain if every word of moral significance could be banished from the law altogether, and other words adopted which should convey legal ideas uncolored by anything outside the law.”

With The Path of the Law Holmes founded the school of “legal realism,” which, in a remarkably short time, came to be the predominate theory of jurisprudence in the United States. Legal realism denies the existence of any objective principles of ethics or admitted axioms to guide a judge’s rulings. In other words, the law is not based upon principles of justice that transcend time and place; it is nothing more than what willful judges do.

Untethered from an obligation to any authority other than their personal predilections, progressive judges have wreaked havoc on our democratic norms by substituting their own preferences for actual rules of law. Some judges are remarkably candid about what they have done. Judge Richard Posner, for example, said this about his judicial philosophy: “I pay very little attention to legal rules, statutes, constitutional provisions. . . . A case is just a dispute. The first thing you do is ask yourself – forget about the law – what is a sensible resolution of this dispute? The next thing . . . is to see if a recent Supreme Court precedent or some other legal obstacle stood in the way of ruling in favor of that sensible resolution. And the answer is that’s actually rarely the case. When you have a Supreme Court case or something similar, they’re often extremely easy to get around.”

Of course, by “sensible resolution,” he meant “what I want.” And if that outcome conflicts with a law or legal precedent, no problem, because that is “easy to get around.” This is what happens when the Universal Acid dissolves the tether linking law to morality. Judges routinely violate their oaths to uphold the law and then brag about it. This is not a mere theoretical concern, as Holmes himself demonstrated when he authored his infamous opinion in the case of Buck v. Bell. That case upheld a law mandating sterilization of mentally “inferior” people. Holmes concluded his opinion with the chilling words, “Three generations of imbeciles are enough.” Holmes’ materialism was on full display.

            Politics

In a world where universal moral truths governing human relations do not exist, all relationships are reducible to power dynamics. In other words, in a cosmos where the word “justice” is ultimately meaningless, only power remains. To use Holmes’ terms, differences are resolved by “the ultimate fact – force,” and the strong dominate the weak.

Nearly 80 years ago in his book, The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis anticipated the corrosive effect materialism would have on politics in the West. He envisioned a time when progressives (whom he called “Conditioners”) would simultaneously recognize no abstract limits on their power and no basis other than their own subjective whims for exercising that power. He wrote “the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means . . .  the power of some men to make other men what they please.” But what motivates the Conditioners? Lewis’ answer: “The [progressives] must come to be motivated simply by their own pleasure. . .  [For] those who stand outside all judgments of value cannot have any ground for preferring one of their own impulses to another except the emotional strength of that impulse.”

We are faced with a stark choice. Either the universal moral principles announced in the Declaration are true or they are false. We can have freedom under law only if we choose “true,” because if they are false there is, by definition, no abstract restraint on power. Our politics will degenerate into a bellum omnium contra omnes (war of all against all) in which the weak succumb to the strong. Lewis put it this way:

Either we are rational spirit obliged for ever to obey the absolute values of the Tao [Lewis’ word for the transcendent objective moral code], or else we are mere nature to be kneaded and cut into new shapes for the pleasures of masters who must, by hypothesis, have no motive but their own ‘natural’ impulses. Only the Tao provides a common human law of action which can over-arch rulers and ruled alike. A dogmatic belief in objective value is necessary to the very idea of a rule which is not tyranny or an obedience which is not slavery.

Lewis was prophetic. Today, progressives jettison centuries of tradition based on the latest fad that catches their fancy. For example, the latest progressive fad is to insist that parents should be free to have their children surgically mutilated as a sacrifice to transgender ideology. And worse, where parents do not want this outcome, minors should have the right to make that decision behind their parents’ back.   

Does anyone really believe that a child has the capacity to decide whether to have radical irreversible gender surgery that will make them sterile and scar both body and mind? Of course not. The mutilation does not reflect the child’s choice. It reflects hyper-progressive certainty, forced on society with no regard for moral debate. This is a pristine example of what Lewis was talking about, and we can recast his thought with minimal changes: “For the power of Man to make himself what he pleases means . . . the power of [progressives] to make [children] what they please.” God help us.

How Should We Respond?

Discerning readers will have realized that the title of this article is an allusion to Psalm 11:3. “When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?” I find it interesting that when the Psalmist asks this question, he does not, as one might expect, provide a plan of action. He does not tell us what to do; he enjoins us to know. He writes, “The Lord is in his holy temple; the Lord is on his heavenly throne.” Do not lose heart when it seems like the whole world is spinning out of control and falling to pieces around you. God is on His throne. He is in control.

Knowledge is key, and this is the main thing we must know about our authoritarian adversaries. They are unconstrained by any commitment to telling the truth, and we must be constantly ready to expose their lies. You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free. 

Here is an example of what I mean. The next time Nancy Pelosi13 stands up and says this or that conservative proposal is a “threat to democracy,” call out the two lies embedded in that one statement. The first lie is implied – that Nancy Pelosi values democracy and means to protect it. Nancy Pelosi cares not one whit for democracy. Indeed, she is working to undermine our democracy by pushing the Democratic Party’s bill mandating a federal takeover of all elections and the elimination of election security. Pelosi wants to eliminate election security because she believes Democrats will win more elections if the integrity of the vote is suppressed. Like all authoritarians, the only thing she cares about is raw power, and she will do anything to hold it, including undermining the very democracy she claims to want to protect. Her actions belie her words.  She does not want free and fair elections. It is clear she would prefer communist-style elections in which the Party’s chosen candidate always wins with 99% of the vote.

The second lie in Pelosi’s statement is the more obvious one. Everyone knows that not every policy proposal she disagrees with is an existential threat to our constitutional order. Do not make the mistake of dignifying her lies by engaging with them as if they were anything but what they obviously are. Our response to a lie is not to engage with – and thereby give traction to – the lie. Our response is to call out the lie for what it is and to heap scorn and contempt upon the liar.

The second thing we need to know about authoritarians is that they are very often hypocrites, and we must expose their double standards tirelessly. When John Kerry flies his private plane to Reykjavik to pick up a climate award, mock him mercilessly. When elites mandate masks and throw parties where only the waitstaff are required to wear them, hold them up for the contempt they deserve.

Third, authoritarian “arguments” are frequently not arguments at all but veils covering their exercise of raw power. The next time a progressive says that the right to free speech does not protect hate speech, ask them what they mean by the phrase “hate speech.” Invariably, the answer will be hate speech is speech they find offensive. Let me get this straight, you are all for protecting speech you agree with but want to shut down speech you find offensive? That is absurd. As the Supreme Court has said many times, anodyne speech that offends no one requires no protection. The whole point of the First Amendment is to protect unpopular speech, especially unpopular political speech. Expressing opinions that inflame passions is precisely why it is needed. You are not in favor of free speech at all if you are not in favor of allowing speech you despise. So it turns out that the progressive “argument” for controlling speech is, at bottom, nothing but a mask to cover their exercise of force to silence anyone who disagrees with them. That is why the students at UC Hastings Law School feel perfectly justified when they used fascist tactics to shut down a political debate.

Finally, and most importantly, by definition, authoritarians deny the foundation for universal rights set forth in the Declaration of Independence, and we must stand ready to expose their betrayal of our founding principles.  Let us end where we started. “Men have forgotten God; that’s why all this has happened.” Our Republic is in tatters and the evil of authoritarianism is reasserting itself because men have forgotten God.

There was a time in our nation’s history when the Judeo-Christian foundation upon which our constitutional edifice rests was unquestioned by the vast majority of people. Nearly everyone took the Declaration seriously when it declared that men are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights. That is no longer the case. Of all the beliefs, habits and traditions the Universal Acid has dissolved, its most baleful effect has been eroding this understanding of the foundation of our rights. Before the acid was poured out, we rested secure in the belief that our rights were vouchsafed by God. While this is still widely believed by the average citizen, the overwhelming majority of our so-called elites reject the idea as a quaint superstition. What do they propose as a substitute foundation for our rights? Absolutely nothing. As we have seen, for the materialist “rights” talk is just so much babbling by clever hairless apes that ultimately has no basis in any conception of the real world in which we live. For the materialist, the only real thing is power, and as Lewis wrote, the only thing guiding his exercise of power is his emotional impulses.

As I stated before, the Declaration derives its logical force from the Christian idea of the equality of all men as image bearers of God. Once that foundation is removed, the entire structure crashes to the ground. Yes, our opponents talk about “rights,” but they do not believe in rights in any meaningful sense. For example, I take it that most progressives will say they believe in the fundamental right of parents to direct the upbringing of their children. But just today I read that a progressive Virginia legislator is trying to pass a law to send parents to prison if they refuse to allow their children to be surgically mutilated when a government employee decides that is in the child’s best interest. I am not making this up.

Materialism of one stripe or another has been with us for centuries. When the Judeo-Christian foundation of our Republic was taken for granted, even by our elites, the materialist cancer was an irritant, a nuisance but not a danger. The cancer has now metastasized to stage IV. A person with stage IV cancer sometimes survives, but their prospects are dim. Nancy Pelosi is right about one thing. Our democracy is under assault. But the assault is coming from the opposite direction she claims. It is time to man the barricades.

What does this mean as a practical matter? It means two things. First, we must stop living by lies. Call “transition surgery” on minors what it really is – child abuse. When someone insists that we bow the knee to the transgender gods by using “correct” pronouns, we must refuse! Do not allow yourself to say “Oh, it’s just polite and I don’t want to offend anyone.” The madness will stop only when enough people stand up and refuse to be sucked into the maelstrom. Someone must be first to say, the Emperor has no clothes. Yes, there might be consequences. You might lose your job. But refuse to participate in the lie even if it hurts. And if you don’t? Solzhenitsyn again:

And he who is not sufficiently courageous even to defend his soul — don’t let him be proud of his ‘progressive’ views, and don’t let him boast that he is an academician or a people’s artist, a merited figure, or a general –let him say to himself: I am in the herd, and a coward. It’s all the same to me as long as I’m fed and warm.

Solzhenitsyn was writing in the Soviet Union in 1974. He knew the decision to defend his soul by refusing to participate in lies would have consequences. But he insisted on it nevertheless. He wrote: “It will not be an easy choice for a body, but it is the only one for a soul. . .  And if we get cold feet, even taking this step, then we are worthless and hopeless, and the scorn of Pushkin should be directed to us: ‘Why should cattle have the gifts of freedom? Their heritage from generation to generation is the belled yoke and the lash.’”

The second thing we must do is to insist that our leaders support the Declaration. We must ensure that they agree that our rights come from our Creator. We must never support any politician whose principles expose his belief that the Declaration’s rights talk is nothing but soothing noises one hairless ape makes to another. But won’t that violate the separation of church and state? Absolutely not! The Establishment Clause is a restraint on government from establishing a national church. It was never intended to be a restraint on the people. It is inconceivable that the men who wrote the Establishment Clause in 1789 – some of whom were present at the signing of the Declaration only 13 year earlier – intended that clause to prevent the people from insisting that their elected leaders actually believe the principles set forth in the Declaration upon which the Republic was founded.

The materialist rot is well advanced. But there is still hope. The signal fire in Azeqah burns still. But time is growing short. I do not know how much time we have left, but I am certain it is less than many people believe. After the constitutional convention, Benjamin Franklin famously announced that we were to have a republic, “if you can keep it.” We have forgotten God and are a house divided as we have not been since the 1860s. The question of whether we can keep it is very much in doubt. I pray that it is not too late. I pray that we remember the God we have forgotten, and that in Lincoln’s famous words, this nation, under that God “shall have a new birth of freedom – and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from this earth.”

__________________

1 They called it the “Disinformation Governance Board,” but in everything but name it was intended to be a Ministry of Propaganda.

2 Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Book Two, sec. 1, ch. 5.

3 Id.

4 Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, The Attitude of the Workers’ Party to Religion, May 13, 1909.

5 “Materialism” is a shorthand term to describe metaphysical monism. There are other terms such as naturalism and physicalism that get at roughly the same idea – the physical universe is all that exists. I believe materialism is not merely a false account of reality; I believe it is incoherent. But it is not my purpose in this article to explain why I believe materialism is false. Rather, I am trying to get my readers to focus on the dire consequences that can follow when materialist principles are taken as true and acted on. Of course, I do not know that all of the law students were materialists. I do know that metaphysical materialism is taken for granted in our elite institutions of higher education, and their actions tell me that even if they are not affirming materialists, their ideas have been infused with that idea.

6 I am not claiming that the standard model of cosmology that I have sketched here is unique to materialism or inconsistent with theism. Nor am I claiming that certain theories of evolution are inconsistent with theism. Obviously, however, a strictly materialist theory of evolution that denies the ontological gulf between humans and other things is incompatible with the tenants of Christianity. Indeed, this is the fundamental dividing line between Christians who take the truths espoused in the Declaration seriously and materialists who must only ever give those truths lip service. The Christian believes that every human has an immaterial spirit that is created Imago Dei, in the image of God. The materialist insists that belief is superstitious nonsense.

7 William Provine, Scientists Face It! Science and Religion are Incompatible (1988), 10.

8 https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/psychopath-as-ubermensch-or-nietzsche-at-columbine/

9 Daniel Dennett, Darwin’s Dangerous Idea (1995), 63. Dennett was speaking of “Darwin’s idea,” but in context, it is clear that Dennett’s “Universal Acid” is not Darwinian evolution as such but the metaphysical materialism underlying that idea. Dennett says that it was always inevitable that materialism would “leak out” from Darwin’s idea and offer answers to questions in everything from cosmology to psychology.

10 Emily Kadens, Justice Blackstone’s Common Law Orthodoxy, 103 Nw. U. L. Rev. 1553, 1557 (2009).

11 1 William Blackstone, Commentaries 46-7.

12 Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr. to Harold Laski, May 13, 1926, in Holmes-Laski Letters: The Correspondence of Mr. Justice Holmes and Harold J. Laski, 1916–1935, 2 vols., ed. Mark DeWolfe Howe [Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1953], 2:837

13 Yes, Pelosi claims to be a “devout” Catholic and it would at first glance appear to be anomalous to lump her in with materialist authoritarians. But her claim is deceptive, and inspired by Machiavelli, who advised the Prince that “There is nothing more important than appearing to be religious” but he must always be prepared to act against religion when he exercises power. Pelosi is the perfect example of the Machiavellian politician, appearing to be religious without actually being so. How can we know that Pelosi is not actually religious? That should be obvious. For decades she has been in scandalous opposition to the Catholic church’s most sacred doctrines, especially those concerning life, marriage, family and the proper ordering of human sexuality. Either she is remarkably stupid and has not noticed the scandal or the scandal does not bother her because she does not take the Church’s doctrines seriously. Nancy Pelosi is many things. Stupid is not one of them. Her actions show her to be as effectively a materialist as the most ardent atheist. 

Comments
F/N: It is now clear that SG is unwilling to substantially back up the one liner insinuation he made at 84 above, try making a good argument. Accordingly, let me respond in outline, for record, to the general case, that people like us are ignorant, stupid, insane or wicked and the associated zero concessions, selectively hyperskeptical dismissiveness policy. Here, I will show the rational responsibility of the design inference and related ideas, views and approaches, for record and reference: I will use steps of thought: 1: Reason, in general: Notice, supporters and fellow travellers of evolutionary materialistic scientism undermine the responsible, rational freedom required for reason to be credible. They tend to discount and discredit objectors, but in fact their arguments and assertions are self-referentially incoherent, especially reduction of mind to computationalism on a wetware substrate. Reppert is right to point out, following Haldane and others:
. . . let us suppose that brain state A [--> notice, state of a wetware, electrochemically operated computational substrate], which is token identical to the thought that all men are mortal, and brain state B, which is token identical to the thought that Socrates is a man, together cause the belief [--> concious, perceptual state or disposition] that Socrates is mortal. It isn’t enough for rational inference that these events be those beliefs, it is also necessary that the causal transaction be in virtue of the content of those thoughts . . . [But] if naturalism is true, then the propositional content is irrelevant to the causal transaction that produces the conclusion, and [so] we do not have a case of rational inference. In rational inference, as Lewis puts it, one thought causes another thought not by being, but by being seen to be, the ground for it. But causal transactions in the brain occur in virtue of the brain’s being in a particular type of state that is relevant to physical causal transactions.
2: This extends to Marx's class/cultural conditioning, to Freud's potty training etc, to Skinner's operant conditioning , to claims my genes made me do it, and many more. So, irrationality and undermining of the credibility of reason are a general issue for such supporters and fellow travellers, it is unsurprising to see projection to the despised other (a notorious defence mechanism) and linked failure to engage self referentiality. 3: First principles of right reason: Classically, the core of reason starts with distinct identity, excluded middle, non contradiction. Something x is what it is i/l/o its core characteristics, nothing can be both x and not x in the same sense and circumstances, any y in W = {x| ~x} will be x, ~x, not both or neither. And more. Claimed quantum counter examples etc actually are rooted in reasoning that relies on such. And yes, there have been enough objections that this has come up and is in UD's Weak Argument Correctives. We leave it to objectors like SG to tell us whether they acknowledge such first principles of right reason: _______ and explain why ________ . 4: Self evidence: There are arguments that, once we have enough experience and maturity to understand [a sometimes big if], will be seen as true, as necessarily true and as true on pain of immediate absurdities on attempted denial. That error exists is a good case in point, and if one is able to see that the attempt to deny objectivity of knowledge for a given reasonably distinct field of thought such as morals or history or reality [metaphysics], or the physical world, or external reality, or in general, etc, one is claiming to objectively know something about that field and so refutes oneself. 5: self referential incoherence and question begging: We just saw an example of how arguments and arguers can include themselves in the zone of reference of an argument in ways that undermine it, often by implying a contradiction. Such arguments defeat themselves. Question begging is different, it assumes, suggests or imposes what should be shown and for which there are responsible alternatives. Arguments can be question begging, and then may turn out to be self refuting. 6: Deduction, induction, abduction (inference to the best [current] explanation [IBE]) and weak-form knowledge: Deduction uses logical validity to chain from givens to conclusions, where if givens are so and the chain valid, conclusions must also be true. Absent errors of reasoning, the debate rapidly becomes one over why the givens. Induction, modern sense, is about degree of support for conclusions i/l/o evidence of various kinds as opposed to demonstration, statistics, history, science, etc are common contexts. Abduction, especially IBE, compares live option alternatives and what they imply, on factual adequacy, coherence and balance of explanatory power, to choose the best explanation so far. In this context weak sense common knowledge is warranted, credibly true (so, reliable) belief. Which, is open to correction or revision and extension. 7: Worldviews context: Why accept A? B. But why B? C, etc. We see that we face infinite regress, or circularity or finitely remote first plausibles . . . which, frame our faith points . . . as we set out to understand our world. Infinite regress is impossible to traverse in reasoning or in cause effect steps, so we set it aside, we are forced to have finitely remote start points to reasoning and believing, warranting and knowing -- first plausibles that define our views of the world. Thus, we all live by faith, the question is which, why; so, whether it is rational/reasonable and responsible. Where, too, all serious worldview options bristle with difficulties, hence the point that philosophy is the discipline that studies hard, basic questions. Question begging circles are a challenge, answered through comparative difficulties across factual adequacy, coherence and balance of explanatory power: elegantly simple, neither ad hoc nor simplistic. 8: Failure of evolutionary materialistic scientism and fellow traveller views: It will be evident already, that, while institutionally and culturally dominant, evolutionary materialistic scientism and fellow travellers are profoundly and irretrievably incoherent. Yes, a view backed by institutions, power brokers in the academy, the education system and the media can be irretrievably, fatally cracked from its roots. 9: Logic of being (and of structure and quantity), also possible worlds: Ontology and her grand child, Mathematics, grow out of core philosophy, particularly distinct identity and consideration of possible worlds. A possible world, w, is a sufficiently complete description of how our world or another conceivable or even actual world is or may be; i.e. a cluster of core, world describing propositions. In that context, a candidate being or entity or even state of affairs, c, can be impossible of being [e.g. a Euclidean plane square circle] or possible. Possible beings may be contingent [actual in at least one possible world but not all] or necessary [present in every possible world]. We and fires are contingent, dependent for existence on many independent, prior factors; what begins or may cease of existence is contingent. Necessary beings are best seen as part of the fabric or framework for this or any possible world. We can show that distinct identity implies two-ness, thence 0, 1, 2. Ponder, W = {A|~A}, the partition is empty, 0, A is a unit, ~A is a complex unit, so we see 2. So, onward via von Neumann's construction, the counting numbers N. Thence, Z, Q, R, C, R* etc in any w. This is what gives core Mathematics its universal power. 10: The basic credibility of the design inference: of course, we routinely recognise that many things show reliable signs of intelligently directed configuration as key cause, i.e. design. For example, objectors to the design inference often issue copious, complex text in English, beyond 500 to 1,000 bits of complexity. In the 70's Orgel and Wicken identified a distinct and quantifiable phenomenon, functionally specific, complex organisation and/or associated information, which I often abbreviate FSCO/I. Organisation is there as things like a fishing reel [my favourite, e.g. the ABU 6500 CT] or a watch [Paley, do not overlook his self replicating watch thought exercise in Ch 2] or an oil refinery or a computer program [including machine code] or the cell's metabolic process-flow network [including protein synthesis] all can be described in a suitably compact string of Y/N questions, structured through description languages such as AutoCAD. The inference posits that, with trillions of cases under our belt, reliably, FSCO/I or its generalisation, CSI, will be signs of design as key cause. The controversies, as may be readily seen, are not for want of evidence or inability to define or quantify, but because this challenges the dominant evolutionary materialism and fellow travellers. Which, of course, long since failed through irretrievable self referential incoherence. _____________________ So, challenge: let SG and/or others show where the above fails to be rational and responsible, if they can__________________ Prediction, aside from mere disagreement and/or dismissiveness, assertions, or the trifecta fallacy of red herrings, led away to strawmen soaked in ad hominems and set alight to cloud, confuse, poison and polarise the atmosphere, they will not be able to sustain a case for general failure to be rational and responsible. Accusation, duly answered for record. KF, being GEM of TKI kairosfocus
Still waiting . . . kairosfocus
SG, still waiting. KF kairosfocus
PyrrhoManiac1 @104 The situation you describe can be understood correctly by the careful study of nature. harry
SG, I am still waiting. See 88 above. I am on the verge of drawing the conclusion for cause that you have tried the rhetorical stunt of supercilious dismissive accusatory quips rather than addressing substance, KF kairosfocus
Bornagain Back atcha my brother. “108 didn’t realize our token atheists were the authorities on who is thoughtful or not….. Hey the more you know.” Yes I found AFs comments to be quite strange, actually he expelled me twice from his list, a list I did not asked to be on LOL. To be expelled twice, did I set a record of some sorts? I have been in a fetal position ever since. Vivid vividbleau
@108 didn’t realize our token atheists were the authorities on who is thoughtful or not….. Hey the more you know. AaronS1978
Thank you Stephen. Barry Arrington
Hmmm. I believe we had that problem with our last president. Viola Lee
SB at 109, A small percentage of people control the money and the land. They have various business interests and a desire to go beyond just making more money. I mean, once you have a few billion, what can't you do? On a religious, and practical level, those who forget God suffer consequences which can occur during their lives or in the final judgment. Being able to wake up every day and, if desired, have servants serve you and advisors to assist you in making more money and helping you to achieve not only your business goals but any other social goals you choose. Yes, it can become easy to snap your fingers and get things done. To see the results of your ideas and success. It begins to feel as if you are in charge. You don't have to wait for any government, Local, State or Federal, to act. You can act and you can have a positive impact on a lot of people. This could create a false sense of ego as opposed to the humble acceptance of praise for a job well done no matter how much money you have. Accepting praise is fine but humility cannot be forgotten. And to God we owe our obedience and worship and praise. Having a lot of power and control obscures where this power comes from. John 19:11 'Jesus answered him, “You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.” relatd
Leaving the God part aside, I agree that billionaires wield way too much power (and corporation money also), and are a serious part of our political dilemmas and divisiveness. Viola Lee
Barry, congratulations. Your post fulfills a desperate need because it addresses the main cultural problem: We have. indeed, forgotten God. Or, to put it another way, too many of us, especially a few billionaires, want to *be* God, which is the major source of our disunity. StephenB
Vivid, if it is any consolation, you remain on my 'thoughtful ID guys' list. :) bornagain77
“You remain crossed off my civilised ID guy list. It is not irrevocable if you learn your lesson.” Step five, the victim of the false narrative becomes the villain based on what? Well of course AFs false narrative. Vivid vividbleau
“False narrative? “ Yes and here it is. “You initiate a controversial subject with your daughter-in-law at the wedding celebration and press your point of view. And you are disappointed at her reaction?” Everything about this , other than it being controversial ,is false.. Vivid vividbleau
False narrative? I mixed up niece with daughter-in-law. You remain crossed off my civilised ID guy list. It is not irrevocable if you learn your lesson. Alan Fox
@102
You possess some light. It was written on your heart by God. It is “light” because you know it is true. God knows that you know it is true. Good luck with telling God when you are judged that you couldn’t be certain it was true.
I have no objections to any of that. What does puzzle me is how this is connected to what you said at 91:
we are obligated to obey God rather than man when civil authorities demand of us that which is contrary to the law of God — even if it costs us our lives. In our times, so accurately described here by Barry Arrington, Christians need to meditate on Cyprian’s exhortation.
Suppose someone claims, in all apparent sincerity, that they have a bone-deep, rock-hard, intuitive certainty that the gender that they really are doesn't match with the gender that society sees them as. Suppose they want to take hormones to bring their felt gender into alignment with how others see them. Or they might wish that other people change the pronouns used to address them. Now, someone else might say, "no, that's bonkers, those people have a mental illness and need therapy because there's just no such thing as transgenderism." That second person might very well be right. But would obeying the law of God or heeding the dictates of one's inner light tell us that? If so, how? PyrrhoManiac1
AaronS That GIF was hilarious. I think this whole exercise between AF, CD and myself is a great demonstration of a tactic employed by the both of them. Since they tried to employ the following tactic against me I assume they have or will try to do it with others. Step one, create a false narrative ( lie). Step two, promote the false narrative (lie) as if the false narrative (lie) is true. Step three, attack the person based on the false narrative (lie) then step four, defend their actions even though their false narrative ( lie) is false. For example AF “This completely changed the circumstances. “ And what circumstances is AF referring to ? Well of course AFs own false narrative (lie)!! Rinse and repeat. It’s lies all the way down. Vivid vividbleau
PyrrhoManiac1 @ 96 "When we are judged by God He will know exactly how much light we possessed and whether or not we lived and died according to it." -- Harry 'Quite right. But that doesn’t answer my question, which is how anyone can know while we are still alive that we are heeding the law of God correctly?" -- PyrrhoManiac1 "All who have sinned without the law will also perish without the law, and all who have sinned under the law will be judged by the law. For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified. When Gentiles who have not the law do by nature what the law requires, they are a law to themselves, even though they do not have the law. They show that what the law requires is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or perhaps excuse them on that day when, according to my gospel, God judges the secrets of men by Christ Jesus." -- Romans 2:12-16 You possess some light. It was written on your heart by God. It is "light" because you know it is true. God knows that you know it is true. Good luck with telling God when you are judged that you couldn't be certain it was true. harry
Ba77, This is just rebranding on the part of Marxist-Atheists to (a) cause confusion, and (b) to convince young people under 30 that 'being woke' is something new. It isn't. The self-labeled Progressives - which has NOTHING to do with progress, in their case - are standing in for religion and actual, long-lasting justice. They, instead of your Church, are the secular equivalent. They dictate their version of morality and justice. They censor anyone who disagrees with their most radical views, like calling transgender men, "women," as if they actually are women. Truth does matter but in their version of reality, they define truth, they redefine reality. They turn it into something it isn't. So, let's review: Transgender Man - Woman. Transgender Woman - Man. Prostitute not Sex Worker. Stripper not Exotic Dancer. Slave not Victim of Human Trafficking. So, slavery is alive and well today. There is no "evolution." The Global Cabal of Relabelers and Repackagers is in the ongoing business of distorting the truth by calling falsehoods by other names. Too often, Leftists tell lies to promote what they promote. Or rename something to make it appear new or different. relatd
@97
The primary rule behind Marxist Class Warfare is that you need to select a “victim class” and an “enemy class.” Leftists-Marxists are keen to exploit this whenever they can.
Marxists and other radicals would probably say that oppression is a fact of a social reality, not something that they are fabricating -- that there are social facts about which groups tend to benefit from oppression and which social groups tend to be harmed by it. The goal is to restructure society without oppression in order to realize, in concrete terms, the ideal of the moral equality of all persons. (Put otherwise, Marxism is based on the idea that we can do for ourselves and posterity what Jews think will be possible only when the Messiah comes and what Christians think will be possible only when Christ returns.) @99 -- thanks for that link. Vox does good work. I liked that the story tried to do justice to the history of the term "woke" and how it gets used by people across the political spectrum. PyrrhoManiac1
(“woke ideology”?)
A history of “wokeness” - 2020 Excerpt: In the six years since Brown’s death, “woke” has evolved into a single-word summation of leftist political ideology, centered on social justice politics and critical race theory. This framing of “woke” is bipartisan: It’s used as a shorthand for political progressiveness by the left, and as a denigration of leftist culture by the right. https://www.vox.com/culture/21437879/stay-woke-wokeness-history-origin-evolution-controversy
bornagain77
@95
It always amazes me that although atheists resolutely deny that there is any outside objective moral standard to judge by that they are the ones most likely to become ‘raging moralists’ whenever they try to defend the immorality of their woke ideology.
I wouldn't want to conflate atheism with being a progressive about cultural issues ("woke ideology"?). Some atheists are progressive, and some aren't. Some progressives are atheists, but my sense is that it's got to be a minority, just because there are so many more self-identified progressives than there are self-identified atheists. Certainly it's true that if God is the only outside objective moral standard, then atheists would be committed to denying that there are any. But it's open to atheists to deny that antecedent, if they wanted to. That said: it's clearly right that progressive moralism requires a commitment to some objective moral standard. For the most part, the progressive atheists of today just haven't put in the effort to figure out what that is. PyrrhoManiac1
Ba77, The primary rule behind Marxist Class Warfare is that you need to select a "victim class" and an "enemy class." Leftists-Marxists are keen to exploit this whenever they can. They can also break any rules they make up. So, they are against "censorship" but are quick to scan any potential enemy posts on Twitter, for example, to find incriminating evidence against the target. If they do, they can report with glee, "Target made racist/sexist/homophobic comment in 2010." But they need a new word today when they censor someone, they "Cancel" him. Cancel? Do they think people won't notice that this is, in fact, censorship? They also have a list of "preferred groups" to defend. Take the transgender. Can a man ever give birth to a baby or have a menstrual cycle? No, of course not. A male is a male, always. relatd
@94:
When we are judged by God He will know exactly how much light we possessed and whether or not we lived and died according to it.
Quite right. But that doesn't answer my question, which is how anyone can know while we are still alive that we are heeding the law of God correctly? You seemed to suggest that Barry had correctly identified what obeying the law of God means. But on what basis? If we cannot know until our judgment whether or not we have really been following the law of God, then for all you know, Barry may very well be damned for all eternity. (I don't believe this, obviously. Just following through on a line of thought.) Moreover: if you cannot know until after your death whether or not you've been following the law of God correctly, then how could God justly punish you? Suppose someone thinks they've been pious and obedient to the Lord all their life, and then it turns out that they were mistaken. Why wouldn't they say to the Lord, "would it have killed You to have given me a hint before now?" (Hopefully that attempt of humor isn't too offensive.) Point is, it seems to me that there must be a way for us to determine, while here alive on Earth, what the law of God is -- if there isn't, then no one could be justly damned for violating it. So, then, what would it be? King Jr suggests that the law of God is the moral equality of all persons. That seems pretty good to me! PyrrhoManiac1
Pyr at 92: "It’s certainly true that we need an external standard by which to judge the morality of human-made laws" It always amazes me that, although atheists resolutely deny that there is any outside objective moral standard to judge by, (i.e. pitiless indifference, Dawkins), atheists are the ones who are most likely to become 'raging moralists' whenever they feel, and/or imagine, that their moral rights of equality have been trespassed against, and when they try to defend the immorality of their woke ideology and force the rest us to accept 'woke' things like men competing in women's sports, boys in girl bathrooms, etc. etc... Of semi-related note. I don't watch the news much anymore, but I did happen to catch a piece on Tucker Carlson last night where a woman athlete, who had been cheated out of winning a medal by a biological male pretending to be a woman, stated that a biological male pretending to be a women was a display of overt prejudice against women in the same way that whites wearing 'black-face' displayed an overt prejudice against blacks. I was impressed with the clarity in which she made her point about being discriminated against by the 'woke' left.. bornagain77
PyrrhoManiac1. @ 92, "But how are we to know that we have correctly identified what the law of God is?" When we are judged by God He will know exactly how much light we possessed and whether or not we lived and died according to it. harry
You do you, your argument with Vivid is going swimmingly...
Yes, remiss of me to be so stunned about the context and the exchange that I substituted "daughter-in-law" for "niece". This completely changed the circumstances. Of course Vivid is entitled to express his views to whoever he wants, wherever he wants, whenever he wants. He may even get asked back. But not by me. Alan Fox
@91 It's certainly true that we need an external standard by which to judge the morality of human-made laws -- a point perhaps most eloquently expressed by Martin Luther King Jr in his "Letter From a Birmingham Jail", where he defines a just law as a human-made law that is consistent with the moral law or the law of God, and an unjust law as one that conflicts with the moral law or the law of God. But how are we to know that we have correctly identified what the law of God is? There's certainly been some intense debate (also a few wars, pogroms, burnings, etc) about how to resolve that issue. King describes the law of God as the law of human moral equality. The reason why segregation is an unjust law, King argues, is that it gives the white people a false sense of superiority and African-Americans a false sense of inferiority. I think King is onto something important here: if we want claims about "the law of God" to do political work for us -- to ground claims about the justice or injustice of human-made laws -- we need some way of specifying what "the law of God" means. King thinks that it means the moral equality of all persons. PyrrhoManiac1
St. Cyprian's Exhortation to Martyrdom St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, was martyred in 258 A.D. Cyprian's Exhortation to Martyrdom is a thoroughly Scripturally based argument that we are obligated to obey God rather than man when civil authorities demand of us that which is contrary to the law of God -- even if it costs us our lives. In our times, so accurately described here by Barry Arrington, Christians need to meditate on Cyprian's exhortation. One will find courage in his exegesis. harry
@ CD No problem, I always appreciate a good laugh, so thank you. AaronS1978
AaronS1978/85 Thanks. I appreciate the compliment.... chuckdarwin
SG, you know the distraction game you played. Having accused me of poor argument, and being invited to address specific arguments I have made, as a base for resolving difficulties and differences, you sidestepped. You now have another opportunity to address the matters just put in the focus, before conclusions are drawn if you continue to evade. These matters will also show that the authority rests on warrant, not personality. Where, given context, you have improperly invited others to infer that I have posed an ex cathedra argument, which I have not. The only point above where I assert personal facts is when I spoke as an eyewitness to Communists in action in my homeland; which is testimony, a valid argument. I also find it highly interesting to see the silence now that I have put on the table documentation on the dangers to free, fair, high integrity elections posed by mass correspondence voting and similar activities, based on the testimony of an ambassador to the US Congress in 2004 -- https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/freedom/that-inconvenient-us-state-dept-memo-on-mass-correspondence-voting-in-ukraine/ . KF PS, to make the issue of knowledge and authority clear, Dallas Willard and heirs, adapted:
To have knowledge in the dispositional sense—where you know things you are not necessarily thinking about at the time—is to be able to represent something as it is on an adequate basis of thought or experience, not to exclude communications from qualified sources (“authority”). This is the “knowledge” of ordinary life, and it is what you expect of your electrician, auto mechanic, math teacher, and physician. Knowledge is not rare, and it is not esoteric . . . no satisfactory general description of “an adequate basis of thought or experience” has ever been achieved. We are nevertheless able to determine in many specific types of cases that such a basis is or is not present [p.19] . . . . Knowledge, but not mere belief or feeling, generally confers the right to act and to direct action, or even to form and supervise policy. [p. 20] In any area of human activity, knowledge brings certain advantages. Special considerations aside, knowledge authorizes one to act, to direct action, to develop and supervise policy, and to teach. It does so because, as everyone assumes, it enables us to deal more successfully with reality: with what we can count on, have to deal with, or are apt to have bruising encounters with. Knowledge involves assured [--> warranted, credible] truth, and truth in our representations and beliefs is very like accuracy in the sighting mechanism on a gun. If the mechanism is accurately aligned—is “true,” it enables those who use it with care to hit an intended target. [p. 4, Dallas Willard & Literary Heirs, The Disappearance of Moral Knowledge, Routledge|Taylor& Francis Group, 2018. ]
kairosfocus
KF: SG, you just did the same with Vivid.
The same what? I never told him/her that I don’t care about their claimed sacrifices. But they have never tried to make claims that they believe gives them authority over truth. Sir Giles
SG, you just did the same with Vivid. The truth is, it is not arguments or underlying facts, it is that such are running into entrenched, establishment backed crooked yardstick thinking. Once someone is locked into such, what is straight, accurate and upright will never conform to crookedness. But until one recognises that, they will not be inclined to let go of such false standards. Unfortunately, on current track record, our civilisation will likely have to go over a cliff comparable to 1945 or 1991, to wake up through pain. As a simple first test, can you acknowledge that Lehninger and heirs have stated what is in fact a general consensus, that D/RNA has in it coded algorithms used in protein synthesis. Like unto it, can you admit that in objecting by implying that my arguments are inadequate, you are showing the branch on which we all sit, first duties to truth, to right reason, to warrant. Thirdly, that it is reasonable to recognise that explanations of the past of origins, to be soundly scientific, should appeal to mechanisms actually observed to cause the relevant effects [such as codes and algorithms] and that we should not impose a priori Lewontinian materialism, as that robs Science of truth and logic throufh ideological question begging. KF kairosfocus
Berry thanks for the post. Actually really appreciate it. Chucky your commentary is as fabulous as ever…. Sir Giles “Try making a good argument.” Try taking your own advice instead of insinuating everyone here is against women’s right and gay rights. We are not headed in the right direction and multiple world wars combined with millions upon millions dead kind of says other wise. The current division and state of our country economically might suggest other wise. Alan Fox You do you, your argument with Vivid is going swimmingly https://tenor.com/PdHm.gif Think I covered my bases with the 2 cent remarks being tossed around on the op AaronS1978
KF: You don’t know or care that you are dealing with someone who literally put his life on the line on matters of truth and who cut his eyeteeth dealing with marxist subversives.
No, I really don’t. I care about the arguments people make. Try making a good argument. Sir Giles
AF “with your daughter-in-law” LOL I missed this one. This is another factual error on your part, the hits just keep coming. You can’t even state the facts accurately that’s how blinded you are to your made up false narrative. Vivid vividbleau
F/N: as it seems relevant, Wikipedia's confessions on power in the social and political/policy context:
In social science and politics, power is the social production of an effect that determines the capacities, actions, beliefs, or conduct of actors.[1] Power does not exclusively refer to the threat or use of force (coercion) by one actor against another, but may also be exerted through diffuse means (such as institutions).[1][2] Power may also take structural forms, as it orders actors in relation to one another (such as distinguishing between a master and a slave), and discursive forms, as categories and language may lend legitimacy to some behaviors and groups over others.[1] The term authority is often used for power that is perceived as legitimate or socially approved by the social structure. Power can be seen as evil or unjust; however, power can also be seen as good and as something inherited or given for exercising humanistic objectives that will help, move, and empower others as well. Scholars have distinguished between soft power and hard power . . . . According to French and Raven, power must be distinguished from influence in the following way: power is that state of affairs which holds in a given relationship, A-B, such that a given influence attempt by A over B makes A's desired change in B more likely. Conceived this way, power is fundamentally relative – it depends on the specific understandings A and B each apply to their relationship, and requires B's recognition of a quality in A which would motivate B to change in the way A intends. A must draw on the 'base' or combination of bases of power appropriate to the relationship, to effect the desired outcome. Drawing on the wrong power base can have unintended effects, including a reduction in A's own power. French and Raven argue that there are five significant categories of such qualities, while not excluding other minor categories. Further bases have since been adduced – in particular by Gareth Morgan in his 1986 book, Images of Organization.[4] Legitimate power Referent power Expert power Reward power Coercive power . . . . According to Laura K. Guerrero and Peter A. Andersen in Close Encounters: Communication in Relationships:[8] Power as a Perception: Power is a perception in a sense that some people can have objective power, but still have trouble influencing others. People who use power cues and act powerfully and proactively tend to be perceived as powerful by others. Some people become influential even though they don't overtly use powerful behavior. Power as a Relational Concept: Power exists in relationships. The issue here is often how much relative power a person has in comparison to one's partner. Partners in close and satisfying relationships often influence each other at different times in various arenas. Power as Resource Based: Power usually represents a struggle over resources. The more scarce and valued resources are, the more intense and protracted are power struggles. The scarcity hypothesis indicates that people have the most power when the resources they possess are hard to come by or are in high demand. However, scarce resource leads to power only if it is valued within a relationship. The Principle of Least Interest and Dependence Power: The person with less to lose has greater power in the relationship. Dependence power indicates that those who are dependent on their relationship or partner are less powerful, especially if they know their partner is uncommitted and might leave them. According to interdependence theory, quality of alternatives refers to the types of relationships and opportunities people could have if they were not in their current relationship. The principle of least interest suggests that if a difference exists in the intensity of positive feelings between partners, the partner who feels the most positive is at a power disadvantage. There's an inverse relationship between interest in relationship and the degree of relational power. Power as Enabling or Disabling: Power can be enabling or disabling. Research[citation needed] has shown that people are more likely to have an enduring influence on others when they engage in dominant behavior that reflects social skill rather than intimidation. Personal power is protective against pressure and excessive influence by others and/or situational stress. People who communicate through self-confidence and expressive, composed behavior tend to be successful in achieving their goals and maintaining good relationships. Power can be disabling when it leads to destructive patterns of communication. This can lead to the chilling effect where the less powerful person often hesitates to communicate dissatisfaction, and the demand withdrawal pattern which is when one person makes demands and the other becomes defensive and withdraws (Mawasha, 2006). Both effects have negative consequences for relational satisfaction. Power as a Prerogative: The prerogative principle states that the partner with more power can make and break the rules. Powerful people can violate norms, break relational rules, and manage interactions without as much penalty as powerless people. These actions may reinforce the powerful person's dependence power. In addition, the more powerful person has the prerogative to manage both verbal and nonverbal interactions. They can initiate conversations, change topics, interrupt others, initiate touch, and end discussions more easily than less powerful people , , ,
Power at upper end bleeds over into utter domination regardless of the desire or wishes of people, or is even synonymous with de facto enslavement. It is obvious that for instance, rape is a statement of brutal power to dominate, use and despoil or destroy, as is torture or murder at will, including of course judicial murder. Unsurprisingly, power is addictive and blinding, benumbing and corrupting. Money power is a sort of reward power, perhaps extracting compliance from the needy or greedy. It can feed into or feed off economic power -yes, cycles and spirals lurk here], the productivity of an economy, institution, government, business, family etc. But it is actually quite limited. Especially, when we compare the sheer demonic destructive power of a Hitler, a Stalin or a Mao. Or, a Nero. And, THAT is the sort of power lust that lurks in those who wish to collapse our civilisation into lawless oligarchy. Consider yourself to have been duly warned by someone who looked into the abyss, through the eyes of radical marxists. KF kairosfocus
Jerry: It’s amazing what the anti ID will do to distort the discussion.
Like bring up issues talked about in the OP. That is not fair. Sir Giles
I notice that the discussion by a few had focused on a family dynamic when the OP is talking about the obvious deterioration of civilization. It's amazing what the anti ID will do to distort the discussion. They fit a stereotype. jerry
It’s only a matter of time before women start wanting to use a pronoun that doesn’t designate their marital status. Maybe something like Ms. That would trigger the mass suicide of lemmings and the downfall of humanity. Sir Giles
AF “and press your point of view” So responding to a question she asked is pressing my point of view? “but she asked me why I would refuse to do so, that I was insensitive , non loving and not inclusive by not doing so. Here is what I told her. 1) When you control language you control thought. 2) That a man who thinks he is a woman is not a woman. 3) That a man who thinks he is a woman or vice versa is engaging in a fantasy and denying reality. It is a lie 4) it’s one thing for them to lie to themselves , that is their choice, but I will not participate in a lie. 5) it is an assault on womanhood and erasing womanhood as a category. 6) The most loving thing I can do is not participate in their lie rather tell them the truth.” Vivid vividbleau
AF “Good grief! I did realise you meant at a party,” Really? AF “How very sensible of her. You initiate a controversial subject with your daughter-in-law at the WEDDING celebration and press your point of view” The party was the night before not at the wedding. You can’t even get the facts straight. “and my niece and I landed on the topic of use of pronouns. “ How do you know from the above that I initiated it, please tell me how you know this? “You have lost your ranking.” Oh no no gold star on my forehead, I am emotionally traumatized!! Vivid vividbleau
I do sense a bit of sexism since you both see my niece as some kind of wallflower, far from it she gives as good as she gets.
Don't know where you got that from. My point was about your crassness during a wedding celebration. I admire her restraint.
BTW AF if your going to spout off at least get your facts straight, is that to much to ask? My conversation, not lecture, took place at a party the night before the wedding not at the wedding. So no I did not initiate anything at the wedding.I do sense a bit of sexism since you both see my niece as some kind of wallflower, far from it she gives as good as she gets.
Good for her that she takes no crap from you.
BTW AF if your going to spout off at least get your facts straight, is that to much to ask? My conversation, not lecture, took place at a party the night before the wedding not at the wedding. So no I did not initiate anything at the wedding.
Good grief! I did realise you meant at a party, and not during the ceremony. I had previously taken you for one of the more sensible ID proponents here. You have lost your ranking. Alan Fox
CD “Yup, that just screams “wild and crazy” and “nothing is off limits.” Gee Chucky we’re you there I must have missed you? Since you know so much about my families dynamic whats my nieces name? You don’t know jack about how my family interacts and thus you fit the perfect description of the person that should remain silent and appear a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt and now all doubt has been removed. Vivid vividbleau
Vividbleau/73
Like a typical progressive rather than engage my points she got up from the table and left.
Yup, that just screams that "nothing is off limits." What is actually shocking is this: "Barry to quote Ye about the masses 'They would just rather exist inside the pain of a lie than deal with the harsh realities of the truth.'" The masses? You mean like the "typical progressive"? chuckdarwin
AF/CD re 34 and 58 “To paraphrase a well known quote, it is better for the both of you to remain silent and appear a fool then to open your mouths and remove all doubt” Neither one of you know my family dynamics, it gets wild and crazy, nothing is off limits. The both of you have created a dynamic between my niece and I that bears no relationship at all with reality, you have created a narrative that is flat out false. What a shock.. I do sense a bit of sexism since you both see my niece as some kind of wallflower, far from it she gives as good as she gets. BTW AF if your going to spout off at least get your facts straight, is that to much to ask? My conversation, not lecture, took place at a party the night before the wedding not at the wedding. So no I did not initiate anything at the wedding. Vivid vividbleau
Barry Arrington Sev @ 66: I addressed the inevitable uninformed Establishment Clause objection in the post. It is clear you did not read it. Here’s a tip for you. When you set out to rebut an argument, you should know what that argument is first.
In Xhosa dialect Seversky means "headless chiken". :) Sandy
Several of the original 13 states had state religions. They were either Anglican or Congreational depending upon the state.
By the year 1702 all 13 American colonies had some form of state-supported religion. This support varied from tax benefits to religious requirements for voting or serving in the legislature. Below are excerpts from colonial era founding documents citing these religious references. Most instances of state-supported religion were removed before 1850, and the remaining requirements became null and void after the passing of the 14th Amendment on July 28, 1868. New Hampshire and North Carolina removed the nullified religious references from their state constitutions in 1875 and 1877 respectively.
https://undergod.procon.org/religion-in-the-original-13-colonies/ However, that is irrelevant to the OP jerry
Seversky at 66, The Founding Fathers had a primary influence. It was Judeo-Christian. They knew there were other faiths and made provision for all. https://www.str.org/w/the-faith-of-our-fathers relatd
A boor is a boor is a boor
Chuck is looking at the mirror again. jerry
"Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty. This much we pledge--and more." John F. Kennedy, 1961. relatd
Sev @ 66: I addressed the inevitable uninformed Establishment Clause objection in the post. It is clear you did not read it. Here's a tip for you. When you set out to rebut an argument, you should know what that argument is first. Barry Arrington
First Commandment (Exodus 20)
2 I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. 3 Thou shalt have no other gods before me.
First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Second Commandment (Exodus 20)
4 Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.
First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Third Commandment (Exodus 20)
7 Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.
First Amendment
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.
Nor do I remember the Bible endorsing republican - and certainly not Republican - democracy anywhere. The Founders were undoubtedly influenced by Christian beliefs but it is a stretch to claim that the US was founded as exclusively Judeo-Christian state. Seversky
BA: The stupidity displayed in some of the comments on this forum is breathtaking.
On this, we agree. Sir Giles
BA/59 A boor is a boor is a boor....... chuckdarwin
Jerry, in the 1500s and 1600s, Spain cheaply won the first truly global empire. They funnelled gold and silver to Europe, backing their military. However, because they failed to develop the broad economic base, centre of gravity shifted northwards. Where, inflation is too much money chasing too few goods. likewise, the rise of the printing revolution and vernacular Bible translation as well as other advancement including newspapers and cafes fed the opportunity for what became constitutional democracy, but also the scientific revolution, the enlightenment and wars over religion opened up a world ferment. By C19, the unease over the working classes made socialism seem viable. Radical secularisation also began. The result was the just passed most destructive century. In our time, the post cold war pause is ending and a new geostrategically active period seems to be rising. No one power centre, no one network of plutocrats etc is pulling levers behind scenes to drive everything as they wish, but we can discern influences and sources of power. Money is important but not all important. A lesson the Spaniards learned the hard way. Mercantilism failed. KF kairosfocus
In fact, the evidence for beyond space and time quantum 'non-locality' has now become so strong that, just this month, a Nobel prize was finally awarded to the main scientists, (John Clauser, Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger), who empirically established the reality of quantum non-locality.
The Universe Is Not Locally Real, and the Physics Nobel Prize Winners Proved It Elegant experiments with entangled light have laid bare a profound mystery at the heart of reality - Daniel Garisto - October 6, 2022 Excerpt: This is, of course, deeply contrary to our everyday experiences. To paraphrase Douglas Adams, the demise of local realism has made a lot of people very angry and been widely regarded as a bad move. Blame for this achievement has now been laid squarely on the shoulders of three physicists: John Clauser, Alain Aspect and Anton Zeilinger. They equally split the 2022 Nobel Prize in Physics “for experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities and pioneering quantum information science.” https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-universe-is-not-locally-real-and-the-physics-nobel-prize-winners-proved-it/
Darwinian atheists, with their reductive materialistic framework, simply have no beyond space and time cause that they can appeal so as to be able to explain quantum non-locality. Whereas Christian Theists readily do have an explanation that they can appeal to in order to explain the quantum non-locality of quantum entanglement, (and/or quantum information).
Colossians 1:17 He is before all things, and in him all things hold together.
Moreover, this non-local quantum entanglement, (and/or quantum information), that Darwinian materialists have no hope of explaining the existence of, is now found to be ubiquitous with molecular biology, "in a wide range of important biomolecules".
Quantum criticality in a wide range of important biomolecules – Mar. 6, 2015 Excerpt: “Most of the molecules taking part actively in biochemical processes are tuned exactly to the transition point and are critical conductors,” they say. That’s a discovery that is as important as it is unexpected. “These findings suggest an entirely new and universal mechanism of conductance in biology very different from the one used in electrical circuits.” The permutations of possible energy levels of biomolecules is huge so the possibility of finding even one (biomolecule) that is in the quantum critical state by accident is mind-bogglingly small and, to all intents and purposes, impossible.,, of the order of 10^-50 of possible small biomolecules and even less for proteins,”,,, “what exactly is the advantage that criticality confers?” https://medium.com/the-physics-arxiv-blog/the-origin-of-life-and-the-hidden-role-of-quantum-criticality-ca4707924552
And as Dr Rieper explains in the following video, “What happens is this classical information (of DNA) is embedded, sandwiched, into the quantum information (of DNA). And most likely this classical information is never accessed because it is inside all the quantum information. You can only access the quantum information,,,”
“What happens is this classical information (of DNA) is embedded, sandwiched, into the quantum information (of DNA). And most likely this classical information is never accessed because it is inside all the quantum information. You can only access the quantum information or the electron clouds and the protons. So mathematically you can describe that as a quantum/classical state.” Elisabeth Rieper – Classical and Quantum Information in DNA – video (Longitudinal Quantum Information resides along the entire length of DNA discussed at the 19:30 minute mark; at 24:00 minute mark Dr Rieper remarks that practically the whole DNA molecule can be viewed as quantum information with classical information embedded within it) https://youtu.be/2nqHOnVTxJE?t=1176
In further establishing the physical reality of immaterial 'souls', it is also important to realize that quantum information, unlike classical information, is physically conserved. As the following article states, "In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed."
Quantum no-hiding theorem experimentally confirmed for first time – 2011 Excerpt: In the classical world, information can be copied and deleted at will. In the quantum world, however, the conservation of quantum information means that information cannot be created nor destroyed. This concept stems from two fundamental theorems of quantum mechanics: the no-cloning theorem and the no-deleting theorem. A third and related theorem, called the no-hiding theorem, addresses information loss in the quantum world. According to the no-hiding theorem, if information is missing from one system (which may happen when the system interacts with the environment), then the information is simply residing somewhere else in the Universe; in other words, the missing information cannot be hidden in the correlations between a system and its environment. http://www.physorg.com/news/2011-03-quantum-no-hiding-theorem-experimentally.html
The implication of finding ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, and ‘conserved’, cannot be created nor destroyed, quantum information in molecular biology on such a massive scale, in every important biomolecule in our bodies, is fairly, and pleasantly, obvious. That pleasant implication, of course, being the fact that we now have very strong empirical evidence strongly suggesting that we do indeed have an eternal soul that is capable of living beyond the death of our material bodies. As Stuart Hameroff states in the following article, “the quantum information,,, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed.,,, it’s possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.”
Leading Scientists Say Consciousness Cannot Die It Goes Back To The Universe – Oct. 19, 2017 – Spiritual Excerpt: “Let’s say the heart stops beating. The blood stops flowing. The microtubules lose their quantum state. But the quantum information, which is in the microtubules, isn’t destroyed. It can’t be destroyed. It just distributes and dissipates to the universe at large. If a patient is resuscitated, revived, this quantum information can go back into the microtubules and the patient says, “I had a near death experience. I saw a white light. I saw a tunnel. I saw my dead relatives.,,” Now if they’re not revived and the patient dies, then it’s possible that this quantum information can exist outside the body. Perhaps indefinitely as a soul.” – Stuart Hameroff – Quantum Entangled Consciousness – Life After Death – video (5:00 minute mark) (of note, this video is no longer available for public viewing) https://radaronline.com/exclusives/2012/10/life-after-death-soul-science-morgan-freeman/
Personally, I consider these recent findings from quantum mechanics and quantum biology to rival all other scientific discoveries over the past century. Surpassing even the discovery of a beginning of the universe, via Big Bang cosmology, in terms of scientific, theological, and even personal, significance. To repeat, and as Jesus once asked his disciples along with a crowd of followers, “Is anything worth more than your soul?”
Mark 8:37 Is anything worth more than your soul?
Of supplemental note, besides quantum mechanics offering strong empirical support for the physical reality of the soul, special relativity, 'surprisingly', also offers strong empirical support for the physical reality of a heavenly dimension that exists above this temporal dimension.
Sept. 2022 - Thus in conclusion Einstein himself may not have personally believed in life after death, (nor in a personal God), but Special Relativity itself contradicts Einstein and offers stunning confirmation that Near Death Testimonies are accurate ‘physical’ descriptions of what happens after death, i.e. going to a ‘higher timeless/eternal dimension’, i.e. heavenly dimension, that exists above this temporal realm. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/cosmology/from-iai-news-how-infinity-threatens-cosmology/#comment-765987
Verse:
Matthew 6:33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.
bornagain77
In fact, Darwinists, in keeping with the presuppositions of their materialistic philosophy, have tried in vain, (and in the face of all contrary evidence I might add), to deny the existence of immaterial information in life, (and elsewhere), and have tried, in vain, to hold that the foundation of life is merely based on 'complicated chemistry' instead of immaterial information.
Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life - Hubert P. Yockey, 2005 “The belief of mechanist-reductionists that the chemical processes in living matter do not differ in principle from those in dead matter is incorrect. There is no trace of messages determining the results of chemical reactions in inanimate matter. If genetical processes were just complicated biochemistry, the laws of mass action and thermodynamics would govern the placement of amino acids in the protein sequences.” (Let me provide the unstated conclusion:) But they don’t. https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/intelligent-design/living-things-machines-and-intelligent-design-part-two-of-a-response-to-the-smithy/#comment-353336 Information Theory, Evolution, and the Origin of Life - Hubert P. Yockey, 2005 Excerpt: “Information, transcription, translation, code, redundancy, synonymous, messenger, editing, and proofreading are all appropriate terms in biology. They take their meaning from information theory (Shannon, 1948) and are not synonyms, metaphors, or analogies.” http://www.cambridge.org/catalogue/catalogue.asp?isbn=9780521802932&ss=exc
And yet, due to advances in science, (and to the consternation of Atheistic materialists), the physical reality of immaterial information has now been empirically established. The easiest way to 'empirically' show the physical reality of this immaterial information, (that Darwinists have denied the existence of), is with quantum teleportation. As the following article states. “scientists have successfully teleported information between two separate atoms in unconnected enclosures a meter apart,,, information,,, is transferred from one place to another, but without traveling through any physical medium.”
First Teleportation Between Distant Atoms – 2009 Excerpt: For the first time, scientists have successfully teleported information between two separate atoms in unconnected enclosures a meter apart – a significant milestone in the global quest for practical quantum information processing. Teleportation may be nature’s most mysterious form of transport: Quantum information, such as the spin of a particle or the polarization of a photon, is transferred from one place to another, but without traveling through any physical medium. It has previously been achieved between photons over very large distances, between photons and ensembles of atoms, and between two nearby atoms through the intermediary action of a third. None of those, however, provides a feasible means of holding and managing quantum information over long distances. Now a team from the Joint Quantum Institute (JQI) at the University of Maryland (UMD) and the University of Michigan has succeeded in teleporting a quantum state directly from one atom to another over a substantial distance https://jqi.umd.edu/news/first-teleportation-between-distant-atoms
And as the following article states, “the photons aren’t disappearing from one place and appearing in another. Instead, it’s the information that’s being teleported through quantum entanglement.,,,”
Quantum Teleportation Enters the Real World – September 19, 2016 Excerpt: Two separate teams of scientists have taken quantum teleportation from the lab into the real world. Researchers working in Calgary, Canada and Hefei, China, used existing fiber optics networks to transmit small units of information across cities via quantum entanglement — Einstein’s “spooky action at a distance.”,,, This isn’t teleportation in the “Star Trek” sense — the photons aren’t disappearing from one place and appearing in another. Instead, it’s the information that’s being teleported through quantum entanglement.,,, ,,, it is only the information that gets teleported from one place to another. https://www.discovermagazine.com/d-brief/2016/09/19/quantum-teleportation-enters-real-world/#.V-HqWNEoDtR
In fact, 'classical' information, such as what is encoded on DNA, is now found to be a subset of this immaterial 'quantum' information that was teleported via quantum entanglement "without traveling through any physical medium." In the following site entitled “Quantum Information Science”, a site where Charles Bennett, (of quantum teleportation and reversible computation fame), himself is on the steering committee,
Quantum Information Science Steering Committee C. H. Bennett IBM D. P. DiVincenzo IBM N. Gershenfeld MIT H. M. Gibbs University of Arizona H. J. Kimble Caltech J. Preskill Caltech U. V. Vazirani UC/Berkeley D. J. Wineland NIST C. Yao Princeton University https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2000/nsf00101/nsf00101.htm
On that site, they have this illustration showing classical information to be a subset of quantum information
Classical Information is a subset of Quantum information – illustration https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2000/nsf00101/images/figure1.gif below that illustration they have this caption, “Figure 1: The well-established theory of classical information and computation is actually a subset of a much larger topic, the emerging theory of quantum information and computation.”
The thing that is so antagonistic, indeed so devastating, for Darwinian materialists with quantum entanglement, and/or quantum information, is that it takes a ‘non-local’, beyond space and time, cause in order to explain quantum entanglement, and/or quantum information. As the following paper entitled “Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory” stated, “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,”
Looking beyond space and time to cope with quantum theory – 29 October 2012 Excerpt: “Our result gives weight to the idea that quantum correlations somehow arise from outside spacetime, in the sense that no story in space and time can describe them,” http://www.quantumlah.org/highlight/121029_hidden_influences.php
bornagain77
Barry stated:
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness" For nearly 200 years after the American Founding, it was almost universally recognized that the American form of government rests on two self-evident transcendent truths: (1) All men are created equal. (2) The Creator has endowed all men with certain rights. But the rise of materialism among our intellectual elite in the last several decades has undermined that consensus. Under the materialism they take for granted, Jefferson’s propositions are not self-evidently true. Indeed, they are self-evidently false. If the universe is a closed system of natural causes, there is no room for a creator who creates men with equal moral status and endows them with rights.,,, The Declaration derives its logical force from the fundamentally Christian idea of the equality of all persons as image bearers of God. Dennett’s Universal Acid (Darwinian materialism) has chewed through this concept as well,"
And indeed, America was founded on Judeo-Christian Principles,
"The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were the general principles of Christianity. I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God.",,, - John Adams Several more quotes from the founding fathers are found here https://wallbuilders.com/founding-fathers-jesus-christianity-bible/
The main thing, as Mr. Arrington pointed out, that Darwinian materialism denies is "the fundamentally Christian idea of the equality of all persons as image bearers of God". In short, and if I may take liberty with the term 'image bearers of God', Darwinian materialism explicitly denies that men have eternal, and immaterial, souls that are created equal before God.
Words & Dirt - Quotes 10-21-2015 - by Miles Raymer Excerpt: Let us try to translate the most famous line of the American Declaration of Independence into biological terms: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. According to the science of biology, people were not ‘created’. They have evolved. And they certainly did not evolve to be ‘equal’. The idea of equality is inextricably intertwined with the idea of creation. The Americans got the idea of equality from Christianity, which argues that every person has a divinely created soul, and that all souls are equal before God. However, if we do not believe in the Christian myths about God, creation and souls, what does it mean that all people are ‘equal’? Evolution is based on difference, not on equality. Every person carries a somewhat different genetic code, and is exposed from birth to different environmental influences. This leads to the development of different qualities that carry with them different chances of survival. ‘Created equal’ should therefore be translated into ‘evolved differently’.,,, So here is that line from the American Declaration of Independence translated into biological terms: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men evolved differently, that they are born with certain mutable characteristics, and that among these are life and the pursuit of pleasure. http://www.words-and-dirt.com/words/quotes-10-21-2015/
And according to Christianity, souls are of incalculable worth before God. Whereas, under Darwinian materialism, you are worth around a dollar or so.
Mark 8:36-37 What does it profit a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul? How much is my body worth? Excerpt: The U.S. Bureau of Chemistry and Soils invested many a hard-earned tax dollar in calculating the chemical and mineral composition of the human body,,, Together, all of the above (chemicals and minerals) amounts to less than one dollar! http://www.madsci.org/posts/archives/2001-01/979621502.Bc.r.html
Just how does one go about deriving any true meaning and value for a person's life from an Atheistic worldview that maintains you are worth around a dollar or so? So since Darwinian Atheists, as a foundational presupposition of their materialistic philosophy, (and not from any compelling scientific evidence mind you), deny the existence of souls, (and since the materialist's denial of souls, (and God), has led to so much catastrophic disaster on human societies in the 20th century), then it is VERY important to 'scientifically' establish the existence of these 'souls' that are of incalculable worth, and that are equal, before God. Although Near Death Experiences are enough, in and of themselves, to establish the existence of souls, (and to show just how 'unscientific' Darwinian materialists are),
Near-Death Experiences: Putting a Darwinist's Evidentiary Standards to the Test - Dr. Michael Egnor - October 15, 2012 Excerpt: Indeed, about 20 percent of NDE's are corroborated, which means that there are independent ways of checking about the veracity of the experience. The patients knew of things that they could not have known except by extraordinary perception -- such as describing details of surgery that they watched while their heart was stopped, etc. Additionally, many NDE's have a vividness and a sense of intense reality that one does not generally encounter in dreams or hallucinations.,,, The most "parsimonious" explanation -- the simplest scientific explanation -- is that the (Near Death) experience was real. Tens of millions of people have had such experiences. That is tens of millions of more times than we have observed the origin of species , (or the origin of life, or the origin of a protein/gene, or of a molecular machine), which is never.,,, The materialist reaction, in short, is unscientific and close-minded. NDE's show fellows like Coyne at their sneering unscientific irrational worst. Somebody finds a crushed fragment of a fossil and it's earth-shaking evidence. Tens of million of people have life-changing spiritual experiences and it's all a big yawn. Note: Dr. Egnor is professor and vice-chairman of neurosurgery at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/10/near_death_expe_1065301.html
,,, Although Near Death Experiences are enough, in and of themselves, to establish the existence of souls, (and to show just how 'unscientific' Darwinian materialists are in their explanations), it is necessary to drill down a little further in order to 'scientifically' establish the existence of souls. As every ID advocate intimately knows, the main debate between Darwinian materialists and ID advocates is over the sheer inability of unguided Darwinian processes to account for the origin of the functional, (immaterial), information in life.
Top Ten Questions and Objections to ‘Introduction to Evolutionary Informatics’ – Robert J. Marks II – June 12, 2017 Excerpt: “There exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. Hard sciences are built on foundations of mathematics or definitive simulations. Examples include electromagnetics, Newtonian mechanics, geophysics, relativity, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, optics, and many areas in biology. Those hoping to establish Darwinian evolution as a hard science with a model have either failed or inadvertently cheated. These models contain guidance mechanisms to land the airplane squarely on the target runway despite stochastic wind gusts. Not only can the guiding assistance be specifically identified in each proposed evolution model, its contribution to the success can be measured, in bits, as active information.,,,”,,, “there exists no model successfully describing undirected Darwinian evolution. According to our current understanding, there never will be.,,,” https://evolutionnews.org/2017/06/top-ten-questions-and-objections-to-introduction-to-evolutionary-informatics/ Robert Jackson Marks II is an American electrical engineer. His contributions include the Zhao-Atlas-Marks (ZAM) time-frequency distribution in the field of signal processing,[1] the Cheung–Marks theorem[2] in Shannon sampling theory and the Papoulis-Marks-Cheung (PMC) approach in multidimensional sampling.[3] He was instrumental in the defining of the field of computational intelligence and co-edited the first book using computational intelligence in the title.[4][5] – per wikipedia
The interesting thing about information, the primary thing that prevents information from ever being reducible to materialistic explanations, is that information is 'immaterial' in its foundational essence. As Dr. Stephen Meyer explains, "(Immaterial information is) not reducible to matter. It’s not reducible to energy. But it’s still a very important thing that is real; we buy it, we sell it, we send it down wires. Now, what do we make of the fact, that (immaterial) information is present at the very root of all biological function? In biology, we have matter, we have energy, but we also have this third, very important entity; (immaterial) information.”,,,
“One of the things I do in my classes, to get this idea across to students, is I hold up two computer disks. One is loaded with software, and the other one is blank. And I ask them, ‘what is the difference in mass between these two computer disks, as a result of the difference in the information content that they posses’? And of course the answer is, ‘Zero! None! There is no difference as a result of the information. And that’s because information is a mass-less quantity. Now, if information is not a material entity, then how can any materialistic explanation account for its origin? How can any material cause explain it’s origin? And this is the real and fundamental problem that the presence of information in biology has posed. It creates a fundamental challenge to the materialistic, evolutionary scenarios because information is a different kind of entity that matter and energy cannot produce. In the nineteenth century we thought that there were two fundamental entities in science; matter, and energy. At the beginning of the twenty first century, we now recognize that there’s a third fundamental entity; and its ‘information’. It’s not reducible to matter. It’s not reducible to energy. But it’s still a very important thing that is real; we buy it, we sell it, we send it down wires. Now, what do we make of the fact, that information is present at the very root of all biological function? In biology, we have matter, we have energy, but we also have this third, very important entity; information. I think the biology of the information age, poses a fundamental challenge to any materialistic approach to the origin of life.” – Stephen Meyer – Intelligent design: Why can’t biological information originate through a materialistic process? – video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wqiXNxyoof8
bornagain77
Chuckdarwin
If you cannot treat your relatives with a modicum of grace and good manners, Marxist, atheist materialism is the least of your concerns
How right you are Chuck. One can only hope that when Stalin's goons got home after a hard day's work slaughtering Kulaks they did not do something truly horrible, like failing to treat their relatives with grace and good manners. God help us. The stupidity displayed in some of the comments on this forum is breathtaking. Barry Arrington
Alan Fox @ 34 makes the most important observation in this thread: We have completely abandoned any semblance of good manners in our culture, especially in the US. Only a boor would lecture a younger person (relative or not) on political correctness at a wedding, then turn around and blame her for being rude for not wanting to engage. You need to admire her restraint--she should have thrown a drink in Vividbleau's face. If you cannot treat your relatives with a modicum of grace and good manners, Marxist, atheist materialism is the least of your concerns...... chuckdarwin
There is a cultural revolution push on, and it is not merely about money interest
You completely miss who is behind what is going on. jerry
Jerry, I have said enough to make the point clear enough. Hard and soft power are not reducible to money though money is important and economics and logistics constrain strategy. However, it is not in itself decisive, if it were Junkers would have prevailed over Milch [his former employee] and the nazis. They got through with a lawless ideological state and they destroyed him, hounding him to death, this is an illustrative example. There is a cultural revolution push on, and it is not merely about money interest. KF kairosfocus
power is far, far more than money
You try to explain away the obvious. By the way the answer is in Barry’s essay. Answer the question: why do the media move in lockstep? It’s not ideology. It’s power backed by money. Aside: I probably know as much history as you. Nothing what you cite is relevant. Aside2: what scared people more than anything in the last year? The answer when the Canadian government froze the money of dissidents. Who in Canada enabled this? The US government is flirting with the same thing today. No one wants to wake up and find their life savings gone. jerry
Jerry, power is far, far more than money. Money, in fact is not even directly power, especially when power brokers can inflate it away as happened in Germany after WW1. Those with power and thugs backed by lawfare can take away your patents, your factories, your corporations, hound you to death, ask the ghost of Hugo Junkers -- yes, that Junkers. Those with power can exploit odd incidents and scare rump legislatures into passing enabling acts, ask the Germans about the Reichstag fire. And, ignoring key history does not make its validity or need to point to it from time to time go away. More to the point, ability to indoctrinate the young, set up red guards, then target those one wishes to overthrow is a proved 4th generation war tactic. Ask the ghosts of the victims of Mao's Cultural Revolution. Do I need to add the lessons of appeasement in the face of the rise of strictly less technically and quantitatively capable Nazi Germany, thanks to a military revolution. KF PS, actually the digital networked world made it harder and more obvious, in the days of a few dominant media, education, news and publishing cartels it did not have to be so naked. But now the US is in the midst of a 4th gen so far low kinetic civil war because enough people could readily get an alternative to be a threat to the establishment. kairosfocus
repeating does not make things so
Says the person who repeats more than anyone here. We even got Cicero. And by the way I have supported your use of Cicero. But you continue to ignore the obvious. So I’ll repeat the obvious. Where’s the money? Where’s the power? When you answer these questions, an intelligent conversation could come about. Not one with blindfolds on. Aside: this would all not be happening if the digital world did not exist. https://i.imgur.com/Fo7MkdZ_d.webp?maxwidth=760&fidelity=grand jerry
AC, trying to impose that one must habitually lie that a man is a woman is an act of hatred and subversion and corruption of sound conscience. It is part of the subversion of the heritage of civilisation and it is profoundly misanthropic and anti civlisational; which has predictably ruinous consequences reeking of blood and tears. Your projection fails. KF kairosfocus
Jerry, repeating does not make things so; money is a logistical means not an end itself, were that the case inflationary policies would not be pursued, to preserve its value. We are not dealing with old fashioned plutocracy. It is because of a successful subversion of big institutions and cartelisation of the high tech media sector tied to the same long march through institutions per tenets of cultural marxist thought that we have today's worldview subversion, culture agenda neo-marxism cum neo-fascism, of course with climate change as a key stalking horse. Notice what has happened to three billionaires who stepped off the reservation, Trump, Musk and West. And, the marginalisation of theism as it backs the key moral heritage of our civilisation, is part of the strategy. Kindly, read Plato as excerpted. KF kairosfocus
au contraire, it has everything to do with these things
Wrong, it has nothing to do with those things. Look to where the money is. That is the power behind it all. It’s myopic to think that atheism is monotheistic. jerry
This may be the most stupid comment I have ever seen posted on this site. Seriously? When Darryl Brooks ran over the Christmas parade, did you say “I am not in favor of running over pedestrians, but he has a right to drive on the street.”
For snowflakes free speach has become the equivalent of murder. I tell you guys it's just a matter of time until Barry and his progressive friends have their way and calling a man a woman will be considered a hate crime. 2+2=4. AndyClue
Jerry, au contraire, it has everything to do with these things, we are dealing with the truly power hungry in an era when old fashioned conquest and subjugation are off the table. Money is just logistics to feed the real hunger, raw unaccountable power to impose one's will and it is by ideological subversion that you can reduce the otherwise unconquerable continent scale global maritime power; nukes would just reduce us who survive to the stone age if we are lucky. I suggest you read Suetonius' Life of Nero to get a deep backgrounder. KF kairosfocus
Here are facts on that inconvenient US State Dept memo on the Ukraine: https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/freedom/that-inconvenient-us-state-dept-memo-on-mass-correspondence-voting-in-ukraine/ kairosfocus
This has nothing to do with fascism or communism or the Frankfurt School or the intolerance of academia. There is an appropriate expression, “Follow the Money” and it has nothing to do with academia. They are just the useful fools as are those who cry Marxism. Look to where the money is and who controls it. Certainly not academia, or the arts or the news. Look to who controls them? That is where the answer lies. Authoritarianism can come in many stripes. Kings and emperors have been just as authoritarian and they were not of any ideology. It’s pure power and selfishness that is driving what is happening. Not some ideology. The ideologies are just the useful idiots. As are those who yell Marxism and allow the real cause to be overlooked. Then we have another form of useful idiot. Those who reflexively justify the intolerance that is happening because they hate those who the intolerance is currently directed at. It’s on display in this thread. When will they realize, that they didn’t come for me doesn’t mean that they won’t eventually come for me? jerry
F/N3: We need to wonder why the above is not a standard part of our education, and even more so the following:
It is not too hard to figure out that our civilisation is in deep trouble and is most likely headed for shipwreck. (And of course, that sort of concern is dismissed as “apocalyptic,” or neurotic pessimism that refuses to pause and smell the roses.) Plato’s Socrates spoke to this sort of situation, long since, in the ship of state parable in The Republic, Bk VI:
>>[Soc.] I perceive, I said, that you are vastly amused at having plunged me into such a hopeless discussion; but now hear the parable, and then you will be still more amused at the meagreness of my imagination: for the manner in which the best men are treated in their own States is so grievous that no single thing on earth is comparable to it; and therefore, if I am to plead their cause, I must have recourse to fiction, and put together a figure made up of many things, like the fabulous unions of goats and stags which are found in pictures. Imagine then a fleet or a ship in which there is a captain [–> often interpreted, ship’s owner] who is taller and stronger than any of the crew, but he is a little deaf and has a similar infirmity in sight, and his knowledge of navigation is not much better. [= The people own the community and in the mass are overwhelmingly strong, but are ill equipped on the whole to guide, guard and lead it] The sailors are quarrelling with one another about the steering – every one is of opinion that he has a right to steer [= selfish ambition to rule and dominate], though he has never learned the art of navigation and cannot tell who taught him or when he learned, and will further assert that it cannot be taught, and they are ready to cut in pieces any one who says the contrary. They throng about the captain, begging and praying him to commit the helm to them [–> kubernetes, steersman, from which both cybernetics and government come in English]; and if at any time they do not prevail, but others are preferred to them, they kill the others or throw them overboard [ = ruthless contest for domination of the community], and having first chained up the noble captain’s senses with drink or some narcotic drug [ = manipulation and befuddlement, cf. the parable of the cave], they mutiny and take possession of the ship and make free with the stores; thus, eating and drinking, they proceed on their voyage in such a manner as might be expected of them [–> Cf here Luke’s subtle case study in Ac 27]. Him who is their partisan and cleverly aids them in their plot for getting the ship out of the captain’s hands into their own whether by force or persuasion [–> Nihilistic will to power on the premise of might and manipulation making ‘right’ ‘truth’ ‘justice’ ‘rights’ etc], they compliment with the name of sailor, pilot, able seaman, and abuse the other sort of man, whom they call a good-for-nothing; but that the true pilot must pay attention to the year and seasons and sky and stars and winds, and whatever else belongs to his art, if he intends to be really qualified for the command of a ship, and that he must and will be the steerer, whether other people like or not-the possibility of this union of authority with the steerer’s art has never seriously entered into their thoughts or been made part of their calling. Now in vessels which are in a state of mutiny and by sailors who are mutineers, how will the true pilot be regarded? Will he not be called by them a prater, a star-gazer, a good-for-nothing? [Ad.] Of course, said Adeimantus. [Soc.] Then you will hardly need, I said, to hear the interpretation of the figure, which describes the true philosopher in his relation to the State [ --> here we see Plato's philosopher-king emerging]; for you understand already. [Ad.] Certainly. [Soc.] Then suppose you now take this parable to the gentleman who is surprised at finding that philosophers have no honour in their cities; explain it to him and try to convince him that their having honour would be far more extraordinary. [Ad.] I will. [Soc.] Say to him, that, in deeming the best votaries of philosophy to be useless to the rest of the world, he is right; but also tell him to attribute their uselessness to the fault of those who will not use them, and not to themselves. The pilot should not humbly beg the sailors to be commanded by him –that is not the order of nature; neither are ‘the wise to go to the doors of the rich’ –the ingenious author of this saying told a lie –but the truth is, that, when a man is ill, whether he be rich or poor, to the physician he must go, and he who wants to be governed, to him who is able to govern. [--> the issue of competence and character as qualifications to rule] The ruler who is good for anything ought not to beg his subjects to be ruled by him [ --> down this road lies the modern solution: a sound, well informed people will seek sound leaders, who will not need to manipulate or bribe or worse, and such a ruler will in turn be checked by the soundness of the people, cf. US DoI, 1776]; although the present governors of mankind are of a different stamp; they may be justly compared to the mutinous sailors, and the true helmsmen to those who are called by them good-for-nothings and star-gazers. [Ad.] Precisely so, he said. [Soc] For these reasons, and among men like these, philosophy, the noblest pursuit of all, is not likely to be much esteemed by those of the opposite faction [--> the sophists, the Demagogues, Alcibiades and co, etc]; not that the greatest and most lasting injury is done to her by her opponents, but by her own professing followers, the same of whom you suppose the accuser to say, that the greater number of them are arrant rogues, and the best are useless; in which opinion I agreed [--> even among the students of the sound state (here, political philosophy and likely history etc.), many are of unsound motivation and intent, so mere education is not enough, character transformation is critical]. [Ad.] Yes. [Soc.] And the reason why the good are useless has now been explained? [Ad.] True. [Soc.] Then shall we proceed to show that the corruption of the majority is also unavoidable [--> implies a need for a corruption-restraining minority providing proverbial salt and light, cf. Ac 27, as well as justifying a governing structure turning on separation of powers, checks and balances], and that this is not to be laid to the charge of philosophy any more than the other? [Ad.] By all means. [Soc.] And let us ask and answer in turn, first going back to the description of the gentle and noble nature.[ -- > note the character issue] Truth, as you will remember, was his leader, whom he followed always and in all things [ --> The spirit of truth as a marker]; failing in this, he was an impostor, and had no part or lot in true philosophy [--> the spirit of truth is a marker, for good or ill] . . . >>
(There is more than an echo of this in Acts 27, a real world case study. [Luke, a physician, was an educated Greek with a taste for subtle references.] This blog post, on soundness in policy, will also help)
Those who are playing with fire need to learn from hard bought lessons of history paid for in blood and tears. Of course in their superficial, supercilious imagined cleverness they think they can dismiss such. All they do is bring themselves under a yet older rebuke:
Isa 5: 18 Woe to those who draw iniquity with cords of falsehood, who draw sin as with cart ropes, 19 who say: “Let him be quick, let him speed his work that we may see it; let the counsel of the Holy One of Israel draw near, and let it come, that we may know it!” 20 Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! 21 Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight! 22 Woe to those who are heroes at drinking wine, and valiant men in mixing strong drink, 23 who acquit the guilty for a bribe, and deprive the innocent of his right! 24 Therefore, as the tongue of fire devours the stubble, and as dry grass sinks down in the flame, so their root will be as rottenness, and their blossom go up like dust; for they have rejected the law of the LORD of hosts, and have despised the word of the Holy One of Israel.
KF kairosfocus
F/N2: But the matter is deeper, here is Plato:
Ath[enian Stranger, in The Laws, Bk X 2,360 ya]. . . .[The avant garde philosophers and poets, c. 360 BC] say that fire and water, and earth and air [i.e the classical "material" elements of the cosmos -- the natural order], all exist by nature and chance, and none of them by art . . . [such that] all that is in the heaven, as well as animals and all plants, and all the seasons come from these elements, not by the action of mind, as they say, or of any God, or from art, but as I was saying, by nature and chance only [ --> that is, evolutionary materialism is ancient and would trace all things to blind chance and mechanical necessity; observe, too, the trichotomy: "nature" (here, mechanical, blind necessity), "chance" (similar to a tossed fair die), ART (the action of a mind, i.e. intelligently directed configuration)] . . . . [Thus, they hold] that the principles of justice have no existence at all[--> notice the reduction to zero] in nature, but that mankind are always disputing about them and altering them; and that the alterations which are made by art and by law have no basis in nature, but are of authority for the moment and at the time at which they are made.-
[ --> Relativism, too, is not new; complete with its radical amorality rooted in a worldview that has no foundational IS that can ground OUGHT, leading to an effectively arbitrary foundation only for morality, ethics, so too justice, law and government: accident of personal preference, the ebbs and flows of power politics, accidents of history and and the shifting sands of manipulated community opinion driven by "winds and waves of doctrine and the cunning craftiness of men in their deceitful scheming . . . " cf a video on Plato's parable of the cave; from the perspective of pondering who set up the manipulative shadow-shows, why.]
These, my friends, are the sayings of wise men, poets and prose writers, which find a way into the minds of youth. They are told by them that the highest right is might,
[ --> Evolutionary materialism -- having no IS that can properly ground OUGHT -- leads to the promotion of amorality on which the only basis for "OUGHT" is seen to be might (and manipulation: might in "spin"), opening the door to cynicism, hyperskepticism and nihilism . . . this is actually an infamous credo of nihilism . . . also, it reeks of cynically manipulative lawless oligarchy . . . ]
and in this way the young fall into impieties, under the idea that the Gods are not such as the law bids them imagine; and hence arise factions [ --> Evolutionary materialism-motivated amorality "naturally" leads to continual contentions and power struggles influenced by that amorality at the hands of ruthless power hungry nihilistic agendas], these philosophers inviting them to lead a true life according to nature, that is,to live in real dominion over others [ --> such amoral and/or nihilistic factions, if they gain power, "naturally" tend towards ruthless abuse and arbitrariness . . . they have not learned the habits nor accepted the principles of mutual respect, justice, fairness and keeping the civil peace of justice, so they will want to deceive, manipulate and crush -- as the consistent history of radical revolutions over the past 250 years so plainly shows again and again], and not in legal subjection to them [--> nihilistic will to power not the spirit of justice and lawfulness].
Yes, this game has been going on for over 2,000 years and the undermining of morality always ends where we have seen as Barry highlighted. KF kairosfocus
F/N: Here is Wikipedia's confession, as the irresponsible commenters will not even click an inconvenient corrective link, that is how little regard they have for duties of truth and right reason, imagining how clever they are:
The Reichstag fire (German: Reichstagsbrand, About this soundlisten (help·info)) was an arson attack on the Reichstag building, home of the German parliament in Berlin, on Monday 27 February 1933, precisely four weeks after Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor of Germany. Hitler’s government stated that Marinus van der Lubbe, a Dutch council communist, was the culprit, and it attributed the fire to communist agitators. A German court decided later that year that Van der Lubbe had acted alone, as he had claimed. The day after the fire, the Reichstag Fire Decree was passed. The Nazi Party used the fire as a pretext to claim that communists were plotting against the German government, which made the fire pivotal in the establishment of Nazi Germany. The first report of the fire came shortly after 9:00 p.m., when a Berlin fire station received an alarm call.[1] By the time police and firefighters arrived, the lower house ‘Chamber of Deputies’ was engulfed in flames. The police conducted a thorough search inside the building and accused Van der Lubbe. He was arrested, as were four communist leaders soon after. Hitler urged President Paul von Hindenburg to issue an emergency decree to suspend civil liberties and pursue a “ruthless confrontation” with the Communist Party of Germany.[2] After the decree was issued, the government instituted mass arrests of communists, including all of the Communist Party’s parliamentary delegates. With their bitter rival communists gone and their seats empty, the Nazi Party went from having a plurality to a majority, thus enabling Hitler to consolidate his power . . . . After the November 1932 German federal election, the Nazi Party had a plurality, not a majority; the Communists posted gains.[7] Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor and head of the coalition government on 30 January 1933.[8] As chancellor, Hitler asked President Paul von Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag and call for a new parliamentary election. The date set for the elections was 5 March 1933.[9] Hitler hoped to abolish democracy in a more or less legal fashion, by passing the Enabling Act. The Enabling Act was a special law that gave the Chancellor the power to pass laws by decree, without the involvement of the Reichstag. These special powers would remain in effect for four years, after which time they were eligible to be renewed. Under the Weimar Constitution, the President could rule by decree in times of emergency using Article 48.[10] During the election campaign, the Nazis alleged that Germany was on the verge of a Communist revolution and that the only way to stop the Communists was to put the Nazis securely in power . . . . The day after the fire, at Hitler’s request, President Hindenburg signed the Reichstag Fire Decree into law by using Article 48 of the Weimar Constitution. The Reichstag Fire Decree suspended most civil liberties in Germany, including habeas corpus, freedom of expression, freedom of the press, the right of free association and public assembly, and the secrecy of the post and telephone.[18] These rights were not reinstated during Nazi reign. The decree was used by the Nazis to ban publications not considered “friendly” to the Nazi cause. Despite the fact that Marinus van der Lubbe claimed to have acted alone in the Reichstag fire, Hitler, after having obtained his emergency powers, announced that it was the start of a Communist plot to take over Germany. Nazi Party newspapers then published this fabricated “news”.[18] This sent the German population into a panic and isolated the Communists further among the civilians; additionally, thousands of Communists were imprisoned in the days following the fire (including leaders of the Communist Party of Germany) on the charge that the Party was preparing to stage a putsch. Speaking to Rudolph Diels about Communists during the Reichstag fire, Hitler said “These sub-humans do not understand how the people stand at our side. In their mouse-holes, out of which they now want to come, of course they hear nothing of the cheering of the masses.”[19] With Communist electoral participation also suppressed (the Communists previously polled 17% of the vote), the Nazis were able to increase their share of the vote in the 5 March 1933 Reichstag elections from 33% to 44%.[20] This gave the Nazis and their allies, the German National People’s Party (who won 8% of the vote), a majority of 52% in the Reichstag.[20] While the Nazis emerged with a majority, they fell short of their goal, which was to win 50–55% of the vote that year.[20] The Nazis thought that this would make it difficult to achieve their next goal, passage of the Enabling Act giving Hitler the right to rule by decree, which required a two-thirds majority.[20] However, several important factors weighed in the Nazis’ favour, mainly the continued suppression of the Communist Party and the Nazis’ ability to capitalize on national security concerns. Moreover, some deputies of the Social Democratic Party (the only party that would vote against the Enabling Act) were prevented from taking their seats in the Reichstag, due to arrests and intimidation by the Nazi SA. As a result, the Social Democratic Party would be under-represented in the final vote tally. The Enabling Act passed easily on 23 March 1933, with the support of the right-wing German National People’s Party, the Centre Party, and several fragmented middle-class parties. The measure went into force on 24 March, effectively making Hitler dictator of Germany.[21] The Kroll Opera House, sitting across the Königsplatz from the burned-out Reichstag building, functioned as the Reichstag’s venue for the remaining 12 years of the Third Reich’s existence.[22]
Of course, Wiki imagines, here it is indicting those right wing authoritarians, playing off how moist of us do not know that Nazi is short for national socialist german workers' party, and that they meant the socialist. They are right of Stalin, who imagined himself the centre of the political spectrum, but that is all that can be said. Fascism is statist political messianism that captures institutions and businesses in service to its totalitarian agenda. That is it played off the other sense of ownership - control. If you doubt me look up what they did to Hugo Junkers then cynicaly turned up at his funeral with floral tributes. The family had the courage to bar them. KF kairosfocus
SG, there you go again. You don't know or care that you are dealing with someone who literally put his life on the line on matters of truth and who cut his eyeteeth dealing with marxist subversives. You just completely exposed yourself. It's over. You seemingly do not realise that the turnabout tactic was what got Hitler his power, as you refuse to learn the history of the Reichstag fire incident and draw due parallels, you are not a responsible commenter. KF kairosfocus
Vivid, Yes, as KF says you can link to this post. If you would like a pdf of the article, contact me at barry dot arrington at comcast dot net. Barry Arrington
Sir Giles
I am not in favour of students shouting down a speaker. But it is an expression of free speech.
This may be the most stupid comment I have ever seen posted on this site. Seriously? When Darryl Brooks ran over the Christmas parade, did you say "I am not in favor of running over pedestrians, but he has a right to drive on the street." Barry Arrington
"Hitler was elected by the people. Mussolini was elected by the people." You do realize that Hitler and Mussolini are both shining examples that underscore Mr. Arrington's overall point about atheistic materialism underlying totalitarianism do you not? Or are you really that ignorant of your history?
From Darwin to Hitler - Weikart https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_5EwYpLD6A Nazism, Fascism and Social Darwinism - 07 December 2009 Excerpt: One point on which scholars do seem to have reached a consensus relates to the role of Social Darwinism in both Nazi and Fascist ideology. Social Darwinist ideas are cited as underpinning Nazi policies on war, eugenics and race, and providing a rationale for the emphasis on struggle and conflict found in Italian and French Fascism. https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/social-darwinism-in-european-and-american-thought-18601945/nazism-fascism-and-social-darwinism/467C6A8A8FE509A8EB5ECE5F1AD5CD43 The Translation of Darwin and the Struggle for Italy. - 2020 In this article, I address the influence of the theory of evolution on Italy's national ideology in the late nineteenth century. I focus on the 1864 translation of Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) into Italian by Giovanni Canestrini and Leonardo Salimbeni, as well as Herbert Spencer's conceptual translation of evolutionary ideas from technical to popular language, to show how commonplace understandings of evolution were used in a rationalist nation-building project, especially by sociologist Scipio Sighele in his work II nazionalismo e i partiti politici (1911). The influence of these two forms of translation on national ideology facilitated the belief that Italy was engaged in an international struggle for existence that, to be successful, required the nation to mobilize its people around a unified culture and take ownership of external colonies. https://go.gale.com/ps/i.do?id=GALE%7CA666875910&sid=googleScholar&v=2.1&it=r&linkaccess=abs&issn=07417527&p=LitRC&sw=w&userGroupName=anon%7E76be1394 etc.. etc...
bornagain77
KF: Kindly see the just above which traces the line we have travelled over the past 100+ years.
Yes, the last 100+ years has been a descent into hell. Women got the vote. Segregation was banned. Life expectancy has increased. Infant mortality has decreased. Homosexuals are no longer jailed. Etc, etc, etc. Sir Giles
VB: Moving away from “”democratic norms “is another of the lefts code words, translation “ I don’t like how you voted, it’s not how I would vote so all you ignorant people are moving away from democratic norms after all you are nothing but fascist Nazi scum”
Hitler was elected by the people. Mussolini was elected by the people. Sir Giles
@Vividbleau
Barry “How did she receive it?” Like a typical progressive rather than engage my points she got up from the table and left. Our young have been brainwashed.
No. A typical progressive would whine and shout like a little snowflake. She was nice enough to end the conversation. So there's something rational left in her (that's something she shares with her uncle :-) ). AndyClue
KF: SG and Sev, how predictable is your unjustified resort to turnabout projection.
The key word here is “turnabout”. When you project the expression of free speech as something else, you are the authoritarian. I am not in favour of students shouting down a speaker. But it is an expression of free speech. How is stopping them any different than the government stopping someone from expressing their views. Sir Giles
Like a typical progressive rather than engage my points she got up from the table and left.
How very sensible of her. You initiate a controversial subject with your daughter-in-law at the wedding celebration and press your point of view. And you are disappointed at her reaction? Alan Fox
Vivid, UD is public. Feel free to link and to share, just attribute. KF kairosfocus
Vivid, pardon my for cause distrust of fraud inviting mass correspondence voting [see US State Dept report on that in my linked https://uncommondesc.wpengine.com/logic-and-first-principles-of-right-reason/l-fp-49-the-reichstag-fire-panic-lesson-on-agit-prop-and-lawfare/ ] and blackbox voting machines, with no close overwatch scrutineering. I believe in forgery proof paper, close scrutineers and public hand counts. KF kairosfocus
KF “PS, right on cue, here comes the next projection” It’s just going to get worse if her party is sent packing in a few weeks. That’s a big if but if it were to happen “buckle up” it’s going to get ugly. Vivid vividbleau
Barry I just reread your essay and the second time around it was even better! May I have your permission to send it to some of my friends? Vivid vividbleau
PS, right on cue, here comes the next projection https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/10/breaking-video-hillary-clinton-says-rightwing-extremists-already-plan-literally-steal-next-presidential-election/ So, use the mirror principle to infer the confessions . . . kairosfocus
Jerry, when they can get cowed authorities to stand by and stand down, the red guard mobs will run riot. Worse, perverted police will set up platoon scale SWAT hit team ambushes at your house to surprise, threaten, publicly shame and bring under bankrupting lawfare. All of this, backed by Reichstag fire incident tactics. KF kairosfocus
KF “SG and Sev, how predictable is your unjustified resort to turnabout projection. Kindly see the just above. KF” So true. Here is a hard and fast rule, whatever accusations the left makes against its adversaries is what they actually are or are engaging in the activity they are accusing the other side of doing. Vivid vividbleau
“Within just a few years, we’ve witnessed the election of Donald Trump in the US, the Brexit decision in the UK, the rise of Matteo Salvini in Italy, Victor Orbán in Hungary, the Freedom party in Austria and the Law and Justice party in Poland…… They seemed like the exception to a general rule of progression towards, not away from, democratic norms.” What a crock. Brexit was voted in by the majority, Trump was elected by the people,Salvini got elected by the people, Orban got elected by the people. What in Gods name can be more of a “democratic norm” than people voting ? Moving away from “”democratic norms “is another of the lefts code words, translation “ I don’t like how you voted, it’s not how I would vote so all you ignorant people are moving away from democratic norms after all you are nothing but fascist Nazi scum” Vivid vividbleau
SG and Sev, how predictable is your unjustified resort to turnabout projection. Kindly see the just above which traces the line we have travelled over the past 100+ years. FYI, we will not surrender to lawless ideological oligarchy under a perverse 1984 style nomenklatura that tries to set up that 2 + 2 is anything the oligarchs . . . party . . . wants at the moment. Self evident first principles of right reason that are also core first law of our morally governed nature, learning from tears and blood bought sound history will be our watchwords, and this includes due respect for civilisation, including our own. Yes there is a place for due reform but never for perverse lawlesness and unaccountable oppressive ideological domination under false colours of liberation. Nor will we accept darkness for light, crooked yardstick moral inversion so the perverse, the twisted must be called straight and the straight crooked. No, we will not live by lies or from fear be silent in the face of lies, slander, injustice, Reichstag fire incident tactics and the like agit prop, lawfare and so forth. Signs that tell us the true, hellish source of the present 4th generation misanthropic, jacobin war against civilisation. KF kairosfocus
Barry, Vivid and Jerry, the line of intellectual descent from the Frankfurt school in the 1920s to the new left to critical theories of all sorts to domination of institutions -- the long march through institutions -- to the ongoing fight to destroy the heritage of our civilisation and bring about lawless ideological oligarchy with their favoured nomenklatura in domination is plain. (It has actually been documented here at UD for several years.) We need to use the mirror principle or in social psychological terms, resort to analysis on cognitive dissonance and projection to the despised other; which was also a key to Nazi propaganda and for that matter its progenitor and kissing cousin bolshevik propaganda. When they project fascism + racism to the other, we need to ask, what way this reflects the wellsprings of their hearts, where the unrepentant, unregenerate heart is evil and desperately wicked beyond human cure. Hence, BTW, how we fail the test of branch on which we all sit ciceronian first duties, showing by our self serving, agenda driven double standard projections and demands how we are governed by duty - to truth, - to right reason, - to warrant and wider prudence, - to sound conscience, - to neighbour, thus - to fairness and justice etc. This also points to the only serious candidate root of reality, the inherently good, utterly wise creator God, a necessary and maximally great being, worthy of loyalty and of the freely given, reasonable, responsible service of doing the good that accords with our evident nature. This is all there in the heritage and history of our civilisation, but in hatred of that heritage, its symbols, heroes, champions, principles, lessons, hard won advances, every dirty tool of rhetoric and slander has been used to try to cut us off from our roots to transfer us to the new power structure, cultural and policy agenda of lawless oligarchy. When they say we are all fascists, they confess that they are not only neo marxists but neo fascists [the two ideologies were always close cousins]. When we are called racists and uncle toms, they mean they will use the appeal to liberation from claimed oppression [real or imagined] to invert every principle and institution into a twisted, perverted form, also using anger to warp thinking and establish crooked yardstick thinking. So, the angry and deceived will "never" accept what is true, straight, accurate, upright because it cannot fit with their established crookedness. History says, such regimes will only yield by going over the cliff. Welcome to 1984, the reality. The chaos is not a bug, it's a feature. KF kairosfocus
Sev @21...to quote..."As the author points out, democracy is a fragile state, easy to lose and very hard to recover. You give it up at your peril." So, let's discuss pure democracy...rule by the majority. A gang rape is pure democracy in action...yes or no? If not, explain in detail... tardigrade
So, who are the authoritarians? Those who prevent those with minority views from presenting them, or those who insist that they be presented? Sir Giles
Across the world, voters are falling prey to leaders who appeal to their worst instincts. Why? With every new year, I typically set aside some time to write down what I’m grateful for. Health, family, friends, books, jazz, my dog, among other things. This year I added something I’ve been taking for granted. It’s democracy. Like many of us, I have worried about the rising tide of rightwing populism, nationalism and polarisation across the world. Within just a few years, we’ve witnessed the election of Donald Trump in the US, the Brexit decision in the UK, the rise of Matteo Salvini in Italy, Victor Orbán in Hungary, the Freedom party in Austria and the Law and Justice party in Poland. The world’s largest democracy, India, is menaced by a newly virulent nationalism and xenophobia. For a long time I wondered what explained the appeal of these apparently fringe movements that, in my view, had accidentally gone mainstream. They seemed like the exception to a general rule of progression towards, not away from, democratic norms. But this year I came to a different conclusion: it’s democracy that is a precious exception to the rule, and one that is extremely fragile, for a simple reason: the human craving for order and security when chaos feels imminent. The philosopher and psychologist Erich Fromm first identified this predicament in his 1941 book, Escape from Freedom. The gist of it is this: when people perceive an increase in disorder, they feel tremendous anxiety. Inevitably, this anxiety leads to a quest for security. To bring a sense of safety back into their lives, they latch on to authoritarianism and conformity. As Fromm noted, this often leads to “a readiness to accept any ideology and any leader if only he offers a political structure and symbols which allegedly give meaning and order to an individual’s life”. He had observed this in Germany, which he fled in 1933: “Modern man still is anxious and tempted to surrender his freedom to dictators of all kinds,” he wrote. Fromm was speculating about this dynamic. But decades later, I and other psychologists have empirically shown how insecurity is linked to the rise of autocrats and the erosion of democracy. In a survey we conducted before the 2016 US presidential election, for example, we asked US residents questions about how fearful they were about various threats, such as illegal immigration, a lack of jobs, crime, terrorism, an attack from Iran, among others. They also responded to statements aimed at gauging their desire for stricter rules and their support for different political candidates, including Trump. We conducted the same survey in 2017 in France, measuring support for Marine Le Pen. The results of both studies were telling: people who felt threatened wanted to tighten up – to have stricter rules – which predicted their support for Trump or Le Pen in the US and France, respectively. Other research confirms the same pattern. Economic threats and the growing gap between the rich and poor also create a sense of chaos and instability. This has led to increased support for strong leaders willing to challenge democratic values and practices. It’s a simple principle, one that is causing democracies all around the world to unravel. When people experience threat – whether actual or imagined – they begin to “tighten”. In physical terms, they tense their muscles, ready to defend themselves. In political terms, they begin to crave security and order in a community that seems to be collapsing. Authoritarian leaders satiate this need by promising quick, simple solutions – and, above all, a return to the tighter social order of yesteryear. Leaders are aware of this basic psychology and exaggerate threats to gain popularity. Trump did so masterfully: at campaign rallies throughout 2015 and 2016, he warned his ever-growing crowds that the US was a nation on the “brink of disaster”. He cited Mexicans supposedly bringing violence across the border, global trade agreements and immigrants taking away jobs, and radicalised Muslims plotting terror on American soil. Throughout his campaign, he sent the clear message that he was capable of restoring social order: “I alone can fix it.” Analysing campaign speeches, we found that Trump used far more threatening language than Hillary Clinton.
Authoritarians - whether secular or religious - often achieve power by whipping up fear of a disaster which they say they alone can prevent. Prevention usually means doing what they say - or else. As the author points out, democracy is a fragile state, easy to lose and very hard to recover. You give it up at your peril. Seversky
All I'm seeing today is a rerun of the 1960s. It was during that time that Total Strangers (TM) began to implement their plans. The goal was to stop the flow of babies, end stay at home moms and wreck male-female relationships. Since there was no internet, their foul ideas were spread using 'underground newspapers' and 'underground comix.' It all boiled down to sexual perversion and illegal drug use. By 1967, Hippies were appearing in our neighborhoods. They were trying to convince us to live like them, live with our girlfriend and have sex with her, along with illegal drug use. Some took the bait. A friend of mine went from average guy to Ultra-Orthodox Cult member. He spoke perfect Hippie-speak, wore the mandatory clothes and engaged in mandatory dope smoking. Oh yeah, he was a "non-comformist" alright. Not. So, the same messages and the same goals. More sexual perversion, more illegal drugs becoming legal. The same thing. And profanity and garbage on TV. Progress? No. relatd
Vivid, Well, they may want transmissions too. :-) Barry Arrington
TRANNY I mean Tyranny not tranny, that was a typo Vivid vividbleau
Barry “Yes, that is consistent with my experience. When confronted with undeniable truth, they either try to change the subject or pick up their marbles and go home. I am sorry”. I saw her the next night at the wedding and evidently my son got into the same conversation with her and later she came up to me to say I did not offend her. I was grateful for that. However I don’t care anymore who gets offended. We are in a worldview war and in war there are casualties. BTW it was my son who pointed out to me to several year’s ago to never use the term “transgender” because if you do you have already lost the argument. To control language is to control thought. Vivid vividbleau
they all have one goal in mind, TRANNY
They could care less about gender. It’s just a current means to an end. Similarly they care nothing about the climate, woman’s rights, race, war in Ukraine or health care except to motivate people to vote a certain way. They will use whatever hot button issue they can create. Gender appeared out of nowhere. Interesting it got a fair amount of traction so it stayed. If something else does too, it will be a major issue. If they thought pets’ rights would work, the news would be full of it. Whatever emotional appeal that gets votes is all that counts. jerry
Jerry “You should read Harai. He and the WEF have something else in mind. Elimination of most of the people and living long lives using technology to provide the pleasures they want.” For sure the WEF have not been shy about their intentions . Bottom line whether it be Marxism, progressive fascism or the WEF agenda they all have one goal in mind, TRANNY Vivid vividbleau
There most certainly is an end game and it’s called Marxism
I disagree. You should read Harai. He and the WEF have something else in mind. Elimination of most of the people and living long lives using technology to provide the pleasures they want. They are not interested in Marxism as a long term goal. Maybe as a way in the short term to get what they really want. They have no desire to promote people’s rights or well being except to serve an elite. Most will be eliminated. That means dead! The last hurdle in their way is the United States and its ideology and its still large religious population. Most religious leaders are oblivious to what is being planned. Are people like Biden, Pelosi, Clyburn etc. who are very old motivated by something different? I don’t know. jerry
Jerry “Except there is no end game for the progressive. “ There most certainly is an end game and it’s called Marxism. The progressives hate our Constitution and the rule of law. In the heart of every progressive is a tyrant just waiting to get out. You gotta understand their code words to understand what they mean. Just one example. Every time you hear the term “white supremacy” that is code for “ we want to gat rid of the Constitution and the worldview it came from” The same can be said about “ We have to preserve our democracy” First of all we are not a democracy. democracies are tyrannical, we are a Constitutional Republic. Of course I would figure that 80% of those under the age of 30 don’t know that nor would they even be able to articulate our form of Government. They have no idea that we have three branches of Government, or anything about the separation of powers. I digress back to the code words. When they say “ Democracy is at stake” they mean “ We want to do whatever we want and the rule of law and the constitution be damned” Vivid vividbleau
Vivid, I was thinking of asking the same question that Barry did. I was hoping that she might have come around. Sorry she walked away. From my experience being here on UD, I should have known much better than to hope that she would be open to the clear reasons you presented to her. And yet, despite all these years on UD, still I hoped that she would come around. All I can say, the ability to "hope" must be instilled into us at a very deep level of our being, i.e. our soul, by God. :)
Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.
bornagain77
When confronted with undeniable truth, they either try to change the subject or pick up their marbles and go home
They also attack, not physically but verbally. I have witnessed it. Someone pointed out to a friend who was religious that the song “Imagine” she was espousing was a hymn to atheism and communism. She was not really aware of all the lyrics When she read the lyrics, her reaction was not that it was an inappropriate song for a religious person, but then accused the person that pointed out that “Imagine” was not appropriate took pleasure in the murder of John Lennon. That is what we are dealing with. jerry
Vivid, Yes, that is consistent with my experience. When confronted with undeniable truth, they either try to change the subject or pick up their marbles and go home. I am sorry. Barry Arrington
Jerry, "It wouldn’t last 15 minutes before chaos would ensue." True. Have you watched the news lately? Barry Arrington
Barry “How did she receive it?” Like a typical progressive rather than engage my points she got up from the table and left. Our young have been brainwashed. Vivid. vividbleau
I did read it.
But what motivates the Conditioners? Lewis’ answer: “The [progressives] must come to be motivated simply by their own pleasure. . . [For] those who stand outside all judgments of value cannot have any ground for preferring one of their own impulses to another except the emotional strength of that impulse.”
It’s illogical. It wouldn’t last 15 minutes before chaos would ensue. Everyone’s preferences are different. That not the basis for anything. My reading is very similar to most of the essay. Except there is no end game for the progressive. The only thing they agree on is hate but not even for the same thing. That’s not a formula for lasting very long. Harari Is very clear - he wants to get rid of most of the world population, I assume by war. Then let the precious few remaining live on modern day technology. Of course he expects to be one of the privileged ones remaining. jerry
Thank you KF and Vivid. Vivid, that was an excellent response to your niece. How did she receive it? Jerry writes: "What does the typical progressive want to see? I’m not sure that was in Barry’s essay. What is motivating them?" Jerry, I did address this issue. Go back and re-read the part where I explore Lewis's conclusions about what motivates the "Conditioners." Barry Arrington
Two things: Progressives don’t want to die. They will not fight for their ideas. So why is it the really old such as Pelosi and Biden that are fighting for progressive ideas. I know there are younger progressive. But none want to die or even get hurt. Second, there is no hope in the near future. The US became strong and powerful because while there was differences, there was an internal compass that drove everyone in a similar direction. That internal governor no longer exists for most. The latter is the essence of Barry’s argument. What does the typical progressive want to see? I’m not sure that was in Barry’s essay. What is motivating them? Is it hate? If so what will they do when the people they hate are vanquished? There will be nothing to coalesce around. jerry
PS, the Red Guards were Mao's shock troops in a coup, after he had been restricted in power by other leaders due to the disastrous great leap forward. The patterns with the antifa and blm fit in, as do lawfare, show trials, public shaming, career busting and rivers of crooked yardstick driven agit prop narrative. Nor should we underestimate the corrupting, conscience numbing blood guilt of 63+ million unborn children slaughtered in the USA. I have argued, the US is in a 4th generation so far low kinetic -- compare Ukraine -- civil war and would trace this level to 2015 - 17. KF PS, recall, the natural state of government is lawless oligarchy. kairosfocus
“What does this mean as a practical matter? It means two things. First, we must stop living by lies. Call “transition surgery” on minors what it really is – child abuse. When someone insists that we bow the knee to the transgender gods by using “correct” pronouns, we must refuse!” Over the weekend my nephew got married and my niece and I landed on the topic of use of pronouns. I asked her how many DIE lectures she had to attend and she said several. I asked her if she is now required to use peoples preferred pro nouns and she said no but asked me why I would refuse to do so, that I was insensitive , non loving and not inclusive by not doing so. Here is what I told her. 1) When you control language you control thought. 2) That a man who thinks he is a woman is not a woman. 3) That a man who thinks he is a woman or vice versa is engaging in a fantasy and denying reality. It is a lie 4) it’s one thing for them to lie to themselves , that is their choice, but I will not participate in a lie. 5) it is an assault on womanhood and erasing womanhood as a category. 6) The most loving thing I can do is not participate in their lie rather tell them the truth. Barry to quote Ye about the masses “They would just rather exist inside the pain of a lie than deal with the harsh realities of the truth” Vivid vividbleau
Barry, rather on topic I'd say. I note this:
Materialists do not deny that everyone feels they are conscious, but as famous atheist Sam Harris explains, a person’s experience that he is “an autonomous individual with a coherent identity and sense of free will” is an illusion. Harris’ statement is the ultimate counterintuitive conclusion. But, to his credit, Harris does not run from the conclusions compelled by his materialist premises. He admits that he feels self-awareness like everyone else, but he insists that feeling is a trick played on him by the burnt-out star dust that makes up his physical body.
Such, somehow, are benumbed to the self referential, incoherent self defeating nature of reducing to grand delusion. KF kairosfocus
Barry Bravo!! Vivid vividbleau

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