Big Dairy/Wisconsin vs. Organic "Raw Milk" Farmer

The State of Wisconsin is persecuting ("prosecuting" by another name) raw milk dairy farmer, Vernon Herschberger.

From The Ochlophobist:

You can buy a pack of carcinogen filled menthol cigs in WI. You can purchase meat that came from animals living in the worst of infection laden environments and processed in facilities that are full of an apocalyptic amount of pathogens (facilities rarely bothered much by regulators until after folks get sick). You can buy 199 proof liquor. You can purchase powdered milk from China that has God knows what in it. But you are not supposed to buy raw milk from Vernon Hershberger. Why? Because Vernon Hershberger is not a corporation who writes the regulations which the government adopts for his industry. He is a threat to such corporations.

See also here, where Ochlophobist revisits the issue.

-V.

How to Fix the Oil Spill

I don't know how to fix an oil spill. At least, not the technological ins and outs of the business.

But I know enough about spills in general to know the following:

1. You turn off the taps.
2. You minimize the damage.
3. You clean up as soon as possible.


Turning off the taps

They say that only BP (and similar deep sea operators) has the expertise to shut down the well. I have no reason to disbelieve this - they are the only ones with the incentive to create the technology to get down there in the first place.

Back in early May BP began drilling relief wells to shut the well down far below sea bottom. Apparently this process, if successful, will take until August. In the meantime, they have held the world breathless as they have attempted to shut the well off where pipe ends and sea begins, to little avail.

I can't say I can fault the approach here.


Minimizing the damage

Here is where my big question mark comes in.

Are buoys, booms, and skimmers so effective? Why is BP conducting a massive chemical experiment [dispersants] in mid-ocean? Why isn't BP trying alternative methods for taking the oil out of the water? And what on earth happened to using microbes to eat the oil?

This last question really bothers me. I see a proven technique which is not being used, for no apparent reason. Toxic dispersants are being used... Nuclear bombing has been suggested... Why not use microbes?

And why is it that the same ineffective tools and strategies used 30 years ago are still used today? No, actually, I think I know this one. $$ There is no money to be had in researching clean-up.


Cleaning up as soon as possible

Again, I can't fault anyone here. As soon as tar made landfall, dedicated workers and volunteers began picking up tar balls and washing off birds. But their work is a hopeless work of Sisyphus unless the oil stops flowing... unless methods are found to collect (or devour) the oil mid-ocean.

- V.

Fluoride

The problem with most counter-cultural anti-establishment researchers and visionaries is that they often sound ... well, loony.

Which is a pity, because the madness of a singular vision can easily be confused for the madness that typifies someone who thinks he is a banana. We rarely stop to see whether the person is a Leonardo or a loon.

It is therefore my pleasure to introduce a respected journalist, Christopher Bryson, who believes that fluoride is a pollutant and that Americans (and Canadians) have been snookered, yet who does not come across as crazy.







- V.

Oil Spill ... and the "Uneasy Evangelical Conscience"

"I’ve left my hometown lots of times. But never like this.

Sure, I’ve teared up as I’ve left family and friends for a while, knowing I’d see them again the next time around. And, yes, I cried every day for almost a year in the aftermath of a hurricane that almost wiped my hometown off the map. But I’ve never left like this, wondering if I’ll ever see it again, if my children’s children will ever know what Biloxi was."

Finally, a mainstream articulation of Christian ecology.
As E. told me, it's about time.

Russell D. Moore, "Ecological Catastrophe and the Uneasy Evangelical Conscience"

A. "We’ve had an inadequate view of human sin.

Because we believe in free markets, we’ve acted as though this means we should trust corporations to protect the natural resources and habitats. [...]"

B. "We’ve seen the issue of so-called “environmental protection” as someone else’s issue.

[...] we’ve been willing not simply to vote for candidates who will protect unborn human life (as we ought to), but to also in the process adopt their worldviews on every other issue. [...] But perhaps the void is being filled by leftists and liberals and wannabe liberal evangelicals simply because those who ought to know better are off doing something else. [,,.]"

C. "We’ve had an inadequate view of human life and culture.

[...] What’s being threatened is a culture. [...] When the natural environment is used up, unsustainable for future generations, cultures die. [...]"

D. "Finally, we’ve compromised our love.

[...] Pollution kills people. Pollution dislocates families. Pollution defiles the icon of God’s Trinitarian joy, the creation of his theater (Ps. 19; Rom. 1). Will people believe us when we speak about the One who brings life and that abundantly, when they see that we don’t care about that which kills and destroys? [...]"

-V.

2010, and the Oil Spill

It is hard to believe that 6 months have past since I last set digital foot in the blogosphere.

Will this be a reinvestment of self into the site, or another flash in the pan (some noise, some light, but nothing of duration)? Time will tell, I suppose.

But between you and me, I am avoiding commitment.


The Wound caused by British Petroleum

The tragic. horrific. sickening. grievous. grief-causing arterial bleed in the Caribbean is big news, and doubtless has been covered and re-covered ad nauseum. What can a voice in the wilderness say?

My voice (in case this is your first time here, or in case you forgot) is that of a person who loves God's Creation, who loves the "environment" that uneasily embraces our urban sarcophagi. Don't expect pro-industry blathering here. However... and this is the however I haven't heard many say... However, only some of the fault lies with BP/Haliburton/Transocean. BP and the companies that worked with it and for it are only servants. Shoddy service, no doubt. However, their service, however poorly executed, was done to please and placate their master. Us.

We, and by "we" I mean industrialized society, need oil. We need it badly, that red crude the lifeblood of our luxury. But the easy wells are drained... and now we have only the tricky spots left. Alaska. The deep sea. Canadian tar sands. Middle Eastern war zones.

And so BP and its like go into these places for us, pushing technology to its limits, pushing people to their limits, and sometimes things don't go well. Sometimes there is war, and people die. Sometimes the technology is not enough, and the plundering of the depths becomes rapine.

In our just anger with BP, let us not forget that until this event, BP was a good servant. It provided us what we wanted at a price we could afford. There should be consequences to BP's recklessness, yes, but because BP was our servant, doing what we asked of it, we share in both responsibility and blame.

- V.

Sourcing Problems in Contemporary Orthodoxy

There are some major problems in contemporary Orthodoxy. I classify major problems as those that divide Orthodox from Orthodox:

• the involvement of Orthodox in the WCC and similar ecumenical gatherings,
  
• jurisdictional pluralism in the New World,
• the institution of a revised calendar,
• and the adoption of the Gregorian Calendar (complete with Gregorian Easter) by Finland.
  

In Orrologion I read a post which reprinted a 2005 letter to the Ecumenical Patriarch (EP) from Alexei II of Moscow and All Russia, concerning the situation of the diaspora. The "situation" is one of jurisdictional plurality, compounded by the EP's resistance to recognize the OCA. Patriarch Alexei characterized the problems as stemming from a) the creation of a [Greek] Archdiocese of North and South America under the EP, and b) EP pretentions of universality outside traditional Orthodox countries.

Here is what the Patriarch had to say:

As regards America, from 1794 Orthodoxy on that continent was represented exclusively by the Church of Russia, which by 1918 had brought together some 300,000 Orthodox of different nationalities (Russian, Ukrainians, Serbs, Albanians, Arabs, Aleuts, Indians, Africans, English). The Greek Orthodox were among them, receiving antimensia for their parishes from the Russian bishops. This situation was recognised by all the local Churches, who released clergy for the American parishes into the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church. The Patriarchate of Constantinople followed the same practice. [...] Jurisdictional pluralism in North America began in 1921, when an “Archdiocese of North and South America” was created without the agreement of the Russian Church, which was not informed of the matter.

[...]

Patriarch Meletios IV developed the theory of the subordination of the whole Orthodox diaspora to Constantinople. It is precisely this theory, which is clearly non-canonical, that is quite obviously “hostile to the spirit of the Orthodox Church, to Orthodoxy unity, and to canonical order.” It is itself, in fact, the expression of “an expansionist tendency that is without canonical foundation and is unacceptable on an ecciesiological level.” By claiming a universal spiritual power, it does not correspond to the Orthodox canonical tradition or to the teaching of the Holy Fathers of the Church, and represents a direct challenge to Orthodox unity.

As I read the letter, it was if a light went on. I wondered if the Patriarch Meletios IV mentioned above was the same person that presided when the offensive archdiocese was created - the dates dovetailed, as I remembered them. But then, hadn't I read somewhere that Meletios was involved in the ecumenical movement before it ever became one?

Not knowing where this line of questioning would take me, I began this post with a list of (as I see them) the central problems of contemporary Orthodoxy. I began researching.

1) Patriarch Meletios IV Metaxakis (1921-1923) was indeed the same person who both single-handedly created jurisdictional plurality in North America and who claimed a larger role for the EP than had previously existed (primacy of honour translated as primacy of power). A simple check of the dates confirmed that. The throne at Constantinople had been empty for the three years prior to Meletios' elevation.

2) Astonishingly, Patriarch Meletios IV Metaxakis was also the patriarch who presided over the 1923 synod that saw the adoption of a revised calendar. He resigned his seat in 1923 due to the [violent] protests of the people.

3) And again, as I searched I found Patriarch Meletios - this time as the Patriarch who seized Russian parishes in Finland and brought them under the EP.

4) And yet again, there he was ... Patriarch Meletios, worshipping with Episcopalians (1921), recognizing Anglican orders (1922), holding a synod with an Anglican bishop present (1922), attending Lambeth (1930) ... going further in the direction of ecumenism than any prior Patriarch, paving the way for the controversial presence of Orthodox in the WCC.

As a bonus, I discovered that he tried to become Ecumenical Patriarch in 1912 and he attempted to become Archbishop of Cyprus in 1916. He was also the heads of two other autocephalous Churches: Meletios III Archbishop of Athens (1918-1920) and Meletios II Patriarch of Alexandria (1926-1935) ... and a bishop in a third autocephalous Church: Meletios of Kition in Cyprus (1910-1918). A truly ambitious man.

I am flabbergasted. If I am reading this right, the source of some of the most divisive problems in Orthodoxy is the man Meletios. How can one man sow so much strife? For years my poster child for the "enemy of Orthodoxy" has been Tsar Peter the Great [so-called]. If I read this right (and how could I not?) Meletios has done as much or more wrong to Orthodoxy.

Here is an interesting article that summarizes this man's life, covering the most salient (and scandalous) material, not least of which was his status as a Mason. You will find the same information duplicated at OrthodoxWiki, albeit without the jaundiced eye.

Lord have mercy.

...

If you are like me, you are familiar with the above problems - how controversy has been roiling the people of God for a century - without attaching them to the work of one man. And you, like me, wish to see these ongoing tragedies undone.

I cannot help but feel that we would work immeasurably to the unity and glory of Christ's Church if we repealed the decisions and the actions made by this enemy in our midst, wait 2-3 generations, and then, if the people of God so desire it, convene an Ecumenical Council where the calendar is revisited.

In the meantime, leave Canada to the Ukraine, restore America to Russia and her daughter Church (the OCA), and put Western Europe and Australia under a single Church - perhaps the former to Romania?

I'll leave those details to the hierarchs. But I can't see us going forward until we go back and undo the wrong that has been done.

- V.

Home Schooling Under Siege

I take you to England ... not because most of the readers here live in England, but because this earth of ours is a global village where bad ideas propagate all too swiftly.

Recently, a Baroness of the Realm made the astonishing assertion that increased supervision of home schoolers was necessary because home schooling "could be used as a cover for abuse" (story here).

Under that kind of reasoning, every minute of every day, every facet of every life, should be under government supervision and control. Because, hey, just about anything could be used as a cover for abuse.

Even if a small number of parents were found to be using home schooling as a cover for child abuse, which so far as I know has not happened in Britain, that would not warrant an inquiry into home schooling as such. You might as well investigate all primary schools, or all nurseries, on the basis that some children who attend them are abused. (Peter Hitchens' blog)

But then, this is what small-government conservatives (or paleoconservatives) have been saying for some time: what the left and now the right (with the advent of neoconservatives so-called) want is total dominion. They do not want thinking persons, but obedient (and docile) automatons.

Further commentary on the situation from the same blogger:

The inflamed, all-seeing red eye of political correctness, glaring this way and that from its dark tower, has finally discovered that home schooling is a threat to the Marxoid project, and has launched its first open attack on it.

[...] What the modern left really don't like about homeschooling is that it is independent of the state, and threatens its egalitarian monopoly from below. If it became a mass movement, it would be very dangerous to their project of enforcing equality of outcome, while using the schools to push radical ideas on sex, drugs, morality and politics.

[...] And as long as it was just a matter of a few retired hippies and eccentrics keeping their young at home, which it was until very recently, home schooling didn't matter. But what is happening now is that many parents are taking their children out of state schools because a) they are being horribly bullied in anarchic classrooms and playgrounds and b) they have begun to notice that many of the schools aren't teaching them anything much anyway. - despite years of propaganda, stunts, gimmicks, 'specialist status', absurdly glowing OFSTED reports and allegedly improved (but fiddled) exam results.

If all the plumbers in your area were no good at fixing leaks, and kept flooding your kitchen, you'd teach yourself plumbing and do it yourself. The results couldn't be worse. Why not take the same view with schools? Why not just keep them at home and do a better job yourself? Of course this is impossible for couples who both trudge out to work every day. But one way or another there is now a significant minority of households where this isn't the case, where homeschooling looks like a serious option and may take off. I suspect the left-wing establishment want to nip it, hard, in the bud.

Home schooling is seeing a boom in America right now. The schools don't educate (or, at least, they educate at the pace of the slowest student), the classrooms are a breeding ground for vice and infamy (not least of which is rampant bullying), and for those of a religious turn of mind, the secular antipathy for all things to do with God leaves them feeling beset by evil on every side. And being good parents, they wish to save and protect their children.

Many decide not to gamble with a growing mind, a questing soul, a curious spirit. They choose not to leave their children with the latest social experiments or the Frankensteins who implement them. They choose not to abandon their children to the savagery of an unparented generation. They choose not to leave the spiritual nurturing of their children to Christian rock, barren baptism*, or Sunday school (if that). They fight for the next generation. They fight for the souls of their children, not against flesh and blood, but against an Enemy who wishes destruction upon us all.

And so they home school. Or they take their child to a private academy.

It isn't enough simply to stuff a child's head with facts. Intellectual formation is the learning how to learn, how to question, how to think.

It isn't enough simply to tell a child to suck it up when beaten. Psychological formation is love from two parents and a distinct absence of abuse.

It isn't enough simply to hope God will miraculously raise a child in the Faith when his parents don't give a d@mn (literally and figuratively). Spiritual formation is salvation itself. We canonize those who have been brought up well, and frequently the ones who brought them up.

So in home schooling I see a Christian defense against Satanic attack, and a Christian offense against the gates of Hell. I am not surprised that it is coming under seige.

- V.

* barren baptism: a baptism into a culture as much into a Faith, where salvation is assumed and no further provision is made for the spiritual education of the child.

Put Not Your Trust in Obama

As I look to the American scene, I see hope bordering on hysteria.

After the darkness of the past eight years, the wars* (and rumours of wars**), the panic-inducing state of endless emergency, the anthrax terrorism, 911's scar upon the American psyche, the ubiquity of evil titans like Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden ... after the unending trauma that was Katrina ... after the constant embarrassment of a president who wavered between puppet and buffoon (albeit with a down-home charm) ... and after the recent series of economic body blows pointing to an almost unprecedented economic disaster ... America wants a saviour to rescue her.

But Barack Obama is a man. Despite the resonant timbre to his voice or the polished orations, he is only a man who cannot possibly begin to achieve all that is hoped of him.

The danger lies in our giving a man too much power, whether in our hearts or in reality: investing in him the ability to correct our world's ills, or handing him the power to do as he sees fit to attempt the same. As Whippleshire points out, today is not the inauguration of a president, but the annointing of a god-king, a Caesar.

We need to remember the words of the Psalmist:

Put not your trust in princes,
In sons of man,
In whom there is no salvation.

America does not need a mellifluous orator, breathing words of hope. She needs a bracing slap - a dash of cold water. She doesn't need ear-ticklers, but prophets.

She needs secular prophets like Wendell Berry or Ron Paul.

But she needs Christian prophets most of all:
She needs another St. Elias, prophet to Jezebel, prophet to the Baal-worshippers.
She needs John Prodromos, out in the desert

calling for repentance.

- V.

* Afghanistan, Iraq
** Venezuela, North Korea, Iran

Edit: A similar post [What's Worse than a US President "Everyone" Hates?] can be found at Sentire cum Ecclesia (and duplicated at Orrologion).

Imminent Apocalypse in Evangelical Circles: World Change and Apathy

Ideas have consequences.

By way of example, modernism, the belief that things can and will get better by dint of modern technology and ingenuity, has paved the way for the slag heap, the tailings ponds, the endless barrels of nuclear waste, the mountains of short-lived computers and cell phones, the forever plastic.

My forays into the problems of pollution and neoconservative bellicosity have brought me into contact with an impenetrable and implacable enemy, an idea. Few ideas have as horrific consequences to the world as the evangelical belief in an imminent Apocalypse: specifically, global war and unchecked polluting of the planet.

[I am not knee-jerk anti-evangelical. Most Orthodox and Catholics also believe that these are the end times, and of that number many belief the Apocalypse to be imminent. I wish I could share the blame here (equal opportunity bashing), but I don't find the same attitudes coming out of the liturgical communities in response to an imminent Apocalypse. They seem to use it as a catalyst for an exploration of interior landscapes and for a trimming of their wicks, here and there a hysterical "the Beast is nigh!", but I don't see the same "if ... then" causality outside evangelical Protestantism that I see in her.]

There are two sides to this, and they usually involve the same people.

The world changers

This group tries to change the world in order to bring about the Apocalypse. Typically not fearing the horrors preceding the Eschaton because of a faith in a Rapture, they hope to speed up God's schedule. Their interpretation of future events is based on a narrow, literal reading of Revelation.

It was Protestant Zionists (like George Eliot) who began to advocate the need to "return" Palestine to the Jews, based on their reading of Scripture. It was evangelical support for Zionism (as well as world guilt) that caused the West to create the state of Israel*, and it is a continued evangelical support for Israel (in part based on a perceived need to sustain this precursor to the Apocalypse, in part based on a misunderstanding of Israel's place in salvation history) that gives the U.S. the mandate to buttress the state of Israel uncritically. Naturally, well-placed American Jews as well as neoconservative government strategists want Israel to continue to have the U.S. behind it, but although political heavyweights their numbers are by no means enough to justify unrelenting Congressional support. It needs the vast numbers of self-identified voting evangelicals to provide this justification.

Now I am beginning to see a new and troubling trend: evangelical support of reckless international belligerence on the grounds that "there will be wars and rumours of wars." Regrettably, this becomes an easily self-fulfilled prophesy. I will never be able to understand the hypocrisy of Christian warmongering, but there you have it. The evangelical voting block threw its weight behind the Republican incursions in Afghanistan and Iraq, supported an Iranian war, and is willing to discuss war with Russia and/or China. What kind of madness is this? It is the madness of those expecting not to live long who yet do not expect to live through the disasters to which their positioning may lead.

Please don't get me wrong. I do not believe evangelicals to be singlehandedly responsible for the continued existence of Israel or for the West's current wars. If evangelicals had that kind of power, abortion would long since be made illegal. But while they may not be able to alter America's culture of death and the unapologetic selfishness that permits abortion, they can certainly cease supporting the annihilation of others. And I suspect that without evangelical support of war there would be insufficient political capital to permit the democratic waging of war.

* Of course, it is the creation and continued existence of Israel that is the primary catalyst for Muslim anger at the West, and their subsequent insurgencies and acts of terror. It is not a "hatred of our freedom" that impels them but an abiding resentment for Western meddling.

The indifferent

This group drives me crazy, probably because I count members of my own family in it. This group fails to act in an ecologically sound manner because the Apocalypse is coming and, hey, the world is passing away in any case.

While the rational Christian, no matter how apocalyptic their mindset, can see that the phrase "end times" is sufficiently vague to allow for considerable liberty of interpretation, there are many Christians who are unwilling to take any action to save or preserve even a small portion of this world on the ground that this world is not going to last anyhow. To me, this is like soiling one's bedsheets or refusing to change soiled bedsheets on the grounds that the cleaning lady will be coming. Uh, when exactly? As someone with an apocalyptic turn of mind, I am willing to believe that the horrors of Revelation will unfold within my lifetime and Christ will return before I die, but I am equally willing to believe that the "end times" will continue another two hundred years before their final resolution.

A Christian ecology needs articulation, where the world is recognized as the qualified good that it is, and treated with the reverence and respect that should be accorded the work of God's hands. Unfortunately, I doubt that Christians will have much impact in this arena while the significant majority of North American Christians are completely apathetic.

- V.

Single Issue Voting

While the frenzy that marked the recent crowning of Obama reached ever higher pinnacles of man-worship, I found myself unhappily canvassing my friends for their pick. "Unhappily", because I felt it wasn't much of a choice (and still don't), but I kept at it regardless ... in hopes that someone could give me a reason to prefer one over the other.

I knew that Obama was a Democrat, and I'm no fan of Democrats. Their social agenda frequently feels like the unofficial and Heaven-damned policies and pleasures of Babylon. And yet, a perusal of the actions of recent Republicans reveals them to be from the same species of person-hating and war-mongering international thuggery that marked Alexandros, Adolf, di Buonaparte, and Iosif. Who knows, maybe Cyrus, Sargon, and Xerxes too.

I wanted a reason - a good reason - to prefer one over the other. Something better than my horror at what Bush Jr. has unleashed on the world and a consequent knee-jerk reaction to McCain, Bush's successor. But time and again, I found my (conservative) friends whole-heartedly embracing McCain. And time and again, I was confounded by their resolve to reduce their decision-making process to a single issue.

Naturally, this single issue refers to abortion.

Abortion is a horror and a travesty. In the year 2000, 857 000 children were legally aborted in the US (source). Like the Carthaginians and the other Baal-worshippers of old, for the sake of insignificant gains in this life Westerners have chosen to sacrifice their children upon the altar of Moloch. It is the ultimate parody of the Gospel: reaping life now in order to suffer at the Last Judgment; laying down another's life for oneself.

And yet, and yet.

... There are more than a single issue at work in the world today, and some of them involve issues and consequences no less horrific than abortion. I mean war. I mean the elimination of freedoms. I mean yet more war. And I mean rendering ourselves up for ridicule (Christian adulation of Sarah Palin jumps to mind) in a world that is increasingly hostile to Christians, where Christianity rarely reflects anything of the Gospel of Christ.

... The [alleged] proponents of pro-life policies (the Republicans) sponsor at the same time some heinously pro-death policies.

• Since 2003, between 90 000 and 98 000 Iraqi civilians have been killed (s) - total deaths probably exceed a million (s). And who knows how many will eventually die from the decision to employ depleted uranium in American missiles.
  
• Since 2001, between 9 000 and 27 000 Afghani civilians have been killed (s) - I don't know total deaths.
• From 2001-2006 374 people were executed in American jails (s).

I don't know what other American-sponsored deaths have occurred in the years of Republican power (and many of the figures above can and will be debated). The point is that the Republicans have bloody hands. Choosing to vote for them because they oppose abortion sounds good, but it is likely to be no more than a sop to Christian conscience. A Republican government has not been shown to reduce our infant mortality, but it certainly has raised world mortality.

... I see two consequences to single issue voting. Neither of them is the desired outcome of abortion outlawry.

First, this forces Christians to bed down with the proponents of death: the military industrial complex, warmongers, apologists for capital punishment. It forces them to side with Big Pharma, Big Business, Big Agriculture, the enemies to the little man, the individual, the family.

Second, this leads, and I think inevitably, to a cynical manipulation of an often unreasoning body of people who will accept any idiot so long as he (or she) mouths the right words. A chilling but timely reminder: it wasn't atheists or leftist social engineers that elected Hitler to power, but conservative Lutheran Christians.

- V.

A Recipe for Despotism

If I had aspirations for dictatorship and possessed a few powerful friends, or if I wished to reduce the free peoples of the greatest nation on the planet to an abject serfdom, here is what I would do:

Taking as my raw medium two parties or philosophies that we will call, for the sake of argument, "liberal" and "conservative" or "asinine" and "elephantine", I would start by refocusing attention on the differences between the parties, highlighting them and making them larger than life. The important thing would be to draw attention away from the similarities between the parties, namely, 1) a singular inability on the part of either to accomplish anything significant for the family or the individual, 2) a singular ability to promote increasing regulation and to consolidate power, and 3) a common philosophy concerning global domination and empire-building. And lest any clear-thinking individual penetrate this obfuscation, I would encourage each party to create a climate of fear within the ranks of those who identify themselves with the distinctives of that party (remembering that there is little real difference between the parties). For the liberal, I would create the bogeyman of climate catastrophe, of an angered Gaia wreaking vengeance upon iniquitous man. And for conservative, I would invoke the spectres of the alien in our midst, whether it be the barbarian hordes creeping across the border or the omnipresent and civilization-destroying worshiper of a foreign deity. Clear thinking would be muddied by emotion and reason co-opted by the effort to convince the other half of the population of the need to fear.

When everyone was good and frightened, I (or someone equally unscrupulous) would step in with the antidote to fear: "protection" by a strong right arm.

Of course, if I had the luxury of time, I would first dull the wits of the masses with mind-numbing entertainments like television, and if possible I would ensure that education was everywhere bastardized (perhaps by focusing on teaching techniques instead of the resultant citizens). Naturally I would be opposed to academies, to home-schooling, and to rebellion against the black box in the corner, and I would try to discourage these by speaking of the need to "socialize" the child.

...

Of course, this was a poorly-disguised allegory for our time.

I don't know that there is an one person or any cabal out there that is using my recipe for despotism. I don't know that a conspiracy theory is necessary to explain the fact that we have been marching inexorably into serfdom, either. The fact remains that this recipe will work independent of active cooks.

In the crucible of civilizational collapse a tyrant will rise.

- V.

Huckabee Shamelessness

Today I saw an ad by Mike Huckabee.

"Are you about wore [sic] out of all the television commercials you've been seeing? Mostly about politics. I don't blame you. At this time of year sometimes it's nice to pull aside from all of that and just remember that what really matters is a celebration of the birth of Christ, and being with our family and our friends. I hope that you and your family will have a magnificent Christmas season, and on behalf of all of us, God bless and Merry Christmas.

"I'm Mike Huckabee and I approve this message."

Subtitles:
www.mikehuckabee.com

Paid for by Huckabee for President, Inc.
Approved by Mike Huckabee

...

I don't know that it is necessary to point out the blatant hypocrisy in this political ad, but for those who need the guided tour, this is a shameless appeal to the Christian vote. Mike Huckabee in one sympathetic breath criticizes the rest of the presidential candidates for their political commercials, and then proceeds to emphasize that Christmas is about Christ, a statement that warms the heart of any Christian. However, and this is the important part, Huckabee would not be saying any of this if it were not for the fact that he is running for president. This message does not come from him out of the goodness of his heart but out of his presidential campaign, paid for by his campaign organization, and underscored throughout by a reference to his campaign website.

I'm sorry, but this is scandalous.

And I afraid that the Christian community will be as suckered by this cynical ploy as Huckabee thinks they will.

-V.

Why I Do Not Support Mike Huckabee

Or, a rambling critique of the Christian Right's marriage to neo-conservative Republicans.

A friend of mine recently invited me to join him in voicing support for Mike Huckabee. I didn't ask why he supported Huckabee, but I have a shrewd suspicion. Either a) he supports Huckabee on the grounds that Huckabee's Christianity will make him a moral president, in which case I point him to Ron Paul, a rigorously scrupulous politician with an unblemished voting record, or b) he supports Huckabee because he thinks that Huckabee will bring about change in America. Usually the key issue here is abortion, and the noble Christian desire to repeal Roe vs. Wade.

The problem is that while ending abortion is a truly great aim, something akin to stopping the Nazi slaughterhouses at Auschwitz and elsewhere, Americans live in a secular democracy. By secular, I mean that the United States of America is not a Christian country - Christendom is dead, even if Christ isn't (no thanks to the deicidal tendencies of Nietzsche et al.). By democracy, I mean that the U. S. A. is not ruled by a minority, and if it is, this must be corrected or else lose the democracy.

Why are these points a problem? Because in order for Christian principles (such as opposition to all forms of infanticide) to be instituted on a nation-wide scale, the will of the majority will have to be contravened. In essence, a minority (Christians) would rule.

There is no way around this. The Christian must realize that he has three and only three options. First, prayer for change. Second, peaceful opposition and protest (similar to the protests of King and Gandhi). Third, opposition through violence - whether violence against persons, violence against property, or violence against the will of the majority.

Back to Huckabee.

Huckabee is a neo-conservative (1 & 2). Neo-conservatives are happy with a minority ruling the country - themselves. Neo-conservatives (whether Republican like Giuliani or Huckabee or Democrat like Clinton) are the last people we want in power if we wish to preserve our freedoms. Freedoms of assembly, of speech, of religion.

[Tangent. Once upon a time in Germany the German peoples were afraid. They feared Communists and they feared for their economic security. So they gave up their freedoms to instate a minority group (the National Socialist party) that promised them security. They got Hitler and WWII.

The consequences of minority rule are not always so extreme, but they can be. And once the pattern of minority rule is established, it is not easily overturned or relinquished.]

What frightens me is the blind devotion of the Christian Right to neo-conservativism. What frightens me is how eagerly Christians pursue a minority rule, thinking that it will serve their own ends, forgetting that minority rule promises only one thing - the end to the Will of the People.

So, I don't support Huckabee. I think it is great that a [seemingly] practicing Christian is running for president. And were I a neo-conservative, I would probably hope he won the nomination. But I am not a neo-conservative. I am just the guy on the cliff watching the lemmings with the WWJD bracelets carefully and systematically dismantle their freedoms in the name of Christ.

-V.

[Edit: Strictly speaking, the U.S. is a republic, not a democracy. The "rule of the people" through elected delegates is tempered by a charter or constitution. However, my point stands that a government is dangerous when it no longer reflects or heeds the values of the populace. In the case of the U.S., a return to representation of the majority from the current neo-conservative hijacking of American governance is accomplished not through an appeal to democratic principles but by a return to a constitution that limits government, the Constitution of the United States.]

Ron Paul

Resuming this blog ...

Let us start with Ron Paul, as is only appropriate, given the day.

Today is December 16, the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party, a day on which supporters of presidential hopeful Ron Paul plan to raise record sums in a single 24-hour period.

By record sums, I mean in excess of the 4.2 million they raised on November 5. I mean in excess of the 5 million Paul thinks he may get. I mean they hope to raise serious money, money that will make the world sit up and take notice. Perhaps 10 million. That would do it.

As of 1:12 EST, the Ron Paul campaign passed the 12 million mark that they had desired to reach this quarter. Wouldn't it be wonderful if they hit 22 million?

I hope.

I've mentioned Paul before. Once, I believe.

I've neglected to say much more, on two counts.

A) The topic did not seem sublime enough [see previous post]. I have rejected this reasoning.
B) I'm not American.

It was seeing videos on YouTube, videos made by various Europeans in support of Ron Paul, that I realized that I do have a voice. What I think, and what the rest of the world thinks does matter. The reality is that the United States of America is an empire, and its fingers are in everyone's pie. The reality is that the president of the U.S. wields enormous power for good or ill - perhaps more power than any other human on the planet (depending on whether you believe Bilderberg conspiracy theories or no). The reality is that a warmongering president can bring about profound evil, pain, suffering upon this world. The reality is that I and many others are afraid of what Bush will do next. Preemptive nuclear war on Iran? Maybe not, but the rhetoric was there a mere two weeks ago, to do just that.

The reality is that when you are the biggest boy in the school, self-restraint is the ultimate virtue. What difference is there, in the end, between a bully and a big boy that decides to police the disputes of others? Not much.

Ron Paul is not only the best candidate for America ... he is the best candidate for the world. Not to rule the world, but as an antidote to and a relief from a trigger-happy regime, and as inspiration as to what true liberty means: less tax, less government, less bureaucracy, less oversight and control.

...

Enough for now.

In the meantime, I offer this snippet - the pro-Paulite perspective of an American Orthodox.

-V.

On America & American Politics

As a non-American, I have no real right to speak on the internal problems of America, but because I am a neighbour to America and I am related to Americans, I am going to speak anyway.

The joys of blogging. Those who should be silent, aren't.

I remember following the primaries leading to the election in 2000, closely watching what was happening state-by-state both in 2000 and in 2004, and I remember two dominant impressions. 1) That Dubya was bad news (I wanted McCain), and 2) that no matter how bad the Republicans were, the Democrats were worse. Better the devil you know, etc.

[Sadly, I feel that G. W. has amply fulfilled my darkest forebodings, and the Democrats are doing their level best to fill me with even more horror than usual. Eight years of a Clinton in the Oval Office are, oh, about eight years too many.]

I approached American politics from the point of view of the civilized barbarian, comfortable in his wattle-and-daub mansion, anxiously watching the antics of the Roman Empire, waiting for the proverbial sword of Damocles to fall... knowing that Rome is the big bully on the block, and just hoping it doesn't notice me.

I never felt that America was a good place, and the patriotism of its citizens was, at best, the triumphant bloodlust of the Roman citizen bleating about how powerful and noble Rome was for conquering other nations. Why would I admire the U.S.? I think of brave Custer, the bloody and unnecessary Civil War, the horrific decimation of the Indian nations... I think of Hollywood and the culture of entertainment. Who could take pride in these?

But ...

Then I had a conversion moment.

Sure, I have met some nice Americans, and been in some lovely locales... but it wasn't until hearing Ron Paul speak on the Republic and the Constitution that I found myself infected with affection, admiration, even love for the States. It had never struck me before this that the United States of America was, at heart, a union of States, not a dictatorship. That the Constitution upholds the power of the State and minimizes (historically) the powers of the President. That the Republic was about the little guy, the farmer, the artisan, the craftsman, the average Joe. That the Republic was about setting up a system that enshrined local government and refuted autocratic structures like that of the monarchy the revolutionaries had fled. That the Republic was about an ideal, a hope... it was about freedom. Freedom from oppression, freedom from onerous taxation... freedom for which men were willing to die.

And like that, I realized that the Republic was beautiful - that what I hated was the Empire that the Republic was becoming, the Empire that the founding fathers sought to prevent.

So now I am back to watching politics. And the lineup seems a choice between the unknown, the bad, the worse, the terrible, and Armageddon... and Ron Paul. I hope he gets in, partly because the others represent all that I dislike about the road in which America has been travelling, partly because I can see little difference in their views, but mostly because Paul makes me want to be an American.

- V.