Wednesday, September 7, 2022

A Way With Words

Either we are being ruled by a cabal of incompetents, whose twaddlesome deficiencies rise to near criminal levels, or we are being ruled by criminals, whose master plan is to continue to poke the American bear with a short stick in hopes of getting a reaction that would justify a severe crack-down, or it is a combination of the two…

So opens Doug Wilson in his post “The Bait Lies Before You Now. Do Not Take It.  (The video is also available.)

I have come to admire that way Wilson has with words.  While I don’t always agree with everything he writes (and it is also true for this post), he always wields a sword-defeating pen.

The post examines exactly what the title suggests, written after the Biden-as-Hitler-as-Adam Sutler speech of the other day.  It is bait – don’t take it.  As I wrote earlier: A civil war is the wet-dream of the left and of the principalities and powers behind them.

The post / video is worth your time.  I will offer one section, under the heading “A Long Train of Abuses”:

But I got distracted. What long train of abuses was it this time? What are we dealing with now? What have our scamps—whether federal, state, or local—been up to?

·         Waco.

·         Ruby Ridge.

·         Lois Lerner.

·         Russian collusion hoax.

·         Refusal to accept the results of the 2016 election.

·         Hillary’s server.

·         FBI spying on a presidential candidate before, during and after the election.

·         Hunter’s laptop.

·         Prohibitions of hymn singing in church.

·         Un-prosecuted statue toppling.

·         The canonization of the unfortunate George Floyd.

·         Abruptly changing election rules on the eve of elections.

·         2000 mules.

·         Massive lockdowns.

·         Masking orders.

·         Arrests for psalm singing outdoors.

·         Naked censorship across all Big Tech platforms.

·         Naked censorship by these entities at the behest of gummint.

·         High disdain for the value of free speech.

·         Gagging of medical experts.

·         Unbridled contempt for religious liberty.

·         Prosecution for protesting the psalm-singing arrests with stickers.

·         Fiery but mostly peaceful riots.

·         Unconscionable treatment of J6 protesters.

·         Refusal to release J6 Capitol surveillance tapes.

·         Mar a Lago raid.

·         Objecting to tyranny defined as whiteness.

·         And the current resident denouncing his political opponents as enemies of democracy in front of a crimson set with a couple of Marines standing there like they were still defending a free country or something, and the president looking for all the world like a cartoon fascist leader in a fever dream.

Listening to him speak this long train is worth the 13-minute investment in the video.

Conclusion

I will leave this also to Wilson:

Has a people ever been given so much freedom, structure, and abundance, and squandered so much of it, in a spirit of reckless ingratitude? Americans have made the prodigal son look like Dave Ramsey. Has anybody ever squandered and thrown away so much?

This is a preacher’s rhetorical question, in case you were wondering, and the answer to the question is no.

As if to drive home the point that our problem is not economic or political:

You can’t vote your way out of something that you sinned your way into.

The issue is cultural – the loss and abuse of a specific culture with a natural law ethic built on objective truths.

5 comments:

  1. "You can’t vote your way out of something that you sinned your way into."

    I am going to save this comment and use it whenever I meet someone who thinks all that is necessary to solve our troubles is to elect the right man or woman to political office. And there are a lot of them who think that.

    IMO, voting is nothing more than choosing who holds the club with which you are beaten.

    Thanks for bringing this to my attention.

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    Replies
    1. That line was really the best. Wilson truly has a gift with words.

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  2. We squandered it yes. Ancients would have probably predicted this though. Plato said democracy will get you at best an average society and was only better than tyranny on his list. Aquinas said something like democracy will produce the flourishing of the most base human tendencies. He also put democracy down on the list.

    I know. I know. We have a republic. But the more republican aspects were eroded 100 years ago and we have added to that a tyranny of judges and federal bureaucrats.

    The only way back to remove and replace institutions. But before that we must rebuild the notions of natural law and natural rights. It is the only path toward an ethic of liberty.

    https://thecrosssectionrmb.blogspot.com/

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. “Masculine republics give way
      to feminine democracies, and
      feminine democracies give way
      to tyranny.” -Aristotle

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  3. " But before that we must rebuild the notions of natural law and natural rights. It is the only path toward an ethic of liberty."

    You are indeed, correct. I have been contemplating this for years now, and have concluded that the old 60's dictum "the personal is political" is better done in reverse, as "the political is personal."

    In other words, Solzhenitzen was correct. This cannot be done on a grand society saving scheme. It can only be done inwards, albeit by doing as much to resist society's decline. But ultimately, this is a personal and one person at a time decision. Trump will not save me, nor will anyone else.

    This is something between God and me... just like Noah.

    Resist the decline politically. But faith in God personally.

    As a resistant Christian since my youthful upbringing, but now in my early fifties, I am beginning to see this as the only answer left.

    I always wondered why, as a youth living during the Cold War, so many in Communist countries would risk their lives to hold onto a cherished Bible. I am seeing that more clearly as life and modern times develop... it's because the Truth matters, and in times such as these where lies are all about us, the Truth becomes ALL that matters.

    ReplyDelete