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I showed in our previous blog series (Chapter 2, “We are in trouble”) that before the deliverers come on the scene, we must repent as a nation. It is obvious, then, that in order to repent, we the people of this nation must be taught how and where we have gone wrong.
To do that, God first sends a prophet—a teacher—and in our era, I believe that our Father is sending many prophets to teach our Israel people (and the non-Israelites as well), our true history. That is the pattern we saw in the story of Gideon, remember? And that is where we are at as a nation today.
When I first presented this teaching to a live audience, I used a whiteboard and provided a handout chart to explain the political spectrum as it is generally taught and as it has been understood over the past century. I asserted to you that it was and is a false portrayal of reality. (That false spectrum is here.)
Think about the impact, the effect of believing a false view of reality in the governmental sphere. If you and I can be persuaded of a false concept of the political spectrum, then it facilitates, it makes it easier for the elites, for those who would control us and be our masters, it makes it easier for them to dumb us down and keep us in line. Ignorant slaves make better slaves.
Thus, they try to keep us in ignorance, and therefore in bondage. Incidentally, I chuckled when I saw a bumper sticker that said: “If ignorance is bliss, why aren’t more people happy?” As you think about that, what is unstated? What is the implication?
Well, it is implying that there are a lot of ignorant people out there. Not us, of course, but, you know… “out there.” Now, truth be told, many people are probably happier than they should be! (chuckling…Let that sink in.) Alright, that is enough levity for now.
The sad truth is, however, that we are now at that stage in history where we are being moved from mere economic bondage to a harsher form of slavery—with the accompanying and rapid loss of our most basic, God-given liberties.
And so today, in doing my little part in instructing our people where we have gone wrong, a fundamental part of that is to present to you an alternate way to view the political spectrum. Then you can decide which one makes more sense. Remember how I told you about the ability to think critically and how it is so—well, so critically important?
Recall how the false spectrum labels the Left wing as being composed of the communists, socialists, and other Marxists? And then they label the Right wing as comprising the Nazis and the Fascists?
Well, when we are discussing the concept of a political spectrum, what we are really talking about are forms of government. All those labels we just mentioned are political ideologies or political philosophies (i.e., forms) whose goal is to obtain control of the government.
Now, can you think of something that is an even more important consideration when discussing government? What could be even more basic and more relevant to you than the form of government? How about the amount of government?
After all, what is more important to you? Is it the name that any given form of government calls itself? Or is it how much that government tries to direct your way of life? Because the more government we have, the less freedom we have. That is just common sense.
Therefore, let us consider an alternative political spectrum which is based on that criterion, the amount of government. At one extreme end—let’s start on the Left again—is total government; hence the word: totalitarianism.
On the extreme Left are the Marxists of every stripe, which includes communists, and socialists, and progressives and liberals. We do not mean the duped liberals (as I once was) who might be your neighbors and friends who simply feel sorry for the downtrodden, or they feel that the more enlightened people and the more educated people are all liberals, so that’s why they’re liberals, too.
But here we are talking about the liberals and self-admitted progressives like Hillary Clinton, those who hide behind those labels, all the while knowing that progressivism and liberalism ultimately lead to totalitarianism. For the elites, it is all about control and power and wealth; it always has been.
Now remember how the false political spectrum had the Nazis and the Fascists on the extreme Right? When you think critically about that spectrum, however, the question might occur to you: Why are Fascists and Nazis on the opposite end of the spectrum from the Communists? Would someone please tell me the difference between the communism of Lenin, Trotsky and Stalin, and the Nazism of Adolf Hitler?
In terms of the amount of government, there is no difference, is there? They are all totalitarian regimes. They are all dictatorships of one form or another. Therefore, let’s put Nazism and Fascism on the extreme Left where they belong. After all, in the German language, the word Nazi is simply a contraction for national socialism.
At this point, I am certain someone is thinking, “Well, wait a minute, the Nazis and the communists have to be opposites because when Hitler’s Nazis were coming to power, they fought the communists, and killed many of them, too. So how are they not opposites?”
Well, that’s easy. They were rivals for control. Both were evil. Both groups wanted control of Germany. One group was national socialists because they wanted to run their own German brand of socialism, and the communists were international socialists who wanted to have Germany take orders from some central world headquarters of socialism.
But the clear fact is that both were totalitarian forms of government. Ditto with Mussolini’s Fascist government in Italy and Franco’s Fascist government in Spain. Totalitarians, all of them.
But there is another term which I think describes them equally well. They are all collectivists. They believe in collectivism. They put the good of the group, the collective, ahead of the good of the individual.
Of course, the reality is that their alleged concern for the good of the group is always a smokescreen for their true goal, which is… power, wealth and control over the group and everyone else.
George Orwell wrote his satirical book called Animal Farm to expose this hypocrisy and deception of the collectivists. You see, as best I can recall it, it’s been 45 years since I read it, but on the Animal Farm—just as under communism and socialism—everyone was equal. The cows, the chickens, the sheep, the ducks, the pigs—they were all supposedly equal. But the pigs were in charge, and as they explained:
“All of us animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”
This is the story of history. Would-be collectivists always hide behind the cloak of the common good. And when two or more groups of collectivists are vying for control of the same area or nation—as happened in Germany in the 1930s—collectivists will go to any means, including murder, to attain to that pinnacle of power and control over the people. But for you and me, in terms of our individual liberties and freedoms,
collectivism means we have no freedom or very limited freedom to speak our minds on any subject, especially about the government.
collectivism means we have no freedom to worship God as we see fit
collectivism means we have no freedom to associate with whomever we choose
collectivism means we have no freedom to publish what we wish
collectivism means we have no freedom to travel wherever we wish
collectivism means we have no freedom of privacy from government intrusion
collectivism means we have no freedom to choose how we handle our health issues and whom we would choose to treat us when we have need for medical services
collectivism means we have no freedom to live where we choose
collectivism means we have no freedom to choose our means of making a living
collectivism means we have no freedom from government’s confiscation of the fruits of our labor in the form of taxes, inflation, etc.
And I could go on, but you get the point about collectivism. Oh, but there is one more freedom loss which is a sine qua non of collectivism.
collectivism means we have no freedom to possess the means to defend ourselves from the government itself when that government becomes tyrannical and despotic.
This refers to gun control—which has never been about hunters’ rights—that’s a smokescreen—the issue is whether or not the American people will have their personal right to own the means to defend themselves against a despotic and tyrannical government, should such a need ever arise.
Therefore, we should place on the extreme Left all the collectivists of every stripe and label. It does not matter what they call themselves. What matters is that they are in favor of total government—or as close to it as they can get—with themselves sitting at the levers of power, of course.
Now at the extreme Right end of the spectrum would be the opposite. So, what is the opposite of total government? It would be zero government—no government at all. The word anarchy is from the Greek words meaning “no ruler.”
When you think about it, though, anarchy is chaos. There is no police force or court system to deal with criminals. Therefore, criminals of every sort run amok, preying on everyone and threatening everyone’s life, liberty and property.
For that reason, anarchy is not conducive to freedom and a peaceful life. Because when anarchy and chaos are everywhere, every individual finds himself spending most of his time defending the safety of himself, his loved ones and protecting his property.
Reasonable people realize that some amount of government is both necessary and desirable. For the optimum amount of freedom, we need to have some forces (which we call police forces) who will apprehend the criminals. That way, the rest of us can enjoy both the peace and the freedom and liberty to go about producing for ourselves and our families.
The critical question then is: How much government is the ideal amount for the maximum amount of freedom? This is the question that the Founders debated at great length. In terms of the horizontal line of our political spectrum, somewhere on this line between the extreme Left and the extreme Right, is the ideal amount of government.
The Founders believe in the dictum, attributed to Thomas Jefferson, that “that government is best which governs least.” In other words, for the maximum amount of liberties for the people, we want the least possible amount of government.
“Well, that’s what our democracy is all about, isn’t it?” someone might ask. Alright, let’s consider that. The word democracy comes from two Greek words, demos (people) and kratein (to rule). Democracy simply means the people rule. A pure democracy means that every citizen gets one vote and the majority decides the rules. Sounds good, doesn’t it? Don’t we often hear some form of that from people on the Left, “One person, one vote?”
Okay, consider then that the most common example of democracy in action is a band of citizens who go chasing after a criminal. There are 20 of them and they finally catch up with the man whom they believe has murdered one of their neighbors. So, they take a vote and what do you know, the vote is 20 to 1, and so by the end of the day, the one finds himself at the end of a rope hanging from a tree. That, my friends, is pure democracy.
Let’s take a less extreme example, though, shall we? Let’s say that there is a small community of 21 adults that operates by a pure democracy. They are holding a community meeting. Let’s say that Roger over there stands up to speak and he is a very compelling and persuasive speaker.
Roger just happens to know that Matilda back there was finally able to sell a flock of goats last week and she earned $2,100 from the sale. And so, Roger makes a brilliant and impassioned case for why we should all vote that Matilda should share the $2,100 equally among the rest of the group. We take a vote and surprise! It’s 20 to one again.
But at that point, Matilda speaks up and says, “Hey, wait a minute. You can’t do that; I have my rights.”
Aha! She has her rights? What rights? In a democracy, you don’t have any rights except those which are decided by the will of the majority. Democracy means majority rules. One person, one vote, remember?
Naturally, I will assume that all of us as reasonable people would agree with Matilda that we ought to have rights because, what if it were you or I in place of Matilda? Would we want to be cheated out of the fruits of our labor like that? No!
But when we are claiming individual rights, then we are no longer talking about a democracy. Now we are talking about a republic. The word republic comes from two Latin words, res, meaning a thing, and publica, meaning, public, i.e., pertaining to the people.
So, a republic refers to “the public thing,” and it meant the thing that was common to all the people; that is, the common law, the law for all the people, for which another name is a constitution. A good constitution is an agreement among all the citizens in which individual rights, the rights of the minority—even a minority of one—are protected against what we could call the tyranny of the majority.
So, if we like the idea of “majority vote decides,” but you don’t want your individual rights trampled on, then a republic is the best form of government that man has ever devised. In view of all this discussion, notice how so many politicians, media “talking heads,” educators, ministers, etc. almost universally use the word “democracy.” More on democracies vs. republics next time.
Now let’s step back and recognize that we have been discussing a political spectrum of governments instituted among and by men. Going a step beyond to the divine perspective, we would then need to consider what kind of government God desires and has already instituted. It is a theocratic republic.