TO REMAKE (FIRST DESTROY)

By Jim Beers

Despots from Hitler, Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot to Ivan the Terrible, Robespierre, and Tamerlane each told everyone that would listen that they were "remaking" all that they controlled. "Everything" meant every thing; from families and societies to who would live and who would die, all things were "remade" to the will of the all-powerful ruler. While lip service is given to the mythical "benevolent despot", the occurrence of such a person in human history is about as frequent as the appearance of dragons: despotic rule, as contrasted with a Constitutional Republic of free men, is, in four words, "the rule of evil". Americans cannot conceive of a despot gaining control of "everything". Our history of freedom and achievement makes us immune to such despotism, or so we have believed.
In the past 100 years a philosophy of "soft despotism" has been spread and accepted by segments of the populations of the world not under the control of all-powerful despotic governments or dictators. This "soft despotism" purports to offer authoritarian controls that are exercised not by a despot but rather by an "enlightened" leader or oligarchy that will "equalize" "everything" for the good of anyone having "less" than another. This seductive version of despotism is called various things at various times in order not to alarm those slated to give so that others might receive: its proper name is "socialism".
Despotism; whether it be instituted by the wholesale carnage of a Tamerlane or Stalin, or by peaceful government seizure through a vote by the likes of Hitler or Chavez, or gradually entrenched as socialism in existing government policies and laws as currently being accomplished in European nations and the United States; has a common thread: in order to "remake" the society, the society must first be destroyed. Such complete destruction by despots like Tamerlane, Robespierre, or Hitler, et al is a matter of historical fact. The gradual and ongoing destruction of European nations, the United States, and other "developed" nations by socialist policies is a gradual matter of controversy; as is the stunted development of "emerging" nations frozen by entrenched socialist governments from Africa to South America and Asia.
Despotism is tyranny. That means that individuals have no individual rights: they have only what the government (or ruler) grants. What the ruler grants, the ruler can take away for any reason at any time. There is no supreme Constitution outlining government authority or any specific governmental roles or responsibilities. There is no "separation of powers" (President/Congress/ Supreme Court) or "division of powers" (Local/State/Federal) under despotism. None of us "own" anything: there is no "private property", no "contracts", no protection from others favored by government under despotism. There is no protection of speech, religion or Liberty, there is only the current will of the despotic and uncontrollable government. Even human Life from conception to death is only possible at the whim of governmental power. Tyranny is "created" by first destroying its antithesis.
The antithesis of Tyranny was defined 220 years ago in the Founding Documents of the United States of America. In the Declaration of Independence (1776), the Founding Fathers told all American Colonials why they were fighting and dying to gain their Independence from Britain:
"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."
In the introduction (Preamble) to the Constitution of the United States (that dictated the roles and authorities to be granted by "We the People" in order to "ordain and establish" a government to succeed British Rule and bring "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" to the 13 Colonies) the Founding Fathers wrote:
"in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common (sic) defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
It is ultimately the basic concepts of the Declaration of Independence and the specific enumeration of power and government found in the Constitution of the United States of America that must be destroyed in order to "remake" our society in a socialistic mold. Three simple examples of the ongoing destruction of our societies' basic building blocks and thus the destruction of our society by socialist policies in the last 40 years are worth noting.
I. The "FAMILY" has long been called the "basic building block of society". Whether you think of the following as "reasons", "symptoms", or "results from unknown causes"; The US family has been chipped away and diminished by:
1. Welfare that encouraged unwed motherhood and the disappearance of Church orphanages and extended families to be replaced by government payments and oversight.
2. Government tolerance for and revenue collection from "clubs", pornography, and no-fault divorce that both dissolve families and discourage marriage and parenting.
3. Government encouragement for both abortion that destroys the sacred concept of parent and child; and "mercy-killing" of the helpless, disabled, costly, and depressed that has the effect of detaching them from "family" and vice versa.
4. Governmental claim that teachers may subvert parental teaching and values by contradicting parents and even giving children advice, medicine, and procuring abortions without parental consent or even notification.
5. Governmental instruction and encouragement of family-destructive sex practices and sexual promiscuity in schools.
6. Government tolerance for "remaking" the legal definition of "marriage" that obviates the very existence of aunts, uncles, grandparents, family bonding, and "extended family" safety nets.
II. The "CHURCH" is truly the social glue of community life and the public expression of individual and family beliefs and values. Church life and its role in the community has been chipped away and diminished by:
1. Government authorized contradiction of Church teachings by public school teachers under the guise of "tolerance", "political correctness", and threats of legal punishment.
2. Government denial of the "right of conscience" for doctors, nurses, and Church hospitals to refuse to perform morally repugnant services such as abortion and euthanasia.
3. Government "reforms" that force Churches to hire employees opposed to their beliefs and tax changes that further discourage donations to Church charities and services.
4. Government prohibition of Church teachings (since they are "tax-exempt') such as sermon topics related to elections (while "favored" Churches host candidates that then "preach" at their services) and military Chaplains' freedom to mention subjects like abortion, euthanasia, etc. A European model of this is Norway where preaching against abortion (a "legal" act) is forbidden under pain of imprisonment: one wonders how in Norway or in the US for that matter before Roe v Wade it was not "illegal" to lobby "for" abortion?
5. Government encouragement of Moslem enclaves (like Europe) where "political correctness" permits anti- Christian and anti-Jewish activities while traditional displays of Menorahs, Christmas scenes, and mention of God at Commencements are forbidden. (This Moslem tendency towards Shariah Law, subjugation of females, and oppression of non-Moslem persons and activities intimidates and destroys Judeo-Christian traditions in the young especially and represents an expected mutually beneficial short-term alliance between socialists that likewise want to "conquer" or eliminate Judeo-Christian influence and Moslems; each of who believes that the other will eventually submit to them.)
6. Government proposals as recently in Connecticut to declare who will "own" and "control" individual Churches by establishing governmental control guidelines over individual Churches, (shades of the European monarchs our forefathers fled centuries ago).
III. "PROPERTY", the "right" to own and use the fruits of your labor is arguably the "cornerstone" of freedom. Without the protected right to own your own property, all other "rights" are jeopardized and ultimately useless. History confirms, time after time, that those that have no right to private property have no rights except as granted or denied by government. This right to own and control your own property is protected by the Constitution both by its mention in the 5th Amendment, "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation" and by its absence elsewhere in the Constitution that states in the 10th Amendment, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." The entire concept of private property has been massively eroded in the past 40 years:
1. Government declarations that "Endangered Species" declarations supercede private property rights even though "Endangered Species" taking of private property is neither a public "use" nor is it compensated. This precedent has bred all manner of government "taking" for enhancing governmental power.
2. Government protection of and introduction of deadly predators that ultimately destroy rural private property uses and rural communities.
3. Government acquisition and control of massive portions of rural private property that then eliminates local governments that protect private property by eliminating their revenue and by extension devaluing nearby private property by closures and "no-use" declarations.
4. Government dictates about salaries, contracts, and eligible products under the guise of remedying economic stress (exactly like Hitler).
5. Government creation of "rights" for animals that destroy not only family traditions (and thereby families) like hunting, fishing, trapping, cockfighting, and dog training but also the private property rights inherent in the ownership and use of horses, gamefowl, livestock, poultry, fish, pets, and any other animal that are "owned" by "owners".
6. Government manipulation of wild animal management and control for governmental power rather than human benefit like the secrecy about national bird strike information, the prohibition against necessary lethal control of the distribution and abundance of damaging animals from cougars to blackbirds and geese, the protection of seals and whales from management while decimated fisheries are used as excuses to close more and more areas to fishing, and the cynical distortion of facts to justify energy development prohibitions and a wide range of self-defeating (to the nation) policies based on environmental propaganda.
The above examples are but a few from our recent past and the future looks even more bleak. Guns are slated for confiscation by socialists as surely as Russian communists and Nazis seized them for the same purpose. Government sex classifications and preferences to pit males against females for socialist purposes will increase as surely as Chinese sonograms are increasingly relied upon in the mandated "one-child" Chinese families. Government race classifications and preferences will persist as socialist "dividers" like the Hutu/Tutsi categorizations in Rwanda with potentially the same result. As families disappear, the arguments for government "health care" and "homes" and elimination of the unwanted and costly persons without a demonstrable "quality of life" will increase. As Churches knuckle under to the popular socialist beliefs of the moment, the arguments for listening only to a more powerful government as opposed "meaningless" Church teachings will increase. As a socialist government sets salaries and "takes over" businesses, the arguments for signing yet more sovereignty-robbing UN Conventions like the "Cap and Trade"/"Global Warming" and proposed Gun "Trafficking" Treaties will increase to further diminish any private property concept or local government power as an all-powerful socialist government takes all power unto itself.
As we consider this matter, it is best to be honest about how we got here if we are ever to "get out". It isn't just President Obama or all his socialist cronies or all those Democrat socialists in Congress. While they are all socialists on a "fast-track" unchecked by a credible opposition at this time; President Bush and President Clinton did much of the same - only at a slower pace like the elder Bush, Carter, Nixon and most of their predecessors back to the start of the last century. Candidate Mc Cain represented only a somewhat less onerous choice other than he would do most of the same things at a slower pace and some, like the "Global Warming" scam at a faster pace. Our choices have been poor and they have gotten poorer. The question before us is threefold:
1. How did those of us who advocate freedom, individual rights, tolerance, and the US Constitution get relegated to the "kooky right" of the political spectrum?
2. How did we become a minority in the nation we love so much?
3. How did so many Americans come to hate "life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" and the US Constitution so much?
Perhaps the answers to these questions will reveal the path back to Restoring (not "Remaking") Freedom. Jim Beers March 29, 2009