Category: tyranny

We are born free

My inevitable tour of antisocial media Monday showed a lot of posts intended to get out the vote. None of them had a positive message; it was all “If my opponent wins, the country as we know it cannot survive.” There are no honorable humans to vote for, only scoundrels to vote against. After a while you begin to believe it’s all true and they’re all scoundrels.

It may be true that the ruling class is packed with greedy humans whose main focus is to enrich themselves on the backs of the people they claim to represent and serve. It may be true that the government is always finding new and creative ways to drain our bank accounts and steal our civil liberties.

But Mr. Jefferson spoke truth when he said we are each born with rights endowed by our Creator, and no matter how hard the ruling class strives to abridge those liberties, they can never succeed because they’re fighting the will of God. They may just as well pass a law that says the sun may not rise in the morning.

Freedom does not depend on choosing the right ruler. Freedom is a gift we are given at birth that we may willingly relinquish but can never be taken. Freedom is an internal trait that may be governed (another word for restricted or abridged) but never extinguished.

Whenever tyranny raises its ugly head, it will meet resistance. You can lead someone to the Kool-Aid, but you can’t force him to drink. You can coax and cajole and torture and worse, but you can’t make a person any less free. You may hoodwink them into believing otherwise, but they always have the choice to refuse shackles.

Of course there are no kings here, at least not mortal ones. There is only the King of Kings.

Election Day is an interesting exercise, but it does not replace forces of darkness with forces of light. The choice is always between the lesser of two evils, and so evil will win this round. The battle between light and dark will continue tomorrow, but light will win in the end. Salvation is not found by following the lesser of two evils but by seeking the God of love.

When will I ever learn?

After I dipped my toe into the current political discussion Monday morning, by noon I wished I had not.

I have previously resolved not to involve myself in such nonsense, instead trying to emulate my old pal Paul, who wrote, “Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable — if anything is excellent or praiseworthy — think about such things.”

There is nothing true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent or praiseworthy about politics and government, and yet every so often I forget myself and write about it anyway.

As I wrote to a friend on Facebook after a small kerfuffle, “I do usually regret leaping into the fray. More than 50 years after Pete Townshend put it so succinctly — ‘Meet the new boss, same as the old boss’ — most people still don’t get it. I should chalk that up to ‘things I cannot change’ and concentrate on the important stuff.”

A very dear friend from my ancient past wrote, “funny that your perception of reality is so totally different than mine.”

“I agree. It’s the most interesting thing about these present times,” I responded.

And so, except when I forget my resolution, I write in this space about love, joy, peace, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. I try not to be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. That’s probably one of the reasons why the analytics say my audience rarely rises about two or three dozen readers. Noise sells.

That won’t stop me from sitting quietly in my old blue chair, a golden retriever snout against my foot, seeking a still, small voice that calls me to add beauty to this nutty world, not more discord.

I apologize for the misstep.

Negotiating dystopia with love

I so want to start the week with encouraging words, but as I sat in my quiet living room searching for those words, my mind was distracted by the weekend news of riots in France by “demonstrators” who seem to share ideology in common with the organizations that back the mostly peaceful gatherings that were occurring on this side of the Atlantic. It feels inevitable to me that we are creeping back towards the sort of dystopia that hung over the US of A from 2021 to 2024.

Lest you jump to conclusions, let me hasten to add that I am no big fan of the incumbent administration these days, either. The lesser of two evils is still evil.

But I find myself contemplating how I might cope with what seems to be an inevitable descent into even more unpleasant times, given my preference for liberty and peace.

“Love God and love your neighbor” is the law I live. How do I interact with those who mean to tear down the country and rebuild it in their image? “Love your neighbor as yourself.” And what about those who invade and attempt to close churches and synagogues, or censor dissent, as they have done before? “Love your enemies.”

This is why the most important commandment is “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind” — because there are some people who are hard to love without divine intervention, people who are filled with hate and have no objection to violence. We cannot defeat them by hating them and countering their violence with violence, however; we must meet them with peace and with love. Doing so is the equivalent of heaping burning coals on their heads, and they quite possibly will lash out with intensified violence, like a child in mid-tantrum. We restrain the child to prevent further damage, but we act in love.

That’s easy for me to say; I am miles from the epicenter. Lord grant me the strength and the patience to meet the haters with love, should I ever encounter them.