A Turning Point in Human History

In Western Civilization, what happened in the past few weeks is huge. You may not have realized this, but I think a dividing line in history happened. I assert, the dignity of man won and the political freedom of man is now ours to claim. (It may take at least a hundred years to play out.) Let me see if I can explain this.

Some people thought Obama met his match by challenging the Catholic church in relation to Obamacare. Not so. Obama scored a big win in the dominate/avoid domination battles of politics. That is, in one context he did score big. But in an even bigger context, he didn’t. In fact, he set the stage for the State-as-we-know-it's demise as well.

This article on the history of the politics of redistribution has come out. In the 30s, (80 years ago) the Catholic church made a deal with the devil thinking that government programs providing for the needy were in line with their teaching to help the poor and needy. They got on board with FDR’s programs that redistributed wealth because they interpreted those programs as fulfilling their teaching of charity. What they did in that moment was give up their role as moral leader, i.e., causing people to make choices according to the church’s version of the good person which their followers believed, for the gun which is the means to bypass choice.

The government using its gun to take your earnings to give to someone else is not charity. In fact it is the opposite of charity. Government force used in this way is criminality and diminishes human life in the name of supporting it. All Obama did was cash in on what happened 80 years ago by forcing the Church to bow before him as represented by the rules of the State. In essence, though, he is claiming victory for the State over the Church in the ages-old battle for dominance of one over the other. The Catholic church put its moral imprimatur on initiated force – the same force that a common criminal uses on people and for the same reason – to take their property. This welded the church, at least the American Catholic church, to the evil use of force and now it is going to suffer its fate – the end of its influence after about 2000 years of history. This will end its role as moral authority.

OK. That’s part of the story. But, it is not the whole story. The real story is that now it will be possible to see that the church and state are one in the same – initiated force. Obama in his action cleaved the church to its bosom as partners in crime. If a criminal on the corner holds you up and tells you to give your money to the beggar in the gutter, you would not for a second call that charity. Whatever façade the criminal hoped to hide behind would be shattered by his use of force on you. You would have no choice but to gird yourself for battle/self-protection as you would against any criminal - against any person who seeks to bypass your power to choose.

One of the images of this connection was offered by Rand in For the New Intellectual where she talks about the symbiotic relationship of the Witch Doctor and Attila the Hun – the spiritual leader and the man of force. She detailed how they are connected to control the ordinary man. The spiritual leader holds and teaches that man is bad and wrong from the start – original sin and the like – and this justifies the initiation of force by the state to control this “evil brute.” And because the spiritual leaders have told men they are evil, they fear all the other men who they think are also evil and demand the state protect them. Each needs the other.

But now we see that they both hold the gun and the violence of initiated force as the final authority. This is what has been revealed. So, the charade is over.

Now with both of them able to be seen using force in a criminal way (i.e., initiating it against an innocent man) it’s going to be up to the rest of us to fight for the dignity of man, which cannot include force. A mind, no matter how much anyone may try, cannot be forced and any institution based on the initiation of force commits this fundamental violation of the human being by negating his primary means of survival.

The battle of our age is moral – not political. And we are now in it. These are historic times and if you get the outlines of the battle, you can watch it unfold before you. The moral question is this:

Who owns your life? Who is the moral authority of your life? You? Or someone else like the church or the state? The church has been holding people hostage via guilt such that individuals cannot see that it is really they that are in charge of their love for their life. The state has been holding people hostage via fear of its gun such that the individuals cannot see that it is really they that are in charge of their love for their life. None of these people nor these institutions in reality have the ultimate moral authority over your life. No one can have that power because morality has to do with your love of living. Do you act in such a way that you want to live in a future you can imagine and create? Or do you act to satisfy all of the people that say that if you please them, you will have a future – even if you don’t care to live it?

I give Rush Limbaugh credit for bringing the article cited above and the connection of the church to the state during FDR's 30's to my attention on his radio program today.