The View From 1776

Last Sunday at the Cohocton, New York, Assembly of God Church, Pastor Dan Gardner focused upon the need always to be ready for the return of Jesus.  And this Sunday, retired Pastor Bill Griffin spoke to the need to use the talents God has given us to carry out His commandments and to be ready for Jesus’s return.

Pastor Gardner used as his text the Book of Malachi, the last of the Old Testament books: 

You have wearied the LORD with your words. 
"How have we wearied him?” you ask. 
By saying, “All who do evil are good in the eyes of the LORD, and he is pleased with them” or “Where is the God of justice?” (Malachi 2:17)

1 “See, I will send my messenger, who will prepare the way before me. Then suddenly the Lord you are seeking will come to his temple; the messenger of the covenant, whom you desire, will come,” says the LORD Almighty.

2 But who can endure the day of his coming? Who can stand when he appears? For he will be like a refiner’s fire or a launderer’s soap. 3 He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver; he will purify the Levites and refine them like gold and silver. Then the LORD will have men who will bring offerings in righteousness, 4 and the offerings of Judah and Jerusalem will be acceptable to the LORD, as in days gone by, as in former years.

5 “So I will come near to you for judgment. I will be quick to testify against sorcerers, adulterers and perjurers, against those who defraud laborers of their wages, who oppress the widows and the fatherless, and deprive aliens of justice, but do not fear me,” says the LORD Almighty.

6 “I the LORD do not change. So you, O descendants of Jacob, are not destroyed. (Malachi 3:1-6)

People at the time (about 400 years before the advent of Jesus Christ), as now, had drifted away from the teachings of God and settled into self-centered moral relativism.  Malachi sternly announcest, as Christians understand it, that John the Baptist would prepare the way for the coming of the messiah, the Lord Jesus Christ.  The Lord would purify His people, separating the just from the unjust, and would judge the wicked.  God does not change and all of us remain subject to purification and judgement, as much today as then.

No human knows, or can know, when the Lord jesus Christ will return.  But the scriptures tell us that his coming will be unexpected and swift.  At that time it will be too late to repent and to abandon our self-centered unrighteousness.  We must pray for the help of the Holy Spirit now to make ourselves ready by dealing justly with others and by doing our best to help people in need.

42 Therefore keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come.  43 But understand this: If the owner of the house had known at what time of night the thief was coming, he would have kept watch and would not have let his house be broken into.  44 So you also must be ready, because the Son of Man will come at an hour when you do not expect him.  (Matthew 24:42-44)

1 Dear friends, this is now my second letter to you. I have written both of them as reminders to stimulate you to wholesome thinking. 2 I want you to recall the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the command given by our Lord and Savior through your apostles.

3 First of all, you must understand that in the last days scoffers will come, scoffing and following their own evil desires.  4 They will say, “Where is this ‘coming’ he promised? Ever since our fathers died, everything goes on as it has since the beginning of creation.” 5 But they deliberately forget that long ago by God’s word the heavens existed and the earth was formed out of water and by water.  6 By these waters also the world of that time was deluged and destroyed.  7 By the same word the present heavens and earth are reserved for fire, being kept for the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men.

8 But do not forget this one thing, dear friends: With the Lord a day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a day. 9The Lord is not slow in keeping his promise, as some understand slowness. He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance.

10 But the day of the Lord will come like a thief. The heavens will disappear with a roar; the elements will be destroyed by fire, and the earth and everything in it will be laid bare.

11 Since everything will be destroyed in this way, what kind of people ought you to be? You ought to live holy and godly lives 12 as you look forward to the day of God and speed its coming.That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat. 13 But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, the home of righteousness. 

14 So then, dear friends, since you are looking forward to this, make every effort to be found spotless, blameless and at peace with him.  (2 Peter 3:1-14)

To prepare for Jesus’s return, we must watchfully and hopefully pray and purify ourselves, and we must preach the Gospel to others that they may be saved.

11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men. 12 It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age, 13 while we wait for the blessed hope—the glorious appearing of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ, 14 who gave himself for us to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify for himself a people that are his very own, eager to do what is good.  (Titus 2:11-14)

2 Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. 3 Everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself, just as he is pure.  (1 John 3:2-3)

Pastor Griffin’s sermon today dovetailed with Pastor Gardner’s admonitory sermon.  Pastor Griffin exhorted us to use the talents God has given us in order to prepare ourselves and to help others to be ready for Jesus’s return.

1 To the elders among you, I appeal as a fellow elder, a witness of Christ’s sufferings and one who also will share in the glory to be revealed: 2 Be shepherds of God’s flock that is under your care, serving as overseers—not because you must, but because you are willing, as God wants you to be; not greedy for money, but eager to serve; 3 not lording it over those entrusted to you, but being examples to the flock. 4 And when the Chief Shepherd appears, you will receive the crown of glory that will never fade away.

5 Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.”

6 Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. 7 Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you.

8 Be self-controlled and alert. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.  9 Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that your brothers throughout the world are undergoing the same kind of sufferings.

10 And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast.  11 To him be the power for ever and ever. Amen.  (1 Peter 5:1-11)

Peter’s directive applies to us today as much as it did to the young churches of his time.  Jesus three times admonished Peter to “Feed My sheep,” which meant that Peter, and we today, must teach others, feeding them the word of God and the message of salvation through Jesus.

Moses, seeing the desert bush that was burning, but not consumed by the fire, signifying the everlasting nature of God, pleaded that he was too tongue-tied to take God’s message back to the Israelites and to Pharaoh.  God then told Moses that his brother Aaron would speak in his behalf the words of God that Moses gave to him.

Moses and Aaron repeatedly challenged the Egyptian god-Pharaoh to let the Israelites go.  It was a head-on collision between the gods of Egypt and the one true God.  Standing up as God commanded, Moses set the grand stage for defeat of Egypt’s pagan gods and the triumph of God. 

This should be an example for all of us to do our best in whatever way God, through the Holy Spirit, has called us.  If Jesus has helped you, tell others about it.  Our personal testimonies are among our most persuasive means to bring to others the message of salvation.

After His resurrection, Jesus gave His disciples the great commission:

16 Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go.  17 When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted.  18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matthew 28: 16-20)

A reader wrote to ask how Rush Limbaugh differs from Joseph Goebbels.  Both, said the reader, are hate-mongers.  There isn’t much similarity, of course.  Limbaugh is not a great orator, as Goebbels was.  Nor is he at all the superb organizer and administrator that Goebbels was.

The reader’s question, however, prompted a comparison of Barack Obama, whose announced intention is to revolutionize the United States, and Adolph Hitler, whose announced intention was to revolutionize German society.  Both aimed at socialistic redistribution of wealth to improve the lot of working men and other lower-income groups.  Both imposed control over major industrial groups.

However much we deplore the racist nationalism of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazis), we have to give the devil his due.  We are compelled to recognize Hitler and Goebbels as extraordinarily gifted organizers and administrators, as well as outstanding orators.

Obama is a good orator, as his victories in the Democrat/Socialist Party presidential primary and later in the general election proved.  Unlike Hitler, however, Obama flounders without a prepared speech, supported by a teleprompter.  Hitler could mesmerize an audience without notes, speaking to vast numbers, any length from half an hour to two hours, often without even a public address system.  English and American journalists went to his National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazi) rallies expecting to hear a buffoon.  Without exception they became entranced as Hitler orated with great logical clarity, finding themselves almost in agreement with him.

Like Obama, Hitler rose to power in the midst of social and economic turmoil.  After World War I, German industry was severely crippled, unemployment was high, and fecklessness of the Weimar Republic’s brand of socialism left the nation in despair.  The conditions that Hitler faced were, in fact, much more severe than anything confronting Obama.

Obama flitted from limited engagement as a neighborhood agitator-organizer to working with Weather Underground leaders Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn to insinuate socialistic messages into the public school curriculum. He managed to get elected to the Illinois legislature and then to the United States Senate, never getting any significant legislation enacted.

His short, dilettantish gesture in the direction of community organization in Chicago’s South Side was his only exposure to executive administration before his coronation as the Nation’s Savior in 2009.  In his first year as president, Obama has concentrated upon speechifying, leaving administrative and legislative responsibilities in the hands of Rahm Emanuel, David Axelrod, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid.

In sharp contrast, Adolph Hitler took over a Munich political club with hardly more than 40 members and, in 14 years (including his time in Landsberg prison in 1923-24), built it into the largest and most powerful political organization in Germany.  Hitler was directly involved in every political and organizational move, appointing and directing party leaders, from the neighborhood to the national level.  He was especially effective at the strategic level, foreseeing the path to national triumph of the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nazis).

Goebbels, like Obama, was a neighborhood organizer, though considerably more effective and skilled than Obama. 

Goebbels was dispatched by Hitler in 1926 to Berlin, the heart of German communist support and the seat of the Weimar Republic.  Berlin, like Hollywood and the East and Left Coast metropolises of today, had sunk into a pit of sensual degradation, a degradation so extreme that even the Parisians were shocked at what was exhibited publicly.

Goebbels’s mission was to organize the rag-tag bit of the National Socialist German Workers Party in Berlin and to increase its membership.  He did both things spectacularly well in the face of assaults by street gangs of armed communist labor union members.

A final comparison and, in this case congruence, between Obama and Hitler, as well as the Soviet Union’s Vladimir Lenin, is their recognition that, if socialism is to be imposed successfully, it must become a world-wide phenomenon.  So long as socialist nations are bordered by non-socialist nations, their hegemony always will be threatened by defections and periodic aggressions.  Hence the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union’s continual campaigns during the Cold War to subvert central and eastern-European nations to bring them behind the Iron Curtain of Soviet control.

Hitler’s socialistic vision, like that of Mussolini’s Fascist italy, was nationalistic, aiming to bring all necessary farmland and natural resources under control of the National Socialist German Workers Party in order to insure maximum self-suffiency for Nazi Germany.  Obama’s obsession with “green” jobs and high-cost fuel in the name of energy self-sufficiency is not politically the same as Hitler’s Drang nach Osten, but economically it is of the same stripe.  Ditto Obama’s drive to control the banking business, auto manufacturing, energy production and use, and the nation’s healthcare industry.

All liberal-progressive-socialist leaders, from Auguste Comte to Marx and Lenin, to Obama have exhibited a strong faith that reified laws of history are moving us inevitably toward a socialized world hegemony under the tutelage of liberal-progressive intellectuals.  That doctrine anticipates a world of peace and harmony when income and property shall have been equally distributed around the globe.  As in Lenin’s vision of socialism, when the political state, through whatever methods may be necessary (for instance, ramming Obamacare through Congress via reconciliation) shall have succeeded in reshaping human nature into the New Soviet Man (from each according to ability, to each according to need), government will simply wither away and the whole world will be one big happy family.

James Madison spoke to that sort of utopian theorizing in the Federalist Papers, when he noted that, if men were angels, no government would be necessary.  But experience and prudence suggested the need for auxiliary precautions.

What we need is a change of heart that is faithful, true, and enduring

By Marie Jon, Christian  analyst

 "Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold all things are become new.” ? 2 Corinthians 5:17

At one point in my grandfather’s young life, he found himself to be a very unhappy man. He became angrier and angrier with every passing day. He knew he had a problem, but he wasn’t about to admit it to his wife and children. Grandpa would often say that he was misunderstood by others, including his own family. Instead of seeking guidance, he made them pay the price for his pent-up frustrations.

Too often he took his anger out on his family by becoming verbally abusive behind closed doors. And then, when it was over, he would leave the house in a huff, while hanging his head in shame over the fact that he had just treated his defenseless brood so badly. Within his heart, he knew he was wrong.

With tears stinging his eyes, he would walk down the street whispering to himself a promise to never do that again. He would assure my grandmother that he really meant it. But just a week later, after a tough long day at work, he would do it again. And at times he would break furniture into pieces while shouting at the top of his voice. He frightened his entire family, who cowered in their bedrooms.

These escalating acts were repeated just like a time-bomb ticking. He yelled at his wife and snapped at his kids without provocation, again and again. It was those outside forces that annoyed him. Unfortunately, this young father and husband had not learned not to bring destructive emotions through the door of his own home.

A changed heart

Thankfully, grandfather’s life changed and there was happiness after all. For you see, grandfather made a promise to God to follow Him. And by grace, he allowed Christ to have His way. He literally became the father that my dad longed for. And to God’s glory, grandfather became one of the major reasons why my own father gave his own life to the Lord. His father’s transformation was a tremendous witness to attest to what Christ can do when you’re willing to yield to the power of the Holy Spirit.

Because of my young age, I never experienced the out-of-control and angry side of “papa.” He was, to me, a happy, kind, smiling face who sang with the church choir. Those are the memories I’m privileged to have whenever I think of him. He died a little over two years ago with his loving family by his side.

The truth is that no matter what your personal circumstances are, when the human spirit yields itself to God, His love can bring about changes because He is faithful. It’s my personal opinion that folks can’t truly alter their lives without a commitment to a loving God. The Bible describes this as having a born-again experience:

“Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily, verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3).

Man is sinful and separated from God, yet He still loves us. Being apart from God makes it impossible for people to keep promises to themselves and put a stop to doing things they know are destructive behavior. But by the grace of God, they can overcome their sinful nature.

“When his disciples heard it, they were exceedingly amazed, saying Who then can be saved? But Jesus beheld them and said unto them, With men this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible” (Matt. 19:25-26).

Willpower not enough

To this very day, America is still fighting a war against terrorism. I can’t help but think of the tremendous increase in church attendance shortly after the World Trade Center collapsed in 2001. Stunned and very frightened, people suddenly became determined to be on good footing with the Almighty God.

Prominent pastors became enthusiastic because an act of terrorism promised to precipitate a major spiritual revival in America. Unfortunately, it took only two short months and it was over. Church attendance went right back down to where it was before the horrific attack took place.

It’s regrettable that this revival only lasted a couple of months. Didn’t the people who suddenly went back to church actually mean to return to matters of faith and take it seriously? They had the perfect opportunity to experience a renewal and make a positive impact on society, while bolstering morality which is floundering in our country today. I am convinced, for the most part, that they did, at least for the time being. It’s evident, however, that fear was not enough of a motivator to keep their religious faith intact, it was enough only to bring them to church temporarily. When the planes stopped crashing into buildings, life just simply went back to the mundane. People quickly forgot all their promises and went back to the way things were.

We can spend a lot of time deciphering the self-sufficient will of human beings who do a lot of talking about willpower and the strength of sheer determination. Apply those topics to arenas in the world of business, careers, or politics, and there is something to be said for that. We live in a country where we can become as successful as the next person. However, in the world of faith, sheer willpower simply isn’t enough, because most temptations are bigger than the willpower we can muster up all by ourselves.

Broken promises

While reading through my Bible, I’m reminded about the Israelites. In the Book of Exodus, they had just been delivered from Egyptian slavery. God’s “Promised People” had seen the hand of God part the Red Sea and drown the Egyptians. They witnessed the fiery presence of God come down on the top of Mount Sinai. As they were privileged to watch the spectacular wonder of the moment, they made a solemn promise to God. Moses spoke with God, and then gave a report to the Israelites:

“And Moses came and called for the elders of the people, and laid before their faces all these words which the Lord had commanded him. And all the people answered together, and said, ‘All that the Lord hath spoken we will do.’ And Moses returned the words of the people unto the Lord” (Exodus 19:7, 8).

The Israelites made a promise to God, and they believed it was an easy promise to make after following God’s presence out into the desert. They repeatedly made the same promise after Moses had received the Ten Commandments:

“And Moses came and told the people all the words of the Lord, and all the judgments: and all the people answered with one voice, and said, ‘All the words which the Lord hath said will we do’” (Exodus 24:3).

They repeated the same promise again a couple of verses later:

“And Moses took the book of the covenant, and read it before the people, and they said, ‘All that the Lord hath said will we do, and be obedient’” (Exodus 24:7).

When the Israelites made these promises they were sincere. Unfortunately, the rest of the Book of Exodus and the Bible exposes the sad record of God’s people repeatedly breaking their promises to the Lord. They found themselves doing the very things they had promised God they would never do again.

The problem is not just sin, but ‘sinfulness’

I believe that God’s people today mean it when they promise to stop committing certain sins. They just don’t have what it takes to keep their promises. There has to be a real personal relationship with the Lord. When you love God, you want to please Him.

The Word describes sin as the transgression of God’s moral law: “And the problem of sin runs very deep. Everyone who makes a practice of sinning also practices lawlessness; sin is lawlessness” (1 John 3:4).

But sin is not just something we do. It’s also something we allow to enter into our lives. God could have solved the whole problem by just removing the laws we were breaking. Yet, intuitively, we know there’s more to it than that. Our sins separate us from God. The Scriptures say that we are powerless to change our sinful ways by ourselves:

Isaiah wrote, “But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear” (Isaiah 59:2).

The prophet Jeremiah expounds on the subject plainly: “Can the Ethiopian change his skin or the leopard his spots? Then may ye also do good, that are accustomed to do evil” (Jeremiah 13:23).

God says that you can no more change your sinful nature than you can change the color of your skin. If transgression were just a matter of breaking the rules, all you would have to do is stop breaking them. Can you do that?

But there is something about the human heart that has been changed by the nature of sin. Unless regenerated by the power of the Holy Spirit, Christians will continually find themselves helpless to live the life they know they should live to glorify their Savior. They will not be able to witness to others and draw others close to them. The work of the Great Commission will be difficult to complete ?

“Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him; but some doubted. Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:16-20).

A faithful heart

It’s obvious that too many Christians suffer from a heart problem. So get out there and flex your spiritual muscle, and with God’s help begin to change your ways.

“The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?” (Jeremiah 17:9).

Breaking God’s law is sin. Acting out and being disobedient has trickled down into the very essence of our being. Everything we do is infected by it. Even the good things we do, according to the Bible are sullied:

“But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousness is as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away” (Isaiah 64:6).

Without a spiritual rebirth, even with all the good we do, our works are like filthy rags. Sin will have sway over us. Mankind’s thought processes have been perverted. Sin has altered our misguided priorities. Most importantly, it has taken our focus off “The Great I Am” and put it squarely on ourselves.

“Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

Our own weakness explains why we sometimes find ourselves unable to walk away from sinful habits. We know that smoking cigarettes can cause cancer. Yet we often refuse to take personal responsibility and break free from a psychological habit. We know that bad temper can ruin our family, but we can’t seem to close the lid on our fuse. We know that our lying, gossiping mouth is doing untold damage to others. Yet many will not have that conversation with the Lord and ask Him to help them change.

Not alone

Take solace in the fact that you are not alone and that everybody struggles with something. You have never experienced a temptation that somebody else hasn’t felt:

“There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common to man” (1 Corinthians 10:13).

Whatever you’re going through, others have walked that same path. Let me share with you a little secret. The most recognized persons in the Bible have struggled with the same temptations you struggle with.

Most of the disciples proved to be faulty in one way or another because they were human, despite being saved by the blood of their Savor. Did you know that Moses had an extremely hot temper? David certainly struggled with a lust problem. And Abraham lied about his wife to save his own skin. Peter struggled with taking a stand in public acknowledging his discipleship. He denied his Lord three times. Noah had a problem with alcohol.

The Bible is full of people just like you and me. It’s amazing that throughout His Word, God refused to abandon suffering people. If you are willing to be used by God, and willing to let Him make the changes in your life, you’ll be astonished at how He can turn things around.

Real hope and change

As we strive to remove a Marxist progressive agenda that now plagues our country, we must understand the game plan: If “We the People” are not willing to return to the God of our forefathers, there will be little or no chance to do what we desire to accomplish.

America’s beginnings where ushered in by men of faith who embraced the fact that mankind received their inalienable rights from our Creator God.

Patriots, it’s time to dust off your Bibles and put your emphasis on the Word of God. Let us never forget that God established the greatest nation in the world. When we think of freedom, remember that it is The Almighty who has given us the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. What America needs is a change of heart that is faithful, true, and enduring.

Marie Jon is a political/religious-based writer and founder of http://www.DrawingClose.org , a sister website to RenewAmerica. Marie extends her hand of welcome; visit DrawingClose and receive your free gift of salvation by taking an online Bible study.

Liberal-progressives’ profession of concern for “the little guy” is really a propaganda tool for gasping the power to dictate behavioral limits for abstract social, economic, sexual, and racial classes.  Imposing liberal-progressives’ vision of social perfection, as Lenin supposedly said, figuratively at least has to come out of the business end of a gun barrel.

President Lyndon Johnson’s Great Society grab-bag of welfare-state entitlements is a notorious example.  LBJ told a Howard University audience that the Great Society aimed to produce, not just equality of opportunity, but equality of result. 

This necessarily meant contravening the recently enacted Civil Rights legislation, which expressly forbade government discrimination among individuals or groups.  It required forced equality of income and wealth, without regard to personal ability, effort, or achievement.  That equality was to be achieved by confiscating property and income from workers and giving it to groups whose cultures glorified sexual promiscuity, marital infidelity, and obsession with sensual satisfaction of all types.

Results were the opposite of liberal-progressive expectations. Crime soared, unemployment skyrocketed, education fell off the cliff, drug addiction became common, single-parent families and illegitimate births rose to proportions never before experienced in history.  Yet, the liberal-progressive aristocracy remains firmly wedded to the Great Society and similar programs dating back to President Roosevelt’s New Deal. 

Liberal-progressives fought tooth and nail against welfare reform.  But it produced none of the feared results. Instead, it reduced welfare rolls, greatly improved people’s lives, and gave them a sense of personal worth and accomplishment as they began to support themselves with real jobs.

The same blindness to reality was exhibited during the 1920s and 1930s, when liberal-progressives worshipfully supported the Soviet Union’s liquidation of millions of its own people in the name of a theoretical, perfect political society to be realized at some undetermined future date.

There are two main explanations for this disconnect between utopian, liberal-progressive theory and real world results. 

First is the sense of entitlement-to-rule that liberal-progressives derive from their self-perception as beings of superior worth and intelligence, compared to ordinary working people.  See Today’s Revolutionary Aristocracy and Dictatorship of the Proletariat.

A second explanation for the disconnect between policy and reality is liberal-progressives’ affection for abstract, ivory-tower, academic theory.  As is said of the French, who inflicted socialism upon the world, they love theories, especially when the theories don’t work.

The common element in liberal-progressive theorizing is reifying, or treating theoretical categories as if they were single, objective things that respond predictably to government policy: fairness, the poor, blacks, Hispanics, women, education, the economy, the world community.

Spiritual needs, of course, do not exist in the secular world of liberal-progressivism.  Liberal-progressive sociologists and psychologists see humans as merely receptors of sensual pain or pleasure, induced by manipulating physical conditions.  Liberal-progressive policies, of necessity, always relate to providing or withholding material things, such as money, housing, medical care, clothing, and education.  Spirituality and personal morality, for liberal-progressives, are relics of Judeo-Christian ignorance.

A prominent present-day example of reification is Keynesian macroeconomics, which treats the economy as a single “thing” that can be manipulated precisely and predictably by raising taxes, imposing business regulations, and indulging in Federal deficit spending.  The nation’s economic activities are conducted by many millions of individual people, but liberal-progressives see only abstract, reified economic classes. 

The intellectual heresy of reification underlies 19th century theories of history propounded by Hegel in Germany, Comte in France, and Marx in his travels from Germany, to France, thence to England.  All three viewed history as a “thing in itself,” a unified phenomenon that could be analyzed “scientifically” and could therefore be predicted.  Comte preached the inevitable arrival of the age of science, the highest branch of which was to be his new abstraction, sociology.  Marx proclaimed the inevitable triumph of so-called scientific socialism.

The fundamental obstacle to liberal-progressives’ expectation that they can control the course of history with their welfare-state programs is that socialism is not science.  It’s a secular religion based on false premises.

Physical sciences like chemistry, cosmology, engineering, and nuclear particle physics deal with specific, tangible things.  These objects of scientific inquiry, allowing for surrounding conditions, are the same anywhere on earth that scientists study them. 

Sociology and psychology have no laws like those of chemistry or physics, which can predict chemical and atomic particle reactions with extraordinary accuracy.  Behavior of individual humans and social groups of humans is almost the polar opposite.  Human nature imposes broad limits upon emotions and physical capabilities. But expecting individual humans all to act in accordance with liberal-progressive designs is wishful thinking.  Socialism’s faith that government programs can change human nature is dangerous ignorance.

Science is observation and analysis of natural processes occurring in the physical world.  Scientists, in the physical disciplines like chemistry and physics, hypothesize possible explanations of observable behavior, which must be tested and confirmed by other scientists in order to become accepted science.

Liberal-progressive intellectuals reverse the scientific process.  They posit an abstract theory, then select bits and pieces of history to “prove” it, in the manner of the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, shrieking, “Verdict first, trial afterwards!” They seek the power to force everyone, supposedly for his own good, to follow their orders.

At bottom, the liberal-progressive aristocracy’s “caring for the people” is no more than an egotistical exercise to usurp political power, rationalized by utopian abstractions.

Since the last decades of the 19th century, the United States has suffered slowly escalating conflict between its founding ethos and the ideology of secular socialism, the latter represented by the liberal-progressive elite.

The aim of the conflict initiated by liberal-progressives has been nothing short of revolutionary overthrow, however gradually executed, of the original constitutional structure of the nation and its replacement by an all-powerful, collectivized national government.  Such a government reduces the citizenry of the United States to servility under liberal-progressive bureaucrats in Washington, DC.  Think, for example, of the Environmental Protection Agency’s unilateral move to usurp regulation of CO2 in the face of majority opposition in Congress, an action that will bureaucratically doom much of the nation’s manufacturing and mining industries. 

Writers of the Constitution assumed the existence of a natural aristocracy of citizens, each of whom had, in his home district, earned the respect of his fellow citizens for his capabilities and judgment.  The structure of our Federal republic rested upon the expectation that such men would on the whole people local, state, and Federal legislatures and occupy executive positions in the various governments.  As that ideal could never be fully realized in a world of human beings, our Federal republic was structured to pit interest against interest in order to forestall aggregation of too much power in too few hands.

Recently united in common purpose to assert political independence from Great Britain, the citizens of the United States and their leaders in 1787 shared a common ethos.  That ethos was the product of centuries of English government, sharpened by the events leading up to England’s 1688 Glorious Revolution, which unseated autocratic James II.

The Glorious Revolution produced the English Bill of Rights and John Locke’s Treatises of Civil Government, which stated the case for inherent, inalienable, individual rights to life, liberty, and private property.  Locke wrote of a government founded in a social compact of mutual advantage for protection of those individual, natural-law rights against arbitrary exertion of power by the sovereign and against foreign enemies. 

In that conception, government did not grant political liberty to its citizens; government was to be restrained from infringing upon its citizens’ natural-law rights.  Today, in contrast, the liberal-progressive elite of the Democrat/Socialist party assert an aristocratic authority to cram down the people’s throats, purportedly for their own good, unpopular measures that abrogate our historical political liberties.  Such is President Obama’s intention to crush private health insurance companies and to nationalize healthcare, by whatever autocratic means he can employ.

The natural aristocracy of the United States, in its first century and a half of national existence, was composed of men of practical experience as independent farmers, merchants, and manufacturers. 

Today’s putative liberal-progressive aristocracy is an anti-business, academic class basing its claims upon academic, utopian theory.  It is an aristocracy without benefit of practical experience in the world of trade and manufacturing.  Today’s liberal-progressive elite, like the French in 1789, are confident that an ideal government can be conceived abstractly in the minds of academic intellectuals, who are ignorant of economics and devoid of practical business experience.

That intellectual presumption gave France the bloody Reign of Terror and a century and a half of unstable government, oscillating from socialism to restoration of the monarchy, under more than a dozen different constitutions.  Our liberal-progressive aristocracy has shoved the nation down the path toward servile dependence upon government and towards international bankruptcy, domestic inflation, and eventual domination by foreign powers.

How did the liberal-progressive aristocracy come to be?

Excesses of wealth in the post-Civil War Gilded Age gave impetus to the new class of intellectuals, who looked for their model of government, not to England and America’s past, but to the Continental European statism of France and the newly emergent German Empire.  There the prevailing ideology was the collectivism of the socialist political state.  In opposition to the English and American conception of natural-law, inherent, individual political liberties, the Continental powers envisioned the political state as creating and granting, when it deigned to do so, selected privileges to its citizens.

Liberal-progressive paternalism was evident in President Clinton’s response to proposed tax cuts.  He thought it a bad idea, he said, because American citizens would spend the money on the wrong things.  This presumption is evident in the current Democrat/Socialist government’s assertion that it will force socialized medicine upon the nation, because the people don’t know what is best for them.  It is evident in Democrat/Socialist regulatory desires to compel banks to make unwise loans and to pressure manufacturers to change production from profitable products desired by consumers to “green” products.

This new aristocracy, imposed by revolutionary means under President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal in the 1930s, was prominently delineated by Herbert Croly in his 1909 The Promise of American Life and in the 1913 A Preface to Politics by his colleague Walter Lippmann, who had been president of Harvard’s socialist club during his student days.

Croly and Lippmann were founding editors of The New Republic, the flagship journal of liberal-progressivism for most of the 20th century.  Both admired the German Empire’s focus upon professional administration of political functions and abhorred the messiness of legislation and administration in our Federal republic.  As had Auguste Comte in the 1820s of French socialism, Croly and Lippmann urged the subordination of legislative bodies to professional administrators.  Both favored a strong executive, who, like Bismarck in Germany, would seize the controls of political power and impose an educated, trained bureaucratic administration upon our nation, which, in their view, was mired in the outmoded beliefs of Jeffersonian individualism.  America was to achieve greatness to the extent that it emulated the statist governments of Continental Europe.

President Obama assertion that Americans will learn to like socialized healthcare after he has imposed it upon them is a quintessential example of the arbitrariness of beliefs and presumptions that define today’s liberal-progressive aristocracy.

The Wall Street Journal’s March 5, 2010, edition, in its Best of the Web feature, carries an interesting look at the contradictory opinions expressed by Mr. Krugman: 

Former Enron adviser Paul Krugman takes note in his New York Times column of what he calls “the incredible gap that has opened up between the parties”:

Today, Democrats and Republicans live in different universes, both intellectually and morally.

“What Democrats believe,” he says “is what textbook economics says”: But that’s not how Republicans see it. Here’s what Senator Jon Kyl of Arizona, the second-ranking Republican in the Senate, had to say when defending Mr. Bunning’s position (although not joining his blockade): unemployment relief “doesn’t create new jobs. In fact, if anything, continuing to pay people unemployment compensation is a disincentive for them to seek new work.”

Krugman scoffs: “To me, that’s a bizarre point of view--but then, I don’t live in Mr. Kyl’s universe.”

What does textbook economics have to say about this question? Here is a passage from a textbook called Macroeconomics:

Public policy designed to help workers who lose their jobs can lead to structural unemployment as an unintended side effect. . . . In other countries, particularly in Europe, benefits are more generous and last longer. The drawback to this generosity is that it reduces a worker’s incentive to quickly find a new job. Generous unemployment benefits in some European countries are widely believed to be one of the main causes of “Eurosclerosis,” the persistent high unemployment that affects a number of European countries.

So it turns out that what Krugman calls Sen. Kyl’s “bizarre point of view” is, in fact, textbook economics. The authors of that textbook are Paul Krugman and Robin Wells. Miss Wells is also known as Mrs. Paul Krugman.

It seems Krugman himself lives in two different universes--the universe of the academic economist and the universe of the bitter partisan columnist. Or maybe this is like that episode of “Star Trek” in which crewmen from the Enterprise switched places with their counterparts from a universe in which everyone was the same, only evil.

Like Spock, the evil Krugman is the one with the beard.

The continuing dismal unemployment picture is captured by Investor’s Business Daily in a news analysis article.

The true unemployment rate, including people who have ceased to look for jobs, is somewhere between 16.8% and 19.8% of the full workforce.

A key element is businessmen’s fear and uncertainty induced by Obama’s business-bashing, higher taxes, continual threats of strangling new regulations, take-overs of banks, insurance companies, auto manufacturers, threatened nationalization of private health insurance, and by far the greatest government debts and deficits in history (both scheduled to climb even farther and faster).

Historian Joyce Appleby’s just-published The Relentless Revolution: A History of Capitalism explains why Keynesian macroeconomic computer models fail to live up to liberal-progressive expectations of managing the economy from on high.

Before readers of this website denounce Ms. Appleby as deficient in credentials to opine on such matters, let me note that she has taught history for many years at UCLA and is a past president of the American Historical Association.  The origin and unfolding history of capitalism has been one of her focal points since 1967.  Moreover, she is no conservative.  She writes, “I’m a left-leaning liberal with strong, if sometimes contradictory, libertarian strains.”

Quote:

Our present [Keynesian] method of analyzing economies obscures their entanglement with society and culture.  Professional [Keynesian] economists [like New York Times propagandist Paul Krugman] analyze capitalism with mathematical precision.  Building mathematical models to explain how markets behave, they tend to ignore the messiness that any set of social relations is bound to produce.  All the economists’ precise projections assume ceteris paribus - all other things remaining equal - but they rarely do.  Philosophers use the word “reify” to indicate when concept is being talked about as a real thing rather than as a way of talking about something.  [Keynesian] Economists talk about their subject as though it were a unitary thing rather than a mixed bag of practices, habits, and institutions.

Keynesians, who construct the models for Obama’s stimulus programs, oversimplify the factors at work in a vast economy such as ours.  To them, government deficit spending, on no matter what, will automatically raise consumer spending and create real, new jobs.  Keynesians ignore consumers’ fears for job security and consumers’ resultant inclination to pay off debt and to increase savings, rather than rushing to spend short-term government handouts.

Similarly Keynesians ignore the greatly different time scales for businesses ranging from retail sales, wholesale distribution, transportation, manufacturing of consumer goods, manufacturing of intermediate producers’ goods, machinery and equipment, mining and production of basic raw materials.  Recent upticks in GDP have been almost entirely the result of businesses, to a limited degree, restocking some inventory items or simply not reducing inventories as rapidly as before.

Austrian-school economists, in contrast, eschew mathematical modeling, placing heavy emphasis instead upon consumers’ and businessmen’s expectations and incentives.  Austrian economists foresaw months ago the current high unemployment, when President Obama and Democrat/Socialist Party leaders began to blame the recession on businessmen and bankers.  See, for example, Government Action Causes Unemployment.

Anyone who has studied Franklin Roosevelt’s record of prolonging the 1930s Depression for eight years, with unemployment in the teens throughout that period, understands that governments don’t create meaningful, productive jobs and that, while their accusatory tactics may be good short-term politics, they drown business incentives to expand full-time employment.

The proof of the pudding is that current Democrat/Socialist Party stimulus spending, at the highest levels in world history, has produced very few real jobs, but a great expansion of government employment that swells the ranks of the socialist Service Employees International Union (SEIU) members.  The SEIU, of course, is a major contributor of campaign funds and free labor for electing Democrat/Socialist Party candidates.