The View From 1776

The supposed science of global warming has been thoroughly discredited as the willful, criminal project of climatology scam artists.  Only blind superstition and ignorance, inescapable characteristics of the secular religion of liberal-progressive-socialism and its pagan cults, remain to support Obama’s cap-and-trade schemes.

As Eric Voegelin observed, the gnostic characteristics of liberal-progressive-socialism require the belief that transcendent knowledge is the special property of an intellectual elite.  The elite’s secret information presumably enables them to pull ultimate creative power from outside our universe into our present political and social situation and thereby to gain control of the entire planet’s weather system: in short, to play god.

The collision of this religious belief with reality deforms rational perception, resulting in such fantastical efforts to create new laws of nature as cap-and-trade, along with related regulatory schemes such as the EPA’s claim to regulate all CO2 emissions.

In Part IV of his disquisition on Eric Voegelin’s philosophy of history in the Brussels Journal, Thomas F. Bertonneau focuses on Voegelin’s analysis of the deformations of reality induced by modern secular religions.

Quote:

In “The Political Religions,” Voegelin classifies secularization under the heading of religious developments but in the direction of pure immanence rather than transcendence. He reminds readers that the “process of withering” that afflicts European civilization “has its origins in the secularization of the soul and the ensuing severance of a consequently purely secular soul from its roots in religiousness.” Later in the text, we encounter this: “Precisely the secularization of life that accompanied the doctrine of humanism is the soil in which such an anti-Christian religious movement as National Socialism was able to prosper.” Once the propaganda in denial of a “Beyond” of this world has sufficiently pervaded the social domain the only possible remaining sources of valid propositions are “a powerful person,” “organization accompanied by glamour and noise,” and the combination of “force and terror.” The “powerful person” never invites his followers to test on their own the rightness of his doctrine; he promulgates it in the mode of absolute authority – thus as unquestionable Gnosis, the term that Voegelin would later employ. Voegelin observes that ideological-totalitarian states invariably imitate the trappings of sacred societies. Think of Hitler’s flag-ceremonies or the mummified bodies of the Bolshevik leaders, to which the Communist faithful make pilgrimage.

This is a lengthy piece, but well worth reading.  I post it, first, because Professor Voegelin, under whom I studied for two years at Louisiana State University in the early 1950s, was the most influential teacher I ever was privileged to have. Secondly, because frequently I allude in other postings to the gnostic nature of socialism and its first cousins, Nazism, Fascism, and liberal-progressivism.  See, for example, The Genealogy of American Liberal-Progressive Gnosticism and The Da Vinci Code: Liberal Gnosticism.

In addition, see my review of Professor Ellis Sandoz’s book, Republicanism, Religion, and the Soul of America. Professor Sandoz is the director of the Eric Voegelin Institute at Louisiana State University, where Dr. Voegelin spent most of his years in the United States. 

Guy Sorman’s City Journal essay deals primarily with the European Union.  But his assessment applies equally to the United States.

Our deficit spending and huge national debts, on both sides of the Atlantic, have their root cause in the secular religion of socialism.  From the days of Jean-Jacques Rousseau in mid-18th century, believers in socialism have operated on the utopian faith that, once income is taken from “the rich” and redistributed equally, there will automatically be more than enough goods and services to make everyone happy. 

In socialist theory, only the greed of rich capitalists, who take as profit what really belongs to the workers, stands in the way.  This utopian thesis underlies the tax-and-spend policies of the Democrat/Socialist Party, as well as the New York Times’s continual harping on the “income gap.”

Forewarning of Europe’s slide into the slough of economic despond became evident in early 19th socialism in France.  Alexis de Tocquevilles 1856 book, The Old Regime and the French Revolution, described the degeneration of individual morality in France after the Revolution.  The English and the Americans, he wrote, continued to value individual political liberties above all other constitutional benefits, while remaining devout Christian nations.  The French, in dour contrast, were indifferent to matters of state affecting the general welfare.  They were concerned with one thing only — socialistic equality of status.  Each person focused greedily upon what he demanded as his share of public largesse. 

Consequently, Tocqueville wrote, so long as their rulers paid public tribute to equality, the French endured a succession of socialistic constitutions and republics that could be described only as despotic. 

As in John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, our miring in the slough of despond comes from our sins: abandoning Judeo-Christian personal moral responsibility and worshipping the secular gods of the socialistic welfare state.

Without question, respect is due to the office of the presidency, though not necessarily to the person who is the president.  It is also true that military command must remain subordinated to civilian control. 

But that leaves us to question whose judgment is to be respected: a seasoned and highly successful military field commander, or a Chicago south side socialist neighborhood agitator?  A commander dedicated to victory, or a leader intent upon promoting deference to Muslim dictators from Syria to Iran?

 
 
A Fired General - Rules of Engagement And Winning The War

Thomas D. Segel
Tom@thomasdsegel.com
http://www.thomasdsegel.com

 
Harlingen, Texas, June 23, 2010:  It is official, After personal comments about the civilian leadership had been voiced by General Stanley McChrystal and his Aides, he is gone and General David Petraeus will assume command in Afghanistan. 
 
This does not mean our military personnel on the ground in that war zone will develop any greater fondness for the civilian establishment there.  As was the case in Vietnam, most of our troops will view the civilians who command them with suspicion.  But, those same military personnel will be showing much more caution when speaking about their leaders in front of the media.
 
The unanswered question is;  Why do our men and women in uniform feel  so contumacious toward their civilian leadership?  Much of the anxiety may well be due to irrational rules of engagement that are forced on combat troops be the key civilians who view everything from a political spectrum. 
 
The Good Lord knows my combat strategy is really limited to what I could observe through the sights of my rifle in those long ago days of my youth.  My last combat command decisions were made more than 45 years ago when I was ordered to have my Marines defend the parameter of a Seabee base under attack by the Viet Cong.  With those two items as qualifiers, I can still state without reservation that no war was ever won on defense.  It is also a truth that no military unit can function at peak efficiency when it is saddled with unrealistic rules of engagement.
 
I for one, see shadows of Vietnam in just about everything we are doing in Afghanistan.  We are trying to prop up a very corrupt and unpopular government, drive out an enemy force that is a historical occupant of the territory under dispute, hold on to terrain without the troop strength to occupy the territory for any extended period and do all of these things while operating under a convoluted rules of engagement policy that few can either understand or defend.
 
Back in the early days of Vietnam, when it was just an “operation” and not a “war,” I remember how we would draw perimeter defense duty to protect our base in DaNang.  Even then, we had those crazy rules of engagement.  For example, all of us along the perimeter manned our posts without ammunition in our weapons.  Under the rules of that time, all ammunition was kept in a locked bunker.  There was an ammunition officer who had the only key.  Our instructions were, if we received enemy fire, the ammunition officer would unlock the bunker, issue the ammo and we would then engage the enemy.
 
Anyone with half a brain thought this was an insane approach to perimeter defense.  What if the first person hit or blown up was the ammunition officer?  What were we supposed to do if that happened?  Needless to say, there was not a person on the line who did not have a hidden stash of ammo on his person.
 
Troops who were stationed in Saigon at that time went to their duty assignments every day wearing helmets and carrying there assigned weapons and ammunition.  They were all cautioned that there was a war being fought and they must always be ready for battle.  However, they were also allowed to wander the city at night, frequent eating establishments, shops and bars.  When strolling those streets in the dark of night, they were NOT allowed to carry any weapons.  Go figure!
 
Today in Afghanistan our soldiers and Marines may only return fire when under attack, are refused air strikes and artillery support, and have even been denied smoke coverage when they needed to conceal their movements.  All of this is supposed to reduce any civilian casualties.  That may be one result, but, it is also true that more and more of our own military personal are being wounded or killed.  In addition, their movements are being restricted and they are being reduced to a defensive posture, not having sufficient strength of force to keep waging an ongoing attack.  Territory that should remain occupied to protect the civilian population is often left undefended. 
 
Of the 40,000 troops requested to meet the needs of a sustained offensive operation, the President only granted 30,000.  Even that number has not been received.  At last count there were still 10,000 promised troops who had not been deployed to Afghanistan and their ranks remain unfilled today.
 
So, now we have lost a general, promised troops have not arrived and those strangling rules of engagement remain in place. Dare we ask the big question? are we really winning the war?