Agree 110%!!!! Our founding father would not understand what the federal govt has turned into. This is not what they had a revolution for.
Preamble to the Declaration of Independence:
Governments exist to support the rights of men. Governments exist only through the power of the people that they represent. When a government fails to grant rights to the people and removes the involvement of the people, the people have the right to change their government in a way that will allow for their unalienable rights to be protected. Governments should not be overthrown for trivial reasons; it is not typical for people to change a system that they are accustomed to. However, when the people have suffered many abuses under the control of a totalitarian leader, they not only have the right but the duty to overthrow that government.
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From my files:
ECOTOTALITARIANISM
What has always made the state a hell on earth has been precisely that man has tried to make it his heaven. [1]
The cruelest and most oppressive regimes throughout history have merged man-made religion with the power of the state. The high priests of Judea, Annas and Caiaphas, were instrumental in manipulating Pontius Pilate, a Roman ruler, to accomplish the crucifixion of Jesus Christ.
In this century, communism and Nazism have been hallmarks of oppression and untold suffering. These governments used a pseu*doscience to give a veneer of respectability to ideological beliefs and provide a rational basis for their acceptance.
The Nazis (National Socialists) claimed that the science of genetics proved the Aryan race to have superior abilities.
The communists claimed that scientific socialism (Marx*ismLeninism) would end poverty and exploitation of man by his fellow man.
The state religion in each case offered an escape from the manufactured enemy by establishing a counterfeit moral ideal upon which tyrannical actions could be based. This counterfeit moral basis conceals the real evil about to be committed. [2] These historical examples recall the philosopher George Santayanas maxim, Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
Communism
The communists essentially said, Poverty is bad. We are opposed to poverty and want to eliminate it. To do this, we must be given the power to violate your individual rights. We are practicing the moral ideal by helping others. Trust us.
Nazism
The Nazis message was only slightly different. They said, The destruction of Germany is bad. We are opposed to this destruction and wish to stop it. To do this, we must be given the power to violate your individual rights. We are practicing the moral ideal by helping others. Trust us.
These state religions had common characteristics:
1. A position is taken that nobody will disagree with, i.e., poverty is bad or national destruction is bad. There is absolutely no political risk in taking these positions, they are uncontroversial and require no change in opinion by the people.
2. A solution to the uncontroversial problem is offered, if only the public will grant the group coming to power the authority to violate individual rights.
3. Each predicted some kind of apocalyptic scenario would occur if the people did not listen to them. The Nazis predicted that a wealthy Jewish elite would destroy the purity of the German race and nation.
The communists said that the forces of American imperialism would overrun mother Russia. In each instance, these state religions fostered an intense hatred toward the perceived enemy of the state.
4. Each movement justifies the violation of individual rights on the morality of altruism, i.e., doing good (as the state defines good) to others is the only standard for correct behavior. Contrast this with the standard for right behavior in Matthew 22:3738, Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the first and great commandment. Making doing good to someone or something the only standard for correctness enabled these tyrannies, and the environmental party, to come to power. The people must be persuaded to recognize this counterfeit moral ideal. If they do not, they may object to the intrusion of the state because of higher princi*plesfor example, their Constitu*tional rights.
Altruism [M1] as a moral ideal means that you can deny the selfinterest (individual rights) of yourself or of others in the name of doing good. Thus, those who claim that they were harmed by the commu*nists or the Nazis can be labeled as selfish and opposing the moral ideal (doing good) of the state. The state can thus treat them without regard to their individual rights (as indeed they were). It is the motivation that must be ascertained. Service to others out of love and a genuine concern for human welfare is honorable. Doing good to
animals and plants at the expense of human welfare is devilish.
5. Each ideology resulted in millions of deaths and the enslavement of millions more (World War II, Stalinist purges, etc.)
These ideologies worked by using a bit of truth, a good cause, to which is attached an evil and devilish ideology. This is similar to a worm on a hook. Those who swallowed the communist and Nazi worm on a hook experienced great suffering and often death.
Environmentalism
Now compare the above description of communism and Nazism to environmentalism. The message of the environmental party is very similar: Pollution is bad. We are opposed to pollution and want to eliminate it. To do this, we must be given the power to violate your individual rights. We are practicing the moral ideal by helping others. Trust us, well do it right this time.
The moral ideal of doing good is now directed at animals, insects, trees, and plants rather than people. Under communism and Nazism they were directed at a specific group of people (the working class and the German race, respectively).
The familiar apocalyptic predictions are now framed so that the entire biosphere is up for grabs, i.e., unless we adopt the socialist solutions proposed by theco-religion the very future of the earth is in the balance. The statesponsored hatred used by the communist and Nazi regimes is now directed at all humans.
For example, many members of the Green Church want to control human population by state coercion (as Communist China now practices). Environmentalism is an ideological sister to the tyrannies of Hitler and of communism. However, the human tragedy will be far worse if we allow the environmental party to reach its goal of control over the use of all natural resources.
The devil is an expert in using counterfeit causes to conceal his motives and actions. He routinely adapts his methods to the times and condi*tions to be most effective in drawing people away from the true God. The conditions found at various times in history have been exploited by the god of this world to set up red, brown, and green tyrannies. Each tyranny also required a sacred text that often launched it. Many consider the publica*tion of Silent Spring in 1962 by Rachel Carson to be the birth of todays environmental movement, with the Earth Day of 1970 its initial rise to power.
A similar comparison is made by the late Dr. Petr Beckmann, an immigrant to the United States from Czechoslovakia with first hand familiarity of the deception by which MarxismLeninism was sold to the masses. The following account is from a visit he made to Russia and related in his newsletter Access to Energy in November 1991. (Remember that the communist system had just collapsed after 70 years and millions of deaths when reading this account.)
From Sept. 15 to 21 [1991], I was in St. Petersburg, Russia, to cochair an international conference on nonEinsteinian spacetime. I speak Russian with a thick foreign accent, but fluently, and spoke to many people, though mostly scientists. . . . Last time I was in Leningrad was in the summer of 1960, 31 years ago. . . .
I am interviewed by Smena (Shift), a newspaper for the young. It is independent, meaning without government subsidies, financed by shareholders, income mostly from advertising. The reporter is 17 years old, but highly intelligent. . . . He came to interview me about Einstein, but he does not know much physics, and talk about the journal I publish, Galilean Electrodynamics, turns to Access to Energy, which fascinates him. I explain about defending science against the Luddites, about the Greens and their real agenda.
But whats wrong with clean air and fresh water? he objects.
Nothing, I answer. And what is wrong with world peace, brotherhood among the nations, and ending exploitation of man by his fellow man?
He looks at me and now his jaw drops. Then I feel something click in this 17year old brain. . . .
[1] Quotation by F. Hoelderlin in The Road to Serfdom
by F. A. Hayek, 1944, p. 24.
[2] Portions of this comparison between communism, Nazism, and environmen*talism are adapted from The Environmental Movement and the Value of Moderation, by Brian K. Yoder (1992).
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