Return to Virtue: The Source Of Virtue

(Insight)

(Part 2, see Part 1)

The law of the Lord is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the Lord is sure, making wise the simple; the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes; the fear of the Lord is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the Lord are true, and righteous altogether. More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb. Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.

Psalm 19:7-11

Virtue has been defined for ages and put into practice equally as long. It is therefore both a place of reason and doing. In context to the western world, Aristotle is most famous for his explanation and application of virtue. Accordingly, in Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, he explains virtue as intellectual and moral; intellectual progress resulting mostly from teaching while the moral is fulfilled from habitual practices (Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics, Book 2, p. 26). From the standpoint of virtue ethics in philosophy, Aristotelianism is its practical foundation. Ethics and morality are different branches of a similar tree as R.C. Sproul explains:

The English word “ethic” or “ethics” comes from the Greek word ethos. The word “morals” or “morality” comes from the word mores. The difference is that the ethos of a society or culture deals with its foundational philosophy, its concept of values, and its system of understanding how the world fits together. There is a philosophical value system that is the ethos of every culture in the world. On the other hand, mores has to do with the customs, habits, and normal forms of behavior that are found within a given culture.

In the first instance, ethics is called a normative science; it’s the study of norms or standards by which things are measured or evaluated. Morality, on the other hand, is what we would call a descriptive science. A descriptive science is a method to describe the way things operate or behave. Ethics are concerned with the imperative and morality is concerned with the indicative. What do we mean by that? It means that ethics is concerned with “ought-ness,” and morality is concerned with “is-ness.”

Ethics, or ethos, is normative and imperative. It deals with what someone ought to do. Morality describes what someone is actually doing. That’s a significant difference, particularly as we understand it in light of our Christian faith, and also in light of the fact that the two concepts are confused, merged, and blended in our contemporary understanding.

Not to discount all things Aristotle, Christianity has long argued not only for the differences between morality and ethics, but the ultimate source or ethic is God. Sourcing where our measure of what is right or wrong ought to determine our actions. Following from that understanding, the highest virtue arises from God and is progressed forward by God, in us and through us, all for the Glory of God and His Kingdom rather than our own. Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will Be Done is the imperative. Humanity, however, rebels against God seeking to make their own way forward. Now postmodernism, a reflection of present realities, promotes the Self as god and king. In response to that falsity, society must be rebuilt by Christianity once again until the return of Christ who is the ultimate ethic.

Dominion

In part one, Virtue By Decree, I explained the decree being:

[A] set of obligations weighted upon and against all institutions that hold power and authority over a people. And it represents a set of values expected from those institutions.

Virtue by Decree is a moral legal framework that applies to an entire society, an infrastructure of revolving checks and balances by an eternal clockwork of good over evil; right versus wrong; consistent rather than inconsistent. Roots or foundations though apply. Where does one gain this method of authority that binds all to its one accord however imperfect its creatures? Evolution? Hardly. Reason? Whose? It is enforced by God, the most perfect and most high authority. Yet, left to our own devices, we can quickly destroy that which we have been given. As the Book of Genesis explains,

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

Genesis 1:27

Imago Dei, the likeness and reflective substance of God, are the elements of men and women bound eternal to God regardless of their will. “His will be done” (Matthew 6:10), applies to the entire nature of man. There are no boundaries between God and man, only man and God. We can never reach heaven by our own will. A two-way street metaphor is entirely obliterated. Human sovereignty can only be inclined to the creators imputed design. God’s Sovereignty triumphs our own in every which way. Divine Providence holds absolute dominion.

Real-value virtue is therefore rooted in God—the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Christ is the foundational source of all things virtuous through His Triunity and Christ Incarnation. Christ is the completed (perfect) Image of Man, not the distortions we have become, images broken long ago:

1 Now the serpent was more crafty than any other beast of the field that the LORD God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God actually say, ‘You shall not eat of any tree in the garden’?” 2 And the woman said to the serpent, “We may eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden, 3 but God said, ‘You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the midst of the garden, neither shall you touch it, lest you die.’” 4 But the serpent said to the woman, “You will not surely die. 5 For God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate, and she also gave some to her husband who was with her, and he ate. 7 Then the eyes of both were opened, and they knew that they were naked. And they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loincloths.

8 And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God among the trees of the garden. 9 But the LORD God called to the man and said to him, “Where are you?” 10 And he said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked, and I hid myself.” 11 He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” 12 The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit of the tree, and I ate.” 13 Then the LORD God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

14 The LORD God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you above all livestock and above all beasts of the field; on your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. 15 I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.”

16 To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shallrule over you.”

17 And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life; 18 thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field. 19 By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

20 The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.21 And the LORD God made for Adam and for his wife garments of skins and clothed them.

22 Then the LORD God said, “Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—” 23 therefore the LORD God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. 24 He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life (Genesis 3: 1-24).

Responding to the jarring event of human damnation God predestined the answer for humanity’s fallen state. Through the workings of Christ eternal, Jesus would one day become flesh. A man, yet divine without blemish. God and Man. The Incarnation of Christ is when “the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons” (Galatians 4:4–5). “And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8). Christ is the final sacrifice, the last scapegoat, and the sacred feast for a holy altar. His incarnation completes the image bearer. Distorted images of believers can now slowly retune with the Incarnation of Christ through sanctification. In us and through us, Christ demonstrated for us by fulfilling the law and prophecies; He has revived the soul, made the wise simple, rejoiced the heart, enlightened the eyes, endured us on forever, and rules with truth and righteousness. Interpretation of the Scriptures are a sacred duty of all believers through the reliance of the Christian Church for Scripture is our guide.

True Virtue

True virtue is Christ incarnated. There can be no separation between He and the Common Good. Eudaemonia, in the ethics of Aristotle and many virtue ethics, is concerned with happiness or human flourishing by means of prosperity and blessings. While that exists in the Christian life, the goal is not happiness, but one of obedience toward the source of joy. In the final paragraphs of, The Cost of Discipleship by Bonhoeffer, he writes:

“But all our works are the works of God himself, the works for which he has prepared us beforehand… From this it follows that we can never be conscious of our good works. Our sanctification is veiled from our eyes until the last day, when all secrets are disclosed. If we want to see some results here and assess our own spiritual state, and have not the patience to wait, we have our reward. The moment we begin to feel satisfied that we are making some progress along the road of sanctification, it is all the more necessary to repent and confess that all our righteousness are as filthy rags. Yet the Christian life not one of gloom, but of ever increasing joy in the Lord. God alone knows our good works, all we know is his good work.” (p. 296-97)

Christian Virtue and the source of our JOY is in contrast with Eudaimonia.

The Christian walk requires sacrifice, surrender, service, admonishment, judgement, guidance, and above everything else to share the Gospel of Jesus Christ all for the Glory of God. Virtue and virtuousness are not the goal, though they are expected of believers, the purpose of the faith is to live out the truth of Christ for Christ. Virtue in Christian application is beyond just the habitual and the teachable, virtues are of eternal concern, a matter of works that demonstrates salvation and after salvation comes a life of discipleship and sanctification.

Uncovering Christ as the source for all institutions and peoples may at first appear disingenuous considering that not everyone is a Christian or a Primitive Conservative for that matter. However, as much as I would like to make everyone converts, I know that is not in my control nor even possible. My purpose here is only to clarify the root of a Christian and a Primitive Conservative by which virtue is justified and vice judged.

Principles Over Politics

Ideas and the meaning of those ideas are important to practicing virtue, encouraging virtue, and decreeing virtue. For example, loyalty and patriotism share similar strands yet one is deeper than the other. Loyalty to friends and family hold a different form of bond versus that of a loyalty to country that we call patriotism. Equally vital to the institutions at hand even considered virtuous, but the cost of discipleship for which Christ commands can quickly turn these ideas upside down as it reads in Luke 14:25-33:

Now great crowds accompanied him, and he turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. Whoever does not bear his own cross and come after me cannot be my disciple. For which of you, desiring to build a tower, does not first sit down and count the cost, whether he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple.

This is part of Bonhoeffer’s “Costly Grace” metaphor versus that of “Cheap grace” (The Cost of Discipleship, p.45) as one requires surrender, suffering, repentance, and a life dedicated to a singular purpose; the other is quick, painless, and easily dispensable when it fails to converge with competing narratives and visions and desires of ones life. But that exchange of choosing a costly or cheap grace has outward effects on family, friends, and even country. Where do such loyalties stand when they are juxtaposed between a rock and a hard place? Neither scripture nor the saints before us guarantee easy answers or always “the correct” responses, yet that should not dismay the principles of morality and ethics to be used in our laws, economies, education, and daily living standards. Furthermore, history has taught us that not every good idea ought to be enforced i.e. leniency is important; the law cannot save us from eternity anymore than can it save is from harm, ignorance, hurt, hate, or pain. Grasping the essential qualities of a conservative mind therefore are important for the political and social arena.

A Way Forward

Christian, how can we exclaim Christ Alone, but allow ourselves to be swayed in a life of debauchery? Or, how can we claim Christ as King yet spread disinformation for a political identity? True virtue is not an identity. It is a way of life. A philosophy and a religion. Virtue is the oxygen to whose lungs are gasping for air. The struggle for life is not life itself; the struggle is for the life maker Himself. Seek pardon from false riches, fraught authority, and expedient freedoms the world promises. Turn away from it all. Rather, run toward the light of Solus Christus the finished and forever foundation.

Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who see it begin to mock him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.

From my previous series, Principles Over Politics, in part one called Exordium, I cite Professor J. Budziszewski:

From time to time Christians may find themselves in tactical alliance with conservatives, just as with liberals, over particular policies, precepts, and laws. But they cannot be in strategic alliance, because their reasons for these stands are different; they are living in a different vision. 

And

Christians can no more be others on the right than others on the left. Citizenship is an obligation of the faith, therefore the Christian will not abstain from the politics of the nation-state. But his primary mode of politics must always be witness. It is a good and necessary thing to change the welfare laws, but better yet to go out and feed the poor. It is a good and necessary thing to ban abortion, but better yet to sustain young women and their babies by taking them into the fellowship of faith. This is the way the kingdom of God is built.

I knew then the time was quick at hand when Christians will have to confront the reality that their way of life in America was coming to an end. That time has arrived. As I proposed also in Part 1 of this series on Virtue, “Christendom and Conservative Thinkers must now begin to prepare for a better and brighter future should that future come. To begin a process of structuring what mankind has learned over the centuries, successes and failures, so as to reform or rebuild the crumbling globe before us.” My message remains the same to Conservatives as well. Anyone who is willing to at least consider the reality and truth of God should prepare for a post-liberal world.

Like Budziszewski, I cannot ignore the calling of Christ, but I will be arguing for a universal Christological Virtue Principle (CVP). It will take time, but it is necessary in preparing a better future for generations seeking a way forward beyond the false dichotomies of our modern political landscape. A landscape quickly decaying beneath our feet.

Next Time: Virtue Explained

Mob Rule, Mob Rules: Part 3, Section 1

(Part 1, Part 2)

Trumphantism: Donald J. Trump & The Post-Trump World

By: E. Kyle Richey

Earth to America: Crashing til Landed

Marred by 2020 the world braces for impact in 2021. Humanity has witnessed a paradigm shift, yet the dust still settles as outcomes and consequences remain to be decided. Donald J. Trump, United States 45th President has lost an election which determined the cascading trajectory of the United States of America. Now is the time to understand what we are leaving behind as American’s and the world enter the fragmented universe of 2021. 

The irony of collapse is eventually a replacement appears. No power, however impressive, lasts forever per the testimonies of time by empires that long lay in ruin. Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome lay in ruin while continuing to influence the present; they may be in ruin yet their voices speak an eternality of what is to come, “an end and new beginnings,” they whisper.  

Transitions from beginning to end are never definite in degree, but shared similarities showcase potential possibilities for historians and political thinkers alike to study and consider. 

In 1992 a profound and controversial book was published, The End of History and the Last Man (1992) by Political and Social theorist Francis Fukuyama. Immediately in his introduction Fukuyama premised that liberal democracies are the pinnacle of a free and open society, an end of history, while acknowledging stable nations such as the United States or France would continue to have issues due to an “incomplete implementation of the twin principles of liberty and equality (p. xi).”¹ Within the end of history and fasts-forward to 2018 with the publication of Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment, both works acknowledge a demand for universal recognition (an idea from the philosopher Hegel) or dignity according Fukuyama, a place where all are seen heard, and known. Yet the ideal turns toward the ideological as demands of recognition include no forms of discrimination or disrespect felt by oppressed groups giving rise to a new totalitarianism, a “soft totalitarianism”² whose overarching hand comes largely from corporations whose cooperation with governments make them complicit actors of the state. This is Modernity’s present conflict and a test concerning history’s end due to its irreality and polarizing affect of identity politics: 

Being a citizen of a liberal democracy does not mean, moreover, that people will actually be treated with equal respect either by their government or by other citizens. They are judged on the basis of their skin, their gender, their national origin, their looks, their ethnicity, or their sexual orientation. Each person and each group experiences disrespect in different ways, and each seeks its own dignity. Identity politics thus engenders its own dynamic, by which societies divide themselves into smaller and smaller groups by virtue of their particular “lived experience” of victimization (p. 164).³

Specific to the United States of America, a serious conflict is taking place concerning its future in the world as it continues to dim in the night sky. Our nebulae is fading while false promises of return continue from Trump to Biden. The election of 2020 further marks a crisis of culture and legitimacy. Black Lives Matter, ANTIFA, and additional Marxist movements in the areas of culture and political life are merely one revolt competing against another. Attempts in the final weeks of the Trump Presidency to override the Capitol was an extension of a radical right of QAnon conspirators and Alt-right fascism determined to prevent what they believe was an election stolen and an America quickly fading in front of their eyes. As Anne Applebaum from The Atlantic observed, extremists are emboldening one another.⁴ Events in America today are reminiscent of Germany as Marxist’s caused anarchy in the streets and out of frustration far-right extremist groups -began to take the streets ending in bloodshed and a revolution that brought about Adolf Hitler into power.

Would it be hard to believe that both sides of the the quarrel in America today carry legitimacy and illegitimacy? A conundrum for sure but a postmodern reality as conflicting interpretations⁵ swirl us into further disaster. Internally outcomes mean a warring between a weak versus strong state, however, a much larger powers hover over the once great nation. China, Corporatism, and Globalism each carry a new weight on the shoulders of Uncle Sam.

Socialist Technocrats riding of the back of Capitalism are aiming for a Great Reset in the midst of C-19.⁶ Spiraling out of control, disillusioned by their grander, they believe they can land a plane already in flames with President Biden and Vice-President Harris at the throttle. In order to comprehend the erosion and decay; to predict the outcomes that are likely to arise in 2021; and to understand the pinnacle of modernity—late modernity, a perpetual state⁷ of totalitarian incantations⁸—we must first review President Trump and the American ethos of 2016 that built up to this point. Mob Rule, Mob Rules did not develop overnight but it is rooted in the unsettled nature of mankind whose fears, wants, needs, and desires collide in a world of duality with the Self at the center of an unraveling universe that is the End of History & the Last Man.   

America’s Second Postmodern President

Donald J. Trump was an enigma and an archetype representative of the reverberating tensions in the modern world. America’s 45th President was not in the mundane category as he set a new standard for future leadership in the political landscape—an all gloves off approach. His own outrageous behavior polarized the most moderate into unmarked territories while enflaming political baselines. To call the man evil ignores the good he committed himself to doing while President, yet to call the man good evaporates his offensive oddities that perturbed Conservatives and non-Conservatives, Christians and non-Christians alike. The now former President was our first purely postmodern President; a genius capable of fragmenting and uniting in ways not thought possible in modern America.⁹ He successfully made the ecological landscape appear upside-down and right-side up, greatly due to the fact that American society at present is itself fragmented and united, engaged and disengaged, troubled and relived.

As I engaged on the EKR Report, it is important to reiterate here:

It is my belief that America’s 45th President Donald J. Trump was a complete postmodern President; a manifestation of late modernity’s yearnings for a hero and a villain. Trump just so happened to represent the radical right, the alt-right, but it is questionable if President Trump was indeed a man of the right or a man who took advantage of their woes. Previously I have mentioned that I believed Trump to be the first postmodern president, but I stand corrected as Barack Obama was the first (another topic to be sure). However, in reaction to thematics of Obama, Donald Trump entered center stage to fill a void in the political right, a strong arm who could MAGA his way though Washington. QAnon and the Alt-right are blatant examples of the modern malaise that is postmodernism. 

Continuing that thought-line I presented Donald J. Trump as a Postmodern Nebuchadnezzar:

Manifestation being the keyword President Trump embodies the essential postmodern stigma. He is the result of an ecological convergence within late modernity—a billionaire titan hungry for an abundance of power and wealth in order to make a legacy and the presidency was the perfect construct at a point of political strife…

President Trumps election and win in 2016 was understandably a response to the status quo, a push against the vanguard found in the Democratic and Republican parties that elected George W. Bush and Barrack Obama, respectfully, and a reactionary response from the public to the potential presidency of Hillary Rodham Clinton. People have grown weary of globalism, capitalism, socialism, war, and even peace. Citizens are worn.

And the election of Joe Biden is a reaction to Trump and Trumphantism, however, is also a response to the ills that minorities and progressives argue are repressing them. They too are enraged by hate speech, discrimination, low wages, and an expensive bloated healthcare system.

Combined a catalyst has been formed of good versus evil; light versus darkness. The postmodern stage has been set and the audience is watching:

In his book, Simulacra and Simulation, the postmodern thinker Baudrillard argues that within the United States a switch took place between the image relationship of art forms and reality; the image now has ontological priority over the real. Signs and Symbols have become the reality rather than the actual world itself thus resulting in life itself becoming “film-like” as he puts it:

It is not the least of America’s charms that even outside the movie theaters the whole county is cinematic. The desert you pass through is like the set of a Western, the city a screen of signs and formulas.”

Continuing:

A simulacrum is a representation of something or someone. Donald Trump, I am arguing, is a simulacrum due to the sociopolitical economic environment of the United States. He is a superficial force Americans had to contend with as either good or evil; right or wrong. Trump was not one but both. A master of media, Trump knew exactly how to market himself as savior and king as much as antichrist and tyrant. Christian professor and author of the book, Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth In A Distracted Age, Alan Noble describes our media saturated society—what I see as a postmodern product of late modernity the emerged from secularism, technology, and science— Nobles writes that the:

[C]onstant engagement with media also invites us to unreflectively adopt ethical and political positions, creating a hodgepodge worldview. From a film on the treatment of animals in amusement parks we develop a fleeting concern for animal rights. A documentary on modern farming practices makes us see shopping local and organic a moral issue.

Are the events we are witnessing real? Who is telling the truth? What will become of the human estate? Former President Trump offered America one way forward and it was a way that now nearly half of America sought to maintain rather than surrender. So much so that a cabal raided the Capital. While another half, a half fearful of Trump and “his” America, elected Joseph Robinette Biden Jr to repose from a sudden decay in their vision of democracy.

Disturbingly there is a serious disconnect between needs and wants for the average American citizen versus the conflicting natures found in Washington. Following that logic, the innumerable hands influencing decisions in the American political system has designed a wide range of conflicts in terms of visions and, as I have termed it, a collision of ideas that relate to the competing visions of the nation and the world for that matter.¹⁰ 

If the controversial terminology Deep State¹¹ means anything it is that there are far too many actors involved in the decision making of the U.S. Government beyond its traditional capacity of the three branches of government and their inability of functional overwatch. Additionally, Deep State as I define is a clear cooperation, not conspiratorial, between the State (i.e. the Federal, State, and local governments including its many agencies) and private entities (i.e. Corporate entities such as Media conglomerates, Banks, and Private Military Companies); a layering of networks that has become the security state entwined with a global economy called neoliberalism. Modernity procured a “Too Big To Fail” attitude because our interconnected global economy is dependent upon its own continual success. Security and prosperity are its goals. Civilization is not post-modernity, its in the thicket of modernity. Postmodernism— philosophically and ideologically—acts a reflective state that mirrors modernity’s crisis. This is the present Market State¹² out of which Trump triumphed, at least, momentarily.

Never A One Man Show

Trump became President in the midst of a rise of authoritarian figures, nationalism, and Brexit.¹³ But he also stood as a bulwark against socialism, critical race theories, and leftist radicalism. Yet he adopted agendas that aligned with alt-right motives.¹⁴ A man who was bitter and vial towards those he disliked and quick to dispose all those who showed a lack of Trump style loyalty. Paradoxically, Trump was willing to stand against our greatest enemies in the world including China and rail against the greatest evils such as abortion; the paradox would also have bizarre relations with our greatest enemies—Russia and North Korea—that themselves left many perplexed.

Mob Rule and Mob rules goes both ways. Once a society or group accepts a particular culture to the extent of an unwavering obedience that is when the mere obedient citizen morphs into the crazed devotee.¹⁵ In such a state of mind the individual joins a collective consciousness that bestows an ideological framework with its authoritative structures, a tyrannical voice speaks over the disillusioned. Granted that both authority and legitimacy are each necessary means to gaining such societal clout. Without that respect the people protest, rebel, and eventually turn into revolutionaries. Todays status quo can be tomorrows tyranny as the vanguard can be heroes and mob alike. No modern government is unaware of the populist pull.

With the populist shift in the recent decade as seen in the election of President Trump a void continues to grow in the desire of American political stability. As previously written in part 2 of this series:

Donald Trump was not Russia’s (forever) President Vladimir Putin nor North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un, however, the current President fit well within mob tactics. Portrayed as a hero who was set on “draining the swamp” it was clear that the Washington outsider brought in his own muck. 

Biden is the pendulum swing further to the left. Hardly a stabilizing force considering the policies the President and the democratic party have adopted.

Life’s A Riot

            Movements and the groups who fight for their beliefs can quickly be perceived as either just or unjust depending on which side a person stands. The avant-garde of the new or the progressive versus the conservative institutions or the reactionary, these are only a set of varying “stances” a person can be part of. However, where do hate groups, real hate groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, Nation of Islam, or Neo-Volkisch stand in the spectrum of differences between progressives and conservatives? They may share similar accepted norms and mores of general society, but their responses are dehumanizing, threatening, and often violent. Truthfully, they have no justification in relation to either the avant-garde or the establishment considering that these movements of hate are beyond even the fridge of accepted beliefs and are considered fraudulent in their cause. Yet liberalized governments tend to protect even the most hateful. Such a decision hardly premises legitimacy but it begs the question, How do liberal democracies successfully funnel extremist groups within their countries? That question relates to the United State most recent socioeconomic and political trajectories of riots and movements via Black Lives Matter and the Alt-Right. And it is a central topic as the 46th President Biden intend to tackle “white supremacy” after President 45 attempted to address the radical socialist left. It is therefore essential to understand Black Lives Matters, ANTIFA, and the Alt-Right; to see them as archetypical trajectories of what lays ahead in the radicalism that has overtaken the American Dream that is no more.

————

Next Time: Mob Rule, Mob Rules: Part 3, Section 2 Trumphantism: The Alt-Right, Black Lives Matters, ANTIFA, and the Fate of American Liberty

References

¹ Dreher, Rod. (2020). Live Not By Lies: A Manual For Christian Dissidents. New York, NY: Sentinel

² Fukuyama, Francis. (1992). The End of History and the Last Man. New York, NY: The Free Press

³ —. (2018). Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment. New York, NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 

⁴ Applebaum, Anne. (2020 October 30). The Answer to Extremism Isn’t More Extremism. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/10/left-and-right-are-radicalizing-each-other/616914/

⁵ As a point of reference I am using Jean Baudrillard’s usage as he explained this loss of the real in how we interpret events around us. In his example, he used Watergate. This is directly quoted from Simulations (1983) Translated by Phil Beitchman, Paul Foss and Paul Patton, “All hypotheses are possible, although this one is superfluous: the work of the Right is done very well, and spontaneously, by the Left on its own. Besides, it would be naive to see an embittered good conscience at work here. For the Right itself also spontaneously does the work of the Left. All the hypotheses of manipulation are reversible in an endless whirligig. For manipulation is a floating causality where positivity and negativity engender and overlap with one another; where there is no longer any active or passive (p. 30).”

⁶ World Economic Forum. The Great Reset. https://www.weforum.org/great-reset/; and for further commentary on events see: Doane, Thomas. (2020 November 1). The Convergence of the Progressive Telos. Truth In Focus. https://edwardkylerichey.org/2020/11/01/the-convergence-of-the-progressive-telos/

⁷ Richey, Kyle. (2020 October 26). PostModernity: A Perpetual State of Modernity. https://edwardkylerichey.org/2020/10/26/postmodernity-a-perpetual-state-of-modernity/

⁸ —. (2020 November 2). Totalitarian Incantations: Late Modernity’s Radical Manifestations. https://edwardkylerichey.org/2020/11/02/totalitarian-incantations-late-modernitys-radical-manifestations/

⁹ —. (2020 August 20). Mob Rule, Mob Rules 2020: Part 2. https://edwardkylerichey.org/2020/08/20/mob-rule-mob-rules-2020-part-2/

¹⁰ —. (2020 November 2020). Too Divided To Stand: Election 2020 & The Future of America. https://edwardkylerichey.org/2020/11/06/too-divided-to-stand-election-2020-the-future-of-america/

¹¹ Several references: Lofgren, Mike. (21 February, 2014). Essay: Anatomy of the Deep State. Moyers On Democracy. https://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/; Kaizen, Michael. (Fall 2017). The Rise of the Security State: From the Great War to Snowden. Dissent Magazine. https://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/world-war-i-aftermath-security-state-nsa; Healy, Gene. (1 March, 2015). National Security State. (Book Review) National Security and Double Government By Michael J. Glennon. https://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/national-security-state; Epstein, Richard. (20 October, 2019) How Bad Constitutional Law Leads to Bad Economic Regulations. The Atlantic. https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/10/how-bad-constitutional-law-leads-bad-regulations/600280/

¹² A great reference point for understanding the Market State is from Constitutional scholar Philip Bobbitt’s, The Shield of Achilles, including on page 347 where a small set of graphs or “plates” he calls them demonstrate the evolution of the state including a small definition of each entity. The Market State according to Bobbitt “will maximize the opportunity of its citizens.”

13 Greven, Thomas. (2016 May). The Rise of Right-wing Populism in Europe and the United States: A Comparative Perspective. Friedrich Ebert Stiftung Foundation. http://dc.fes.de/fileadmin/user_upload/publications/RightwingPopulism.pdf

¹⁴ Wilson, Matthew. (2020 July 17). Donald Trump and the “Alt-Right”: How Much Connection Is There. ISPI. https://www.ispionline.it/it/pubblicazione/donald-trump-and-alt-right-how-much-connection-there-26990

¹⁵ Richey, Kyle. (2020 August 20). Mob Rule, Mob Rules 2020: Part 2. https://edwardkylerichey.org/2020/08/20/mob-rule-mob-rules-2020-part-2/

TIF Podcast: Ep 1: Live Not By Lies By Rod Dreher

Episode One of the new TIF podcast is out! See it at All Things Veritas linked here: https://youtu.be/Z8ill_1ttgs

Principles Over Politics: Exordium

(Special Series)

What then is a Christian to make of conservatism? The danger, it would seem, is not in conserving, for anyone may have a vocation to care for precious things, but in conservative ideology, which sets forth a picture of these things at variance with the faith. The same is true of liberalism. From time to time Christians may find themselves in tactical alliance with conservatives, just as with liberals, over particular policies, precepts, and laws. But they cannot be in strategic alliance, because their reasons for these stands are different; they are living in a different vision. For our allies’ sake as well as our own, it behooves us to remember the difference. We do not need another Social Gospel—just the Gospel. – J. Budziszewski

The Problem With Conservatism (1996)

Conservatism at its purest form is philosophical though it inevitably holds political weight in decisions of property, rights, laws, war, and nearly every other area of socioeconomic and political consequence. Richard M. Weaver reminded us in 1948 that Ideas Have Consequences, what we believe and follow, can reverberate throughout all of human history. “The modern position,” wrote Weaver, “seems only another manifestation of egotism, which develops when man has reached a point at which he will no longer admit the right to existence of things not of his own contriving” (Weaver, p. 154). Faith is more than tradition. Christ is beyond any philosophy. Historic Christianity is rooted in truth and reality that centers on the wholeness of Jesus Christ. Conservative philosophy at best recognizes the need for God and the institutions of the Christian faith, but it is not a practice of faith. As Professor Budziszewski of government and philosophy at the University of Texas in Austin and author of the blog, UndergroundThomist, distinctly makes clear: there is the Christian Faith and there is Conservatism and Liberalism and every other philosophical, ideological, and political system. At the end of the 1996 article (the article can be read in full at First Things website) he notes the essential truth of Christ and His Kingdom:

Christians can no more be others on the right than others on the left. Citizenship is an obligation of the faith, therefore the Christian will not abstain from the politics of the nation-state. But his primary mode of politics must always be witness. It is a good and necessary thing to change the welfare laws, but better yet to go out and feed the poor. It is a good and necessary thing to ban abortion, but better yet to sustain young women and their babies by taking them into the fellowship of faith. This is the way the kingdom of God is built.

The Problem With Conservatism (1996)

Therefore what comes first in terms of principles must be through and by the means of Christ, the Scriptures, and the Church. Christendom can be the only root source of a Primitive Conservative. Politics is secondary. Our identity is tertiary. Philosophy a helpmate. Surrender is strength not a weakness. Intersection is inevitable in the world of questions concerning morality, law, justice, or economics.

The Common Good

Tom Nelson, President of Made to Flourish, a network that works with churches in helping people flourish for the common good, argues that one of the best ways to achieve an act of common good is through our daily work (Nelson 2017, pp. 78-79, The Economics of Neighborly Love). By no means against the Free Market, Nelson seeks to make the case for a “triple bottom-line approaches that take into account not only profit but also promoting the flourishing of people as well as the planet” (pp. 79-80). One of several approaches to economic revitalization, the real father of economics can be found in the ideas of Thomas Aquinas whose central doctrines and dogmas remain as a central, though controversial, voice within Catholicism and broader Christianity.

Gloria L. Zúñiga at Acton Institute explains that “Thomistic economic thought… is grounded on private property and voluntary exchange as the principle for determining licit contracts.” Mary L. Hirschfeld, professor of economics and theology, wrote the book Aquinas and the Market: Toward a Humane Economy (2018), arguing that there are intrinsic values modern society can learn from Aquinas for the sake of redeeming a neoliberal society from its moral shortcomings.

Alternatives and reforms to a capitalistic society are nothing new to conservative thought as the late Sir Roger Scruton explains that “to be a conservative at best is to be a reluctant Capitalist you have to acknowledge the free-market… but it has to be tempered.” Our source for the “good life” derives from a similar stream but diverges from its source as to the ultimate purpose over ones life. Economics is simply one example for indeed Jesus Christ did not come to establish an economic doctrine or political order on the Earth. He came to die for the sins of the world and to redeem all that is His. Yet he tells believers not to be anxious or to worry but to build up for the Kingdom of Heaven:

Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, and give to the needy. Provide yourselves with moneybags that do not grow old, with a treasure in the heavens that does not fail, where no thief approaches and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also (Luke 12: 32-34).

Giving, charity, helpfulness are virtues to be practiced for they are goodness in of themselves; eternal values of immense worth as conservatives understand them to be. However the Christian does not simply do good, he does it at the service of God who commands them to do good. A distinct difference not because of a total lack of will to do any good but that Christians acknowledge the source by which goodness is bequeathed. For none do good, not even one (Psalm 14:3; Rom. 3:11). A secular reader shall fail in their attempt to decipher its meaning without close inspection as much as new Christian in the faith who fails to study the scriptures. Acts of “good” can be accomplished by all men but their heart remains corrupted. Christ is the redeemer of the heart—that is the Gospel. Secondly, all life comes from God the creator. He is worthy of acknowledgement. And lastly Christians source their life around the Gospel. Good works follow after it but virtue is not their source or it is simply vanity. Harry Blamires succinctly summarizes this truth in his book, The Christian Mind (1963), between the Modern mind and the mind of the Christian:

If Christians think carefully and prayerfully, they will come to understand what the Incarnation means for them in terms of their twentieth-century vocation… They will learn what are the proper twentieth-century modes of judging the world, of identifying the self with its sins, of being in and yet of being out of this world which our Lord inhabited and yet was not of. But these vital insights will be achieved only if there is among us a Christian mind sharp enough as an instrument of discrimination to cut cleanly through the befuddling mental jungle which constitutes the practical ethic of our secular society (pp. 104-105).

Christ is the source of our Common Good; He is the Principle; the Rule of Thumb; and the Sole Being Worthy of Adoration. A.W. Tozer tells us that to be a follower of God means to be “other-worldly” (Tozer 2006, The Pursuit of God, p. 63). Or as Dietrich Bonhoeffer hammered it out straight for his readers in The Cost of Discipleship (1995), “Faith can no longer mean sitting still and waiting—they must rise and follow him. The call frees them from all earthly ties, and binds them to Jesus Christ alone” (pp. 62-63).

This week will be a week of explanation of what it means to hold to principles over politics; truth over lies; reality over irreality. A foundation that built from faith in Christ and Christ Alone. Sourced from Christian Doctrines and Dogmas in the face of a world that fails to love; fails to do justice; and fails in establishing dignity for all.

Slow & Steady: Winning The Race

(MereBeautyInTruth)

If the hare had been racing an Alligator Snapping Turtle (pictured above) he would have been eaten with the turtle winning the race by default.

Jesting aside, a central purpose behind Truth In Focus (TIR) and Visual Philosophy (See This Month’s) is to be an aesthetic abruption to modernities fast-paced world. Mere Beauty In Truth unequivocally requires a sustainable consumption of information including knowledge growth.

Jean Baudrillard, a postmodernist and French philosopher, rightly estimated that mankind presently lives in a state of hyperreality:

“Postmodernity is said to be a culture of fragmentary sensations, eclectic nostalgia, disposable simulacra, and promiscuous superficiality, in which the traditionally valued qualities of depth, coherence, meaning, originality, and authenticity are evacuated or dissolved amid the random swirl of empty signals.”

And,

“The media represents a world that is more real than reality that we can experience. People lose the ability to distinguish between reality and fantasy. They also begin to engage with the fantasy without realizing what it really is. They seek happiness and fulfilment through the simulacra of reality, e.g. media and avoid the contact/interaction with the real world.”

– Simulacra and Simulation (1987)

Granted I am not a postmodernist nor do I agree that we presently live in a post-modern age but Baudrillard description of what late modernity has produced remains a precise, accurate description. From Deep Fakes to Deep State what truth is and where truth exists appears unclear speaking from an outsiders perspective looking in at competing worldview’s, the nature of institutions, and the unprecedented mining of data. A clear definer of the age is that data and information are up for grabs to the highest and most powerful bidders. TRUTH IS AT STAKE.

TRUTH IS AT STAKE.

Importing droves of information is antithetical in a period where information is overabundant. Arising from that debauchery a collision occurred resulting in hysteria. Men can be women, women can be men while no gender is claimed to exist (all false); people can “believe” whatever they want purportedly without risk (all a lie). Up, down, left, right nothing has meaning. Our universe is on life support receiving 24/7 blood transfusions while being told that your iron levels are normal, life is steady. Relative normality is avoidance from reality.

Therefore, we must recapture the truth. Reclaim reality.

Part of doing so is practicing a slower method of dissemination. To clearly think one must have the time to think. Of course slow is not always right. But hyperreality disfigures and fragments without repose. So let’s all be the snapping alligator turtle: Slow, Steady, and Ready for a Fight.

Thy Week, Thus Far

Wednesday September 1, 2020

A Weekly Wednesday Dose of Truth

Zeno of Elea by Carducci or Tibaldi

Articles, Podcasts, and Videos

Ricochet (Podcast) an audio network of leading conservative podcasts has several excellent conversations going this week. From The Radio Free Hillsdale Hour (One of two Hillsdale College’s podcasts that I am aware of) had an interview this week with Adam Carrington, Roger Kimball, and Kathleen O’Toole. Adam Carrington is assistant professor of politics at Hillsdale College and discusses the history of political conventions. Roger Kimball, editor and publisher of The New Criterion and president and publisher of Encounter Books, discusses his recent essays on the rule of law amid protests and riots in America. And Kathleen O’Toole, assistant provost for K-12 education at Hillsdale, talks on Covid-19 and the coming school year. First Things from First Things Magazine (which I subscribe to and suggest everyone should) produced an interview with Dr. Lawrence M. Mead III a professor at New York University and a leading thinker on welfare and poverty who now faces the wrath of cancel culture for producing a paper titled, Poverty and Culture, where Mead suggests that racism alone does not explain poverty in black and hispanic communities but rather an adopted non-western, un-individualistic norm may be their root cause for poverty. Mead’s views are accused as racist and unscholarly in nature as his paper faces retraction, for additional insight see a report by Retraction Watch. While I do not necessarily agree with Mead’s assessment I do support his right as a scholar to produce work that can be either proven or disproven in the open without retraction or threats. Finally, The Roth Effect with Carol Roth interviews model Danisha Carter on “Connecting with Gen Z on Capitalism” over the rise of Socialism taking place.

Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation It is with great honor to introduce the late Sir Roger’s Foundation that will serve future generations of conservative thinkers like myself. Please apply to their emails and be on the look out for their upcoming events, seminars, and initiatives. As part of a tribute there a two articles that caught my eye: 1) Chaos Creates Conservatives and 2) Live Notes on the Roger Scruton Legacy Foundation Webinar both by Timon Cline.

First Things (Web/Magazine) has a web exclusive section that includes an article by Iranian columnist Sohrab Ahmari, The Books Behind The Rage. Ahmari argues that leftist academia whose works include On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder has produced a false, antifascist narrative as he describes, “If someone sincerely believes that Trumpism, and analogue movements across the developed world, aren’t just conservative-nationalist or populist but fascist or Nazi-ish, then he has a right and even the duty to oppose the elected government of the United States militantly, to help strangle in the cradle the 21st century’s equivalent of the most odious tendencies of the last century. While I understand the sentiment the issue goes both ways concerning extremism and the rise of threats. Radicals of the left are being accused of being Neo-Marxist for example. President Trump is not a fascist yet several cabinet members were connected to the alt-right movement. Ultimately people must be able to make decisions freely or they face being wrought by propaganda and control though anti-conspiracy, fact checkers, and bans that claim to “know better.” Granted conspiracies arise regardless of restriction. I believe it is a deeper problem than Admari suggests but a short read worthy of consideration.

Get Woke or Get Broke: When Reason Fails to Stand

(Opinion)

(Note to my readers: Originally I intended this piece to be of the category, Special Report, meaning a stricter standard in how information is analyzed and cited. Essentially that standard requires greater in-depth study. While I personally believe what I wrote here today to be true and factual, it did not meet my standard of a Special Report. Therefore, I qualify this as an opinion piece.)

Classical Liberalism On Edge

Justice is the first virtue of social institutions, as truth is of systems of thought. A theory however elegant and economical must be rejected or revised if it is untrue; likewise laws and institutions no matter how efficient and well-arranged must be reformed or abolished if they are unjust.

— John Rawls, A Theory of Justice, p. 3

Individuals have rights, and there are things no person or group may do to them (without violating their rights). So strong and far-reaching are these rights that they raise the question of what, if anything, the state and its officials may do.

— Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia, p. xix 

In the course of human history there have been principles worth abiding by when considering a deep, problematic societal concern that has and can continue to have great ramifications if it either remains unresolved or attempted to mitigate. Oftentimes issues of such magnitude fall within realms that provoke or placate the values and emotions of a populace. Justice, an essential value concerning human nature, is one of those realms. To better grasp such a realm, an acquisition of human institutions are required; those social institutions specifically include Faith, Tradition, Reason, and Imagination all of which can help an individual and society uncover values above and beyond themselves. Yet, what arises when these institutions dissolve, for whatever reason that may be, is a culture that moves away from interaction towards disengagement and then usurpation. Of all the institutions, reason is the most fragile and in a liberal democratic society, the failure to reason is the sign of a metaphysical collapse.

Classical liberal theory is a term to describe the belief in the rights of the individual, the freedom of markets, and private property. Within the context of the United States, the U.S. Constitution is a document representative of classical liberal thought though not entirely. Presently in the United States of America a climax has occurred on several ideological fronts. One such shift is the rise of woke culture from the far-left through its permeation into governments, corporations, universities, and other private-public institutions. No western post-industrial society is free from its wake.  

Wokeness Monster

Extensive analysis fills the web concerning critical theory, postmodernism, and cultural marxism. While additional analysis is necessary that is not the focus of this article. Therefore, a simple explanation will suffice concerning the meaning of Woke, Wokeness, or Woke Culture.

To be woke means a form of “awakening” to injustice particularly linked to racial injustices yet intersectional toward other oppressed minority/identity based groups e.g. trans/cisgender. Woke cultural markings have evolved into a dangerous ideology of critical, liberation, and social justice movements that developed ties to Marxism, Postmodernism, and other leftist identity based theories and organizations who oppose so-called Eurocentric or Westernized systems (e.g. Capitalism, Free Speech, Merit Base, Scientific Method, etc). To be presently woke means joining a collective that is centered on destroying entire westernized structures, not reforming them. And therein lies the problem.    

End of Discussion

Oversimplifying for the sake of a greater argument, it can be said that Christians and Conservatives, though fundamentally different, share a unique appreciation and understanding of the needs for the layout of faith, tradition, reason, and imagination. One based entirely on the faith in Jesus Christ and the other a philosophical movement in response to the French Revolution both seeking to challenge the hearts and minds of men in a sacred responsibility. Christians nor Conservatives are strangers to cultural critique including of liberal society (e.g. Capitalism or Free Speech) and upholding standards beyond the relative values of the day. As the conservative thinker Russell Kirk explained, “The pure democrat is the practical atheist; ignoring the divine nature of law and the divine establishment of spiritual hierarchy” (The Conservative Mind, p. 137). A synergy exists between the two over their respect for God and a moral law. However, neither fail to recognize liberalism’s overarching value to the world through their shared principles concerning human liberty, freedom, and rights. Both critique liberalism but never demanding the obliteration of classical liberal thought. In no fashion is that an attempt to whitewash history. Every side has its rabble that claim to uphold righteous values only to commit atrocities, however, as long as homo sapiens exist so shall their brutal behaviors. Historically Christianity, Liberalism, and Conservatism have peacefully coexisted despite their differences. 

Far from the spectrum of coexistence, woke ideals hold a Socialist-Marxist predisposition in uprooting systems by devaluing people who oppose them and belittling constructive debate that could possibly cultivate ideas across ideological lines. Almost a hundred years ago (98 to be exact) the economist and social theorist Ludwig von Mises published, Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis (1922), warning against socialism: 

According to the Marxist conception, one’s social condition determines one’s way of thought. His membership of a social class decides what views a writer will express. He is not able to grow out of his class or to free his thoughts from the prescriptions of his class interests. Thus the possibility of a general science which is valid for all men, whatever their class, is contested… Thus Marxism protects itself against all unwelcome criticism… Marx and Engels never tried to refute their opponents with argument. They insulted, ridiculed, derided, slandered, and traduced them, and in the use of these methods their followers are not less expert. Their polemic is directed never against the argument of the opponent, but always against his person. Few have been able to withstand such tactics (pp. 18-19).

Those words ring equally true today. As I mentioned in Part 1 of my series Mob Rule, Mob Rules: 

Mob rule means a collective identity group must win. Mob rules serve the interests of that collective. Liberty and her institutions are being tested by this eruptive behavior, serving as a reminder that when pure rage is the predicate for judgement, tyranny is never far behind. What comes next will be decided by the public will for civility or lack thereof. Humanity itself may not only end up alone but alone with no way out. 

Without question the radical left are not alone in their threat against a liberal order but they are defining the times as R.R. Reno wrote in his book, Return of the Strong Gods (2019):

Today’s technocratic ethos defines political legitimacy in terms of the weak gods of policy expertise, therapeutic delicacy when speaking of sensitive topics, and the rhetoric of diversity and other motifs of inclusion (p. 141). 

Catholics like Reno represent a necessary deflection against the left vs right attitudes of our time. Believers in the good, the beautiful, and the true recognize that there can be shared critiques without shared beliefs in radical, revolutionary uprisings found within Communism or Fascism. Catholicism has long promoted “social justice” issues including its claim that the idea itself comes from the book of Matt: 25:31-46. That claim, true or untrue, points to a long line of thinkers from the Apostle Matthew to Thomas Aquinas and onward, a line of pre-modern thinkers rather than modern thinkers like Karl Marx whom heretical christian groups have adopted; a movement rooted in gnosticism rather than Christian teaching. 

If those on the fringe would only listen and grasp that there are means to redemption, a shared bond in both the craving for justice and the rights of the individual—the Rawls-Nozick dichotomy—can be reached without destroying the very foundations that granted them their rights and privileges in the first place. Unfortunately, extremists have broken through in a trojan horse disguised as inclusiveness, diversity, equity, and universals (e.g. healthcare, housing, etc) on the back of a neoliberal order that momentarily makes even Socialism look promising by the untrained eye. They are not interested in listening, they are here to destroy.

Dr. James Lindsay, a physicist and mathematician from New Discourses, is one of the leading thinkers on critical theories and social justice practices including on why woke culture is anti-debate wrote:

The deeper, more significant aspect of this problem is that by participating in something like conversation or debate about scholarly, ethical, or other disagreements, not only do the radical Critical Social Justice scholars have to tacitly endorse the existing system, they also have to be willing to agree to participate in a system in which they truly believe they cannot win. This isn’t the same as saying they know they’d lose the debate because they know their methods are weak. It’s saying that they believe their tools are extremely good but not welcome in the currently dominant system, which is a different belief based on different assumptions. Again, their game is not our game, and they don’t want to play our game at all; they want to disrupt and dismantle it.

Fundamentally the critical ideological framework cannot coexist with our present rights, freedoms, and liberties; our culture is an anthemia to their ideals.  

What Happens Now?

Pessimism can easily set in when surveying the political landscape. There are no guarantees of success if that success means a complete and total reversal. Instead the pressures of life require those who oppose all forms of radicalization to be truthful and loving at a moment when anger and rage can easily persevere but only at great unnecessary costs. Reason will not work. Only the actions of a people who can rely on truth beyond reason, a movement beyond mere modern beliefs, and uphold eternal principles regardless of threat can withstand the revolutionary spirit filling the air. “Be still, and know that I am God…” (Psalm 46:10, ESV), that is the required spirit. Believers (and unbelievers) in God must testify truth and goodness through the acknowledgement of present hurts which no doubt exist within the black community and the latin community and the LGBTQ community. Again, there is a shared bond, a means to redemption beyond the ruin of an already broken world. Demands for justice need to be heard but never at the abandonment of truth, reality, and morality or it only becomes another form of injustice. 

Christians can lead in this through their understanding that while they may be alone, they are never truly alone and our calling is above ourselves. Conservatives can resonate in that understanding. And those beholden too Liberalism, especially classical liberal thinking, know what it means to sacrifice and stand against tyranny when it rises; prize an ideal beyond their present estate. All three prize liberty though in different forms but rooted in the greatest of ideals: Human Freedom. 

We must not become radicalized in response. Let their injustice show by speaking up for justice and speaking out against injustice; truth over untruth; reality above irreality; goodness over hate. Death by virtue versus radicalized ideals that seek to breakdown and destroy. Fight but with real love, not the fake dignity espoused by those who insult, deride, and traduce people no matter their origin.