Digital Nomad
The New Culture Forum
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Comments by "Digital Nomad" (@digitalnomad9985) on "Calvin Robinson's Final Interview Before Leaving the UK. Are We Prepared to Fight for Britain?" video.
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"the West peaked after WW2 when we didn't have big governments. The government is not our friend."
Absolutely. I might quibble about the timeline. Allied governments were definitely larger after the World Wars than before. Centralization and taxation measures arguably necessary for the war and adopted and defended as wartime expedients somehow stuck to the government's fingers after the war and have expanded since. ("A couple of weeks to flatten the curve" "Never let a crisis go to waste.") The UK extended "wartime" rationing and other economic control measures past the end of the war. In the US, the income tax was supposed to be a temporary measure to fund WW 1, but has been with us to this day, even in the early interwar period when the US wasn't doing much in the way of military preparation. But your point stands; western governments are larger now as a percentage of larger GDPs than they were then.
"They lust for power, as they always have.... power and control, doesn't matter what political system you live in. In democracies, it's just a little harder to gain control..."
Often the the system of the US republic is compared unfavorably with a parliamentary system, for instance, on the grounds of efficiency. The parliamentary supposedly more rapidly implements the sense of the majority. Such critics are mistaking a means for an end. The founders of the US constitutional republic were concerned with dissipating power, of keeping it from being concentrated and thus facilitating tyranny. Democracy is just one, even if the most important and radical, of the means to this end. "Checks and balances" were placed throughout the system. Gridlock is a feature, not a bug. Democracy may well be necessary to sustain freedom, but it is certainly INSUFFICIENT. The general recognition that there are some things even the majority must not be allowed to do is vital to any sort of freedom or human rights.
C.S. Lewis:
I believe in political equality. But there are two opposite reasons for being a democrat. You may think all men so good that they deserve a share in the government of the commonwealth, and so wise that the commonwealth needs their advice. That is, in my opinion, the false, romantic doctrine of democracy. On the other hand, you may believe fallen men to be so wicked that not one of them can be trusted with any irresponsible power over his fellows.
That I believe to be the true ground of democracy. I do not believe that God created an egalitarian world. I believe the authority of parent over child, husband over wife, learned over simple, to have been as much a part of the original plan as the authority of man over beast. I believe that if we had not fallen...patriarchal monarchy would be the sole lawful government. But since we have learned sin, we have found, as Lord Acton says, that ‘all power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ The authority of father and husband has been rightly abolished on the legal plane, not because this authority is in itself bad (on the contrary, it is, I hold, divine in origin) but because fathers and husbands are bad. Theocracy has been rightly abolished not because it is bad that learned priests should govern ignorant laymen, but because priests are wicked men like the rest of us. Even the authority of man over beast has had to be interfered with because it is constantly abused. [C.S. Lewis. “Membership,” in Fern Seed and Elephants (London: Fontana, 1975), 18-19]
I am a democrat because I believe in the Fall of Man. I think most people are democrats for the opposite reason. A great deal of democratic enthusiasm descends from the ideas of people like Rousseau, who believed in democracy because they thought mankind so wise and good that everyone deserved a share in the government… The real reason for democracy is just the reverse. Mankind is so fallen that no man can be trusted with unchecked power over his fellows. Aristotle said that some people were only fit to be slaves. I do not contradict him. But I reject slavery because I see no men fit to be masters. [C.S. Lewis, Present Concerns, ed. Walter Hooper (New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1986), 17]
James Madison from the Federalist Papers (documents concerning the adoption of the U.S. Constitution):
The great security against a gradual concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department the necessary constitutional means and personal motives to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defense must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to counteract ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.
A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions. [James Madison, from Federalist 51]
"Why does the government get to take more than 50% of my earnings? Why do they get to tell me IF I can build on a piece of land and what I build? Why do they get to tell me everything?
I just want to be left alone and do my own thing..."
There is a quote about this I can't remember or attribute, but something to the effect that the whole end of government is for a man to be at peace at home. The sole and indispensable function of and justification for government is the minimum necessary to force people to mind their own business, because left to themselves many will not.
A common fallacy of utopian ideologues is that human nature is inherently good, but is being held back by some flaw in the social contract. In fact, the same flawed, imperfect, selfish, stupid nature that infests the lord, or the "capitalist", infests the politician and bureaucrat. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. The "capitalist" AS SUCH, can only hire or bribe, and regulations and laws are in place to keep his abuses in check. An authoritarian government can do that (with other people's money), plus arrest you or your family. It is incoherent to fear the former and not fear the latter. No "angel" is available to bear this power benignly.
"Government is a dangerous servant; and a fearful master."
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RCC and Islam get a FEW converts, but mostly spread by natural increase. Most evangelism is done by evangelicals. And Protestantism created the modern libertarian west. We (Protestants) ended slavery; implemented religious freedom, political freedom, academic freedom, freedom of speech, freedom of the press FIRST, and thus caused the academic, scientific, technological, and material progress that followed; and most of the rest of the world hasn't caught up with it yet. John 8:32 "You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free.” The RCC legacy hinders apologetics and evangelism, because the first thing we are called on to do is DEFEND the inquisition and all that burning at the stake, even though it was OUR spiritual ancestors UNDER the screws and not TURNING them.
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