What scares our political elite?

A book I strongly suggest right now is The Myth of National Defense, edited by Hans-Hermann Hoppe. From the year 2003, the series of essays that are included in it contains a strong warning about the current state we have reached in recent times. It's main thesis is on national defense and the neo-conservative abuse of national defense. But the essays that it includes are well worth the time to peruse. As I was reading it the other day, I came across in the essay titled "The Will to be Free: The Role of Ideology in National Defense" by Jeffrey Rogers Hummel, the following:

"The famed zoologist Richard Dawkins has offered the intriguing proposition that ideas have striking similarities to genes. Many apparent paradoxes in biological evolution disappeared once biologists recognized that the process was driven by the success with which 'selfish' genes (rather than individuals or species) could replicate themselves. Dawkins suggested the term 'memes' be applied to ideas, whose capacity to replicate in other minds likewise determines their spread. No matter how useful this parallel between cultural and genetic evolution may ultimately prove, it at least helps to disabuse us of the illusion that an idea's validity is the sole or primary factor in its success. Those who doubt that false ideas can be tremendously influential need only glance at the worldwide success of so many mutually exclusive religions. It is not simply that they cannot all be true simultaneously; if one is true, then many of the others are not simply false, but badly false. ... The State, for instance, appears to have played no part in the birth and initial growth of Christianity, and the draconian efforts that many governments devote to the suppression of dissent testifies to the threat posed by that kind of autonomous ideological development. ... A people who have successfully fabricated the ideological solidarity necessary to overthrow their domestic rulers would be extremely difficult to conquer, as we have already observed." (291-294)

This scares our ruling class big time. Tucker Carlson compares what is going on in America right now similar to winning a tennis match in which the victors seek to smack the loser on the face. Biden won, the Democrats have majority control in both Houses of Congress, be happy! But it's a lot more complicated than that. The Democrats needed more than just to win. It's not like winning a tennis match 6-4, 1-6, 7-6, 0-6, 7-6. You just barely eked out a close victory getting decimated in a couple of rounds on the way, but you won, your opponent has no victory claim. It's not like that. For the Democrats, this is an ideological war. Ideas can spread like a wildfire and with increasing polarization, Democrats are well aware that an electoral college victory of 306-232 is not enough to win against the will of 74,000,000 voters that are charged against their ideologies. They need to make certain this ideology of "Trumpism" cannot spread ever again. They won't care about nullifying the Constitution on the way. They can interject their own interpretations after all. The goal is to win the ideological war and Trumpism has proven a most formidable opponent against the establishment philosophy of permanent Washington. For the establishment neo-cons, Trumpism isn't just something to beat in an election, it is something that needs to die out permanently. The damage to the establishment caused by this ideology isn't going away any time soon.

The Demon in Democracy - Ryszard Legutko

This book was extremely relevant and important in light of the current political climate we face today. The subtitle is Totalitarian Temptations in a Free Society. That free society is defined by the author, Ryszard Legutko, as a liberal democracy. Lgutko, aside from having suffered under Polish communistic dictatorship, has also held an active role in the European Union's Parliament. He gives a stark warning about the temptations that creep up in a liberal democracy and draws strong comparisons between the two forms of government throughout the duration of his book. Not just the forms of government but the ideology and political theory they obsess over.

He starts by laying out his own introduction of his life experience. His life experience is important as this shows his qualifications in judging the matter. His position as a professor of ancient philosophy and political theory. His position in the European Parliament. And his sufferings under Polish communistic dictatorship. Indeed, he was actually a product of recent censorship back in 2019 when the Alexander Hamilton Forum tried to have him give a lecture at Middlebury College. The warnings he gives about the temptations should not be taken with a grain of salt.

The ideology starts with the warped end of history view. Both liberal democracies and communist dictatorships see their era of history as the most progressive and incrementally driven forward of all historical eras. This pattern continues as they see one era of history as more progressive than the next and gradually driving toward their goal. They view those who are romantic toward another era of history as being backward, a threat to their goal toward progress. This view of history leads both liberal democratic ideology and communistic ideology into a form of utopianism. They view their systems of dogma as politically superior to all the rest. Any one who questions it is taken as a traitor or an attacker of the most perfect form of government and should be annihilated.

The utopian vision both philosophies hold leads them to sharing and investing in similar if not identical politics. They view the politics of the nation as the one doctrine that everybody should hold to. All matters of life should center around the communal activities of the communist government or the shared vision of the democratic state. Those who oppose this or cast doubt on the processes are seen as traitors. They claim the goal is to liberate man from politics but in doing so, they have made man even more political than before.

They ingrain this ideology in through education and the political system. They reinforce an ideology of the duty that man has to his government. It revolves around either the majority or the dictatorship or both. The ideology is intended to subject man. While glamorizing how dignified man is, this dignity is degraded into his relationship with the government and is stripped of the moral context that it is meant to remain in. From this, we navigate to religion.

Religion is held in contempt by both communists and liberal democracies. Liberal democracies claim to be multicultural but the thing that gets in the way most with this is the transcendent aspect of religion. If religion holds a central role, it puts man under a different governance than the majority. Communists have declared it to be the opium of the people hopeful that it will die out. Liberal democracies seek to subvert religion. Warping it into obeisance to the liberal democracy first and foremost. Religious people seek to conform their religion to the liberal democracy or even to the communistic regime hoping it will appease the blood-thirsty tyrants seeking to stamp it out. He gives a strong condemnation of the changes brought to the Catholic Church by Vatican II. He points out that even as the Church tried to capitulate to the world, it still remained hated and in disgust.

There is a hopeful note to be gained from this. A genuine practitioner of religion is not only seen as a threat to the liberal democratic regime and communistic regime, but it was ultimately religion that capsized communism. It may very well be religion which will capsize the liberal democratic onslaught of modern times as well. It may take years, even decades, but with the considerations of the lessons we have gathered from recent history, only a genuine religious and moral ethos appears to be formidable in combatting the system of liberal democracy. This book is strongly recommended.

St. Lydwine of Schiedham

"The truth is, care should be taken to keep such people from too much prayer and to persuade them, as far as possible, to take no notice of their fancies [visions and locutions]: the devil makes use of these weak souls to injure others, even if they themselves escape unhurt." (St. Teresa of Avila, The Interior Castle 3.3)

Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=245090

I start off with that note because St. Lydwine (also called Lydia) of Schiedham is a visionary. Of the Ven. Thomas à Kempis's works, his biography of her life is claimed to be the least original and indeed, he even claims to be indebted to a previous work on the subject of this holy virgin's life in his prologue and claims it as an abridgement of that prior existing work. St. Lydwine, whom the Latins call Lydia, was a holy virgin, committed to refraining from marriage even at the age of twelve as many suitors sought her.

She experienced a severe injury at the fifteenth year of her life. Some might even call this the first historically documented example of an undiagnosed case of ALS. We don't quite know what her exact ailment was. But for the first fourteen years of her life, she was well and normal. As she was travelling with companions of her own, she started to walk very quickly along a patch of ice. Her companions attempted to reach her but she ended up falling into a pile of shards of ice. Christ seems to have chosen to rescue her from marriage through this accident because afterwards, no suitors would pursue her further. But she was never isolated from human affection though.

I had read The Imitation of Christ prior to reading through this work of Thomas à Kempis and I honestly did not get a lot out of reading through that work. I had never read it before having falsely believed it to be a human work, potentially containing error as the author was never canonized. But upon discovering the truth of the author behind this work, I began to develop a curiosity toward Thomas à Kempis. Reading this work about this lovely saint and holy virgin, I began to fall in love with St. Lydwine. It wasn't so much the trials she suffered that moved me toward falling in love with her but the example she set in following them. I have seen many saintly examples as of recent that have shown increasing relevance in my current life but this one struck me.

I have felt more and more isolated this past year. Some days, I have been unable to get to church due to my irregular sleep pattern. St. Lydwine's accident completely incapacitated her. It forced her to be bedridden her entire life from the age of fifteen until her happy death. She was ministered the Eucharist but once a year every Easter. But she still opened her home to the poor, the widows, travelers, etc. She was never alone because she was always with Christ. She was in communion with Christ until her death. Even with the loss of both parents and the tragic death of her niece.

The exact chronology is unknown and it is unclear whether Ven. Thomas à Kempis wrote the abridgement in a specific chronological order.  We do know she experienced prophetic visions on many occasions. On one such occasion, it was given to her that her father would repose on the Vigil of the Conception of the Virgin Mary. There was another vision she received where she appeared to have been raptured to Heaven and her breasts had been filled with milk. A widow staying at her home was there when this occurred and the saintly virgin had the widow draw milk from her breasts. Still another rapture had her receive a crown of flowers which she instructed her confessor to adorn Our Lady with. He obliged. Visions are given to people who need them and do not seek after them. They are also given to people who know how to distinguish them. She received vision from a devil boasting he had thrown her frail father into a ditch and had left him to die but this vision, not wanting to shock the virgin, was countered by the rescue that happened as her father was rescued.

St. Lydwine grew close to all who visited her and the magnitude of her losses were greatly increased by the isolation of the life she lived from her accident leaving her bedridden. But she grew in prayer and served the hungry of spirit by showing them great faithfulness and an example. On one such occasion a group of men with evil intentions visited her, molested her, beat her niece as she defended the holy virgin, and then left away. The magistrates wanted severely to punish the perpetrators and her niece died from the wounds experienced but the saint warned the magistrates against retaliation and forgave the men for what had happened. Only in forgiveness will we ever be led to Heaven.

It was on the Tuesday of the Octave of Easter of the year 1433 that she reposed. Her body was visited by many and it was discovered that this virgin was so pure that black spots developed whenever impure men touched it. Her body had to be placed in such a location that people would not touch it causing disruption to the purity of her body. St. Lydwine is the patron of the chronically ill, ice skaters, and the town of Schiedham in the Netherlands. It was due to the work of Ven. Thomas à Kempis that her cult was made known to the Church in the 19th century and on March 14, 1890, she was canonized by Pope Leo XIII. Her feast day is celebrated in the Roman calendar on April 14. May we all learn from St. Lydwine through our own trials and isolations and may she pray for all of us!

St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite - A Handbook of Spiritual Counsel

The opening chapter of St. Nicodemos the Hagiorite's A Handbook of Spiritual Counsel focuses on the senses. While the senses are from God, it is all the important, because of this, to guard them from the sinful temptations of the flesh. Why were the senses created? How are they to be protected? How are they to be guarded so as not to lead to temptations? A Handbook of Spiritual Counsel isn't so much to be a list of do's and don't's in the holy life but rather it serves as a guidebook, a handbook of counsel, to assist the soul in its struggle against the temptations of the mind and the flesh. St. Nicodemos starts with the temptations of the flesh but he will also navigate to the mind later on.

Why were the senses created? The answer that St. Nicdomos gives to this question is taken from the holy father St. Gregory the Theologian. "[I]n order to reveal a greater wisdom and the manifold purpose of nature". Man was created by God to be a cosmos, not, according to the philosophers, a microcosmos. Man is a macrocosmos "to be upon earth as a great world within the small one". Man "draws the two ends of the upper and the lower world together and thus reveals that the Creator of both is one".

The mind dwells in the body as a king according to St. Nicodemos. This indicates that the body "is likened to a royal place built by the  superb architectural skill of an omniscient Creator". Dualists assert the flesh is inherently evil. It is in contradiction to the mind. The soul is the what is holy while the flesh is corrupted and must be dispelled with. This is anathema to the Christian tradition. While there is a struggle between the weakened state of the flesh that emerges from the ancestral sin, the flesh is inherently good. It shows the earthly state of man and also shows the earthly palace that his mind dwells in. The state of dominion he holds over creation. It becomes a sacred temple for the Creator and reveals the Creator as creator of both the spiritual and material realms. Both are called good by the Creator and Man is declared very good. According to St. John Damascene,

"The irrational creatures are not autonomous; they do not lead but rather are led by nature. This is why they do not object to physical desire, but rush to action just as soon as they feel desirous. Man however being rational leads nature rather than is led by it. Thus when he would desire something, he has the authority either to overrule that desire or to follow it."

Baptism transforms the mind just as much as it does the body. According to St. John Chrysostom who is appealed to by St. Nicodemos, "no sooner are we baptized than the soul shines brighter than the sun, being purified by the Holy Spirit". Once again, the interconnectedness between the material and the spiritual is revealed before our eyes. In the very sacrament of baptism, we witness the transformative effect of the Holy Spirit upon the soul as the water wraps around the body of the Man. The child is lifted out of the water or the catechumen has the water poured over his head and the soul that was once the child of the flesh has become a child of God. He walks according to the law of God and no longer is enslaved to the law of the flesh. He is a freed man. The Eucharist is received not merely for the conversion of the soul but for healing of both body and soul. The tangible and the spiritual come into interaction with each other.

The senses open our minds to the natural world around us. They are given to us to be a guide for our mind to elevate itself toward God. Our eyes, when we look around us and fill ourselves with pure vision, allow us to see the beauty of the Creator and desire to know more of the Creation. Our ears can hear Scriptures and be lifted upward to God. So likewise the other senses operate for our benefits. But some men use the senses inappropriately and these men are led away by their physical desires. They become more like the beasts of the Earth and resemble less and less so Man as the way God created Man to be.

Liberal Democracy and Free Speech

The most fundamental concept of a liberal democracy is free speech. Free speech enables rational discussion, the dissemination of ideas, and enables people to build and develop their rational thought. Baruch de Spinoza maintained as much in regard to preserving a liberal democracy. "Every man is 'by indefeasible natural right the master of his own thoughts', and he 'cannot, without disastrous results, be compelled to speak only according to the dictates of the supreme power'" (F.C. Copleston, A History of Philosophy, vol. IV, 258). Government's duty is to promote the individual liberties to develop. While there are limits such as the prohibition of direct incitements to violence and disruption, "rational discussion and criticism do good rather than harm" and "[i]f the attempt is made to crush liberty and to regiment thought and speech...the result is that fools, flatterers, the insincere and unscrupulous flourish" (258). Free speech is essential for progress and intellectual development.

Ludwig von Mises also thought along similar lines in Human Action. All governments are inherently democratic in that the majority tend to submit to them. But if the majority prefer bad leaders, "is committed to unsound principles and prefers unworthy office-seekers, there is no remedy other than to try to change their mind by expounding more reasonable principles and recommending better men" (150). It is the dialogue that pushes onward the effort to place better men in power. But if the dialogue is lost, then the State begins to form into a quasi-theological belief system in which obeisance is awarded to the State at a religious level.

Free speech is fundamental to preserving the free exchange of ideas, allowing people to think what is already on their mind and to say it. The State has not the power to control the actions of an individual man. You decide whether you follow the State's doctrines or not. Only by force can they actually punish you for "wrongthink" or "wrongspeak". But the State has no power or authority to dictate what you can say. "In Soviet Russia, we have freedom of speech! You just get thrown into gulag if you say something the State doesn't like!" How accurate.

In light of the recent events from the Big Tech world, I draw great concern about this area. I am currently platformed but many people are being deplatformed. You might argue that it is a private entity. These Big Tech entities are private entities. And I also concur. But what we are witnessing is a thorough dive into what would be a State-planned economy. A system of State capitalism. This is what we have seen in Soviet Russia. The private entities conglomerating together with the State to set up rules for how to restrain themselves when what they really intend to do is restrain competitors. If this direction continues, it will get to the point where these Big Tech entities are more than just private entities. They will be agents of the State. Google is already an agent of China. So are many Big Tech enterprises. Imagine if they become agents of the State cooperating to do the State's biddings. We are seeing that happen as they huddle under the Democratic Party. The move toward State capitalism must be opposed with vigor.

St. Zoticus and the Sick

St. Zoticus's feast day was actually the 31st but as I was reading from The Prologue of Ohrid, it struck me as to how the saint treated the contagious compared to the way the Emperor treated the contagious. And with our own pandemic going on, how we've actually been far astray from the holy response given by the saint of God. There was an infectious and contagious disease that broke out during the time of St. Zoticus. How did the Emperor deal with the pandemic in his time? He demanded that the sick people be drowned in the river. Not just simply quarantined but drowned and put to death. For being sick. It is the utmost example of throwaway culture. Our government hasn't gone down that extreme but it shackles us up like animals and treats us as inhuman subjects due to the contagious disease going around in today's world. St. Zoticus took these sick people into his home and ministered to their ailments. When he needed more money for his work, he offered the Emperor pearls and asked for the money in return. Later, the Emperor asked St. Zoticus for the promised pearls. That is when he presented the Emperor with the sick people he had ministered to as the promised pearls. The Emperor became furious that he had deceived himself into thinking the precious pearls were of a mere material nature and killed the holy man. We have been viewing people lately not as precious pearls to be treasured but as carriers of a contagious illness to be avoided. Let us remember the example of St. Zoticus who saw Christ in them and treated the sick as precious pearls to be treasured, tended to, taken care of, and adored. Let us not fear contagious diseases this year!