Some thoughts on …….. ????

 

Living in the hinther lands of the country, I am somewhat insulated from the goings on in the big cities.  I see the stories on the riots, protests and other propaganda.  For the most part it is over there, and so be it.  Yet what happens over there has a trickle down effect on the rest of the country.  Kind of a monkey see …… monkey do. 

I grew up during Vietnam, so protests are nothing new.  I watched the marches, heard the chants and stood on the sidelines.  I watched protestors, trash public spaces and scribble messages on walls and windows.    Then there were the violent protests, clashes with police, tear gas and out rage.  Laws were being violated and yet there were no consequences for the people breaking the law.  The attitude was….. If I am protesting, I can break the law in the name of the protest. 

This lawlessness, pretty much has set the stage for the violent protests of today that lead to riots. 

Yet the violence of protests are not that new.  One can go back a couple of centuries and witness similar protests leading to violent riots. 

During the 1880’s Karl Marx was becoming popular and his style of economics was being embraced by some elite academicians around the world.  At the same time the labor movement for unions was boiling pretty good.  Working conditions around the world were pretty bad.  No longer was the agrarian society the dominant feature.  Society was shifting to a new way of life, industrialization and factories. 

More and more people were flocking to the cities to work and many would end up in the sweat shops.  A Tale Of Two Cities, probably best describes the horrible conditions people worked in. 

This gave fuel to the Marxists to denounce capitalism, it also gave rise to the trade guilds and unions to fight the capitalists.  The Marxists, got into the unions and agitated, soon there were all types of riots around the world. 

The elite Marxists had been meeting at various cities around the world and declared they would take to the home countries and introduce Communism to their home countries. 

There was tremendous labor strife during the late 1890’s to 1915 in the United States and other countries.  There were violent clashes between the military, police and labor organizers.  City streets would be jammed with labor sympathizers marching in protest of working conditions, sometimes resulting in violent clashes and often deaths.  There were armed conflicts at mines across the country. 

The communists were gaining a foot hold and the Communist Party had been formed and they were running candidates for various elected offices, including congress and president. 

Two things happened to keep the Untied States from becoming a communist country.  World War I broke out and the unions began to get some concessions and improved working conditions. 

After the war, lots of the unrest had calmed down and the communists did not have the hatred to build on like they had the previous decade. 

In Russia it was different.  Lenin had went to Russia with his minions and joined up with the Bolshevik's.  A non-aggression treaty was signed with Germany and the Marxist, Lenin continued his takeover of Russia imposing Communism.  It was a conflict of labor and peasants and the landed Tsars.  One of violent clashes, using the classes of society as a diving point to wage a revolution.  The parallels in Russia during the early 1900’s to the United States is astounding. 

So when I look at protests that turn to riots, I look where are the agitators.  They tend to stay in the background, yet they have a Marxist view on life.  The Communists are still alive and well, they are also growing. 

A Part of Life…… Accept it

 

As I sit here typing this post the snow is ending.  A blanket of white covers the ground.  Well welcomed moisture.  There are many who don’t like snow, they curse it and plain ol get mad.  It is one of those gifts from God to nourish the ground.  Being a Christian I accept that and thank God for His gift to me.  God also gave me gifts to deal with this bit of adversity, it just takes a while to understand that. 

Then there are lots of things that happen life that are even more unsettling.  Death causes so much grief but it happens.  God did not make us to be eternal.  He gave us but a few moments on earth.  So when that period ends I will go off to another phase in God’s creation.

Even the devil is a part of God’s earth.  The devil go hither and yon tempting mankind with all sorts of things.  Many succumb to these temptations.  People steal, brutalize and kill other people sometimes in massive numbers.  It has been happening for centuries.  It also presents one of the toughest questions for the God fearing person, “How does killing fit in God’s scheme?”

I can only speculate, for it is one of the mysteries of life but it happens.  God gives me tools to help deal with these tragedies and  expects to go on with life.  He also expects me to forgive the perpetrators.  That is another tough one for many, to forgive the hate of others that result in death to the people of God’s creation.

Yet it is a Biblical command to forgive others.  But to forget is another aspect, for that seldom happens. 

So when I hear about the acts of terrorism, I fully expect it.  It is just when, where and how bad will it be.  I pray for the victims and hope they will have the comfort of God’s grace.  For God gives peace like a river and his peace surpasses all understanding.  Like grace, one has but to accept it.

Mass killings are not unusual in history.  Ever since man picked up the club, others have been killed for the purpose of control and hate.   Gang warfare kills more people in one day then the bombing in Boston.  Look how many were killed by cars in a  day.  We are very adept at killing ourselves in various manners.

One of the things that bothers me is how history is taught in schools, or lack of being taught.  The mass killing of conflict are glossed over by the books of history, for the most part.  Children can not deal with that type of violence, is the excuse.

The romans killed millions of people as they conquered the world.  Then there is the lions and the  Christians.  Roman soldiers pillaged villages, killing the men and raping the women.  It is a story that still goes on in parts of the world.

Knowing how brutal man can be, prepares me for the inevitable.  It also helps to keep me alert to things around me.  I have seen some pretty nasty and ugly things during my tenure on this planet but life goes on.  Am I cold and indifferent, not really but I am realistic and pragmatic.

Why do some remain calm and others go off the end into collapse?

 

 

Nature or Marx….?

There is a time to reflect back and look at things from the past.  Ralph Waldo Emerson was considered a brilliant philosopher of his time, Mid 1800’s.  In the 60’s a lots of the hippies adopted him for their mantra.  Emerson wanted to live a quiet life in the woods.  His contemporary, Henry Thoreau was of like mind.  The hippies wanted to live in communes and share their toils being one happy family.  Don’t believe any of those communes lasted very long, for a variety of reasons.  But look at what Emerson had to say.

From this transfer of the world into the consciousness, this beholding of all things in the mind, follow easily his whole ethics. It is simpler to be self-dependent. The height, the deity of man is, to be self-sustained, to need no gift, no foreign force. Society is good when it does not violate me; but best when it is likest to solitude. Everything real is self-existent. Everything divine shares the self-existence of Deity. All that you call the world is the shadow of that substance which you are, the perpetual creation of the powers of thought, of those that are dependent and of those that are independent of your will. Do not cumber yourself with fruitless pains to mend and remedy remote effects; let the soul be erect, and all things will go well. You think me the child of my circumstances: I make my circumstance. Let any thought or motive of mine be different from that they are, the difference will transform my condition and economy. I -- this thought which is called I, -- is the mould into which the world is poured like melted wax. The mould is invisible, but the world betrays the shape of the mould. You call it the power of circumstance, but it is the power of me. Am I in harmony with myself? my position will seem to you just and commanding. Am I vicious and insane? my fortunes will seem to you obscure and descending. As I am, so shall I associate, and, so shall I act; Caesar's history will paint out Caesar. Jesus acted so, because he thought so. I do not wish to overlook or to gainsay any reality; I say, I make my circumstance: but if you ask me, Whence am I? I feel like other men my relation to that Fact which cannot be spoken, or defined, nor even thought, but which exists, and will exist.

 

To be self dependent, does not mean to be dependent of government yet this is how the socialists of the 60’s have corrupted their ideals.  What’s interesting is lots of these people accepted Marx’s teaching and wanted the ideal world he espoused.  Marx and Emerson are at other ends of the spectrum.  Emerson talks about being at one with nature.  This has a wide appeal to those who want to be natural, IE the hippies.  Today many of these people are some of the government bureaucrats and lawmakers wanting to tell people how to live.

 

The Transcendentalist adopts the whole connection of spiritual doctrine. He believes in miracle, in the perpetual openness of the human mind to new influx of light and power; he believes in inspiration, and in ecstasy. He wishes that the spiritual principle should be suffered to demonstrate itself to the end, in all possible applications to the state of man, without the admission of anything unspiritual; that is, anything positive, dogmatic, personal. Thus, the spiritual measure of inspiration is the depth of the thought, and never, who said it? And so he resists all attempts to palm other rules and measures on the spirit than its own.

 

Emerson states that one should resist imposing rules on others.  That one should be allowed to live within their own rules as given by the spirit.  Not many people walk this way.  So many have notions on how others should live, both right and left wing philosophies, and for to the government to impose their beliefs on others.  The biggest imposition of others onto others is morality.  The 20^th amendment is a good example of imposing ones views onto others.  Wasn’t very successful, in fact it created an era of lawlessness.  Oh this imposition came from the right, the holy temperance people.

You will see by this sketch that there is no such thing as a Transcendental "party;" that there is no pure Transcendentalist; that we know of none but prophets and heralds of such a philosophy; that all who by strong bias of nature have leaned to the spiritual side in doctrine, have stopped short of their goal. We have had many harbingers and forerunners; but of a purely spiritual life, history has afforded no example. I mean, we have yet no man who has leaned entirely on his character, and eaten angels' food; who, trusting to his sentiments, found life made of miracles; who, working for universal aims, found himself fed, he knew not how; clothed, sheltered, and weaponed, he knew not how, and yet it was done by his own hands. Only in the instinct of the lower animals, we find the suggestion of the methods of it, and something higher than our understanding. The squirrel hoards nuts, and the bee gathers honey, without knowing what they do, and they are thus provided for without selfishness or disgrace.

 

Emerson is fascinating in that he espouses just the opposite of how the left wants to live.  Yet it was the generation of the 60’s lefties that proclaimed Emerson as being the person to live by.

 

Society also has its duties in reference to this class, and must behold them with what charity it can. Possibly some benefit may yet accrue from them to the state. In our Mechanics' Fair, there must be not only bridges, ploughs, carpenters' planes, and baking troughs, but also some few finer instruments, -- raingauges, thermometers, and telescopes; and in society, besides farmers, sailors, and weavers, there must be a few persons of purer fire kept specially as gauges and meters of character; persons of a fine, detecting instinct, who betray the smallest accumulations of wit and feeling in the bystander. Perhaps too there might be room for the exciters and monitors; collectors of the heavenly spark with power to convey the electricity to others. Or, as the storm-tossed vessel at sea speaks the frigate or `line packet' to learn its longitude, so it may not be without its advantage that we should now and then encounter rare and gifted men, to compare the points of our spiritual compass, and verify our bearings from superior chronometers.

 

Emerson says be a participant in society, contribute.  He does not espouse about being a leech.  He truly expected people to work for their livelihood and there should be a variety of doors for people to enter into for a productive society.

The other thing to look at is his reference to a higher power and spirituality.  Something Marx wants to destroy.  For in Marx it is the Federal Government that is the higher power not man’s spirituality.  One of the first thing Marxist’s do is to ban churches.