The decorations and gifts of Christmas are one of our connections to a Christian culture that has held Western civilization together for 2,000 years.
In
our culture the individual counts. This permits an individual person to put his
or her foot down, to take a stand on principle, to become a reformer and to
take on injustice.
This
empowerment of the individual is unique to Western civilization. It has made
the individual a citizen equal in rights to all other citizens, protected from
tyrannical government by the rule of law and free speech. These
achievements are the products of centuries of struggle, but they all flow from
the teaching that God so values the individual’s soul that he sent his son to
die so we might live. By so elevating the individual, Christianity gave him a
voice.
Formerly only those with
power had a voice. But in Western civilization people with integrity have a
voice. So do people with a sense of justice, of honor, of duty, of fair play.
Reformers can reform, investors can invest, and entrepreneurs can create
commercial enterprises, new products and new occupations.
The
result was a land of opportunity. The United States attracted immigrants who
shared our values and reflected them in their own lives. Our culture was
absorbed by a diverse people who became one.
In
recent decades we have lost sight of the historic achievement that empowered
the individual. The religious, legal and political roots of this great
achievement are no longer reverently taught in high schools, colleges and
universities or respected by our government. The voices that reach us through
the millennia and connect us to our culture are being silenced by “Identity
Politics,” “political correctness” and the war against “white culture.” Prayer
has been driven from schools and Christian religious symbols from public life. As Christian tradition fades as the
basis of behavior, barbarity will gather more strength and reign over us.
Christianity
is being gradually marginalized. Each year it becomes more difficult to find a
Christmas card that says “Merry Christmas” instead of “Seasons Greetings.” In
place of Christmas carols we get Hollywood Christmas songs. In some churches
Christianity is being transmuted into Christian Zionism and the worship of
Israel. Others fly LGBTQ and BLM flags. We are approaching a time when a
Christian Christmas cannot be celebrated as it is not inclusive in a diverse
society and therefore is politically incorrect if not a hate crime.
Constitutional
protections have been diminished by hegemonic political ambitions. Indefinite detention,
torture, and murder are now acknowledged practices of the United States
government. The historic achievement of due process has been rolled back.
Tyranny has re-emerged.
Diversity at home and
hegemony abroad are consuming values and are dismantling the culture and the
rule of law. There is plenty of room for cultural diversity in the world, but
not within a single country. A
Tower of Babel has no culture. A person cannot be a Christian one day, a
pagan the next and a Muslim the day after. A hodgepodge of cultural and
religious values provides no basis for law – except the raw power of the
pre-Christian past.
All Americans have a huge
stake in Christianity. Whether or not we are individually believers in Christ,
we are beneficiaries of the moral doctrine that has curbed power and protected
the weak.
Power is the horse ridden by evil. In the
20th century the horse was ridden hard, and the 21st century shows an increase
in pace. Millions of people were exterminated in the 20th century by wars that
served the ambitions of political leaders and ideological movements. Many were
murdered simply because they were members of a class or race that had been
demonized by intellectuals and political authority. In the beginning years of
the 21st century, hundreds of thousands of Muslims in seven countries have been
murdered and millions displaced in order to serve the neoconservatives’ agenda
of extending Washington and Israel’s hegemony.
Power that is secularized and
cut free of civilizing traditions is not limited by moral and religious
scruples. V.I. Lenin made this clear when he defined the meaning of his
dictatorship as “unlimited power, resting directly on force, not limited by
anything.” Washington’s drive for hegemony over US citizens and the rest of the
world is based entirely on the exercise of force and is resurrecting
unaccountable power.
Christianity’s emphasis on the worth of
the individual makes such power as Lenin claimed, and Washington now claims,
unthinkable. Be we religious or be we not, our celebration of Christ’s birthday
celebrates a religion that made us masters of our souls and of our political
life on Earth. Such a religion as this is worth holding on to even by
atheists.
As we enter into 2021, Western
civilization, the product of thousands of years of striving, is in decline.
Degeneracy is everywhere before our eyes. As the West sinks into tyranny and
degeneracy, will Western peoples defend their liberty and their souls, or will
they sink into the tyranny, which again has raised its ugly and all devouring
head?
The Best of Paul Craig Roberts
Paul
Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former
associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, has been reporting shocking cases
of prosecutorial abuse for two decades. A new edition of his book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, co-authored
with Lawrence Stratton, a documented account of how americans lost the
protection of law, has been released by Random House. Visit his website.
Copyright © Paul Craig Roberts
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2020/12/paul-craig-roberts/the-greatest-gift-for-all-3/
