It seems to be little more than
casual news when riots break out in Athens, Paris, London, or some other
socialist haven. Greeks riot over austerity; we huff. Francs mob over
retirement age; we chuckle. Most recently, London students riot over the threat
of higher tuition; we snore. We snore right through the glass breaking and all.
But we really should listen up, for there’s a deep biblical lesson in all this.
It seems commonplace to many, I
guess, that Europe is a Continent of adolescent children who throw things and
break stuff, writhing in tantrum, when they don’t get their way. They have a
common phrase over there: “Crazy Americans.” We could reciprocate, but choose
to ignore.
But few have seemed to put two
and two together. All the news reports surrounding such riots over minor economic
matters only reveal the obvious: socialism itself is by definition
mob rule. It is the most powerful organized and collected interests in society
leveraging government force to sate their lusts. To do so they extract wealth
from other members of society, divvy the loot among themselves, and stuff their
gullets.
Socialism is the political
embodiment of plunder. It is the denial of the rule of law, private property,
individual liberty, and therefore of Christianity. Worse yet, however, it is
often the denial of the rule of law, property, and Christianity in the
name of the rule of law, property, and Christianity.
This system of
government-backed piracy unleashes at least two important aspects: the lust of
the mob, and the police-power of the mob.
The lust of the mob manifests
the depravity of man: rebellion against maturity, responsibility, and honesty.
The curse of the fall—the thorns and sweat—are, consciously or not, assumed to
be overcome not through godly ethics, but through political policy. That is,
through man’s legislative fiat, not God’s—man’s law-order, not God’s. This is
one more attempt by fallen man at salvation by law. By passing laws limiting
work hours, price controls, minimum wage rates, etc., the mob proclaims itself
freer of the need to work, build, plan, save, sacrifice, etc. It decrees itself,
by fiat, entitled to greater income, more leisure, greater power. This is
fallen man’s futile proclamation that he is free, and free indeed. But it
hides the fact that this alleged freedom must be imposed on others by
force of government. It is not “free,” but “free at gunpoint.”
Who shall pay?
But eventually, someone has to
pay the bills. So the rich get soaked, or the whole of society gets soaked
through taxation, or the future generations get soaked as inflation robs them
of the value of their money and savings, or a all of the above. Without
incentives, people quit trying to achieve. They quit producing as much as
they would in a free market; then general productivity declines; then national
living standards decline; then the State prints and borrows to maintain its
promises; then the debts start to get called. Someone has to pay those bills.
You can’t just legislate them away indefinitely.
Eventually, someone, somewhere,
must sacrifice, work hard, and produce. Eventually, those unnecessarily
receiving an unnecessarily generous dole must take some cuts.
Today, such cuts are called,
“austerity.” But austerity means backlash from the lustfully entitled mob. The
conversation goes like this:
“We need cuts.”
“Yes we do.”
“Who will take the cuts?”
“Not me. You take the
cut.”
“No, not me. You
take the cut.”
Someone has to decide where and
when cuts will come. But when suggestions are announced, people revolt.
When they are pushed, the police-power of the mob comes into play. By “police
power” here I do not mean the state’s official police. I simply mean the mob’s
own power, mob violence. The mob riots, burns, shatters, breaks, murders. The
message: “Not me. You take the cut.”
Let us review this scenario in
the a select few of such events:
Not too long ago, the Greek
national debt threatened to sink the entire Eurozone currency, and this
endangered the good will of the whole European Union (a socialist
political organization self-consciously and officially symbolized by a divine rapist, Zeus, who in mythology raped “Europa,”
the namesake of today’s victim). Massive debts burdened by state
employees’ unions, pensions, and other entitlements, was simply unsustainable
(a problem intensely real in America now, too, just not
talked about much).
Austerity was announced. People
would have to cut back. The proposal was for a mere cut of 7 percent for
public sector employees’ bonus pay, cuts in extra bonuses called
“holiday” bonuses, a few percentage-point tax increases here and there, and a
freeze on automatic increases for state pensions. These cuts were planned
to last only two years. It was a terrible sacrifice!—temporary cuts of no more
than seven percent, most no more than two, and that only in marginal pay of
bonuses. The main portion of salaries and pensions were untouched.
In response to this modest
proposal, Greece, the alleged cradle of western civilization and philosophy,
exploded. A Greek mob of unionists rioted, tossed Molotov cocktails, burned
down a bank, and killed three people including a pregnant lady.
Not much was different in
France, however, although fickle French socialism moves its radicals to erupt
over matters much less austere. Two main groups have rioted in 2010: labor
unions and students. Labors unions went on strike and rioted over government
mandated increases in retirement age. French students riot because, well,
they’re French students.
The French simply want their
socialism. Remember, in 2005, they voted against a European Constitution
because it was not Marxist enough in favor of French entitlement.
But the bills, like all
socialist bills, come due. Someone had to pay more, or someone had to take a
cut. In the absence of anyone more to milk, modest cuts are proposed.
In this case, the cuts took the
modest and common form of raising the retirement age. French president Nicholas
Sarkozy, with nerves of steel, signed into law the brazen step of raising the
minimum age requirement for government-sponsored retirement by a ghastly two
years. Poor hapless French workers could no longer eat cake at 60, they must
wait until 62.
Imagine these oppressed workers
toiling in such a slavish environment that mandates they work a draining 35
hours per week. Under such unremitting toil, these poor peasants receive on
average only 40 paid vacation days per year. They now
have to bear the added opprobrium of enduring their burden an extra two years.
Two more years before going from a government-funded workers’ paradise to a
government-funded retirees’ paradise. Salt in the wound!
Strikes and even riots broke out all over France, especially
with vandalism in the wealthy town of Lyon, and suburbs of Paris.
The Greeks have it
even rougher. They get only 37 paid days a year.
British austerity beats both.
The UK mandates for its poor huddled masses only 36 paid holidays.
In the teeth of such bestial
abandon of capitalist exploitation, poor Brit students did as any sane and
self-respecting individual would: they stood up against outrageous reform
measures. Parliament announced a plan to cut public debt by $128 billion,
targeting publicly-funded higher education. The plan was to raise student fees
at public universities to the equivalent of an exorbitant $14,000 per
year—still less than the average ride at an American state university (imagine
going to Oxford or Cambridge for the price of, say, in-state tuition at West
Virginia University).
The thought of paying one’s own
way to college was too much to bear. British students rioted violently,
bashing the conservative party headquarters in London, breaking glass, injuring
people.
“Not me. You take the
cut.”
A note from the
home front
In a letter to Supreme Court
Justice Thomas Johnson, dated June 12, 1823, Thomas Jefferson praised the
American system of representation, Constitution law and amendment: “[I]t has
been the peculiar wisdom and felicity of our constitution, to have provided
this peaceable appeal, where that of other nations [of Europe] is at once to
force.”
Despite a few nuances in the
style and justification of force applied, not much has changed. We must also
acknowledge that we, too, have a legacy of resistance, protest, and in some
cases riots in our own country, despite Jefferson’s note. And yes, while the
majority of our modern riots have been over racial and police issues (or, in
some cases, in celebration of a home-team championship), don’t deceive yourself
into thinking we don’t have unions or other groups that would strike over even
minor austerity measures, as teachers’ unions did in Milwaukee in 2011.
But such strikes and minor
riots tend to highlight the same underlying point: they are mostly, if not
exclusively, from groups based on leftist ideologies, i.e., various forms of
socialism.
As I wrote in God versus
Socialism:
Socialism is the belief . . .
that stealing is acceptable as long as another man or group of men says so.
Socialism believes in theft by majority vote, or theft by a majority of
representatives’ votes in Congress. Socialism is the belief that it’s OK to
steal from your neighbor if you do it by means of the government’s gun.
Socialism places man, and ultimately the State, in the place of God. Man
becomes owned by other men, instead of by his Maker. Socialism is an entirely
humanistic, God-denying, God-usurping belief. (p. 9)
We see merely the logical
extension of this plundering group of men in these European and socialistic
mobs. When they cannot sate their lust through Congress, Parliament, the State,
they bypass law and go straight to the source—the lusts and power of the
mob. This is socialism incarnate. It is unredeemed and satanic.
The Christian has so much more
to offer. The vestiges of Christian federalism still restrain our system, even
if Courts and lawmakers have long-since abandoned the ideal; and even if
socialistic interests—pensioners, private-public corporate deals, labor unions,
social security, agricultural subsidies, the military industrial complex, and
the pharmaceutical-medical-insurance-industrial complex—have torn at the seams
of the system for decades. We still have a slim view of the path back to peace
and freedom, should we have the will and integrity to take it.
While many people are, today,
placing far too much hope in the incoming president, whose policies will in
many ways be just as socialistic, if not more so, than the current one’s, there
is still tremendous Christian capital in the red counties of America. There is
still hope for rule of law, private property, and Christianity in this nation.
It will take a sweeping, organized move of he pulpits, initiated by a revival,
but it is there. Pulpits and Christians must bend toward God, and
anticipate a type of austerity which we can only accept with the help of
the Holy Spirit. We will need to be ready to received criticism and
correction leading to sacrifice.
We pray for a better day when
God in His Providence will give us even better opportunity, and must we plan
and prepare for that day to come. Christian political “activists” avoid violent
mob action as it is a direct sell-out to socialism and a denial of
Christianity.
It is time to be truly crazy
Americans.
