This one will be a bit tough for those here (if any remain) who believe the non-aggression principle alone can stand for our liberty and against liberty’s enemies. After reading through this, if you still believe our libertarian ideas will be sufficient to win out, please provide some evidence (beyond the legalization of marijuana) or at least some coherent, rational argument.
Ephesians 6: 12 For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.
I have been thinking about this verse, wrestling with this verse, considering what it means in our current context. I have wondered, and have written, and have discussed a few times – on these pages, at comments at a couple of other sites, in conversations with friends and relatives. I ask: do you think these principalities and powers are working through something other than human agents?
Is that even possible that they would not be working through human agents? For example, is it just something in the air, something from another dimension just messing with our minds? Well, yes…and no:
Ephesians 2: 2 Wherein in time past ye walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air…
That’s the “yes” part.
…the spirit that now worketh in the children of disobedience: 3 Among whom also we all had our conversation in times past in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind; and were by nature the children of wrath, even as others.
That’s the “no” part.
In time past, we had our conversation with these children of disobedience – the children of wrath through whom the prince of the power of the air does its work. Were we merely hallucinating at the time, a nice acid trip, perhaps? No. With them, we fulfilled the lust of the flesh. There was active engagement, on this world stage.
Let’s start with some easy examples – well, easy for some of us, at least, those of us not cheering on those who are rioting in the streets. Is it possible that Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Lenin, and Marx were just good guys trying to implement a good idea, but things just didn’t work out so well? Or was there something more, perhaps the handiwork of this prince of the power of the air?
Paul Kengor, a professor at Grove City College, has just published a book: The Devil and Karl Marx. From the description:
Not only did the horrific results of Marxism follow directly from Marx’s twisted ideas, but the man himself penned some downright devilish things. Well before Karl Marx was writing about the hell of communism, he was writing about hell. “Thus Heaven I’ve forfeited, I know it full well,” he wrote in a poem in 1837, a decade before his Manifesto. “My soul, once true to God, is chosen for Hell.”
The book is reviewed here by Walter Williams. Williams notes some of the many prominent organization that laud the glory of Marxian socialism: the NAACP, the National Council of La Raza, Green for All, the Sierra Club and the Children’s Defense Fund. He adds that Jews might want to consider Marx’s views about Jews, and that Black Lives Matters leaders might want to look into Marx’s views of black lives.
There is a video interview with Dr. Kengor. Through it, I learned of Marx’s poem, Oulanem, A Tragedy. I did a little searching: lo and behold, just like on every topic known to man, Murray Rothbard has written about this:
In the course of this drama his hero, Oulanem, delivers a remarkable soliloquy, pouring out sustained invective, a hatred of the world and of mankind, a hatred of creation and a threat and vision of total world destruction.
A few lines from the poem will help illustrate:
… I shall howl gigantic curses on mankind:
Ha! Eternity! She is an eternal grief …
Ourselves being clockwork, blindly mechanical,
Made to be the foul-calendars of Time and Space,
Having no purpose save to happen, to be ruined,
So that there shall be something to ruin …
If there is a something which devours,
I'll leap within it, though I bring the world to ruins-
The world which bulks between me and the Abyss
I will smash to pieces with my enduring curses.
I'll throw my arms around its harsh reality:
Embracing me, the world will dumbly pass away,
And then sink down to utter nothingness,
Perished, with no existence — that would be really living!
Rothbard adds a few demonic lines from other of Marx’s works:
Then I will be able to walk triumphantly,
Like a god, through the ruins of their kingdom.
Every word of mine is fire and action.
My breast is equal to that of the Creator.
And:
See this sword?
the prince of darkness
Sold it to me.
With Satan I have struck my deal,
He chalks the signs, beats time for me
I play the death march fast and free.
This doesn’t sound like a good guy with a bad idea or a good guy with a good idea but just implemented poorly, does it?
When leaders of Black Lives Matters publicly proclaim their support of Marx and communism, it is this that they are praising. When supporters of the BLM movement advance the cause – whether by rioting on the streets or placing signs on their lovely suburban lawns – they are, knowingly or not, supporting the work of Satan. In any case, knowingly or unknowingly, they have no excuse:
Romans 1: 18 For the wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness; 19 Because that which may be known of God is manifest in them; for God hath shewed it unto them. 20 For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:
When George Bush and Barack Obama destroyed the lives of millions in the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia, is it fair to ask on whose behalf are they working? When Madelaine Albright says, without any remorse, that the loss of 500,000 Iraqi children was worth it, or when Hillary Clinton gloats about “we came, we saw, he died” about Kaddafi getting sodomized with a knife – should we consider that they are just overcome with the shortcomings and failings of your neighbor or brother-in-law or you – in other words, we are all fallen?
I know, as Solzhenitsyn writes, the line dividing good from evil runs through each one of us. But he never said the division is in the same proportion in each one of us.
When European leaders celebrate the opening of the new Gotthard tunnel with a ceremony fit for demons, do you think it is just a racier version of Cirque du Soleil? When Fauci purposely destroys the lives of millions, and almost all world leaders are on the same path – what are we to think? New vaccines to be forced upon billions with God-only-knows what side effects, as if humans have no defense against a flu?
When Christian leaders voluntarily close churches for months – including Holy Week – is this God’s will in action? Or when priests compare George Floyd to Jesus Christ, is it perhaps just a minor doctrinal difference, understandable given the difficulties in Scriptural interpretation?
When gathering for Church is illegal, but burning down buildings and shooting police quietly sitting in their vehicle is lauded; when the only black lives that matter are the handful shot by police, but not the thousands of black lives shot by other black lives or the hundreds of thousands of black lives aborted by their black mothers…oh, enough already.
Those whom we count on to lead in this battle, the church leaders, are failing. Antonio Gramsci knew that even these would have to be co-opted in the war to transform the culture, as summarized here:
Gramsci identifies two groups of these intellectuals: organic intellectuals, coming from the working class, and traditional intellectuals—the clergy, philosophers, academicians. This latter group presents a false air of continuity from their predecessors.
Oh, but they are clergy, priests, pastors – men of God! Who am I to say that they are following an evil path? Well, let’s try words from a higher authority:
Matthew7: 21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? 23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.
How will we know? One clue, offered by Jesus earlier in the same chapter:
15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves. 16 Ye shall know them by their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles? 17 Even so every good tree bringeth forth good fruit; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth evil fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can a corrupt tree bring forth good fruit. 19 Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit is hewn down, and cast into the fire. 20 Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them.
We know them; we see their fruits.
Conclusion
The Apostle Paul writes:
2 Corinthians 11: 12 And I will keep on doing what I am doing in order to cut the ground from under those who want an opportunity to be considered equal with us in the things they boast about. 13 For such people are false apostles, deceitful workers, masquerading as apostles of Christ. 14 And no wonder, for Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. 15 It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness. Their end will be what their actions deserve.
Satan’s servants – both inside and outside of the church – are human actors. They will not be convinced by the logic and purity of the non-aggression principle. If all it took in this world was for reason to govern, libertarianism would be the accepted political regime globally.
It is not, and I have no better explanation as to why than that presented here. We are governed not by good people with bad ideas; we are governed by servants of Satan. As Jesus told us regarding demons of this sort: “This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting.”
If you expect that I will have better advice than that which Jesus Christ offers, well, I am sorry to disappoint you.
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