Categories, they are like crack for the left brained; they can’t get enough of them, can’t build barriers between them that are high enough, or thick enough. If the government made categories illegal, the left-brained would pawn their grandmother’s TV sets to purchase a few high quality categories in the seedy back alleys of cities and towns the world over. Every subtle distinction in external form, no matter the subject, is excuse enough for the left brained to fashion a new category and to drive each of them asunder in the mind.
For instance, one might say, “Fascism and socialism have nothing to do with each other!” To them, it matters not that our most notorious fascists called themselves socialists, differing from the other socialists in little more than a thin veneer of nationalism;[1] they are distinct categories and anyone who says otherwise lacks the political finesse to tell the difference.
We fuzzy minded right brained types, however, see the world a little differently. We are not insensible to distinction. Our artist souls actually relish contrast as much as similitude; it is an important part of any tableau, mental or otherwise. We celebrate the irony of a Poodle playing poker with a Pekinese, high art indeed, but we do not easily forget what makes them both dogs.
Just so, I am not interested in what I regard as minor administrative distinctions between Marxism, Fascism, Socialism and Communism, etc, even if I can tell you what they are and how they have played out in history; I am interested in the singular drive they share to create in carefully designed steps a powerful central government that dictates, in an ever increasing amount, the private citizen’s life, confiscating personal wealth for the higher purposes of the few, who, by the way, initially use it to buy the support of the shortsighted with promises of a free lunch. There is free cheese in a mousetrap.
I am interested in the atheistic roots that anchor each of these systems, whether or not their every supporter is actually an atheist. I am interested in the unifying (and unbiblical) vision of humanity that they share, their firm conviction that the true source of human evil is in failed institutions, a belief that if we can only get our government right, get our laws right, then utopia is waiting around the corner. I am interested in their single conviction that if we only turn the bulk of the decision making over to a handful of carefully chosen elite, things will go so much better for the rest of us.
I am interested in the impulse of those within these systems to focus not on basic principles, (Life, Liberty & Property, Freedom of speech, Press, Religion, Association & Self protection, etc) but on outcomes, what those handful of elite thinkers imagine will get them the results they want… any pretense to honesty and principle and beliefs in innate virtues being nothing more than manipulative tools valid only in the moment to turn the strength of the many against those who resist the will of the governing.
The power of disassociation is both immense and insidious when the category from which one wishes to distinguish himself or herself is deemed unflattering. It’s not good to be in the same political stream as Hitler, Stalin or Mao. “No, no, no! When we apply the force of government to make everyone fit into our glorious vision of the collective, stripping away rights of parenting, privacy, protection & property, it’s because it’s good for people. We’re the good guys.”
I certainly do not propose that I above all others can solve any nation’s woes, nor do I claim to have the perfect sense of balance between anarchy and government oppression. I do, however, wish to encourage people to pay attention to the nature and flow of things.
- Everything comes from and is moving somewhere. Every law is a platform for more laws, a precedent for someone’s plan.
- Good intentions and well-meaning government interference in the lives of others does not protect one’s plans from the disastrous consequences that attend the natural slide toward oppression—a slide that is usually advanced one good idea at a time by people who claim to want the best for everyone.
- People are not chess pieces to be moved about willy nilly; our souls can be disciplined, but we cannot be fundamentally altered. People will always be self-motivated and any system that builds itself on selfless individual support of the good the collective will fail miserably and grow more vicious as failure looms closer.
- People are not basically good, especially not those who thrust themselves forward as the elite. Our corruption lies within and not merely in a failed environment. Environments do fail us, but only as collective expressions of corrupted individuals.
- Ultimately, we need repentance and the writing of divine law upon our hearts. The preaching of biblical standards and of the gospel operates on appeal and influence not governmental force. Though, every individual and society has the right to protect itself from the wicked.
- Any vision of the world that forsakes basic principles in the panic of needing to achieve special results is misguided from the start, no matter how noble those goals appear.
When you vote to sacrifice the freedoms of another and to confiscate other people’s money in the hopes of purchasing a little more health, a little more safety, a little bigger security net, for yourself or someone else, you are not the good guy and you ARE in the same political stream as Hitler and Stalin and Mao.
