The Annoyed Man wrote:My general observation is this: Everything is in the process of becoming polarized. More and more people are turning to established religion or atheism (which is of course a religion of sorts itself), but not remaining in the amorphous middle. Culture is polarizing, as people shift away from traditional morality, the classics, reading, philosophical thought and the exercises of the mind, toward instant gratification, living vicariously through video games and reality shows, and FaceBook memes. Politics is polarizing more and more into statist leftism or statist conservatism, with correspondingly fewer people in the middle. The middle way is a disappearing thing.VMI77 wrote:An astute observation, as the west continues to devolve into neo-fuedalism.mamabearCali wrote:As I recall it used to be a criminal offense with lethal consequences for a peasant (a serf) to have weaponry. Then after years of fighting for it the citizenry did away with the draconian laws. Now Brits have voluntarily turned themselves back into serfs......that is just sad.
The devolution into neo-fuedalism is part of that, but it has its opposite too, and that is libertarian anarchism. The libertarian utopia that Ayn Rand describes toward the end of Atlas Shrugged is basically anarchic. There are no laws there, and anyone is free to choose their means of self-expression.
Like most utopias, it cannot work either because the utopian idea must presume that its members have rights—human rights—and that for rights to have meaning, they must apply to all. If they do not apply to all, then they are dispensations, not rights. The natural extension of this is that everyone has rights—including criminals. The natural extension of that is a body of law, and then the means to enforce it, and then the means to punish its transgressors, etc., etc., etc.
Personally, the one thing I think is often left out of this kind of rumination is the presence and will of an Almighty God. Polarization of our society in all of its components is a runaway train. It cannot be stopped......and there IS an end of the line somewhere down that track. When that train his the end of that line, full speed ahead toward obvlivion, it is going to be catastrophic.
My advice, which people can choose to leave or take.....no skin off my nose either way.....is to prepare yourself and your family in every way—especially including spiritually, but in every other way too—for what is to come. I do not know and cannot predict what event will trigger the ultimate cataclysm, but it is coming. My Bible predicts it. The social trends predict it. The wars and rumors of wars predict it. The rise of the oligarchy and the gradual losses of the individual's personal freedoms predict it. And, human nature being what it is, people will reach a point when they've had enough and simply won't take any more of it.....and that predicts it. The world is changing, and not for the better.
Neo-feudalism is only part of it.....a step along the path to something much bigger and much worse. I sincerely hope that I do not live long enough to see it, but I am nearly certain that my son will see it. Praise God for my son's salvation, and that of his family.
That is ultimately the best post I've read in a long time. Somewhat frightening in a way, but even more uplifting in the ways that really count.
Thank you, Sir.
jd