Author: askanceeyeminiblog

What Do You Call It?

What Do You Call It?

What do you call a political system in which one person can 1) declare an emergency, 2) take exclusive control of any and all actions and activities that may conceivably affect or be affected by said emergency, 3) suspend all laws otherwise in place that touch on said emergency, 4) control the lives, movement, livelihood, and association of everyone under his jurisdiction, 5) ignore and threaten to punish any citizen, other duly elected official or political jurisdiction that deviates from his edicts, and 6) renew his self-ordained authority at his will?

In high school civics, I learned to call such a political system a dictatorship.  In college, teachers got fancy and called it the “Führer principle,” in honor of its most despised practitioner.  It was, supposedly, so despicable a political system that we were justified in sacrificing thousands of lives to stop it in the 1940’s.

But it’s back.  And we’ve adopted it as our own modus operandi.  The Washington Post claims President Trump follows this principle.  But he was obviously a weak proponent – he allowed, at least somewhat, for the principle of federalism (to Dr. Fauci”s consternation.)  So, Governors to the rescue!  Several governors made a name for themselves showing how such constraints are only words on paper.

I was also taught that, as an American, I live under law, not whim.  First, under the law given by God – the right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.  These rights were further enumerated by a Bill of Rights, and a constitution that guaranteed political and legal procedures would sustain them.  These rights would be safeguarded by a legal system comprised of two different levels of courts, so if the state level wouldn’t support those rights, the federal would.

Obviously, someplace between 1776 and 2020, those rights were lost.  Oh, the form is still there, but the content has evaporated into the rarefied air of Marxist political theory.  The form of the court system is now used to rubber-stamp [explain and justify] the actions of the Fuhrer.

I do not deny the Fuhrer principle operates under more constraint here than many other places.  But it was also evident that the only real restraint on the governor’s actions was what little sense of decency he had left.  But a soft-spoken, compassionate-sounding tyrant is still a ruler that should not be.

A Virus With a Worldview?

A Virus With a Worldview?

Studies show “there was less evidence of social distancing in counties that voted for Trump….. Republicans were more skeptical about the effectiveness of social distancing than Democrats and have been traveling more outside their homes.    These are real belief differences that should have us really concerned.”

Why should we be concerned about that?  Is the author afraid the skepticism about social distancing would lead to an increase in death rates?

The article also says:  “Democrats are far more likely to live in counties where the virus has ravaged the community, while Republicans are more likely to live in counties that have been relatively unscathed by the illness, though they are paying an economic price.”

So let’s see.  The virus was less deadly in areas and among groups that ignored social distancing orders, but we’re supposed to be concerned that people take the orders “with a grain of salt?”  I don’t think so!

Ideology and belief systems matter – both regarding the quality of life and sometimes life itself.

For the fact-checkers, the source for my observation is:  https://frontier.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-deadliest-where-democrats-live-121518089.html.  The story originally appeared in and was copyrighted by the New York Times.  (The unfortunate use of Republican and Democrat nomenclature was theirs.)

Please Explain

Please Explain

Could someone explain to me how destroying the lives and livelihood of a whole class of people qualifies as love?  Now add the fact this is done to benefit a handful of people – what changes so that the destruction of George, Dick, and Harry to benefit Tom is now ok?  Yes, I find it impossible to wrap my head around this too.  But I present to you our modern world.

When the Bible tells us to love everyone and not show partiality, I thought it meant what it said.  Must have been wrong – I’ve heard few preachers denouncing the destruction of the entrepreneurial middle class.

Only Christians Can

The Democrats can’t do it!  Their premises are statist to the core.

The Republicans can’t do it!  They are ‘go slow’ statists, but still statists.

The Libertarians can’t do it!  Their basic premises are ‘scientific,’ and ‘science’ is calling for this.

Only Christians have a platform to stand on to denounce the power grab of politicians during the pandemic.

A long time ago, God told mankind what to do about pandemics – if a person has the illness, they must be quarantined until they are healed.  Today’s politicians said they could do better – everyone must isolate themselves from others.  But Christians were silent.

Reopening – an euphemism for allowing some privileges to the plebs – has now started.  But politicians are claiming a controlling interest in churches and their activities.  .  Early on, Mayor Blasio said churches not following his edicts would be “permanently” closed; Germany went so far as to mandate no singing of hymns when congregations gather; many states will limit the number of attendees allowed in a service.  This shouldn’t be a surprise since, as Gov. Cuomo put it, he, not God, saved the people from their ills and follies.  Few raised an eyebrow, since we long ago ceded to the government the proposition that science and politics trumps God every time.  But Christians are still silent.

Of course, politicians gave the church an out: shutting down human interaction was simply showing love.  And Christians swallowed it – not noticing the ‘love’ was based on force (not the desire to further another’s wellbeing) and this ‘love’ hurt and damaged people on a wholesale scale.  Christians didn’t bother to correct the misuse of their own theology.

In the Bible, quarantine is the separation of a contagious, verifiably ill person from society until he is well again.  In Biblical terms, stripping non-ill people of their livelihood, of social interaction, of their ability to meet together to worship God is not called quarantine, it is called, as it truly is, oppression and tyranny.

God calls for justice in our interactions; justice is the epitome of love between people.  Justice is treating others according to God’s laws, not a governor’s rantings.

“The context has collapsed. We don’t know what’s important and what’s not… nor what’s true… nor what’s good. And who can say? . . . In a nation of 250 million Christians, Caesar still has the highest approval rating.”   Bill Bonner, (Bill Bonner’s Diary, 4/17/20)