http://www.eyeblast.tv/public/video.aspx?v=e4qG6UIr8z
Author: jetbrane
I am a Pastor of a small Church in Mid-Michigan who delights in my family, my congregation and my calling. I am postmillennial in my eschatology. Paedo-Calvinist Covenantal in my Christianity Reformed in my Soteriology Presuppositional in my apologetics Familialist in my family theology Agrarian in my regional community social order belief Christianity creates culture and so Christendom in my national social order belief Mythic-Poetic / Grammatical Historical in my Hermeneutic Pre-modern, Medieval, & Feudal before Enlightenment, modernity, & postmodern Reconstructionist / Theonomic in my Worldview One part paleo-conservative / one part micro Libertarian in my politics Systematic and Biblical theology need one another but Systematics has pride of place Some of my favorite authors, Augustine, Turretin, Calvin, Tolkien, Chesterton, Nock, Tozer, Dabney, Bavinck, Wodehouse, Rushdoony, Bahnsen, Schaeffer, C. Van Til, H. Van Til, G. H. Clark, C. Dawson, H. Berman, R. Nash, C. G. Singer, R. Kipling, G. North, J. Edwards, S. Foote, F. Hayek, O. Guiness, J. Witte, M. Rothbard, Clyde Wilson, Mencken, Lasch, Postman, Gatto, T. Boston, Thomas Brooks, Terry Brooks, C. Hodge, J. Calhoun, Llyod-Jones, T. Sowell, A. McClaren, M. Muggeridge, C. F. H. Henry, F. Swarz, M. Henry, G. Marten, P. Schaff, T. S. Elliott, K. Van Hoozer, K. Gentry, etc. My passion is to write in such a way that the Lord Christ might be pleased. It is my hope that people will be challenged to reconsider what are considered the givens of the current culture. Your biggest help to me dear reader will be to often remind me that God is Sovereign and that all that is, is because it pleases him. View all posts by jetbrane
“We have a lot of challenges” to face in order to give people “a common experience” of “what it means to be American.”
We need a “civilian national security force” that is “just as powerful” as the armed forces.
People who aren’t seriously concerned about these guys are seriously self-deceived.
Yes Joshua,
I keep trying to tell myself that I am over-reacting. I keep working on dialing back in my passion. I keep convincing myself that the system won’t let these clowns get away with all of this.
But I can never quite fully convince myself that this isn’t some serious shinola that we are about to face.
If we dial it down, we’re done. We may be done as it is, but we’ll never be able to look our sons and our sons’ sons in the eye if we secure [their] defeat by leaving our post.
Greg,
Speaking only for myself, if I don’t work on dialing down in what I am thinking and concluding the resultant passion will either make me go combustible or I will need to be put in a padded room. I cannot allow myself to operate as if the things that I think are almost certain to happen will indeed certainly happen.
The reason you can’t fully convince yourself Bret is there aren’t any good arguments left. The system you’re hoping might stop these clowns doesn’t exist anymore except as a memory.
What we imbibe in our education becomes our ideology for tomorrow:
“Hobbes calumniated the classics because they filled young men’s heads with ideas of liberty and excited them to rebellion against Leviathan. Suppose we should agree to study the oriental languages, especially the Arabic, instead of Greek and Latin. This would not please the ladies so well, but it would gratify Hobbes much better. According to many present appearances in the world, many useful lessons and deep maxims might be learned from Asiatic writers. There are great models for the imitation of the emperors in Britain and France.”
John Adams, quoted in Richard, “The Founders and the Classics.”
“Classical republicans feared the conspiracies not so much because tyranny deprived citizens of their liberty as because it robbed them of their virtue. As we have seen, the founders repeatedly contended that tyranny corrupted citizens by dehumanizing and degrading them. Perhaps more than any argument this assumption produced the desire for independence from Great Britain. If the cunning prime ministers of Britain could ever convince the American public to accept the smallest unconstitutional tax, Americans would eventually lose not only power, but the very will, to resist. Americans would then be no more than slaves, subject to the whims of distant masters. To stay within the British empire would be to witness the recreation of that horrifying degradation and depravity which Tacitus had so vividly described in imperial Rome. But to leave the empire and start anew would be to embrace the exciting possibility of creating a society so elevated and virtuous as to inspire future Plutarchs to immortalize the nation. The fear of witnessing another Roman empire was as essential to producing the revolution as the hope of creating another Roman republic. As Jefferson astutely noted in the Declaration of Independence, humans are not, but nature, rebels. Only genuine fear of the dire consequences of persisting in their current situation, joined with real hope in the possibility of achieving a better fate, can inspire people to disrupt their lives and undertake the arduous sacrifices and hazard the frightful dangers characteristic of revolutions.”
Richard, “The Founders and the Classics,” pp. 120-121
Joshua,
I fear we’ve already lost our virtue.
“The founders’ immersion in ancient history had a profound effect upon their style of thought. They developed from the classics a suspicious cast of mind. They learned from the Greeks and Romans to fear conspiracies against liberty. Steeped in a literature whose perpetual theme was the steady encroachment of tyranny upon liberty, the founders became virtually obsessed with spotting its approach, so that they might avoid the fate of their classical heroes. It has been said of the American Revolution that never was there a revolution with so little cause. Whatever his faults, George III was hardly a Caligula or Nero; however illegitimate, the moderate British taxes were hardly equivalent to the mass executions of the emperors. But since the founders believed that the central lesson of the classics was that every illegitimate power, however small, ended in slavery they were determined to resist such power. Even legitimate authority should be exercised sparingly, lest it grow into illegitimate powers. Young Thomas Jefferson copied into his commonplace book the warning of Tacitus: “The more corrupt the commonwealth the more numerous its laws.” In 1767 John Adams declared regarding the “spirit of liberty”: “Obsta Principiis [resist the beginnings (of tyranny)] is her motto and maxim, knowing her enemies are secret and cunning, making the earliest advances slowly, silently, and softly.””
Richard, “The Founders and the Classics,” pp. 118-119
I wonder how the many would even define virtue nowadays? I suspect it would be in reference to military service or patriotism, or perhaps to some personalized act of selfless giving.
O Rahm, O Rahm, Emmanuel
Please save our dying nation from hell
We’ve moaned under GW here
Until Obamessiah did appear
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
You’re chief of staff hurrah, we think it’s swell.
O come, Thou Rod of Barak and free
Our great land from Bush’s tyranny
From nine months of torment women save
And send the parasites into their grave
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel
Obama’s here with FOCA, all is well.
Look at Obama, come and cheer
Elections done we have a mandate here
Away with all the gloomy clouds of night
The repressive Constitution put to flight.
O Rahm! O Rahm! Emmanuel
What color will our uniforms be, pray tell?
O come, thou chief of staff and fill the breach,
Put an end to all religion and hate speech;
Make safe the way for all today,
Why shouldn’t you get married if you’re gay?
O Rahm! O Rahm! Emmanuel
Christians object, but they can go to hell.
O come, O come, Obama with might,
Advance the ideas of your mentor Reverend Wright,
Conscript our youth, give them a new brown shirt
To those who disagree you’ll make it hurt
O Rahm! O Rahm! Emmanuel
Paint Baraks face up on the liberty bell.
———————-
Bret comments — To the tune of “O Come O Come Emmanuel”
Pure Genius Mark.