Category: Culture

“It was not too many years ago that when a man misbehaved badly his neighbors and co-workers were able to discern it and exert pressure for reform. It did not always work, but it kept many of us better than we might have been. This sort of social pressure is far removed from the police state. It is, rather, the only alternative to a police state.”

Dr. Clyde Wilson
From Union to Empire — pg. 235-236

This quote hit me right between the eyes as I was reading it. You see recently one of my family members was privy to a highly placed community member hitting (I would almost say “beating”) his wife. The witnessing of it was quite accidental and completely unintentional. My family member came to me asking what do to. I was speechless. I didn’t have an answer. In Wilson’s terms I did discern it but I had and have no ability to exert pressure for reform. Having spoken to this person before about a different touchy matter, I’m confident that if I spoke to the person in question again I would be blown off just as I was on the previous matter.

I hurt for the wife. No woman should be subjected to that kind of abuse.

“(In regards to AIDS) the priorities of the public health establishment, who after all are bureaucrats as well as ‘scientists,’ would appear to be (1) to protect the ‘community’ of deviants from public outrage and discrimination; (2) to pursue heroic curative and preventive measures to save the deviant ‘community’; and (3) to protect the decent public, insofar as it does not conflict with Priority 1….

We are all sinners and fall short of perfection, and we are enjoined to stand ready to extend our hand to our repentant fellow creatures. But I do not detect very much repentance, as opposed to regret and resentment, among the representatives of the ‘lifestyle’ that has put us all in danger. In fact in heeding the admonition not to stigmatize (this ‘lifestyle’), we are all actually throwing up obstacles to repentance.”

Dr. Clyde Wilson
From Union To Empire — pp. 234-235

1.) The disease of AIDS and the ‘lifestyle’ that is associated with it has become a politically protected disease and ‘lifestyle.’ This in turn has made it a culturally protected disease and ‘lifestyle.’ Culturally, it is considered bad form to stigmatize perverted behavior. Indeed, one who does attempt to put a stigma upon perversion is more often than not the person who becomes stigmatized by our culture.

2.) The pursuit of the legitimacy for homosexual marriage is really just a cover for the pursuit of the legitimacy of all homosexuality. Homosexuals aren’t really interested in marriage. The whole idea of monogamy is completely counter intuitive to the desire for the complete removal of all sexual norms that so many in the pervert community desire. What Homosexual marriage achieves is the not the normalizing of monogamous homosexuality but rather the normalizing of homosexuality in all its expressions. When homosexuals get the right to marriage then just as unfaithfulness is no big deal for heterosexual marriages so unfaithfulness will be no big deal for homosexual marriages. Homosexuality, in all of its multifaceted expression of perversion will be normalized with the institutionalizing of homosexual marriage.

3.) The necessity to decry the perversion that is homosexuality does not come from a sense of inherent righteousness or superiority from those who decry it but rather from a realization that certain taboos in cultures must be maintained lest individuals in the culture be exposed to things that would not otherwise be exposed to were the taboos to remain strong. Since Wilson is correct in noting that, “we are all sinners,” it must be the case that if public standards of decency are to obtain then it must be sinners, seeking to uphold the standards of Scripture, who are the ones who raise the banner of decency in the face of those who would redefine decency.

4.) We must hold out Christ as the only hope for those who have been wounded by perversion. Christ came to rescue all types of sinners from all types of sin and we must be forward not only in proclaiming God’s hatred of perversion but also His willingness to forgive who sue for peace.

5.) We do perverts no favors by trying to making peace between their perversion and the Christian faith. In many quarters of the Church today there is a mad rush to prove how acceptable the Church can be towards unrepentant perverts. We accept the sinners at the cost of rejecting the Savior. It used to be the case that we would only accept changed sinners but now it is the case that we will only accept a changed Savior. Jesus must change to get over His previous hang up against unrepentant perverts, and if He won’t … well, we can always find a different chap, who is more amenable to these perversions, to hang the “Jesus” name tag on. The new chap wearing the “Jesus” name tag will have the good sense to accept perverts and reject those who reject perverts.

“In fact official American belief regards the Declaration of Independence as the beginning of an endless process of active movement toward an ever more egalitarian and universalist society. This is because of the intervention between us and the Founding Fathers of that sea-change in the thinking of men that is summed up in the term ‘the French Revolution.”

Dr. Clyde N. Wilson
From Union To Empire

Wilson’s thesis is that American Nationalism has undergone a series of transmutations, the degree of which, has left the successive American Nationalism incomprehensible to the previous American Nationalism. Wilson suggests that the taking of the Declaration of Independence as a document that insures a endless process of active movement toward an ever more egalitarian and universalist society, is the consequence of the second American Nationalism, as crafted by the French Revolution and birthed in America through the war of Northern Aggression. Wilson seems to suggest that the American commitment to the idea that all men are created equal with certain inalienable rights was a far different stripe from the French Revolution egalitarianism that came to be eventually accepted in the American Nationalism that was successive to the form of Nationalism of the Founding Fathers. It would seem that the difference between these two competing notions of equality is the difference between the older belief that men are equal in respect to the application of law and the newer belief that men should be equal in opportunity and outcome.

Wilson goes on to note that there was another American Nationalism that was propelled during the Progressive era and consolidated during the after WW II.

“During and after WWII American society for the third time made a perilous leap into the cauldron of history, boiling down its existing consensus in the optimistic prospect of molding itself into a newer and more daring form. The Civil Rights revolution and a revolutionary alteration of the immigration laws were simultaneously undertaken in the 1960’s. It was as if the Melting pot, having proven itself able to boil down all of Europe, was now to test its capacity to do the same for the whole world.”

The question that Wilson raises is whether or not such a stripped down American Nationalism that is posited only upon unitarian notions of egalitarianism provides enough ingredients in order to make a cultural glue by which a culture may find cohesion.

In a culture where there exist no communitarian mystic chords of memory that includes either a shared ethnicity, a shared literature, a shared music, a shared religion, a shared history, or a shared language there exists nothing that can bind a people together except a shared prosperity. The question that begs being asked is whether or not a nation can stay together when national prosperity turns to national adversity except by brute force as used by the State.

Tuesday night US Congresssmen Joe Wilson broke the etiquette rules of political decorum by shouting out “You Lie, You Lie” during a Yankee President’s speech. The last time a South Carolinian Congressman broke Washingtonian decorum in such an arresting fashion for the sin of Yankee lying US Congressman Preston Smith Brooks beat the snot out of a Yankee Senator named Charles Sumner using a walking cane to administer the lashing. Given the firestorm that Wilson’s shout out has created one would have thought that Wilson had cane lashed Obama as opposed to merely boisterously correcting the Yankee President’s lies.

Congressman Brooks lived in a culture of honor that demanded retribution against Sumner’s lies against a family member serving in the US Senate. Having long jettisoned a culture of honor it may be that shouting out “You Lie, You Lie” is the closest thing a South Carolinian today can get to administering a cane lashing to a notable liar. At the very least in both cases, each of the South Carolinian Congressman felt deeply aggrieved by the lies that they were being subject to. Congressman Brooks, living in a culture of honor, and having vindicated his family’s honor never apologized and was amply resupplied by well wishers and admirers for the cane he broke over Sumner’s back. Congressman Wilson, living in a culture of political correctness, immediately apologized for speaking the truth at the wrong time and in the wrong place.

The one and only point here that we need to take to heart is how each response to lies heard by our respective US South Carolina Congressmen reflected and reflects, during their respective eras, the division that was then and is now present in this country. When Rep. Preston Brooks took exception to a Jacobin Politician’s lies the nation was being violently pulled apart over a intense disagreement over the role and nature of the Government. On one side were those, like Sumner, who sought to expand the role of the Federal Government beyond its Constitutional boundaries. On the other side were those, like Brooks, who sought to restrict the role of the Federal Government to its Constitutional boundaries. The occasion of, what was to become a bloody disagreement, was the issue of slavery.

153 years later is a South Carolina Congressman once again serving as a harbinger of a violent national contest? Like Brooks, Wilson took exception to a Jacobin Politician’s lies. Like the era that Brooks lived in, Wilson lives in an era where the nation is violently being pulled apart over an intense disagreement over the role and nature of government. Today, on one side are those, like Obama, who is seeking to expand the role of the Federal Government even further beyond our Constitutional boundaries. Today, on the other side are those, like Wilson who is seeking to restrict the role of the Federal government to its Constitutional boundaries. The occasion of this disagreement once again is the issue of slavery.

Both in 1856 and in 2009 Jacobins and Marxists in the country were and are seeking to enslave men to the Nation State. It was in order to avoid enslavement to the ambitions of a burgeoning National government that the South seceded. We are once again at the point where we are going to have to make some difficult decisions on how to deal with the ambitions of a burgeoning National government that intends to enslave the citizenry through controlling our lives through a socialized health care mechanism.

Citizens today should perhaps look at the attempt at socialized health care the way that Southerners looked at the attempt at the socialized Morrill Tariff act. Both proposed acts, in the end, were about the ability to enrich the government at the expense of impoverishing American citizens. Perhaps the way we are threatened to being financially squeezed today by the Federal Government will cause us to sympathize with the way that Southerners were being financially squeezed in the run up to the War.

South Carolina US Congressman Preston Brooks was upset by that.

So is South Carolina US Congressman Joe Wilson.

Maybe we should send Joe some canes in appreciation.

As a general rule I hate Church signs. Not because I have some strange phobia regarding signs but rather because Church signs suffer the inevitable consequences of people reducing truths that are extraordinarily profound to something that is catchy and cute. More often than not Church signs trivialize truth. It’s like the Elementary orchestra trying to do justice to Beethoven’s fifth symphony. It’s like Barney Frank being cast as Gen. George Patton in a Movie production. It’s like attending a Detroit Tigers Baseball game and finding me starting at short-stop. No sane person can take any of it seriously. The fact that people can’t take serious anything that is on a Church sign is reason enough to not try and use Church signs for anything but announcements of things like the Lady’s Easter Tea.

However, I noticed that in Charlotte, my home, there is currently a Church sign battle going on which makes church signs even more interesting than usual.

Over at the Plymouth Brethren Church we read,

Sometimes in order to make us
God must break us

Apparently this beautiful poetry was to much for the Episcopal Church, which is just a few blocks down from the Plymouth Brethren Church for they had to offer, on their Church sign, a rebuttal in poetry that was just as arresting,

God does not break us down
Or make us frown

Now, I suppose this makes for high Theological debate in Charlotte. I’ve even thought about entering into the fray with a sign of my own that says,

Do not drink the swill
Offered up by Church Episcopal

However, I do not think the citizens of Charlotte can take three doses of such heavy poetic culture and be able to survive. As such, I am not going to compete in this theological sign derby.

I would note however that the Episcopal Church here in town is led by a woman (at least I assume she is a woman — I’ve not the courage to assume that it is a man who is cross dressing — though given that we are speaking of an Episcopalian Church here I grant you that one must be careful with their assumptions.)

On the other hand, attendance at the Plymouth Brethren church will have you hearing about Red Heifer’s in Israel and the coming re-building of the temple and projected dates for Christ return.

You picks your poison … you takes your chances.

However, touching the point on which sign warfare is closer to accuracy, I offer these scriptures. I hope the truth of these things will not make our Episcopal friends frown to much.

See now that I, even I, am he, and there is no god with me: I kill, and I make alive; I wound, and I heal: neither is there any that can deliver out of my hand.”(Deut. 32:39)

“The LORD brings death and makes alive;
he brings down to the grave and raises up.” (I Samuel 2:6)

“For he wounds, but he also binds up;
he injures, but his hands also heal.” (Job 5:18)

“Come, let us return to the LORD.
He has torn us to pieces
but he will heal us;
he has injured us
but he will bind up our wounds.” (Hosea 6:1)

“The moon will shine like the sun, and the sunlight will be seven times brighter, like the light of seven full days, when the LORD binds up the bruises of his people and heals the wounds he inflicted.” (Isaiah 30:26)