Of Prophets, Patriots, Demons and The Three ‘C’s’

Speaking of prophets, theologian Paul Tillich asked “Is it a sign of patriotism or of confidence in one’s people, its institutions and its way of life, to be silent when the foundations are shaking?  Is the expression of optimism more important than the expression of truth?”

The three “C’s”: climate change, critical race theory and COVID are not what they purport to be. The threat/crisis presented by each to our socio-economic and body politic are being exaggerated for nefarious reasons.  That is, the climate is always changing; no culture, empire or civilization was ever without some form of racism, prejudice and bigotry; and mankind will ever be afflicted with various diseases, plagues, viruses, and infections.  There is, after all, nothing new under the sun.

Accordingly, the three “C’s” do not warrant their prescribed remedies.  Ergo, we do not need to abandon nor destroy: our energy sources and economy for climate change; our constitution and institutions in the name of critical race theory; or our personal and economic freedoms for COVID.

America is mortally threatened by the three “C’s” due to a dearth of critical thinking skills, abandoned historical values, our compromised institutions of church and state, and an atrophied spirit of faith and freedom.  The following prescient warnings speak to our dire situation.

From Brannon Howse documentary (via Janet Levy in American Thinker) “Brainwashed in America”- the twelve-step process of brainwashing (defined as “a method that manipulates and modifies a person’s emotions, attitudes and beliefs to induce them to give up basic political, social and religious beliefs and to accept contrasting regimented ideas) aimed at affecting a Marxist revolution in America.

1) Removing principled leadership.

2) Encouraging the questioning of values, convictions and the American world view.

3) Presenting a revisionist history that portrays the free market system as oppressive.

4) Propagating moral relativity to cloud the distinction between right and wrong.

5) Extolling consensus and collectivism while declaring individualism dangerous.

6) Focusing on emotions over facts, reason, and context.

7) Fostering anxiety, confusion, social turbulence.

8) Concealing the ultimate agenda.

9) Using trusted individuals and institutions to enhance credibility.

10) Using informants to zero in on those who don’t comply.

11) Rewarding compliance and punishing dissent.

12) Winning public trust by manufacturing chaos to lay the groundwork for a benevolent-seeming rescue.

From Carl Sagan’s The Demon-Haunted World: “I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the key manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when….our critical faculties decline, unable to distinguish what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness.  The dumbing down of America is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30-second sound bites, lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance.”

Finally, from Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged: “When you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing.  When you see that money is flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors.  When you see the men get richer by graft and by pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you.  When you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice.  You may know that your society is doomed”.