On the spirit of freedom

"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that doeth good." - Psalm 14:1.

I meant to write something about this months ago, but life just kept getting in the way. Much of what I originally intended to say has been forgotten since then. But the seed remains, inspired by an interview given by a Chinese businessman and activist, named Jimmy Lai.

Basically what Jimmy's saying is that a life without liberty isn't worth living. And this was not a new concept to me. I've heard, or at least read, these sentiments before. Dispensed by the Founders of my own country.

Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!" - Patrick Henry, Speech to the Second Virginian Convention, March 23, 1775.

Members of groups like Antifa have repeatedly compared themselves and their cause to the Founders of this country and their cause. But as I've stated in the past, the protestors of Hong Kong (as conveyed by the remarks of Jimmy Lai) far more resemble the pious theistic Founders of this country, than Antifa. The disparities are manifest in numerous ways. Like the fact the Hong Kong protestors support Trump and wave the banner of the United States, while conversely the Antifa/BLM rioters hate Trump and wave the banner of Communism.

Another example is the extradition law that lies at the heart of the Hong Kong protests; devised to facilitate the extradition of Hong Kong political dissidents to mainland China (which has violated its agreement to respect HK autonomy) to be prosecuted for fallacious treason charges.

This very thing was one of the grievances cited by the Founders, as a cause for their separation from Britain, which had likewise been encroaching upon the autonomy established by their colonial charters and abridging their fundamental English liberties.

"For transporting us beyond seas to be tried for pretended offences." - Declaration of Independence.

The Hong Kong dissidents are being stripped of basic liberties like freedom of speech. Frivolities like words of support for the HK protests, written on Post It Notes, were potentially treasonable ("pretended") offences punishable with life in prison under a new "national security law" imposed by the CCP. (In response HK protestors began putting up blank Post It notes.)

Conversely Antifa and BLM, not only aren't being denied freedom of speech, but have been rioting for months with nigh impunity, being openly endorsed and facilitated by Democrat government officials at every level, with every Democrat rag and talk show in the country openly supporting them and assiduously regurgitating their Marxist rhetoric by rote. The HK dissidents are being jailed for imaginary crimes by a Communist state. Antifa and BLM are Communists being jailed for the real crimes of vandalism, theft, arson, assault, and even murder, in an effort to overthrow our government and establish a Communist state. The HK protestors were using Post It Notes to avoid damaging property. Something for which the Communists of Antifa and BLM have consistently shown no compunction whatsoever. Frankly, anyone who can't discern the fundamental differences is a vegetable.

As for Mr. Lai, he (along with his two sons) would eventually be arrested, as a result of the very national security law previously mentioned. His crime? Operating a free (non-Communist controlled) press.

But back to the main premise of this contribution. Few seem to recognize what induces the moral and civic apathy to which Jimmy Lai alludes. Secularism. Jimmy Lai's struggle isn't just against the CCP, but the atheism that ideologically drives it. It is godlessness that creates a populace so attached to this life (as they believe there is no other), that it perpetually vests ever more power in the state for the ostensible purpose of improving and preserving it. This is why theists are on average much more willing to risk their lives, and lose them, than their secular counterparts. Death isn't the end, or even the worst of circumstances, for the theist. Secularism conversely often induces a hyper-aversion to risk and death. There is no "after life" for the atheist, thus all incentive lies in making the most of this one, and preserving it from danger at all costs.

This is why the far more secular left is so terrified of COVID-19, for example, and so inclined to accept the complete regimentation of their lives by government to be saved from it. It's why you'll consistently see leftists saying idiotic things like it's worth abridging, or even abolishing certain fundamental American freedoms, if it "saves only one life." There is no ethereal estate to which they will ascend when this life ends. There is only here and now, and thus preserving here and now at any cost, becomes the highest moral and intellectual imperative. Indeed, in such a frame of mind trading freedom for security becomes the obvious, easy, and only solution to existential threats. And thus it's better to disarm the entire civilian populace, rather than risk a single person being relegated to the oblivion of non-existence, by someone that doesn't really "need" a gun.

Government tyrannical? Oh well. It could be worse. You could be dead. And it's better to grovel in deference than to die (oblivion) resisting. As long as you're alive you can engage in the amoral hedonism that secularism invariably produces, which (as Jimmy Lai likewise intimates) becomes the sole reason for living under secular Socialism; consumption subsistence. I hate to reference films, for obvious reasons, but the pod people in The Matrix come to mind. They don't really live, so much as merely exist, to perpetuate the inhuman bureaucracy that subsists on their warmth like the Socialist state does the production of its proletarian thralls. One character (Cypher), after being liberated, asks to be put back into the Matrix and bestowed a life of untrammeled carnality as a reward. A scene reminiscent of the hedonistic solipsism of the apostatic French Revolution. Alphonse de Lamartine, treating upon that failed secular revolt, and the imperialism that resulted observes.

"Liberty lives by morality. What is morality without a God? What is a law without a lawgiver? [...] I know well, and I mourn to think of it, that, even up to the present time, the French People have been the least religious People in Europe. [....] If we look at the comparative character, in matters of religious sentiment, of the great nations of Europe, America, and even Asia, the advantage is not on our side. While the great men of other nations live and die upon the scene of history, looking towards heaven, our great men seem to live and die in entire forgetfulness of the only idea for which life or death is worth anything; they live and die looking at the spectators, or, at most, towards posterity. [...] 

Open the history of America, the history of England, and the history of France; read the great lives, the great deaths, the great martyrdoms, the great words at the hour when the ruling thought of life reveals itself in the last words of the dying, — and compare them! Washington and Franklin fought, spoke, suffered; rose and fell, in their political life, from popularity to ingratitude, from glory to bitter scorn of their citizens, — always in the name of God, for whom they acted; and the liberator of America died, committing to the Divine protection, first, the liberty of his People, — and, afterwards, his own soul to His indulgent judgment. [....] 

But recross the Atlantic, traverse the Channel, approach our own time, open our annals; and listen to the great political actors in the drama of our liberty. It would seem as if God was hidden from the souls of men; as if his name had never been written in the language. History will have the air of being atheistic, while recounting to posterity these annihilations, rather than deaths, of the celebrated men of the greatest years of France. [....]

Listen to Danton, upon the platform of the scaffold, one step from God and immortality: — "I have enjoyed much; let me go to sleep," he says; — then, to the executioner, "You will show my head to the people; it is worth while!" Annihilation for a confession of faith; vanity for his last sigh: such is the Frenchman of these latter days! [....]

Thus the Republic, — which had no future, — reared by these men, and mere parties, was quickly overthrown in blood. Liberty, achieved by so much heroism and genius, did not find in France a conscience to shelter it, a God to avenge it, a People to defend it, against that other Atheism called Glory! All was finished by a soldier, and by the apostacy of republicans travestied into courtiers! And what could you expect? Republican Atheism has no reason to be heroic. If it is terrified, it yields. Would one buy it, it sells itself; it would be most foolish to sacrifice itself. Who would mourn for it? — the People are ungrateful, and God does not exist. Thus end atheistic revolutions! - Atheism Among the People, 1850.

Some in America mistook the nascent French Revolution as being duplicative of the American revolution. But others did not. Adams, who spent time in France prior to its Revolution, denounced it as an atheistic endeavor very different in spirit than that of the United States.

"If the object of France, in her revolution, ever was liberty, it was a liberty very ill defined and never understood. She now aims at dominion such as never has before prevailed in Europe. If with the principles, maxims, and systems of her present leaders she is to become the model and arbiter of nations, the liberties of the world will be in danger." - John Adams to Samuel Phillips, June 15, 1798.

There's far too much of substance in Lamartine's sentiments than could ever be addressed in a contribution of this length. But suffice it to say his lament is a protracted, and much more eloquent, way of saying that secularism destroys freedom. The French under atheism cared only for the temporal, and the breadth of their vision was so narrowed by it they saw nothing beyond mere personal, or at best party interests. Ultimately as I have long observed, as any student of history would, in the absence of God the state became God.

"In the absence of one God, man always has, and always will, fashion new ones for himself. In the absence of religion, mans tendency is to simply vest those rights and powers attributed to a deity, within another entity. For the atheist that entity has invariably been the pinnacle of human power and authority; i.e., the state. To the state they ultimately grant dominion over all things, over themselves, their children, and everything they own. O for folly, as the state without God becomes but an extension of mans' corruption and caprice. Indeed it becomes the purest, and greatest, manifestation of such in existence; honing the profligacy of its constituent parts through power and accretion. And this abomination, unencumbered by those trammels inculcated by religion, has wrought the most egregious corruption and atrocity in human history." - Me, September 9, 2013.

Years later my observation would be vindicated when Communist officials inspected a church in Dongcun village. Upon seeing a list of the Ten Commandments, an inspector pointed to the one that says "You shall have no other gods before me," and stated it must be removed

And when they're not outright effacing religion, they're subverting it through the supplantation of religious precepts with Socialist precepts. Something all Socialists do, whether it be the CCP or the Democratic Party.

Anyway I found many of my own long standing observations, as well as Mr. Lai's above, affirmed by the works of men like Lamartine and Tocqueville. I've always discerned the real reason Marxists seek a "secular government." The Judeo-Christian ethos is antithetical to Marxist principles; e.g., the abolition of private property. The Biblical God is unequivocally in favor of private property, He commands it, being listed in the Decalogue. Children in Christian societies are taught (or at least were taught), not only that stealing is a sin, but that merely wanting something that belongs to someone else is a sin. ("Thou shalt not covet any thing that is thy neighbour's.") This sort of thinking is anathema to an ideology of theft masquerading as altruism (Marxism). As long as the preponderance of people subscribe to these religious principles Marxism could never take root. Thus, a prerequisite to establishing Marxism among Occidental society is de-Christianizing the populace. The proponents of secularism construe this as "progress," and about transitioning from religious mysticism to pragmatism. In reality de-Christianizing the populace results in the people abandoning the laws of God, e.g., the inviolability of private property, without which establishing a tyrannical Socialist state would be impossible. That's the real objective. It's why leftists attack religion so ardently in burgeoning Socialist states, and it's why already established Socialist states so ardently suppress religion.

Bibles contain ideas extremely dangerous to Socialist states it does not want spreading, like the notion there is a something greater than the state and its leader(s) to serve and worship, private property, etc. 

And naturally, as secular Socialism has ascended in the west, the average person has increasingly looked to the state and politicians to solve every problem in life, and adopted a conspicuously more communal disposition and antipathy toward the property of others in proportion. As faith dies in the west its liberty dies in proportion, lending credence to Webster's observation.

"Almost all the civil liberty now enjoyed in the world owes its origin to the principles of the Christian religion." - Noah Webster, History of the United States, 1832.

Another dreadful product of secularism, as described above and affirmed by Lamartine, is the facilitation of tyranny. The pernicious combination of amoral states that do not value human life, and timorous amoral hedonists too afraid of being separated from it (and its pleasures) to resist, have consistently not only produced oppression and genocide, but the greatest spectacles of such in human history. The godless turn only to corporeal tools (the state) for their preservation. There is no divine providence upon which to rely. Their salvation is had only through empowering the state, which increasingly becomes the sole arbiter of the propriety of its conduct, to insulate ("protect") them from any such dangers (real or imagined). Civilization smothers to death in its own proliferating excrement, as the incentive to be virtuous or heroic dissipates. Genuine virtue is everywhere supplanted with specious quasi-virtue. Things like being a loyal wife and good mother, for example, are replaced with "sexual liberation" (whoredom) and "reproductive rights" (infanticide). There is no Heaven to reward your virtue and no Hell to punish your transgressions. All the incentive as such, lies in exploiting your fellow man to whatever extent you're able, to achieve maximum pleasure and personal benefit before oblivion takes you. All the incentive as such, lies in living as long as possible, in whatever condition possible. Because a life in servitude is still living, and some pleasures of the flesh are better than none.

It must be acknowledged that atheism has its advantages. Being devoted purely to corporeality yields corporeal benefits. Atheists tend to be highly politically motivated, devoting all their energy and genius to advancing their political agenda (the empowerment of the state), because this life is all they've got. Whereas modern theists, conversely, have a predilection and propensity for apathy and indifference in political matters, believing that God will do that which they will not; that He will reform wicked rulers for them; that He will reform bad governments (even of their own making) for them, etc. There has been little more pernicious to American liberty, and which has facilitated the Marxist agenda more, than the propensity for sequestration among theists. But I digress.

As I've observed for many years the mentality of the average American has become the opposite of that of the Framers. In the Founding era death was preferable to slavery. In the modern era slavery is preferable to death. We have become a godless people, and being a godless people, we have elevated the corporeal over the ethereal in virtually every way. We are a people with faces buried in the football game while the nation burns. We are a people that can tell you the pass completion percentage of a quarterback, but cannot tell you what form of government we have. Which is a real problem in a nation in which the people are supposed to be the check upon government. An ignorant electorate cannot maintain a Constitutional Republic, anymore than a random person off the street can perform heart surgery. Both require a high degree of familiarity with the form and function of the constituent parts and systems involved. The voter must know the anatomy and physiology of government, no less than the physician the anatomy and physiology of the human body. Instead we have a populace (on average) roused from abject lassitude every few years by elections, that chooses its representatives based on an aggregated few hours (if that) of coverage by a subverted, partisan media apparatus, before sliding back into abject apathy and indifference. There is no hope for reform under such a paradigm. And the only thing that can fix it, is a return to the ethos that created the prosperity, from which the current model has degraded.

Technology changes. Borders change. The names of nations change. But human nature and the transcendent principles on which our liberty relies do not. Genuine liberty, despite what we're now taught, is not merely an intellectual concept. It is a spiritual condition (hence the title), which waxes and wanes, in proportion to a people's faith and piety. The hubris of "modern" secularists induces them to believe they've "progressed" beyond such quaint notions. Yet we see that things like the subversion of religion (which occurred under European Monarchs), and extradition laws, are at the heart of the conflict between liberty and tyranny today just as they were two hundred years ago. And that God and His laws, as such, are as necessary to the world today as they were then.