The Bigger They Are.....

Adolf Hitler knew something about fabrication. His gift for fiction enabled his industrialization of human extermination--his application of machine methods to mass murder. Aside from liquidation lines and devices, the 'machines' he worked through were other human beings whose consciences he coopted and ultimately corrupted with lies. He once described his best practices: "A definite factor in getting a lie believed is the size of the lie. The broad mass of the people, in the simplicity of their hearts, more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a small one." He understood that crowds are no check on fiction. He knew that community often coopts one into a perverse conformity.

The size of a lie has to do with the numbers of persons who adhere to and espouse it wittingly or not. Big lies enjoy widespread and frequent repetition and affirmation. Big lies depend on complicity in media: all information is politicized; and propaganda supplants truth.  Big lies are institutionalized:  in the economy, in government, in public policy, in courts, in schools, in universities, in corporations, in hospitals, and etc. In this way, big lies achieve a perverse integrity that envelopes the individual.

This integrity, always tenuous as to truth, is threatened by individual expression. To maintain its 'integrity', it must constrain individual conscience whether by fear or force. Individual expression that is not affirmative is deemed malignant. Only expression that is affirmative has an audience. For the masses, expression is fixed (ie. by fear) on soothing, self-centered, and benign subjects like peace, joy, happiness, love, hope, health, work, personal management, sports, business management, unity, camaraderie, friendship, and fashion. Note that truth, investigation, and dissension are taboo. Big lies portray big questions as solved and settled. Digressions are cast as degenerate, unpopular, hyperbolic, and anachronistic.

Gradually, by gain or pain, every institution and every individual is made an accomplice--endorsing and enforcing the big lie. And vigilantism ensues--as it did on Kristallnacht. To attest their allegiance, to settle a score, to aggrandize self, mobs destroy the livelihoods, properties, and reputations of others to uphold big lies. The mobs multiply. They become institutions. And extermination ensues.

Can't we, Americans, rest assured that big lies only prevailed only elsewhen and elsewhere? Surely, suggestions to the contrary are hyperbolic? For example, let's not question whether the sciences (ie. 'settled', expert, and authoritative economic and environmental science) are superior to the rule of law. How could economic stagnation have anything to do with moral uncertainty in the execution of laws? Would it be anachronistic to inquire: can moral reason, behavior, rights, and justice prevail in a society that rejects morality? Wouldn't it be downright degenerate to ask: are Christians currently being classified as a race of 'haters' who ought not to appear in the public square, to vote, to speak, to lead? Please, let's stay our conversation on what's soothing, self-centered, and benign. By the way, how many vegetables and calories did you eat today? Do you know who friended you on Facebook?

James Madison

According to James Madison, one of the foremost of the founders, "A President is impeachable if he attempts to subvert the Constitution."

Is he impeachable if he is the first black to hold the office?  Is he impeachable if his political party controls the Senate?  Specifically, is there any principle that has more import than politics?

All Service is Pure and Pristine?

No, service is not incontrovertible, indubitable, unimpeachable goodness.  The Nazis and Soviets extolled service.  Energetic, anxious, efficient service was emphasized by these totalitarians.  They insisted on action, on intervention for 'good', unhampered by thought or conscience.  Their focus was on results--quantifiable, measurable, efficient, timely results.  Service enabled their control of the populace:  it channeled all human endeavor into strictly sanctioned activities; it overcame centrifugal forces with centripetal exertions controlled from the center; it coerced individuals to cast off their conscience in favor of communal conformity.

Under totalitarianism, divisions of service emanate from authorities and experts--not from one's individual conscience.  Authorities enunciate what is best for the individual, for the people, for the party, for the economy, for the environment, for God.  Of course, in this simplistic state, these superlatives always harmonize, however oppressively.  And service and sacrifice are always enjoined in the most superlative terms.

Hannah Arendt compared totalitarianism to an onion.  Totalitarian societies have layers, she argued.  The onion skin is representative of the populace that is marginalized because their ideas and exertions are peripheral to those of the party (ie. dissidents, intellectuals, those who entertain alternate ideologies).  Intermediate layers are characterized by an increasing commitment to the party paradigm.  At the center of the onion are its most zealous, insulated, and isolated servants who look with severity, cynicism, and contempt upon all of those outside this inner circle.  To eliminate the threat of competing ideas and individuals, they use all of the technology and treasure derived from the unthinking devotion of their adherents.

Under totalitarianism, service isn't good or even neutral.  It is political compulsion only.  In fact, nothing is neutral and everything, including service and sport, becomes political as the Nazis explained: "Non-political sport, so-called neutral sport, is unthinkable."  At their acme, party politics subvert and supplant even religion.

Compulsion is the contrary of morality because it destroys individual conscience.  To be pure and pristine, service must issue from the individual.  It must be an act of free will.  It has as many forms as there are persons.  Doing well is good--especially if one means well.  But only if one is not compelled to do well.  What derives from a demand or a dictum cannot be altruism.  Charity isn't charitable when it offers others capital it has confiscated.  Alms-giving from appropriations isn't altruistic.   Service, unhampered by thought, conscience, or humility, can be worse than benign.  Notably, Hitler considered himself an "instrument of Providence."

Persons who exclaim "we are God's hands" must be made to see the limitations of their proxy for God in the lives of others.  He is not our dependent; we are His.  Beneficence is matter of duty to God.  And duty is no platform for plaudits.  Unrestrained intercession for God is predicated on a tenuous, presumptive, condescending, and corruptible surrogacy.  Altruism can be blind to its own hypocrisy.  Benevolence may be deaf to the true interests of the people.  Sometimes, philanthropy intervenes when it ought to abstain--enforcing dependency when it ought to encourage independence.  Perversely, it may condition charity on servile complaisance--keeping a brother in bondage to his keeper.  Often, the social conscience expresses only affirmation and amity when it ought to express outrage.  Frequently, when service is bulk it acts only on stereotypes--eclipsing identity and individuality.  Collective charity, charity incorporated, lacks the integrity of individual conscience (see Arrow's impossibility theorem).  Sometimes, service would put the intents of men above the interests of God and the second commandment ahead of the first.  Babel would have us correct God's work--would have us make straight what He made crooked (Ecclesiastes 7:13)--would have us offer salvation on simpler, more mortal terms.  The compulsion, deceit, and violence we observe today do not emanate from God's hands.

Beware of demagogues who presume to effect the welfare of others--to their own advancement and accolades.  Beware of those who corrupt charity, taking credit for activities capitalized by confiscations from others.

Saturation in service is no good substitute for individual conscience. Thoreau once asked, as we should, "why has every man a conscience"?

While some may begrudge it, intellectuals and dissidents render an invaluable service to free society:  they defend the ideals that keep service pure--even if by purgative.  Sometimes, discretion is the better part of valiance.

Libeler Tradition?

America had a liberal tradition:  conspicuously absent in America were irreconcilable ideologies.  But the liberal tradition, defined by honesty and openness, discourse and deliberation, tolerance and pluralism is giving way to libeler-ism in America.  To libelers, ideology is paramount.  It trumps truth and humanity.  Libelers are unable tolerate debate and discourse in a free press.  They prefer a fawning press.  Where there was once discourse, now there are only denunciations.  Libelers slander, divide, and bully Americans.  They put politics above people and person-hood.  They indenture the individual to ideology.  For force, for unity, they strive to collate citizens into ideological collectives.  They attempt to substitute the sovereignty of 'settled' science--economic or social or environmental science--for the sovereignty of the people.  Have libelers lost faith that truth will triumph and that right is might?  Or, would they have truth fail, America fall, and bring right to blight?  Else, why would they engage in mass (ie. majority) libel?

Conservatives are often criticized for their lack of "big ideas".  Is this because conservatives do not imitate or invent ideologies that were once foreign, once alien to America--ideologies like communal but centrally planned economics (however charitable), centralized climate control, and the collectivization of conscience for the sake of special and minority interests?  These ideologies are totalitarian.  They are antagonistic to individuality, to individual expression, to the rule of law, to the Constitution, to God, to religion, and to the nuclear family.  And so their adherents resort to fiction and libel.  It is important to recognize that these collectivist and consuming ideologies are imports.  There were no great antagonisms in the United States of America based on feudalism and colonialism--antagonisms that spawned these collectivist and consuming ideologies.

Libeler-ism has no tradition in America:  so how have these ideologies gained such a choke-hold here?  Certainly, their rise correlates with a general decline of faith and morality.  Perhaps they pose a suitable substitute for heaven?  Their ascent coincides with the economic descent of the middle class.  Ardor for these ideologies has intensified as government has made itself a provider (in some cases, the sole provider) for select classes of citizens.  Their rise coincides with their near hegemony over elites in media, academia, and science.  Zeal for these ideologies has intensified as policing and surveillance has proliferated warrant-less-ly.  In any case, alien ideologies have us on the cusp of a cultural revolution perhaps not unlike China's and perhaps as productive.  In any case, for the sake of your personal security, comrades, promptly denounce someone!  Denounce someone who rejects imported ideology and collective conscience!  Denounce before you are denounced and detained--for Americanism!

Bad Government

Article II of the United States Constitution dictates that the President of the United States “shall take Care that the Laws be faithfully executed”.  In the Federalist Papers, Alexander Hamilton wrote that: “Energy in the executive…is essential…to the protection of property…A feeble executive implies a feeble execution of the government. A feeble execution is but another phrase for a bad execution; and a government ill executed, whatever it may be in theory, must be, in practice, a bad government.”