Today, I have a number of errands to run, but I saw this article by J. B. Shurk at the American Thinker today, and had to present it to gentle readers for consideration. The article, entitled Tyranny, by Any Other Name Still Stinks warns us that the hour is late for us to fend off the totalitarian leviathan that threatens us.
Tyranny takes hold when good people are lulled into inaction. Those of us who mind our own business and prefer government to leave us alone are particularly prone to falling into this trap. Because we have no use for government, we hope government will have no use for us. So we are silent while evil grows far from our homes. We tend to our basic comforts and ignore evil as it nears. And, eventually, we even collaborate with evil in order to avoid making a public scene. In an effort to “get by” without causing too many waves, tyranny’s waves grow bigger and stronger until they crash upon our homes. By then, it is too late to batten down the hatches. Evil has already broken through our doors.
In his book Religionless Christianity, Eric Metaxas is at pains to point out that Pastor Deitrick Bonhoeffer tried to warn the German church of Hitler but was ignored. Many of us tried to warn the people about Obama, but we were ignored too. Shurk, with less talk of the devil tries to warn us of the same thing in our own time. Whether one wants to admit it or not, any form of collectivism, whether it is called by the name of Marxism, Socialism, Fascism, Communism, Maoism, Progressivism, Fabianism, or any other "ism" are from the same source: the devil. No matter what you call him, the accuser, Satan, or the tempter Beelzebub, Islamism or the demons, their goal is always to enslave, murder, and lie. You cannot be a Christian and uphold Communism, or socialism. God does not lie, and neither can those who call themselves by His name.
One of the peculiarities of our own time is that so many people remain blind to the totalitarianism growing and spreading around them. Western governments have seized the authority to tell us what is true and what must be censored as harmful “disinformation.” They openly spy on our phone calls, read our emails, record every Internet search and keyboard click on our computers, and monitor our social media conversations. They tell us which “politically correct” words we must use and which words are outlawed for inciting “hate.” They have criminalized reading from parts of the Bible or acting with religious conviction. They insist on manipulating the value of money and rigging markets in ways that confiscate the meager savings of the have-nots and further enrich the well-to-do. Corporations and government ministers work together to spread the same propaganda. Mainstream news media operate as compliant mouthpieces for the State. Banks discriminate against customers due to their personal beliefs. Companies fire employees for not being sufficiently “woke.” Prosecutors contort statutes into weapons that can be used to punish innocent people for their political speech. Westerners have no need to learn about the rise of totalitarianism from dusty history books describing the decades between WWI and WWII. It thrives right outside our windows. Hell, it operates on every piece of technology with a camera or microphone already inside our homes.
Totalitarianism has triumphed under the guise of “progress.” Behind every shiny new toy’s discreet surveillance of our private lives is a steroid-induced, rage-filled strongman working not-so-secretly to enslave us. Would you like to safeguard your most intimate photographs? All you have to do is upload them to a magical cloud. The corporations entrusted with your valuable secrets promise to respect your privacy. Would you like your automobile to provide real-time traffic alerts? Then just tap, “yes,” when the geolocation satellite system seeks to track your movements. Would you prefer the ease of buying convenience store items with a wave of your hand? Then please allow your Obamacare government doctor to insert a computer chip under your skin, so that the Federal Reserve can track how you use its central bank digital currency. Technological convenience is the gateway drug to universal surveillance. And universal surveillance is an iron fist in a velvet glove demanding compliance.
The above are what we used to called the "money quotes." They are the heart of what his is trying to warn us about, indeed, it is all he ever warns us about. The question is: Will we heed his warning in time?
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