Neo-Conservatism: the right hand strangling America

Neo-Conservatism: the right hand strangling America 

 

“I think it only makes sense to seek out and identify structures of authority, hierarchy, and domination in every aspect of life, and to challenge them; unless a justification for them can be given, they are illegitimate, and should be dismantled, to increase the scope of human freedom.”
― Noam Chomsky

Neo-Conservative: "A former liberal espousing political conservatism; first used in 1952." (via Websters Dictionary)

The "Neo-con" is a "new" conservative who advocates the assertive promotion of democracy and United States national interest in international affairs including military means. Originally, Neo-conservatives were liberal socialist Democrats, and the movement made great gains in the 1960's.

Following World War 2, Neo-conservatism became the new enlightened thread infiltrating the Republican party. However, "Republican conservatism," an original premise to that movement no longer exists in conjunction with the Neo-cons. Neo-Conservatism is now pro big government, pro big spending, and progressive at its core. Seemingly opposed to a welfare state, the Neo-cons advance redistribution of wealth with government controlling incentives.

Republicans, in order to distinguish themselves from the Neo-Cons, often refer to them as "wolves in sheep's clothing."

Holding neither a Libertarian nor Paleo-Conservative belief system, Neo-cons have betrayed the core values of the Republican party. Some Republicans have accused Neo-Cons of furthering communism and socialism, while being controlled by banking consortiums and international big business while sacrificing America's best interests. Promoting a one world order, right along with their liberal Democratic counterparts, the Neo-cons are totalitarian internationalists by nature.

Others suggest that due to unwarranted and inconsistent use, the term "Neo-con" has lost its true meaning. For example: Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, and Donald Rumsfeld have all been identified as leading Neo-conservatives despite being life-long conservative Republicans. Others argue that socio-economic policies define a Neo-conservative, suggesting both Cheney and Rice, having supported Irving Kristol's ideas, should be considered as such.

Republican ( and former Libertarian ) Congressman Ron Paul, a long time critic of the Neo-conservative movement, has written emphatically that Neo-conservatives attack freedom and liberty while shredding the U.S. Constitution. On the House floor, Dr. Paul commented on the historical roots of the movement, asserting that Neo-conservatism is neither new nor conservative. These speeches can be easily found on YouTube.

According to Wikipedia: "Neo-conservatism is a political philosophy that supports using economic and military power to bring liberalism, democracy, and human rights to other countries. In economics, unlike paleo-conservatives and libertarians, neoconservatives generally support a limited welfare state and "free" trade agreements; the free market, with which they are more than willing to interfere by government mandate and sanctions for overriding social and economic purposes using undeclared preemptive war.

Critics on the right attack Neo-conservatism for involving the United States with wars in the Middle East, promoting of American exceptional-ism by policies in the area that align the United States with the church-state of Israel.

The book, "The Neo-conservative Revolution: JewishIntellectuals and the Shaping of Public Policy", is the first defined history of the development of American Jewish political conservatism and the rise of a group of Jewish intellectuals and activists known as Neo-conservatives. It describes the growth of perhaps a dozen such figures in the 1940s and 50s, including Irving Kristol, Nathan Glazer and Norman Podhoretz, to several hundred younger people such as Paul Wolfowitz, David Brooks and Charles Krauthammer who have had a powerful impact on American public policy, including driving the US to a preemptive war with Iraq.

Author's note: Disputes over Israel's church/state Zionist movement is in sharp conflict with Paleo-conservatives who continue to argue that neoconservatives are an illegitimate addition to the conservative movement, and that they do not serve America.

Pat Buchanan called Neo-conservatism "a globalist, interventionist, open borders ideology."

This political rift can be traced back to a defining moment 1981. Ronald Reagan's nomination of Mel Bradford to run the National Endowment for the Humanities, was thwarted by neoconservatives who complained that he had once criticized Abraham Lincoln. Bradford withdrew.

Though most Americans know nothing of these distinctions, it is the root of many of the policy changes in America that have created an unresponsive top-heavy government.

John Adam's encouragement rings in the hearts of America

                                Franklin, Adams, and Jefferson...

John Adam's encouragement rings in the heart of America -Ken La Rive

 

As America sits on the rim of the most important election in our lifetime, perhaps we can find solace by looking at what one of our founding fathers tried to tell us. Perhaps he can rekindle an idea that seemed most important, as they also sat on the rim, with everything, even their own life hanging in the balance. 

Our founders knew all too well the power of dictatorship, of an oligarchy, repression, subjugation, and worst of all, slavery of the will. What these me are telling us, from the very grave, is indeed applicable to what we are experiencing today.

Some of us who perceive the dangers ahead, where civil liberties and our Constitution are being shredded from an unaccountable government, are just a few of many challenges we face from every side. I tell you this with the most profound and sincere voice I can muster: We have enemies at the gates, and traitors who want to open them.

Let us consider, for a moment, a national debt that has gone from 6 trillion to almost 20 trillion in just eight years? How can this be allowed? We have leaders who are bought and paid for by international interests looking to make profit, and we have no ability to challenge this by clearly defined Constitutional Law. We have so called leadership who conspire, and divert attention from their hidden agendas, by creating false-flags, the spreading of lies and media propaganda, and have reintroduced the open wounds of  racial bigotry, hatred and prejudice, all horrors we have tried so hard to overcome as a nation. And as these issues are reintroduced by our leadership, we fight each other instead of holding them accountable for their treachery. It is called divide and conquer, and it is very profitable. 

To survive this, we must ask introspective, powerful and rational questions, and try to come together as one nation. Primarily, a singular question seems to rise to the surface: Who are we as a nation?

Are we to be slaves begging for crumbs from the master's table? Are we cowards who let men steal our national resources, so hidden from view they are above the law? Are we blind to the destruction of our civil liberties, that our forefathers died to give us?  Are we to allow men with duel-citizenship to choose our president, rig our elections, and destroy our Constitutional Republic based on law?

Our country, our America, so dear to our hearts, has been slipping from our grasp, increment by increment, for a hundred years... and hindsight is the only measure we have to determine both worth and hope. There, in the folds of time, we can see what we were hoped to be, and so visualize what we have become. We can have no future as a Democratic Republic, without this understanding. We must seek truth.

Men of indomitable will and sound principle explained to us something so profound, it seems that it can only be whispered in America today:  Civil Liberty, is God given. Scream it to the heavens! Liberty is not granted by government, it comes to us from God! It is our God-given right.

By their insight, they gave us A Decoration of Independence, a Constitution and a Bill of Rights, with trembling hands.

At the Constitutional Convention, an obscure woman asked Benjamin Franklin whether the Constitution established a republic or monarchy. He said to her: "A republic, madam, if you can keep it."

Below are John Adam's words. They were written by candle light, and they lit the minds of men who knew oppression, first hand. They were meant to encourage his fellow assemblymen to sign the Declaration of Independence, though there were others emphatically opposed to it. These words were taken from John McCullough's biography on John Adams, and they should split the hearts of every single American with both pride and hope.

We are Americans! The greatest social experiment the world has ever witnessed, and the blood and honor of those brave men still course through our veins!

Do not, do Not give up hope! The truth of what they stood for is ultimate, and can not be denied. It is mirrored in the truth we hold in our hearts, and is self-evident. Liberty, is our manifest destiny.

As Jefferson finished his speech, John Adams stood up... 

“Objects of the most stupendous magnitude. Mirrors which will affect the lives of millions, born and unborn are now before us. We must expect a great expense of blood and pain, but we must always remember that a free constitution of civil government cannot be purchased at too dear a rate as there is nothing on this side of Jerusalem of greater importance to mankind. 

My worthy colleague from Pennsylvania has spoken with great ingenuity and eloquence. He has given you a grim prognostication of our national future, but where he foresees apocalypse, I see hope.

I see a new nation ready to take its place in the world, not an empire, but a republic and a republic of laws, not men. 

Gentlemen, we are in the very midst of revolution, the most complete, unexpected and remarkable in the history of the world. How few of the human race have ever had an opportunity for choosing a system of government for themselves and for their children? 

I am not without apprehensions gentlemen, but the end we have in sight is more than worth all the means. My belief says that the hour has come, my judgment approves this measure and my whole heart is in it. All that I have, all that I am and all that I that I hope in this life, I am now ready to stake upon it.

While I live, let me have a country. A free country!”

John Adams — 1776

Why American Christianity is fading

St. Michael

Why American Christianity is fading

Trying to see the face of God through the mask of man is the most difficult endeavor ever undertaken by the intellect.

To say that American Christianity is shooting itself in the foot is an understatement. What was Gandhi talking about when he said" “I like your Christ, I do not like your Christians. Your Christians are so unlike your Christ.” In the following essay, I will try to put the essence of what Gandhi was referring to in a nutshell. Of course, from the onset, I can only scratch the surface of this accretion, as the power and force creating it has not only infiltrated Christianity, but The Faith has accepted it as norm.  I can see no way to reverse this trend, only to lay what I see on the table...

Let us start with the main standard of the teaching of Jesus that most all Christians will agree with... Love one another as I have loved you. Do unto others, as you would have them do unto you. Love your neighbor as yourself. He who is without sin cast the first stone, and he who lives by the sword will die by it. In essence, the New Testament is about Love. It is about Jesus dying for our sins, as both man and God.

 

First Communion

 Poor Ken, a lost soul...

"Poor Ken." as told to my wife by my Evangelical neighbor... "Damned because he doesn't believe the bible accurately depicts Jesus." Wow, that is quite a statement, especially when told to a woman who has loved me since she was 14. Seems a bit insensitive to say I will burn in hell forever if I even question her individual Christian narrative, or try to consider the Bible as metaphor, or to attempt to understand it literally.  

Let me start first by saying that we are all fallible human beings, and so capable of making a mistake. We look at this world with our heart, at times, but also with our intellect. Intellect comes from our consciousness, and that realization has to be one of the greatest gifts of all. It is intellect who gives us the ability to discern from good , bad, right and wrong, and using just your heart, in our world, will quickly get you eaten alive. There is evil and corruption in humankind, even coming from what some may consider the most benign, love-based institutions. 

Not everyone considers turning the other cheek and forgiving his enemy a viable way to live, to survive. When an idea evolves into a faith-based institution, with time and growth, power and control becomes more evident....  Our intellect can identify and save us from being played. It is our intellect, and not our sympathetic, sensitive, and compassionate heart, which will recognize evil incarnate, and react to it. Fight or flight, our primary survival technique, comes from our ability to reason danger, and justifies our reaction. 

One of the most amazing convolutions I see in Christianity today is when a Christian says that everything is God's will. This "will" called the spirit of God, is a manifestation of the hand of God on earth. This suggests that God can change the natural order, and his hand can reach out as answer to prayer, and actually change a predetermined destiny instituted by God, and divinely ordained . Referred to as a miracle, that action also suggests that our most amazing gift, free will, is suspended, or in a kind of limbo as the miracle occurs. It refers to a God who can consciously manipulate his creation to the smallest detail, and yet allow the slaughter of 22 million in the Bolshevik Revolution, or seemingly condone, by inaction, the growing number of children with cancer.

We are told emphatically that God works in mysterious ways, and we don't have the ability to understand it... and yet, we have an intellect with the volition to try. Quite amazingly, some Christians will refer to a disease as something "wrong." Some even take it a step further saying that the ill person deserves that disease, like it is some payback for a wrong committed in his life... In other words, they pray to an all-powerful God who's design, they preach, is regarded as manifest destiny, and  then pray to change the very laws they preach as a universal.  This flaw cracks the very rock that Christianity is founded upon. 

Fear of loss, fear of an inability to cope, and many other forms of selfish concerns will even attempt to bribe God with promises if answered. And no matter how you try to explain this to a Christian, their eyes just glaze over saying, "I Love Jesus. I will never deny Him."  What can be more disconcerting but to argue one faith base over another, and yet wars are fought over these dogmatic interpretations every single day.

Let us dissect this a bit more... Love, or agape, is the ultimate emulation of God, one may argue. It is taught in every Sunday School that this perfect Love should be emulated. Agape Love is selfless, prayer is not, in most cases... for instance, promises are a way to buy His favor, coaching him to take action, to save a person you Love from some real-life inevitability. It is, one might suppose, a kind of extortion, akin to a bribe.  And then, some take a completely opposite stance by refusing all medicine and medical advice. They have such profound faith that God will intervene, that his will be done in spite of any human intervention, it may be considered the very epitome of what is thought divine providence, fate, or destiny.

The convolution here is that on one side it is proposed to be divine intervention, and the other is set in stone as fate. They believe collectively, in most cases, that their trust, faith, or conviction is both the gauge and standard. It is so strong, so dogmatically rigid; they will take their children into a cage of lions, instead of denying their devotion, their belief system. This is a powerful affirmation, and seemingly goes entirely against the intellect, but there is more to consider. So powerful is this affirmation, they will go to their deaths singing praise of God's love, and their eternal salvation. I suggest here the overt possibility that some of these more powerful convictions, a veritable conclusion, that they (the faithful) are too small, and eternal life too big, and that the choosing of death over betrayal the only option available. You see, to them, too much is at stake. We are talking eternal life in the arms of a benevolent Jesus, one who can sooth all pain, and fill hearts to the brim with pure joy.  It isn't like a man jumping from the twin towers to a certain death... a factor of hope is there, and it influences that path in profound ways, and yes, the intellect may play a part. What an amazing mind we have, stronger than the pain of death, with optimism undiminished because of the power of faith. 

One has to ask a serious question. Why is intellect, at times, at odds with faith? Seems it is to some forms of Christianity, and not in others. Are we supposed to be just blind sheep?  Well, a profound question, and it seems a conceptual answer might go all the way back to Adam and Eve in the garden.  We were told we could (metaphorically) eat of any tree, including the tree of life, but never from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Why? Isn't the way to decant the knowledge of good and evil reliant on our intellect? When Eve's eyes were opened, as is suggested in Genesis, what did she see? Was it responsibility for self? Was it reasoning? Was it an ability called-consciousness where she saw herself as separate from the world for the first time?  She trusted God, Loved him, and so did she feel guilt from the betrayal? Surely, God has consciousness, and we are told that we are made, spiritually, in (His) image, so isn't our ability to reason part of that package?  Why would God want to withhold that special part of our gift of life? The Old Testament depicted God as vengeful and full of wrath... isn't that diametrically opposed to selfless Love?  Isn't it considered by theologians that God is timeless, omnipotent, omnipresent, and that man's interpretation of Him changes? Was the idea given to Eve from the metaphorical snake a lie? In my dialogue class at Loyola, that was a hot topic for us. Did man interpret God with the intellect he was capable of at the time?  Is it blasphemy to suggest that we might find a new interpretation today? Is the book infallible and our interpretation not? Could it be that what Eve was given was the greatest of all gifts, and is our very ability to think? To reason?  

It is hard to imagine a loving God who would want His creation to be sheep, but self-evolving, creative, explicitly cognoscente of self. Why would he give us the ability to dream, and punish us for dreaming? 

 Questionable considerations...

 Let us consider a Loving God who threatening one of his imperfect and yet evolving  creations with the pain of hell fire, eternal damnation, unless they blindly believe and follow men who purport to speak for Him?  Wouldn't a loving God, a selfless loving God, love us all unconditionally? Wouldn't a Loving God have the greatest hope for a creation born in what can only be considered by Him an insane asylum? 

If he wanted us to agree, to come together without an effort to understand, why wouldn't He write an indestructible and intellectually perfect bible by his own hand?  Surely he has the ability to make this tome timeless, eternal, surrounded and protected by a force field. Wouldn't God be capable of that?  Would He be surprised if we tried to learn how to mimic that force field, and consider that a gift too?  Wouldn't a loving God laugh, and be proud of our attempt? Isn't it a fair question to ask why He has permitted a bible made by the flawed hand of men? Inspired, and yet with blatant time-line flaws and inconsistencies?  Why would the last sentence say not to change a word, and yet we have over three hundred interpretations? Why would He permit these revisions as times change, where new ways of controlling men's minds would be so evident? Why would He give us an intellect, and stifle it with doubt? Why suggest free will and then threaten with eternal damnation if we do not comply? Why is blind faith used as an answer for what our intellect so wants to retort?  I can answer these, and ardently.  It isn't God who does these things, but men. It is men who have perverted the word of God. And God, has given us the ability to learn, and to find in our hearts the courage to find Him. That is our reason for being.

Also, the Old and New Testaments are two different ways of viewing God. And yet, Christians constantly use the Old to justify the New?  Why? Because men need justification for their agendas. It is that simple. 

These questions, and many more, I haven't the ability to put down, is just some of the reasons Christianity is failing in Europe, and so threatened here in America. Amazingly, Russia is the only country where Christianity is flourishing, with a new resurgence in the Christian Faith just a decade old. Why wouldn't America, thought to be a Christian nation, not try to embrace Russia? Is it surprising that you did not know of this revival, or that Putin has publicly exclaimed that his is now Reborn in the Blood of Christ? You don't know this because we are no longer a Christian Nation, but a secular Jewish nation, and the media who would report this is under their dominion. Hard to believe? Easy to comprehend if you just ask the right questions. 

Christianity is now obsolete in almost all of Africa, the Middle East, including Israel, and most all of Asia. Our Secular, Jewish owned America, and its media, are not allowed to show the dramatic changes taking place in the world, as this revelation is inconsistent with World Bank plans, international corporate and military industrial interests, and a government who has had, for a generation, chosen our presidents, our wars, and has doubled our National debt in just eight years.  

  

I'm going to leave it here. But I challenge you to go directly to your black box, and change the channels every ten seconds. Stop when you see a Christian standard displayed. You will be hard pressed, and you will be flicking channels until you get to Little House, over thirty years old. Your days, I'm so sorry to say, are closing fast, and you have not the means, or the inclination to change.  The tribe, called Christianity, has been displaced by another more viable tribe, as you slept.