December 4, 2021

‘If the Foundations Be Destroyed…’

Dystopia’s birth or Frodo reimagined?

By Douglas Daugherty

“Throughout the last century Communist leaders alternated in pretending to be nationalists, agrarian reformers, and/or democrats. The same is true today, only the Communists have grown in sophistication even as their dupes have declined into stupefaction. There is nothing to be gained by talking with liars and tricksters who plot the West’s downfall. Yet we talk and talk as we lose and lose again.” —J.R. Nyquist

Where are we? What sort of time is it? What is its name?

Last Saturday, I was reading The New York Times and read the word “Omicron.” It seems a new variant of the COVID virus was spotted in South Africa on November 24. Last Friday, an emergency meeting of the World Health Organization was called. Panic erupted, and by Sunday the stories of nation after nation shutting down were in the headlines. “Does this thing not go away?” I asked myself. Is this the new normal, and with it, stuttering economies, death, more government overreach, and high-tech surveillance with the attendant eroding of once-sacrosanct liberties?

On Wednesday, The New York Times reported that Omicron is now in 20 nations since its public debut last week. “Mutations strongly suggest that Omicron is more contagious than previous forms of the virus,” but scientists say “they cannot be sure without more testing and data.” They continued in the story by Richard Perez-Pena, asking: “Are the vaccines less effective against it? Are treatments? Does it cause a more serious illness?”

I don’t think COVID alone is the end of the world — though who knows? But it has highlighted a growing trend in individuals who have become more suspicious of our institutions.

Are not many more people now suspicious of the veracity of the media, high-tech, their governments, the ever-changing health narrative, their educational institutions, bankers, politicians, the police, and the Constitution (in some corners), even the church, and much more?

Does it not feel a bit like a free fall that we’ve grown used to? Or like the proverbial “frog in the kettle,” who as the heat was raised continued to tolerate it until his own demise?

There are only three possibilities for the continued presence of the virus: natural mutations of an unpredictable virus, a plague of judgement from God, or there is a “mind” somehow behind the whole thing. I don’t know. But the continued narrative could seem to be the plot of the globalists who increasingly embrace ESG (Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance). Globalists seek a global government that erases national boundaries, seeks individual parity in all things, and harvests more and more power and control for an elite few. Is this all about power?

Americans are year after year losing more and more confidence in their institutions. Currently, according to Gallup, only 33% of Americans have confidence in our major institutions, down from 36% in 2020. Here is the Gallup poll.

This is increasingly polarizing between Democrat leaners and Republican leaners. There’s a 45-point spread between the two when it comes to the police and a 25-point spread on organized religion. It’s hard to find things people don’t fight about in a small group or family. Careful reading finds the hidden phenomena of adult children “divorcing” their parents, and it’s usually over conflicting values.

It seems to a conservative that it’s pretty bad. But have so many people ever been so sour on so many institutions? How can this hold together? Who speaks bravely with truth, virtue, and wisdom? Is there no end to the acrimony?

According to the Pew Research Center, 64% of Americans in 2019 didn’t trust each other. And I’m sure it has grown significantly since then. Interestingly, wealthier people trust less than low-income folks. Here is Pew’s Research on Trust.

One has to wonder how the 13 original colonies came together to form a nation. Now leaders are talking of their states seceding from the Union.

What happened to “E Pluribus Unum”? It took John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, and Thomas Jefferson (no unimpressive collaboration of minds) to come up with this “messaging” in 1776. The phrase offered a strong statement of the American determination to form a single nation from a collection of states.

The more one digs, the more one finds billionaires and huge foundations funding all sorts of things meant to tear down institutions, or at least remake them in their own image. The same talking points are on most every major talk show, news program or editorialized newspapers, magazines, books, movies, and Internet threads.

But J.R.R. Tolkien had it right. It was only the Shire-loving hobbits that could end the destruction of civilization. They were good, plain folks, with big hearts and a love of all that was good … and innocent when it came to evil. (Think George Soros’ Open Society Foundations, Democracy Fund, Arabella Foundation, Tides Foundation, New America Foundation, and others whose “dark money” is somewhere between $150 and $200 billion a year trying to recreate the nation and the globe through grants and coordinated strategies/leaders.)

We call it the “American Dream” because it is a wonderful, wonderful dream of what can be and has been. Rediscovering love of the American Dream is not for the soporific. It is for those who are the widest awake. (Not “woke.”)

We must encourage one another as much as possible and provide opportunity to as many as possible. Let’s put our smart phones away and learn to listen and empathize, but that’s just the front door. Inside we must point to both the great potential we have as humans and the great depravity we are also capable of. The conservative believes in people. The progressive/liberal elite believe in power enabled by endless rivers of money-mountains of debt to future generations and your taxes.

The government won’t do it. The education system seems paralyzed. Media is a marionette. But the folks of the Shire, the good people of America — they can do it.

What time are we in? We must name it to know how to respond.

“How blessed are those whose way has integrity.” —Psalm 119:1

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