From Richard Mitchell’s The Graves of Academe (pitchfork tip to the Headmistress at The Common Room):

IN THE COUNTRY of the blind, the one-eyed man is, as we all know, king. And across the way, in the country of the witless, the half-wit is king. And why not? It’s only natural, and considering the circumstances, not really a bad system. We do the best we can.

But it is a system with some unhappy consequences. The one-eyed man knows that he could never be king in the land of the two-eyed, and the half-wit knows that he would be small potatoes indeed in a land where most people had all or most of their wits about them. These rulers, therefore, will be inordinately selective about their social programs, which will be designed not only to protect against the rise of the witful and the sighted, but, just as important, to ensure a never-failing supply of the witless and utterly blind. Even to the half-wit and the one-eyed man, it is clear that other half-wits and one-eyed men are potential competitors and supplanters, and they invert the ancient tale in which an anxious tyrant kept watch against a one-sandaled stranger by keeping watch against wanderers with both eyes and operating minds. Uneasy lies the head.

Unfortunately, most people are born with two eyes and even the propensity to think. If nothing is done about this, chaos, obviously, threatens the land. Even worse, unemployment threatens the one-eyed man and the half-wit. However, since they do in fact rule, those potentates have not much to fear, for they can command the construction and perpetuation of a state-supported and legally enforced system for the early detection and obliteration of antisocial traits, and thus arrange that witfulness and 20-20 vision will trouble the land as little as possible. The system is called “education.”

Russ Moore wrote recently of the spiritual dangers of blogging. Devoid of irony, Moore writes at his Henry Institute web log that blogging “seems to be the newest way to mask paranoia, cynicism, and just plain pugilism.”

Evidently, there are folks sitting in their underwear or pouring down lattes at Starbucks, just aching to engage in gossip-mongering. Even worse, says Moore, are “martyr bloggers” who rant and rave about “the conspiratorial machinations of ‘The Man.’”

As “The Man” is a frequent target of derision at the Dow Blog, I was interested in Moore’s comments.

So who is “The Man,” anyway? Well, I’m attempting to give a humorous personification to an anti-Christian, global elite. Yes, I know, I’m not funny.

I begin with the presupposition of God’s ultimate sovereignty. God created the cosmos and he is a personal God, revealed to us in the persons of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Likewise, men are responsible personal agents—responsible to God and to one another. God ultimately governs history, but it is also a cosmic struggle between God and Satan, covenant-keepers and covenant-breakers, good and evil.

History is thus both personal and conspiratorial. The conspirators are doing battle against God. “Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the LORD, and against his anointed, saying, ‘Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us.’ He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the LORD shall hold them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure” (Ps. 2:1-5).

Notice it is “the kings of the earth” (”The Man”?) who conspire against God. In my estimation, statism is the form of idolatry most likely to ensnare Christians. This is especially true given the alleged success of the “Religious Right” in influencing American politics. In certain circles, Fox News and George Bush have been virtually deified. But as Rushdoony has written, “every state or social order is a religious establishment. Every state is a law order, and every law order represents an enacted morality, with procedures for the enforcement of that morality. Every morality represents a form of theological order, i.e., is an aspect and expression of a religion.”

Is there any doubt that a cosmopolitan, anti-Western, elite has established control of virtually every viable institution, including the instruments of cultural dissemination and political control (i.e., the State)? Is there any question that said elite is an ally of humanism?

As I’ve written recently, polytheism, under the guise of religious tolerance and pluralism, is the new American religion. But polytheism has no universal scope and makes no universal claims. Rather, it limits its jurisdiction to a small corner of life. Having relegated the church of Christ to nothing but a “soul-saving” institution, the church has effectively capitulated to polytheism.

Because the Bible has been relegated to a devotional book, the Church no longer teaches that God is sovereign in the affairs of men, thus the State is freed to pursue a humanistic course.

In a Biblical social order, “government” and “State” are not synonymous terms. For the Christian, all government begins with self-government. The regenerating work of the Holy Spirit is the starting point of all self-government. Those who are dead in trespasses and sins must be given a new heart and a new spirit.

Other human agencies (governments) with limited degrees of authority are ordained by God for His glory. The family, church, State, vocation, voluntary associations, etc., are created by Him to serve as His ministers, working out His will.

The Biblical role for the State is limited to the administration of just laws to defend life and property, punish criminals, and defend the innocent. In other words, the State’s role is to restrain evil by exacting negative sanctions and it is not a redemptive institution. But the modern therapeutic State has usurped all authority to its bosom, and seeks to make us “good” through stringent enforcement of anti-discrimination laws, hate crimes legislation, diversity training, speech codes, and messianic public education to take just a few examples. The State seeks to bring about justification by law rather than justification by faith, and seeks the destruction of all institutions that mediate between the individual and the State.

In short, “The Man,” in the guise of the modern State, is at war with God, attempting to supplant Him and destroy a Biblical social order. To pretend that impersonal forces guide history, an idea Dr. Moore would not endorse, is simply dangerous. To argue that “conspiracies,” some Satanic in origin, are not a reality is foolish. To deride such concerns as “paranoia, cynicism, and just plain pugilism” is just plain uncharitable.

How’s this for some democratic stability in the Middle East, Darrell?

She has encouraged three of her sons to die attacking Israel, and would be proud if the other three followed suit. She appeared in a video with her youngest boy, Mohammed, 17, telling him not to return alive from a suicide mission. Now she is a democratically elected Hamas member of the Palestinian Legislative Council.

On the electoral rolls, she is listed as Maryam Farahat. To Palestinians she is known as “the mother of the struggle”.

Makes the Opinion Journal piece by Mark Steyn about the West’s demographic nightmare take on even more serious—and deadly—overtones. If the good guys are outnumbered by the bad guys, democracy don’t look so good anymore, do it?

I’m more concerned about populating the kingdom of heaven with Friedrichs than creating more taxpayers to bear Leviathan’s burden, but it would be nice if some of the snide commenters who deride “baby factories” would get it that Christian women bearing children and raising them to the glory of God is an important and noble aspiration on many levels. Apparently the Muslims get it, in their twisted way. Perhaps the light will come on for Christians, too.

In his January 26th entry, Dave Black has an interesting discussion about polygamy. It is a succinct and thoughtful analysis of an issue that is rarely considered.

Speaking of Dr. Black, I read his book “The Myth of Adolescence” last night. If I can gin up the energy, I might discuss the book in greater detail. Dave argues that the category of “adolescence” (that period of time when a person is not quite an adult nor really a child) is a recent construct driven by cultural and legal changes such as compulsory education laws, child labor laws, the juvenile justice system, etc. Moreover, adolescence is never mentioned in Scripture and Dave argues persuasively that the social theory of adolescence systematically undermines a Christian understanding of human nature. He argues instead from Scripture for an understanding of the “life cycle” that includes the following phases:

1. Childhood (ages 1-12)
2. Emerging Adulthood (12-30)
3. Senior Adulthood (age 30-death)

The book is divided into three sections. Part One presents an overview of the human life cycle and describes development from childhood to adulthood. In Part Two, Dave gleans parenting principles from the life of Jesus. Part Three deals with meat and potatoes issues like courtship and creating expectations in teenagers.

The book also includes a CD-ROM and a closing essay by Dave’s wife, Becky, which may very well be the best part of the book. Overall a very enjoyable and quick read.

Justin Raimondo and Robert Dreyfuss remind readers that Israel played a significant role in the creation of Hamas. Talk about blowback! Isn’t it interesting that this part of the story is conveniently ignored by the WAPO-NY TIMES-Fox News-CNN crowd? (Here is how the story was reported several years back by UPI). The rise of militant Islam has frequently been aided by the West and demonstrates that careless interventionism is fraught with unintended consequences.

Einstein once said, “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe.” I was reminded of this quote when I saw that while 53% of Americans think the administration deliberately misled the American public about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, 57% of the public supports military action against Iran.

It has always seemed odd to me that anyone buys into the idea that democracy will produce stability in the Middle East. The Christian Science Monitor, which has provided some decent coverage from Iraq, wonders if democracy empowers “Islamists.” Well, of course it does. The only question is why anyone is surprised. Juan Cole has some good thoughts on this, too:

The stunning victory of the militant Muslim fundamentalist Hamas Party in the Palestinian elections underlines the central contradictions in the Bush administration’s policies toward the Middle East. Bush pushes for elections, confusing them with democracy, but seems blind to the dangers of right-wing populism. At the same time, he continually undermines the moderate and secular forces in the region by acting high-handedly or allowing his clients to do so. As a result, Sunni fundamentalist parties, some with ties to violent cells, have emerged as key players in Iraq, Egypt and Palestine.

Democracy depends not just on elections but on a rule of law, on stable institutions, on basic economic security for the population, and on checks and balances that forestall a tyranny of the majority. Elections in the absence of this key societal context can produce authoritarian regimes and abuses as easily as they can produce genuine people power. Bush is on the whole unwilling to invest sufficiently in these key institutions and practices abroad. And by either creating or failing to deal with hated foreign occupations, he has sown the seeds for militant Islamist movements that gain popularity because of their nationalist credentials.

In Iraq, which is among the least secure and most economically fraught countries in the world, the Dec. 15 elections brought into Parliament a set of powerful Shiite fundamentalist parties and a new force, the Muslim fundamentalist Iraqi Accord Front, which gained most of the votes of formerly secular-minded Iraqi Sunni Arabs. Some IAF politicians are suspected of strong ties to Iraq’s Sunni insurgency. In Egypt, last fall’s election increased representation for the fundamentalist Muslim Brotherhood from 17 to more than 70 seats in Parliament, making that group a key political player for the first time in Egyptian history. Decades ago, the party once assassinated a prime minister and attempted to assassinate President Gamal Abdul Nasser, but now maintains it has turned to moderation. It aims at the imposition of a rigid interpretation of Islamic law on Egyptians, including Egyptian women.

Gary North doesn’t write like this when he is answering investment queries, telling readers to open daycare centers, or writing other Rockwellian fluff:

Leader by leader, issue by issue, the Christian Right turns to political alliances with humanists in the Republican Party. They are now facing the situation that Blacks face in the Democratic Party: “When you are in a political Party’s hip pocket, you will be sat on.”

The Christian Right wants a halfway house between democracy and theocracy. It also wants a halfway house between theonomy and autonomy, revelation and rationalism, creationism and evolutionism. It wants equal time for Jesus, which means equal time for Satan.

Their allies, the humanists, want no time for Jesus. They want the votes and donations of the faithful, but nothing more. They generally get what they want.

I haven’t seen this elsewhere, but Paul Craig Roberts has uncovered some fairly scary provisions in the reauthorization of The Patriot Act. One section creates a permanent police force under the supervision of the Secretary of Homeland Security which can “make arrests without warrant for any offense against the United States committed in their presence, or for any felony cognizable under the laws of the United States if they have reasonable grounds to believe that the person to be arrested has committed or is committing such felony.” This police force will be assigned to various jurisdictions, including “an event designated under section 3056(e) of title 18 as a special event of national significance” Unfortunately, “a special event of national significance” is not defined, leaving vast discretion to the executive branch. The likely goal is keeping protestors away from political leaders. Nothing like being able to seek redress for grievances! Christians have bought into this nonsense because they no longer seem to believe in total depravity and seek their security from the state rather than God.

When the founders met in Philadelphia at what became known as the Constitutional convention they struggled mightily with the issue of divided sovereignty. The problem before them on this issue was how to give the Federal government enough sovereignty to do what it needed to do while maintaining the legitimate sovereignty for the individual States so that they wouldn’t lose their individual identity. The divided sovereignty plan that they finally arrived at included not only sovereignty that was vertically divided between State Governments and Federal Government but also they reached for sovereignty that was horizontally divided between the different branches in the Federal Governments. They attempted to achieve this horizontal sovereignty by locating the Sovereignty of each branch of the Federal Government in different constituencies with the House having its sovereignty source in those who had the franchise, and the Senate having its sovereignty source in the respective State legislatures who would elect US Senators and the Executive having its sovereignty source in the Electoral College. All of this makes it clear that the Founders had no problem with Sovereignty in Government as long as it was decentralized, properly distributed (diffused) and limited to its proper sphere.

Sovereignty, when considered as a temporal phenomenon is finite and is an inescapable category in any culture or society. The question thus is never whether a culture or society will have exercised sovereignty but rather the question is where will the finite amount of sovereignty dwell. The Framers of the Constitution, knowing and experiencing the perils of consolidated sovereignty, desired sovereignty not to congeal in any one location. In pursuing divided sovereignty they were shaping the character of the American Institutional soul in a Feudal direction as it was informed by Biblical thought categories.

We have made three points in the above paragraph on which we need to expand.

1.) Temporal Sovereignty is finite
2.) Consolidated sovereignty is perilous
3.) America is a country shaped by feudalistic tendencies, which were themselves informed by Biblical categories.

With temporal sovereignty being finite we must understand that if you give a set amount of sovereignty to one location, you must, by necessity delete that much sovereignty from another location. This was part of the problem that lay behind the American War for Independence. Questions and conflicts arose regarding where sovereignty was located. Was it located exclusively with the King? Was it located exclusively with the English Parliament? Was sovereignty shared with Colonial political institutions? Because the Colonialists had experienced firsthand the scourge of the claim of Centralized sovereignty they were determined that their experiment in Government would not allow sovereignty to rest in any one person or institution and so they set about to divide the finite sovereignty of the political governmental realm into different governmental spheres of influence.

What needs to be immediately noted at this point is that the Framers were only dealing with Sovereignty as it pertained to the realm of the political magistrate. There are no claims in the Constitution that no other realms of sovereignty existed besides the sphere of the political Magistrate. Such a claim would have made culture and society into merely a political entity denying the existence of other historic spheres of sovereignty such as Familial and Ecclesiastical.

As we consider the issue of consolidated vs. divided sovereignty as we fast forward into the 21st century we must admit that such an idea as diffused government that was codified in our founding document is far removed from the contemporary American mindset. In what was intended to be a system where the sovereignty of the political Magistracy was divided and so diffused we have gone to a Government of consolidated power where the Magistracy of the State Governments serve merely as the bribed mouthpieces for the Magistracy of the Federal Government. Worse than that though, the Federal Government, not being satisfied with dominion in the civil realm of Magistracy, has for decades been thieving more and more sovereignty from the possession of the spheres of Family and Church. This is seen by the attempt to weaken family sovereignty through policies such as the inheritance (death) tax, and confiscatory taxation in general and through institutions such as the government schools that have the effect of weaning children away from the authority, structure and sovereignty of their family organism, while attaching them to the authority, structure and sovereignty of the Federal political magistracy. This is also seen by the legislation that disallows Churches, on pain of tax litigation, their rightful sovereignty to speak to particular issues from the pulpit. In forbidding the Church to deal with certain subjects the State is seizing the Sovereignty of Christ in the Church in order to protect the sovereignty of the State over the citizenry.

Because of this successful sovereignty drain in the spheres of Family and Church in favor of a Behemoth State Americans have gone from an understanding of temporal sovereignty that is diffused to both different spheres of sovereignty (individual, Family, Church, State) and diffused within particular sovereign spheres (Husband & Wife share designated sovereignty in family, Federal Governments, State Governments and County Governments share designated sovereignty in the Civil-politico realm) to an understanding of sovereignty where the expectation is that the State is supposed to be a kind of God walking on the earth in which Americans are both, to live and move and have our being and in which we find the backdrop against which we can define ourselves. The consequence of such consolidated power at least twofold. First, we now have Statist tyranny and its exercise can be seen all along the cultural contours of America in such recent cases as Terry Schiavo murder where the State is given the sovereignty to end life, The Kelso Supreme Court decision where the State is given the sovereignty to possess private property on a tyrannical whim, The Dover Delaware Court decision on Intelligent Design where the State takes sovereignty to forbid other religions besides the State established religion from being ‘taught’ in schools, and the most recent Supreme Court case sustaining Oregon’s medical assisted suicide laws where the State determines that the right to kill must be held inviolable. All of these cases are examples where the State has seized Sovereignty which once belonged in other spheres with the consequent result that the other spheres of authority become anemic while the State becomes Leviathan due to its absconding of sovereignty from other spheres. The second consequence is a willingness on the part of the American people to play the well provided for child to the State’s role as suffocating Nanny.

Now this notion of divided, decentralized, and diffused sovereignty that used to be the American expectation was expressed in the US Constitution is the legacy of feudalism, which itself was the consequence of Biblical thinking that understood that since only God alone is Sovereign in an absolute and exhaustive sense and since fallen man is totally depraved and therefore prone to abuse unchecked sovereignty all temporal sovereignty therefore must be divided, decentralized and diffused in order to both honor God’s unique exhaustive sovereignty and to protect man from the Tyranny that would inevitably result where sovereignty was concentrated in one temporal institution. Such Feudal / Biblical thinking where sovereignty is parceled out in a multitude of freely entered into contractual / covenantal arrangements that results in a culture enriched by a sovereignty on a human scale has been eclipsed by a Socialistic / Mercantilist arrangement where sovereignty is massive and top down and results in a culture characterized by the mailed fist.

The desire of the Constitution party is to return to taking the Constitution seriously, which means a return to an understanding that temporal sovereignty is finite and so must be divided among those who have warranted jurisdiction in legitimate spheres. Furthermore in order to take the Constitution seriously we must once again believe that consolidated sovereignty is perilous to both those who would wield such sovereignty and to those who would be ruled by such sovereignty and so we must once again de-centralize the sovereignty of the political magistracy. Only by embracing again such ideas will we return to the original intent of the Constitution, which was informed by Feudal categories that were themselves a fruit that grew out of Biblical soil.

Disgraced former House Speaker Newt Gingrich is on the warpath. Well, not literally. Remember, that like the Veep, Newt had “other priorities” in the 1960’s and managed to skip out on sloughing it through the jungles of Southeast Asia.

No, now Newt is focused on garnering the endorsement of The Weekly Standard in his pending run for the White House in 2008. In an interview with the once venerable Human Events, Gingrich compares Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to (take a guess now) Adolph Hitler, and says the United States must bring about regime change in Iran.

As the U.S. is on a constant war footing, it seems there is never a shortage of potential Hitlerian monsters. Hussein, Noriega, Aidid, Rauol Cedras, Castro…take your pick, there all good. But the man of moment is Ahmadinejad, who continues to provide ammunition to his enemies by saying Israel should to be “wiped off the map,” calling the Holocaust a “myth,” and so on.

“If we don’t have a very serious systematic program to replace the government of Iran, we’re going to live in an unbelievably dangerous world,” Gingrich said. “This is 1935 and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is as close to Adolf Hitler as we’ve seen. We now know who they are; the question is who we are — are we Baldwin or Churchill?”

Newt, like his neocon handlers, must spend an awful lot of time watching The History Channel. The neocons always resort to what I like to call the argumentum ad Hitlerum. Once you’ve accused the “fascist” regime of being governed by a Hitlerian figure, you next call forth the specter of a new Munich and toss around words like appeasement. WWII is about the only historical reference these characters yank out of the quiver, and we’re always in need of soaring Churchillian leadership, which I’m sure Newt would like to provide.

Testifying before Congress, Newt raised the uuuuggggly specter of American isolationism and again hearkened back to the good old days (WWII), pulling out the dossier of “lessons learned.”

“Not since the failure of the League of Nations in the 1930s to confront the aggression of the dictatorships in Japan, Italy and Germany have we seen the willful avoidance of reality which is now underway with regard to Iran,” said Gingrich. “There are lessons to be learned from the 1930s and those lessons apply directly to the current government of Iran.”

“Our objective,” says Gingrich, “should be the systematic replacement of this regime. We should start with all-out help to the forces of independence in the country — there are trade union groups, there are student groups — we should in every way we can get them resources. We should indicate without any question that we are going to take the steps necessary to replace the regime and we should then act accordingly. And we should say to the Europeans that there is no diplomatic solution that is imaginable that is going to solve this problem.”

No diplomatic solution? Of what, exactly, are the Iranians guilty? Iran is demanding the right to enrich uranium for peaceful uses. Under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which Iran has signed but American allies Israel, India and Pakistan have not, a nation has every right to produce uranium.

If Truman and FDR could cozy up to Uncle Joe, Nixon could toast Mao, and Ike and Krushchev could get together, why on earth does Newt think we can’t possibly talk to the Iranians?

You probably won’t find anything special printed on your calendar for the 19th and 21st of January. In case you are wondering, those are the respective birthdays of Generals Robert E. Lee and Thomas “Stonewall” Jackson.

As a nation we have already honored Martin Luther King, Jr., and will commemorate the birthdays of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln next month, but Lee and Jackson are especially dear to my heart. They were great men who embodied the inspiring courage, uncompromising honesty, principled conviction and moral fortitude we no longer see in our leaders today.

Both Lee and Jackson were men of action who fought valiantly to defend their homes and families. Jackson made it clear that if it were up to him, the South would “raise the black flag” and show no quarter to the enemy invading their homeland. They realized that while war was sometimes necessary, it should never be entered into lightly. As Lee put it, “It is good that war is so terrible, else we should grow too fond of it.”

Lee and Jackson were Southern gents through and through. Consider Lee’s Definition of a Gentleman:

The forbearing use of power does not only form a touchstone, but the manner in which an individual enjoys certain advantages over others is a test of a true gentleman.

The power which the strong have over the weak, the employer over the employed, the educated over the unlettered, the experienced over the confiding, even the clever over the silly—the forbearing or inoffensive use of all this power or authority, or a total abstinence from it when the case admits it, will show the gentleman in a plain light.

The gentleman does not needlessly and unnecessarily remind an offender of a wrong he may have committed against him. He cannot only forgive, he can forget; and he strives for that nobleness of self and mildness of character which impart sufficient strength to let the past be but the past.

A true man of Honor feels humble himself when he cannot help humbling others.

Jackson’s wife, Mary Anna, wrote of her husband that he “was a great advocate for marriage, appreciating the gentler sex so highly that whenever he met one of the ‘unappropriated blessings’ under the type of truest womanhood, he would wish that one of his bachelor friends could be fortunate to win her.”

Both Lee and Jackson believed in principle over pragmatism. Lee once said, “I think it better to do right, even if we suffer in so doing, than to incur the reproach of our consciences and posterity.” Jackson summed it up this way: “Duty is ours; consequences are God’s.”

Jackson never lived to see the fall of his beloved South, but Lee was gracious even in defeat. When approached by those who wished to remain bitter after surrendering he said, “Abandon your animosities and make your sons Americans.” It was his position that “we must forgive our enemies. I can truly say that not a day has passed since the war began that I have not prayed for them.”

Above all, Lee and Jackson were men of God. Lee loved to pray. He would be sure to let people know that he was praying for them, and he felt encouraged when he was remembered in their prayers. Once, upon hearing that others had been praying for him, he remarked, “I sincerely thank you for that, and I can only say that I am a poor sinner, trusting in Christ alone, and that I need all the prayers you can offer for me.”

Jackson was the epitome of a life devoted to prayer. No matter was too insignificant that it did not warrant communion with the Father: “I have so fixed the habit in my mind that I never raise a glass of water to my lips without asking God’s blessing, never seal a letter without putting a word of prayer under the seal, never take a letter from the post without a brief sending of my thoughts heavenward. I never change my classes in the lecture room without a minute’s petition for the cadets who go out and for those who come in.”

Jackson had an intimate knowledge of the sovereignty of God and rested in the promises of his Heavenly Father. Following the loss of his first wife, Ellie, who died almost immediately after giving birth to a stillborn son, he wrote to his sister-in-law, “I have been called to pass through the deep waters of affliction, but all has been satisfied. The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away, blessed be the name of the Lord. … I can willingly submit to anything if God strengthens me.” It was this unshakeable faith that taught him “to feel as safe in battle as in bed.”

The more I see what passes for leadership today in our government, in our churches and in our homes, the more I am convinced that we need men like Robert E. Lee and Thomas J. Jackson. I guess it’s time for me to watch Gods and Generals again.