Born Free

Lock Down

Reprint of a Huffington Post article titled There Will Be No Second American Revolution: The Futility Of An Armed Revolt written by John W. Whitehead and published on July 19, 2016 (Part 1 of 2)

James Madison said, “A standing military force, with an overgrown Executive [branch] will not long be safe companions to liberty.”

America is a ticking time bomb.

All that remains to be seen is who or what will set fire to the fuse. We are poised at what seems to be the pinnacle of a manufactured breakdown, with police shooting unarmed citizens, snipers shooting police, global and domestic violence rising, and a political showdown between two presidential candidates equally matched in unpopularity.

The preparations for the Republican and Democratic national conventions taking place in Cleveland and Philadelphia provide a foretaste of how the government plans to deal with any individual or group that steps out of line: they will be censored, silenced, spied on, caged, intimidated, interrogated, investigated, recorded, tracked, labeled, held at gunpoint, detained, restrained, arrested, tried and found guilty.

Make no mistake, the government is ready for a civil uprising.

Indeed, the government has been preparing for this moment for years. A 2008 Army War College report called on the military to prepare for “widespread civil violence inside the United States” arising from another terrorist attack, “unforeseen economic collapse, loss of functioning political and legal order, purposeful domestic resistance or insurgency, pervasive public health emergencies, and catastrophic natural and human disasters.”

Subsequent reports by the Department of Homeland Security to identify, monitor and label right-wing and left-wing activists and military veterans as extremists (a.k.a. terrorists) have manifested into full-fledged pre-crime surveillance programs.

Meanwhile, the government has been amassing an arsenal of military weapons for use domestically and equipping and training their law enforcement and administrative “troops” for war. There are now at least 120,000 armed federal agents carrying such weapons who possess the power to arrest.

Rounding out this profit-driven campaign to turn American citizens into enemy combatants (and America into a battlefield) is a technology sector that is colluding with the government to create a Big Brother that is all-knowing, all-seeing and inescapable. All of this has taken place right under our noses, funded with our taxpayer dollars and carried out in broad daylight without so much as a general outcry from the citizenry.

It’s astounding how convenient we’ve made it for the government to lock down the nation.

The events of recent years — the invasive surveillance, the extremism reports, the civil unrest, the protests, the shootings, the bombings, the military exercises and active shooter drills, the color-coded alerts and threat assessments, the fusion centers, the transformation of local police into extensions of the military, the distribution of military equipment and weapons to local police forces, the government databases containing the names of dissidents and potential troublemakers — have all conjoined to create an environment in which “we the people” are more distrustful and fearful of each other and more reliant on the government to keep us safe.

Of course, that’s the point.

The powers-that-be want us to feel vulnerable. They want us to fear each other and trust the government’s hired gunmen to keep us safe from terrorists, extremists, jihadists, psychopaths, etc.

Most of all, the powers-that-be want us to feel powerless to protect ourselves and reliant on and grateful for the dubious protection provided by the American police state. Their strategy is working. The tree of liberty is dying.

The State of the World

Armageddon Re-envisioned

Reprint of an essay called The Shootings in San Bernardino: Another View written by James V. Schall, S.J. on December 6, 2015. (Part 2 of 2)

As long as we choose (and it is a choice) not to identify the problem the more successful it is and the more it will grow. That growth may indeed be the reason it is not identified. The deeper problem lies in the truth of Islam’s mission to conquer the world for Allah. If it is true that the Qur’an is a revelation of God, then it will eventually win. Even if it is not true or from God, and I do not think it is, in Christian apocalyptic terms it may win anyway. If our view of the world remains cast in terms of relativism, diversity theory, and pacifism, we will have no clue about what is happening. We must admire [even in fear] the logic and abiding persistence within Islam to continue its centuries-long, Allah-given mission to conquer the world.

 

Many Muslim countries are “peaceful” only in the sense that their governments, usually military dictatorships, keep down the radicalism that would overthrow them and is overthrowing them in many places. In no actual Muslim country is there any real freedom of religion. Whenever and wherever possible, all or part of Muslim law is established as civil law.

 

One can speculate about why we cannot understand the problem within Islam, and therefore not face its real attraction for its millions of followers. Nevertheless, everyone seems to be waiting to see who is winning. Even Muslims know that they cannot afford to be on the losing side.

 

The present strategy of ISIS and its followers seems clear enough. The following steps or remarks seem most plausible:

 

1) Gain control of governments and armies within present Islamic states.
2) Eliminate all Christian, Jewish, and other religious elements, including their buildings and records, from within existing Muslim states.
3) Place as many Muslims, especially young males, in European countries and other countries as possible.
4) Continue to produce large numbers of children so that demographic and democratic processes will provide increasing majorities in towns, cities, and nations.
5) Make every city and area on earth, from Mumbai to San Bernardino, the object of incidents of terror both on a systematic and random basis, preferably both.
6) Ensure that enough followers are found in most western countries that are willing to sacrifice their lives to carry this project out in the coming years.
7) Create an atmosphere that makes it difficult to stem the Muslim conquest.
8) Undermine and convert to your use all police and military operations left remaining to oppose a final conquest.

 

Granted, due to the speed of their success, the confusion of those who resist, and the deliberate blindness of its opposition, ISIS and its sympathizers have a reasonable hope of final success at least in Europe and possibly America. Russia, China, and India may take longer, but they will ultimately have to be dealt with. All three of these countries already have met Muslim invasions or turmoil, and their nationalist or religious unity may prove more difficult to counter. They are, when provoked, less likely to stand by confused and relatively helpless.

 

And one last caveat, from Howard Kainz’ essay “Christians as ‘Soft Targets”: “The combination of the surrender to modernism in the ‘developed world’ and Christians’ helpless exposure to violence and subjugation in Muslim-dominated regions leads to a possible alternative vision of Armageddon and victory: a final martyrdom of the Church.” The Church has no armies. Who will defend her?

 

My Thoughts:

The religious intolerance made compulsory by Islam won't come quickly in America, but the irony is it will be the result of our capacity for religious acceptance. Our lives are being changed forever by the creeping gradualism of social and ethical tolerance required of our populations by those who are promoting the common good.

 

When we do loose our freedom, it won't be through the on-slot of tanks and guns, it will be because we have let freedom slip away while listening to others tell us it's for our own good! Unfortunately, in this scenario, losing our freedom means losing our way of life, and probably our lives.

 

The whole idea that in this country, little by little, our freedom is being eroded probably sounds unbelievable. America might truly be the greatest country in the world, but it's time to recognize that it is in serious trouble.

Nightmares

Another View

Reprint of an essay called The Shootings in San Bernardino: Another View written by James V. Schall, S.J. on December 6, 2015. (Part 1 of 2)

After almost every shooting involving a Muslim perpetrator, from 9/11 to Fort Hood to San Bernardino, you hear something like this from the President on down: “We are horrified by this inexplicable, horrendous act. Our hearts go out to the victims. This atrocity again proves the need for more gun laws.” Then we have a statement from a Muslim group, in which its spokesperson, often women, are also horrified. "We had nothing to do with it and we know nothing about it. We are concerned with retaliation". Next we have a solemn admonition from some government official assuring us that the Muslim community is peaceful, that we depend on loyal Muslims. Then ISIS or Al Qaeda announces that it is responsible for the killings, whether that is actually true or not.

 

We are almost always led to conclude that this event is just another irrational act. This act of terrorism, it is explained, was the product of a loner or two, usually a citizen of the place where the killings occurred. This insane action requires the attention of psychological health experts; while ideology is mostly or entirely ignored. As with earthquakes, no real explanation exists. Such things just happen; some human beings are nutty. Since similar acts now happen every other week, if not sooner; we have to be ready for them. We need to call in the FBI, federal agencies, more militarized police, community organizers, religious leaders, and psychiatrists.

 

The bottom line is that though all religions are prone to violence, we are told these particular happenings have nothing to do with religion; especially not Islam. They are caused by “terrorism” and “violence”, as if these acts are somehow themselves independent ideological positions with no relation to the organizations that use them to foster their ends.

 

Is there another conceivable way to look at these events that comes closer to a more plausible explanation? The first step is that these atrocities all have a single ultimate origin. I do not mean some central command post in Syria ordering operatives today to go to Paris, tomorrow to San Bernardino, the next day you name it, though there may be that too. The ultimate origin is found in the history of Muslim conquests from its beginning in the 7th and 8th centuries and confirmed by many passages in the Qur’an. Muslim scholars know that this jihadist approach is found within the religion. It is not an outside import; it is not an aberration. It may not be the only position found in this rambling book, but it is one that is there. This same force of spirit to convert all to Islam has abided for twelve hundred years. Yet, instead of grudgingly acknowledging it and dealing with it, we deny it exists.

 

Islam has no central authority. Passages in the Qur’an and its commentaries advocating holy war may be interpreted literally, symbolically, or poetically, but they are there. The reason why this jihadist inspiration always comes back to incite some Muslim believers is because it is found in the sources as the only true interpretation of Islam. ISIS members insist that their religious motives be taken seriously. This earnestness is what motivates them. We insult them, while at the same time playing into their hands, by refusing to understand what they say and, indeed, give witness to with their lives. It is those Muslims who have died killing in western cities, not those who are murdered, who are considered to be martyrs.

 

The so-called “Muslim terrorists”, then, do not think of themselves as “Muslim terrorists”. They consider themselves to be the only real followers of Mohammed. They see themselves as doing exactly what he and his first followers did in the saga of a rapid conquest of much of the African, Arab, and Middle Eastern worlds. The conquest of Europe would complete the stymied efforts at Tours and Vienna, victories that allowed Europe to remain Europe and not become Muslim much sooner. Moreover, jihadists have a perfectly intelligible explanation for what they are doing and how they are doing it. It is a sophisticated intellectual theory deftly designed to explain exactly why these “terrorist” acts are both legitimate and indeed praiseworthy in the eyes of Allah. The metaphysics of voluntarism behind such reasoning is by no means unfamiliar to western thinkers. And it is this intellectual battle that we are unwilling to or unable to fight.

 

Briefly, the assigned mission of Islam is to conquer the world for Allah. Submission to Allah is the highest human good; and any means to carry it out is good if it is successful. Carrying out this mission, in this view, is a Muslim’s vocation. With the re-establishment of the caliphate, this mission can now recommence. No other religion or its symbols, including ones more ancient than Islam, are allowed within its conquered territories. The fact that many individual Muslims may not agree with this interpretation is irrelevant, even though there are millions that do agree, because numbers are not the key factor.

 

Fear rules both Muslim and western cultures that oppose the jihadists or are its victims. This fear is kept alive by the methods of warfare, shrewdly applied, that utilize modern technology but rely on old and reliable techniques. Muslims fighters learned some time ago that modern weapons are not particularly effective against them. Slitting the throats of ten Christians on international TV is more effective than weapons of mass destruction, which they would also like to possess. We see that simple cars and trucks are often feared means of their warfare.

 

Thus, tanks and bombs are not particularly effective against individual and seemingly random attacks on enemy homelands. With local passports and cell phones, small arms, home-made bombs, and knives, any large western city can be brought to its knees for several days. It is something of a joke now to think that such things as the Transportation Safety mechanisms we have in airports make much difference. The downing of a Russian passenger plane may still happen, but attacking schools, buses, trains, churches, or just random individuals anywhere in the world will instantly be on international news with the usual disclaimers. Bringing down passenger planes may be an obsolete means in terms of effectiveness.

Choas at the door