I was looking through my notes from a book by G. K. Chesterton called The Everlasting Man. I came across this paragraph that seems to apply to where we are today.
“If there is one fact we really can prove, from the history that we really do know, it is that despotism can be a development, often a late development and very often indeed the end of societies that have been highly democratic. A despotism may almost be defined as a tired democracy. As fatigue falls on a community, the citizens are less inclined for that eternal vigilance which has truly been called the price of liberty; and they prefer to arm only one single sentinel to watch the city while they sleep.”Chesterton wrote this a few years after World War I. I don’t know if that was on his mind. Ignore the point that neither Great Britain or the United States were or are democracies. That is not what he is discussing. The description does describe the public ethos today. We have been asleep at the wheel for a long time. What we see happening in Washington is not something that developed overnight. Woodrow Wilson used the first world war as an excuse for a lot of Progressive policies. FDR used the depression and World War II to implement sweeping power grabs for the socialist with a long view. His administration was riddled with communists and Soviet agents. If it had not been for people like Whitaker Chambers and Richard Nixon they would have not been driven back underground. LBJ used the civil rights movement to advance massing expansions of welfare and government control. They are now emerging again. This time they have used a flu virus to panic the masses into subservience.
My hope and prayer is that there will be enough righteous people left in America for God to work a miracle. It could be one leader. It could be a mass revival. It could be almost anything but if the Democrats do away with the filibuster or the Republicans are again betrayed by RINOs we are in for some despotic times at least.
Chesterton, G. K. The Everlasting Man. New York: Image Books, 1955, pp. 57-8.
Project Gutenberg Australia, Kindle Reference 718-721.
homo unius libri
Re your Chesterton quote, I forget who it was who said something to the effect that in any democracy, once the people realize they can vote to obtain money from the public purse, then the end is near. Also, I agree with your last paragraph, and I think that one other big plus for the hope of righteous people is our (still) protected right to keep and bear arms. If that is ever done away with, then I repeat: the end is near.
ReplyDeleteYour reference is one of those quotes attributed to different people. I have heard it coming from various of the Founding Fathers.
DeleteWhen I meditate on Micah 6:8 it talks about doing justice. I sometimes wonder if that is going to require applying the Second Amendment. I hope not.
Grace and peace
"Doing justice"? Let me guess - that was taken from the RSV bible you were presented with when you publicly confessed Jesus as your Lord and Savior around age 13 or so. For me, that was 1958.
DeleteActually it was the NASB. I struggled with the KJV and had a Phillips paraphrase to help me understand but I was aware that it was just a paraphrase. The RSV never really got on my radar.
DeleteGrace and peace
I'm not holding my breath.
ReplyDeleteI think that is wise advice. The times we have had genuine revival in history and things have changed is rare and often not noticed until long afterward.
DeleteWV broke off from Virginia over slavery. Maybe they will need to repeat the decision over current events.
Grace and peace.