Political Blunders of Internationalists and Big Government

As I write this, I am sitting here watching a documentary on A&E Network about the Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh (1959-1993).  The incident in Waco, TX, where a number of Branch Davidians (including Koresh) were slaughtered by the Federal ATF forces under Bill Clinton's watch, was another in a series of such events enacted by the Clintons in the 1990's, beginning with the Ruby Ridge incident and ending with a wrongly-executed invasion of Kosovo in 1999.  There are a few observations I wanted to make in regard to this whole thing, and let's start. 
This is more of a political post than it is a religious one, but it has some theological implications.

Author Christophe Buffin de Chosal, in his seminal work The End of Democracy (Arcadia, CA: Tumblar House, 2017) notes on page 70 of his book the following: "The state which arrogates to itself this right to discrimination has in fact a weapon capable of annihilating every individual freedom. This state will no longer be under the rule of law."  He notes further on page 137 the following as well: "Furthermore, the democratic state bears within itself an appetite for unlimited power, induced by electioneering and justified by the principle of popular rule."  It also seems that Enlightenment-influenced postmodernism contributes to this rise of the "democratic tyranny," in that as John Horvat II notes in his book Return to Order (York, PA: The American Society for the Preservation of Tradition, Family, and Property, 2013) it has lead to legislative group-think in the name of "diversity" which in reality is not true diversity at all - he states the following on page 40 in regard to this: "In these times with all talk of diversity, never has there been less diversity and more conformity....While all believe themselves to be free and autonomous, never have so many been compelled to think and act in the same politically correct way."  What Horvat is talking about is what is today called "political correctness," which in the name of "diversity" and "individual self-expression" has become instead a totalitarian mindset of which the real message is "if you don't think like us or agree with us, then you have no place."  It is a great violation against the dignity of personhood, and it is the root problem of why incidents such as the Waco Branch Davidian massacre, the Ruby Ridge incident, and the Kosovo invasion happened in the 1990's, and under the Obama administration it is the reason why businesses - the sole proprietary realm of their owners - are punished for refusing to go against the convictions of their owners.  It is also why many of our politicians have no problem criticizing Israel over the Palestinian issue, but those same politicians are only too complicit to accept kickbacks from the Turkish government to suppress recognition of the massacre of millions of Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians (and others) in 1915.  They are also all about "Native American rights," but are not too virtuous to continue to occupy homes on land belonging to those same Indians they claim to be fighting for.  Our government's inconsistency also extends internationally, in that while we were fighting to "liberate" Albanian Muslim terrorists in Kosovo, at the same time our government ignored the massacres of South Sudanese Christians by the radical Islamic government (with ties to Al-Qaeda) by saying it was "not our fight."  That statement led a South Sudanese activist, Dr. Dominic Mohammed, to remark rightly, "Are White Muslims of more value (to NATO and the US - my add) than Black Christians?"  Dr. Mohammed is correct of course - with all the fake cries of "racism" that Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and others have squawked against policemen and others in this nation, they have been stone-silent when it comes to issues in South Sudan; curious, isn't it?  This also has some very strong religious ramifications as well when it comes to the US, and let's discuss that now.

There is no doubt that the Branch Davidians - a radical sect that was a schism from the Seventh-Day Adventist Church in the year 1935 in part due to the efforts of excommunicated SDA Victor Houteff, a Bulgarian emigree - are a heretical sect.  The fact that Koresh thought himself as "God incarnate" is immediately suspect as cultic, not unlike Jim Jones and others in previous generations. But, the issue is that when the Federal government plays "Inquisitor," it oversteps its bounds.  Koresh was crazy, no doubt a criminal, and the Branch Davidians did have some issues, but the way Janet Reno, the late lesbian attorney general under the Clinton Administration, handled the whole thing was reprehensible at best and downright eerie at worst - if the government has that kind of tendency against the Branch Davidians, who else could it target?  The same is true for the late Fred Phelps and his Westboro Baptist Church - that group was anything but Christian, and its "gospel" of hate doesn't in any way represent the Christian position toward certain things.  True Christianity doesn't hate anyone, and although we can actively oppose certain agendas that threaten traditional values, it should never entail hate, death, or injury against our opponents.  We need to understand that the people who are espousing such immorality and odd worldviews are in need of conversion, not elimination, and as human beings - and like all human beings a visible image of an invisible God - they are entitled to the same opportunity and love that the Gospel offers them for salvation.  This is why, based on what I understand from Waco and other things, we need to make some things clear.

Homosexuality is a disordered condition, and the actions associated with it are sinful.  As Christians, we espouse a different worldview that sees the destructive results of these behaviors (including "gay marriage") and in good conscience we cannot affirm those behaviors in any way, shape, or form.  That is why certain businesses which are owned and operated by devout Christians - particularly bakeries - cannot extend certain services to such people.  I don't think that any Christian baker would deny a homosexual patron the right to purchase goods - there is no moral conflict in selling a dozen chocolate chip cookies, a pizza, or a birthday cake to a gay person, and no Christian would see a problem with any of those types of transactions.  Therefore, a Christian businessman would not be opposed to doing business with gays for those types of normal transactions.  But, there are limits to what a Christian can do, and for instance a Christian bookstore would not sell pornography (or at least shouldn't), and a Christian motel owner would probably have a serious issue with a married man fooling around on his wife with his attractive young secretary - such things violate moral conscience, and a professed Christian should have no part in those things.  And, baking a cake for a "gay marriage," or catering banquet services or renting a motel room to a "gay" couple likewise has moral problems for the Christian.  Baking a "gay wedding" cake, in essence, is rightly viewed by the Christian in the same way as a Christian bookstore selling Playboy - it makes no logical sense, and is complete violation of a Christian business owner's core convictions.  As Catholics, this is even more pivotal, in that we believe that marriage is a sacramental union that is the distinct domain of the Church and the state therefore has no right to define or enforce definitions of "marriage" based on the whims and fancies of radicals.  God established at Creation what a marriage is - one man, married to one woman, in a sacramental union that is covenantal and eternal.  Natural law - and Aquinas would affirm this as well - substantiates this fact.  What I find interesting though is how many Darwinian evolutionists support this whole "same-sex marriage" nonsense, but if they were to be completely compatible with their own worldview, it's not even possible there either - despite the efforts of early homosexual activists such as Karl Heinrich Ulrichs and others to use eugenics and evolution to justify homosexuality as an "evolving third sex," fact is this is illogical.  If you are a true social Darwinist, then you would understand that the idea of "Natural Selection" (survival of the fittest) is in direct opposition to the homosexual agenda - a big part of natural selection, in the Darwinist mindset, is procreation; you need capable partners to produce capable offspring for the propagation of the species, correct?  Well, homosexuals cannot procreate, so that is a problem.  So, without even realizing it, the Darwinist has just affirmed a strong Creationist conviction and Christian belief by standing by the idea that procreation is an integral factor in the "survival of the fittest" and the continuation of the species.   If more homosexuals would look into that realistically, they would see then that it is not only the Christian worldview that sees their lifestyle and behavior as unnatural, but the strictest evolutionist would also come to that same conclusion.  The reason for that is simple - natural law!  Where the Darwinist/evolutionist misses the mark though is the fact that a supernatural God established natural law.  For the Christian this poses no problem, and it also gives a natural underpinning for moral law as well, which has its fullness realized in the person of Christ.  Any rate, I digress.   The point is, getting back to Waco, Westboro, and other weird sects (even Scientology at this point), when the government cracks down and uses unjustified excessive force against the Branch Davidians, and a precedent is set, then what does that mean for the Christian baker who simply refuses to make a "gay wedding" cake?   It goes back to the de Chosal quote, in that a state which arrogates to itself this arbitrary right of discrimination has then at its disposal a destructive weapon that it can employ arbitrarily against anyone it deems "politically incorrect" or "intolerant," and that whole emphasis is being pushed by radicals such as the Southern Poverty Law Center, and their ludicrous "Hate Map," and it encourages a nasty "mob rule" that we see with terrorist groups such as Antifa and Black Lives Matter, as well as those acting as "vigilante warriors" such as gay activist Floyd Corkins who in 2013 used the SPLC "Hate Map" to shoot up the Family Research Council's offices.  It then leads to travesties such as Ferguson and Charlottesville, and thus as Horvat noted in the earlier reference it forces more conformity to the worldview of "political correctness" rather than to true diversity, which would allow those who disagree with something to have their position without intimidation and persecution.  What our government did at Ruby Ridge and Waco in the 1990's should serve as a precedent of what could happen, as well as looking at what repressive regimes such as Stalin's, Hitler's, and Mao's did to millions who disagreed with them.  As the late Pontiff, Pope St. John Paul II, notes in his seminal document Veritatis Splendor, "at the root of modern totalitarianism is to be found in the denial of the transcendent dignity of the human person, who, as the visible image of an invisible God, is therefore by his very nature the subject of rights which no one may violate - no individual, group, class, nation, or State."  He later affirms that truth and freedom are intrinsically connected, and that this creates an inseparable bond between divine reason and will.  What that means is that just as the homosexual has a right to choose wrongly and is given the dignity of personhood to make that choice (no matter how wrong it is), then that same right is to be extended to the devout Christian who chooses otherwise.  That being said, with the rise of "political correctness" and the entitlement mentality of many, now being legislated by unelected activist judges, there is ample evidence to believe that the United States is no longer a free society - freedom has become for many redefined as the affirmation and open flaunting of personal vice, and is in reality not true freedom at all.  This also presupposes for us that perhaps the current United States system, as it now operates, is becoming more inefficient and in decline by the day.  In time, I think this will become more pronounced as well, and as a whole separate discussion, it is however not a time to fear or despair, as anagogically it heralds a good thing to come.  Ultimately, it puts us closer to the "Blessed Hope" of Christ's return, but in reading the writings of many Church visionaries and saints, both East and West, there may be a season of renewal, a spiritual renaissance, which may reform and clean up the current mess our society is in.  But, that hope, as mentioned, is for a later discussion, as it requires a lot of detail to discuss itself.

Much more can be said, but let's try to summarize.  First, while it is not disputed that David Koresh, Jim Jones, and even David Miscavige of the Scientology cult are evil, deranged men who head (or did head) destructive religious cults, and the Church would rightly condemn their heresies as such, at the same time in reference to Koresh in particular and the whole Branch Davidian/Waco mess, we need to think about government overreach - has our own nation become so rigidly Machiavellian that it would even destroy the most peaceful of dissenters against its agenda?  If so, it means that democracy is not the system of government God intended for us to have, and we need to re-think that radically and maybe consider the possibility of a restoration of traditional values and order as being a vital personal mandate.  We can be eschatologically utopian, staring at the sky for Jesus to return, but what if that doesn't happen for another century or millenium?   It means then that we have a responsibility, and maybe that responsibility should set us upon a path to rediscover what it was that made us as a Christian civilization at one time great, and how to restore those attributes which will re-establish that greatness.  My answer naturally is that a sound and solid monarchy is our best hope, and as a patriotic American, perhaps the most un-American of systems (a king) may be where we preserve the best of what it is to be American.  On that, I would agree with my good friend Charles A. Coulombe and his semi-fictional book Star-Spangled Crown, which I would recommend.  This is the ideal, but there is also a more ominous outcome that could happen too - the scenario in Robert Ferrigno's Prayers for the Assassin, in which America fragments, and large portions of it become an Islamic Caliphate.  If you can do so, please read both books and then decide which you would rather live under - for me, Coulombe's scenario is my choice hands-down, and it is my conviction to aid in seeing that happen for real if at all possible.  Thanks for allowing me to share with you again, and have a blessed Lenten season.