Counterfeits

I propose that, for every principle that leads to Spherical Model northern hemisphere freedom, prosperity, and thriving civilization, there is a counterfeit southern hemisphere claim. Here are just a couple of examples.

Rights

Our Constitution does a good job of spelling out many of our God-given natural rights relating to life, liberty, and property: freedom of religion, freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, freedom to defend self and others with arms, freedom to feel secure in our persons and papers, and more. The counterfeit was put forward by FDR, using the word rights that we were used to recognizing as a positive part of our free country. But he skewed it.

In our day certain economic proofs have become accepted as self-evident: a second bill of rights, under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all, regardless of station or race or creed. Among these are:

·         the right to a useful and remunerative job, the right to earn enough to provide food and clothing and recreation;

·         the right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return that will give him and his family a decent living;

·         the right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom—freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;

·         the right of every family to a decent home; the right to adequate medical care, and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;

·         the right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age—sickness, medicine, and unemployment;

·         the right to a good education.

All of these rights spell security. And after this war is won, we must be prepared to move forward in the implementation of these rights to new goals of happiness and well being. For unless there is security here and home, there cannot be lasting peace in the world.

 

What is a right? Something you are entitled to just by virtue of being born a human. God has granted it to you. Others are required to respect your rights, but not to provide them out of thin air. So when Roosevelt uses the term, what does he mean? Something that we’d all like to have. And if you assume these things are rights—must be given to everyone—then government takes the place of God as the provider of rights. Government gets its power—and its money—from the governed. So, what FDR is saying is, you are required to give up whatever portion of your life’s work the government confiscates so that the government can grant that as a gift to someone else, in order to claim it is a better provider than God.

You do have the right to seek a good job; but if you have a right to a good job, regardless of your efforts or abilities, that means someone is required to hire you regardless of your efforts or abilities. That doesn’t square with the business freedom “right” he lists just below. You have the right to purchase a good home or a good education, but if you must be given those purchasable things, someone must be enslaved to pay for them.

Family

Family is the basic unit of society. It is the way we get a new generation, and pass along the values and principles required for civilization to that new generation. It is based on, and bound by, love for one another.

If there’s going to be a southern hemisphere counterfeit, it is going to appeal to the sense of belonging we crave. But instead of feeling the sense of belonging to parents, ancestors, siblings, and posterity, the counterfeit version is belonging to the collective—the state in the southeast quadrant, or the gang, mob, mafia, or other cabal in the southwest quadrant. The principle is the same: the collective wants/needs override the individual wants/needs.

I saw the latest Star Trek movie this past weekend, always fun. They re-enacted in a different way a scene from an earlier movie (that is set in a later time), where Spock had sacrificed himself by entering the hot nuclear reactor. He had said, “It is logical. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one.” But what has happened here? An individual sacrifices himself, because his love for the many he can save is greater than his love for his own life. “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends,” John 15:13 (King James Bible). That is the northern hemisphere version. Our soldiers do this for us. Our police take this risk. Last week we tragically lost four Houston firefighters who were acting on this honorable premise.

 

The southern hemisphere counterfeit takes the choice of sacrifice away from the individual, and replaces it with, “Because the collective is more important than the few or the one, the rights/wants/needs of the few or the one can be overridden at the will of those in control for the benefit of the collective.” This shows up in health care. If the collective is paying for health care, a costly and limited resource, then it is to the benefit of the collective to refuse care to whomever it deems less likely to benefit the collective: the elderly, the handicapped, the mentally impaired, the seriously ill. Everywhere in the world there has been state-run health care, there has been rationing, poorer service, loss of service to the elderly and seriously ill, and enforced euthanasia. There is no sacrifice involved; there is imposed punishment for being ill or elderly.

I’m in the middle of yet another youth novel, with the enemy being some entity trying to take over the world, ostensibly to “help” mankind (while incidentally giving unlimited power to the controlling bad guys). This one is Michael Vey, by Richard Paul Evans. The bad guy says things like, “Want is a thing of the past…. It’s a brave new world… with endless opportunities.” There’s a collection of young people with special electrical powers. They’ve been kidnapped and manipulated, and are essentially imprisoned. But the collection of them is called the family. If they don’t use their powers as required, to harm people and even murder, then the young person is punished and imprisoned. Most of them have succumbed, and the ones found at earlier ages were more easily manipulated. They’re made to feel “special,” told that they are eagles, among the chickens, and shouldn’t choose to act like chickens, or even worry about the chickens—because eagles eat chickens, after all.

When confronted with the discomfort of being asked to do something harmful, one who had been there from a young age said, “You get over it. At first you might hate it but before you know it, you’ll volunteer to do it…. Why do you care? We’re better than them.”

Ah, the old “we’re the important people and the others are subhuman” ploy, found in all savage tyrannies, wherever there is mass murder, genocide, or halocaust.

Belonging to a real family is something we’re designed by our Creator to respect and enjoy—where we can develop loving relationships that will help us in everything we do. The counterfeit is belonging to some replacement collective, with controllers that either tell us why we can disregard the rights of those supposedly beneath us, or why we are too insignificant to have our rights respected. There may be an inculcation of adoration for the collective. But real love—giving and receiving love—is missing.

Find something good in a society of freedom, free enterprise, and civilization, and there will be a correlative counterfeit in a society of controlled behavior, controlled economy, and savage disregard of the value of human life.