Is the Tide Turning?

I didn’t write last week about the conviction of President Trump on 34 felony counts of letting his accountant assign legal expenses as legal expenses in his ledger. There are plenty of people responding to that.

But I’m wondering about the fallout of the lawfare attacks. Are people realizing what has been going on? Are they waking up and rejecting the overlords? And—is this bigger than just the US presidency? Is it worldwide?

Here are some evidences that the tide might be turning back toward freedom, prosperity, and civilization.

 

El Salvador

Tucker Carlson interviewed the president of El Salvador, President Nayib Bukele: “President Nayib Bukele: Seeking God’s Wisdom, Taking Down MS-13, and His Advice to Donald Trump” Tucker Carlson.

President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele
screenshot from here

In the interview, it is right after an inauguration. But I gather it is his reelection; he has had two or three years to make progress. And the progress has been significant. As President Bukele says, you have to start with peace—get rid of unrest from war, from civil war, from crime. And once you have peace, to walk around freely, to have your rights respected, then you can work on quality-of-life things: infrastructure, economics, developing resources.

When he started out, El Salvador was the murder capital of the world. It was full of cartels, gangs, drug lords, violent criminals. Now, in three years, it has become the safest country in the Western hemisphere.

The US has a murder rate of 6 per 100,000 population. El Salvador has a rate of 2. It is literally three times safer than the US. It’s safer than Canada, safer than Chile, safer than Europe.

Tucker Carlson asks, how did they do it? What lessons are there for the rest of us? Bukele says the transformation happened in just a couple of weeks. They built up the police. They used the army to fight crime, equipping them with needed weapons, vehicles, drones, whatever was needed.

There were about 70,000 gang members, creating terror by random killing—with 6 million targets. It took a miracle—a lot of prayer that civilian casualties would be as low as possible. They did it without any civilian casualties. There were eight casualties among police and military. But they made 70,000 arrests. There were an additional 500,000 collaborators, but they spared them, because most of them were just trying to survive while being pressured by the gangs. Getting the 70,000 murderers off the streets meant essentially crime was completely eradicated.

MS-13 is a satanic group, he says. So it took a miracle from God to fight them. That is not hyperbole. One story he told was of a gang member, in prison now, who left the gang. He had been casual about killing; he didn’t know how many, 10 or 20. But then they had him in a room where they were ceremonially killing a baby. He asked what they were doing, and they told him the Beast had asked them to do it. That crossed a line even for that hardened murderer.

The real battle is between good and evil.

Tucker asks the question, why, if a country has the means to shut down crime, why would it not do so?

We’re wondering that question here locally. Crime is high. Violent criminals are put back out on the streets. Even the liberal DA was pushing back, because things had crossed a line for her. So the Democrats put up a let-out-all-the-criminals-out extremist to replace her.

Out here in the relative safety of the suburbs, we don’t have a lot of theft—unless you leave your car out of the garage or fail to have a security system. We can still safely walk the streets. But maybe it’s best not to do that at night. It’s not downtown Chicago (or even downtown Houston). But it’s not El Salvador either.

Once there is peace, then the next step is economic—to raise the standard of living. We should be watching how they do.

 

Argentina

The conservative president of Argentina, Javier Milei, did an interview with Ben Shapiro: “On the Front Lines of Freedom | President of Argentina, Javier Milei” Sunday Special, Ben Shapiro, The Daily Wire April 14, 2024.

President of Argentina, Javier Milei
screenshot from here

As Ben Shapiro tells us in his introduction, Milei is “an economist by profession and a maverick by nature.” His approach is libertarian, in a nation that has been dominated by populists and socialists. He has been a popular interviewee on economic issues since 2018, and hosts his own radio show, “Demolishing Myths.” His presidency is new; he was elected November 19, 2023, winning in a landslide election with the highest percentage of the vote in the history of Argentina as a democracy.

As Shapiro tells us,

In his victory speech, Milei promised the reconstruction of Argentina and an end to its economic decline in a new era. Since taking office President Milei has lowered the number of ministries from 18 to 9, deregulated the Argentine economy, and slowed inflation in the country.

Early in the interview President Milei explains the plan they undertook, and its almost immediate results:

We announced a zero deficit program, an adjustment in order to no longer have a fiscal deficit and to stop the issuing on the treasury front. We started also to clean up the balance sheets of the central bank to bring down the ten points of GDP in relation to the central bank. And at the same time as there was a currency gap of 200%, we introduced a staged correction to try and reduce the gap. And we were hoping that zero deficit would be achieved during 2024 at some point. All analysts predicted that would be impossible to achieve. And we basically succeeded in doing that within a single month.

A single month! They made the largest fiscal adjustment in human history, according to the IMF. They adjusted their central bank, taking a fiscal deficit of 10 percentage points of GDP down to 4. Within three months they made an adjustment amounting to 12 points of GDP.

Inflation in December 2023 had been at 25%. It dropped to 20% in January, and plummeted to 13% in February. March, a complex month (end of a quarter), would be around 12.5%, but they hope to quickly bring it down into single digits.

How has he done this? President Milei explains a change in the Argentine people. The usual politician asks for your vote to give the politician more power. They are asking for votes to give people control over their own lives, to give them back their freedom—as he puts it, “to be the architect of your own destiny.” This required a change in attitude among the people, a change that has been coming for some time.

And, mainly, they have succeeded “by embracing the values of the West, which means embracing the ideas of the Founding Fathers of the United States.” He explains that Argentina’s original constitution, drafted mainly Juan Bautista Alberdi back in 1853, was patterned after the US Constitution. When it was implemented in 1860, Argentina went from a backwater to becoming a leading world power. Those principles lead to prosperity. He says,

In fact, the 1000 reforms we sent to Congress in the first month, if all of them were to stand, to remain effective, Argentina would climb up 90 spots in terms of economic fame.”

He thinks they would be comparable to Germany, given a couple of decades. That’s with 1000 reforms. They still have another 3,000 to put forward. A better model, he thinks, is Ireland, which went from being the poorest European country to, within a few decades, achieving GDP 50% higher than that of the United States.

A Reuters article, “IMF staff, Argentina agree loan review to help unlock $800 million” May 13, 2024, verifies President Milei’s positive report: 

Milei's plan "has resulted in faster-than-anticipated progress in restoring macroeconomic stability and bringing the program firmly back on track," the IMF said. It cited also important work to protect vulnerable groups given "the backdrop of a contraction in economic activity."

 

European Parliament

European parliament votes went conservative this week. According to a Brookings commentary, “The European Parliament elections have upended French politics,” summarizes the situation thus: “The far-right is now the premier political force in France.”  What do they mean by far right? They mean, as Democrats in the US use the term, anyone slightly more conservative than extreme liberals. They use the phrase “far right” to scare people into thinking such mild conservatives are jack-booted thugs who may show up at your door at any moment in full-on Nazi fashion.

European Parliament results, chart found here

In a response to the Brookings article, Ashe in America, in a Badlands Media Brief (scroll down to this story) tells us MAGA is bigger than America; it’s worldwide:

MAGA is a global movement. The idea that each nation preserve and protect its people, traditions, culture, and history is the hearts’ cry of our current political moment—globally.

As evidence, he brings up this quote from the article:

‘RN [Rassemblement National, or National Rally party] has completely appropriated much of the vocabulary traditionally reserved to the left (a new move by the far right in France, but one that the MAGA wing of the U.S. Republican Party has frequently used). This is upending and fundamentally restructuring French politics.’

Words, apparently, matter. We’ve been in a war of words, or ideas—as every war is, even underneath a kinetic war. Maybe we’re beginning to prevail. As Ashe in America sums up: “Deconstructing their narratives and forcing a principled stance on Rights is working.”

 

Summary

There are other nations that show the worldwide movement toward freedom, prosperity, and civilization. Italy elected such a leader; I hope she can succeed. There are a couple of European leaders, interviewed I think by Tucker Carlson (or possibly Jordan Peterson), who are reliably conservative—and religious. (I should have kept notes, because I can’t recall who they are right now.)

What surprised me in the stories today was the speed with which things can change. You lock up 70,000 criminal gang members, and the country goes from murder capital to safest place. You get rid of unnecessary government ministries, and debt and inflation plummet, while GDP rises—almost overnight.

If the Beast of Revelation, or Babylon the whore of all the earth, is that ugly tyranny we’ve been battling in its various murderous forms, then we are seeing that it can be overcome quickly:

“Alas, alas, that great city, wherein were made rich all that had ships in the sea by reason of her costliness! for in one hour is she made desolate.”—Revelation 18:19

In the end, it will be Christ’s return the demolishes the evil. But in the meantime, we can follow His principles to do our part. Wherever we follow the principles of freedom, prosperity, and civilization, we see blessings can come very quickly.

 

Additional Things I’ve Noticed That Show Things May Be Changing:

·       “Survey: Voters Are Increasingly Rejecting Lies of Gender Ideology” Katherine Hamilton, Breitbart, June 12, 2024  

·       “Catherine Herridge identifies 'most important 10 seconds' of special counsel's remarks after Hunter Biden conviction” Chris Enloe, The Blaze, June 12, 2024  “we have additional trials and investigative work to be done” 

·       Catherine Herridge’s X post 

·       “Forget ‘Never Trumpers’—More Voters Now Say They’ll Never Vote For Biden” Robert Schmad, Daily Caller, May 18, 2024 

·       “‘My Goodness’: CNN Data Guru Breaks Down How Bad Biden Is Doing With Black Voters” Harold Hutchison, Daily Caller, May 17, 2024 

·       “Who’s really calling the shots in the Biden administration?” Stephen B. Presser, The Blaze, June 11, 2024 

·       “Behind Closed Doors, Biden Shows Signs of Slipping” Annie Linskey and Siobhan Hughes, Wall Street Journal, June 4, 2024 

·       “‘Biggest Mistake Of My Life’: Biden 2020 Voters Explain Why They’re Backing Trump In 2024” Mary Lou Masters, Daily Caller, May 17, 2024 

Apocalyptic Times

Last spring we were reading and trying to understand Daniel, of the Old Testament, an ongoing challenge. Much of Daniel is prophetic. Some is of times near his day, some is of times in centuries near his day or around the time of Christ. Some is of our day. And it’s not always clear which is which.

There’s this verse in chapter 12 that we might be seeing in our day:

11 And from the time that the daily ^asacrifice shall be taken away, and the ^babomination that maketh desolate set up, there shall be a thousand two hundred and ninety days.—Daniel 12:11

photo used from New York Times, found here

There was a day, back in 2020, just as the pandemic shutdown got underway, that might be meaningful here. I am talking from a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saint perspective (opinions are mine, however; I do not represent the Church). We have temples, where we do ordinances (rites, practices, covenants) daily—except Sundays, when we hold our regular worship in church buildings. Temples are opt-in places. Meetings aren’t called for you to attend; you schedule yourself to go when you want to do temple worship.

We don’t do animal/blood sacrifice, as in ancient temples, although there are some other similarities to the temples from Moses’s day and Christ’s day. We do commit to sacrifice, but after Christ’s ultimate sacrifice, we are required to offer up a “broken heart and a contrite spirit.” We are asked to be humble and submissive to our Lord and Savior. So, it looks different, but we do offer up sacrifice daily in our temples.

On March 25, 2020, our prophet announced the closing of temples worldwide for a time, because of the pandemic. This was a week or two after church services were shut down (we were authorized to hold services in our homes), and a few days after missionaries serving all over the world were called home—either cutting their missions short, or changing to online missionary work, sometimes with hope of returning to their mission place later.

So, earlier this year we were looking at that verse in Daniel and thinking, what if it referred to that day—the day the temples were closed?

Almost since that day in 2020 we’d heard speculation about it, but back then the speculation went something like, “Well, if the temples stay closed for 3 ½ years [1290 days is a bit over 3 ½ years], then we’ll know that’s what it meant.”

But the temples opened back up. In some places within a couple of months. By August in our area. Only for what we call “live endowments,” not proxy work for the dead. We believe certain ordinances must be done for the living; if a person doesn’t get the opportunity in this life, then we living members can do that work as proxies for them. This provides them the opportunity to accept or reject it in the next life; we don’t start calling people members of the Church just because they have passed away but have had their work done in temples. Proxy work is a fairly unique practice in our religion, but it was understood by the early saints: read 1 Corinthians15:29, which talks of doing proxy baptisms for the dead. Anyway, back in 2020 we had limited use of our temples, adding a little more in phases, until we reopened with caution in June 2021, and we’ve remained open since.

So, it took us longer than maybe it needed to, but this past April, 2023, we were looking at this again and thinking, what if the verse wasn’t saying the temples would stay closed for 1290 days, but if it was just pointing to a starting point for that countdown? When would 1290 days later be?

We calculated, the long hard way, going month-by-month until we got to 1290 days. It turns out there’s an online calculator for such calculations. But we were right. It put us at October 6, 2023. Just days later I came across a video on the Christian Fire Poppy channel where she talked about this very thing. She calculated to October 7, 2023. The difference of a day was, we had calculated from the day of the announcement of the closing of temples, but, as she noted, the first day they were actually closed was the following day. So we made that adjustment.

The other part of the verse, “the abomination that maketh desolate set up,” adds meaning to the 1290 countdown. The temple shutdown happened because of the worldwide pandemic—a plague. As apocalyptic plagues go, it was actually rather mild, causing many deaths but not a third of the planet as such predictions make us envision. But our lives changed, literally and permanently, in March of 2020, because of a desolating sickness type of plague.

There are people who look at the words “abomination” and “desolation” and picture something specific that I am not persuaded is accurate. They picture a person—the anti-Christ—going into a temple, preferably a third temple in Jerusalem, and desecrating it. But when I read those words, I almost always see something more like the bad stuff to be poured out on the wicked world in the last days. If I’m right, then COVID-19 was one of the early plagues, and it was the cause of the temples being shut down in March 2020.

So what was going to happen on October 7, 2023? We didn’t know. There were a lot of other portentous things around that time. It was at the end of Sukkot, the Jewish feast of tabernacles, and a lot of things seem to line up on feast days. It was after the feast of trumpets (Rosh Hashanah) and the day of atonement (Yom Kippur). For our Church, it was week after our semi-annual worldwide General Conference (20 new temples were announced, to be built as soon as land is purchased and plans are drawn up). It would be a week before an eclipse crosses over the US, ending at Corpus Christi (meaning “body of Christ) in Texas. And there’s more about that eclipse, which happens this Saturday, being part of three eclipses that form the letter A, or aleph in Hebrew.

three eclipses over the US,
screenshot from this Christian Fire Poppy video

Also, there was a sign in the heavens—significantly full of imagery found in Revelation 12—in September 2017 right after the first of the three eclipses, and notably for us right after the Hurricane Harvey flood.  Jupiter was in the “womb” area of the constellation Virgo, where it had been in retrograde for 42 weeks (a gestation period), and then was “birthed” from the virgin. Anyway, a similar woman-in-the-sky sign reappeared this September, 2023, with various named asteroids playing a significant role. [You can see for yourself on Stellarium. I have tried, but I have needed the guidance of Christian Fire Poppy, who did additional videos on this in the last couple of months.]

woman-in-the-sky sign constellation, as shown by Christian Fire Poppy,
screenshot from here

So, things were looking portentous, but we didn’t know what to expect—anything from The Savior Appears to maybe an unnoticed hinge point that we would look back on later and see its importance. But we were watching, and curious.

I woke up Saturday, and my husband said Israel had been attacked by Hamas. I asked about the seriousness, because it seems that attacks are happening there all the time. This was different, he said. Much bigger. And later in the day Netanyahu announced that they were at war—the first time since the Yom Kippur War of 1973, October 6-25 of that year. Coincidentally.

Google Earth image of Israel,
screenshot from this Christian Homestead video

I don’t know what we’re seeing—in the apocalyptic sense. Is this the beginning of Armageddon? I don’t know.

I know it is horrible. The current count is around 1200 dead Israelis, which include a couple dozen American citizens. I’m praying for the people of Israel, and I support their right to self-defense.

People are wondering at the intelligence failures both of Israel and the United States; so am I. People are horrified at the brutality and savagery. Hamas has aimed at civilians, going house to house and kidnapping, raping, and murdering innocent people. The brutality has included beheading babies. The pagan god Moloch, the destroyer, reigns among the terrorists; although that is not the name they use, that is the character of their behavior. (See Jonathan Cahn’s Return of the Gods, mentioned here. Also this.) Horrifying images abound online. I have mostly avoided seeing them. I avoid violence even in movies—where you know it’s only make believe. Seeing real murder is traumatizing.

Ben Shapiro talks about the war against Israel,
clip on a Glenn Beck video, screenshot from here

Ben Shapiro makes a case for viewing the images, so you will know and not forget. He says,

Here’s the point. Nothing anyone has ever done to you or could ever do to you would cause you to do these things.

No territorial dispute would cause you to butcher babies. No squabble over territory would cause you to rape and abduct women. No so-called “occupation” would cause you to kidnap entire families or burn them alive in their homes.

I listened (but did not watch up close to my computer) his video Monday, October 9, “The Face of Absolute Evil,” which I recommend, as well as his written statement, which I quoted from above: “Why I Show The Horrific Images Of Hamas’ Atrocities.” [These may be behind a paywall, but you might search for the titles and find them elsewhere.]

There are plenty of sources to get news. I’ve also turned to Erick Stakelbeck,   who gives news of Israel all the time, but particularly now. And several YouTubers are passing along what they’ve found on X (formerly Twitter) and elsewhere. Troy Abels on The Last Dispensation channel has been passing along a lot of raw, up-to-the-minute information since La Haina. And for more professional opinions, I go to The Epoch Times, including EpochTV, and The Blaze.

Even mainstream sources are covering it—although they can’t seem to help but try to make a moral equivalency between these savage terrorists and Israel defending its right to exist. Note that Hamas is located in Gaza, southwest of Israel, along the coast. Since Israel turned that area over to Hamas in 2005 there are no Jewish settlements—indeed, no Jewish people—living there. They elect their own failed leaders, who keep the people ground down in poverty with the purpose, it seems to me, of keeping the people frustrated and angry so they can blame Israel for their hardships and inspire their people to hate and fight them.

There is no moral equivalency.

Ben Shapiro added that, while there is never a reason to praise the German Nazis, who murdered six million Jews in the last century, at least the Germans had the sense of shame about what they had done to try to hide it. These savages are recording their atrocities and posting them online, bragging to the world to see. They are proud of beheading babies and murdering families in front of each other, shooting them, beheading them, or dragging them behind vehicles. It is unspeakably evil.

Meanwhile, there are enclaves of supporters, in Europe, even in the US, who support these beasts for no other reason than they hate the Jews. Black Lives Matter in Chicago danced with joy in the streets. Similar celebrations took place in New York. Representative Ilhan Omar supports them. Representative AOC can’t bring herself to condemn the atrocities; she’d rather not give a statement.

The Biden administration has given lip service to support Israel. And it has moved ships in and around Israel—for support, for warning against Iran and others. Possibly also to warn Israel against too harsh a response. Note: there cannot be too harsh a response. But Israel has warned citizens of Gaza to evacuate, and have given specific 10-minute warnings to evacuate buildings used by Hamas officials. Hamas locates itself near hospitals, schools, and other innocents—and pressures its people to stay and get killed—so that the more civilized Israel can be painted as wicked killers of innocents. This has always been part of their fight against Israel. This is only an escalation now. But Netanyahu has vowed to wipe out Hamas entirely. There is no living with enemies who do such atrocities as part of their vow to wipe you off the face of the earth.

The Biden administration gave $6 billion to Iran a month or so ago, with a warning, “Now, don’t go using that for anything but humanitarian purposes, OK?” This is part of resurrecting the Obama deal, which was, let us give you money, and then you postpone your nuclear weapons pursuits for a decade. Trump reversed the deal; Biden is reinstating it. Meanwhile, most of that decade of postponement is already past, not that Iran was actually postponing anything. But this $6 billion appears to have made its way to Hamas. There have been reports of Farsi being spoken among the invaders; Farsi is spoken in Iran, while a Palestinian Arabic dialect is spoken in Gaza.

Another odd detail: the Taliban, in Afghanistan, have been requesting passage through various Muslim countries, to get where they could support Hamas. Meanwhile, also on Saturday, October 7, there was an earthquake in Afghanistan, killing 2000 people, with additional aftershock quakes since then. Coincidentally.

What happens next? I don’t know.

The next verse in Daniel says this:

12 Blessed is he that waiteth, and cometh to the thousand three hundred and five and thirty days.—Daniel 12:12

Is that starting after the 1290 days, or counting from the same starting place? Many people consider them consecutive. But if they have the same starting date, then it’s just 45 days longer than the 1290 days, which takes us to November 21, 2023. What might we see then? I don’t know. Maybe the end of this war, this siege. Maybe an escalation. Maybe we’ll recognize the two witnesses, from Revelation 11:3-11, prophesied to protect Jerusalem for 3 ½ years. I don’t know.

I only know that, when I saw war in Israel on the 50-year anniversary of the Yom Kippur War, 1290 days after the closing of the temples because of a plague of sickness, things that were unclear and scary are now very real. And still scary. But we know the end of the story—and it’s a glorious happy day for those who turn to God.

Today is the day to do any turning back to God that you need to do.

We should pray for the suffering in Israel, and wherever there is suffering, but particularly there right now. We should pray for peace, but do not expect it to come until the end of the Biblical story that we’re living in.

meme found on Facebook, here

 

Fascism Isn’t Right or Left; It’s South

Earlier this week Ben Shapiro wrote a piece called “Fascism Isn’t Right-Wing.” It's in response to a typical question from media, this one from Jake Tapper to Chris Christie, asking whether support of Trump is a sign of authoritarianism. Shapiro explains a few things rather clearly, which I’ll share. But, as with many attempts to explain fascism and other ideologies, I think, “This is clearer on the Spherical Model.” Every now and then it’s worth re-sharing that model—after all, it’s what the blog is about—so I’ll do some of that today, after what Shapiro brings up in his piece:

Authoritarianism is not what people in the media think it is. They think authoritarianism is Donald Trump tweeting. But there are many forms of authoritarianism. In fact, fascism is an element of both Left and Right. It is not merely a Right-wing action. Authoritarianism can just as easily be implemented by a series of executive orders that go outside the Constitution, that radically re-shift the balance between people in the government, something Joe Biden does with alacrity.

It's likely Churchill didn't actually say this, but the
quote will do for today's post. Found here.

So, fascism = authoritarianism. The error is in assuming it’s always right-wing authoritarianism and that the left wing could never be that. Later in the piece, he says this:

The truth is that fascism as an ideology is closer to the American Left than it is to the American Right. Fascism is an ideology that was generalized in response to communism, but it drew from Marxism, Hegelian politics, and progressive-era ideas, which is why many of the early supporters of Mussolini were members of the Left, including people who had worked in Woodrow Wilson’s administration who went on to work in the FDR administration.

So we know that fascism means authoritarianism. And it’s related to Marxism, which spawned communism and socialism, also progressivism and probably a few more -isms as well—each one authoritarian, meaning coercion and top-down control.

But what do we mean by Right and Left?

Common belief says that fascism is right. Far right. So, to stay as far away from that as you can, you go left. Maybe all the way to communism.

Is communism as far as you can get from fascism? Because communism is authoritarian. And, didn’t we say earlier, fascism = authoritarianism?

On August 29 Glenn Beck was talking about authoritarianism as well. First he quoted the entirety of a piece by Emma-Jo Morris, the political editor for Breitbart: “Morris: The 2024 Election Is Going to Be a Vote of Defiance.” Here’s the first paragraph of that piece:

Leading up to the 2024 election, there are a number of pressing issues Americans will consider—rampant illegal immigration, skyrocketing inflation and price of living, violent crime marring cities—but those issues are now against the backdrop of a palpable shift toward authoritarianism. And a vote for Trump in 2024 will be a vote of defiance.

Her assertion is that people will be voting against the authoritarian regime that has been imposed on them. And she offers plenty of examples of that authoritarianism—that tyranny that we’ve been tolerating, hoping it was just something that would pass, but that we can no longer tolerate.

Then Glenn Beck responds, with a warning about an overreaction.

Now, I think that there are real ways that can be done constitutionally. But I warn you, there is going to come a time where, even on our side, many will say, “Screw the Constitution. There are things we have to do.” That is always trouble. Always a sign you don’t want to be in that group.

Please, be aware of this. There are forces, on many fronts: on the left, who wants to destroy the Constitution; and those now posing as the right, but they’re not the right. They’re the fascistic left.

In America the choice is not right or left. It is either anarchy or complete control.

I’ve heard him use that last line before, changing the left/right model from communism to fascism, and instead labeling the far extremes as either anarchy or complete control.

I’m not saying he’s wrong. And neither is Ben Shapiro. I’m saying the Spherical Model can clarify. It offers more perspective on the relative closeness or distance of various political ideas, or ways of governing. I’ll just review it quickly (repeated from here, and from the website).

 

Political conversations tend to describe the far ends as extreme, assuming there’s some virtue in being balanced in the middle. And we refer to our nation as center right—just a little more conservative than exactly center.

But what are the extremes? Do we assume communism or socialism at the extreme left, and fascism at the extreme right?

That can’t be right, because communism and fascism are both totalitarian statist tyrannies, just slightly different flavors. Nazi means “national socialist party” and the communist Soviet Union’s name was Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

So if Nazism and communism aren’t diametric opposites, then what are the logical extremes?

How about total government control, or tyranny, versus total lack of government control, or anarchy?

That’s better. Then freedom is that perfect balance in the middle.

But wait; there’s a problem with this model too: It’s common in history for people suffering in anarchy to turn for relief to total government control—anything for security. But in this model, as a people move to the left, they have to pass through that balanced freedom section. You’d think that it would be very common for someone to stop and say, “Hey, this freedom is good. Let’s stop going leftward and stay here.” Yet that pretty much never happens. But going directly from chaos to state control is historically common.

Plus, notice that there’s not that much difference between the tyranny of the state and the tyranny of anarchy. Total government control means the state has all the power—the police, the military. The state can do what it wants, and the mere citizen is without any rights except what the state decides to grant.

Anarchy, on the other hand, means that power belongs to whoever is stronger and meaner than the next guy. If you threaten to beat people up (or kill them) if they don’t give you all their belongings, and you’re strong enough to mean it, then you have power. If someone else is stronger or better armed than you are, then you have to yield power to them.

In other words, anarchy, while less organized, is power in the hands of the strongest and best armed—just like a tyrannical government.

So maybe government tyranny and anarchic tyranny are pretty close to the same thing. When I show this, I use a ribbon, labeled at the ends, and fold it in half, so it looks something like this:

Tyranny and freedom are really the opposite extremes.

Not bad. But it puts all those different kinds of tyrannies in the same location, and maybe there are differences.

A simple line doesn’t give us the dimensions we need.

So, how about if we use three dimensions—a sphere? If we draw a line at the equator, we can separate freedom (northern hemisphere) from tyranny (southern hemisphere). And then we can draw a longitudinal dividing line, with more local interests in the western hemisphere and larger interests—from state to nation, to international, in the eastern hemisphere.

I call this the Spherical Model.

The Political Sphere

Down in the south, you can see that one side of tyranny is the chaos of anarchy, and the other side is the totalitarian control of government tyranny. It’s easy to get from one to the other—which is what much of world history has shown us. You can have communism, socialism, and Nazism as separate patches in their quartersphere, based on how much control they exert on their people (southern direction), or how far they plan to expand (toward the eastward extreme of world domination).

Up north in the freedom zone, location is mostly a matter of whose interest. Free people don’t yield power to a governing authority beyond the appropriate interest. Families make their own decisions about the care, upbringing, and education of their children. Communities on up to cities and counties decide on local law enforcement and protection needs. States (or provinces) deal with their particular infrastructure and laws. Only very limited powers are granted to a nation—as are enumerated in the US Constitution. And that sovereignty would never yield to an international power, but would cooperate with other free sovereignties concerning international issues.

 

OK, so, you find Nazism/fascism, communism, and socialism all in the south—toward tyranny and away from freedom. And they’re all in the bottom section we call statist tyranny, because the tyrants are the government, rather than simply mob bosses, as you’d see in chaotic tyranny. Either way, you have coercion of people by those in charge—and they’re in charge because they have the power to force their will on others.

Fascism, Socialism, and Communism are all statist tyrannies.

Why does this matter today? Because authoritarianism—that is, tyranny—is not Donald Trump tweets (or Xs, or Truths, depending on what you call the platform he uses). A tweet doesn’t coerce anyone to do anything against their will. It’s just an expression of a few words. They may or may not represent an idea that you like. But, unless they come from a person in power with commanding force behind them, they’re just words.

But there’s been a consistent mislabeling of Trump as a fascist—because he’s “a right-wing extremist”; i.e., a Republican. And we know the worst fascist was Hitler; ergo, Trump = Hitler. And, they think, we have to do anything to stop today’s Hitler from getting power.

What do they mean by anything? Keeping your vote for him from counting. Stopping you from expressing your opinions in the marketplace of ideas. Using lawfare. Suing him—and anyone supporting him. Lying about him. Covering up crimes of those he opposes. Instigating powers over the people, particularly over the people supporting him. In fact, anything includes any fascist and/or corrupt anti-Constitutional thing you can think of. (See examples here, from a couple of years ago, before we were seeing this year’s attacks.) 

So, if you put the opponents of Trump on the sphere, they’re definitely in the southern hemisphere of tyranny. And they’re mainly on the statist side of the tyranny hemisphere.

Meanwhile, the one they call the authoritarian: in reality, his ideas, and his followers resemble a lot of ideas you find in the northern hemisphere—the freedom hemisphere.

How do you know? You ask questions about the ideas, rather than throw out epithets about the person. You find out if those ideas coincide with freedom. And a good gauge is whether they adhere to the US Constitution.

I was surprised as anyone to find Trump’s presidency mainly up in the freedom zone. His stated positions during his campaign said he would be, but I hadn’t believed him. Not everything got fixed. But, as you’d expect in a freedom society, economic security went up—for all demographics. That was after a decade of statist tyranny had tried to convince us America was in decline and all we could do was manage the decline.

I was never sure—I’m still not—that Trump fully understands and embraces the US Constitution, which is based on God-given rights. But I know the Constitution is up in the freedom zone. And he adhered to it better than we’d seen, at least since Reagan. The contrast between Trump and the current White House resident is stark—as different as north from south.

So what are the questions? What are the principles of freedom? I’ve provided a few lists over the years, depending on purpose. Here’s a list I quoted in 2016, from Benjamin Constant in 1816. I used only Benjamin Constant’s words, but I turned it into a bullet-point list to make it easier to grasp:

First ask yourselves, Gentlemen, what an Englishman, a French-man, and a citizen of the United States of America understand today by the word “liberty.” For each of them

·        it is the right to be subjected only to the laws,

·        and to be neither arrested, detained, put to death or maltreated in any way by the arbitrary will of one or more individuals.

·        It is the right of everyone to express their opinion,

·        choose a profession and practice it,

·        to dispose of property, and even to abuse it;

·        to come and go without permission, and without having to account for their motives or undertakings.

·        It is everyone’s right to associate with other individuals, either to discuss their interests, or to profess the religion which they and their associates prefer,

·        or even simply to occupy their days or hours in a way which is most compatible with their inclinations or whims.

·        Finally it is everyone’s right to exercise some influence on the administration of the government, either by electing all or particular officials, or through representations, petitions, demands to which the authorities are more or less compelled to pay heed.

 

That’s what it looks like to have freedom. If you’re considering policy—or the policies supported by a candidate that you’re vetting—then you might find this list useful:

·        Is the policy being debated something that an individual has the right to do, and therefore has the right to delegate to his/her government? For example, a person has the right to protect his own life and property. He can, therefore, combine resources with his neighbors and hire a government entity, such as a sheriff, to do that job for him. Similarly, the several states can combine to delegate the power of defending the nation to a national government entity. Conversely, a person does not have the right to take his neighbor’s excess grain production, for example, and bestow it on himself, because his neighbor was more prosperous in a particular season. He can, of course, ask his neighbor for charity, but he cannot coerce the neighbor to give. That would rightfully be considered theft. Therefore the person cannot delegate the redistribution of wealth to the government to do for him—that would place him too far south on the sphere.

·        Does the policy infringe in any way on God-given natural rights, such as those enumerated in the Bill of Rights? Does the policy infringe on the free exercise of religion or try to establish a particular sect as a state religion? Is political speech hindered? Does the policy infringe on the right of citizens to bear arms? Does the policy constitute an illegal search or seizure? Does the policy deprive a person of life, liberty, or property when the person has not committed a crime for which that deprivation is the just sentence? Does the policy try to claim for government a power that was not specifically granted in the Constitution? etc. If the policy infringes on the God-given rights, then government cannot take that power without usurping power from the people—which is too far south on the sphere.

·        Is the idea being debated a proper role of government: some aspect of protection (including national defense, protection from interstate crime, enabling international and interstate commerce, standardized weights and measures and currency to protect the value of wealth, the judiciary that guarantees the protective laws), as enumerated in the Constitution? If not, then accepting the idea is outside the Constitution—and is too far south on the sphere.

·        Is the perspective appropriately local? It is important that any issue be handled at the most local level possible. Parents should decide the means, methods, and curriculum for educating their children, for example. An issue that affects a state should be handled at the state level, not the national level. National decisions should not be ceded to some international body. An inappropriate interest level is too far south on the sphere.

We’ve only talked here today about the Political Sphere. There are two other spheres that overlie the political sphere: the Economic Sphere and the Social Sphere. For the Economic Sphere, the polar opposites are north/prosperity and south/poverty, with the same east/west lines. For the Social Sphere, north is civilization and south is savagery, again with the same east/west lines. 

There are additional questions for these. You can read them here. 

Pending a theoretical book someday, the largest explanation of the Spherical Model is the website: SphericalModel.com. While I don’t have the illusion that this obscure website and blog will change people from thinking with the right/left model, I nevertheless think it would be a better way for people to understand abstract ideas that they only think they understand.