Principles of the Economic Sphere

There are principles we use in the Spherical Model to identify whether something qualifies as leading toward freedom, prosperity, and civilization, or in the other direction toward tyranny, poverty, and savagery.

Because of the prevalence of socialism in our time, I thought it might be a good exercise about now, two months ahead of the mid-term elections, to look at the principles. Since socialism claims to be just an alternative economic system to capitalism (the word they prefer to free-market), we’ll focus on the economic principles.

I’m taking from the list of principles here, where you can find the list for the political and social spheres as well.  And I’m taking from the list of question to ask candidates from here and here, where you can find those lists for all three spheres.  

We’ll go through the principles, and individually ask whether socialism agrees.

To read the full article, FOLLOW LINK TO SUBSTACK.

Anniversary and a Check-In on How We’re Doing

It’s the anniversary of this blog—14 years this month (the actual date was March 4, 2011, but I was in the middle of something else last week). I often use this time to review what the Spherical Model is, which I also do at year’s end and sometimes other times. This was the end of 2024, with some links to other Spherical Model info. You can also always get a full description on the SphericalModel.com website.

In brief, the Spherical Model is an alternative way of looking at political ideas: rather than right/left, it is a three-dimensional sphere, with tyranny south and freedom to the north. (This is not to say anything negative about Australia or anyplace else in our southern hemisphere; it is a metaphoric way of showing ideas, not related to our world’s geography.) The longitudinal lines represent the level a particular issue or responsibility pertains to, from individual/family, to local community, up to county, state, region, nation, continent, on up to global. So the left-to-right movement is neutral—except that any issue should be handled by the lowest possible appropriate level. If a higher level usurps that from a lower level, that moves the placement on the sphere down toward tyranny.

The Political Sphere of the Spherical Model

And the same spherical model can be overlaid with economic and social ideas. The Economic Sphere has poverty in the south (related to a controlled economy) and prosperity in the north (related to a free market economy—not to be confused with crony capitalism or monopolies, which are south on the sphere). The Social Sphere has savagery in the south and civilization in the north. Civilization is described this way:

In the northern circle that is the goal [above the 45^th parallel on the sphere]—Civilization—families typically remain intact, and children are raised in loving homes, with caring parents who guide their education and training, dedicating somewhere between 18 and 25 years for that child to reach adulthood, and who then remain interested in their children’s success for the rest of their lives.

 

Civilized people live peaceably among their neighbors, helping rather than taking advantage of one another, abiding by laws enacted to protect property and safety—with honesty and honor. Civilized people live in peace with other civilized people; countries and cultures coexist in appreciation, without fear.

 

There is a thriving free-enterprise economy. Poverty is meaningless; even though there will always be a lowest earning 10% defined as poor, in a civilized society these lowest earners have comfortable shelter and adequate food and clothing—and there’s the possibility of rising, or at least for future generations to rise.

 

Creativity abounds; enlightening arts and literature exceed expectations. Architecture and infrastructure improve; innovation and invention are the rule.

 

People feel free to choose their work, their home, their family practices, their friendships and associations. And they generally self-restrain before they infringe on the rights and freedoms of others. Where there are questions about those limits, laws are in place to help clarify boundaries of civilized behavior. When someone willingly infringes on the rights or safety of another, the law functions to protect that victim as well as society from further uncivilized behavior from the offender.

I tend to spend more time on civilization-related topics than actual politics or economics, although they are all interrelated (note the heading for this blog).

Last year was a very active news year. But that has shifted into overdrive since the inauguration in January. So much so that, if there’s not a major announcement—or two or three—in a given day, we feel like we’ve missed something, or maybe things are slowing down.

The question is, are all these changes leading toward freedom, prosperity, and civilization?

There’s a cohort (with friends of mine among them) that are certain each and every change is the end of life as we know it—and they think that’s a bad thing.

There was a piece by Robert Reich (advisor to Presidents Clinton and Obama) the other day that got passed along on Facebook. It’s too long to quote entirely; I won’t use up all my available word count on it. But a few quotes will exemplify this alternate world we’re talking about. I will note that this screed against all that President Trump has done since taking office contains no specifics of anything. We’re just supposed to see the self-evident facts, I guess, of this incarnation of worse-than-Hitler. Most of the piece is on how to cope with living under this tyranny. 

Ha! We who have lived under their tyranny—and their attempts to make that tyranny permanent—know about coping by clawing our way back toward the Constitution and civilization. [As an aside, I was looking on Substack for the original but didn't find it, so I'm not including a link. But I did find this other title: "The Trump regime will arrest some of you in the middle of the night because you spoke your mind," apparently with no awareness of the irony.)

Reich calls this a “despicable regime.” He claims, “The choice is democracy or dictatorship. Self-government or oligarchy.” He decries those defeatists who seem to have given up the fight: “Those in this defeatist camp think nothing can prevent us from an apocalypse—the end of America, the termination of civilization, the death of the planet.” And then he adds, “But defeatism is exactly what Trump, Vance, Musk, and Putin want us to feel.”

As for details, the sum total is this sentence: “The reality is that Trump, Vance, and Musk have done truly terrible things over the past seven weeks that are already hurting millions of people.” The “truly terrible things” remain unnamed, however. And a surprising 76% of those polled following President Trump’s speech to Congress approve of what he said. So I guess the horrors are not self-evident after all.

Among the ways to cope, Reich suggests turning to some voices from the past:

People who lived through Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin, or through Mao’s “Cultural Revolution” or Pol Pot’s “killing fields.” Some are keen observers of what occurred (Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism) or historians (William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany provides a chilling account that echoes today).

It's odd that he’d think people who lived through such regimes would approve of Biden’s lawfare, censorship, propaganda, corruption, and warmongering and would instead disapprove of Trump’s corrections of those tyrannical things.

So, what has been happening, and, maybe, where would such policies be placed on the Spherical Model?

Cabinet

President Trump’s cabinet and leadership team are now fully assembled. [Full list here.]  To name a few:

·        Marco Rubio, Secretary of State

·        Tom Homan, Border Security

·        Pete Hegseth, Secretary of Defense

·        Pam Bondi, Attorney General

·        Kash Patel, FBI Director

·        Robert F. Kennedy Jr, Secretary of Health and Human Services

·        Tulsi Gabbard, Director of National Intelligence

·        John Ratcliffe, CIA Director

Trump Cabinet and Officials
images assembled from Wikipedia

On Friday, March 14, speaking at the Department of Justice, President Trump said that people ask him what he’s done about all the problems, and he said he’s appointed the right people, who will do the job of making things right.

As I was watching the speech online, an ad came on, a Democrat candidate, saying “Trump doesn’t want to lead this country; he wants to rule it.” That seems to be the propaganda line they’ll keep going with, regardless of reality.

The amount of alarm from the opposition to any given leader is an indicator of their likely effectiveness. So far, in just a few weeks, border crossings have dropped 90%, without any change in law. That means the flood of illegal immigrants under Biden was intentional. As President Trump quipped, “All we needed was a change in presidents.” And a very stern Tom Homan is helpful too.

Keeping our border secure is one of the essential duties of our federal government; it’s about time.

We see some evidence of improvement in law enforcement from Pam Bondi and Kash Patel, but we haven’t yet seen all the file dumps we have been anticipating. We’re waiting and watching. The opposition claims they are going to weaponize the judicial system. No. That’s what the previous administration was doing. What we want is transparency and accountability. If people did illegal, unethical, corrupt acts, we want to see the evidence publicly, and we want them held accountable. That isn’t a matter of revenge; it’s a matter of deterrence. If they get away with what they’ve done, they and others will keep trying to do those things. I believe we’ll see what we’ve been promised.

RFK Jr is just getting started. But we’re looking forward to better information, no more government-controlled propaganda and censorship. We’d like to see more real science, instead of claims that “the science is settled” and “I am the science!” BTW, we’d like to see the octogenarian Fauci held accountable for COVID deaths, for the shutdown and masking, for forced vaccinations, for deaths by Remdesivir, and a full list of his crimes against humanity. I expect God will take care of final justice, but for this life maybe RFK Jr can send that evidence over to Pam Bondi.

All of them (including the couple of former Democrats mixed in there) are more capable and more trustworthy than anyone from the Biden administration. We’re definitely moving northward on the sphere, away from tyranny and toward freedom, prosperity, and civilization.

 

DOGE

You may have noted that Elon Musk was not on the list above. That is because he does not hold a cabinet-level position. He was tasked with heading DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), an existing department that used to be called United States Digital Services (USDS), and comes under the authority of the President, directed by the White House Chief of Staff (which is Susan Wiles, by the way). He and his team have access to digital information made available to them, with which they look for waste, fraud, corruption, and possible savings. Then they make recommendations.

There have been a lot of recommendations. And a lot of money we can save going forward. Musk does not fire workers in various other departments; he makes recommendations, mostly in general rather than specific individuals. And then the head of the targeted organization makes the authorized decision on hutting workers or programs. If the head of the organization is not convinced by DOGE’s evidence, they don’t have to follow the recommendations.  So those clamoring about Musk not being duly authorized are either misinformed or, possibly, in favor of (benefitting from) the waste, fraud, abuse, or corruption that has been uncovered.

Musk is working as an employee—although, as is the President, he is doing it without compensation, which he does not need.

Is there reason to be suspicious of Musk? Maybe. He’s very rich, which, in his case, seems to draw the ire of the opposition. I wouldn’t offer the same trust to Bill Gates or Mark Zuckerberg, or a number of others. Musk isn’t what I’d call a Constitutional Conservative. But he is smart, and effective, and has a good track record.

And I think his purchase of Twitter (now X) was a turning point; government shouldn’t be censoring a free-speech platform. Maybe, now that he has accomplished so much in his life, he’s interested in doing the good that interests him, and that he’s particularly well-suited to do. I think he’s enjoying himself.

What he is not doing is setting up shell corporations and law loopholes to enrich himself later. I think—and I believe he thinks—that enriching will come naturally, for him and the rest of us, when the waste, fraud, abuse, and corruption are excised. I don’t see that leading toward fascist tyranny. If we get rid of enough of the corruption—and enough of the anti-constitutional regulatory state—we’ll move solidly northward on the sphere.

 

USAID

There have been other targets of DOGE, but USAID (United States Agency for International Development) has been hit hard. It is not, as the acronym implies, foreign aid; that is handled entirely separately, by the Office of Foreign Assistance, which also comes under the State Department. USAID has been used, frequently, as a means of changing policies—and even regimes—in other countries. And the policies it was intending to change to coincided with the Obama-then-Biden regimes: DEI, ESG, LGBTQ, and also a lot of old fashioned money-laundering schemes. DOGE is finding those things, following the money trail. Will there be some errors, some things recommended to be cut that were maybe doing some good? Maybe. If we find those things, they can be corrected later—assuming those things qualify as constitutional.

The opposition has been straining to find examples of mistakes, in an effort to claim the whole of what DOGE is doing is just unjustly flexing power, or something.

As an example—this one from NIH, not USAID—there was something about transgenetics that got interpreted as “transgendering” mice; the explanation was supposed to be that it was about genetic therapy research. However, a fact check showed that the experiments were not aimed at making mice transgendered per se; they were about studying various effects of gender-affirming hormone therapy, and using mice (and probably other animals) in those experiments. Some of the outcomes seemed to show harms from the hormone therapies, and that might be worth knowing. But if the purpose was to assume gender-affirming hormone therapy as a societal good, then we’ve still got a problem. So, we’ll see.

But I think we’re still going to have trouble with paying our tax dollars for a transgender opera in, say, Peru, or for Sesame Street in Iraq. Getting rid of these ridiculous drains on our prosperity—and on our morality—will definitely move us northward on the sphere.

 

Ukraine and Russia

Things are serious in international diplomacy. What we have is a hothead, installed, dictatorial president of Ukraine demanding (and so far receiving from the Biden administration) $350 Billion to fight an unwinnable war, because the bad guy Russia invaded. In other words, you’ve got two bad guys. Ukraine is definitely the underdog. In a civilized world, Russia would not have invaded. But in a sane world, you would not have the US tossing out NATO memberships to Russia’s close neighbors, against our word.

And that $350 Billion? That amount—close to half of the entire US military budget for a year (including underpaid troops)—has disappeared, quite probably to oligarchs and other corrupt actors, including Zelensky himself (I don’t have the receipts; I’m just repeating what I’ve heard). I have sympathy for the Ukrainian people. I’d like to see them liberated.

President Trump has brought the two leaders into negotiations. Peace would be best for both. Neither will get all that it wants. But Russia is likely to get the ethnically Russian portion of land taken, plus a promise that NATO will not expand to threaten Russia, which will mean no Ukraine in NATO. Ukraine will stop losing its male population and get peace. It may also get protection through complying with the US’s desire for rare earth mining. We’ll see.

The opposition will call this colluding with Russia. But let’s remember: the whole Russian collusion hoax was a product of the Hillary Clinton campaign and the DNC; they were charged and convicted—but only fined, which is why they’re willing to keep using that line. They think it works. And, on those who already assume Trump is evil, it does work.

As of Friday, Putin and Zelensky have agreed to a cease fire. I don’t know how this will turn out. But seeking peace and negotiating for fairness seems to at least move us northward on the sphere, away from tyranny, which would benefit all involved.

 

Israel

What we know is that Israel was mostly peaceful during the first Trump administration, and surrounding countries were signing on to treaties. We got the Hamas attack of October 7, 2023, because a weak Biden was in office.

Trump has offered suggestions. About rebuilding Gaza from scratch—which would require neighbors to take in refugees, something they’ve been unwilling to do for many decades. This would eradicate Hamas from Gaza. There’s certainly something to be said for that outcome.

 

Department of Education

The Dept. of Ed put out an announcement on Tuesday of a 50% reduction in force. That’s a start. For those gasping that Trump is against education, I remind you that since its inception in the Carter administration, education levels have been in decline. We didn’t need it before, but it hasn’t been improving things.

As we often say at the Spherical Model, whenever government attempts to do something that is not the proper role of government, there will be unintended consequences, and they are likely to be the exact opposite of the stated goal of the policy. So, if we want a good education for the upcoming generation, government taking that on is a pretty sure way to interfere with that goal.

The opposition is panicking nevertheless. But the press release included a response to most of their fears: 

The Department of Education will continue to deliver on all statutory programs that fall under the agency’s purview, including formula funding, student loans, Pell Grants, funding for special needs students, and competitive grantmaking.

Getting rid of the entire department—eventually—will be better. But a 50% cut in the first two months of the administration is a good start. At least there’s a level change from nation to state. The closer we get to local community and family, where this responsibility belongs, the better our education will be.

 

In summary, we’re moving northward on the sphere, away from tyranny, not toward it. That might be shaking up some would-be tyrants, but the rest of us can be happy at what we’re seeing so far.

Get Used to Living in Zion

I don’t mean for the title to be misleading. I am not referring to Zionism—the movement of Jews to a homeland of Israel. The word Zion is used in a lot of ways in our scriptures (the standard canonized scriptures of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). I’m picking out a few that will apply to what I’m writing about today: “the pure in heart,” “the cause of Zion,” and in the geographical sense somewhat, “all of North and South America.”

from the Bible Dictionary, here

To lay the groundwork: I wrote a couple of months ago (toward the bottom of this post) about the 42 months during which “the beast” reigned over the saints. And I speculated that these 42 months could coincide with the likely illegal administration of Joe Biden, or whoever was pulling the strings during his administration. As it turned out, he stepped down from the race for reelection exactly 42 months after his inauguration.

I just called the Biden administration illegal. While I'm not
writing about that today, this new graphic is additional evidence.
Found here and here.

So, in that sense, “the saints” were the good people of America who were living under the tyranny of “the beast”; i.e., the sea beast of Revelation 13, or the worldwide cabal, secret combinations, worldwide Deep State, Whore of All the Earth, or whatever symbolic name you want to apply to that entity. I posited that, with the conclusion of those 42 months, the beast would still be dangerous, in its death throes, but would be losing power. And then last week I wrote about the propaganda beast—the land beast of Revelation 13, which supports and gives the illusion of power to the sea beast—that it was losing power also.

And then we see the election. The sea beast is significantly disempowered by the election of Donald Trump to a second term.

I have been looking toward this election all year, trying to imagine what would happen going forward from the election, depending on various outcome scenarios. I couldn’t see beyond it. If the cabal won, America was essentially doomed. But I was hopeful that wouldn’t be the case—because of what I was seeing symbolically. But if Trump won, wouldn’t the sea beast and the propaganda beast stir up a lot of trouble, maybe riots or violence? I didn’t know. I couldn’t imagine that they would concede peacefully and allow the incoming administration to uncover all their secret works of darkness. I still can’t see them allowing that. And yet, at this point, two days after the historic landslide election, the results are so clear that accusations of cheating to get this result are meaningless. So protests have no basis of complaint.

In fact, the losing side, rather than self-reflection, is saying things like, “America is more fascist than we had realized.”

For those who feel sad that their team lost this election, I’m not without sympathy. I remember consoling myself with Philippians 4:8 after the 2012 election: “whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” Thinking on the demise of the country was too devastating to contemplate. I was in mourning. Turning to lovely things (like Christmas music) helped me get through. Essentially, I turned to God for comfort, as I do, and life went on. I suggest the same for those mourning today, but I’m guessing that’s not their natural go-to.

It turned out reports of the demise of our constitutional republic were premature. We had some temporary improvement from 2017-2020. Then we’ve been hanging on by a thread, as it were, on limited life support. America might now be waking up from its near-death coma.

But those voters who have listened to the propaganda, that has been telling them a Trump victory was the end of life as we know it, and the beginning of fascist tyranny (which they didn’t recognize under Biden) are mourning what they think is a serious blow. In a year or two, many of them may come to realize, hey, things aren’t as bad as we were told. This may especially be the case if the propaganda beast is indeed weakening. They may start getting information from sources of truth, and that could make all the difference for them.

So what do I mean about getting used to living in Zion?

Maybe "shining city upon a hill" is another way of 
describing a Zion society, and it can be America.
Gif image found here

We are told to prepare the world for the Second Coming of Jesus Christ, our Savior. We know this is coming. We don’t know precisely when. But soon—whatever soon means.

There’s so much to fear about the run-up to the Second Coming: earthquakes, fires, floods, famine, disease, wars. All of which we have seen, in case you hadn’t noticed. To those who keep saying, “You ain’t seen nothin’ yet,” maybe what we have been seeing has been something.

I have wondered a couple of things. First, why the warnings from ancient prophets if there is no way to avoid the tribulations? And second, how are we to prepare the world for the Savior to come and live among us, if we’re too hampered by tyranny to make free choices to benefit ourselves and others?

I expect the tribulations will continue. But with each one, there will be people who turn to God for support in those times. And—this is important—they will find Zion. They will find people living in a way that shows their love for one another. People step up to help those in trouble, and to get them to more spiritually solid ground—as well as housed and fed and comforted until they can become self-sufficient again.

During the aftermath of Hurricane Helene, we saw glimpses of Zion—people stepping up to help those in need. These Zion people sometimes had to do it despite being hindered by the government.

Elon Musk provided Starlink service to people who had lost their communications. But they weren’t allowed into some areas—the areas with the most need—without names and contact information of the people they were going to see. Well, it kind of defeats the purpose of going in to reach those people who can’t tell you who they are—because they have no communications to let you know who they are!

Glenn Beck experienced frustration with FEMA and other government agencies, who were following directions, but hadn’t thought of ways to actually get food and water and supplies to the people who couldn’t get to their in-town centers—because they lost transportation, bridges, and roads, and couldn’t get to those places. People had to do the jobs that government couldn’t or wouldn’t do.

And, even without natural disasters, people are struggling to pay for groceries and gas for their cars. These things were called “malaise” under Obama (as with Carter a generation earlier), and were considered permanent. Then we found out they weren’t permanent; we just needed better policies. So we had better days under Trump—until the pandemic allowed the sea beast to exert control over the people in ways that were more frightening than the illness (which was easily treatable at home, if they hadn’t outlawed such treatments). Then things turned bad again under Biden. But now we know those things don’t have to be permanent.

It will take some work to build Zion. But I think we can actually do it.

Another way of talking about this is building civilization, which I’ve written about. On the Spherical Model website, I describe civilization this way:

The Social Sphere of the Spherical Model

What Does Civilization Look Like?

In the northern circle that is the goal—Civilization—families typically remain intact, and children are raised in loving homes, with caring parents who guide their education and training, dedicating somewhere between 18 and 25 years for that child to reach adulthood, and who then remain interested in their children’s success for the rest of their lives.

Civilized people live peaceably among their neighbors, helping rather than taking advantage of one another, abiding by laws enacted to protect property and safety—with honesty and honor. Civilized people live in peace with other civilized people; countries and cultures coexist in appreciation, without fear.

There is a thriving free-enterprise economy. Poverty is meaningless; even though there will always be a lowest earning 10% defined as poor, in a civilized society these lowest earners have comfortable shelter and adequate food and clothing—and there’s the possibility of rising, or at least for future generations to rise.

Creativity abounds; enlightening arts and literature exceed expectations. Architecture and infrastructure improve; innovation and invention are the rule.

People feel free to choose their work, their home, their family practices, their friendships and associations. And they generally self-restrain before they infringe on the rights and freedoms of others. Where there are questions about those limits, laws are in place to help clarify boundaries of civilized behavior. When someone willingly infringes on the rights or safety of another, the law functions to protect that victim as well as society from further uncivilized behavior from the offender.

America is set up to be such a civilization—to be a Zion.

The losing candidate, if you’ll recall, declared herself against Zion. It was at a rally shortly before the election. She was praising her favorite “right” of abortion, and two people in the crowd called out “Jesus is Lord” and “Christ is King.” And she went off script—one of the only times—and quipped, “You’re at the wrong rally. You must want the smaller rally down the street.” She is anti-Zion, anti-civilization—she is anti-Christ.

So how do we get to become Zion? We follow the rules for civilization. Again, this is from the Civilization article on the website. There are two rules:

1.     Not all religious societies are civilized (according to my definition), but every civilized society is a religious society. This absolutely does not mean state-sponsored religion or lack of religious freedom; in fact, the opposite is true. Freedom of religion is essential, and the flourishing of religion in general must be encouraged.

2.     The family is the basic unit of civilized society. Whatever threatens the family threatens civilization. So preserving and protecting the family is paramount in laws and social expectations in a civilized society.

 

There’s a fair amount more detail for each of these, which we won’t fully cover here today. For those of my faith, you might look at this as moving from savagery a telestial society (telestial referring to the brightness of the stars at a distance), which is a fallen world, to a civilized, terrestrial world (referring to the relative brightness of the moon, which is much brighter in the sky than a star). If we can get portions of the world—maybe even whole countries, but at least many communities—to be of that higher level, that would be a place Christ would visit. We want to eventually become celestial (comparative brightness of the sun)—where God dwells. But that can come later. Terrestrial, as I understand it, will be the nature of the world during Christ’s millennial reign.

The Ten Commandments, at
the Texas State Capitol

How do we become terrestrial—or civilized—now, while the world itself is still telestial? By living by those two rules. The kind of religion may still vary widely. But it will require being accountable to a higher being for your behavior in this life. And it will require living a certain way. We need to live by the Ten Commandments. We can summarize these with these five things: Honor God, family, life, truth, and property.

·        We honor God: We put God first, and recognize our adherence to His law will affect our afterlife beyond this life.

·        We honor family: We have family loyalty and fidelity. This requires, by the way, no sex outside of man-woman marriage—no arguments about that. Family is how civilization gets passed from generation to generation. Family, as defined by God, is the basic unit of civilization.

·        We value life: We value our own life and the lives of all others. We would take human life only in self-defense situations, which includes defensive war, and in protection of society from someone who has murdered. In a just, civilized society, those exceptions become more and more rare.

·        We value truth: We do not lie, or bear false witness; truth is sacred to us.

·        We value property: We do not steal or even covet, which means wanting what belongs to another—not just wanting something like theirs, but actually wanting to deprive them for your own satisfaction.

The only thing not specified there to love your neighbor. The Savior summarized all the law and the prophets (the sum of what became Old Testament scripture outlining the law and then the teachings of the prophets) as to love the Lord with all your heart, mind, and strength, and then to love your neighbor as yourself.

His is an even higher way—which we’ll have an easier time choosing from a terrestrial (civilized) society than from a telestial (savage) society. He asks us to control even our thoughts and feelings. There are summaries of what this behavior entails in places like I Corinthians 13, where the apostle Paul describes charity, the pure love of Christ: kind, not envious, not self-important or self-aggrandizing, not unseemly, not selfish, not easily provoked, no evil thinking, no rejoicing in iniquity, but rejoicing in truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things. This love never fails.

A government leader can’t make such a society happen. But such a leader can get out of the way of a free and righteous people. If we return to our Constitution, and limit government to those specified things that protect our life, liberty, and property, the rest is up to us.

Maybe this was the plan all along—to give an example of Zion to the world. Then people can self-select based on whether they love God or not. Those who choose Zion get to live a much better life—more like living in the Garden of Eden eventually—than those who choose symbolic Babylon, or the savage, telestial world.

As Trump might eventually say: “Come to Zion—but do it legally.”

There’s more celebration of the victory I’d like to write about, for the sake of history. But this will do as my first impression.

Year End; Time to Wake Up

It has become somewhat traditional for me to review the Spherical Model on the last post of the year. (Also at other times, such as early March, the anniversary of when I started the blog in 2011.) I’ll get to that eventually. But I want to lead into that by first talking about a podcast I was listening to the other day.

The host of Cwic Show is Greg Matsen, and the person being interviewed, Julie Behling, did her master's thesis on the underground Christian churches in the Soviet Union. She is the author of Beneath Sheep's Clothing and has a documentary with the same name coming out in January. 

screenshot from Cwic Show December 15, 2023

One detail I hadn’t known about the Soviet Union was that the KGB had infiltrated the churches. All of them. The clergy were either cooperating with the KGB, or they were KGB agents. Behling offers details about how they had done this, and why. But it came down to controlling what people believe, because that is what totalitarian tyrannies must do.

Then she added that, in her research, she was somewhat shocked to find that Communists had also infiltrated a solid half of American Christian churches, more than a century ago.

She mentioned Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German pastor, who spent some time in the US in the 1930s (I wrote about him here), who was sad to come to the Union Theological Seminary only to find that they scoffed at the idea of Christ’s divinity and atonement for sin. Those were the same lapses he had found in the German clergy as they acquiesced to Hitler.

Back when I was attending homeschool conferences, more than a decade ago, I heard Pastor Voddie Baucham speak. He defined having a Biblical worldview as believing in Jesus, who lived a perfect life, died for us, and suffered for our sins as our Savior. That is what I believe, and that is doctrine in my religion, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. So I was shocked when he told us that less than 10% of professed Christians have this Biblical worldview, and only 51% of pastors have it. I think that’s evidence of the infiltration.

I heard a talk recently—I think it was Ken Ham telling a story from his childhood, but I could be wrong about who it was. Anyway, he recalled the pastor had been telling the story of the feeding of the 5000 with the loaves and fishes. The pastor had explained that, once a young boy had pulled out his meager amount of fish and bread to share, it had incentivized everyone else to share what they had, and then there was plenty. The storyteller’s father went up to the pastor afterward and told him, “That’s not what happened.” The pastor had taken the miracle out of the story, along with Jesus’ divine power. And he’d made the story pointless. If enough people had brought food and to spare, there was never anyone in need of being fed, so why would the story even show up in scriptures? More likely, it was remarkably miraculous, and that’s why it got recorded. Church leadership that doesn’t believe in the divinity of Christ means they are not Christian, and they are leading the flock toward something else that is not good.

What Behling said had taken place in the infiltrated churches was a replacement of the divine doctrine with the “Marxist construct of oppressed versus oppressor”; in other words, social justice—even though it took until recent decades for them to start using that term.

Matsen and Behling got into a section where they were discussing some various flavors of authoritarian tyranny.

I’ll share some of the transcript here, so you can see the attempts to define various forms of authoritarian tyranny. [GB is Greg Matsen, and JB is Julie Behling.]

GM: I’ve noticed in reading your book—obviously I don’t know about the documentary yet—but in the book you use the term Communism quite a bit. That’s kind of a term that isn’t used as much. It’s Marxist, maybe, or, moving on to 2.0 here with woke, etc. You have a background in studying Communism, right?

He asks her about the terms, so she begins with some definitions:

·        Socialism is when the government owns the means of production and is in charge.

·        Communism is when the government owns the means of production, and this government is instituted through a violent overthrow of the previous regime.

·        Marxism is the oppressed versus oppressor construct that's the playbook for preparing a society to fall to Communism.

JB: So if you can identify a group of people who either are oppressed or who can be made to feel oppressed, you can rile them up to anger and stoke the grievance and say, “Hey there's your oppressor. Tear down that system of power.” The systems of power are torn down and weakened, and now the Communists can come in and assume authority.

This caught my attention, because I have this in my basic article about the Spherical Model:

People tend to be afraid of the chaos of anarchy. Lenin saw this. One way to gain totalitarian power is to create chaos and then promise to solve the problems of chaos (crime, poverty, lack of safety on all levels) by offering government solutions, until the revolutionaries have managed to get themselves installed as dictators. This was the purpose of Trotsky’s idea of perpetual revolution: Place power in our hands, and we will see that you are fed and housed and protected—that is, if the dictator was so minded once the power was achieved. Everywhere that Communism has been tried, it took hold because people gave in to this desire for government to provide protection and food and shelter. It works on a people who do not trust their own ability to provide, and it works especially well when chaos reigns to make it difficult for people to provide for themselves. Revolutionaries therefore cause anarchy so that they can implement their own totalitarian tyranny.

I think Behling is right when she is saying that the oppressed versus oppressor tactic is to create chaos that will allow the tyrants to step in and take control.

Behling says, “What we have brewing here, it's not exactly like the type of Communism that the Soviets had. It's worse.” Matsen asks her why it’s worse.

JB: Because it's more crafty. And it's more like the Communist Chinese system, where it's this weird marriage of Communism and Fascism and then, honestly, a little bit of Monopolistic Capitalism thrown in for good measure. It's the most abusive forms of government fused together with this—what they're hoping for—Global Leadership with all the technocratic controls that they— we now have with being in the 21st century, and it's truly frightening.

The Spherical Model allows us to see the relative badness or goodness of a philosophy graphically. You can determine how close the ideas bring society to freedom, prosperity, and civilization, or alternatively how close they bring society to tyranny, poverty, and savagery. For a fuller discussion see this summary. Or, for more detail, see all the articles on the website, starting with "The Political World Is Round."

The political, economic, and social spheres of the Spherical Model

There are slight flavor differences between Communism, Socialism, Fascism, the overarching philosophy of Marxism, as well as what Behling calls Monopolistic Capitalism—another way of saying Oligarchy or rule by businesses and controllers of money. These are all southern hemisphere on the Spherical Model, mostly on the statist side, or controlled by the government, although some (oligarchs and organized crime possibly) on the chaos or anarchic side of tyranny. But they’re all bunched together, down toward the bad pole of tyranny.

Fascism, Socialism, and Communism are all statist tyrannies,
and thus they take up approximately the same location
on the Spherical Model.

There’s discussion about the way tyranny—Marxism, Communism—is being presented here in the West, particularly in the US. It’s like a virus, or a cancer, that spreads. But, because the West was healthy (not a lot of abject poverty), it was hard to convince a poor class to rise up in rebellion, allowing for the tyrannical takeover.

JB: Communism—you can see it as a virus, or as a cancer, and it spreads to various parts of the—different organs and different systems, and eats it up, and takes it over. And, you know, Antonio Gramsci, his whole plot, you know, he was back there in Italy as a Marxist, and very stressed out that the West was not falling to Communism, in the 1930s. And so he’s the one who came up with cultural Marxism, and said, “OK, we’ve got to infiltrate these cultures—the West has this cultural hegemony that is resistant to Communism; we’ve got to go in and take those things over.”

I mean, before the businesses could be taken over, our culture was already taken over to a good enough extent that that was possible. So, yeah. We’re in a very late stage, because it’s far beyond the culture at this point.

There’s a part of the book of Revelation that I’ve been looking at, in chapter 13, about the beast that rises up out of the sea. This beast has multiple heads and crowns. Symbolically, it seems to be the various powers reigning around the world, and interconnected together as one “beast.” One of the heads is mortally wounded—but then comes back to life. I have looked at this and wondered if this is Communism, or one of the other words we’ve listed and defined above. We fought a World War to wipe out this attempt at controlling all the peoples of the earth. We said, “Never again!” And yet, here we are, with our college campuses preaching the Gramsci version, cultural Marxism, where everyone is either oppressed or oppressor. There’s an attempt to control our ability to make a living, or to buy and sell, based on whether we have bought into this party line. It’s as ugly as it ever was. “We’re in a very late stage,” Behling says.

"La Bete de la Mer," a French tapestry showing
John the Revelator, Satan the dragon, and the sea beast
of Revelation 13. Image from Wikipedia.

Matsen, at one point, adds this:

GM: I really like that you said that they’re using Fascism, because that’s 100% true. It’s so funny, because they call anyone who leans right of them, which is almost everyone, a Fascist. What a Fascist really means, they’re using business; they’re using the current institutions, right, that are not owned by the state. And that is Fascism. And they’re using it better than any Fascist has ever used it before. And so, again, that’s the idea of adapting to the West and using their system, where now they are the Fascists that are, again, infecting and using and coercing the free enterprises to—and free organizations and institutions in the West—to tow the party line.

So, again, it isn't what you call it; it's how far into tyranny the idea is. If people used the Spherical Model, they couldn't be fooled into thinking anything "right" of cultural Marxism is Fascist; cultural Marxism is just a way of being Fascist—or totalitarian tyranny. 

Behling tries to give us some hope. I mean, why point out these things if there isn’t any hope of recovery?

JB: And I really do have hope—I mean, I’m a little bit doom and gloom here—but I do have hope that there are so many good people, so many good Christians, so many good people who love freedom that, if we can wake up enough people, we have this window of time right now—if we can wake up enough people—that these agendas will not be able to come to full fruition. That is my hope.

There is some reason to hope. I know so many good people, as she does, so many good Christians and also good people of other faiths, who love freedom, and truth, and want to preserve our God-given rights. Governments are instituted to protect those God-given rights, but government is fire, and it seems to fuel itself and grasp power unto itself that it hasn’t been given by the people.

One purpose of the Spherical Model is to clarify. It isn’t necessary to understand all the nuances and differences among the various words we use for tyranny. It’s only necessary to know whether something leads to Freedom, Prosperity, and Civilization, or whether it instead leads to Tyranny, Poverty, and Savagery. Those things are ascertainable with a few basic questions—and a lot of truth.

May this coming year be a year where we bring more people to an awakening, with truth—offered with love and caring, but always by giving and sharing truth.

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.