Tocqueville: on America, Algeria, & How "despotism" of "all powerful government" comes when (TR)

Tocqueville: on America, Algeria, & How "despotism" of "all powerful government" comes when citizens "debase" their souls seeking "vulgar pleasures"

A French social scientist, he traveled the United States in 1831, and wrote a two-part work, Democracy in America (1835; 1840), which has been described as:

"the most comprehensive and penetrating analysis of the relationship between character and society in America that has ever been written."

"Upon my arrival in the United States the religious aspect of the country was the first thing that struck my attention;

and the longer I stayed there, the more I perceived the great political consequences resulting from this new state of things, to which I was unaccustomed.

In France I had almost always seen the spirit of religion and the spirit of freedom marching in opposite directions.

But in America I found they were intimately united and that they reigned in common over the same country ..."

"The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other;

and with them this conviction does not spring from that barren traditionary faith which seems to vegetate in the soul rather than to live ..."

"They brought with them ... a form of Christianity, which I cannot better describe, than by styling it a democratic and republican religion ...

From the earliest settlement of the emigrants, politics and religion contracted an alliance which has never been dissolved."

"Religion in America ... must be regarded as the foremost of the political institutions of that country; for if it does not impart a taste for freedom, it facilitates

I am a fan of William Federer and love his books. As it happens I posted on this topic a few days back. I connected the weaknesses of our post-christian secular society to that of post-communist secular Russia in the time of Glasnost. What are the markers we observe? Hidden agendas and sedition in the fringes. Uncertainty. Disunity. Instability. A society of dysfunction. And I notice a undertone of sorrow and dread for the future of the Nation and the coming generations from those who read The Word and are very familiar with what happens to nations that turn their backs to Almighty God. We need the churches to regain their numbers and regain their supporters in the urban centers. In God We Trust.

Here is my post..

Surveillance technologies are another reminder that the USA (and others) are well and truly in a post-christian phase. For evidence look at the numbers. Non-christian ideologies dominate urban local government leaders, state government leaders, federal government leaders, Fortune 500 corporations, NGOs (especially the UN), and the education industry.

Consider a nation where corrupt leadership is abundant. Perversion and degeneracy are abundant. Ignorance and dependency is abundant. Paranoia is abundant. Untruth and secret agendas are abundant. Evil is abundant. Would you want to bring up your children in a nation like that?

That was what Russian patriots had to contend with after communism was abandoned. They asked the wiser people in society for advice on a Constitution to fix things. Gangsters and resource rip-off opportunists were exploiting a certain lack of authority, and becoming billionaires. There was also a pervasive paranoia, a fear of the future everywhere in the people, a creeping sense that the law of the jungle was their fate and that fringe groups and those with power, money and secretive plans would be soon in control. Would the gangsters be so rich that ordinary citizens would have no power in their own governments ever again? Would some secret neo-communist military emerge from the underground lead by old Generals and throw Glasnost into reverse? Who would organise patriots to guard against this and what would their agenda be? Who to trust? You can only imagine how fearful for the future the ordinary people were.

In the 1990s Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn published his thoughts ‘On Rebuilding Russia’. He looked at the USA. He had lived in the USA many years. He rejected the idea of adopting the US Constitution in Russia because it would be ill-fitting. Christianity had been hunted to extinction and suppressed by communism for 70 years.

Alexis de Tocqueville’s ‘Democracy In America’ (1835) has this comment, and I read it and wonder if it will ever be this way again;

“I sought for the key to the greatness and genius of America in her harbors...; in her fertile fields and boundless forests; in her rich mines and vast world commerce; in her public school system and institutions of learning. I sought for it in her democratic Congress and in her matchless Constitution. Not until I went into the churches of America and heard her pulpits flame with righteousness did I understand the secret of her genius and power. America is great because America is good, and if America ever ceases to be good, America will cease to be great.

“The safeguard of morality is religion, and morality is the best security of law as well as the surest pledge of freedom. The Americans combine the notions of Christianity and of liberty so intimately in their minds, that it is impossible to make them conceive the one without the other.”

I have Solzhenitsyn’s ‘On Rebuilding Russia’. In stark contrast to his famous novels, his thoughts on how to rebuild Russia is less than 100 pages (and it is only in the later pages his suggestions are made clear): Electorates, diverse political partys, eligibilty of district and regional representatives, the duty of the voters to question all candidates, length of terms for representatives, prevention of corrupt behavior by bureaucrats and representatives, political funding transparency...

All of these facets of government the post-christian USA has already but due to the fact that the Russian Provisional Government had been blind-sided by the Bolshevik extremists in October 1917, Solzhenitsyn advocates that in the new Russian Constitution the electorate should be able to avoid the fear of a fringe group taking power again.

Solzhenitsyn therefore advocates against secret groups and secret agendas. No secrets, and especially no secret Police. He requests that all manifestos be published and accessible. Party membership lists, coalitions with other groups, party policies and ideas will either grow in popularity (and support in the electorate) or wither away. The electorate make the choices depending on the merits of the policies and ideas. No ideas, no matter how new or radical would be prohibited. Nothing would be suppressed with the exception of underground ideas and policies. Secret political groups are patently seditious in this Constitutional design.

It is perfectly reasonable in a secular humanist society to have the freedom to express yourself and to dissent and to agitate for reforms or to press against perceived injustices (and to crowd-fund the money required to press the argument), but a free society has features that could be exploited by radical political groups, and sedition may be given a free reign without public examination and transparency of political agendas and manifestos for local, State, and Federal Government. The USA already has Homeland Security, the N.S.A., the F.B.I., monitoring of financial transactions, monitoring of communications, and other investigators and detectives, because of foreign threats and enemies. “See something - say something”.

But what of the numerous unknown domestic enemies and criminals in a post-Christian society? Do we end up with secret police? A surveillance state? Do we end up with facial recognition systems in every public place? Do we become China? Is that what we are handing over to future generations? Alphabet/Google is betting the answer is “Yes”.

See http://www.pss-1.com

Do I hear any alternative suggestions?

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