Posted on 12/23/2001 6:16:25 PM PST by damnlimey
See you very soon!
Bless you, Dukie, for the bump to such a lovely post; and to damnlimey for posting it.
God addresses us in the only language which makes sense to us, the language of a vulnerable, self-giving love.
Now please forgive me, Dukie: I do find myself wondering sometimes about whether the "massman" as defined by the present popular culture any longer can interpret a "language of vulnerable, self-giving love" in any kind of way that refers to his own true good or to the good of the society of which he is a part.
If anything, these days people are trained at great taxpayer expense to the idea that anyone who thinks that "vulnerable, self-giving" anything is a positive value for society at large must be a lunatic, a moron, a mental deficient; a wife beater, child abuser, tax evader, member of the VRWC, etc., etc.
Oh we do live in interesting times.
If these seem somber thoughts for a Christmas time, well, 2001 has been a very difficult year in many ways from MPOV.
Believe it or not, I am of good Christmas cheer right about now. It's been a wonderful day spent with my two families....
At the end of the day, it seems to me that God, country, and family (in whatever order) are the basic constituents of any just society. All historical "systems" so far -- and I do mean ALL -- that have tried to establish a political order on some other framework have been abysmal failures. Objectively speaking, that is.
And I do admit I know that man is not capable of self-perfection/redemption. Eric Voegelin has entirely persuaded me to his view that all the modern and post-modern political systems of human self-salvation (e.g., Marxism, Bolshevism, Fascism, Mass Democracy, Social Welfarism, "Rainbow Coalition" efforts at "constituency building," the "Save-the-Whales" movement [I love whales], and -- here's the really good joke -- the extirpation of all "sex [or 'gender']-specific categories" after about 30 years of more or less officially licensed "sexual freedom," etc.) are predicated on a man-centered, rather than a God-centered, universe, trying to pass for "law."
My hope and prayer for the New Year is that God will give a whole lot of American people the grace and the light to see through our nation's current, urgent problems; that America might prevail against bodies "foreign and domestic" who do not wish the American people well. And that the people will recover the Constitution -- by expending some effort trying to understand it.
And it ain't rocket science, kids: Though the lawyers' guilds will always try to tell you otherwise, the Constitution belongs to the People; it is the child of the People from the very inception of the American constitutional republic. (My citation here is the Preamble.)
Or maybe I should say it is the child of a people -- a particular people formed and informed by a particular culture. To say the people entails a recognition of public consensus; which is arguably what America now seems to lack.
The Constitution is the product of an astonishly great culture, by any measure. Yet the basic premises and appreciation of that culture are not presented to young minds at all in the contemporary public school. Whether this results from accident or design who can know for sure?
Yet to the extent that people do not understand the foundational principles of the Constitution in terms of its culture and history, the Constitution becomes "easy pickings" for talented wizards like Bill Clinton. 'Nuff said.
The people who framed the Constitution of the United States of America, and founded a nation thereby, were people who were steeped in classical/Christian culture. They were, on all evidence I've seen, the most eminent, even aristocratic, exponents of that culture -- a culture (as the late Russell Kirk theorized) rooted in four historical cities: Jerusalem, Athens, Rome, and London. [Kirk's excellent book, The Roots of American Order, is destined to become a classic of American historiography IMHO. Now available at amazon.com.]
God bless you all at Yuletide, and throughout the coming New Year. -- bb.
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