Sunday, May 31, 2015

Drones and Workers

I learned something about insects today.

I used to think "drones" were "workers." This is evident on several of my old webpages. For example, on this page (which I notice was last edited on Monday, July 13, 1998, 12:10:36 AM) I spoke of the "worker-drone" who was held captive by the modern "American dream" of working an unfulfilling job to pay the mortgage and accumulate the trinkets of modern society, but not aspiring to any higher spiritual purpose:

In the material realm, life in the 1990's consists mainly of a dreary 8-5 job shuffling papers or manufacturing weapons for the New World Order, making interest payments on a mortgage, and keeping the volume down on the kids' Nintendo. This "middle-class" lifestyle differs radically from that envisioned by Thomas Jefferson. His land-owning "yeoman farmer" was much closer to the Biblical ideal of the wealthy Patriarch Abraham (Genesis 13:2), and both are a far cry from the secularized American worker-drone. The televised vision of the "American Dream" effectively serves the agenda of the ruling elites in Washington. As millions of serfs labor, the lords increase their wealth.

But "drones" are not "workers."

Among termites, "The sterile castes are the workers and soldiers. Both are wingless and usually lack eyes."

That's what I was thinking of: a wingless worker who lacks eyes. (There's a profound metaphor there.)

The common meaning of the word "drone" has changed a great deal since I wrote that page above. Today the most common identification of a "drone" is an unmanned bomber or surveillance aircraft.

In the world of insects, as I was thinking of them, "drones" were mindless workers. In reality, drones are not workers, they are worthless maters. They do nothing of value until they die impregnating the Queen bee.

Worker bees are females. Drones are males. (More metaphors.) Other than mating with the Queen bee, drones are worthless. They don't work, they just eat honey.

In Episodes of Insect Life, Volume 1, L. M. Budgen observes that drones, because of "their worthless qualities, may fairly be compared to the aristocracy of a state, where birth, not worth, makes the man."

Monday, May 18, 2015

Why I Weep at All Military Parades

Here's an interesting article about the recent parade in Russia commemorating the defeat of Nazi Germany by the Russian Army:

Why I Wept at the Russian Parade | Veterans Today

The author has fallen for the propaganda of the military parade.

Many people will agree that National Socialism (also known as Nazism -- "Nazi" is short for Nationalsozialismus, the ideology of the National Socialist German Workers' Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) was a great evil.

Many people will agree that International Socialism (also known as Communism, the ideology spread by Moscow) is evil.

A growing number of people around the world are coming to agree that "democracy" (also known as "freedom," "free enterprise," "free market," the ideology spread by those who call themselves a "Constitutional Republic") is also evil. Those who call it evil might also call it "crony capitalism," or "fascism." (It has very little to do with freedom and freed markets.)

There is growing concern about Russia and China working together to spread Communism. (Or whatever you want to call their form of "government.") Many nations have long been concerned with the United States spreading "democracy" in Iran, Vietnam, Iraq, and many other nations.

There is good reason to believe that the United States Federal Government is the most evil and most dangerous entity on the planet. "The enemy of mankind."

Thankfully, the United States is dying. It might be that the U.S. will ignite another world war just to protect its crumbling hegemony, but in the long run, the kind of imperialism and mass death promoted by the U.S. during the last 150 or so years cannot be maintained long into the 21st century.

World War II was a war against Christian civilization. Franklin Roosevelt, led by communists in the White House, brought the U.S. into the war to protect the spread of communism in Eastern Europe and Asia. The United States is responsible in large part for the casualties of the war itself (as many as 90 million) and the deaths caused by Communism in China (76 million). The carnage of two atomic bombs dropped by the U.S. was dwarfed by the massive Allied firebombing of Tokyo, Dresden, and other major cities.

No rational Christian can support World War II. Russia was not any better off materially, financially, or spiritually under Stalin than they would have been under Hitler. Good arguments can be made that Hitler could not have terrorized the Russian people from Germany as effectively as Stalin did from Moscow. Jesus expressly commanded His followers not to resist invasion and military occupation. More than a hundred million human beings died to make sure International Socialism prevailed over National Socialism. Private Property, including architecture and art representing centuries of human progress, produced and appreciated from the depths of the human heart and imagination, were destroyed on a massive scale. Again, to make sure International Socialism prevailed over National Socialism. This is truly a form of insanity, lunacy, madness. What word describes such lethal society-wide sociopathy as massive destruction over two obviously false antitheses? 

In Moscow, hundreds of thousands of Russians, many with portraits "of the estimated 27 to perhaps 30 million Soviet citizens who never returned alive from World War II" watched a parade of soldiers and weapons of mass destruction through the main boulevard in Moscow, and elsewhere throughout the nation. The soldiers of the Russian Army should have reached the same conclusion Muhammad Ali reached, when he decided to stay out of the Vietnam war and face prison rather than kill or be killed in a senseless war.

World War II was an "unnecessary war," to quote the title of Pat Buchanan's book. The parades in Russia celebrated the war rather than mourning it, and mourned the soldiers who fought it rather than forgive them their trespasses, and honor those who stayed home to raise their families. And the author of the article above seems also to have been "impressed" rather than depressed.

Jesus came to bring "Peace on Earth." In many ways, the world is more peaceful to day than it was before Jesus came. A huge percentage of human beings in the ancient world died violent deaths, whereas today over 7 billion people enjoy levels of peace and prosperity which the ancient world could not have imagined. Twelve disciples have changed the lives of billions of people and many nations.

But we have a great distance to go. The pro-military parade in Russia is taking us backward. Those who yearn for a "united" America, in solidarity with "the troops" and "proud" of "our government," are also taking us toward war and totalitarianism and away from freedom and peace.

We must "beat our swords into plowshares" (which some derisively call "pacifism"), to the point where we abolish the myth of legitimate aggression ("government," the absence of which some call "anarchism"), and trust in "Divine Providence" rather than government coercion. America once thought of herself as a nation "under God." Today this is ruled out as "Theocracy." The alternative is mass death under atheistic despotism.

Thursday, May 07, 2015

National Day of Prayer

Today is the National Day of Prayer in the United States.

Prayer used to be about God. Today prayer is about ME. Maybe about US. Not about God. Not about duty. Not about repentance.

Resources for the National Day of Prayer

Why Daily Prayer - read the Bible and Pray Daily

 Q.98 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism:
Prayer is
• an offering up of our desires unto God
• for things agreeable to His will,
• in the name of Christ,
• with confession of our sins,
• and thankful acknowledgement of His mercies.
 
From the Westminster Standards in 180 Days.