"And the world will be one..."
As some may have noticed, the title of this post is an excerpt of part of the lyrics of John Lennon's song, "Imagine". I enjoyed this song as a teen when it was first released, and like most teens, only thought of its message in the most idealistic of terms. Also, like most teens, I didn't think too much (I could just stop right there), about the actual consequences of trying to achieve such a world vision.Hat tip to Kobayashi Maru for this link to a review of two books, in which the reviewer uses Lennon's song as a springboard for his review. I'm not going into the detail of the the two books since I have read them, but this review is a must read!
As I grew older and read/researched more, I came to realize that Marxism/Socialism were just the the latest attempts to do what the song "Imagine" had proposed. What I came to realize, is that the one truth that can never be discounted, is the evolution of ideas into ideology. It can also be described as I read once (I can't remember where now), and the "...tyranny of the righteous intellect...".
It can be described as the , "I know best...", which is fine coming from your parents, until you reach adulthood, but is potentially fatal coming from any political leadership. Potentially fatal for those who are 'unwashed', too ignorant to know better, and thus must be uplifted, forcibly if necessary. Just our luck, but the late 19th and the 20th century have given us live, front row seats to what happens to these faceless masses, when the "I know best even if it kills you" crowd gets into power. The true horror of this perspective is that it inevitably dehumanizes everyone on the 'outside', thus making it OK to initiate and participate in some of the most horrific acts and crimes against humanity.
Human nature being what it is, it doesn't take long for the 'struggle' to become about the power rather than the ideas/ideology, but I digress. For examples, we need look no further that current Communist China, North Korea, the former Soviet Union, the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, Chavez in Venezuela, Cuba, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Nazi Germany, Cambodia's Killing Fields, N. Vietnam and Vietnam after the US withdrawal, and now it seems, the current US Democratic Party. What they all have in common, is/was their central ideology stating that it knows best, the masses don't/didn't need to understand, and if you questioned the tenets, then there was something irredeemably wrong with you and you needed to be forcibly re-educated and if you died in the process, so be it. (If you think I'm exagerrating, check out some of the rants at the Democratic Underground and the Daily Kos - they have all but formally declared an armed revolt to begin in the 2006 election cycle.)
In my own spiritual journey, I have gone from faithful, to agnostic, and back again. Never aetheistic; my own personnal experiences have made abundantly clear to me that there is something there, however your personnal religous preferences care to define it. My own view of the world's many religions is similar to the fable of the 3 blind men trying to describe an elephant after touching one part of it. They were all correct, as far as they went, but they were all wrong in assuming what they touch described the entire elephant. So it is, I believe, with most religions.
I am comfortable, individually, knowing that I have chosen a particular religion based on my being most comfortable with the majority of it tenets. As a human organization, I don't expect infallibility from my chosen religous organization, and I'm not out to nail boards on others feet in the mistaken belief that this will elevate them to my level of understanding.
This is not true of everyone, whether it be religion or politics under discussion. History has shown us repeatedly that "...all that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing...". That is what most of these ideologies count on, the inertia of good men to not interfere.
You may not like President Bush, you may not agree with all of his policies, you may feel that he has not communicated well the goals and needs for what we are doing. However, he has not stepped aside and he has not 'done nothing'. He has indeed done the hardest part, stepped forward to intervene, and did so despite polls showing that it wasn't the popular thing to do, unlike his predecessor who only acted to distract media attention from is own lack of morals.
Our country was founded by religous, faith centered men (I dislike the term God Fearing); in the Constitution and in their letters, they make it abundantly clear they had no intention of creating a state free form religion, rather one where freedom of religion was central. In one letter, it is stated that our Constitution can only succeed if practiced by a moral, religous people; without that basis it would fail.
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