“Individuals have conquered themselves; nations and large bodies never.”—John Adams
“The first and greatest victory is to conquer yourself; to be conquered by yourself is of all things most shameful and vile.”—Plato
And very, very few individuals can do the above. It’s a major reason why our Founders did not believe in democracy. Adams again: “We may appeal to every page of history...for proofs irrefragable, that the people, when they have been unchecked, have been as unjust, tyrannical, brutal, barbarous, and cruel as any king or senate possessed by an uncontrollable power. The majority has eternally, and without any one exception, usurped over the rights of the minority.” And again: “The proposition that the people are the best keepers of their own liberties is not true. They are the worst conceivable, they are not keepers at all: they can neither judge, act, think, or will as a political body. Individuals have conquered themselves; nations and large bodies never.” As always, our Founding Fathers are spot on about history and the nature of man.
It’s always been this way, folks. And it’s not just democracy. Notice that Mr. Adams also referred to any “king” or “senate” possessed of too much power. Monarchy, aristocracy, democracy—no form of government is perfect or immune to tyranny and degradation. It’s simply been that, in the past 100 years, since America has progressively democratized by greatly expanding the electorate to women, minorities, and 18-year-olds, we’ve seen decadence multiply significantly—"steadily increasing moral degeneration, family and social disintegration, and cultural decay in the form of continually rising rates of divorce, illegitimacy, abortion, and crime” (Hans-Hermann Hoppe, Democracy: The God That Failed). Hoppe wrote that 25 years ago, and only a blind fool would say morality has improved in America in the past quarter-century.
America gave its education system to the Left a few decades ago, and to no one’s surprise—no one who knows history, that is—immorality and godlessness have swamped the country; the atheistic Left owns the entire Democratic Party. If there is no heaven to be gained after this life, or hell to be avoided, if this existence is all there is and it’s all over when we die, if we have nothing to anticipate after death but eternal nothingness like Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Jesus and every other human who has lived and is now dead, then why be “good” on this earth? What does Hitler—or Jesus—care, right now, what we think of them? Atheists hate this truth, because they want to find some reason to “inspire” people to be “good” on this earth. But, in America, and around the world, we are witnessing, right now, and have been for the past 100 years, the fruits of Leftist, atheistic teaching. “The most important feature of Chinese Communism is atheism,” a CCP member wrote. Vladimir Lenin agreed about atheism and communism: “Our program necessarily includes the propaganda of atheism.” As did Karl Marx: “Communism begins where atheism begins.” It’s why communism has butchered and tortured hundreds of millions of people in the last 100 years—they have no eternal reason not to—and why the Democratic Party today is so enamored of it.
So many of our people, educated in Leftist dogma, have drawn the logical conclusion regarding its moral system: no God, no heaven, no hell; thus, every man can do that which is right in his own eyes. And when such decadence is rampant in a democracy, then, since people vote for what they are, decadence will take over the government. As it has the Democratic Party.
Too many Americans have accepted our current immoral zeitgeist, because…well, read the Adams and Plato quotes at the beginning of this article again. Are we giving our people any reason, any justification to practice self-control? Even “don’t get caught” is barely practiced as a prohibition by Democrats anymore. Liberal judges will turn criminals loose and they know it.
But this is history, folks. "A lie can travel halfway around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." That statement has been attributed to several people (Jonathan Swift, Mark Twain, et al), but there is a reason why the great empires of the past—Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Persia, Greece, Rome, England, etc.—no longer exist, or are only empty shells of their former greatness. “It is not in man who walks to direct his own steps,” the prophet Jeremiah so correctly advised us. John Adams and Plato taught us that self-control is an almost non-existent, though absolutely essential, virtue. “Virtue is the only good, and self-control is the only means of achieving virtue,” Antisthenes of Athens said thousands of years ago, and we still haven’t learned that lesson. Our Founding Fathers knew it, and tried to teach it to us, but virtue just doesn’t fit the needs of power-hungry godless, megalomaniacs like those who currently populate the leadership of the Democratic Party. And again, given atheism, why be “virtuous”? What is “virtue”? Who defines it? If there is no god, and “virtue” is only a product of human “reason,” then which human beings are we going to allow to define it? The offspring of Karl Marx have a very different definition of “virtue” than Jesus of Nazareth did. And therein lies the greatest division in the United States today. We no longer agree on what is “good” and what is “evil,” and thus, “every man does that which is right in his own eyes.”
And it will destroy America. A house divided cannot stand. Just like it destroyed Egypt, Babylon, Assyria, Persia, Rome, etc., etc. “Do not be deceived; God is not mocked. Whatever a man [nation] sows, that shall he [it] also reap.” James Madison said, “I go on the great republican principle, that the people will have virtue and intelligence to select men of virtue and wisdom. Is there [any] virtue among us?” Indeed, is there?
My substacks are a little unique. Not just current events, but history, our Founding Fathers, what America was meant to be, and Biblical exegesis. Check them out. “Mark It Down! (mklewis929.substack.com), and “Mark It Down! Bible Substack” (mklbibless.substack.com). Both free. Follow me on “X”: @thailandmkl. Read my western novels, Whitewater, River Bend, Return to River Bend, and Allie’s Dilemma, all available on Amazon.
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