The Great Unifier
I’ve been contemplating the principle “like attracts like” and have arrived at some additional insights. The interesting aspect of this principle is that no two people are alike. Since this is true then the question to ask when we see two people or groups attracted to each other is this. What is that which is similar which forms the basis of attraction and what is the primary ingredient that causes attraction?
When two individuals fall in love we might say the common ingredient is love. It is difficult to not be attracted to a person who truly loves and admires you. On the other hand, when the freshness of the falling in love is replaced by the difficulties of living life together then something else must come into play if the attraction is to remain. It helps if the couple has similar interests and desires, but what is the core principle of a lasting relationship.
How about friends? They do not fall in love, but fall in like. What makes a friendship last a lifetime?
How about nations and national leaders? What causes one nation to be drawn to and support another?
To understand it helps to look at the friends and enemies of Hugo Chaves who recently passed (March 5, 2013).
Who did he hate the most? In particular he hated the United States. Who did he like? He liked Cuba and Iran along with their leaders Castro and Ahmadinejad. What did they have in common? Was it religion?
Not really. Ahmadinejad sees Christians as infidels that must be subjugated and Chavez is a Roman Catholic who often spoke of Christ as his savior. Then Castro is a non believer who rules with a secular/atheistic form of communism. Religion has been very restricted and controlled during most of his rule.
If religion is the grand unifier, then you would think that Chavez would be pals with the United States since all presidents have been Christian, like himself, as well as most of the population.
Maybe it was liberal causes like gay rights and gay marriage that attracts them. Not really. Chavez was tolerant of gays and didn’t support persecuting them whereas Castro and Ahmadinejad have viciously persecuted gays in their country.
Could it be their governments? It is true they all incorporate aspects of socialism but Castro rules with hard core communism and Venezuela and Iran allow some free enterprise and land ownership. Also Iran is a theocracy something contrary to Cuba’s communism as well as Chavez’s government.
What then do these three states that are so attracted to each other have in common? Where is the like being attracted to like?
We received some thoughtful answers to this question. Here was a good one:
“They all hate individual freedom. Isn’t there an old saying, ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend,’ or something like that? The U.S. to a lot of the people of the world still represents the abstract concept of individual freedom, no matter how much the reality now differs from that vision. That is a concept all of these countries hate.”
Other readers gave this take:
“The big division in the world is between those who respect the principle of freedom and those who do not. Those who do not respect the principle will be attracted to each other as well as those who do like the principle.”
The quest for freedom is the quest to be free from the mark of the Beast for the Beast takes the place of the God within and becomes a God without that must be followed above and beyond anyone’s inclination to follow the inner direction. Under the Beast you are only allowed to follow your inner direction if it is in harmony with his direction.
Because individual freedom is always a threat to the Beast then wherever it shows itself will be a center where the wrath, cunning and distortion from the Beast will be unleashed.
Just take a look at some of the freedoms we have here and the attacks against them, sometimes subtly and other times very openly.
Free speech This has been under attack from the beginning of this country and the avenues of attack are increasing.
Question: In what ways is free speech under attack?
We are fortunate indeed that the Founders had the foresight to make free speech the First Amendment. This has given us a lot of protection to say what we want. But has the Beast acknowledged this and rolled over and played dead as far as speech is concerned? Not hardly?
The Constitution was the weapon that inflicted the deadly wound on the Beast but the scripture predicted this deadly wound would be healed making the Beast alive and well. Alive and well he indeed is and attacks free speech at every opportunity.
“How is he attacking free speech?” asks one. “Can I not go on a street corner and proclaim my disagreement with the President or any other leader?”
Yes, you can legally disagree with authorities but that is where it ends. There are quite a number of ways free speech is curtailed.
First, there legitimate limitation. This is speech that can cause real damage such as the famous example of yelling fire in a crowded theater. If one slanders another person he can be sued in a court of law. If a government employee gives out top secret information he may be prosecuted and lying in a court of law is illegal.
Unfortunately, these legitimate limitations give those who wish to control others an excuse to work toward expanding on them. Those working for the Beast are doing everything in their power to make what they consider hate speech illegal.
In most cases hate speech is merely speech that pawns of the Beast hate and despise. They hate much of what is said on talk radio so they seek to pass laws regulating or limiting it. They hate common sense ideas that will bring greater freedom and wealth to individuals so they condemn them through the media. They hate the free market so they blame it for all our woes.
They hate the mention of God and spiritual principles so they seek to silence all such talk on property controlled by the Beast.
To suppress the masses the unjust authorities seek to tell us which words we can say and which ones we cannot. This is called politically correct speech. When these words were first demonized many laughed and thought these ideas would come to naught, but they underestimated the power of the Beast in the land of the free.
Those who saw nothing wrong with using the words handicapped, midget, crazy, bum and many others may not be arrested for saying them but could lose their job or be attacked and humiliated by offended associates
Speech criticizing political leaders has been curtailed in many cases by accusing the critics of racism even when nothing in the speech referred to race. It has been said that one is racist if he uses words such as lazy, fried chicken, ghetto, Chicago, apartments, welfare, illegal aliens, and other words when speaking of minorities.
Many of our professional workers have their speech curtailed. If a doctor advises alternative medicine, then he could lose his license. We had a family doctor who was barred from the local hospital because he disagreed with another doctor’s diagnosis.
Attorneys have to be very careful with their speech as well as any paid member of the clergy for fear of losing their job. Church members are often forced to speak only positive things about their leaders or suffer excommunication or rejection.
A book could be written on examples but the point is that the war against free speech is alive and well and it takes a strong individual to stand up to the forces arrayed against free expression.
Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us. – justice William O. Douglas
March 12, 2013
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> It has been said that one is racist if he uses words such as lazy, fried chicken, ghetto, Chicago, apartments, welfare, illegal aliens, and other words when speaking of minorities.
Nobody says this. What is true is that you can use these words in the right combination to deliver a racist message. If someone, for example, referred to “Lazy people in Chicago ghetto apartments, living on fried chicken provided by welfare,” none of those words by themselves are racist, but those words strung together in that sentence is basically just code for “dirty niggers” and they’re disguising it with cowardly euphemistic language, something that you are very familiar with.
> Many of our professional workers have their speech curtailed. If a doctor advises alternative medicine, then he could lose his license. We had a family doctor who was barred from the local hospital because he disagreed with another doctor’s diagnosis.
A doctor’s job is to provide evidence-based medicine, not alternative medicine. If they lose their license for promoting alternative medicine, that is them failing to do their job and it has nothing to do with free speech.
> To suppress the masses the unjust authorities seek to tell us which words we can say and which ones we cannot. This is called politically correct speech. When these words were first demonized many laughed and thought these ideas would come to naught, but they underestimated the power of the Beast in the land of the free.
This script of yours can be so easily flipped to apply to you. “Common sense” is your label for what you have decided is politically correct, and “Beast” is your label for what you have decided is politically incorrect. “Beast” is literally a term that evokes a sense of demonic nature, and you apply it to everything that doesn’t align with you as a means to exert your own sense of political correctness.
You do not seem to understand what I mean by the Beast. It represents unearned, unproven authority that is forced upon the masses to be accepted as if it were earned and proven.
I understand the definition just fine. You’re missing the point. Everyone has their own sense on what is an earned authority. You have your sense on what is an earned authority, and I have mine. What either of us might call the Beast doesn’t convey any useful or new information. If you take a look a list of the things you have designated as the Beast, all you have are a list of some of your political views. That just makes the Beast a pointless label. The only purpose it could possibly serve is to vilify those who disagree with you on what is an earned authority.