Customs, Traditions, and Moral Values

From Dr. Walter Williams most recent article, "Are Guns the Problem?" (Jan. 16, 2013): 

"Customs, traditions, moral values and rules of etiquette, not laws and government regulations, are what make for a civilized society.  These behavioral norms--transmitted by example, word of mouth and religious teachings--represent a body of wisdom distilled through ages of experience, trial and error, and looking at what works.  The importance of customs, traditions and moral values as a means of regulating behavior is that people behave themselves even if nobody's watching.  Police and laws can never replace these restraints on personal conduct so as to produce a civilized society.  At best, the police and criminal justice system are the last desperate line of defense for a civilized society.  The more uncivilized we become the more laws that are needed to regulate behavior."

Of course, I have been saying that for years, and writing exactly that on this blog since I started it.  I provide Dr. Williams' quote just so readers will know that I am not the only one who is saying it.

What Williams describes is the fundamental core of "conservatism"--that there are certain values, customs, traditions, etc. that have, over time, proven essential in promoting and sustaining a civilized society.  I argue, of course, that those values, customs, traditions--moral laws--come from God.  When a people reject them, there is bedlam in that country, as we see happening in the United States today.  Modern liberalism, based upon the mythical, unscientific Darwinian theory, rejects that there are any absolute values or morals, and asserts that everything is "evolving", which means morality evolves, too, and will be decided by man, not God.  Thus, the fundamental, foundation disagreement between modern conservatism and liberalism is over the existence of the Christian God; if He does exist, then obviously, liberalism is, in its very essence, wrong and destructive.  If He does not exist, then there are indeed no absolute values, and society can be ruled by popular will--or, more often, by tyrants (Stalin, Hitler, Mao, et al)--not eternal, moral law, or even wise, historical traditions.  To the liberal, everything is subject to change because that is the very "law" (Darwinism) of existence.  But, given this crucial, fundamental difference--a belief in God--it is profoundly manifest why liberalism hates God and Christianity, and must do everything it can to destroy traditional religious belief in America.  Decent, moral people, in history, have nearly always lost such a war, because they have God-given, or conscientious, restraints on their behavior; the wicked can be as ruthless as necessary, because they have no moral values.  It is why Ho Chi Minh defeated Lyndon Johnson in Vietnam; it is why Mao Zedong, one of the most consciousless, brutal, pitiless human beings to ever walk the face of the earth, defeated Chiang Kai-Shek in the Chinese civil war in the 1940s.  Mao and Ho didn't care how many people they killed; Johnson and Chiang had at least some scruples.  And, as of 2013, in the American godless left, scruples are conspicuously absent; the decent right, by philosophy, must restrict itself.  It's not a good omen for the near future.

To see just a small sampling of the effects of liberalism in American society, I encourage you to read the remainder of Dr. Williams' article:
http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/articles/13/AreGunsTheProblem.htm

His article, "A Hundred Percent of Nothing," is also a grand expose' of liberal policies as they have affected a once great American city, Detroit, Michigan:  http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/wew/articles/12/AHundredPercentOfNothing.htm

Believe me, the information provided by Dr. Williams is only a small sampling of the degeneration of American society under liberalism.  It's plain to see, but you have to dig a little bit to get statistics like those Dr. Williams presents, because the "mainstream" American media is, full throttle, in complicity with the liberal agenda.  The media are no longer journalists reporting the news; they are co-conspirators, left-wing ideologues, deliberately, forcefully, hatefully, and persistently pushing the anti-Christian liberal Democratic agenda.  And, with the help of the government-run education system, they are succeeding in indoctrinating vast numbers of people--apparently now, a majority.  Even the strongest rock can be worn down, in time, by a consistent dripping of water.  In this case, it hasn't been a drip, it's been a pounding.  And too few Americans have the intelligence, and moral integrity, to resist it and to continue honoring their Creator.  Even most Republicans now are totally gutless.

As the Bible and history both show, most humans will try to find excuses for sin; wickedness has always existed.  What liberalism has done, over the last 50 years in America, is make it easier for Americans to find those excuses--and, worse, to rationalize them.  At least before the modern left took over the culture in the United States, people knew what sin was, knew it was evil and destructive, often hid when they did it, and at least had the common sense, intelligence, and decency to know you don't exalt it (Bill Clinton), flaunt it (Barney Frank), and make it public policy (abortion and "gay" marriage) and the foundation of your culture (Hollywood).  But we live in a different world now, and only the wicked revel in it and think it is a better one.

The answer...to Detroit...is more liberalism?  More "progressivism"?  Less God and Christianity?  Perhaps the greatest tragedy of all in America is that truth is hated so vitriolically by the left that they would rather destroy the lives of countless millions of people than accept the truth that will make all men free. 

It's Not About Guns, It's About Control

Quotes can be tedious, so I don't want to overdo it here, but, just for reference, here are some "fer" and "agin" regarding private ownership of guns:

"The rifle and pistol are equally indispensable.  The very atmosphere of firearms everywhere restrains evil interference, they deserve a place of honor with all that's good."--George Washington

"The governments of Europe are afraid to trust the people with arms.  If they did, they people would surely shake off the yoke of tyranny, as America did."--James Madison

"The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government."--Thomas Jefferson (emphasis added.  Were these guys brilliant, or what?)

"Firearms are second only to the Constitution in importance; they are the peoples' liberty's teeth."--George Washington (Do you think liberals don't know this?)

"What country can preserve its liberties if its rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance?  Let them take arms."--Thomas Jefferson

"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed...if the representatives of the people betray their constituents, there is then no recourse left but in the exertion of that original right of self-defense which is paramount to all positive forms of government"--Alexander Hamilton.  (Who do you reckon he meant by "the representatives of the people"?)

Of course, there are people who don't agree with the above sentiments....

"Guns, for what?"--Fidel Castro

"We don't let them have ideas.  Why would we let them have guns?"--Joseph Stalin

"The most foolish mistake we could possibly make would be to allow the subject races to possess arms.  History shows that all conquerors who have allowed their subject races to carry arms have prepared their own downfall by so doing."--Adolf Hitler

"Control of guns was watertight." (This is speaking of Mao Zedong's China in the early 1940s, Mao:  The Unknown Story, Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, p. 272.  Especially in the countryside, because all arms had been confiscated, wolves and leopards roamed freely, including into people's yards.  Mao told the people to bring their precious livestock directly into their homes to protect them from predators.  The resultant filth and lack of hygiene led to many diseases and deaths.  Mao was ingenious is his ways of killing people.)

"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans to legitimately own handguns and rifles ... that we are unable to think about reality."--Bill Clinton

"Gun registration is not enough."--Janet Reno

"Those now possessing weapons and ammunition are at once to turn them over to the local police authority. Firearms and ammunition found in a Jew's possession will be forfeited to the government without compensation ... Whoever willfully or negligently violates the provisions ... will be punished with imprisonment and a fine."--Nazi law, 1938

Never forget, folks, this debate in America over "gun control" is not about guns, it is forever, and only, about control.  Please...please...look at the history of the left since the French Revolution.  Their aim is totalitarian control!  It is no different--NO DIFFERENT!!--in the American left!  This is the crucial issue that absolutely must be understood, but so few people do.  If we think Barack Obama is different from Joseph Stalin just because Obama is an "American", then we are fools of the highest order.  It has nothing to do with country, and everything to do with ideology.  When it comes time to put guns to the back of people's necks, they don't want the people shooting back.

"How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think."--Adolf Hitler

"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."--Benjamin Franklin

Pravda on Gun Control

From a recent Pravda article, entitled "Americans, Never Give Up Your Guns," by Stanislav Mishin:

"Do not be fooled by a belief that progressives, leftists hate guns. Oh, no, they do not. What they hate is guns in the hands of those who are not marching in lock step of their ideology. They hate guns in the hands of those who think for themselves and do not obey without question. They hate guns in those whom they have slated for a barrel to the back of the ear."

Read the whole article, if you wish.  It has some interesting, and fascinating, historical information about gun control in Russia.  http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/28-12-2012/123335-americans_guns-0/

And, at the same time, you might be interested in reading Mishin's article, "Global Warming, The Tool of the West," which you can access from the above link. 

Pravda ain't what it used to be folks, and some of what it is now makes a ton of sense.