"Democracy" in America

If we want to know who's really in power, then perhaps one way to know is to think about who or what we cannot openly criticize in a reasonable manner...

...without being shouted down.

...without being publicly shamed.

...without being called false names.

...without losing our reputations.

...without made into social pariahs in our own communities.

...without being ostracized in our own nation.

...without having our speech curtailed or even silenced.

...without being fined.

...without losing our jobs.

...without being imprisoned.

...without being forcibly "re-educated".

...without unjust corporeal punishment.

...without being "disappeared" in the middle of the night.

...without being publicly executed.

...without being (shall we say) "canceled".

In China, it is the CCP.

In North Korea, it is the Kim family.

In Russia, it is Putin.

In Iran, it is the ayatollah.

In many Middle Eastern nations, it is Islam.

In the US, are we still able to openly criticize in a reasonable manner people, organizations, institutions, the government, and so forth without significant cost to us or our families?

[O]ne theme in particular dominated all others: the growing tyranny of the majority, the ever-increasing and most formidable barriers raised by the majority around the free expression of opinion, and, as a result, the frightening oneness of American thinking, the absence of eccentricity and divergence from the norm.

A perfect liberty of the mind exists in America, said Tocqueville, just as long as the sovereign majority has yet to decide its course. But once the majority has made up its mind, then all contrary thought must cease, and all controversy must be abandoned, not at the risk of death or physical punishment, but rather at the more subtle and more intolerable pain of ostracism, of being shunned by one's fellows, of being rejected by society.

Throughout history kings and princely rulers had sought without success to control human thought, that most elusive and invisible power of all. Yet where absolute monarchs had failed, democracy succeeds, for the strength of the majority is unlimited and all pervasive, and the doctrines of equality and majority rule have substituted for the tyranny of the few over the many, the more absolute, imperious, and widely accepted tyranny of the many over the few. (Richard Heffner, Democracy in America)

The Political Papacy and its related Cancel Culture

The papacy has a long history of political illegitimacy, based on forgeries.

In the eighth century, Constantine was known primarily through the account of him in the legend of Pope Sylvester. In this he was incorrectly portrayed as an emperor who had persecuted Christianity until struck down with leprosy. On rejecting the suggestion of his pagan priests that he bathe in the blood of sacrificed babies, he had a vision of Saints Peter and Paul telling him to find Bishop Sylvester, who cured, healed and baptized him. Onto this core narrative was grafted the [false] claim that when Constantine subsequently decided to leave for the East, out of gratitude he entrusted Pope Sylvester with a set of imperial regalia, including a crown, and with the authority for himself and his successors to appoint an emperor in the West should circumstances ever require it. (Collins, Roger. Keepers of the Keys of Heaven: A History of the Papacy (p. 148). Basic Books. Kindle Edition).

The “Donation of Constantine”, cited above, and an ancillary “Constitution of Constantine” of course were forgeries, a fact that was not known until the late 1400s, but the documents were “probably not written until the ninth century” and “the ideas behind it were older and may have developed in the papal court”. “Their widespread acceptance enabled Leo to make Charles [Charlemagne] emperor on papal authority” (Collins, p. 150).

The nexus of politics and “the Church” was never so great as it was during the medieval years. According to Collins, “virtually every other Western emperor before the sixteenth century wanted papal coronation to legitimize his authority” (Collins, p. 150).

Many of you will have heard of the document Unam Sanctam , promulgated inn 1302, which concludes with the famous statement, “we declare, we proclaim, we define that it is absolutely necessary for salvation that every human creature be subject to the Roman Pontiff”.

This is not a religious sentiment. It is a statement written to a King of France, and the reasoning is political:

For with truth as our witness, it belongs to spiritual power to establish the terrestrial power and to pass judgement if it has not been good. Thus is accomplished the prophecy of Jeremias concerning the Church and the ecclesiastical power: ‘Behold to-day I have placed you over nations, and over kingdoms’ and the rest. Therefore, if the terrestrial power err, it will be judged by the spiritual power; but if a minor spiritual power err, it will be judged by a superior spiritual power; but if the highest power of all err, it can be judged only by God, and not by man, according to the testimony of the Apostle: ‘The spiritual man judgeth of all things and he himself is judged by no man’ [1 Cor 2:15]. This authority, however, (though it has been given to man and is exercised by man), is not human but rather divine, granted to Peter by a divine word and reaffirmed to him (Peter) and his successors by the One Whom Peter confessed, the Lord saying to Peter himself, ‘Whatsoever you shall bind on earth, shall be bound also in Heaven’ etc., [Mt 16:19].

This form of political papacy had its own “cancel culture”. It is outlined by William of Ockham in his “A Short Discourse on the Tyrannical Government”. The longer title is known as:

William of Ockham

A Short Discourse on the Tyrannical Government
Over Things Divine and Human,
But Especially Over the Empire
And Those Subject to the Empire
Usurped by Some Who are
Called Highest Pontiff

In a prologue, he affirms that he is aware of “the faith handed down by Christ and the Apostles” (p. 4). Further:

If I do unwittingly say anything contrary to it, I am ready to be corrected by anyone at all who can show me the truth; an as well I will by my own inquiry and by asking others at the appropriate time and place, with careful attention seek the truth (p. 4).

So Ockham, a Franciscan, an honest man, was committed to his idea of “Church” and Christian doctrine.

But he rejects the view that the papacy has secular authority. In Book 1, Chapter 1, sets out an argument that he disbelieves, and works to disprove, but one that is extant throughout “the Church”, that one may dare not question the pope’s political power.

Since I am about to investigate many matters concerning the power of the pope, I have decided, because of the error of some who fear papal power more than God’s, to inquire first whether thorough examination of the nature and extent of the pope’s power is permissible and without danger of just accusation. There are some – too ready to please men, by whose will they can now be raised, now lowered – who dare assert that no one is permitted to inquire about the pope’s power by disputation (p. 5).

Yes, there have been worldly leaders who have been more than happy to kill or imprison individuals who spoke out against themselves and their governments.

But this is, in what we know as “Christendom”, the original “Cancel Culture”.

They rely on this, that according to the canon and civil laws no one is permitted “to dispute about the ruler’s jurisdiction”; therefore, a fortiori, it is not permissible to dispute about the power of the supreme pontiff, lest one commit the crime of sacrilege.

This is the very same phenomenon that is seen with the Twitter mobs and the Leftist mobs – “we have decided upon what is political orthodoxy – whether it be speech about race or gender or the environment or whatever”.

Ockham was excommunicated (which excludes him from the sacraments and therefore from salvation) and exiled. He died “unreconciled”.

“You are not even permitted to inquire about our standard orthodoxy on this”.

Comments, questions?

We need the 2nd amendment

1. The photo is from a recent protest in Hong Kong.

1. Sadly, it's too late for Hongkongers to have a 2nd amendment.

   Too late for Hongkongers to use firearms to resist their own toady government, which was effectively handpicked by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

   Too late for Hongkongers to use firearms to resist their own lackey police force.

   Too late for Hongkongers to use firearms to resist the triads and other hired guns (not to mention communist spies across Hong Kong) who are in collusion with the CCP.

2. I'm not even necessarily suggesting Hongkongers should use firearms, though that's an option. Just possessing firearms may be a deterrence in and of itself. At least it'd make bullies think twice.

Reign of terror

"Is Jordan Peterson on a Suicide Mission?" by Grayson Quay.

The Disintegration of Rural America by the Left

We have more tyranny from the left. As a Wisconsinite, this is infuriating to see that the left is willing to destroy the lives of thousands of hard-working rural people.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/632281-family-farms-threatened-by-new-death-tax/article/2515658#.UMe5kba1_v1