Socialism
so·cial·ism noun
noun: socialism a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole.
synonyms: leftism, welfarism; radicalism, progressivism, social democracy; communism, Marxism,
“Under Capitalism man exploits man; under Socialism the process is reversed.”
- "Socialism works in two places: Heaven where they don't need it, and hell where they already have It." --Ronald Reagan
Democracy
Somewhere along the way, some people began to believe that we collectively had the right to decide what was good and evil, not only for ourselves, but for our neighbor, as well. We called it democracy.
In early America, the success and prosperity of the people was, no doubt in part, due to the fact that “The churches in New England were so many nurseries of freemen, training them in the principles of self-government and accustoming them to the feeling of independence. In these petty organizations were developed, in practice, the principles of individual and national freedom. Each church was a republic in embryo. The fiction became a fact, the abstraction a reality...”[1]
Americans have moved from a virtuous self reliant republic to covetous “democracy in a republic.”[2] This process is done more by contract, application, and participation than by vote.
The people have become a nation of consumers, who willing bite their neighbor for their own personal security. People have fallen in love with the benefits offered by democracy. But at what price?
James Madison, 1787, stated in the Federalist Paper #10 that “Democracy is the most vile form of government ... democracies have ever been spectacles of turbulence and contention: have ever been found incompatible with personal security or the rights of property: and have in general been as short in their lives as they have been violent in their deaths.” Fisher Ames, an author of the First Amendment, said, “A democracy is a volcano which conceals the fiery materials of its own destruction. These will produce an eruption and carry desolation in their way.” In 1815 John Adams: “Democracy... while it lasts is more bloody than either [aristocracy or monarchy]. Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There is never a democracy that did not commit suicide.”
John Marshall, longest serving Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, “Between a balanced Republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos.” Even Alexander Hamilton said “Real Liberty is never found in despotism or in the extremes of Democracy.” Benjamin Franklin warned emphatically that “When the people find they can vote themselves money, that will herald the end of the republic.” He understood that a “Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote!”
Long before these men voiced their objections Plato postulated “Dictatorship naturally arises out of democracy...” And long after Adams, Ralph Waldo Emerson said “Democracy is morose, and runs to anarchy.” Winston Churchill wrote that: “Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.” He went on to say that “The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.”
More recently historian and Congressman Ron Paul said “Our country’s founders cherished liberty, not democracy.” I did find that Karl Marx, who was an advocate of communism, claimed “Democracy is the road to socialism.”
“It is difficult to understand, how any one who has read the proceedings of the Federal Convention can believe that it was the intention of that body to establish a democratic government.”[3]
- “Accustomed to trampling on the rights of others you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you.”[4]
“Under a democratic government, the citizens exercise the powers of sovereignty; and those powers will be first abused, and afterwards lost, if they are committed to an unwieldy multitude.”[5]
“Thou shalt not follow a multitude to [do] evil; neither shalt thou speak in a cause to decline after many to wrest [judgment]:” Exodus 23:2
“A simple democracy is the devil’s own government.”[6]
Sacrificed to Idols
The Greek word eidololatrais translated idolaters would be called “Bandits, hijackers, grafters... today.”[7] The Greek word eidolothuton translated things or meats offered unto idols was produced from two Greek words eidolon meaning an image or likeness of something, and the word thuo something sacrificed. It seems to have been invented by Christians and appears to be “the negative counterpart to Corban”[8] mentioned in Mark which made the word of God to none effect.
Corban means sacrifice and was common to all temples. The purpose of those sacrifices was two fold, to provide for the needs of the people, and the need to care about others. Charity, love, giving, and forgiving are the foundation of the character of God and the cornerstone of His righteous society.
The sacrifices in temples were commonly divided between the priests, members, and the poor. What the priests could not consume was sold at a discount to the needy. Some temples were more like investment houses and regularly issued money. They funded trade or mining ventures and harbors, aqueducts, or roads, even war.
Temples could be institutions of charity or social insurance. Pure Religion is not only loving God but loving one another. The temples managed the contributions of the people. When they operated with freewill offerings they were a blessing to the liberty of the people. When they compelled the contributions of the people they were institutions of bondage. Like Nimrod of Babylon, the Pharaoh of Egypt, and the Roman emperors, they could be a snare and trap, a stumblingblock and a recompense, an enemy of freedom.
Rome moved from a free republic to an indirect democracy, and then to a socialist dictatorship. The “middle – class [was] sandwiched between a new arid conspicuous moneyed class and a proletariat that had no other aspiration but to be kept by a Welfare State.”[9]
Religion comes from the Latin meaning to bind. The religion of society will determine the state of society. The religion of Christ binds the people by charity and love. Civil religion is the result of a social contract. When welfare of society is provided by the sword of the State, pure religion is murdered and liberty dies. An authoritarian bureaucracy of the State becomes the new ministers and priests of society. All who take by that sword will perish under that sword.
“Liberty is not collective, it is personal. All liberty is individual liberty.”[10] Individual rights given by God and the privileged power of government granted by men have been at war since Cain killed Able. “State is an end and individual is means to this end or state is means and individual is end in itself.”[11] The State’s duties never venture into the redistribution of wealth in a moral society because man was not endowed with the right to take from from his brother.
“Redistribution is immoral... it allows one person to treat another as no more than a means...”[12] The welfare state is the enemy of pure religion.[13]When pure religion diminishes, socialism flourishes.
Some people through social compact give the state the power to take from its members for the welfare of society. That power has been deemed a foolish rejection of God.[14]“It is impossible to introduce into society a greater change and a greater evil than this: the conversion of the law into an instrument of plunder.”[15] “All socialism involves slavery” [16]
“Socialism is the religion people get when they lose their religion”[17]
“I will never live for the sake of another man or ask another man to live for mine” [18]
“We must learn to distinguish between charity and socialism. Charity is good, socialism is evil. (Pr. 14:30, 31, 19:17) Charity is for the helpless poor while [the socialist's] welfare makes the poor helpless. (Ga. 2:10)”[19]
Not so Secure Socialism
Same old promise, Same old lie!
http://www.hisholychurch.org/news/articles/notsecuress.php
Appeared first on NewsWithViews 8-1-10
Part 4 The kingdom of God, socialism, democracy and tyranny -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=er5b9YVk-iE
Democracy
From the book The Higher Liberty, Sec. 14
http://www.hisholychurch.org/media/books/THL/democracy.php
The Decline of Freedom,
The Foundation of Tyranny
Part two of The Real Destroyers of the Liberty of the people?
http://www.hisholychurch.org/news/articles/declinefreedom.php
Appeared first on NewsWithViews 3-21-09
Defining the Lies of Democracies
Democracy! What does history tell us?
http://www.hisholychurch.org/news/articles/democracylie.php
Appeared first on NewsWithViews 9-11-10
Doom, Gloom, and Democracy
The real destroyer is our own covetousness
http://www.hisholychurch.org/news/articles/doomdemocracy.php
Appeared first on NewsWithViews 4-30-09
==Footnotes==
- ↑ Lives of Issac Heath and John Bowles, Elders of the Church and of John Eliot, Jr., preacher in the mid 1600’, written by J, Wingate Thorton. 1850
- ↑ April 3, 1918, the American creed was read in Congress, “I believe in the United States of America as a government… whose just powers are derived from the consent of the governed: a democracy in a republic.”
- ↑ The Spirit of American Government, Professor J. Allen Smith.
- ↑ Abraham Lincoln, September 11, 1858.
- ↑ Edward Gibbon, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, 1776.
- ↑ Benjamin Rush, John Joachim Zubly, pastor and delegate to Congress, in a 1788 letter to David Ramsay. William Elder, Questions of the Day, (Baird publisher, 1871) p.175. Also attributed to Jefferson & Jedidiah Morse.
- ↑ Word Pictures in the New Testament : Robertson, A. T. (1863-1934)
- ↑ Tyndale Bulletin 44.2 (1993) 237- 254. Not so Idle thoughts about Eidolouthuton. By Ben Witherington III
- ↑ The Life and Times of Nero, by Carlo Maria Franzero 1954
- ↑ John Calvin Coolidge, Jr., 1872 – 1933, 30th President of the United States.
- ↑ Natural State, Welfare State or Failed State by T H Shah
- ↑ The Kantian ethic of capitalism. Harold B. Jones, Jr.
- ↑ State Welfare Spending and Religiosity, A Cross National Analysis by Anthony Gill and Erik Lundsgaarde
- ↑ Ex. 20:17, 1 Sa. 8; 13:13, Ro. 7:7, 13:9, Col. 3:5, Heb. 13:5, 2 Pe. 2:3-14
- ↑ Frederic Bastiat, 1801 – 1850, French theorist, political economist.
- ↑ Herbert Spencer, 1820 – 1903, an English philosopher.
- ↑ Richard John Neuhaus, 1936 – 2009, prominent American clergyman.
- ↑ Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand. Inscription above Galt’s Gulch powerhouse.
- ↑ Evangelical Bible College of Western Australia Commentary. Revelation by Dr Peter Mose [Book 97-2] July 2004