Truth and consequence.

“No rational argument will have a rational effect on a man who does not want to adopt a rational attitude.” – Sir Karl Popper

It is an interesting time to be American. I sit, comfortably composing this article, the afternoon sunlight bouncing off my desk. I sip hot Twinings as the heater in the house where I grew up kicks on. The sounds and smells of my mother’s cooking (she is 90…) fill my senses.

This same sunny afternoon a US Marshall is shot during a standoff in a house about a mile down the road from my home near Ferguson. He is saved by his vest. A productive, long-term employee is sacked because he allegedly said something ‘offensive’. A family debates allowing their child to undergo sexual reassignment surgery. Another church closes its doors.

I sip my tea. Dinner is served.

Realising that America is and always will be intimately connected to the UK, I do my best to keep an eye to the political horizons of each nation. As the quest to move our rational, democratic societies away from God in pursuit of some global, utopian ideal weighs on my mind, I conduct a ‘flash’ overview of the ideological war being waged against the US President.

Recipe for a Coup

President Trump’s stated agenda is to restore to Americans many of our former cultural and societal freedoms and to rebuild the US as a sovereign, national republic. Despite his personal imperfections, his ideas and consequent taking of concerted and effective action to carry out his agenda represents a clear threat to the utopian global narrative that has been gathering momentum over the last 30 years.

Among those who have openly come against President Trump’s agenda are the mainstream media, certain financial entities, holdovers from the Obama administration, and establishment Republicans, many of whom are openly left-leaning. Celebrities and media personalities have openly declared that Trump should be assassinated, to the point that the idea is becoming common parlance.

Realising that America is and always will be intimately connected to the UK, I do my best to keep an eye to the political horizons of each nation.

Since the 2016 election, Trump has been labeled a Nazi, a fascist, a racist/sexist/xenophobe and as mentally incompetent to hold his position. Almost every attempt at staffing the departments under his control has been met with resistance on a ridiculous scale. Let us not forget myriad allegations concerning Russian collusion and election fraud; the Nunes memo, the Democrat memo, the ‘dossier’ (see Author’s Note, below).

From all that I have read and studied, such actions demonstrate the recipe for an internal coup, not just against a President, but against each individual citizen who voted for him - just as attempts to throw off Brexit represent a coup against those who voted Leave.

What is Freedom?

It seems to me that, in large part, there is a great misapprehension of key concepts on both sides.

Both sides declare that the endgame is ‘freedom’. Key to the concept of ‘freedom’ are the concepts of ‘liberty’ and ‘equality’. But the concepts and the words are open for interpretation (much like ‘love’ and ‘good’ and ‘justice’). We hear these words and immediately, libraries of mental pictures, interpretations and personal experiences come to mind. Ask ten people to describe their definition of ‘freedom’, ‘liberty’ or ‘equality’ and you will get ten different answers, each evoking mixtures of learned rhetoric, emotion, anecdotal evidence and fantasy.

Why? Because we are no longer a people trained and/or inclined to think critically or truly examine what we think we know. We are too busy attending to our phones, our possessions, our jobs and the pragmatic realities of this world to stop long enough to think or to seek wisdom. Concepts such as those I have mentioned, perforce, become two-dimensional. ‘Truth’ and our desire for it fades until we barely recognise it anymore.

The ideological war being waged against Trump amounts to an internal coup – not just against him, but against every citizen that voted for him.

To the average citizen, for instance, the concepts of ‘liberty’ and ‘equality’ appear to be closely related. We hear these words used alongside ‘freedom’ quite frequently, often from people we consider possessing more authority on the subject than might we, so we think no more about it.

But the devil is in the details. “Equality of the general rules of law and conduct…is the only kind of equality conducive to liberty and the only equality which we can secure without destroying liberty,” writes Austrian-British economist and philosopher Friedrich Hayek.

“Not only has liberty nothing to do with any sort of equality, but it is even bound to produce inequality in many respects. This is the necessary result and part of the justification of individual liberty: if the result of individual liberty did not demonstrate that some manners of living are more successful than others, much of the case for it would vanish”¹ (emphases added).

This is the classic liberal view: that a society must have certain freedoms in order to flourish, which must be protected by the law. But those freedoms necessarily mean that inequalities will also arise. This is a necessary outcome of people’s diversity and the world’s unpredictability – and makes space for compassion and mercy in relationships. But any top-down attempt to artificially re-balance these inequalities will inevitably lead to tyranny of one sort or another.

The Founding Fathers

The classic liberal view was where the USA started off. To broad stroke a bit, America’s founders (many of whom were of British heritage) believed that each individual was created by God, born in an imperfect state. Yet God gifted us with individual liberty. It is God’s wish that we might seek relationship with him and become reconciled with him for eternity, but liberty in this lifetime, however we choose to use it, is ours.

It was the original intent of the founders to respect and protect that individual liberty and by so doing, honour God. The US Constitution was created to express the ideal that each man (ultimately, each person) could marry, worship as he chose, own property and possessions, exercise his right to defend and protect his family, work at whatever suited him and prosper as much as he was able. The potential success of the individual was protected by general rules of law and conduct created to facilitate a stable, safe and prosperous society.

Classic liberal philosophy has very particular views on the concepts of ‘liberty’ and ‘equality’.

This Constitutional ideal has been the bedrock of our national identity since its acceptance into law. By defining equality according to general rules of law and conduct, the individual remains accountable to society for how he/she exercises that individual liberty. Societal accountability often drives the individual to recognise and pursue relationship with God.

So, for the Constitutional conservative, ‘liberty’ is defined as their God-given individual freedom, of which faith is often an important component. ‘Equality’ is defined as equality under the law of safety, opportunity and socio-economic mobility.

The Postmodern Left

However, the utopian ideals being promoted by the postmodern ‘liberal Left’ are based on a humanistic, often atheistic approach, which has Marxist origins. For them, man creates his own liberty, his own equality, and so must also control it. If that means gaining control of the liberty and equality of others through gradual, often nuanced, ultimately tyrannical means, this is a price worth paying.

For the liberal Left, enforced ‘equality’ is a way to achieve human perfection. It teaches that an individual should be free to best express their own version of ‘liberty’ by letting the state administer their foundational needs, leaving them free to explore, create, express and fulfil their ambitions – so long as the fruits of those endeavours ultimately benefit the state. Individual ‘liberty’ is encouraged if it results in ‘equality’.

But true individual liberty has the capacity to produce very different results – and so is viewed ultimately as an enemy to the cause. Anyone who is industrious, independent and successful, who demonstrates what is possible under America’s current social conditions – achievement, prosperity and fulfilment – contradicts this utopian campaign.

The Battle for Truth

The ultimate battle of Truth vs Untruth inserts itself into our lives every day, in practically every situation – though we may not notice it. Even the definition of ‘Truth’ seems to have changed from ‘that which is inerrant’ to ‘whatever will work best toward achieving an end’.

The utopian ideals being promoted by the postmodern ‘liberal Left’ view true individual liberty as an enemy to the cause.

The idea that Truth no longer really matters and that its interpretation is up for grabs, is particularly insidious. It has been introduced through lots of culturally acceptable, benign-sounding rhetoric (e.g. ‘live your truth’), and perpetuated on every frontier of media, business, and often, in the Church. Talk about ‘fake news’….

As for the war on Trump, major revelations are pending which may totally up-end the liberal Left’s agenda for the United States and vindicate embattled President Donald J Trump. It is also possible that the web of deceit will continue to grow stronger and God will allow our nation to be broken. Perhaps much of his decision will depend upon how we, his people, respond to this crisis. Where do we stand on Truth?

Tea, anyone?

References

1 Hayek, F, 1960. The Constitution of Liberty. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, p85.

Author’s Note: For those interested in following up the issues raised in this article, I recommend the following shortlist of sound resources:

• For the circumstances perpetuating the Nunes memo: Nunez Memo and Russian Collusion: The Dan Bongino Show (Ep. 628)
• For a list of attempts made against the Trump presidency: From Conspiracy Theories to Conspiracies
• For an overview of his achievements in spite of the ‘resistance’: The Big List of President Trump’s Triumphs