Paul Gosselin - Sept. 2020 -> the Trump - Biden presidential election was then undecided...

I recently got a note from an Christian contact in the US. He observed...

On another note: as I am certain, you are aware of the incredible difficulties we are enduring here in the US. I am sure that things are not boding well, by any means. One thinks often of real, actual revival in the Church, out of the midst of such dangers. But the church is asleep (Asleep in the Light, as Keith Green sang it so poignantly some years back). I am thinking as well of Bach’s cantata, and the well-known hymn, Sleepers, Awake! It is an explosive time, both for the church (in the best of senses) and for the wicked (in their confusion, and their descent ultimately into the spiritual night).

My reponse:

In Canada, we are not presently experiencing any of the violence that you’re seeing in the United States, but I wonder if we may be getting there eventually. There is no sign our postmodern elites want to relinquish any of the new (Covid-related) powers they have created over the population... I've grown cynical over the years and wonder if we are not in the initial stage of a very serious attempt to overthrow democracy in the West with the primary target presently apparently the US. And should the US fall, then the rest of the West would go follow easily enough with a domino effect. A number of Democrats have already made threats that violence would be the only answer to a Trump win (even if it came with a clear majority). They need to change the name of that party to the Anti-Democratic party... Seeing the Democrats have already tried every legal (and semi-legal) trick in the book to kick Trump out of the White House I wouldn’t even rule out an assassination attempt on Trump if he were to actually win the election...

Regarding the rejection of democracy by postmoderns, here are some recent examples of postmodern views (which includes Democrats).

After RBG’s Death, Left-Wing Activists Promise Violence If Trump Appoints Her Replacement
https://thefederalist.com/2020/09/18/after-rbgs-death-left-wing-activists-promise-violence-if-trump-appoints-her-replacement/

Michael Moore Calls on Americans to Get ‘Out in the Streets’ over SCOTUS Pick — Be ‘Ruthless’
https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/09/20/michael-moore-calls-on-americans-to-get-out-in-the-streets-over-scotus-pick-be-ruthless/

Dems Considering ‘Total War’ If GOP Fills Supreme Court Seat, Want ‘Major Changes,’ New States. Emily Zanotti • Sep 21, 2020   DailyWire.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/report-dems-considering-total-war-if-gop-fills-supreme-court-seat-want-major-changes-new-states

CNN’s Don Lemon Says ‘We’re Gonna Have to Blow Up the Entire System’
https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2020/09/22/nolte-cnns-don-lemon-says-were-gonna-have-to-blow-up-the-entire-system/

Democrats Ramp Up Their War On America’s Institutions, Promising Riots If Trump Nominates A Justice
https://thefederalist.com/2020/09/22/democrats-ramp-up-their-war-on-americas-institutions-promising-riots-if-trump-nominates-a-justice/

After Ginsburg’s Death, a Coup is a Realistic Possibility
https://stream.org/after-ginsburgs-death-a-coup-is-a-realistic-possibility/

This IS clearly not a fluke, but an observable and consistent pattern of Democrat behaviour. One has only to think about conservative nominations to the US Supreme Court such as Bork or Clarence Thomas. Here is a further example from earlier this year.

Millennials will take to streets in 'fury' if Bernie doesn't win: Devine
https://video.foxnews.com/v/6129207392001/

This behaviour amounts to saying “We will accept the results of democratic process ONLY if it give US power!!” This is larval totalitarianism, just waiting for an opportunity to establish an Emperor for life. This amounts to fulfilment of Aldous Huxley’s old “prophecy”...

Under the relentless thrust of accelerating overpopulation and increasing overorganization, and by means of ever more effective methods of mind-manipulation, the democracies will change their nature; the quaint old forms — elections, parliaments, Supreme Courts and all the rest — will remain. The underlying substance will be a new kind of non-violent totalitarianism. All the traditional names, all the hallowed slogans will remain exactly what they were in the good old days. Democracy and freedom will be the theme of every broadcast and editorial — but democracy and freedom in a strictly Pickwickian sense. Meanwhile the ruling oligarchy and its highly trained elite of soldiers, policemen, thought-manufacturers and mind-manipulators will quietly run the show as they see fit." (pp. 393-394)

Like Nazi Brown Shirts, postmoderns are ready and willing to use intimidation, threats and violence against anyone expressing views they disagree with... ESPECIALLY anyone they see as a threat to their POWER or influence. The HATRED postmoderns (or the “Left” if you prefer) have for Trump (“Trump derangement syndrome” if you prefer) is actually little more than an expression of how entitled they feel to exert power in the US, regardless of whether voters provide them with it or NOT... They seem to consider political power in the US as their inherent RIGHT, a view entirely comparable to Medieval political theories about the divine right of Kings. This is a clear statement of their rejection of the basic principle of democracy, “Government for the people, by the people, of the people...” Not too long ago I finished reading a book by pastor Erwin W. Lutzer that discusses the relation between the Church and the State. It is called When a Nation Forgets God: 7 Lessons We Must Learn From Nazi Germany. I highly recommend it. Here’s a couple quotes (keeping in mind this was published NOT last week, but in 2010). 

The church has always been poised between two gods and two crosses. On the one side is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who died on a Roman cross, executed for the sins of the world. On the other side are any number of lesser gods and other crosses that promise a false salvation. These other gods are almost always embodied in the state; they most often come to us dressed in the garb of Caesar. And in the end they are committed to crushing religious freedom. Whether it’s Nazism, Marxism, or Secularism, the state is always in conflict with religious freedom. And the more power the state has, the more laws it will pass to diminish the role of the church. What makes this difficult is that these changes are made under the rubic of freedom and “what is best for everyone.” Thus the true nature of a totalitarian state is always hidden and always couched in the language of morality, progress, and liberty. As in George Orwell’s Animal Farm, slavery is defined as freedom, and suppression is defined as “the quest for equality and fairness. (p. 11-12)

Hitler responded to the opposition of the church in the same way all hostile governments respond to those who would disagree with them; He created a flurry of new laws and then accused pastors and church leaders of breaking them. In one way or another God had to be separated from government policies and ejected from the public square. The voice of courageous Christians had to be silenced. God had to be removed to make way for the National Socialist policies. (Lutzer, p. 23)

Just after finishing Lutzer’s book, I posted a brief comment on my GoodReads* account. The odd thing is that just a month before, I'd finished reading a MUCH bigger book by the secular Jewish historian Hannah Arendt. The book is The Origins of Totalitarianism (published in 1951) and while Arendt focuses on the cultural currents and ideological and political upheavals of the 1930s that put in power totalitarian regimes such as those of Hitler and Stalin, this book is unnervingly relevant to 2020...  Here are a few excerpt that I thought striking... The usefulness of of Bureaucrats (after the mob and the intellectuals had put totalitarians in power)

The mob, the underworld of the bourgeois class, hoped that the helpless masses would help them into power, would support them when they attempted to forward their private interests, that they would be able simply to replace the older strata of bourgeois society and to instill into it the more enterprising spirit of the under- world. Yet totalitarianism in power learned quickly that enterprising spirit was not restricted to the mob strata of the population and that, in any event, such initiative could only be a threat to the total domination of man. Absence of scruple, on the other hand, was not restricted to the mob either and, in any event, could be taught in a relatively short time. For the ruthless machines of domination and extermination, the masses of co-ordinated philistines provided much better material and were capable of even greater crimes than so-called professional criminals, provided only that these crimes were well organized and assumed the appearance of routine jobs. (p. 337)

I expect Arendt would consider Adolf Eichmann a prime example of such an efficient, cold, heatless bureaucrat... Regarding bureaucrats, mainstream media and censorship Arendt observed:

The consistent persecution of every higher form of intellectual activity by the new mass leaders springs from more than their natural resentment against everything they cannot understand. Total domination does not allow for free initiative in any field of life, for any activity that is not entirely predictable. Totalitarianism in power invariably replaces all first-rate talents, regardless of their sympathies, with those crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity is still the best guarantee of their loyalty. (p. 339)

The progressive elite’s attraction to totalitarianism

Only the mob and the elite can be attracted by the momentum of totalitarianism itself; the masses have to be won by propaganda. Under conditions of constitutional government and freedom of opinion, totalitarian movements struggling for power can use terror to a limited extent only and share with other parties the necessity of winning adherents and of appearing plausible to a public which is not yet rigorously isolated from all other sources of information. It was recognized early and has frequently been asserted that in totalitarian countries propaganda and terror present two sides of the same coin. This, however, is only partly true. Wherever totalitarianism possesses absolute control, it replaces propaganda with indoctrination and uses violence not so much to frighten people (this is done only in the initial stages when political opposition still exists) as to realize constantly its ideological doctrines and its practical lies. (p. 341)

Regarding the Church under Covid restrictions, I find California pastor John MacArthur’s willingness to stand up to the State encouraging (no sign of such courage here among Québec pastors...).

Pastor John MacArthur Responds To California’s Threats of Imprisonment: ‘Bring It On’.
https://www.dailywire.com/news/pastor-john-macarthur-responds-to-californias-threats-of-imprisonment-bring-it-on

Since March 2020, I've compiled a list of articles by doctors and scientists who have come out questioning the massive Covid-fear-mongering we've been getting from mainstream media and the gvt. This page covers both material in French and English. https://www.samizdat.qc.ca/DossierCovid19/Questionmedicale.htm

Here in Canada, most people have been VERY submissive about all the restrictions, but one Ontario lawyer is taking a stand. Rocco Galati, is suing the Ontario government and the city of Toronto over Covid restrictions and the numerous violations of Constitutional freedoms. https://youtu.be/e6BCS0Uy7fk https://youtu.be/mcCDFkW4JyY

And to completely change the subject , not too long agoI listened to a lecture given by the black intellectual Voddie Baucham at Monash University in South Africa. In my opinion every evangelical university student should listen to this video, because if they have not already done so, they will inevitably be confronted with the questions that Baucham examines in this lecture.

Why you can believe the Bible - 57 min.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1XJ7DeR5fc

This video addresses a FUNDAMENTAL apologetic question that every Evangelical in university will eventually have to face, which is why should they rely on the Bible (rather than the Qur'an, the Upanishads, the writings of John Smith or Confucius, Marx’s Das Kapital or the Gilgamesh account). In the course of this lecture, Baucham has some fun with the well-worn objection: "Ah the Bible..., but I will only believe what science can demonstrate..." Well, I'm NOT giving away HOW Baucham deals with this. You'll have to watch the video...

Références

Arendt, Hannah (1951/1976) The Origins of Totalitarianism. Harvest Book New York xliii-576 p.

Collins, Sean (2020) Wokeness: old religion in a new bottle: Joseph Bottum on how the decline of Protestant America fuelled the rise of identity politics. Spiked - 14/8/2020

Furedi, Frank (2020) Democracy besieged : From anti-populists to environmentalists, too many regard democracy as an obstacle to their aims. Spiked - 30th October 2020

Furedi, Frank (2021) The free-speech crisis is not a right-wing myth. : Those denying the existence of cancel culture are often in its vanguard. Spiked - 12/3/2021

Huxley, Aldous (1958/2007) Brave New World Revisited. Vintage Canada xvi - 407 p.

Lutzer, Erwin W. (2010) When a Nation Forgets God: 7 Lessons We Must Learn From Nazi Germany. Moody 148 p.