Submitted by: Doris Parker and Donald Hank
The End of Control
By Daniel Greenfield (Bio and Archives) Sunday, June 16, 2013 |
We utilize systems to achieve goals whether it’s defending the country or fighting poverty or making the trains run on time or achieving political change.
Modem systems are systematic creatures that aim to achieve goals by maximizing control over all the subsidiary elements of the problem.
So if you set out to solve poverty, you need control over all the social and economic elements that either cause poverty or could be used to ameliorate poverty.
Those elements include the sum amount of national wealth for the purposes of wealth redistribution, the rate of unwed teen pregnancies and any forms of racial discrimination… and that’s just for starters. Even poverty, which would seem like a rather simple phenomenon becomes a system which takes into account tools like abortion, progressive taxation and discrimination laws.
The scope of each social problem becomes so limitless that all social problems must merge into a Holistic Socialism of piano wire in which every string touched spreads vibrations everywhere. Solving even the most minor problem requires solving all the problems and the only solution is the absolute power of the system.
Socialism relies on systems as means to achieve social ends. The systems develop policies that control as a means to achieve those ends.
When the ends are not achieved then the system responds by intensifying the depth and scope of the control. Increasing control is the only solution of the system to failure.
And so the system changes from pursuing control as a means to pursuing control as an end.
Socialism, like most systems of government derived from it, has enshrined control as an end in and of itself.
As O’Brien said in 1984, the purpose of power is power. And control is just another word for power.
Systems may be formed to achieve moral ends but they are no more moral in and of themselves than a hammer. The longer a system exists, the more it comes to exist for itself and its power becomes its own end.
A hammer exists to hammer. A hammer in the hands of a man is a tool, but a hammer that exists for its own sake is a destructive force. A bureaucracy exists to regulate to achieve a specific end, but a bureaucracy that exists for its own sake is tyranny. It seeks to control for the sake of control. It wields power for the sake of power.
It insists that its ends are moral, but as they are not achieved, the true end of control is revealed.
Socialism begins with control to achieve social ends only for control to become the end. And that leads to the end of freedom.
An institution vested with power becomes an institution of power. The response of the left to this inevitable fact of human history is to insist that granting unlimited power to their institutions will have different results because their purposes are moral. But moral purposes can only be vested in people, not institutions. Ideology can take control of institutions but once control is achieved then the ideology comes to exist for the sake of the institution. That is how the grand ambitions of the left died in China and Russia. That is how it may die in Europe and America.
As a system becomes its own purpose, it uses the purposes of others as camouflage. It promises to solve problems that it has no intention of solving as means of extracting resources from those who want the problem solved.
Initially the system may be run by those who do want to solve the problem and see the system as the only way to do so but as the system grows and spreads their motives become mixed.
Bureaucracy is the essence of the system and exists to keep track of and implement its many rules. The rules are the tools of control and their purpose is to make the unpredictable into the predictable.
The rules start life as the means but as with all means of tyranny they become the ends by which the bureaucracy exercises its power.
Rules in a bureaucracy operate on different levels. On one level they are meant to achieve a socially responsible end, but on another they benefit the allies of the bureaucracy. On a third level they exist to justify the expansion of the bureaucracy and to allow it to wield its power. On a fourth level they define status within the bureaucracy.
EPA
So for example an environmental initiative may be intended to lessen pollution levels on the surface but also rewards environmental groups and consultancies whose lobbying enhances the power and funding of the EPA. On a third level, the EPA now uses the initiative to expand the scope of its authority and request more funding to hire more people in the D.C. pecking order between government agencies. On a fourth level, this influences the pecking order within the organization.
The EPA is an environmental organization but it’s an organization and in the long run when the institutional long marches have been completed, it is the organizational part that will matter more,
The left provides tyranny with the social motive to come into being, but in the long run the left Is only the midwife of tyranny. Its ideology and activists dismantle democracies and burgeoning democracies and replace them with tyrannies.
Left’s role is to act as the virus that kills the host and then allows it to be fed on by predators
Whether it’s Islam or a conventional oligarchy or a cult-of-personality tyrant, the left’s role is to act as the virus that kills the host and then allows it to be fed on by predators in the hopes of infecting them in turn.
The left injects bureaucratic collectivism into a healthy state to control it, but in the long run the bureaucratic collectivism will outlive it as it becomes the end for which the left was only the means.
Comments
Daniel Greenfield is a New York City writer and columnist. He is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center and his articles appears at its Front Page Magazine site.
Comment of Doris Parker: Maybe he shouldn't have used the title "The End of Control"? As this article from Teach Me The Bible.info says:
ReplyDeleteGod controls all things, working out everything in conformity with the plan and purpose of His own will.
God's control extends to the whole universe. He is the only Ruler, the King of kings, and Lord of lords (1 Timothy 6:15): His throne is in the heavens, and His kingdom rules over all (Psalms 103:19).
He sustains the whole universe by His powerful word (Nehemiah 9:6; Hebrews 1:3).
The government of the entire universe is His (Deuteronomy 10:14; Psalms 135:6; Daniel 4:35).
God's control of nature follows.
All natural forces are in His control (Psalms 29:3-10).
The elements are at His command (Psalms 68:9; Jonah 1:4).
All the processes of nature are at His direction (Genesis 8:22; Psalms 107:33-34, Psalms 107:38; Jeremiah 31:35).
God's control of His creatures follows.
His care, for example, extends to the smallest of His creatures: He gives the beasts their food (Psalms 147:9).
Not a single sparrow falls to the ground apart from His will (Matthew 10:29).
He can appoint all His creatures to perform His will (Jonah 1:17; 2:10): even for ravens to convey bread and meat to His servants (1 Kings 17:6).
He gives a sure footing in life to the righteous
God's control of human beings - and of evil individuals - follows. There are occasions when God, desiring to show His wrath and to make known His power, has put up with evil individuals due for destruction. His purpose has been to make known the riches of His glory to those whom He has purposed to save (Romans 9:22-23).
Sometimes God sees to it that the worst of people are allowed to be exalted so that they may fulfil His purposes without their knowing it (Isaiah 10:5, Isaiah 10:7).
He uses even the enemies of His people to discipline them in their disobedience (Judges 2:14-15, Judges 2:21-23; Judges 2:3:12).
On the other hand, He can harden the hearts of His people's enemies so that they fall into His people's hands or even destroy themselves (Joshua 11:20; Judges 7:22).
God's control of nations follows.
God fixed the boundaries for the peoples of the world (Deuteronomy 32:8).
He can make a nation large or small (Obadiah 2).
In the affairs of the world, and its rulers, the Lord puts down one leader and lifts up another (1 Samuel 16:1; Psalms 75:7).
He uses heathen nations to accomplish the disciplining of His disobedient people (Isaiah 5:26; Amos 3:9-11; 6:14; Habakkuk 1:12).
So far as it has suited His purposes, He has allowed nations to go their own way (Acts 14:16).
Behind the strange, and sometimes unexpectedly generous actions of unbelieving rulers towards God's people at various times is the working of God in their hearts without their knowledge (Ezra 1:1). Examples are Tiglath-pileser (Isaiah 10:6-7), Cyrus (Isaiah 41:2-4), and Artaxerxes (Ezra 7:21)- they pursued their own chosen path, and served the furtherance of God's will, though in their personal lives they were disobedient, self-willed and sinful.
God's control of history follows.
His dominion is everlasting and His kingdom endures from generation to generation (Daniel 4:34): thus all the events of human history are under His direct control (Revelation 9:15).
Comment of Doris Parker pt 2: He fixes the epochs of human history and the limits of human territory (Acts 17:26).
ReplyDeleteGod is at work in unrecognized events and processes to achieve His purposes of blessing. It was the Lord who sent Joseph ahead of his brothers to Egypt (Psalms 105:16-22); it was the Lord who turned the hearts of the Egyptians to hate God's people (Psalms 105:25); it was the Lord who called Cyrus, a heathen ruler, 'His anointed' because He was going to use him to accomplish His will for His people (Isaiah 44:28, Isaiah 45:1-4).
The outstanding example of God at work in an event to achieve His will - unrecognized at first - was the Cross (Acts 4:28; compared with 2:23).
In all the events of history God is working out His purpose of calling into one body, the Church, men and women of every nation and people, saved through His Son Jesus Christ (Ephesians 3:2-11).
God's control of all circumstances follows.
God, not chance, decides what happens in human affairs (Proverbs 16:33; compared with Jonah 1:7).
Behind every circumstance is the Lord (Amos 3:6).
He can shorten life or lengthen it (Job 1:21; Psalms 102:23).
The Lord brings both prosperity and disaster (Isaiah 45:7); success and victory in battle (1 Samuel 11:13) and the ability to get wealth are from Him (Deuteronomy 8:18), as too is the power to bring illness or to remove it (Deuteronomy 7:15).
Ordinary daily needs are within His concern and control (Matthew 6:30, Matthew 6:33).
The will of God may be worked out in what appears to be a complete accident (1 Kings 22:28, 1 Kings 22:34).
God's special control of affairs on behalf of His people follows.
God's care extends to all individuals, and especially to His people (1 Peter 5:7).
He delivers His people from trouble (Psalms 23:5; Psalms 34:7; Psalms 107:2).
He can hand His people over to their enemies for a period to discipline them if need be (Judges 3:8; Judges 4:2; Judges 6:1).
God is in complete control when His people are persecuted (Acts 8:1, 4; Philippians 1:28-29).
He gives a sure footing in life to the righteous (Psalms 33:18-19).
He supplies every need of His children according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus (Philippians 4:19), guaranteeing that everything in life will be worked out for the spiritual and eternal good that God has in view for them (Rom 8:28).
God's control of Satan is clearly involved, and is taught.
The Lord can put a restraint upon Satan as He chooses (Job 1:12).
He gives Satan, at times, power to do his wicked worst, but God is always in control (Revelation 9:1; Revelation 20:7).