Terry Applegate | On March 5, 2019

The raised fist, sometimes associated with Socialism and resistance.

It is fascinating to watch the phoenix-like rise of socialism, long ago discredited by history, as more and more over-schooled and under-educated Americans yearn to give up their freedom for subjection.

How can it be that the common everyday man, who has been ruler of the economy under the capitalist system, despises his power and would rather be ruled than to rule?

Up to now, we consumers have been able to dictate to the talented exactly what we want, how we want it, when we want it and what we are willing to pay for it.

Voting with our earned precious dollars, we have commanded the elite, the hard-working, the astute and the wise exactly what to produce for us.

But, apparently we are not satisfied harnessing the masters of industry to meet our desires, impelling them to serve us with all their witty acumen.

No, it has been an unsatisfying system where we have been giving the orders.

Instead, give us a socialist scheme where the omnipotent political masters will be telling us what we can have, when we can have it and how much it will cost.

Apparently, more and more people want to be dominated and ruled over and, how convenient it is, as there seems to be plenty who think themselves worthy to do so.

There is a growing embrace of the idea of civil authorities having the ability to dictate how we are cared for, how we are educated, how we are fed, etc.

Freedom loving capitalists want to empower people to take responsibility for their lives in a mutually beneficial relationship.

Socialists, on the other hand, want to take care of their subjects, treating them as children, unable to make good decisions on their own.

They are intent on forcible improving others, forcing their charges to comply with their ideas.

And, if you don’t knuckle under to their commands, you are demonized and can be cruelly treated, even killed, as we are witnessing in the latest implosion of socialism in Venezuela.

The socialist come-on is that they will take care of us free of charge but, in fact, it is always out of our own pockets.

We are seeing an ever-increasing effort to force the wild and fanciful ideas of the utopians down the throats of the people in an effort to create mans’ idea of paradise on earth (which as some wit has said, is starting to feel more and more like hell).

And, it may become increasingly like hades as the controllers harness our new technology to control their people – us.

For example, India (one sixth of the world’s population) has already put ‘virtually every adult(s)’ fingerprints and iris scans in a nationwide database and issued each person an ID number.

A recent Wall Street Journal article claims the program has morphed from a voluntary program distributing benefits to one that is more and more required for daily living.

Schools are requiring ID numbers to enroll, governments refusing to issue marriage licenses without ID numbers, even some businesses requiring them for opening bank accounts and getting phones, for instance.

India’s achievement in biometrics coupled with the digitization of money (12% of Americans never use cash and almost a third don’t use cash in any given week per Harriet Torry at The Wall Street Journal) makes Biblical end-time scenarios eminently imaginable.

But, whose fault is it that the idea of socialism is resurgent even after it has been consistently proven to be unworkable?

Isn’t it ours?  History demonstrates time and time again that a righteous people is desirous and capable of freedom while a people in rebellion to the established law-order of God actually seek out and find comfort in their slavery.

We will be subject to something, we can choose to submit ourselves to the natural loving rule of the Creator or, will be subject to men who do not love us but will use us to their own satisfaction.

It is truly one of the great ironies of humanity that the more man sheds all external constraints and consequently feels free, the less free he becomes as the state necessarily steps in to act as the law-giver – always in a less gracious, less efficacious and less beneficent way.

As Lewis Cass (1848 Democrat Presidential Candidate) put it:  “The fate of republican government is indissolubly bound up with the fate of the Christian religion, and a people who reject its holy faith will find themselves the slaves of their own evil passions and of arbitrary power.”

Terry Applegate

Terry Applegate writes from Utah in the winter and Michigan in the summer. He is CEO of Applegate Insulation, serves on the board for Citizens for Traditional Values, Cellulose Insulation Manufacturers Association and the European Theological Seminary and is married to Val with three children and four grand-children.