{"id":12536,"date":"2014-08-09T09:17:31","date_gmt":"2014-08-09T09:17:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nonesoblind.org\/blog\/?p=12536"},"modified":"2014-09-21T00:11:04","modified_gmt":"2014-09-21T00:11:04","slug":"this-evil-force-can-be-seen-moving-through-time-iii-the-spirit-of-the-lie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/this-evil-force-can-be-seen-moving-through-time-iii-the-spirit-of-the-lie\/","title":{"rendered":"This Evil Force Can Be Seen Moving Through Time– III: The Spirit of the Lie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Summary: Human beings often have a flawed relationship to the truth, but we can see that some forces create a greater rift between reality and people\u2019s beliefs than others. <\/strong><\/p>\n

This is certainly true of the political right in our times when, I would assert, the great majority of the major beliefs that have been inculcated in the minds of the followers of today\u2019s Republican Party are false. (See for example, my op\/ed piece, “Would You Want to Know?”<\/a>) And it was true of the spirit of the South that led to the Civil War, and that soon after the defeat re-established a kind of cultural and political hegemony over the region. One example of this \u201cSpirit of the Lie\u201d was mentioned earlier: the Southern dogma to deny for generations the truth that the real \u201cCause\u201d for which the South fought was slavery, not some noble \u201cLost Cause.\u201d (See \u201cThe South Still Lies about the Civil War\u201d<\/a> by Tracy Thompson.) But that falsehood should be seen as but part of the pattern of dishonesty that surrounds this evil force.<\/p>\n

\"never<\/a><\/div>\n

Twisting Words to Mean Their Opposites<\/em> Let\u2019s look at some of the other elements of that larger pattern of dishonesty, and at how that pattern is being recapitulated by the force that\u2019s taken over the Republican Party in our times. Here are words from Abraham Lincoln while he was president:<\/p>\n

We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others the same word may mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men’s labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name, liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names: liberty and tyranny. The shepherd drives the wolf from the sheep’s throat, for which the sheep thanks the shepherd as a liberator, while the wolf denounces him for the same act as the destroyer of liberty, especially as the sheep was a black one. Plainly the sheep and the wolf are not agreed upon a definition of the word liberty\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Southern slaveholders (the wolves in Lincoln’s fable) insisted that liberty required that those in a dominant position (over slaves), be allowed to maintain their domination, and to advance their own interests at the expense of the interests of those whom they had subdued. Liberty, as it is pushed by Republicans now, has the same kind of meaning. Republicans fight for the right of people of wealth and power to do whatever they want. Even as Republicans claim liberty from law, they support a kind of liberty that enables these special interests to buy the power to make the laws. In the name of “liberty,” the Republicans are helping their corporate partners gain control of the political system. \u201cFree speech\u201d means the right of the wealthiest to write a check to buy disproportionate control over the American government. Building upon previous perverse rulings that declare money to be a form of speech, the Republican Supreme Court gave us the Citizens United decision, declaring corporations to be persons with the right to liberty, and thereby expanding the ability of moneyed interests to buy our government at the very time that inequalities of wealth are greater than they’ve been in living memory. This is the liberty of the wolf in Lincoln’s fable. The wolves of our time express the same dishonest and unjust spirit. Violating the Religious Values They Claim to Uphold <\/em> The defenders of slavery saw themselves as the defenders of Christian values. But as Lincoln observed, “although volume upon volume is written to prove slavery a very good thing, we never hear of the man who wishes to take the good of it, by being a slave himself.” Do unto others as you would have others do unto you \u2013 the principal Christian ethic \u2013 evidently did not apply. The brokenness of this hypocrisy is a manifestation of a general pattern of brokenness. The slaveholding class suffered from what Genevese described in his book Fatal Self-Deception. They showed a capacity to hold simultaneously completely contradictory beliefs, such as: that the slaves were happy, but also were a constant threat the revolt; that the slaves loved their masters, but that the masters were in danger of having their throats cut while they slept; etc. Holding stark contradictions in one\u2019s mind, without evident awareness of their incompatibility, is a clear sign of an inner brokenness. Likewise with the Republican Party of today, which represents itself as the bastion of Christian values. Yet as I asked in my piece, \u201cWhat Kind of Christianity is This?\u201d this is the party that:<\/p>\n

    \n
  • Supports the rich and mighty, while preying upon the very sorts of people — the poor and vulnerable \u2013 that Jesus sought out and comforted.<\/li>\n
  • Advocates the most punitive policies, whereas Jesus taught forgiveness and compassion<\/li>\n
  • Makes a big show of religiosity, whereas Jesus taught that such showiness was the opposite of the true piety he advocated<\/li>\n
  • Makes conflict, not cooperation, their modus operandi, whereas Jesus had a message of peace on earth and goodwill toward men.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n

    The last of which brings us to another quite essential component of this re-emergent, destructive spirit: it is a Spirit of War. Then and now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Summary: Human beings often have a flawed relationship to the truth, but we can see that some forces create a greater rift between reality and people\u2019s beliefs than others. This is certainly true of the political right in our times when, I would assert, the great majority of the major beliefs that have been inculcated […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12536"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12536"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12536\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13866,"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12536\/revisions\/13866"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12536"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12536"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abetterhumanstory.org\/pressthebattle\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12536"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}