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What We Can Learn From...
''...Perils of Revolution''
by Mary Miller, Director of Issachar Studies and IDB
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By the time this article is published, the 2010 elections in the United States will be one day away. It is therefore with much interest that we study the compelling case made by Angelo M. Codevilla in “America’s Ruling Class And the Perils of Revolution”—the contest is truly not between the political par-ties of Republicans and Democrats. The struggle for power is between the “ruling class” and the “country class.”
The Ruling Class
While many would broadly characterize the “ruling class” as the Progressive Movement tied significantly with the Democratic Party, it actually transcends both political parties. Its roots were developed in connection with the ever-growing government and by a certain “attitude.”
Inclusion in the “ruling class” requires much more than professional prominence or position, it requires social harmony. This includes sharing the same manners and same tastes, supporting the interests of the class, giving lip service to its ideals and slogans, and being willing to accommodate the interests of its senior members.
In other words, the “ruling class” recruits and renews itself “not through meritocracy, but rather by taking into itself people whose most prominent feature is their commitment to fit in.” Ironically, the more the thought process is dumbed down by this negative selection, the more demanding their presumption of intellectual superiority and control of all things considered “science.” One cannot help but ponder the full impact of Romans 1:22: “Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools.”
The Attitude
Codevilla succinctly describes the attitude of this bipartisan “ruling class.” By hijacking and removing the Founding generation’s belief that “all men are created equal,” the concept of two distinct classes have been ingrained in their hearts and minds. The “ruling class” believes they “are the best and brightest while the rest of Americans are retrograde, racist, and dysfunctional unless properly constrained.”
President Woodrow Wilson openly disparaged America’s Founding Fathers for depriving the federal government of the power to reshape American society. Thus, he perpetuated the move to nullify the Constitutional precepts and to blame the “backward” American people for all of the failures to enlighten an “educated class” of society.
The Country Class
Unfortunately, education in terms of the “ruling class” actually means indoctrination into the precepts of their acceptability. This is a foreign concept to members of the “country class.” That is why it is difficult to actually define the members of the “country class.” The most defining principles upon which to unite this heterogeneous group are the foundations of marriage, children, and religious practice. But even within these foundations, the beliefs are varied and focus squarely upon individual rights.
The concept of unity appears difficult for the “country class.” Unity of purpose is usually derived from joining in the fight against the ideas and proclivities of the “ruling class”; e.g., approval of abortion, higher taxes and bigger government, social engineering, and subsidized social agendas. While the “country class” is waking up, many are asking if while they have been focused on “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” the endgame has been taken out of their reach. As Codevilla explains:
In general, the country class includes all those in stations high and low who are aghast at how relatively little honest work yields, by comparison with what just a little connection with the right bureaucracy can get you. The country class is convinced that big business, big government, and big finance are linked as never before and that ordinary people are more unequal than ever. [emphasis mine]
The Battle
As Dr. Chuck Missler so aptly points out, “The election of 2008 was an I.Q. test for America.” While so many are aghast at the speed with which the administration’s agenda is progressing, the “ruling class” simply believes they have finally been given the mantle to impose the society they have envisioned for generations.
To the “country class” it is unconscionable to believe laws are passed without being read. In truth, reading is not required because the backroom deals are already in place. Government officials know “modern laws are primarily grants of discretion; all anybody has to know about them is whom they empower.”
Unlike the simplicity of the Constitution, the incredible lengths of these new regulations are required to specify how people will be treated unequally. This is exemplified in the health care bill of 2010. Its more than 2,700 pages, that Congress admittedly did not read, codified bargains between government and various elements of the health care industry, state governments, large employers, public employee unions, and auto workers.
The critical point of all new regulatory legislation is that both Democratic and Republican administrations and Congresses are empowering “countless boards and commissions to arbitrarily protect some persons and companies, while ruining others.” While not being able to completely nullify the Constitution and its “country class,” the “ruling class” has chosen to break its back with the weight of endless bureaucracy.
The Future
The disdain of America that permeates the current administration has long roots. The cultural divide between what Codevilla calls the “ruling class” and the “country class” crystallized in the period between the two World Wars. Like a malignant growth, the lies of the adversary began choking out the Biblical truths that brought life to this country.
In fact, the battle to establish the “ruling class” has had a deep impact in the spirit of the Christian mindset. Many are no longer engaging in the public forum or debate for the rights and responsibilities assigned to the American citizenry by the U.S. Constitution. Many are convinced that Scriptures such as Romans 13 admonish us to refrain from the selection of our representative government because we are not to interfere with those whom God has chosen to put in charge. So complete is the indoctrination of the American mindset that we have an elite “ruling class” that we forget that “We the People” were given the assignment of power.
In their book “Who Killed the Constitution?...,” Thomas E. Woods Jr. and Kevin R.C. Gutzman also make an interesting observation of the issue of power in America today:
We hasten to note that this is not fundamentally a Left-Right is-sue…. As the great Virginian John Taylor of Caroline noted, the problem is not the character of members of one party or the other, one section of the country or the other, but the effect of power on the human ego, regardless of party or section. People in power exercise all the power they can get, even after they have howled in the wilderness against legislating judges, imperial presidents, and the death of states’ rights. That is why Taylor’s friend Jefferson believed the Constitution must act as a set of chains to bind down the federal government. [emphasis mine]
The struggle for power, the love of money, and the division of men have plagued societies from the earliest times of history. However, Paul’s words to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3 deserve special attention and reflection as Americans of both “classes” war through this particular stage in American history.
While greater in number, the “country class” has felt the loss of influence. Whether it is called revival, restoration, or revolution, “change” is in the wind. As Codevilla reflects in closing:
Suffice it to say that the ruling class’s greatest difficulty—aside from being outnumbered—will be to argue, against the grain of reality, that the revolution it continues to press upon America is sustainable. For its part, the country class’s greatest difficulty will be to enable a revolution to take place without imposing it. America has been imposed on enough.
Indeed, America and its “country class” has been imposed on enough. So what remains is the question Scripture does not answer: Is America not mentioned in the prophetic end times passages because we allow the “ruling class” to meld us into the global conglomerate; or does the “country class” exist as that ever present thorn in the flesh of the world until His re-turn?
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This article was originally published in the
November 2010 Personal Update NewsJournal.
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