But … I was having such a good time.  Pleasure addict that I am, the reasonable thing seemed to be rewrite, and rewrite and rewrite and see if we could get the 15% closer to 1,000,000%.  (No one will ever accuse me of thinking small.)

For the better part of three years, I have been nibbling around the edges of a much, much larger cookie, with occasional assaults on a chocolate chip in the middle.  Actually, the cookie is more like the proverbial Antarctica.  The Arena of Ideas is a landmass all on its own with a hostile environment that requires some very specific gear and survival skills.  My ongoing mission is to boldly take you where few men have gone before, by summarizing and repackaging a conversation for public consumption.  Most importantly, I’ve wanted you to see that specific ideas are the foundation of tyranny in all forms in all ideologies.  These ideas are as consistent as their outcomes.… Read the rest

This is how the enemy of our souls wins the wars of death and destruction. The advocates of life and prosperity quit the field.  Men retreat from social, religious, and political conflict as if their private virtue is a sufficient protest against vocal, defiant, demanding, insolent evil.  As if standing amidst the fight, raising a voice with passionate dissent, and waging a war of defense is to discredit the substance of virtue, to soil some mythical pristine righteousness.… Read the rest

(Click Here for Mp3 audio)

And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes, and our sacred Honor. 

Declaration of Independence 1776

Freedom is a given in American experience: her people insulated from the tides of religious and secular despotism that dominates the whole of world history. Roughly five generations have been born into the independence that is America, and as always happens, the heirs of fortune never grasp what their great, great, great, great, great grandfathers worked to achieve. Liberty secured for posterity is not a divine right, but an encompassing stewardship. Failing to sustain the mental and physical rigor that created the wealth results in the inevitable generational erosion as the fortune slowly washes away into the abyss of irresponsibility, sloth, and entitlement. The symptoms of our cultural bankruptcy are expressed in a tide of intellectual evasion, soul-crushing guilt and social turmoil.… Read the rest

Men of DIFFERENT Principles cannot sustain fellowship because the one who is more intentionally (or unintentionally) evil, wins.

In war between men with the SAME Principles, the one who most zealously pursues his ideological outcomes wins.

Moral Autocracy is the absolution for the zealot’s evil outcomes: compulsion, pillaging, slavery.

Moral Clarity is the internal aid for individual action: truth, responsibility, liberty.

Humanity is governed by Force — Violence or Ideas.

The Zealot is advantaged by an irrational battle of hidden, obscure principles.

The Individual is advantaged by a rational battle of open, clear principles.

Find the zealot enforcing mindless darkness and know the evil.

Find the individual defending reality’s rational light and know the good.… Read the rest

Allahu Akbar! Or in the immortal words of Achmed the dead Terrorist: “I Keell You!”

Another Muslim took to violence and began killing. Can you believe it? Certainly you Believers in Pervasive Depravity are not shocked. You are way ahead of all of us. It is the grace of God, after all, that prevents such atrocity from occurring every minute of every day.

That is the moral relativistic logic offered, I believe. But, whatever.

Even a small familiarity with Islam’s history, and fundamental philosophy, should remove any surprise that yet another act of Mystic Despotism occurred on American Soil.

I need to add the word “allegedly” to my comments since Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter, survived his killing spree. He is presumed innocent, and as is correct in American Justice, will be confronted in a military court with his accusers and the amassed evidence.… Read the rest

By John Immel

The challenge before me, in my ongoing quest to address the sources of tyranny, is the dual task of deconstruction and construction.

Responding to historic tyrants and the philosophical bulwark offered by modern day theological and political shills is the process of deconstruction. It takes some effort to unravel what people from antiquity have said and why. And it takes more effort to cut through the intellectual demagoguery and elitism that masquerades as thoughtful, magnanimous wisdom. People need to see that the academic issues are not as cut and dried as those in the ivory tower, or under the miter and simar, would like to pretend.

The process of deconstruction is necessary because so many people don’t even know they are being tyrannized. They suffer the pain of authoritarianism but the historical doctrines tell them the pain is normal, the correct outworking of spiritual “truths.” So the work up till now has been to point to the pain and the ideas driving the pain and say: “uhh…hey… that isn’t the way that’s supposed to be.”

But the other side of this is offering an alternative, a superior synthesis of freedom.… Read the rest

People (like you) who did what they were told, listened to Pastoral counsel, gave over profound amounts of personal transparency, and admitted flaws as a matter of doctrinal course.

People (like you) who found themselves required to obey counsel that was flawed, even catastrophically dangerous, or ridiculously heavy-handed.

People (like you) who bought into the Matthew 18 ethic as the essential conflict resolution process only to find that when called to account SGM leadership, replaced transparency with a stonewall of authoritarian posturing, ruthless character assassination, and a machine dedicated to personal marginalization.

People (like you) describe the aftermath with blunt similarity: profound confusion, heartache, and despair.… Read the rest

Defining Insanity (Click here to listen to an Presage Publishing MP3 Audio production)

All tyranny requires these elements to be successful.

• • Universal Guilt
  • Incompetent masses
  • Dictated Good
  • Abolition of Ambition
  • Collective Conformity

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The following is from Biblical Eldership: An Urgent Call to Restore Biblical Church Leadership, by Alexander Strauch.

Shared Leadership should not be a new concept to Bible-reading Christians. (page 36)

By definition, the elder structure of [Church] government is a collective form of leadership in which each elder shares equally the position, authority, and responsibility of the office. There are different names for this type of leadership structure. More formally, it is called collective, corporate, or collegiate leadership. In contemporary terms, it is referred to as multiple church leadership, plurality, shared leadership, or team leadership. (page 39)

The challenge with excerpts is whether they really capture the overall point the author was trying to represent while being an effective referent for subsequent commentary.… Read the rest

He found the man sitting cross-legged in his house, eating a Big Mac. The boy sought to introduce himself, but the words failed him.

“I know who you are. You are a fool,” the old man said and  took a bite of his Big Mac and said, “You came here because you want to become a great speaker of truth. Of course ,I can show you how. I can explain what binds foolishness to men’s souls. I can show you how to reduce all arguments to dust and ashes. I can show you how to make men clamor at your every breath.”

He took another bite of his Big Mac and then a drink of his Coke.… Read the rest

Welcome to the Arena of Ideas

Do you feel the expanse of the coliseum, and the crowd looking on, and the tides of opinion ebbing and flowing? Do you feel the wind whipping around your mind? Do you feel the soft cool sand under your feet? The Latin word hara is sand, and Harna came to mean the part of the Roman amphitheater that was covered with sand. In the ancient Roman coliseums they put sand on the floor to soak up the blood.

How is that for a vivid image? Do you have the courage to stay here? Or does the thought of shedding blood for Ideas bring a tremble to your soul? This place is not for the faint of heart, or of the faint of mind.… Read the rest