Monday, June 9, 2008
Healthy Fear - A Conservative Value
As a young man, I attended the boarding high school for boys at Concordia College, now Concordia University / Wisconsin, in Milwaukee. On the wall in the entry to the main classroom building was a Latin inscription of a Bible passage. It read: "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom." Fear, healthy, legitimate fear, has a role to play in human affairs. I am reminded of this over and over. Yesterday, I heard callers to WIBA 1310 F.M. in Madison, Wisconsin debate which part of the city has the fastest growing crime rate! The recent issue of the local tabloid Isthumus features a cover story about rising gun violence in the Madison, Wisconsin area. When I hear such discussions and read such headlines, I remember the wisdom of the Bible passage on the wall in my old school. Yes, boys and girls, we suffer increasing violence and crime of all kinds because the marauders out there no longer fear any consequences for predatory behavior on and against us. We can thank a "lollipop" legal systems that has succumbed to psycho-babble in dealing with feral behavior. Conservatives believe in good order. This means the criminals ought to fear the police. As things are collapsing right now, the police must fear the criminals. Bring back legitimate fear, good and hard, before we end up in a Midwestern version of the Lord of the Flies. Conservatives do not fool themselves about human nature; it is not made out of sugar candy, especially if sentimentalism removes fear of consequences for evil behavior. Of course, the psycho-babble that saps our will to survive does not recogize the reality of evil in human affairs. Meanwhile, the chaos mounts for lack of firm legitimate, healthy fear.
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Today, I listened to part of a radio talk show on gun rights in America. I own no guns; I do not want to own any guns. However, more and more, what passes for a government refuses to govern. It refuses to instill fear into the vermin who prey on the decent people in our society. The U.S. Supreme Court, for example, just declared states cannot execute predators who rape children. More and more the system favors the criminals. Police must now fear the criminals, not vice versa. If the police fear the criminal elements that are growing in our society, what is the reaction of the average decent person going to be? I am stunned at how our "lolliop" legal system babies the criminal elements in the Madison, Wisconsin area. You can participate in drive-by shootings in our area and get three years probation. At one time, the decent people of our country knew how to apply rope to such terrorists. As a result, I believe the decent people must arm themselves to protect life and property, for what masquerades as a government refuses to govern - put the fear of God in the criminal elements growing bolder with every passing day. I lived in Toronto through the terrorist crisis of 1971 in Canada. The Prime Minister, Pierre Elliot Trudeau, declared martial law and crushed French-language terrorists in Quebec. He averted a civil war over language. When the usual suspects accused him of violating human rights, animal rights, gay rights, the rights of spring, UFO rights, criminal rights, and the writings on lavatory walls, Trudau responded: "The first obligation of government is to govern" - protect life and property. Note he did not say its purpose is to run welfare programs for grown men who refuse to work or support the arts with concerts in the parks. It is to put fear of punishment good and hard into the criminal elements closing in on us. Until government in America governs again - at the federal, state, and local levels - the people of this country who do the work, obey the laws, pay the taxes, and fight the wars have every right to arms themselves to defend themselves, since government refuses to do this in favor of babying predators and mutants.
Quantum Physics rejects Monism. Quantum Physics argues that the universe is "self-organizing" from the bottom up, not from the top down. Quantum Physics argues that the natural state of the universe is flows of energy that combine and recombine in creative dynamic ways. This is consonant with the "Pluralism" of Aristotle and rejects the "Monsim" - only one way imposed from the top down - of a Plato. Quantum Physics aligns with classic Conservative tradition. Quantum Physics argues against the centralized factory model of the Industrial Revolution. They support the dynamic network model of organizing of the Information Age. In short, the more planned and centralized we become, the more we deny basic physical reality. The result is atrophy; we can see the signs around us. Conservatives believe in facts, and the facts of Quantum Physics argue for Aristotle's apology for Conservative "Permanent Things."
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