We are living in a time of imperial over reach. By the denizens of the capitals of the old West, in particular those who inhabit Brussels and Washington. For not only do they interfere with the customs and ancient rights of free people — destroying the spirit of the English with an increasingly regulated “Health and Safety” culture — they are actively moving against the constitution (of the USA) that they are sworn to support.

When called to account, they are offended.

Now, I am not of the USA, and there are enough problems in NZ. Wellington, our capital, is full of well paid members of the political class who consider that they can tell us peasants in the provinces how to live. As far as they are concerned, accountability is one-way: if one of their anointed does not get their just deserts (as in the next major job) there are great protests.

It does not matter what the evidence is around the issue, by the way. THey will only listen to those who say they are secure, and they are right. They will not look at empiric data: nasty things like facts — like US gun laws not being correlated with homicide rates.

I said last year that liberalism is dying, and that makes it dangerous. It may be that the liberal over reach will be dated to the second inauguration speech by Barack,

But I’m making coffee again. Last night I slept poorly. Because there are people I love just across the now (jackbooted) Canadian border. Because I have friends in the USA. And because the end is coming for all this, and today’s reading is about how empires end. They do not gradually fade away. Instead, they shatter.

Isaiah 47:1-15

¹   Come down and sit in the dust, virgin daughter Babylon! Sit on the ground without a throne, daughter Chaldea! For you shall no more be called tender and delicate.
²   Take the millstones and grind meal, remove your veil, strip off your robe, uncover your legs, pass through the rivers.
³   Your nakedness shall be uncovered, and your shame shall be seen. I will take vengeance, and I will spare no one.
⁴   Our Redeemer — the LORD of hosts is his name — is the Holy One of Israel.
⁵   Sit in silence, and go into darkness, daughter Chaldea! For you shall no more be called the mistress of kingdoms.
⁶   I was angry with my people, I profaned my heritage; I gave them into your hand,
you showed them no mercy; on the aged you made your yoke exceedingly heavy.
⁷   You said, “I shall be mistress forever,” so that you did not lay these things to heart or remember their end.
⁸   Now therefore hear this, you lover of pleasures, who sit securely, who say in your heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me; I shall not sit as a widow or know the loss of children” —
⁹   both these things shall come upon you in a moment, in one day: the loss of children and widowhood shall come upon you in full measure, in spite of your many sorceries
and the great power of your enchantments.
¹⁰  You felt secure in your wickedness; you said, “No one sees me.” Your wisdom and your knowledge led you astray, and you said in your heart, “I am, and there is no one besides me.”
¹¹  But evil shall come upon you, which you cannot charm away; disaster shall fall upon you, which you will not be able to ward off; and ruin shall come on you suddenly, of which you know nothing.
¹²  Stand fast in your enchantments and your many sorceries, with which you have labored from your youth; perhaps you may be able to succeed, perhaps you may inspire terror.
¹³  You are wearied with your many consultations; let those who study the heavens
stand up and save you, those who gaze at the stars, and at each new moon predict what shall befall you.
¹⁴  See, they are like stubble, the fire consumes them; they cannot deliver themselves
from the power of the flame. No coal for warming oneself is this, no fire to sit before!
¹⁵  Such to you are those with whom you have labored, who have trafficked with you from your youth; they all wander about in their own paths; there is no one to save you.

Now, there are some parts  to this.

1. A sense of comfort and security by our rulers. It may be one of the reasons that the founders of the late American Republic limit the regulation of firearms in the US is so that the arms of the state are outnumbered by men with guns — and that the rulers fear the people. But functionally, the capital of most modern states is rich: in England and the USA it is the richest part of the nation. This is coupled with manipulations of boundaries and regulations so that parliamentarians and congressmen are in “safe” seats — they do not need to fear re election.
2. Heavy burdens (on the weak).  This includes GST or VAT (which is 15% in my nation — on everything) which inevitably hits the poor harder because more of their income has to go on rent, food, and clothing — with the taxman taking his cut from every one of those things. It includes getting women to be in the infantry — despite the fact that those (male) soldiers are carrying 40 — 60 kilos of gear, and are being invalided out with injuries (and the Marine women who have worked with them find they cannot keep up despite being ultra-fit college athletes before serving). It includes regulation upon regulation — made worse in the USA by making disobedience to this petty fascism a felony — and it includes the mechanisms of child support and child protection, which have removed all power from fathers and limited the authority of mothers. Every sane parent now fears social welfare. (And jailing men for not paying child support while removing their licenses to work because they have not paid is evil. Pure evil).
3. An increase in spirituality. The rulers will not turn to the God of Israel, for that means that they will have to change. They will have to accept that they have done evil, and they will need to take part in undoing this. Instead, they turn to the astrologist, the wise man, the occult, and believe that their search for spirituality will save them. They set their wise men as Gods, or they say that the Godhead is them. But no human is worthy of worship: we are all fallen.

This is the end of a cycle: it is too late to say that the flood will occur after me, as the French did. The flood is arriving. The crisis is here. So do not trust. the. state. with. anything. important.

Yes they can tax us. It is our duty to pray for them — so that they will change. But is not our job to accede or cooperate with them when they are evil. And the rulers are following the spirit of the times — which is not for the good, the beautiful, the pure, the right, the noble… or for Christ.