“Look also at ships: although they are so large and are driven by fierce winds, they are turned by a very small rudder wherever the pilot desires.” James 3:4
Ships of state are ever careering off the courses set by their human pilots.
Their “governors” can hold things together for, maybe, a generation and stave off annihilation; at worst, they steer the people, wittingly or no, into armed conflict.
By a kind of dialectical irony, they inexorably undermine the very order they depend on.
They manipulate currencies, thereby distorting the signals of markets. They do all of these things for perceived short-term gain.
And the governed go along with their governors whom, ironically, they sometimes have the high honor of electing to high office.
President Donald Trump, America’s kybernesis (1 Corinthians 12:28), is attempting to decelerate social and civilizational decline and reverse certain evil tendencies. Enjoying partial success, he may get re-elected.
(I don’t deny the relevancy to Trump of the Apostle James’s next verse: “Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things.”)
But the transient enjoyment I experience is a function of my self-centered projection of my expected lifespan. I’m hoping that the worst possible outcome will occur only after I’m safely dead.
Beneath the waters on which Trump steers the ship of state from one superficial “victory” to another, however, is an undertow of evil. It consists of (to name but a few horrors): slavery, including child sex-trafficking; the African diamond trade; drug trafficking; the predations and designs of the fascist ethnostate of China; radical Islamic terrorism and its state enablers. Let’s not forget the barbarism-promoting communists who are currently vying to replace Trump. There is no permanent escape from any of these scourges in this dispensation.
Continue reading “To govern is to steer: demonstrably, we cannot govern”