Tag: iryna zarystka

The Warlord of my Dreams

Roger Mitchell2 Comments

“The Roman Empire officially began in 27 BCE when Octavian was granted the title Augustus, ending the Roman Republic, and its Western half fell in 476 CE when the last emperor, Romulus Augustulus, was deposed by Odoacer. 
 The Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire survived until 1453 CE, when Constantinople fell to the Ottoman Empire.” — from a Brave search

There has been an incredible amount of ink spilled and books written about the Roman Empire, its beginning, duration, and ending, and anyone who wants to learn about it only has to get started. I found this timeline on Wikipedia1 which has important dates and links from the alleged date when Romulus first founded the city of Rome in 753 B.C. The empire “officially” began in 27 B.C, with Octavian’s ascent to full dictatorship and lasted in one form or another until Constantinople was overrun by the Ottomans in 1453 A.D.

The current American empire is often compared with the Roman empire and with good reason. There are a lot of parallels between the two. For instance, looking at the timeline linked above, I found that a large part of Rome’s existence was taken up with waging war, much like the pattern America developed since its successful separation from the British Crown in 1776. Without getting into the debate over what constitutes a “war”, it is certain that in its growth stage from violent inception to the current war from Iran, the American State has often been engaged in battle with someone. Speculative lists of active shooting engagements run as high as 92% or more.

There is also the comparison of Rome’s eventual decay and decline over centuries to America’s slide from “top of the heap” and, while these are valid and hold some significance, I believe there is a more appropriate comparison with a different state, one which might bring the penchant for violence into clear focus–the civil wars in Tsarist Russia at the time of the Bolshevik Revolution.

Consider this. In 1917, Russia had:

  1. A tone-deaf elite which held virtually all the wealth of the country and which held the common people in contempt.
  2. A massive population which was on the verge of starvation.
  3. A vivid memory of a major military defeat in 1905 vs. Japan.
  4. Active engagement in WW1, from which the State had to retreat due to the chaos of revolution at home.
  5. Huge philosophical and political differences among the populace.
  6. A large number of factions at grassroots level who were willing to battle with each other at a moment’s notice.
  7. Inability of the State to maintain control and order.

Much of this can be applied to the West in general and the US in particular. Granted that widespread starvation is not a problem (yet) and that the State is still able to squelch any viable threat, nevertheless the strong possibility exists that America will break down into an armed struggle between the various factions: Red vs. Blue, conservative vs. liberal vs. progressive, urban centers vs. rural holdouts, gun owners vs. gun grabbers, etc., and all of these fighting against the extremely wealthy who are struggling to maintain and tighten their stranglehold over the economy and government.

A long-standing Christian moral tradition degrading into feminist, homosexual, abortionist, and transgender camps. The trend toward euthanasia. Corrupt politicians everywhere at all levels of government. An entitlement attitude which supposes that no one has to earn anything. Success defined solely by the number of views a podcast receives. Thou shalt not steal, except by majority vote, unless you think you can get away with it. Murders of young girls on subways for no sane reason at all. Anything goes, you name it.

What would it take for America to follow the path which Russia blazed a century ago? Are we already entered on that road? What will the country look like if we travel (continue to travel?) that direction? Or, is it more likely that we will follow Rome’s example of continual petty, internal squabbling over power and squandering of resources as if there were no tomorrow, while outside forces chip away at the infrastructure until everything collapses?

I’m no expert on this, but I think I understand human nature fairly well and I’m betting on civil war which hits close to home, the scale of which most Americans do not understand and cannot imagine. Once it is over and the smoke and dust have settled, nothing about America will be the same as before.

Interestingly, the other day I found an article which described three different types of persons who emerge as “warlords” when governments collapse and society devolves into chaos:

  1. Those who try to hold onto the previous system and do whatever they can to resurrect it,
  2. Those who try to construct a new system mirroring the previous system, and,
  3. Those who are opportunists taking every advantage to solidify their power regardless of the system which comes out of it.

Reading this, I found myself thinking which type of warlord I would be if the opportunity presented itself. #1 is completely out. I am not interested in maintaining the status quo at all and am committed to replacing it with a better option. #2 is tempting, but my libertarian and anarchic philosophies and principles preclude that. That said, #3 would probably be my choice given the fact that, in understanding human nature, I know myself better than anyone else and, given my history, all other things being equal, I would not hesitate to use any method to gain supremacy, except for one very major obstacle: my relationship with Jesus Christ and tutelage under His Spirit which I will not surrender for any amount of worldly power.

Which brings up Option #4: None of the above. No warlordism. No support for warlordism, active or passive. No trying to hang onto the past. No trying to repeat the past. No trying to grab for whatever I can get at anyone’s expense. Naaaah! I think I’ll just carry on in the model set before my by the Master (perhaps looking to Gandhi for encouragement along the way) and doing nothing more than trying to love my neighbor, who might very well become my enemy, in the best way that I can.

  1. Yes, I know it’s Wikipedia, but the fact remains that there is an enormous amount of data here which can be used. Don’t throw out the baby because the bathwater is dirty. ↩︎

The Wages of Sin is Death–Official or Not

Roger MitchellLeave a comment

In the last few weeks, there have been three high-profile instances of deliberate murder in which those killed had no warning that they were going to die. Life was good, until all at once it was over.

  1. Eleven crew members of a small Venezuelan boat in the Caribbean which was destroyed by a Hellfire missile.
  2. A 23 year old woman, Iryna Zarutska,1 stabbed in the neck repeatedly by a man behind her while riding home from work in Charlotte, NC.
  3. Charlie Kirk, shot in the neck while speaking at a rally at a Utah university.

Other than the fact that they were completely unexpected, do these murders have anything in common? It could be argued, I suppose, that the boat’s crew members were “known to the State of US” to be violent gang members running drugs, therefore the takeout was justified. It could be argued that Charlie Kirk brought it on himself by opposing the “woke”, progressive, liberal agenda and being extremely vocal about his beliefs. It could be argued that Iryna’s murder was caused by decades of insane policies of refusing to treat criminal cases harshly without any serious consequence for the perps.

Yet, during his first term in office, Donald Trump gave the order to assassinate an Iranian general2, Qasem Solemani, while he was traveling to a peace conference in Iraq, done without warning solely because it was possible. While Barack Obama was president, numerous persons were simply killed via drone strikes3 because they happened to get on the wrong list, including an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, and his 16 year old son, Abdulrahman al-Awlaki. How many innocent people have been killed because of the aggressive wars waged by the American State and society? It is safe to assume that they number in the tens of millions and probably most of them were not aware that they were in imminent danger until it was upon them.

We have a problem and it is not going to be easily solved nor overcome. America, the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave, has always been a practitioner of violence, often deadly. We still are, and there does not seem to be any groundswell of movement on the part of the grassroots population to bring the official killings to an end. Instead, if the Venezuelan State sank one of the US Navy ships in the area, citing defense, this country as a cohesive unit would issue a full-throated roar for vengeance and destruction, regardless of who started the whole mess or whether it was legal or right. We love our violent Hollywood movies and PlayStation video games in which we can vicariously “live” the victorious life. Or die trying, except that we get to come back another day and fight again.

“Kill them all. Let God sort them out.”

Why are we shocked when something like Charlie Kirk’s assassination or Iryna Zarutska’s cold-blooded murder occur, but pooh-pooh any notion that the killers were only following the examples set by their own government? Why is murder excused, even lauded and honored, when it is practiced by a government for political purposes, but individual murders cannot be tolerated, even though they might be done for political purposes? Why do we tolerate “black on black” murders which constitute the largest part of the killings in the US and try to justify “black on white” murders as, well, “correcting racial imbalances”? Why do we treat “white on black” murders as worse than any other, especially if a police officer is the one doing the killing?

Why? Why? Why? These are the hard questions we need to honestly explore and try to answer in order to make some sense of the situation, and the first place to start is with ourselves, in our own innermost being, the one which drives and defines everything we are. Am I a supporter of government led and sponsored wars and extra-judicial “executions”? Do I think it is right for my government to declare war on other countries without cause? Would I join the military and kill some person I never knew simply because someone else told me to? Do I hate my neighbor and wish evil on him? And on, and on, and on…

We are at this point in history because, as a nation and a people, we have either explicitly abandoned the moral imperatives of God or made light of them, ignoring them when convenient, and/or trying to substitute our own man-made rules which seem right and just to us. Today, and increasingly so in a rapidly disintegrating future, we are (and will) reap the consequences of our actions and behaviors. The only way out is to seek forgiveness for our own sins and change the way we think, which will change the way we act. This is called repentance…and it works. It is the only thing which will work. Everything else is nothing more than a Band-Aid® slapped over a blood-gushing wound.

More to come…and it ain’t looking good. Murder is murder is murder, and it’s past time to recognize this fact. Time to raise our sights to a higher plane, one where the injunction, “Thou shalt not kill” still holds true.

  1. Notice that Wikipedia does its dead-level best (no pun intended) to mask the fact that the killer was a black male who had 14 convictions on his record and was still walking the streets. ↩︎
  2. To justify this action and call it “lawful”, read this. I do not agree with the conclusion. https://www.jagreporter.af.mil/Post/Article-View-Post/Article/2539536/the-killing-of-qassem-soleimani/ ↩︎
  3. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/holder-weve-droned-4-americans-3-by-accident-oops/ ↩︎