The American Crisis: Origins-
The Failure of Modern Science and Our Historical Dilemma
Part 2
Journal Entry #21
You, my brothers, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh… - Galatians 5:13

Live as free men, but do not use your freedom as a cover-up for evil; live as servants of God. - 1 Peter 2:16

Recently we heard Paul Gigot of the Wall Street Journal remark in an interview that, based upon the new unemployment numbers and the current economic growth rate, the economy will surely remain the primary issue for American voters. And this view seems entirely reasonable, coming as it does the day after Donald Trump endorsed Mitt Romney for the presidency, an event that appeared more like a papal anointing than a political recommendation.

To repeat, focusing primarily upon our economic problems in this election season can only produce for us three results, all of which will prove disastrous. First, to emphasize economic issues is to misjudge the nature of the American Crisis. Second, only economic remedies will then be considered useful to solve our Crisis. Third, by focusing only upon the economy the true source of the American Crisis will remain utterly obscured. Consequently the true remedy for our Crisis will not be applied. The American Crisis will continue; indeed, it will worsen due to its cumulative progress.

The American Crisis is not economic in nature, nor is it even a political crisis- in the sense that the U.S. Constitution is being largely transgressed- though these areas certainly are all adversely affected. No, these are NOT the true source of the American Crisis; rather these are all symptoms of a deeper affliction.

The University of Chicago, Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman guides our thinking as we consider the relative importance of economics to a free society. He states in his seminal work Capitalism and Freedom (1962): “History suggests only that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition…It is therefore clearly possible to have economic arrangements that are fundamentally capitalist and political arrangements that are not free.” We see this exemplified in the present day Communist Peoples Republic of China and Socialist Venezuela, or that strange political hybrid Russia.

Freedom of thought is the sufficient condition by which political freedom has been secured in America since 1776. The true source and nature of our Crisis therefore, is the absence of intellectual freedom in America today. That is to say, we as a society of free citizens no longer permit ourselves to entertain truth in its purest form- absolute Truth- as it is expressed in our most esteemed national document, the Declaration of Independence.

It is within this matrix of absolute Truth that the Founders justified the American Cause, as well as the subsequent Republic. Indeed, it was a standard of Truth by which all other truths would thenceforth be measured. Thomas Jefferson wrote that “we hold these truths to be self evident that all men are created equal and are endowed by their Creator…” The terms “all men are created” and “endowed by their Creator” were meant to be every bit as important in the Declaration as “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”, but modern science- particularly biological evolution- has eliminated the concept of creation.

The appalling consequences of this elimination of creation and the Creator came to terrifying maturity in the early 20th century, in the totalitarian states of Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. These societies murdered and imprisoned millions as well as generated a global war for the ascendancy of their worldviews. The historical shockwaves emanating from this horrific World War are still felt to this day.

And the ideas of brute material evolution and secularism continue to mesmerize a whole new intelligentsia- a “sophisticated” intellectual class- in America today. This intellectual class has come to inhabit and direct our scientific community, the university, our primary and secondary educational system, and our government. This is the American Crisis. It will not be resolved by politics nor by economics. Only by a reaffirmation of Truth will we escape Tyranny.

The Failure of Modern Science and Our Historical Dilemma

Part 2
In the impressively written book Cold War: An Illustrated History, Isaacs and Downing masterfully execute Ted Turner's 1994 commission to commemorate the end of the Cold War by telling its story. In its preface, these accomplished scholars begin their task by saying;

"This book tells the central story of our times...the series of events that shaped the second half of the twentieth century: the confrontation- military, economic, ideological- between two great power blocs, the United States and the Soviet Union, that began at the close of the Second World War and ended with the dissolution of the USSR...the story has a beginning, a middle, and an ending. We show not only how key strategic decisions were made, but their impact on ordinary lives, West and East."

"The Cold War was more than an arms race. It touched many aspects of life- ideology and science, culture and sport. It influenced the images we saw, the songs we sang, and the very language we used for nearly half a century. It helped fix the standard of living in East and West. In the book we recount in detail crises...that brought us, more than once, to the brink of nuclear war...At crisis after crisis parents worried their families might not live to see another day. Yet, as the story ends, humanity has survived."i

To a large extent, the Cold War is the central story of the later twentieth century, and its effects were keenly felt throughout all of American, European and Soviet societies, so that even the commonest citizen furthest removed from the centers of governmental power found their surrounding life affected by it. This was so because the historical events which we understand as the Cold War were, in fact, the subsequent acts of that uniquely modern drama which some historians have come to call total war.

While extensive land and sea battles waged between countries in the furtherance of national objectives have long been a prominent feature of human history, the concept of total war nevertheless distinguishes World War Two and the Cold War from those past conflicts, in the sense that all elements of society- economic, political, social and intellectual- were completely mobilized and implemented toward the prosecution of these latter wars. And, because of the comprehensive scope of this war effort, all segments of society- and the citizens located therein- were accordingly considered legitimate targets for attack by their adversaries.

The historical roots of total war can certainly be traced back to eighteenth century Europe and Revolutionary France and the subsequent European wars of the early nineteenth century, particularly as Emperor Napoleon effectively consolidated political and military power, and mobilized French society for the prosecution of vast military campaigns to secure empire.

More recently, the nature and scope of total war became increasingly pronounced in the First World War, when Imperial Germany's unrestrained submarine warfare- employed to eliminate Britain's commercial and economic ability to wage war- counted as one of its casualties the British civilian passenger liner Lusitania in May, 1915, killing more than a thousand non-combatants. Here we see the line separating civilian and soldier henceforth blurred. And the Treaty of Versailles, ending World War One, held the entire German government and people responsible for the destruction and carnage caused by the war, requiring them to pay staggering amounts of money and material in compensation.

To be sure then, total war is very much characterized by the comprehensive mobilization of entire societies, with their political, economic and social segments being brought to bear in the war effort. And with the emergence later of advanced and sophisticated technology- radar, sonar, long range bombers outfitted with precision bomb sites, satellites, guided missiles and ICBM's, computerized weapons systems and, of course, fission and fusion nuclear weapons- the forward battle line was quite literally extended to the very doorstep of the most removed civilian population centers, no longer to enjoy the relative safety and peace formerly provided by geographic distance away from the immediate theater of battle.

But there is still one more feature of the Second World War and the Cold War era which completely distinguishes these from all previous conflicts in human history, making total war what it truly is. This would be the very much vital and active presence of ideology.

i. Jeremy Isaacs & Taylor Downing, Cold War: An Illustrated History, 1945-1991 (New York: Little, Brown & Company, 1998) ix.

Montag