First, we must examine what a society is. Merriam- Webster's Dictionary says:
Reading over the definitions one can see common denominators in each of them. The first common concept which is obvious is that of an enduring group of people. This group has an enduring common structure such as a common geographical territory with enduring common institutions. With these lands and institutions the group forms a common goal, a common tradition, a common system of norms...in other words they share a common agreed upon culture that exists over long periods of time. The individuals in a society are interactive with each other. They work, play, pray, and live in close proximity with others in the group. They know and have an emotional bond with each other. It must also be noted that membership in society is VOLUNTARY, not compulsory (I'll discuss why this is important both economically and socially later).Definition of SOCIETY
1: companionship or association with one's fellows : friendly or intimate intercourse : company2: a voluntary association of individuals for common ends;especially : an organized group working together or periodically meeting because of common interests, beliefs, or profession3a : an enduring and cooperating social group whose members have developed organized patterns of relationships through interaction with one anotherb : a community, nation, or broad grouping of people having common traditions, institutions, and collective activities and interests4a : a part of a community that is a unit distinguishable by particular aims or standards of living or conduct : a social circle or a group of social circles having a clearly marked identity <literary society>b : a part of the community that sets itself apart as a leisure class and that regards itself as the arbiter of fashion and manners
In such a society, it is not in the interest of the group's goals for one of it's members to be left behind because of temporary hardships. A hardship suffered by one hinders the others in the group. So those who are not suffering hardship will help those who are suffering hardship, voluntarily, to keep the goals of the group on track or lessen the impact of such hardships spreading to the group as a whole. This is not a one way street, those who receive aid are indebted (either economically or socially or both) to those who rendered aid. This debt binds the group together and actually strengthens the group over time.
Since the group is interactive with common interests they are emotionally attached to one another. Helping those in the society who are in need is not just an economic decision, but an act of love for one another. This brotherly love is the strongest of bonds within the group. When a member is suffering, each member feels the suffering with that member through those emotional connections.
Membership in the group is voluntary. Members can choose to enter or leave the group if they feel that they do not fit in the group or they discover a group that better fits their individual goals, interests, and beliefs. Furthermore, members may be expelled from the group if the group believes a member is not fitting in with the goals, interests or beliefs of the whole group or is an undue burden upon the group economically or socially. Expulsion is usually the last action taken against a member in a society because the emotional attachments to the errant member are difficult to break and mercy is the rule not the exception. Usually, the errant member, having economic and emotional bonds to the society, would correct themselves to stay in the group.
Compulsory membership in society has a devastating effect upon he group. Members are required to stay in the group even if they feel they do not belong or do not share the goals of the group. They are stuck, alienated and miserable. These members tend to be dissatisfied with life, depressed and unhealthy compared to the other members. As such, they pose an undue burden upon the group economically as they are not as productive as they could be towards the goals of the group and that holds every one else back. They also tend to burden the emotional ties of the group introducing dysfunction and ill-will to the interactions. The dissatisfied members tend to group themselves into sub-groups and splinter groups which destroy the harmony of the whole group. These effects could be avoided if the dissatisfied members were allowed to follow their hearts and pursue their own happiness (sound familiar?) and explore other groups or form their own society apart from the original society.
The genius of the Founding Fathers is beyond me. Freedom benefits everyone in every society. When we are free to follow our own path in life we benefit not only ourselves, but everyone in the society of origin and the society in which the seeker ultimately adopts as his/her own.
I discussed Free Society vs Compulsory Society; but what about Church Charity vs Government Welfare? Churches have historically been the center of communal life within all communities. They served the functions of developing the common threads of culture and family that every society needs to exist. Churches helped develop the society's norms of behavior, the norms of interpersonal interaction and concepts of ethics in business. For more on social norms visit Wikipedia's Norms (sociology) page.
Please note that I do not use Wikipedia as an Empirical source of information, but in matters of background information of common knowledge it is not a grievous sin to use Wikipedia.
The Community church also strengthened certain social concepts such as the interaction between debtors and lenders. The church was the place were members in hardship humbled themselves before their friends and asked for help. And the church is where that humbled member repaid the debt by helping others who came to him or her just as humbled asking for help.
The Church was where forgiveness was taught and practiced. If a disagreement between members occurred the church was the arbiter of the dispute. Satisfaction was given to all sides of the quarrel.
Community Churches served as the seat of social government. With the above informal judicial role of the church, churches served as the society's record keepers. They recorded births, deaths, marriages, dedications, baptismals, the history of the society, and much more.
Church buildings were often used in the operations of the formal government as well. Often the church building was the only public common building in the town. This is still the case in very small rural towns and villages in America and Europe. In such cases the Church building is the town hall, the courtroom, the school-house, and the gathering place for fellowship and entertainment. Churches were the center of social life.
It is safe to say that without the Community Churches society can not exist. It must be noted here that I am using the word "church" in a broad sense to mean a religious building and those who belong to that religion the structure is dedicated towards. I am not only referring to the Christian church or religion but to any religion. The Aztec and Mayan religions were extremely central to their society, Christianity is central to the Western World today, and Islam is central to society in the Arab World. Other religions that are central to the societies they serve are Hinduism, Zoroastrianism and many others.
So what did LBJ do that was so bad? Didn't he just formalize religious charitable giving through a caring government? Simple answer is "OHHHH HECK NO!!!"
Remember earlier I briefly discussed the ill-effects of a compulsory membership society? Well that is what Lyndon B. Johnson accomplished for us. The over-all effect of the government's social welfare programs have been disastrous to American societies. Notice I used the word American SOCIETIES (plural), and not American SOCIETY (singular). What's the difference?
The structure of the American continent from Discovery to the 1960's has been that of a multitude of independent societies on many levels. Each town was a society of people in itself nearly independent from other town societies. The collections of towns formed a society of counties, counties formed a society of colonies. The colonies' goals were that of the British Companies that held the Charter under the authority of the British Monarch who was the head of the British collections of societies. Townships and the societies they represented were self-governing and independent from the larger organizations because of the limitations of the transportation systems of the day and distance.
If you had to travel over land you either walked, rode a horse or drove a horse and buggy. Travel was limited by the endurance of the horse which is roughly 40+/- miles per day. Prior to 1820, it took a week to travel one-way from Boston to NYC; a roughly 200 mile journey.
Travel was also very expensive. When your horse was exhausted for the day you had to stop for the night. Unless you wanted to sleep on the road or in the woods you paid for a room at a boarding house and for the services of the livery stable.
Riding on horseback or on a bunk-board buggy was not luxurious by any means. In fact, it is downright torture (personal experience) for long distances. It was not something you looked forward to at all.
Travel was also dangerous. Roadside muggers, called highwaymen, waited for travelers to pass by, then attack and rob the traveler and sometimes kill the traveler.
So needless to say, if you did not have a really good reason or lots of money to travel to the next town over, you probably did not bother to do it. Probably a good 80% of people never left a radius of 60 miles from their place of birth. So, each individual township was an isolated community.
Fast forward to the 1950's. The automobile had matured into a family vehicle. Improvements to tires and range made it a reliable mode of travel. President Eisenhower got approval from Congress to build our current Interstate Highway system which connected the entire nation together. Individuals became highly mobile in their lifetimes. This high mobility was the beginning of the end for the American Societies. But it really was not harmful to the societies by itself.
Families would travel to far away places on vacation, such as the National Parks in other states, then come back home and share their experiences with the other members of their society. The bonds of society were being stretched but in no way broken. Communication and information/technology exchange between societies advanced all the societies in the trade. But the Progressives, who by now were kissing cousins of the socialists, could not let the individual societies get organized or gain too much power. The information exchange between the societies increased the knowledge of the societies; and knowledge is power. Ideas were no longer controlled by the elites in power.
Enter Lyndon B. Johnson. Oddly enough, LBJ's big plan was called "The Great Society." The idea was to destroy the individual societies that governed daily life and create a national "American Society." He would do this by:
1- Compulsory membership in the American Society through taxation;
2- Welfare/Public Assistance Programs
3- Class Warfare
4- Silence the Churches
I should be honest here that Franklin D. Roosevelt laid the foundation of the destruction of the individual societies with Social Security and his plethora of ABC programs during the Great Depression. The Great Depression was the perfect opportunity to reach into the individual societies when the societal ties of mutual aid broke down because all members of the society were in hardship, and natural forces (the Dust Bowl for example) forced the agricultural societies to disintegrate. FDR used this opportunity to endear himself and his party to the individual societal enclaves. But when the Great Depression ended, these societies proved to be more resilient than FDR realized. Societies reformed, although they were weaker.
Many young men that could have quickly rebuilt the societies were victims of World War 2.
Compulsory Membership in the Great Society through Taxation
Paying taxes is a necessary duty of membership in a society. It is necessary to pay for the essential services that the society brings to all of it's members. Services like a place to interact with fellow group members, a place to seek peaceful justice in a dispute among members, education of the children, and police protection from those that seek to harm the society. Moreover, paying taxes to your society is a sign of contribution, of honor and of good standing. The individual can be free to use the services in proportion to his contribution towards them. Members of the society voluntarily contributed their share of the burden.
The Founders understood this duty to one's local society so they instituted a ground up tax system. The local society provided the most abundant and direct services to the individual person, naturally they would have the lion's share of the tax revenue. Counties provided the second tier of services, then states then national governments. Originally, the states taxed the people then sent a portion of that money to the Central Government. Now the flow is from the Central Government to the states then to the person. This reversal has destroyed the life of the states and is started to starve the life from the societies.
Because the members of the local societies do not see the direct benefit of their contribution of taxes, the members become dissatisfied and unfulfilled with the larger society in general. He or she feels forced to pay into the system. Their money goes to place they probably never been to benefit people they have never met. They feel robbed of their contribution and paying taxes becomes a burden.
Remember that all members contribute to society, and all contributors get to use the services. If you did not contribute to society you did not get to use all of the services provided by society. Paying taxes placed a person in good standing to use the services to which they contributed. People who did not contribute were incentivized to contribute when they could so they too may partake in all the benefits of society. One such benefit was voting for societies leaders. Enter the Zero Liability Voter. The 24th Amendment abolished these societies long held traditions of incentives to contribute to society by allowing those that did not contribute to vote for the society's leaders.
What was the first thing the non-contributors voted for? BENEFITS!!! Namely money from the public treasury. Enter the Welfare Programs.
Welfare/Public Assistance Programs
The non-contributors to society voted themselves money from the public treasury without the social requirement of owing anyone a debt of repayment, or owing society a return on the investment. They can take and take and no one can refuse them aid because the funds they are taking are coming from the taxes that are mandated to be given by the contributors. Contributors are forced to pay up and the takers take. Should the contributor refuse to pay seeing that the taker is not being a fair member of the group the government sends men with guns to arrest and confiscate the taxes plus penalties. What is worse for the contributor is that now he is banned from partaking in the services for which he is paying.
The Great Society is a compulsory membership society. Unlike the voluntary membership society members cannot recuse themselves out of the society if they do not agree with the society nor can members of standing expel members that are undue burdens. The contributor is stuck and has no choice but to comply, go to jail and lose all that he or she owns or die. Society is broken. This is the theme of the Ayn Rand book Atlas Shrugged; The contributor quits when there is no more benefit to staying with society. Enter Class Warfare.
Class Warfare
The contributor starts to hate the Zero Liability Voter. The contributor votes to lower taxes and end the welfare system and restore society. The Zero Liability Voter starts to hate the contributor for revolting against him. LBJ and subsequent politicians saw the divide they were waiting for and pounced. Of course they sided with the more numerous Zero Liability Voter (more votes = election win). Today, we see political ads of fiscal conservatives pushing grandmothers off of cliffs, in past elections it was grandma eating dog food.
The end result is a divided population of the whole nation arguing and fighting against each other. The Progressives have recruited other factions of society such as African Americans in the late 1960's and 70's, and illegal immigrants of this current time into the fray. But since this is about the destruction of society and concentration of power via government welfare programs race and immigration status have no relevance in the topic but the quick mention to illustrate the social divides that Progressives have created to gain power. This is the perfect implementation of the battle strategy of divide and conquer.
Silence the Churches
Churches have played such a vital part in the society and creation of the American people that to say without the Church there would be no America is an understatement of exponential proportions.
Religious sects from Europe came to the Americas for religious freedom and founded towns near and wide. It was the Churches that hailed the call to arms by ringing the bells for the militia to get ready to fight. It was the preachers that motivated the men to resist British rule. It was the Church that bound every citizen to their respective society, taught the children to read and taught every one how to live a righteous life.
Many of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution were Reverends of the Church. The Founders all noted that a vibrant church is essential to keep social order, men moral and virtuous and to keep the tyrant out. Churches are then the Foundation of responsible government.
No wonder Progressives seek to destroy the Churches of America. Their attack started in 1948 when the Supreme Court ruled that religious education in the schools was unconstitutional. In 1962 the Court again ruled that prayer in schools was unconstitutional in any form for any purpose. The list goes on (if you have time read Torcaso v Watkins footnote 11 where it says that atheism is a religion LOL). There is even a case that bans the posting of the 10 Commandments in a school. But that is only one part of the Progressive plan, because you can not ban religion in every aspect of public life (although today it certainly seems they are succeeding in that), they had to shut the preachers' mouths. They had to get the preachers to stop making sermons on what was happening in government and the destruction of society and illegal power grabs and the tyrants that will assume that power. LBJ had another brain storm; The 501(c)3 income tax exemption.
Although Churches are tax exempt by their very nature of being a church (read this IRS pamphlet), this is not guaranteed to them. Church tax-exempt status is by law, not by Constitutional mandate. The Central Government was oh so nice to churches to allow them to secure their tax-exemption status (and tax deductible donation status) by giving them the choice to file as a 501 (c) 3 tax exempt corporation. Ain't that sweet of them? In 1954, Lyndon Baines Johnson was in a tight contested Senate race in Texas. It seems that in 1948 LBJ cheated and stuffed many ballot boxes with demonstrably fake votes. This fact, and that he also used very friendly judges to block his opponent's attempts to sue in court for recounts, led two non-profit 501 (c) 3 corporations to really lay it in on LBJ. So he convinced the go-along congress to muzzle the free speech rights of non-profit organizations incorporated under the 501(c)3 tax law. Churches who had filed under this law to protect their members from being sued and liable for the debt of the church were appalled to find out that they were completely muzzled from the political sphere.
Here is a list of things Churches are not allowed to talk about...ever:
1- It cannot endorse or oppose a candidate for any office on any level
2- It cannot even imply a candidate by pointing out what is on platforms (this silences churches from speaking against abortion because it is well known that Democrats are for it and Republicans are against it (nice touch LBJ you nose picking, booger eating, tyrant)
3- Basically do, say or think or imply you did, said or thought about political matter or public issues
4- All the above is null if you are a Progressive church that endorses Democratic candidates
With the Church now muzzled, the societies destroyed, and the "Great Society" installed, the Progressive Movement can consolidate all the power it desires and there is no more competition to counteract that power grab. But there is one catch to their grand plan: Since they destroyed the moral fiber of the American Spirit and replaced it with relativism and immoral garbage from Hollywood, they destroyed the checks on human nature, and the Zero Liability Voters have emptied the coffers of every last dime, politicians with massive egos and grand plans have borrowed more money than the entire USA economic output. After 80 years of working to gain the control of the government Dragon and the destruction of the societies that opposed that usurpation of power all they have left to inherit is a stinking hole in the ground with kids running around in flash mobs attempting to injure or kill anyone for any reason, bone weary tax-payers that cannot muster another dime to give so they closed shop and headed for retirement, an economy that is based on nothing and is imploding, many wars on foreign shores draining what the takers did not see and left behind.
In conclusion, Church charity and the societies it created were built to last forever with compassion for all members. The system of checks and balances that these societies played to keep tyrants out of government was key to the Founder's plan. Church Charity is truly the best solution to any social problem.
On the other hand, watch the 6 o'clock news and see what government welfare programs gave us.
History will also afford frequent Opportunities of showing the Necessity of a Publick Religion, from its Usefulness to the Publick; the Advantage of a Religious Character among private Persons; the Mischiefs of Superstition, &c. and the Excellency of the Christian Religion above all others antient or modern.
- Benjamin Franklin Proposals Relating to the Education of Youth in Pensilvania (1749), p. 22 [5]
- Letter to Joseph Huey (6 June 1753); published in Albert Henry Smyth, The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, volume 3, p. 144.
Benjamin Franklin's letter to an unknown recipient in 1757 (to a few sources)
Dear SirI have read your Manuscrit with some Attention. By the Arguments it contains against the Doctrine of a particular Providence, tho' you allow a general Providence, you strike at the Foundation of all Religion: For without the Belief of a Providence that takes Cognizance of, guards and guides and may favour particular Persons, there is no Motive to Worship a Deity, to fear its Displeasure, or to pray for its Protection. I will not enter into any Discussion of your Principles, tho' you seem to desire it; At present I shall only give you my Opinion that tho' your Reasonings are subtle, and may prevail with some Readers, you will not succeed so as to change the general Sentiments of Mankind on that Subject, and the Consequence of printing this Piece will be a great deal of Odium drawn upon your self, Mischief to you and no Benefit to others. He that spits against the Wind, spits in his own Face. But were you to succeed, do you imagine any Good would be done by it? You yourself may find it easy to live a virtuous Life without the Assistance afforded by Religion; you having a clear Perception of the Advantages of Virtue and the Disadvantages of Vice, and possessing a Strength of Resolution sufficient to enable you to resist common Temptations. But think how great a Proportion of Mankind consists of weak and ignorant Men and Women, and of inexperienc'd and inconsiderate Youth of both Sexes, who have need of the Motives of Religion to restrain them from Vice, to support their Virtue, and retain them in the Practice of it till it becomes habitual, which is the great Point for its Security; And perhaps you are indebted to her originally that is to your Religious Education, for the Habits of Virtue upon which you now justly value yourself. You might easily display your excellent Talents of reasoning on a less hazardous Subject, and thereby obtain Rank with our most distinguish'd Authors. For among us, it is not necessary, as among the Hottentots that a Youth to be receiv'd into the Company of Men, should prove his Manhood by beating his Mother. I would advise you therefore not to attempt unchaining the Tyger, but to burn this Piece before it is seen by any other Person, whereby you will save yourself a great deal of Mortification from the Enemies it may raise against you, and perhaps a good deal of Regret and Repentance. If Men are so wicked as we now see them with Religion what would they be if without it? I intend this Letter itself as a Proof of my Friendship and therefore add no Professions of it, but subscribe simply Yours
Thank you for reading this and God bless
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