Cash Payments Protected

 

As the article notes,

“Currently, there are no legal requirements for businesses to accept cash if they have another option that does not slap customers with a fee. The Treasury announced late on Sunday that the federal government was looking to mandate that businesses accept cash for 'essential items'.

'People are increasingly using digital payment methods, but there is an ongoing place for cash in our society under the Albanese government,' Treasurer Jim Chalmers (pictured left) and Assistant Treasurer Stephen Jones (Pictured right) said in a joint statement. 'The government will mandate that businesses must accept cash when selling essential items, with appropriate exemptions for small businesses.'”

They said the government was still fleshing out what constitutes an essential item. But broadly speaking, it would include things such as groceries and fuel, with supermarkets, basic banking services, pharmaceuticals, petrol stations, utilities and healthcare services. 'For many Australians, cash is more than a payment method, it's a lifeline,' the Treasury officials continued. 'Around 1.5 million Australians use cash to make more than 80 per cent of their in-person payments. Cash also provides an easily accessible back-up to digital payments in times of natural disaster or digital outage.'[1]

This is a big win for a lot of people.

Interesting that it's the Labor party, too, that is moving to protect cash payment.

I say this often and I know it's unpopular, but even bad governments are given for good order and can get things right. Kids off social media. Cash being protected. Let's hope they make Only Fans and it's like illegal next. You never know.

But this move to protect people’s right to use cash is a move in the right direction and against the globalist push towards making everything electronic. Just recently the inability for people to get access to payments because of power outages during natural disasters highlighted the importance of having a non-digital legal currency. But what is interesting is that the article notes that Norway has taken steps to protect cash usage because of security concerns about Russia. Showing that Russia’s opposition to the global world order encroaching on its borders has had knock on effects against that global world order that some did not except.

This is often the case with empire and globalist movements. One nation seeks to dominate all others, and this overreach causes a reaction against it from nations strong enough to resist, and this undoes all of the global pretensions of that power. We are seeing this at work with Russia and its allies opposing the Neo-Liberal order right now.

I do not think Australia’s move to protect cash payments is a result of this. I think it is more likely that lobbying behind the scenes and the clear threat to order posed by people not being able to access money during a natural disaster if everything is electronic, showed that so called digital future is far more fragile than people realized. This is good, let’s pray for more moves in the right direction like this.

List of References

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[1] https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/australia/anthony-albaneses-reveals-major-changes-to-the-way-australians-pay/ss-AA1ugQZY#image=3

The Agreement That Robbed Our Country

 

You were robbed. Stolen from. You had your heritage and your prosperity deliberately taken away from you, and it was done right under your nose and you were lied to about it.

You may have heard the myth that Australian car manufacturing died because of unions and because of high wages caused by those unions. This argument is attractive to many, because a lot of people can comprehend why that could be the case. But it makes no sense logically. Think about it: Australia is a massive country, with heaps of resources, and a small spread out population. We need cars to get places. Because we have a small population spread out over a large area, we have no choice, but for the majority of people to own cars to do everything from shop, to work, to socialize. So, we need cars and we need people to buy them. 

If those cars are built in Australia, by Australians, from Australian resources, and the workers are paid in Australian dollars, who spend their money in the Australian economy, you have a closed system, don’t you? The money flows through the economy. The unions will be able to push for wages which make living in Australia possible, but the production of cars will continue to be necessary, so car makers will be able to demand a reasonable premium to make cars, but the money they make from those cars will go back into the economy, and the system will sustain itself over time. Like other countries the government will subsidize the industry by making up government vehicle fleets of Aussie cars, and this will to go back into the economy and aid the production of the cars.

Of course, the system was not totally closed, that is not my argument. But, if only Aussie made cars are being made, bought and sold, then how can high wages bankrupt the car industry? They can’t. You need an outside competitor to achieve this. In a closed system you may end up paying higher prices, because of higher wages, but those wages will balance out within the wider economy, because that money is part of the same system. Higher paid workers spend more in the economy right? This is why people are still buying homes, even though builders are making wages that car manufacturers would have once dream off, because their services are in such high demand, they can command high wages. Therefore, high wages is not the problem, interference in the system is the problem.

When I mention interference in the system, some people might think I mean subsidies. But all countries with a car manufacturing industry subsidize that sector, and Australia’s subsidies to our car industry were modest compared to other countries. The problem was not the unions. Unions and collective bargaining are only a detriment if Australian workers need to compete against foreign labour which is far cheaper, and that is exactly what happened. This is what really killed our car manufacturing industry, along with much of the rest of our manufacturing, and this process was guided and deliberate. 

It is here where I ask you have you heard of the Lima Declaration?

The Lima Declaration was a 1975 United Nations agreement that many countries, including Australia, signed up to which had the express intention of moving western manufacturing to poorer developing countries. The stated aim was to bring equality to all countries,

“5. Recognizing the urgent need to bring about the establishment of a new international economic order based on equity, sovereign equality, interdependence and co-operation, as has been expressed in the Declaration and Programme of Action on the Establishment of a New International Economic Order, in order to transform the present structure of economic relations,…”[1]

The way this “equality” was meant to be achieved was by taking from the West and giving to developing countries so that they could catch up,

“36. That developing countries with sufficient means at their disposal should give careful consideration to the possibility of ensuring a net transfer for financial and technical resources to the least developed countries:

37. That special emphasis should be laid on the need of the least developed countries for the establishment of production facilities involving a maximum utilization of local human resources, the output of which meets identified material and social requirements, thus assuring a convergence between local resource use and needs as well as offering adequate employment opportunities;…”[2]

Notice that? The UN was asking for governments, including our Australian government, to transfer our own economic and technical resources to these countries so that they could do what our countries used to do, make things. Various measures were outlined to achieve this transfer,

“59. The developed countries should adopt the following measures:

(a) Progressive elimination or reduction of tariff and non-tariff barriers, and other obstacles to trade, taking into account the special characteristics of the trade of the developing countries, with a view to improving the international framework for the conduct of world trade. Adherence to the fullest extent possible to the principle of the “standstill” on imports from developing countries and recognition of the need for prior consultation where feasible and appropriate in the event that special circumstances warrant a modification of the “standstill”;

(b) Adoption of trade measures designed to ensure increased exports of manufactured and semi-manufactured products including processed agricultural products from the developing to the developed countries:

(c) Facilitate development of new and strengthen existing policies, taking into account their economic structure and economic, social and security objectives, which would encourage their industries which are less competitive internationally to move progressively into more viable lines of production or into other sectors of the economy, thus leading to structural adjustments within the developed countries, and redeployment of the productive capacities of such industries to developing countries and promotion of a higher degree of utilization of natural resources and people in the latter;

(d) Consideration by the developed countries of their policies with respect to processed and semi-processed forms of raw materials, taking full account of the interests of the developing countries in increasing their capacities and industrial potentials for processing raw materials which they export;

(e) Increased financial contributions to international organizations and to government or credit institutions in the developing countries in 12 order to facilitate the promotion or financing of industrial development. Such contributions must be completely free of any kind of political conditions and should involve no economic conditions other than those normally imposed on borrowers;…”[3]

The UN was asking our government to lower tariffs that protected Australian manufacturing, so as to help foreign manufacturers compete in our market. They wanted us to become dependent on food from overseas, and also on other products and raw materials made or partially processed overseas. They also expected us to move our own manufacturing to these foreign countries, give advantages to foreign manufacturing, and then also to use our own sovereign money to increase this process.

This is what killed our Australian car industry. This is what killed many other parts of our manufacturing industry. It was not the unions, it was a deliberate top-down strategy to move money, resources, man power and even technology overseas,

“(j) The developing countries should he granted access to technological know-how and advanced technology, whether patented or not, under fair, equitable and mutually acceptable conditions, taking into account the specific development requirements of the recipient countries;

(k) Appropriate measures, including consideration of the establishment of an industrial and technological information bank, should be taken to make available a greater flow to the developing countries of information permitting the proper selection of advanced technologies;

(I) International conventions on patents and trade marks should he reviewed; and all aspects of the question of their revision, including inter a/ia additional provisions of special benefit to the developing countries, should be studied through the work of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), with appropriate contributions from UNCTAD and other interested United Nations bodies, in order that they may become an appropriate instrument to assist the developing countries in the transfer and development of technology;…”[4]

In other words, Australia, and all the other developed countries that signed the Lima Declaration, were being asked to agree to hamstring their own manufacturing industries and pour money, intellectual expertise, and more into third world countries so that they could compete with our manufacturing and run it out of business, under the shroud of "equality". The stated goals were the movement of our own manufacturing to these foreign countries. This was not a biproduct of the agreement, it was the intention. And our country over-delivered. This was clear theft from the West, by western leaders and businessmen, dressed up in social justice language. Isn't that always the way? 

They even stated their goals to push more women into the workforce to achieve their leveling of all societies across the world,

“30. That in order to render really effective the full utilization of their available human resources, conditions should be created by the developing countries which make possible the full integration of women in social and economic activities and, in particular, in the industrialization process, on the basis of equal rights…”[5]

Feminism was never about equality and justice. It was always about mobilizing the “human resource” potential of all nations so that those at the top could profit from all countries equally. That was the only equality they really cared about.

The whole document reads like a quasi-Marxist declaration of how the elites will achieve "equality" throughout the world. But you could also read it as a grand crony-capitalist strategy outlining how western elites could gain access to cheaper workforces around the world. Which is precisely what happened. Western countries lost a lot of their advantage over the rest of the world, and now if you turn on the Australian media on any given night, you are likely to hear about how China’s rapidly growing technology and industrial base creates security concerns for the United States and Australia. But the very elites who complain about this are the vert elites who created the problem, or at least their heirs. We gave that technology and knowhow to these countries, and are now falling behind as a result.

But now you know. Now you know how you were robbed, how every western country was robbed by its own leaders, and how our prosperity and intellectual heritage was given away. It was not an accident, it was a deliberate strategy of picking apart western manufacturing and technology and giving it to countries that are now leaping ahead of our own.

List of References

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[1] https://www.unido.org/sites/default/files/2012-10/Lima%20Declaration%20and%20Plan%20of%20Action%20on%20Industrial%20Development%20and%20Co-operation_26.3.1975_0.PDF

[2] Ibid.

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] Ibid. 

They Already Did

 

 

It is interesting how many prophecies that many people are looking towards the future for a fulfilment, the Bible says are already fulfilled, 

Zechariah 12:10, "10 And I will pour out on the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem a spirit of grace and pleas for mercy, so that, when they look on me, on him whom they have pierced, they shall mourn for him, as one mourns for an only child, and weep bitterly over him, as one weeps over a firstborn." 

John 19:36-37 - "36 For these things took place that the Scripture might be fulfilled: “Not one of his bones will be broken.” 37 And again another Scripture says, “They will look on him whom they have pierced.”

The Church, nor Christians, have any authority to add a future fulfilment where the scriptures say a prophecy was fulfilled in Christ. This is so for a few reasons. First, yes some prophecies have more than one fulfilment, but the previous fulfilment was before the coming of Jesus and pointed to him. Which leads to the second, more important reason; these prophecies all point to Jesus and his Church, and therefore, to apply them to some future kingdom in Canaan goes beyond what the Scriptures itself says. 

But there is a third reason, one of the most powerful apologetic tools the church has used in history to defend the scriptures is to point to these fulfilled prophecies as proof that Jesus would return, and the trustworthiness of his word. Adding future (to us) fulfilments to already fulfilled prophecies places your argument for the reliability of the word of God on sinking sand. Many bad readings of "prophecy being fulfilled in our day" have happened in the history of the Church, and they always led to massive disasters. But there can be no disaster for the one who sees these events as fulfilled in Christ, and builds people's faith on that foundation.

When it comes to whether or not the Jewish people need to look upon the one whom they pierced, the answer is they already did. It's is now time tor all who hear his warning about judgement to repent and trust in him. 

Has Standing With Israel Blessed America? (Part One)

Has standing with Israel blessed the United States?

The true test of any theology is in its fruit. Jesus indicates this himself. For instance in the gospel of Matthew he says,

“15 Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep's clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. 16 You will recognize them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 So, every healthy tree bears good fruit, but the diseased tree bears bad fruit. 18 A healthy tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a diseased tree bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus you will recognize them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:15-20)

If the true test of a prophet is the fruit they bear, does it not stand to reason, also, that the true test of a particular biblical idea is the fruit that it bears?

As I heard one Trump pick for his cabinet say, “Zionism and Americanism are the frontlines of western civilisation and freedom in our world today.”[1] For many American and Australian Christians the idea that supporting Israel brings blessing to a country, especially America, is just a given, that is why an American solider and journalist would say this, because he believes that America’s highest priority is its alignment with Israel, for this is God's will. For many Christian Zionists Israel first is America first, because only in blessing Israel can another nation be truly blessed. These two things come hand in hand.

So, what I intend to do once a week for at least the next few weeks is examine the fruit of this idea. If this idea is even remotely true it should be testable. God’s word is not mythical, it is not ephemeral, it is built on real and tested wisdom and therefore should be able to be tested. After all, does not God say, “Taste and see that the Lord is good?” (Ps. 34:8). Is this not an invitation to test the application of his Word? 

For some of you reading this, the answer to this question is that of course this notion is unbiblical. It is simply untrue that supporting a secular, indeed, godless nation like Israel would bring any blessing to America. You already know the countless ways this has caused America to open its own borders, to get involved in wars around the world and more. You understand that throughout history whenever one nation has drawn too close to another nation and had its sovereignty subverted by that union it has been bad for both of those countries. You already know all this and need no convincing. 

However, there are people who are not aware of the manifest ways that supporting Israel has either damaged the United States, materially in the world, or correlated to social decline which in no way can be said to be the result of blessing. Some of these people may be open to considering a counter argument if it is laid out for them. So that is what I will do in this series.

The first example I would like to bring up is the 1970’s fuel crisis. You have probably heard of this, as Austin Powers jokes in one of his movies, it does not matter if you have missed the 1970’s all you missed was a fuel shortage and a flock of seagulls. At least he makes some joke along those lines. The fuel shortage and the harm it did to American manufacturing and culture are well known. But are you aware of what caused this fuel crisis, a crisis that extended even to Australia at the time? It was the United States standing with Israel:

“The Arab oil embargo of 1973 put the United States economy on the back foot, causing fuel shortages, a quadrupling of oil prices and long lines at gas stations. Several legacies of the resulting energy crisis have persisted decades later.

The spark of the embargo was the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, when a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria launched a surprise attack on Israel on the holiest day on the Jewish calendar. In that war, the Soviet Union resupplied its allies Egypt and Syria, and the United States responded with a massive airlift of supplies to aid Israel.

Members of the Organization of Arab Petroleum Exporting Countries (OAPEC) retaliated with an oil embargo against the United States and the Netherlands, Israel’s main supporters at the time. The resulting shock to the U.S. economy proved to be a vexing problem for American consumers and a string of U.S. presidents, who struggled to adapt. But it also led to important changes in energy efficiency, policymaking and building designs.”[2]

For its stance in supporting Israel America came face to face with one of the worst energy crisis’s it has ever faced. The actions of the OAPEC countries drastically cut down the supply of oil to America causing inflation and economic distress across the United States and its closest supporters.

One of the onflow effects of this was the expansion of the United States government, “In an April 1977 speech, new President Jimmy Carter proposed the creation of the Department of Energy, one of several policy changes he announced aimed at dealing with the challenge of a vastly changed energy landscape.”[3] Just consider that for a moment, a government caused crisis - America had no reason to intervene in that Yom Kippur war - created the very excuse the Democratic President needed to expand the size and reach of the US government. This was a direct result of the American support for Israel. 

Almost every Christian Zionist I know would agree that the expansion of the government is a net negative. They would also point to a litany of disasters that having increasing government causes. This is almost definitionally, according to most conservatives and most Zionists I know, not a blessing. The side effect of the creation of the Department of Energy was also to take power away from state departments that had previously been doing this job, increasing the size of the Federal government and therefore the centralization of power at the federal level. Another thing which is anathema to small government opponents, which many Zionists I know are. 

Another ongoing result of the support of Israel in this war was that Americans had to lower their standard of living,

“The energy crisis also forced U.S. presidents to make energy efficiency and conservation national priorities. Just two months after taking office, President Gerald Ford gave a speech  Congress on October 8, 1974, laying out his plan to curb inflation, which he dubbed Whip Inflation Now, or WIN. His message included urging Americans to conserve energy.

“To help save scarce fuel in the energy crisis, drive less, heat less,” said Ford.

In a 1977 fireside chat, Carter sported a cardigan sweater and urged people to keep their thermostats at 65 during the day and 55 at night to help ease a winter natural gas shortage.

In his April 1977 speech, Carter warned of a possible “national catastrophe” unless Americans were willing to make sacrifices that entailed curtailing energy consumption.[4]

Things Americans were free to do previously were suddenly restricted. Those like myself who are into muscle cars will know that these sanctions on America ended the muscle car era, and led to malaise era of car manufacturing. This itself should be all the proof we need to show that support for Israel has not blessed America; support for Israel ended the great American muscle car era for a couple of decades. 

During the malaise era of US car manufacturing  lower fuel using cars that were often much less reliable became the norm.[5] It was in this era when Japanese cars started to dominate the US market and overtake American cars in popularity. Largely because of the fuel efficiency of these smaller cars, but also because the Japanese had already been making smaller cars and were in the prime position to overtake American manufacturing when the new carbon emissions laws came into effect. America's stance on Israel made buying American cars unaffordable for many Americans. 

That is right, the decline of US car manufacturing and the increase in Asian manufacturing was a direct result of the United States support for Israel in the Yom Kippur war. That is not blessing, that is God directly taking from the US and giving to other countries, countries which compete dominantly with American and other western made cars today. In fact Japanese and Asian car manufacturing has completely killed the Australian car industry as well. The flow on effects of bad Middle Eastern policy have had generational effects.

Another side effect of the US support for Israel in the Yom Kippur war was the western focus on renewables which has spiralled out of control in our era,

“Carter also took symbolic steps like installing solar panels on the top of the West Wing of the White House in 1979. Many experts agree that Carter was ahead of his time in his focus on renewable and clean energy.

“A generation from now,” Carter said, “this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people— harnessing the power of the sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our crippling dependence on foreign oil."[6]

Essentially Carter, and other US presidents, were forced to seek to spin what was a disaster for the United State's economy as an “opportunity to innovate”. And for sure some innovations did happen, some positive, some negative. But the ongoing effects of America’s support for Israel was to hamstring its own economy and entrench foreign manufacturing in its own country in such a way that American manufacturing was to progressively lose its dominant position. The rise of Japanese car manufacturing, which was better positioned to take advantage of the new government policies on energy efficiency and carbon emissions, is just one example.

So, the next time you are looking around the roads around you and you are lamenting how so many of the cars on the road are made overseas, remember this happened in large part because of America’s commitment to a Middle East policy that directly led to a massive shock in their own economy and ongoing decline because of that. Of course, there is more to the story of why American manufacturing and Australian manufacturing have declined, but support for Israel is at least a large chapter in that story.

This is a direct impact. But what about a correlative impact?

Well this chart[7] is very significant. Look at what has happened to US debt since the 1970’s as the nation drew closer and closer to Israel:

Since the era of America tying its foreign policy close to Israel’s foreign policy, Federal Debt has skyrocketed in comparison to American Gross Domestic Product. This is a correlative point of data that shows that economic prosperity - because debt is not prosperity - has declined markedly since the United States has been closely tied to Israel. And, in fact, the closer it appears to have acted with Israel, which it has done so increasingly over time, the worse things have gotten.

Again, my argument is not that this relationship with Israel is necessarily the cause of this, I think the causes are multiple. My argument is simply to show that alignment with Israel has not blessed the United States, at least according to these two metrics. And that is all we need to demonstrate is it not? We need not demonstrate a causal link between the US supporting Israel and blessing, we need only establish a correlative link, because the blessings to America for supporting Israel are meant to be general, not specific. In other words, the act of support is supposed to lead to unspecified, but still observable and experienced blessings. However, we have established both a direct and a correlational link between support of Israel and lack of blessings in this one blog. And this is just the start of our series.

Tune in next week for more evidence that support for a secular country called Israel cannot be measurably shown to have blessed America. Bad ideas need to be challenged, especially those that propagate war. 

List of References

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[1] https://www.jns.org/trump-taps-pete-hegseth-for-defense-secretary/

[2] https://www.history.com/news/energy-crisis-1970s-innovation

[3] Ibid.

[4] Ibid.

[5] The term Malaise era refers to a period in the U.S. automotive industry from roughly the early 1970s through the early to mid 1980s, characterized by malaise: poor products and a generalized industry unease[1] — an era of profound adjustment as the U.S. automotive industry adapted to meet wholly new demands for more fuel-efficient, safe and environmentally responsible products.

[6] Ibid.

[7] https://www.macrotrends.net/1381/debt-to-gdp-ratio-historical-chart

Why Christian Nationalism > Conservatism.

 

Conservatism is merely a posture, it's a response to change. A reluctance to allow innovation, modification or change. It happens to be the correct response in a lot of situations. We should not change God's word; we should conserve it’s authority and teachings. We need not remove the monarchy; we should conserved the proper hierarchy in society. We don't need to "progress" marriage etc, etc; the definition of marriage as being between a man and a woman deserves to be conserved. Conserving is a good response in these situations, but not all. Our debt based economic system needs radical change, for instance.

But conservatism fails to present a vision for society. Any vision at all. It's a response to suggestions or innovation, hence it is inherently reactive. It's really just a default position, or preference, rather than a creative vision.

Christian nationalism, in contrast, presents a vision of society and what it can be. A compelling vision of a nation lifting up Christ as Lord. A nation having its laws informed by the Word of God. Christian Nationalists are not naive enough to think that all people in a Christian society are actual Christians. Not even all Jesus' disciples were believers. We have no false pretensions about such things.

But it gives us a vision to push towards, and, ironically it conserves better than conservatism. Conservatism has no basis for conserving anything. It is just biased towards what currently is. But Christian nationalism (CN) does.

There's no natural basis for preserving one-woman one-man marriage. Nature presents every sexual perversion possible. Only Christianity mandates and preserves "traditional" marriage. It presents a vision of marriage to work towards, that people can bring up in their minds, and that society can work towards affirming with marriage positive laws and privileges.  

Only CN presents a compelling reason to honour the family; its decreed by God and practical. Only CN presents a good reason to preserve authority and institutions; they are given by God. Only CN can provide a reason for limited government; government should stay in its place and not encroach on the sphere of the family or the Church. Only CN presents a good reason to preserve Gender; it is inherently decreed by God. Only CN presents a reason to preserve society; because it is God's ordained community for humanity to live in. Other philosophies can't even justify the right for society to exist, environmentalism being a key example. Christian Nationalism gives us a very clear image of all of these things, and a motivation to preserve them once they have been achieved. It gives a solid foundation for a society to build upon.

Christian Conservatives may agree and even support all these things. But conservatives are not inherently Christians and different conservatives are prone to reacting differently to different changes. An atheist, family man, with a conservative disposition may agree with conserving some aspects of society, he may even stand beside the Christian conservative in opposing something like abortion, or same sex marriage. But he does not have a vision of a good to work towards that comes from outside himself. He does what is right in his own eyes. 

If we want to change society for good we need a compelling vision. Only Christian Nationalism gives a compelling answer to modern progressivism and its relentless pursuit of Marxist (really Satanic)[1] goals. Christians don't even need to agree on what denomination's perspective to move towards. All give a compelling vision that is superior to conservatism. And the faith of the nation will guide which expressions become more influential, as they did in the past.  

This is why Christian Nationalism creates such a reaction with so many of its opponents. They can see the vision, or at least a caricature of it, as clearly as its advocates and it frightens them. It overturns most of the modern values killing our society, it challenges entrenched power structures, it even presents an alternative vision for how money and debt should be handled in a nation. Whereas conservatism barely registers a response, as it is toothless.

Give people a good to work towards and you'll bring much of society along.

List of References

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[1] Marxist Communism was really just one form of anti-Christian philosophy that was generated in the 19^th century and targeted at the Church and family. There were many others like Darwinism, Theosophism, Feminism and more.

The Left Is Smarter On This

 

Christians will mock the Greens for this. In large part because the Spirit of the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son reigns strong in the Church. And because they forget 3 things:

1) Boomers and older Gen Xers actually got free university, though if I remember correctly it was subject to an aptitude or intelligence test, which is the right policy. It should be limited by ability, not income. Since HECS, or fee help, has been introduced the cost of education and the nonsensical state of higher education have both sky-rocketed, showing our current system is broken, badly. Introduce intelligence tests and you can't justify interpretive dance PhD's...but then how would anyone remember the 2024 Olympics, right?

2) It is a Christian imperative, not suggestion, to forgive debts. The New Testament gives two commands regarding debts: pay your debts, and forgive debts.

3) Society wide debt forgiveness is a biblical tradition, and was practiced by every successful ancient culture, and many Christian societies up until the late medieval era.

Wait till the Greens find out that countries as recently as the 1940's (Germany) have successfully forgiven debts society wide and their economies have boomed. They'll win every election in a landslide, rightly so. But Christians should have been far ahead of them. It's our Christian legacy in the New Testament, it's our biblical legacy from the Old Testament, and it's our historical legacy because it was Christian societies that continued this grand strategy for economic renewal of a society in the post Western Roman Empire era.

It's infuriating to me as both a pastor and historian that the Greens are so far ahead of the Church or Christian parties on such policies. But not surprising as I have long predicted they would be. The older brother gets angry when someone who was not as clever as him is relieved of their self-earned burdens. But if you forgave everyone's debts in the country, except mine I'd celebrate. The Christian political parties should run on a two part debt policy program: we want to forgive debts and tell everyone that Jesus forgave their sins. They'd win some seats that way. 

Because this goes beyond just personal responsibility, the system needs resets. If it does not get them, you end up having them forced by violent revolutions that reset everything anyway, but by force. If you don't want the so-called "Great Reset" to gain popularity, follow the original, the Jubilee.

 

Child Social Media Ban

 

 

I find conservatives very interesting. They complain about the degradation of society, and are very verbose about it as well. Article after articles comes out daily from every conservative site tolling the decline of morality in society. And then along comes a government with a plan that will actually combat this to some degree, and they all freak out. I think this comes down to two things really, 1) a distrust for the government, which is fair enough, and 2) the natural conservative inclination for reacting against any change to the status quo that they did not think of first. There is almost this inherent conservative desire to react against any suggested change. Conservatives want to complain about bad things, but actually doing something? No, that would require working with governments we don’t like (something Daniel, Joseph and Moses did) and making actual structural changes to society (something the Church of the past did a lot). 

But the truth is something needed to happen with social media. It is like social cocaine and is especially terrible for kids. It needed to be restrained. Many conservatives have identified this as a problem for some time, but have been loath to do anything about it.

It's interesting how humanity does not learn, isn't it.

Israel refused to allow the land to have its allotted Sabbaths, properly, as God had ordained for it, and so he forced them off the land that it may have its Sabbaths,

"20 He took into exile in Babylon those who had escaped from the sword, and they became servants to him and to his sons until the establishment of the kingdom of Persia, 21 to fulfill the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah, until the land had enjoyed its Sabbaths. All the days that it lay desolate it kept Sabbath, to fulfill seventy years" (2 Chron. 26:20-21)

They did not voluntarily do the right thing, so God forced them to do it through the power of the Babylonian state.

In the same way many parents have been neglecting their children by allowing them free access to social media from stupidly young ages, or using their kids to build their social media presence. Even though the clear harms have been documented, discussed and publicized for years, which parents are fully aware of.[1] So now God is using the power of the "spiritual" Babylonian state to take it away from them, giving them no choice.

People forget that the principle that God gives bad peoples bad leaders is a reality, not just the observation of preachers. When populations do not properly steward that which God has placed in their authority, he will bring leaders who enforce it on people, and use authoritarian means to do so.

This has happened in many ways in Australia, with many laws. The state does not just randomly decide to get involved in things that should be the authority of parents and parents alone out of the blue. This has long been invited. Australian parents have begged the state to provide, teach and train their kids more and more over the years, and therefore the state has become managed by those who were effectively raised by it, and are simply paying that forward. When such a state sees parents not using their authority to stop something, they will naturally interfere.

If you want the state to stop interfering in such things, the responsibility is on us to stop the state providing, teaching and training all of our kids. And the responsibility is on us to not need the state to tell us how bad social media is for kids, after all, we are already aware of that. It is not great even for all adults. Right?

List of References

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[1] Ask how many of those same parents are happy they did not grow up in the social media era. You can do the same for your kids as well.