Real Liberty

 

It is not an accident that the government which has ramped up immigration more than any other government in our history, also has brought in the most restrictive speech laws in our history.

1)     They have already shown by their actions that they want to radically change this country.

2)     They know that most Australians, even people who have emigrated from other countries recently, don't like how quickly they are changing this country.

So, there was a need to make it harder for people to oppose their policies. As far as I know it is still allowable to criticize government policy. But the trajectory is towards less and less ability or freedom to do so.

Freedom or liberty, despite what some constitutions and philosophers say, is not really a human right. It is not something that most peoples have experienced in history, or even something that most peoples have conceived of, really. It is not something that many peoples in the world today have experienced, either. 

Liberty, rather, is a fruit, specifically a fruit of righteousness. Psalm 119:45 shows us this, "And I will walk at liberty, For I seek Your precepts." There is the kind of liberty to do what you want, which is really libertinism, which is really just anarchy. And there is the liberty to live as we were intended to, which is true liberty. Righteous liberty. This liberty means to live free from the constrain of evil.  

The problem we have today is that we forgot the difference, and the more our society moves away from its Christian foundations the more we are losing the liberty to live as we were intended to, by our creator. You can still do basically whatever you want, in many ways our society is still libertine, even more libertine really. But true liberty is shrinking. The ability to live free from the constraints of evil is disappearing.  

We forgot where our liberty really came from as a people, and hence we are losing it. I suspect most Australians won't care too much until they are no longer able to afford to do the things they want. That day is approaching, but we have so much slack and wealth in our society, that it has not hit people hard yet. At least not most people. Though younger Australians are already feeling it harder. And some others are starting to fall off the treadmill, it will be some time before this increases to where it effects most people in significant ways. But that day will come.  

Our nation is going through a process of refinement. Are you looking to God, or to politicians to bring us out of this? Are the politicians you think can help bring us out of this looking to God? If not, I don't see how they can bring back liberty. They would not really even understand what liberty actually is.

Keep Up the Good Fight*

I woke up with a really sore back yesterday morning. Its not the first time recently. For the last few days or week my back has been good, but over the last couple of months many mornings it has flared up bad, and has taken a long walk on the treadmill to stabilise. It comes from an old injury, that I thought I had healed, but it has flared up again. 

But yesterday morning was different. It was worse than it had been for ages. I don't know why, but it felt awful. My usual stretches barely helped. It really hurt, but I wanted to go to church. We are on holidays and I wanted to visit a particular church. But I actually wondered if I could physically do so. Personally, the level of pain was so intense I wondered if it was a spiritual attack. 

I also didn't want to hobble into church, as I was visiting another fellowship on my holidays. I prayed over it, tripled my stretches, paced in my office to loosen it up, and got into my car with a very sore back. 

Once we got to the Church, we found a park, and I got out of my car with my family and was able to stand and walk with a little twinge in my back. As we got to the front of the Church, I saw a man, likely in his late 50's or early 60's, who was hobbled by serious back pain. But he was walking purposely towards Church. He was only a metre or two in front of us at this point, and he slipped over at the front entrance to the Church. It was raining and the level had a hidden slight change at the entrance. 

Myself, and the two ushers saw him fall over, and we immediately went to help him. He stood up himself, and I handed him the two items he had dropped when he fell. He was fine, joyful and he walked into church, where I later saw him sitting with his family. 

Here I was wrestling with my pain, while at much the same time of the morning this man had obviously been doing the same, but with a far worse level. Lesson learned, as seeing him gave me real perspective. 

For some reason my back did not hurt at all again yesterday. 

Church was a blessing. The message was very solid, and grace filled. We also ran into old friends. 

You never know the battle some go through just to get to church. Some I know, because as a pastor people tell me. Others you never know. Some you experience yourself. 

Never give up the battle. It's always worth it to fight through it.

*I will be back to regular writing soon. Just enjoying an extended break with my family. God bless you all.

The International Law Joke

 

Let's just all agree international law does not exist, should not exist, and cannot exist. 

Law is a matter for sovereign powers, and there are no sovereign powers with global legitimacy, only powers that claim it and can back it up with force. Sovereignty does not exist beyond the nation-state. Everything beyond that is simply arrogation of power. 

So crying international law is meaningless. By international law every US president since WW2 would be in trouble. None are, because they just say, nope, don't agree. Because international law is a fiction. 

International law is what major powers use against weaker powers or losing powers. That's it. No more. 

Really, there is only power, and submission to a higher power. 

And Trump, and his government, do not believe in powers higher than their authority. Neither have previous US governments for decades, they just didn't make it so obvious. 

Now, that it is clear that international law was always a joke, a bad joke, a silly joke. Then we can start to face this world as it really is: major powers do what they want. Minor powers try to stay useful and out of their way...if they are smart. But our leaders have not been smart for some time. 

I hope Australia learns this lesson quickly. In a world where major powers don't pretend to follow any rules, we are foolish as a nation to try and dictate to larger powers (which our leaders bang on about too much), and we are doubly foolish to try and hold to international agreements that limit our ability to build stuff, make stuff, and dig up stuff.

It's time our government looked to serving the interests of Australians. The world did not just change, it changed a while ago. But our leaders act like we live in the old pretend rules based order. That order died with Bush jnr, Trump just put an exclamation mark on it. Really, it never really existed, powers just took advantage of other nations with it, while they could. 

Aussies need to adapt to this new more honest/brazen power dynamic. Cancel the crazy expensive social systems and put that money into making this country strong enough to face the new world, or risk being another Venezuela. If Venezuela had have focused on being strong rather than squandering their wealth on socialist programs, maybe they could have resisted what just happened, successfully. 

When you cut through all the propaganda, Venezuela's real mistake was being a resource rich country near an aggressive world power...and acting like that wasn't a big deal. It was. We'll see more stuff like this happen in coming years. The return of great power politics is here. And the great powers of the past saw weak lands with resources and took them before another did. And we have a lot of resources. And no amount of welcome to countries will stop a major power doing to us what just happened if they feel the need. Only strength will.