Truth Over Tyranny: Biblical wisdom for defeating the Technocrats.
These are my insights for defeating the Transhumanist Technocracy movement, based on the teachings of Rabbi Jonathan Sacks, of blessed memory, on the weekly Bible portion.
Larry P. Arnn, President of Hillsdale College, is an illuminating commentator on the transformation of America from a bureaucratic government to a Constitutional government. He identifies for us the essential changes that must take place as we drive back the Technocracy. Chief among them is our definition of leadership.
In an interview in 2011 with political scholar Peter Robinson, he spoke about the leader as educator: as someone who makes important things clear to people. One of the most fundamental lessons for Americans, is about the beauty and unity of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution.
Here are some highlights from that interview:
The Declaration was a direct challenge to “government by ruling family:”
“There are three incredible things to keep in mind about the Declaration. First, there had never been anything like it in history. It was believed widely that the only way to have political stability was to have some family appointed to rule. King George III went by the title ‘Majesty.’ He was a nice and humble man compared to other kings; but still, when his son wanted to marry a noble of lower station, he was told he mustn’t do that, no matter what his heart said. That was the known world at the time of the American Founding.”
The Declaration was made by people who were ready to die for their independence:
“Second, look at the end of the Declaration. Its signers were being hunted by British troops. General Gage had an order to find and detain them as traitors. And here they were putting their names on a revolutionary document and sending it to the King. Its last sentence reads: ‘And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.’ That is how people talk on a battlefield when they are ready to die for each other.”
The Declaration was a “pledge of obedience” to God’s law, above any human law:
“The third thing about the Declaration is even more extraordinary in light of the first two: It opens by speaking of universal principles. It does not portray the Founding era as unique—’When in the Course of human events’ means any time—or portray the Founding generation as special or grand—’it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another’ means any people. The Declaration is thus an act of obedience—an act of obedience to a law that persists beyond the English law and beyond any law that the Founders themselves might make. It is an act of obedience to the ‘Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God,’ and to certain self-evident principles—above all the principle ‘that all men are created equal” with ‘certain unalienable Rights.’
“For the signers to be placing their lives at risk, and to be doing so while overturning a way of organizing society that had dominated for two thousand years, and yet for them to begin the Declaration in such a humble way, is very grand.”
The arrangements of the Constitution uphold the principles of the Declaration:
“The Constitution contains three fundamental arrangements: representation, which is the direct or indirect basis of the three branches of government described in the first three articles of the Constitution; separation of powers, as embodied in those three branches; and limited government, which is obvious in the Constitution’s doctrine of enumerated powers—there is a list of things that Congress can do in Article I, Section 8, of the Constitution, and the things that are not listed it may not do. And all three of these fundamental arrangements, far from representing a break with the Declaration, are commanded by it.”
The King of England violated these arrangements:
“Look at the lengthy middle section of the Declaration, made up of the list of charges against the King. The King has attempted to force the people to ‘relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.’ He has ‘dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.’ He has ‘refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.’ So he has violated the idea and arrangement of representation.
“What about separation of powers? As seen in the charges above, and in the charge that he would call together legislatures ‘at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant…for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures,’ the King was violating the separation of the executive and legislative powers. And in ‘[making] judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries,’ he was violating the separation between the executive and judicial powers.
“Similarly, he violated the idea of limited government by sending ‘swarms of Officers to harass [the] people, and eat out their substance,’ by importing ‘large Armies of foreign Mercenaries,’ by ‘imposing Taxes on [the people] without [their] Consent,’ and in several other ways listed.”
And so the American Revolution was justified:
“By violating these arrangements—which would become the three key elements of the Constitution—the King was violating the principles of the Declaration. This is what justified the American Revolution. And the point of this for our time is that in thinking about the American Founding, we should think about the Declaration and the Constitution together. If the principles and argument of the Declaration are true, the arrangements and argument of the Constitution are true, and vice versa.”
To preserve Constitutional government, it is the job of our leaders to teach us to love these principles and arrangements:
“Everything is a teaching opportunity. Teaching is, of course, what we do here at Hillsdale. But the great presidents are teachers as well. It is a generous and fine thing to do, to labor to make important things clear to people—which of course you cannot do unless you are able to make them clearer than if you are just talking to yourself. That is why Abraham Lincoln’s speeches are beautiful. You cannot read many of them unless you read them carefully. An example is Lincoln’s Peoria address on the history of slavery. He labored for months putting it together, and Americans could learn how slavery moved in our country because he laid it out. And then at the end of the speech he combined that history with a lovely explanation of why the principles of our country are capable of reaching and protecting every human being, and ennobling them, because they get to participate in rule. To know that about the principles of our country is to love them. I see that happen all the time in the classroom. So what we need is for people to know and understand our country’s principles. Love will follow.”
Given the deep roots of our Founding Fathers in Biblical tradition, it is not surprising to learn that the model of our leaders as educators has a Biblical origin. Rabbi Jonathan Sacks talks about this in his commentary on Parashat Devarim called “The Teacher as Leader.”
https://rabbisacks.org/covenant-conversation/devarim/the-leader-as-teacher/
Moses himself ended his career as the first leader of the Jewish nation, as a teacher. In doing so, he set the template for revolutionary leadership:
“It was one of the great moments of personal transformation, and it changed not only Moses but our very conception of leadership itself.
“By the end of the book of Bamidbar, Moses’ career as a leader would seem to be ending. He had appointed his successor, Joshua, and it would be Joshua, not Moses, who would lead the people across the Jordan into the Promised Land. Moses seemed to have now achieved everything he was destined to achieve. For him there would be no more battles to fight, no more miracles to perform, no more prayers to make on behalf of the people.
“It is what Moses did next that bears the mark of greatness. For the final month of his life he stood before the assembled people, and delivered the series of addresses we know as the book of Deuteronomy or Devarim, literally ‘words.’ In these addresses, he reviewed the people’s past and foresaw their future. He gave them laws. Some he had given them before but in a different form. Others were new; he had delayed announcing them until the people were about to enter the land. Linking all these details of law and history into a single overarching vision, he taught the people to see themselves as an am kadosh, a holy people, the only people whose sovereign and lawgiver was God Himself.”
As their teacher, he gave the people their Why – to build a society based on freedom and liberty:
“Through the addresses we read in the book of Devarim, Moses gave the people their Why. They are God’s people, the nation on whom He has set His love, the people He rescued from slavery and gave, in the form of the commandments, the constitution of liberty. They may be small but they are unique. They are the people who, in themselves, testify to something beyond themselves. They are the people whose fate will defy the normal laws of history. ..”
This vision would sustain his people for generations:
“Moses surely knew that some of his greatest achievements would not last forever. The people he had rescued would one day suffer exile and persecution again. The next time, though, they would not have a Moses to do miracles. So he planted a vision in their minds, hope in their hearts, a discipline in their deeds and a strength in their souls that would never fade. When leaders become educators they change lives.”
And so Moses became the role model for the leaders of future moral societies:
“Teachers are the unacknowledged builders of the future, and if a leader seeks to make lasting change, they must follow in the footsteps of Moses and become an educator. The leader as teacher, using influence not power, spiritual and intellectual authority rather coercive force, was one the greatest contributions Judaism ever made to the moral horizons of humankind and it can be seen most clearly in the Book of Devarim, when Moses for the last month of his life summoned the next generation and taught them laws and lessons that would survive, and inspire, as long as there are human beings on earth.”
I would add this:
Generations of leaders who teach the people have followed Moshe Rabbeinu, “Moses our teacher.” For thousands of years, the Jewish people has not only survived but thrived because we have been taught our Why; our mission: to be an “am kadosh, a holy people, the only people whose sovereign and lawgiver was God Himself.”
The American nation is much younger; compared to the Jews, it is an infant. But its mission is very similar: to be “one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” It needs time to keep grooming leaders as teachers who will convey the national mission to the future generations. Just as with the Jews, if they stick to the mission, they cannot fail.