CultureStack

Gary Arnell

Exploring Morality, Politics, Economics, Society, and Slot Canyons

Episodes

  1. 06/30/2023

    Jesus, Pride, and the Trojan Herd

    Is Pride Month compatible with Christianity? Many believers believe so. Written version Pride Month is appealing to Christians and other people of good faith because they see it as a way of showing charity, compassion, and Christ-like love. It can appear to be a way of fulfilling the Second Great Commandment that everyone can rally around, transcending religious and ideological divides. But with Pride, these well-meaning actions are done under a false flag. Pride has parents and is not an only child. Pride, Wokeism, Critical Race Theory, Queer Theory, Black Lives Matter, Anti-Racism, Post-Modernism, Socialism, Communism, etc. are all descendants of a worldview that originated with Hegel and Marx; species belonging to the same genus, if you will. These movements are Anti-Christ, in the very real sense of standing in direct opposition to everything Christ means for us to be and do. Christ seeks to change the individual, who is then free to change the state. Marx seeks to change the state, using individuals as coal for the inevitable fires necessary to reforge society. As such, these movements are also Anti-West because Western Civilization was born of a marriage between Jerusalem and Athens - a history-pivoting combination of Judeo-Christian theology on the origin, nature, and worth of human beings and the brilliance of minds like Plato, Socrates, Aristotle, and Cicero - that has resulted in the most free and prosperous epoch that planet Earth has ever seen. The Historical Materialism of Marx and Nietzsche gave birth to Nazism, Stalinism, Leninism, and Maoism resulting in some 100 million deaths in the 20th century, but they couldn't overcome the West. Frustrated, their heirs took a longer, more gradual approach, one that activist Rudi Dutscheke called "the long march through the institutions." That is, the institutions that had inoculated the West against Marxism; namely family, religion, academia, law, and capitalism - with the goal of either destroying them or commandeering them for utopian purposes. The universities were first, led by the fall of the humanities and social sciences with the STEM fields now giving way. Capitalism is being infiltrated via ESG and CEI scores or similar initiatives enforced by operatives within the companies themselves or at the levers of power in the 401ks and pension funds that own substantial shares in those companies. This is the reason behind the behavior of companies like Disney, Target, and Anheuser-Busch and their brand and market value self-destruction. Corporations, academia, and government are being overtaken by Orwellian policies like Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion - all Motte-and-Bailey doublespeak terms that sound compassionate to the Western ear but have entirely different meanings within the Woke worldview. Religion and the family are in precipitous decline for several reasons, but one of them is the hypersexualization of our culture. Under these philosophies, license and promiscuity are means, not ends. When sexual identity and pursuit become paramount religious and familial ties disintegrate. On their heals came Pride, the origin of which included activists like Martha Shelley who proclaimed they were "in revolt against the sex-role structure and nuclear family structure". Each of these Marxist cousins seeks, at their base, the same objective - the repudiation and dismantling of Judeo-Christian and Western societal norms in order to bring about the "end of history", a utopian vision Marx believed would be realized if we could just remove the oppressive societal and institutional chains that bind and obscure it. Thus the push to ruthlessly criticize all aspects of Western society (i.e. Critical Theory). Pride, Woke, and their cousins are wolves in sheep's clothing. Not just one Trojan Horse, but an entire herd bent not on greater compassion and understanding, but on the literal overthrow of the West.

    Jesus, Pride, and the Trojan Herd
  2. 10/12/2020

    Originalism v. the Living Constitution: The Case for Confirming Amy Coney Barrett

    Widely misunderstood, Constitutional Originalism is not a desire to return to slavery and the days before women could vote. It's simply the belief that a judge's job is to determine and rule on the meaning of the law - the will of the people - as most recently enshrined into law. It makes no moral judgments like "abortion is good/bad" or "the death penalty is good/bad." Value judgments are left to the legislature - one of the important separation of power mechanisms built into the Constitution. Living Constitutionalism, on the other hand, is the belief that judges themselves can reinterpret the law if they believe social values have changed since the law was last updated - they can act in the place of the legislature.  It's not that Living Constitutionalism makes bad decisions, per se, or even that Originalism makes ones we agree with. It's a question of jurisdiction, of "who decides?" By breaching the wall of separation between the legislature and the judiciary we introduce volatility, instability, insecurity, and illegitimacy into the political arena. We increase division and contention. We end up concentrating power into the hands of the few by removing it from the hands of the many. We encourage coercion rather than conversation.  Confirming originalist judges like Amy Coney Barrett is a critical step in restoring the proper role of the judiciary and healing the bitter divisiveness in our nation. This podcast is available in written form at https://www.culturestack.online/post/originalism.

    Originalism v. the Living Constitution: The Case for Confirming Amy Coney Barrett

Ratings & Reviews

5
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Exploring Morality, Politics, Economics, Society, and Slot Canyons