Evil Thefts and Virtuous Expansions of Power

August 22, 2012 2 Comments

I suppose it’s natural that people who feel themselves powerless and ineffectual most of their lives would at some point begin to think about power. Josh and I have certainly begun to do so. There was a time when I would have scorned to think about power – my instincts are all for independence and in my maturity I have never wished to control anyone.

It comes clear to me now that this is precisely why we have to think about power – in order to protect and promote independence. In its natural state, if I may speak thus, power is each man’s ability to govern himself and his own affairs. When we say that people gather power or are power hungry this actually implies that they are thieves of power. They are stealing power from others so that one individual is now governing the affairs of others while they are no longer able to do so.

Sometimes a theft of power is formal and official. It may even be a sort of tax of power, leaving the victims feeling more or less free while they fail to notice how their decision making rights are slipping away bit by bit.

Sometimes a theft of power is accomplished by attacking someone’s spirit so that they become incapable of wielding their own power and yield it to the attacker de facto.This is the sort of rape of the spirit that Bill Gothard and his like have inflicted. But domestic abusers of all sorts, and many other kinds of people do the same. Some people, we suspect, give birth to children mainly so they have victims available to suck tributes of power and love from. Of course stolen love is also altered just as stolen power has gone sour.

There is a good seeking of power – it is the seeking to gain back any governance of one’s own self and affairs which one has lost. There is another good seeking of power – it is the seeking to expand one’s affairs and make them great. “Establish thou the works of our hands!” In making their own affairs great, men actually create wealth and power which would not otherwise exist. When many do this, they can  trade their wealth for other things of value – helping everyone. Wresting from a man his ability to create things of value which can be traded for other things of value destroys his earthly purpose. Of course it is possible to corrupt this process. But it is one of the evils of our age that the process itself has been vilified so that the wealth and power of men can safely be harnessed and stolen by the power-hungry.

Here is yet another reason why I prefer a family-based government such as feudal monarchy to the republican or democratic form. In the latter, everyone permanently “lends” his or her power to the whole. In the former, everyone keeps his or her own power but the great or the clever may expand it.

Of course the lie of Communism or collectivism is that the man who has expanded his own affairs has somehow stolen the power of others to live in prosperity. The other lie is that men can keep their power when they “lend” it to the collective or to the state. It is impossible.

It is difficult for me to understand how people can be unaware that the republican/democratic system is inherently unstable and naturally leads either to collectivism, as its logical extreme, or to tyranny, as a reaction.

Life, Soul's Knowledge Abuse, Collectivism, Communism, Democracy, Government, Parenting, Power, Republicanism, Society