Stressed Nations Succumb Pt 2

Stressed Nations Succumb  Pt 2

Last post I said that our nations were in a state of psychological civil war, but then I got a bit off the topic. Let me finish that idea and then I will go on to look at some of the factors making our societies stressed.

Nearly a decade ago I was struck how some of my friends (OK one in particular!) could not talk about then President Bush without bubbling over with anger. It was an anger that really amounted to hatred, not just of Bush's policy decisions but of the man himself. This friend really saw Bush as an evil man.

In the past year democratic elections have supported “Brexit” and elected Donald Trump as president. Progressives have not stoically accepted these reverses as people on both sides of politics have in our past, but have been enraged. In the US we saw demonstrations by people who actually wanted to overturn the result of the election! This only used to happen in third world countries! And in third world countries the elections may have been rigged, but in the US the election was carried out according to the law of the land. So to actually want to overthrow the decision of the voters was a very serious and disturbing development.

We are getting to a situation where progressives are increasingly minded to use all the devices of their Communist or Fascist philosophical forebears against their fellow citizens to make them toe the “party line”. The “silent majority” (if they are still a majority!) keep silent out of a very real sense of fear, but come elections where they can vote in secret they make their voices heard, hence Trump and Brexit.

As Jesus said “A house divided against itself cannot stand”. Neither can our divided societies.

Now for some of the stressors weakening us. Many of these are being pushed now by progressives, but “come the revolution” when collectivists are in power the proponents of these will go to the wall. Others are just conditioning people to accept collectivist and will become much worse.

Take “climate change”. Collectivist China is not silly enough to destroy its industry by following this. No. No. you may say: “they signed up to the Paris accord”. Well of course they did! It does not require them to do anything 'till 2030 and they are already the biggest producer of CO2. So their economy is not hampered – but those of Western nations are! Could they ask for anything better! (True they have terrible smog – I've been there and seen it – but that is not CO2, that is particulates and similar pollutants – and they are curing that often by shutting down old and inefficient plants.) Russia with her huge gas fields … if you believe she will leave that in the ground you will believe anything! Besides in Russian eyes global warming would be a god thing – think of the vast froze wastes that might become farmable!

This applies whether or not you believe in human climate change – I say human because earth's climate is continually changing – it has been through 5 ice ages, and periods when it was much warmer than now – Oh, and times when it has had 15 or so times the present level of atmospheric CO2, so of course in the future it will be different to now – it's just a matter of whether we do or can influence it and whether it's going to get warmer or cooler (we may be enjoying the warm spot in an ice age!)

But in the West activists are making us do really silly things. In Australia for a start out electricity prices are going up and up because the government is mandating increasing levels of “renewable” sources. I the one state where the government is leading in this the've had blackouts because if the sun don't shine and the wind don't blow they don't get enough electricity. You can imagine what this is doing to industry, and the effect on ordinary huseholders. In other states sitting on huge gas reserves, utilisution of this gas has been banned, so people and industry face shortages and high prices. We have huge reserves of coal which used to provide very cheap electricity. Now it can't be used. There is a huge coal basin an Indian company wants to develop to export to India where they need cheap coal powered electricity for development – but activists are making banks and governments block it.

It is looking increasingly as though anthropogenic climate change theories will go the way of the flat earth theory! But supposing it is right – China and Russia are still going to push thing over the edge! But very conveniently for them, in the meantime we are destroying our own nations in the name of “climate change”.

This likely weakening of our economies and loss of jobs and living standard will make it easier for extremists to overthrow our democratic system and bring in a totalitarian one. It also makes us more vulnerable to invasion. Either way once a new dictatorship is in power there will be no more talk of climate change or “renewables” it will be produce, produce, produce. Those “useful idiots” - the climate and environmental activists will have a very quick change of mind – or a quick trip to the gulag!

That took up more words than I intended, so I'll postpone talking about other social stress factors til next time.