Catholic and Enjoying It!
The notion that the State should take it upon itself to go around assassinating Americans suspected of helping terrorists is crazy beyond telling, but (judging by the bedwetting panic of the torture supporters who are ready to sell themselves to a Caesar who tortures those he suspects if only he promises to keep their cowardly skins safe), I have little doubt that the cowards animating the Thing That Used to Be Conservatism will provide the same justifications for this as they do for torture–even when it means making Obama Judge, Jury, and Executioner of American citizens he happens to think might be guilty of something. What the cowards supporting this stuff don’t see is that once you tell Caesar to go ahead and start torturing and even killing American citizens abroad on the strength of mere suspicion, it’s only a matter of time before he starts doing the same at home. And not long after that, Caesar will find these tools of pre-emptive torture and murder useful, not only for fighting terrorism, but for other sorts of evils (or suspected evils) as well. He will also find that, having (accidently, of course), tortured and murdered people who turn out not to have done what they were suspected of doing, Caesar will have to invent justifications to cover his butt.
And, in the end, Caesar will stop inventing justifications and simply agree with himself that pre-emptive torture and murder do not require justifications since he is the strongest and “right” and “wrong” are whatever he says they are.
This will be the final fruit of the Dictatorship of Relativism: a dictatorship the Thing that Used to Be Conservatism is now actively helping to power just as much as the Thing that Used to be Liberalism is. Secular Messianism is all about promising Peace and Security in this life–if only we will ignore God. The slogan used by the Thing that Used to be Liberalism is typically some variation on “Peace!” (Peace from suffering, Peace from troubling responsibilities like babies, etc.) The slogan used by the Thing that Used to Be Conservatism is typically some variation on “Security!” (Security through Torture, Security Through Pre-emptive War and Assassination of Citizens without Trial).
When people say, “There is peace and security,” then sudden destruction will come upon them as travail comes upon a woman with child, and there will be no escape. But you are not in darkness, brethren, for that day to surprise you like a thief. For you are all sons of light and sons of the day; we are not of the night or of darkness. So then let us not sleep, as others do, but let us keep awake and be sober. For those who sleep sleep at night, and those who get drunk are drunk at night. But, since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation. For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ, who died for us so that whether we wake or sleep we might live with him. (1 Thessalonians 5:3-10)
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