The link discusses a recent obvious example of media people reveling in their hatred of the common "Blue Collar" Americans that live in "red state - flyover country". They proudly hate them, and firmly believe that they are honorable and just in their hatred. Hating the "Trumpkins" is a badge of honor, a "virtue" they are proud to signal.
And as in the Old Testament days of "an eye for an eye", our human nature begets hatred in return -- so we reap what we sow. We can no more change our flawed human nature without divine intervention than a tiger can change it's stripes.
Thus we now have a nation bathed in mutual hatred and a cold (so far) civil war.
2k years ago, Jesus came and presented a radically new and completely inhuman idea -- the idea of loving our enemies! Completely impossible for unrepentant humans, but as proven by many "sinning saints" in Christ, at least significantly possible through the Grace of God.
Much like the slow and often painful process of "getting in shape", bit by bit, step by imperfect step, Western civilization increasingly became a significantly Christian civilization., While still just in it's toddler phase, it unsurprisingly came to the much premature confidence of "MINE"! "MYSELF!".
The slowly maturing faith practice "ran into the street" (like a toddler breaking away from mom) of a number of wars, including the devastation of two world wars, and after being given the "car keys" of the bomb, it at least partially buckled down enough to best the class bullies of Hitler and Stalin (at fearsome cost). Like teenage "victories" however, the the assumption was immediately made that there was no "controlling authority", and a detour was made to the siren of pleasure, and rejection of authority (God).
Like all analogies, attempting to map the stages of an infinite God's plan to mere human activity is futile. A fool such as myself might imagine that it would be obvious by now that such a plan in no way fits the model of Historicism, Socialism, or Progressivism -- the World Wars alone would seem to drive home the fallicitious assertion that "progress is inevitable" in purely human terms (more "stuff", more "pleasure" -- and all of it perpetually requiring less effort! (but always bereft of any spiritual consideration)
Reading the Old Testament shows a God willing to let his children suffer terrible lessons on the path to accepting his Grace -- banishment to Babylon, many lost wars, etc. Free Will is a benefit with an eternal price -- either the light yoke of following Christ, or the eternal devastation of letting Satan and "the flesh" have mastery.
Today, one of the "sides" mostly rejects the idea of divine authority -- "higher power", while the other "side" may claim God's authority, their faith is largely in "cheap grace" -- no need to accept the humility of kneeling in submission, and realizing the constant human failure to love the "other". Virtue signalling of "good works" in raising others taxes, or celebrating the sin of others is counted as righteousness in the secular faith.
America, and in general all of Western Civilization blundered into the idea that we were "progressing" to some undefined "heaven on earth" of an ever more powerful centralized impersonal bureaucracy taking the place of the Christian God.
The creation of the European Union (EU) in the late 20th Century, and then the election of Obama in 2008 in the US seemed to have "sealed the deal" on Statist, Socialist or near-Socialist, centralized, Deep/Administrative elitist control.
The Statist/Socialist "victory" was at least delayed by the beginning of Brexit in the UK and the election of Trump in the US in 2016.
The Deep/Administrative State was not amused.
The Brexit vote in the UK was fought by the elite with vengeance, and the election of Trump was never accepted by the American left wing -- investigation by the Deep State started before he was elected, and has continued up to his impeachment by the house, to be officially rejected by the Senate in the next couple days. Brexit has just finally been completed after a battle of 1,317 days.
The age old battle of "the people" (the "Bourgeois", the "Commoners", the "Deplorables", etc) vs the Elites, the Davos overlords, the Betters, etc, continues.
In the US, Democracy worked from 1800 to 1865, then failed spectacularly with the Civil War. It failed again in 2016 as the "losers" failed to accept the results of an election -- how costly that failure is remains to be fully seen, however the linked article shows that hatred is again strongly evident.
Can democracy work without Faith? Not according to John Adams !
Humans LOVE to feel superior, and hatred of "the other" and virtue signalling about how strongly they hate that "other" is a major source of joy once the soul is given over to "The Dark Side".
Once we abandon God, might is right, and all "sides" seek "justice" in power! The "other side" is demonized and any "tired old ideas" of "loving your enemy" are abandoned to the dark and delicious feelings of superiority over those who fail to see the "wisdom" of your "truth".
Welcome to the Jungle!
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