At the core of human society is the family. Extend that family to cousins, and you have the tribe or clan. Extend that and you have the nation.
The Book of Genesis in Chapter 10 is often called the Table of Nations. Whether taken literally or metaphorically, it describes seventy groups of people who would go on to found nations. They were driven from Babel — run by a world dictator, Nimrod — and sent out with separate languages. What is interesting is that they were seen as starting with progenitors, that is to say: families.
The purpose of independent nations, according to the bible, was to limit man’s inclination to evil. If men were united their evil would only increase.
Gen 11:6 And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.
Splitting humanity up would limit the damage. All nations have their faults, but not the same faults, and so the competition keeps the mischief down.
But the key point is that nations are extended families.
Some groups never rose too far about the familial/tribal level. (African peoples for example, and ironically, the Celts. The latter were literate, and familiar with the technology of the day — often inventing it — but preferred the clan structure.) The ancient Greeks didn’t rise above the city level until outside forces compelled a sense of unity.
By the nineteenth century, and chiefly as a result of the French Revolution, the ideal became the nation-state.
The nation-state should contain a people who have a shared language, a shared history, a shared ancestry, a shared religion, and borders which conform to those standards. The state should have one law, agreeable to all, with a central capital. This was the ideal.
There are disagreements as to when this concept was enshrined. Some say it started with the treaty of Westphalia in 1648, but that only stabilized the relations between European empires. Those empires did not conform to the idea of a nation-state, and would later break apart themselves.
The French Revolution embedded the concept — France being the first nation to aim for the ideal. Local languages (Occitan, Basque, Breton, and so on) were eventually suppressed in favor of Parisian French. One national set of laws was imposed on the whole country. Everybody was made an equal citizen.
French children were taught that they had a shared history and ancestry, with their school texts beginning… “Our Ancestors the Gauls…” Despite present politically correct dismissals, it was generally true. Most French children of native stocks, even outlier stocks, had at least one Gaulish ancestor. France was generally Christian, usually Catholic, though allowance was made for Protestants and Jews. And the borders of European France generally conformed to the ancient borders of the Gauls.
Nations unified along these lines are hard to destroy. They can be invaded and occupied and still reemerge, even centuries later. Think of Poland or the Greeks. Both were occupied for centuries. What kept them together was a common ancestry, history, language, and religion. The borders might have been modified (Greece no longer controls Constantinople), but the core nation survived, and roughly in the same historical area. Greece reconstituted itself south of the Balkans, not in Scandinavia, while Poland resurrected itself along the Baltic, not South America.
Jews, particularly in Europe (the Ashkenazim), maintained a common religion, a common religious law (Torah), a shared history (the bible), a shared ancestry (intermarriage was frowned on), and a shared religious language (Hebrew, though it was limited to religious use). Yiddish functioned as the shared vernacular among Ashkenazim for non-religious use. The only thing they lacked was their historical land. When modern Zionism arose, they insisted on returning to their historical land, not a substitute.
To the extent any people maintain these commonalities, they are all but indestructible. The definitions can be adjusted, but not too much. The Greeks and Poles lost their sovereignty for a while, but kept everything else. The Jews lost their land, but kept everything else. The Japanese were under military occupation for seven years, but maintained everything else.
So the idea of distinct nations and cultures is a force for good.
One cannot mix oil and vinegar. Neither can one mix disparate peoples. Given time, they will separate. Yet, empires attempt to do this, hence they are intrinsically unstable. Probably the worst breakup was the Austro-Hungarian Empire. What a mess.
Yet, that is exactly what liberal one-worlders want. They claim to champion multiculturalism, but in truth see it only as meaningless outer affectations, useful only to divide a people. They champion religious tolerance. In reality, they know that when the religions of any community become too disparate, then the power of religion will disappear altogether, which is what they plan. Where there is little point of unity, outside control becomes easy. Divide and conquer.
When America was overwhelmingly Protestant, there was a generally agreed on set of morality and holidays. When Catholics started arriving in mass numbers in the 19th century, there was a fear that this unity would be upset. However, the adjustments were minor. Both celebrated Sunday as the sabbath, and shared the major holidays. Intermarriage smoothed things over.
The large-scale arrival of Jews after 1880 upset this a bit more, but it was confined chiefly to the New York City area, where there are some local curiosities. New York public school spring breaks tend to co-ordinate with Passover (because a lot of the teachers were Jewish). Everybody in the Metro Area (especially Brooklyn, Rockland County, Nassau County, and Ocean County, NJ) knows that there will be a pulse of heavy rush-hour traffic returning home before sunset starts the Jewish sabbath or holiday. Traffic reports mention it.
Oddly, it was the Jewish community which forced the creation of the two-day weekend.
In 1908, a New England mill became the first American factory to institute the five-day week. It did so to accommodate Jewish workers… – The Atlantic
In this case, the result was good, but it demonstrates that small communities can radically change societies, and that will not always be good. What happens when Muslims demand Friday off?
Europe’s Schengen Area was just a start. After homogenizing Europeans, the goal will be to homogenize the planet. Ultimately, the object is not multicultural tolerance, but to so fracture any society as to make it incapable of resisting one-world directives.
Ironically, Islam has a similar strategy.
…ISIS presents itself as transcending nationalism… saying “let the world know that we are living today in a new era,” rejecting the entire concept of the nation state, and reducing the world into the camps of the ummah (the Muslim community) and its opponents. — Tony Blair Institute (2015)
Both Islam and liberals want to destroy the nation-state, arguably the most stable political structure ever devised. This is the source of the leftist-Islamic alliance; and both use similar strategies.
Both favor unbridled immigration and the destruction of traditional marriages — remember that, at the core, the nation-state is ideally an extended family. The Left destroys the family with LGBTQ agendas. The Muslims destroy non-Muslim families with kidnapping, polygamy, and forced conversions.
Muslim men are encouraged to marry non-Muslim women (by sharia, the children are Muslim), while Muslim women are off limits to infidels. Countries can be demographically shifted by such tactics. It took centuries to shift Egypt from Coptic Christian to Muslim, but it does work. In the modern world, it will not take as long.
Both the Left and Islam target the nation-state, with the ultimate goal of imposing a one-world order, the only difference being the definition of what that one-world order will be. I suspect the Muslims are being used as useful idiots, and haven’t figured out the game yet.
Essentially, the one-worlders want to rebuild the Tower of Babel, and they admit it. They want to set up – or re-set up – a world dictatorship.
The plan to destroy nations must be resisted.
Peloni,
Are you championing the idea of the nation-state? The Hebrew word for “nations” is “goyim”. According to the Bible, there are two ethnic groups in the world: Jews and goyim. Germans are goyim. Ukrainians are goyim. Russians are goyim. Chinese are goyim. Americans are goyim. Does Israel want to be counted with the goyim? I know it actually IS
For what it’s worth, Christian translations of the Bible call the goys “heathen”, to distinguish themselves from the outsiders.
It’s all peculiar, how this has come about. Interestingly, the concept of a “nation state” came from the Westphalian treaties, which specifically granted sovereign status to members of the “Holy Roman Empire” (which some have noted, was at one time neither Roman nor Holy). The concept extended to France, which was once part of the HRE, to England, which was once tied to France, and outward, eventually becoming the “United Nations”.
Israelis rejoiced to become part of the UN, effectively being accepted as fellow goyim — at least on paper. That’s the way things ARE today, but I don’t see them as the desirable and final state of affairs.
@pdale5
A truly intriguing question to contemplate.
For my own thoughts, such as they are, I believe the opposite of what the WEF has planned for us all, holds the key to defeating the fall of the Nation State. They want to reduce us all down to a number, a carbon copy of one another so that we might each be lost in a sea of samenss, cursed with the underwhelming achievement of unanimous ambiguity and non-identity, while being happy with our lack of uniqueness. This is what they see as the path to their utopia world governance, and it is this that I would suggest provides the key to winning the struggle we face.
Basically reinforcing and reinstilling a sense of self-identity, personally, locally and nationally. Gender, race, religion, ethnicity, nationality, history – all of these render us each of us with a unique identity, a sense of who we are and what motivates us towards both great achievements, and the celebration of who we are and where we come from.
Beyond this, corruption must be plucked from the pie without reducing it to just the crust. Democratic nations must seek out democratic reforms without losing track of the identity which formulates the respective nations. Actually, I would go further than this and suggest that the national identity should be the focus upon which such democratic nations should pursue such reforms.
These are the principles by which the war for the salvation of the nation state should be focused, identity and reform, IMO, such as it is.
Hi, P Dale. Excellent question!
Simplest answer:
Matthew
[12] Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.
Nothing mysterious there. Even so, as you said,
“History, I fear, shows us that love, like truth, is the weakest instinct in all human beings.”
So, we recognize that instinctively, we are really not able to love. To put that in precise terms, as you are asking, that means that we want others to do unto us, much better things than we want to do unto them.
That’s actually putting things mildly. In fact, we want “others” (namely, God) to give us eternal life; but when it comes between you and me, I would instinctively sign your death warrant in order to live one more day. Have you ever seen the movie “The Grey Zone”?
https://www.imdb.com/video/vi636682521/
That should answer most of your questions, very precisely. Love is personal, not a governmental function; and the cost to you, which equals the cost you actually expect others to pay, is everything: your life, your freedom, your eternity; everything you own, everything you are. This is the cost you are expected to pay; because it is the cost you really expect others to pay for you.
Whom do you expect to pay that cost? The answer, ultimately, is God: He gave you life in the first place; and He is the only one you can reasonably expect to fill your bottomless wish bucket. Anything less is lies and vanity. You don’t want to live just another day; you don’t want to live 500 years; you want to live for eternity, and a pleasant eternity at that. And the odd thing is, God is able to give you that!
So, how much would you pay? How much CAN you pay? As you said, humans instinctively cannot pay the price. As King David once said,
Psalms 22:
[4] Our fathers trusted in thee: they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.
[5] They cried unto thee, and were delivered: they trusted in thee, and were not confounded.
[6] But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised of the people.
[7] All they that see me laugh me to scorn: they shoot out the lip, they shake the head saying,
[8] He trusted on the LORD that he would deliver him: let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.
[9] But thou art he that took me out of the womb: thou didst make me hope when I was upon my mother’s breasts.
[10] I was cast upon thee from the womb: thou art my God from my mother’s belly.
[11] Be not far from me; for trouble is near; for there is none to help.
“But I am a worm, and no man”
In fact, we are ALL worms, though few of us know it. How can you repay God, for the love you expect Him to show you? What teshuvah can you do? What offering can you give? Expecting another (i.e. God) to give you something you never will or even expect to give Him back is not love; it is just another form of selfishness. REAL love demands a REAL exchange: At least ONE man must give what he expects the ONE God to give. That is what true Christianity is about; and for those who are honest, what Psalm 22 is about; because Jesus prayed that psalm as his life expired on the cross.
Here are the terms of love, precisely:
Isaiah 59:
[11] We roar all like bears, and mourn sore like doves: we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us.
[12] For our transgressions are multiplied before thee, and our sins testify against us: for our transgressions are with us; and as for our iniquities, we know them;
[13] In transgressing and lying against the LORD, and departing away from our God, speaking oppression and revolt, conceiving and uttering from the heart words of falsehood.
[14] And judgment is turned away backward, and justice standeth afar off: for truth is fallen in the street, and equity cannot enter.
[15] Yea, truth faileth; and he that departeth from evil maketh himself a prey: and the LORD saw it, and it displeased him that there was no judgment.
[16] And he saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore his arm brought salvation unto him; and his righteousness, it sustained him.
None of us is willing to go to the cross, to suffer humiliation and death, with only scorn in return. But the Bible says there WAS one who was willing, and who accomplished it; and he closed our book, marked PAID IN FULL.
Michael: and if I am not religious at all and so do not take guidance from any religious teacher or any religious book?
My original question reformulated to take into account what you have said: Precisely how do we love one another? History, I fear, shows us that love, like truth, is the weakest instinct in all human beings.
Hi, P Dale. You said,
The nations (“goyim”) will be destroyed; that cannot be stopped. If you are a Christian, Jesus prayed the following concerning you:
John 17
[20] Neither pray I for these alone, but for them also which shall believe on me through their word;
[21] That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me.
[22] And the glory which thou gavest me I have given them; that they may be one, even as we are one:
[23] I in them, and thou in me, that they may be made perfect in one; and that the world may know that thou hast sent me, and hast loved them, as thou hast loved me.
[24] Father, I will that they also, whom thou hast given me, be with me where I am; that they may behold my glory, which thou hast given me: for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world.
[25] O righteous Father, the world hath not known thee: but I have known thee, and these have known that thou hast sent me.
[26] And I have declared unto them thy name, and will declare it: that the love wherewith thou hast loved me may be in them, and I in them
Our hope is in loving one another, not in any nations..
Precisely how must the plan to destroy nations be resisted?