Perhaps you may have heard of the Fall of the Roman Empire. A bunch of German nations had been invading what we today think of as Europe for a century or so, and had been knocking on Rome’s door. There was a natural barrier between them. The Romans held the passes in a central mountainous region, from which flowed the Danube River to the east and the Rhine River to the north and west. The Romans could build and protect a few bridges over both. The Germanic tribes weren’t too good at bridges. One winter, shortly after 400 AD, the Danube froze over thickly at one place, and the German hordes were able to cross without any Roman bridges. A short time later, the Roman capital was sacked repeatedly.
The people living scattered around what had been the Roman Empire were not too happy to see these German raiders. It made them nervous, and for good reason. German raiders were rather barbaric by civilized Roman standards. Rome had reached the pinnacle of it’s own brand of civilization and power, and began to eat itself, which made it easy for the hardy Germanic raiders. So the nervous folks who had formerly been Roman citizens were quick to turn to any powerful authority who promised not to kill them outright. Those with any property at all were quite willing to surrender the title to it for safety. Plenty of seemingly civilized and powerful men took them up on their offer. Feudalism was reborn once more. When the Germanic fellows saw how profitable it was, they got in on the game, embracing some portion of the old Roman civilized ways, but for the most part simply updating their own barbaric ways with a better costume.
When you see a tempting target, and you want to conquer, it’s no longer necessary to chop up so many people with swords, burn their homes, roast their animals whole over open fires, and such. We have long been conditioned to accept more oppressive government than almost any serf in Europe ever experienced, so it’s not hard to make us turn to the next new overlord when the old one starts tottering. We are so very dependent on the a very large and unsustainable system, addicted to a thousand useless toys and entertainments, lavish homes bigger than most Medieval castles, and food choices they could not imagine. Consider, most of the humans living in Europe didn’t get meat on a regular basis until the 1600s. The poorest among us, barring self-destructive idiocy, can expect to live twice as long as the average adult serf in the Middle Ages. And we have less to live for.
The current economic malaise is obviously planned out for a reason. That reason is to herd us into a willing surrender to any safe haven promising to let us keep a small portion of our toys and maybe our lives.
Of course, you could choose to fight. Depending on what route you take, and where you take it, and how many around you have a similar mind, you just might live a while longer in some measure of freedom. No, I’m not talking so much about raising an army and hiding in the mountains. I’m talking about making yourself less dependent. If you really must cling to the decadent non-culture of today’s America, there is no hope for you. Can you leave your big-screen TV behind, knowing you’ll never see it again? How about your fancy gas-guzzler? That truck load of kitchen convenience gadgets? The iPods, cellphones, broadband Internet, DVDs, etc.? No? You are doomed. If you said “yes,” there’s hope for you.
That’s because you might have brains enough to understand the notion of contextual independence. Nobody gains absolute independence without killing just about every other human on the face of the planet. After which you will be working yourself to death for food in just a short time. We are social creatures and surrender some of our “rights” to co-exist and prosper. What makes you independent is the process by which you turn that co-existence into a life. That is, consider where you are, and just what really you can choose. Recognize the limitations of the situation, then take a proactive stance in keeping yourself independent of those not in your immediate community. That’s what God designed for us to do. It’s called “tribal living.” If you don’t need big bank loans because you can live with the house your resources can make or buy right now, and you don’t really need a grocery store because you can live on what you can obtain and grow in your community, and so forth, you don’t need to turn in fear when the economy of the US collapses.
And it will. Think about it.
