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"When the Going Gets Weird, The Weird Go Pro"--Hunter S. Thompson

A Plague on Both Houses: Insane Ebola Policy Exposes American Suicide Culture



Has America passed the point of no return, where dying cultures arrive when their internal logic and external conversations descends into illiteracy, and then madness? Perhaps. For example, how is it possible that persons fresh from the site of outbreak of one of the world's worst viruses, simply walk off airplanes into American cities? Or, consider the dangerous, utterly indefensible policy of allowing the border to stay open, and illegal entries to cross, allowed to stay, even when criminal convictions for violent crimes are proved.
Again, the US victoriously leaving Iraq, only forced to return a few years later, in the midst of a horrific uprising of bloodthirsty Muslim radicals, merely proves the most obvious point--that America lacks leadership at the highest levels. But the Ebola crisis brings bad policy to the new threshold of indefensible self-harm. The policy is so bad, tenable reasons against travel bans can't even be articulated.
The violence of this disease was such that the sick communicated it to the healthy who came near them, just as a fire catches anything dry or oily near it. And it even went further. To speak to or go near the sick brought infection and a common death to the living; and moreover, to touch the clothes or anything else the sick had touched or worn gave the disease to the person touching. --The Decameron--Giovanni Boccaccio
It's a testimony of the novelty and plain awfulness of Obama's Ebola Policy that we can quite boldy state that it is unprecedented, even for him. Like a phoenix returning to its smoking pyre, Barack repeatedly treads the shambolic trail of failure. Like Friedrich Nietzsche's Eternal Return, the White House seems to repeatedly plot a course towards the center of the sun, in the apparent conviction that only self-annihilation is a worthy goal of US policy. But what happened to the principled Republican and Democrat leaders who are supposed to stand up for us when we are getting beaten down by the corrupt powers that be in DC? Are we really so isolated? Do we really deserve no protection from mad leaders, whatsoever?
We tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away. -- The Plague--Albert Camus

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I. Plagues & Death Wishes

Plagues, like Ebola, have been an endless source of human fascination for millennia. First, the notion that anyone might fall victim to the pestilence brings a certain paranoia. Second, is the implied sense of judgment plagues bring, illustrated by the Old Testament story of Moses in Egypt, where Pharaoh is repeatedly cursed by various God-made disasters. Third is the fascination which comes by images of the fevered, pestilential and bloody, the suffering of the damned highlighted as the dread disease picks off one after another. Fourth, occasionally plagues are a mere external expression of the lack of will to live, where, like Col Kurtz, in the final scenes of Apocalypse Now, before his execution, perhaps we're just waiting to be killed.
People in the Rage of the Distemper, or in the Torments of their Swellings, which were indeed intollerable, running out of their own Government, raving and distracted, and oftentimes laying violent Hands upon themselves, throwing them out at their Windows, shooting themselves, Mothers murthering their own Children, in their Lunacy, some dying of meer Grief as a Passion, some of meer Fright and Surprize, without any Infection at all; others frighted into Idiotism, and foolish Distractions, some into dispair and Lunacy; others into mellancholy Madness. -- Journal of the Plague Year--Daniel Defoe
A question which Americans should be actively pondering is whether we are a nation that now loathes ourselves and our past so much that we feel we should be judged and decimated? This is the rationale of Political Correctness. That is, to perpetually accuse the West of the most horrific crimes, and in response--demand the West surrender everything achieved over the last 2,000 years. Ultimately, as in Frazer's epic study of magic and folklore, the Golden Bough--a new king kills the old, and so replaces the old society--or so the Marxist PC thinkers believe.
The evil in the world comes almost always from ignorance, and goodwill can cause as much damage as ill-will if it is not enlightened. People are more often good than bad, though in fact that is not the question. But they are more or less ignorant, and this is what one calls vice or virtue, the most appalling vice being the ignorance that thinks it knows everything and which consequently authorizes itself to kill. The murderer's soul is blind, and there is no true goodness or fine love without the greatest possible degree of clear-sightedness. -- The Plague--Albert Camus

II. Signs of Dying Empires

Empires, states, and societies have cycles from birth to death, just like animals. It is said the Roman Empire lasted a thousand years. Remarkably, despite the fact the ancient Romans had the greatest and most powerful empire in the ancient world, everyone is fixated not upon their success, but how and why they fell, as illustrated by such books as The Decline & Fall of the Roman Empire. One of most remarkable, and normally unstated, facts of the Roman Empire is that as soon as the Roman Republic became an Empire, led by a tyrant, rot set in. While Julius Caesar may have been one of the most brilliant leaders in history, he was still executed for his excess ambitions against the Republic, in desiring to be a dictator. His adopted son, Caesar Augustus, became one of history's most acclaimed leaders. Yet, strangely after this, their family--the Julio-Claudian clan, degenerated into utter debauchery, perversion and insanity. In fact, of their five emperors, the first was executed by senators for a capital crime, and two others stand out as amongst history's most depraved and evil leaders--Caligula and Nero (See Caligula & Nero: Rome's Worst Emperors)
All I maintain is that on this earth there are pestilences and there are victims, and it's up to us, so far as possible, not to join forces with the pestilences. The Plague--Albert Camus
John Nelson Black's book, When Nations Die, in his chapter headings lists the factors in the collapse of a nation, being: "The Crisis of Lawlessness; Loss of Economic Discipline, and Rising Bureaucracy." For Cultural Factors in decline, he lists: "Decline of Education, Weakening of Cultural Foundations, Loss of Respect for Tradition, and Increase in Materialism." Then, under Moral Decay he lists: "A Rise in Immorality, Decay of Old Religious Beliefs and the Allurement of Alien Religions, and A Decline in the Value of and Respect for Human Life." During our current crisis of leadership, it's obvious we are beginning to spin out of control and lose our way, is it not?!!

III. America's Plague of Plagues

Ralph Venning, a venerable old Puritan minister, wrote: "Sin: The Plague of Plagues--or The just vindication of the Law of God, and no less just accusation and condemnation of the sin of man." This remarkable work was composed four years after the Great Plague of London. To sum up, Venning regarded all sin as a plague, and in particular regarded specific plagues to be sent as punishment for sin and also to benefit mankind to bring a wayward society back towards God.
When the plagues of God are on impenitent sinners, there are cursings. Though they may be sorry for the plagues, yet they are not sorry for the cause of them, which is their sins. And so many infer that if these plagues, which are far inferior to those in hell, provoke men so much, the plagues of hell will do so much more. Thus we see what a dismal and miserable condition it is to be damned and what a sinful thing sin is which brings this damnation.--Sin: Plague of Plagues, Ralph Venning
America was founded by spiritual seekers desiring a life of observant and humble Christianity, which was arguably essential to our current success. But we have strayed far from our roots. Therefore, is there any connection between apostasy and the current Ebola plague? The very fact Ebola made it to the States initially is the result of stupid decisions at the top. Bad leadership is often associated with an apostate nation. Barack Obama is so disdainful of the average American's safety that he would rather not "harm the economies of fledgling democracies," than keep the infected folks coming in from plague zones. But even the indifferent and passive-aggressive Barack may decide to restrict travel, in the face of public outcry against his indifferent reaction to one of history's worst pestilences.
What's true of all the evils in the world is true of the plague as well. It helps men to rise above themselves. All the same, when you see the misery it brings, you'd need to be a madman, or a coward, or stone blind, to give in tamely to the plague. --The Plague--Albert Camus
According to a biblically inspired view of society, bad leaders are not merely plagues upon their people, but are also sent as punishments to a people run amok from God's laws. In the case of Barack Obama, a man unduly given to honoring Islam, do believers really need to spend any time debating whether Barack is a heavenly plague? For the godless people of Egypt, God sent cycles of plagues, being--"Cycle one: Plagues 1-3 (blood, frogs. gnats/lice); Cycle two: Plagues 4-6 (flies, livestock, boils); Cycle three: Plagues 7-9 (hail, locusts, darkness); And the 10th is the climactic plague (death of the firstborn)." Israel also knew the plague of God, during disobedient times, as mentioned in Numbers 25:
When Israel dwelled in Shittim, the people began to prostitute themselves with the daughters of Moab. And they invited the people to the sacrifices of their gods, and the people ate and worshiped their gods. So Israel was joined together to Baal Peor, and Yahweh became angry with Israel. Yahweh said to Moses, "Take all the leaders of the people and kill them before the sun, so the fierce anger of Yahweh will turn from Israel." So Moses said to the judges of Israel, "Each of you kill his men who are joined together with Baal Peor." And behold, a man from the Israelites came and brought to his brothers a Midianite woman before the eyes of Moses and before the eyes of all of the community of the Israelites, and they were weeping at the doorway of the tent of assembly. When Phinehas son of Eleazar son of Aaron the priest saw, he got up from the midst of the community and took a spear in his hand. He went after the man of Israel into the woman's section of the tent, and he drove the two of them, the man of Israel and the woman, into her belly. And the plague among the Israelites stopped. The ones who died in the plague were twenty-four thousand.
Jewish Kings, especially bad ones like Amon, were the curse of God upon disobedient people. At the end, Revelations predicts even more plagues to harken the end of the age. (see Revelations 16)

Conclusion

While America is struggling to adapt to Ebola, there is a much larger problem. We are now confronted with the pestilence of bad, incompetent, and even evil leadership. It is obvious to any thinking person that if the supposedly Christian US president openly favors defending the economies of small nations over the health of his own people, he is utterly apostate. He has turned his back upon not only the Constitution, but also our traditional Christian faith, and become a slave to stupidity, strange religions, and undoubtedly even darker forces. Are Americans convinced we are bad people deserving the worst death? US Christians must pray for deliverance from this evil conviction, and fatalistic policy. We must seek to repent personally and return to the God of the colonial Pilgrims and Puritans, and pray we are not plagued with anything worse. Only God's grace can ultimately protect a nation.


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Kelly O'Connell -- Bio and Archives

Kelly O’Connell is an author and attorney. He was born on the West Coast, raised in Las Vegas, and matriculated from the University of Oregon. After laboring for the Reformed Church in Galway, Ireland, he returned to America and attended law school in Virginia, where he earned a JD and a Master’s degree in Government. He spent a stint working as a researcher and writer of academic articles at a Miami law school, focusing on ancient law and society. He has also been employed as a university Speech & Debate professor. He then returned West and worked as an assistant district attorney. Kelly is now is a private practitioner with a small law practice in New Mexico.


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