Duggan Flanakin: Killing the Dream of the Abundant Life

“I am come that you might have life … abundantly” – John 10:10

The principal message of the American Declaration of Independence is that “all … are endowed by their Creator with [the right to] … life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” and that the [legitimate] purpose of government is to secure those rights. Revisionist history (sic) to the contrary, this principle is rooted in the Judeo-Christian Bible.

To that end, we must also remember that the “life giver” also warned that “the thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.” Thus, we must take note of those in positions of power who are selling the idea that abundance is no longer our heritage. They are thieves.

Sic semper tyrannis

In every modern state, the premise has been that governments exist to serve and prosper their citizens. Governments (and all other institutions) that rob or enslave their citizens while enriching themselves have long been condemned as illegitimate. As espoused in the Declaration, unjust stewards must be resisted and stripped of their authority.

Three decades ago, Al Gore posited that the rescue of the environment must become the central organizing principle of civilization. He now says the primary means of “rescuing” the environment is decarbonization. His plan demonizes both carbon dioxide and methane (aka natural gas); the war is against fossil fuels, livestock, fertilizers, and humanity itself.

The United Nations, the European Union, many other world leaders and nongovernmental organizations, and the American Democratic Party (and many Republicans) have repeated this mantra as though it had come down from Mount Sinai on tablets of stone.

Mostly missing from this dialectic was the hidden reality that there would be real-world costs to the vast majority (but not to the governing elites) from eschewing cheap energy from fossil and nuclear fuels and an agricultural revolution built on modern fertilizers. Yet, as the bitter fruits of these disastrous policies have become evident, the “little people” have begun to revolt.

The collapse of the Sri Lankan economy this year was blamed on a decision, founded in globalist green ideology, to ban the use of chemical fertilizers, with resulting dramatic reductions in crop yields. Elsewhere, governments seeking to reduce methane emissions are pressing farmers to destroy their herds. The loud protests of Dutch farmers may be the Lexington and Concord of a worldwide revolution.

As the green war against modern agriculture escalates, elitists like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos are promoting laboratory-grown “meat” in the name of climate change. The British government is pressing Africans to eat insects. 

Political greed and hubris have created a situation in which much of Europe faces a decade of energy and food insecurity. While many blame Russia, UN and EU climate policies are equally at fault. The official response to the “climate crisis” has increased the price of energy and weakened national and local economies. 

In the wake of these economy-crushing actions, many world leaders (sic) have agreed with French President Emmanuel Macron, who admits his government has failed in its stewardship mission yet clings to power. Speaking in Paris in August, Macron somberly announced (English translation): 

What we are currently living through is a kind of major tipping point or a great

 upheaval … we are living the end of what could have seemed an era of abundance …

 the end of the abundance of products of technologies that seemed always available …

 the end of the abundance of land and materials including water.”

Macron is saying that middle-class prosperity is effectively a criminal plot against the planet. 

Like others who speak from gilded palaces to people living in huts, Macron declared that prosperity itself is a sin against Mother Earth (except for the rich). The common folk must not covet the wealth of their anointed overseers, nor should they question their authority or wisdom. “Shut up and eat bugs!” 

These same elites still champion the claims of the depressing Thomas Malthus that mass starvation is the inevitable result of any march toward longer, more prosperous lives. They cheer the dreadful message that the world cannot feed people who live longer and keep having children who survive infancy.

Paul Ehrlich infamously predicted in his 1968 book, The Population Bomb, that, because “the stork had passed the plow, hundreds of millions of people are going to starve to death.” In response, media mogul Ted Turner suggested an optimum world population of just 250 million, then later recommended a Chinese-style one child per family limit for 100 years to cut world population to 2 billion. 

In the wake of such nihilistic pronouncements, there is new hope that a revolt against the globalists may have begun. In London, newly elected Prime Minister Liz Truss announced an end to the nation’s 2019 ban on fracking. Sweden elected a conservative government thanks to a focus on immigrant crime. 

And in Italy, Giorgia Meloni terrified the elites by thumbing her nose at the doomsayers in Brussels – and Washington — who feel threatened by the backlash against their negativist view of the future and the economic hardships their policies are bringing to their citizens.

As the American elections loom on the horizon, the ruling party has refused to debate its challengers, imposed bans on their advertising and messages, seized personal property of “dissidents” (and held others in conditions worse than those of Guantanamo terrorists), and terrified peace-loving families with dozens of armed agents. 

These same “powerful,” who were untroubled by hundreds of riots during summer 2020 that brought billions in destruction, burned federal buildings, and injured thousands of police, claim to have lived in abject fear of unarmed protesters upset at the oddities that brought about an unexpected change in government. 

They quake in fear at the prospect of a few dozen Venezuelans thrust into their super-rich island paradise, and moan and groan over the horrors of providing for a few dozen “migrants” whom their own policies claim they welcome. They resort to the lowest form of character assassination when their hypocrisies are exposed.

What will they do if the masses reject their power in November? 

Perhaps no one remembers that Nicolas Maduro and his socialist party were soundly defeated in the 2015 Venezuelan elections. Yet he remains in control of his nation today, because the Chavistas abolished the rule of law and the separation of powers in Venezuela and held onto power illegitimately. And the U.S. and the UN did nothing.

As recently as January 6, 2021, the U.S. still “officially” recognized Interim President Juan Guaidó and the national assembly elected in 2015 as Venezuela’s legitimate government. But today, President Biden cozies up to the usurper Maduro to buy oil even as he stifles U.S. oil and gas production and depletes the Strategic Petroleum Reserve.

Is Maduro’s Venezuela the model for America’s future? Or will Americans reject the globalist authoritarianism that promises an end to prosperity in the name of climate change and “equity”?

Will Americans choose abundance or subservience? And if they choose abundance, will their choices be voided by the globalist elites who have already threatened Prime Minister Meloni?

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