Belligerence and Pavlov

Conditioned to Kill

“With this comes a belligerent and blind nationalism that has affected the whole culture in one degree or another. But then, in an empire, the people must become “hollow dummies,” said Orwell. They must believe they are superior to others, and have a right to tell others what to do. Americans seem to go beyond even this. They believe that other countries actually want to be invaded and occupied and shaped into mini-Americans by the United States. All we have to do is ‘get their dictators off their backs, and the men will start building shopping malls and the women dressing like Britney Spears.’” Lou Rockwell in review of the Bonner/Wiggin book Empire of Debt

United States of America was conceived in war, birthed in war, and has been a belligerent nation throughout its history.

Yes, the Pilgrims and Puritans were Reformed Christians with sound theological underpinnings. Initially they set out to convert the Indians but within a few short decades, when the Indians realized their land was being invaded, their patience with Indian terrorism ran out, they became imbued with the “promised land” syndrome, and began to systematically kill those they had previously tried to convert.

Uncurbed by reference to God’s immutable Character and Laws, the intrinsic sinfulness of human nature quickly trashes righteousness in favor of the human prerogative even in orthodox Christian circles.

Wars during the early years usually produced some sort of lucre but during the Twentieth Century they seem to have become futile exercises spawned by lies and intended to produce nothing but debt and chaos.

War built the Roman Empire. It lasted over 500 years. Though the United States seems to be at its zenith, there are disturbing similarities with the Roman Empire at its nadir. Rome’s final Emperor, diminutive Romulus Augustus, failed to stop the migration of hordes of barbarians as they moved into the nation. Roman legions were not trained to stop the migration of families and, similar to the Mexican invasion of the United States, it changed the character of the dying nation. When we think of the decline of the Roman Empire we usually think of military conquest by these Huns, Goths, and Visigoths. There was that, but there was also another major commonality.

The Greeks living in Southern Italy used coinage prior to the Romans but in the Second Century BC Rome began minting their own gold and silver coins. The value of these coins was actually greater than their base metals, this stable currency fostered trade, and coupled with the booty of conquest brought prosperity to Rome. As Roman lifestyles became more opulent and conquests more expensive Nero in the First Century AD began to replace the silver and gold on the coins by reducing their size or alloying them with base metals. This allowed the minting of more coins at the same cost. At first, the debasement was very tiny but as time went on it continued until by the reign of Diocletian in the Third and early Fourth Century, AD, the precious metal content of the coins had become negligible and inflation had reached astronomical proportions.

With worthless currency the Roman government could neither pay its own soldiers nor the mercenaries. Citizens moved from the city into the country where they could live off the land. Price controls led to shortages and the whole economy began to disintegrate while invading armies that had been successfully repulsed for years became victorious. It was too much and the centuries-old Roman empire, one of the longest and most successful in history, began to topple.

In the latter days there was the same moral degeneracy we have in United States. Homosexuality was common, even sex with children became acceptable. The lower classes found entertainment in the bloody shows at the coliseum while the upper class lived lavishly as hedonism took over the social order.

At its peak the Roman Empire may have encompassed up to 40 percent of the world’s population. The United States now has troops stationed in over 130 different nations, about 70 percent of the nations of the world, and is currently engaged in a military conflict designed to bring the few remaining nations into the fold. World government is the most ambitious conquest in history. Historically empires were built with the kind of massive military force the United States is now flexing. However, the ultimate system of control now resides with international bankers whose tentacles pull the strings on U.S. power.

There are abundant corollaries between ancient Rome and United States. 1) Both nations enjoyed overwhelming military superiority. 2) Both experienced a serious deterioration in moral standards. 3) Both burgled their citizenry by debasement of the currency. 4) Both experienced an increase in barbarism. 5) Both were marked by uncontrolled spending and lavish lifestyles. 6) Both engendered fear into the world – the Romans with conquest and savage coliseum games and the United States with torture and conquest. 7) The Romans had barbarians at their border while the United States has Mexicans. 8). Both hired mercenaries.

In some ways Nero might be compared to our contemporary Liberals. He was apposed to the death sentence and banned capital punishment, he gave slaves the right to file complaints against their masters, pardoned people who had written unflattering descriptions of him, ignored the charge of treason, gave assistance to cities that had suffered from disasters, won the hearts of many of his subjects by lowering taxes. Like President George W. Bush he courted various religions. He spoke with Zoroastrians, with the cult of a virgin-mother goddess named Arargatis and another cult of a virgin-mother goddess named Juno-Canathos. He talked with Jews about Judaism and met with a Gnostic magician named Simon Magus. He may have talked with the apostle Paul. He was sixteen when he began his reign and at the age of thirty he committed suicide to evade being dethroned. Thanks to wise counsel the early years of his fourteen year reign were good years for the empire but the following nine years were marked by his lack of sound character and his inability to provide quality personal leadership. Read more about Nero’s government here.

The Romans did not have the convenience of the Federal Reserve system, they could not build a house of cards that allows a trading partner to buy up billions of dollars of wartime debt on which only the interest is paid. Their system was simpler but produced the same result – rampant inflation. Ultimately the flimflam ended along with the empire.

The Biblical description of the conquest of the Promised Land by God’s chosen people has often been interpreted as license to duplicate the procedure in other venues. Christians in the United States are quick to condemn Islam as a militant religion but are slow to recognize their own historic conquests. They have often claimed that aggressive genocide for the acquisition of territory was ordained by the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. The Crusades were initiated to recapture the original Promised Land. Pilgrims, Puritans, and other settlers viewed the New World as a neo-Promised Land. In South Africa the Boers believed that a Covenant people had a right to redeem land from evil inhabitants. Now, in the Middle East a return of the Jews to land from which God removed them over two thousand years ago has created another strenuous attempt to reclaim land deemed to be owned by Divine decree. Read an account of some of these tragedies here.

Do Christians have a right to all land owned by heathen? Were Europeans justified in the genocide of the North American Indians? Does the new nation of Israel have a right to continue to expand in land owned and occupied by Palestinians and is the United States following Divine intentions by invading Arab lands? These are questions our fractured, anarchic contemporary Christian church needs to gird itself up and address.

The Bible tells us that: 1) God uses captivity as a method of punishment. 2) God’s Laws were given to promote peace, order, and prosperity. 3) God refused to allow King David to build the Temple because his hands were soiled with the blood of wars. 4) Jesus brought us a New Covenant of peace and love. 5) In God’s Kingdom the lion will lay down with the lamb. Biblical communications from God to His people contained in His Word are overwhelmingly intent on producing righteousness, peace, order, and prosperity in His creation.

When God ordered His chosen people to slay every man, woman, and child in the Promised Land the command was given because, barring genocide, the invasion of foreign lands will not result in peace as long as the resentment of the enslaved inhabitants is extant. The tiny number of American Indians still alive in the United States have not forgotten the fate of their ancestors nor have Blacks forgotten the slavery of their grandparents. Mexicans at our borders have not forgotten the defeat of their forces and the occupation of their land. Justice produces peace, injustice produces strife.

The United States has sent troops to foreign locations over 250 times from 1798 through 2004. Involved in these forays were over 75 different nations; several were involved multiple times. Read about it here. We now have troops stationed in over 130 different countries and are fighting a major contrived war in the Middle East.

In a current article Alan Stang describes the history of policies in the United States as “government by emergency” . He writes, “By now we are all used to how Washington works. The conspiracy for world government concocts and announces an emergency. It could be military. Someone “has attacked us.” It could be medical. “Millions of Americans lack health care. Or there is an epidemic.” It could be a natural disaster, like a hurricane. Or, maybe it is economic or cultural. “Women routinely are abused. They earn only a fraction of a man’s pay. Black people are deprived. Latinos are insulted.” Et cetera and so on. Then whichever marionette the conspirators have installed in the Oval Office at the time announces an emergency “solution.”

Belligerence is a sin against the peace God intends for His creation. God hates war and those who support their own sinful Utopian ideas or their own personal gain by promoting it. Christians have been duped and conditioned into supporting what God hates.

POSTSCRIPT: This essay is intended to condemn illegal aggressive warfare but not legal resistance to tyranny.

Related link: Classical Conditioning

Al Cronkrite is a guest columnist for Novakeo.com
Al Cronkrite is a writer living in Florida, reach him at: