BREAD AND CIRCUSESVolume 1, Number 6 -- November 30, 1996
BREAD AND CIRCUSESTheir so-called objective is "food security" for everyone! Imagine that! A statement from their draft plan reads, "Food security exists when all people, at all times, have physical and economic access to sufficient, safe and nutritious food to meet their dietary needs for an active and healthy life."
We will readily admit that such a goal is admirable, but being the realists we are we will be quick to admit that it is totally unrealistic. For one thing, their plans omit any reference to individual responsibility in pursuit of this goal. Instead they amass volumes of material delineating the "State's" responsibilities for seeing the goal is met.
"Each nation must adopt a strategy consistent with its resources and capacities to achieve its individual goals and, at the same time, cooperate regionally and internationally in order to organize collective solutions to global issues of food security."
This style of rhetoric should be familiar to anyone who has read any of the other reports from the various U. N. Conferences. Such mandates from our world government (it must be a world government, otherwise it could not issue mandates) are commonplace.
Reports of what is happening in Rome state that no pro-life/pro-family delegations from the United States are being permitted to participate in the Conference, and that strong emphasis is being placed on various birth control measures (including abortion) to help reduce the world's population to more manageable levels.
Actually, there is no real evidence to suggest that world-wide population is a serious problem. While individual countries may have local problems with overpopulation, the state of Texas is large enough to give every man, woman and child on earth a lot large enough to hold a small house, and the city of Jacksonville, Florida encompasses enough area for everyone on earth to stand on a two-foot by two-foot square of land.
No, the population explosion scare is one that has been manufactured by those who want to use it to frighten people into accepting governmental interference into areas of their lives where they would otherwise resist.
Famines have caused many deaths in many areas of our world. This has not been because we cannot produce sufficient food. Much of the problem has come about by government mishandling of aid efforts and by governmental attempts to dictate production methods to farmers who know more about raising crops than the dictatorial bureaucrats ever dreamed of knowing.
Biblical scholars will also note that famine is a means God sometimes uses in judging nations. Our conferees, of course, could not accept such a position, since one of their goals is to eliminate the influence of the God of the Bible and replace Him with government.
Of course, Fundamental Christianity is seen as a basic religion of intolerance, for it insists that there is only one true God and only one path to heaven. It also labels some behavior as sin, and those who practice it as sinners. This is a form of intolerance for other's beliefs and for alternate lifestyles, a situation that is impermissible. Somehow intolerance against the Christian is not really intolerance, but is necessary in order to rid the world of intolerance. (You figure it out.)
The assault on Christianity is subtle, but is growing bolder. The Christian is not openly attacked as a Christian, but as one who is intolerant of other people. Should that individual water down his beliefs to the point that he no longer holds such dogmatic views his brand of Christianity will become acceptable. Of course, it will no longer be Christ centered.
One of the tenets of the Conference on World Food Security is that its proposals must be consistent with the provisions of other Conferences that have been held on varying topics. In that light it must be gender neutral, or provide that no inequities because of gender be introduced. Some of its objectives along these lines:
There were more, but you get the idea. There were similar provisions to protect the interests of disadvantaged and minority groups.
A common thread that runs throughout all United Nations Conferences is the insistence on the equality of everyone, and that everyone has a "right" to share equally in the world's resources.
A common thread that is missing from them all is any statement about individual responsibilities for providing for one's self. The rights all accrue to the individual but the responsibilities fall to the States.
We have seen a great deal of this philosophy within our own government over the last several decades. Hopefully, the "welfare reform" we saw come out of the last Congress is an indicator that we are beginning to understand the fallacy of such thinking. Of course, if we let ourselves become further entangled in United Nations treaties that dictate such a philosophy, we will be unable to extricate ourselves from these self-destructive laws.
What is always implied, if not directly stated (which it sometimes is), is that the wealthier nations must assume the responsibility for those less fortunate. We have seen this operative on an individual basis in our welfare system. These U. N. proposals take it a step further and apply it on the international scale, the producer nations must prop-up the non-producers. Global Welfare! Global Affirmative Action!
Of course, welfare of any kind always means a certain redistribution of wealth. Someone has to furnish whatever it is the recipients are getting. When this is mandated welfare, the state levies tax on those who have a surplus and gives it to those who are in need. It is the foundation of all socialistic societies.
Some people would have you believe this is the kind of social structure advocated by Christ. Not so! The early church practiced a form of voluntary socialism, but there was no coercion. Members were free to give or not to give as the Spirit moved them. Free will is a theme that runs throughout the Bible.
Most Americans when (or if) they hear about a conference, in some other part of the world, that is discussing world hunger, probably think it is a worthwhile problem to be considering. They are totally unaware of the impact such a conference might have upon their own lives.
Being accustomed to living in a land where individual freedom is taken for granted, they cannot imagine a time when those freedoms might not be there. There are, however, a few Americans who are finding that the freedoms they had taken for granted are no longer there.
In an earlier issue of this newsletter we told of how the spotted owl fiasco was used to deprive Donald Walker, Jr. of the timber resources on land that had been in his family for generations.
A recent Wisconsin court decision, Just v. Marinette County, has held that "An owner of land has no absolute and unlimited right to change the essential natural character of his land so as to use it for a purpose for which it was unsuited in its natural state."
Think about that one for a little while. In essence it says the court can tell you what you can and cannot do with your privately owned land while you still must pay taxes on the property to the state. Can you imagine Daniel Boon's response to such an edict? Or George Washington's? Thomas Jefferson's?
James Bovard, in his book Lost Rights, the Destruction of American Liberty, 1994-1995, St. Martin's Griffin, New York, documents innumerable instances of governmental assaults on private property rights:
The main text of this book is over 300 pages, with nearly another 100 pages of notes. The illustrations above barely scratch the surface, and while all of these are not necessarily the result of U. N. treaties they show the same mentality -- that of the omnipotent government.
Michael S. Coffman, in his book Saviors of the Earth?, Northfield Publishing, Chicago, 1994, devotes an entire chapter (9) to the topic "Property Rights and Sustainable Development." In this chapter he states:
Today, when most people live in and around large urban metropolitan areas, they are not too concerned with the problem of property rights. They are glad for zoning laws and regulations that protect them from the erection of "eyesores" in their pristine neighborhoods.
They have also been frightened into believing that somehow we are destroying our environment and that if we do not apply strict regulations to control this destruction our human-friendly habitat might disappear.
While we have been somewhat reckless in our use of natural resources, the environmental movement has vastly overstated the danger
It is impossible here to go into the many arguments Mr. Coffman presents in his book to show how true science often refutes the pseudo-scientific claims of the environmentalists, but his research is well documented with over 30 pages of notes and a 7-page bibliography.
Perhaps most of you can remember the DDT scare of a couple of decades ago. We were told all sorts of horror stories of the effect this pesticide was having on the environment and the ecosystems. Certain birds were being pushed into extinction because of its thinning effect on their eggshells. Traces of the chemical were showing up throughout the food chain and even small traces were found in humans. Mr. Coffman says:
"None of the wild claims against DDT were ever substantiated. Bird populations that were supposedly being affected, including those of hawks and falcons were actually increasing during this time, according to Audubon Society counts. Eagle populations were declining, but it has been since demonstrated that thinning of eggshells predates DDT. Apparently there are many natural causes of egg thinning. Later tests showed no direct effect of DDT on these birds or their eggshells.
"Paul Ehrlich, an environmental guru at the time, charged that DDT in seawater would kill all phytoplankton, threatening earth's oxygen supply. But it was later shown that 93 percent of DDT introduced into water degrades in thirty-eight days. Finally, even to be a minimum threat of causing cancer, DDT would have to be ingested at 100,000 times the maximum rate found in the environment. It's incredible that Ehrlich and others like him continue to make insupportable predictions of catastrophe that consistently prove wrong, yet they are faithfully reported by the press." (p35)
We urge anyone who reads this to seek out the truth. Do not take our word for this, but also do not be taken in by the scare tactics of the environmentalists and the United Nations.