19A044 State Worship by Jim Davies, 10/29/2019    

I'd not say there was much reverence, as one might expect at a Billy Graham crusade or a church service in any denomination; moments of meditation and prayer, etc.; but otherwise, I have no doubt whatever that the Trump rally in Minneapolis on October 11th was a religious event in which all 20,000 present were gathered to venerate "America"; an entity which is almost as hard to define as the alleged creator of the universe. They met to worship the State. They were in awe of its majesty, its wonder. They loved it and yes, they loved its High Priest, the President, and he said he loved them and I think he meant it.

He was impressive. Billionaire builder though he is, he's also a very fine orator. He may have had notes somewhere, but I didn't see him refer to them once and he spoke for well over an hour; before him came his son Eric, and he too was a relaxed and very competent public speaker who got the crowd excited.

It must have been stage-managed, but it was so laid-back and apparently spontaneous that there was little evidence of it; perhaps the most obvious was the phalanx of people behind him on the podium, wearing red t-shirts bearing the slogan "COPS FOR TRUMP." In the front row (and, so, prominently visible throughout the speech) were a couple of very attractive young ladies with blond hair exactly the same shade as the President's.

And boy, did he like cops. I lost count of the number of times he singled them out for commendation. A few of the things he said resonated with me ("I want to bring the troops home" from the MidEast) but those repeated paeons of praise to police were terrible. He - and the crowd - actually admires policemen, the very teeth of the State, the lethal, leading edge of its monstrous, arrogant intrusion into our lives. No wonder they wore those red shirts. They were almost as happy as the thugs who had kept the whole of Boston locked-down in 2013.

As Kent McManigal has very well shown, there are no good cops.

DJT delighted in using ad-libs and asides, and the crowd loved that too. Half a dozen times some troublemaker far from the podium would unfurl a hostile banner, or flash a hostile shirt, and call out; Trump would pause and gesture towards him or her and after a couple of seconds pour some appropriate scorn on what was being protested. And then the cops would whisk the dissident away, to a chorus of cheers and jeers.

I don't aim here to analyze the things DJT said, nor (more importantly) the several vital things he didn't say, but should have; but rather to reiterate that under them all was the foundation that "we" - he and his 20,000 admirers - do what we do and believe as we do because that is "American" and helps make America "Great Again." That well-known slogan was amended to Keep America Great, presumably to become KAG in due course. It was all about what is good for "America." Therein lies the worship, or the idolatry.

And therein lies the confusion, the wooliness. Just as "America" is hard to define (is it the rock and soil itself? The residents? The traditions and culture? What?) so is the adjective "Great". What exactly is greatness, in this context? Military force? Economic prosperity? True justice? All of those?

Prosperity and justice will certainly make the zero government society "great." But to continue to have a governed society would prevent their appearance! Like all religion, there is a complete, irrational mis-match. Laws and cops to enforce them actively obstruct the development of the prosperity that can result only from an unfettered market, and themselves constitute the very opposite of justice; for justice consists of restoring lost or damaged rights, not in punishing any who violate rules set down by a third party external to the market.

Another thing that would help make "America Great" would be a near-impenetrable defense. That, too, is impossible while government remains, for it insists on operating a military monopoly, and in the unlikely event of invasion that monopoly can surrender. In contrast in a "porcupine" defense system, in which every household defends itself, there is nobody authorized to give up the whole.

Above all, what can make America great will be the freedom from worship - of anything. Human beings as self-owners are fitted by Nature to rule ourselves, and therefore not to owe allegiance to any other entity, whether an undefinable god or an undefinable state. When that is brought to reality, the result - unique in history - will constitute genuine and unprecedented greatness.