Barry Brownstein Reminds Us Not to Lose the Lesson
I so appreciate Barry Brownstein. I can always count on him to do the heart work and offer up some soul food.
Looking at difficult and painful things through lens of a heart makes the effort meaningful - and that’s often what sustains the courage I need to look at what’s really happening. Otherwise, much of this is just too scary and overwhelming.
I need to know this is NOT All for Nothing.
Today, Brownstein walks us back through history so that we can learn from it and course correct.
Before the suffering began, Germans bought the Nazi dream of enabling human flourishing through totalitarian and murderous means. Goebbels was the master propagandist, and many Germans chose to be deceived. Then, as the dream crumbled, they still refused to question the false premises. No, non-believers and “International Jewry” had sabotaged them.
In 1945, again, days away from his suicide and Hitler’s, Goebbels pronounced, “The German people bore him. It chose him, it by free election made him Führer.”
Don Boudreaux writes, “there is no ‘will of the people’ that is analogous to the will that you have or to the will that I have.” Boudreaux adds, “the results of an election are never properly identified as ‘the will of the people.’”
There is no will of the people, and thus none that Hitler could have been personifying for German citizens.
American politicians also claim mandates to personify and implement something that doesn’t exist. Recently, in Philadelphia, President Biden castigated those he claimed“do not recognize the will of the people.” Politicians make false claims because enough voters willingly accept them, and the public fails to recognize the ruinous consequences that follow from the authoritarian course they are setting.
Americans once understood that no one is fit for power; the powers granted to the state and its political leaders must be limited and checked. Today we are closer than ever to the end of Hayek’s Road to Serfdom.
Today, many Americans look for a “champion,” be that Biden or Trump. Tomorrow, the names of other champions will be floated. If the economic situation worsens, these politicians will be even less likely to be committed to constitutional principles.
Kempowski helps us realize that progress will go retrograde when people adopt illiberal beliefs. Will blinding fear and false faith set the course for the next era of American history? Has the suffering during the pandemic been all for nothing?
He offers some easier reading as well…
Thank you, Barry.
Ann,
Thank you for your generous and kind support. I love what you wrote. Your observations are spot on!
Some wonder why we must look at the darkness? The healing power of Love and Liberty cannot work through us until we are willing to look at our delusions. Put another way, our erroneous beliefs are only corrected by looking at them with a lens beyond our current understanding. We must plug our “lamp” into the socket and be willing to be transformed. Without that willingness we may rail against the darkness but nothing changes.
Ann, Thank you for your courage and work. You are always willing to look!