Here's something I recently emailed to my friends and family:
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Friends/Family:
As you know, I was created to be a fairly assertive and counter-cultural person. So, being a "moderate" in ANY sense of the word, was never in my destiny, thank God. I want to share with you some insight from an author/blogger/historian/pastor I've been reading from, over the past few years. I hope it challenges you and emboldens you, as it does me. This is the direction I'm leading my family, by God's grace.
As always, I welcome your thoughtful comments. May the Lord grant us His mercy & grace.
-Ric
"Surviving" or Living?
As the debris of the latest superstorm is cleared away, and the much more toxic debris of a presidential election still litters the landscape, a lot of people are thinking about how they want to live and are asking themselves and their families very serious questions about how long this mirage - this hologram - of safety, peace, and security can last. You know what I think. I began leading an exodus out of this world system a long time ago. We are in one of those brief, but powerful moments of almost universal awareness (it only lasts for a flash, and then is gone) that something is monumentally wrong with the system of life and living that man has devised for himself. For just a second, the whole world stands gaping at what happens when the JIT (Just-In-Time) provision of artificially produced goods and services becomes disrupted even temporarily. According to a recent UN report, over 1/2 of the world's population (3.5 Billion, they say) lives in cities, and cities are almost inevitably located on coasts, on fault lines, and in areas where major disasters happen quite often.
Not only are the cities unsustainable and non-viable, but all urban and suburban living is built on the same foundation of shifting sand.
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This map from Texas in Tuesday's pretended "election goes to show my point. I keep telling people that this is not an artificial liberal/conservative thing. This is not about what the dialecticians call "Republican vs. Liberal". This is a city vs. rural thing. If people want democracy, then they need to face the facts that consumers in cities make the rules, and producers in the country are forced to play by them - only so far as they want all the comforts of the city. Let me show you a more fascinating example:
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This is the election map from Tuesday in Ohio. As you can see, the more liberal candidate (Obama) won the counties with large cities or the highest population in them. Cleveland, Columbus, Cincinnati, etc. went for Obama. The rest of the state went for Romney. Now let us look at the primary map of the same state...
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The red counties were won by Romney. The blue counties were won by Rick Santorum, a more so-called "conservative" candidate. You will notice that, with few exceptions. Romney won the state of Ohio in the primary, by winning the highly populated urban and suburban counties... the very counties he lost in the general election to Obama, who was a more "liberal" candidate. What does this say? It says that the urban and suburban populations will ALWAYS vote for the candidate who is most likely to be a big government spender. Why? Because government (not candidates) spend money and give money to urbanites and suburbanites. Why? Because they live an untenable, unsustainable, and unviable lifestyle. They need "services", they need massive infrastructure, they need handouts, they need welfare, they need emergency management, they need bailouts, and they need everyone who doesn't live in those cities or suburbs to pay for the lifestyle they have chosen to live. This is NOT about conservative vs. liberal. Those are just artificial titles used to divide the producers from the consumers. This is NOT about Republican vs. Democrat. Those are artificial titles used to keep control in the hands of the kingmakers and wage slave holders.
If you fall for the false dialectic, you will always be a pawn in the game, and, as you can see in the above map, over the past 20 years the "game" has increasingly been stacked against you. Urban populations continue to rise, as more and more unproductive consumers leave the country to snag their piece of the massive pump-and-dump game that is going on. The dollars that are being printed 24/7 in the Fed are being pumped into these areas. It is easier for the king makers to control a few counties, because by them they can control the whole country. As you can see in the above maps, Romney was never destined to win. It didn't matter if he won the popular vote or not. He was a pawn. The king makers got him selected because he was the most liberal candidate in the primary - thus guaranteeing a loss in the general election using the same urban/rural dialectic.
Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and even Alex Jones are pawns in the game. Dumb and rich pawns, but they are pawns. They keep the sheep in line. They have you convinced that voting matters. Not one of them well ever tell you that you are imprisoned by your lusts and your desire for carnal comfort. Because you so-called conservatives want the same thing the so-called liberals want. You want air-conditioning and running water and flush toilets and store bought goodies from around the world at your fingertips, you will remain a slave to the cities no matter where you live. When you choose urbanism/suburbanism and consumption as a means and method of life, you are a willing slave to that system. IT DOESN'T MATTER HOW OR IF YOU VOTE!
Separatism is the only answer. You have to separate from the system of slavery. This is not about "survival" in the sense that most people think of survival. Most "preppers", "survivalists", etc. want the same thing the power mongers, banksters, and slave holders want. They want comfort, security, and peace. So they go down a road of "prepping" that involves the purchase of industrial produced goods in order to make it through whatever tragedy strikes next (and the tragedies will grow worse and worse). They are thinking about "survival" instead of living.
Free men (and there are so few of them) don't particularly want survival at all costs. They want to be free. They come to realize that they are enslaved to the scumbag consumers in the cities and suburbs, but they also realize that they are enslaved by the chains of their own lusts. They eventually learn that if they will cut the city off, it will die of its own. Participation is sanction, and in this case, as you can see by the map, it is sanction of the rural areas being enslaved by a very few small areas run by gangsters and banksters who control the votes of wage slaves and comfort worshippers. The fake "republican/democrat" divide is just too handy in maintaining the illusion.
Perhaps you'll consider "living" instead of "surviving"?
Your best probability of both survival and living as a free person, is to move towards that freedom by determining that you must cut the city off. You must start to produce some, and eventually as much as possible, of the things you consume. You are being poisoned. You are being enslaved. You are being used. You think you are free, but you are not. You must get out and stay out. I've been leading the march out of Egypt for a whole lot of years, and perhaps you should consider that everything you have believed is a false system designed to make you a wage slave and a disposable source of tax energy to be burned by your enemies.
"Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country." ~ William Jennings Bryan
We really don't need to burn anything down, though his quote is a good one and well put. We just need to stop buying their goods and produce our own. Stop working for "income", but bring forth food from the ground. If 5% of us would do that, they'd fall of their own weight and producers can pick up the pieces. I am the real John Galt. So long as rural people want city comforts without labor, everyone will be slaves to the Bankster and the slave wage bureaucrat. The only right that is inalienable is the right to say no, and not be strapped to the cart by the traces of my own lusts.
But, then, that is just my opinion, what do I know?
Your servant in Christ Jesus,
Michael Bunker
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I received this very thoughtful reply from a dear family member, a mature and caring brother in Christ:
I get the impression that in his idealistic world everyone should be self supporting. Yes, I agree with him on many points, this country will die without its infrastructrure. But infrastructure is what makes a civilization. It would not work for everyone to be self reliant either. There is simply not enough land for everyone to have land enough to be self sufficient. There are many efficiencies that are gained by large scale farming and manufacturing. It is one of the reasons we have so much. Many people that live in the cities make life better for those who live in the country. Many are hard working people making a significant contribution to society. I don't think God intended man to be completely self reliant but to help each other and enrich each others' lives. However, I do agree that our infrastructure is breaking down and we should attempt to be less reliant on it. But at the same time we should be trying to improve it.
The problem with this country is not that the majority is so dependent on the system working, a system that cannot be sustained as it is. The problem is rebellion against God and the principals of living which He has given us. If this country turned back to God then it would just grow stronger and more firmly entrenched as a nation. However, I don't see this happening. With rebellion against God, history has proven over and over again that with the rebellion comes destruction.
Here was my reply:
Well said. Having read some other of this author's works, I believe he would probably agree with much of what you assert... still, I think Bunker's M.O. is going straight for the consumerist jugular, so to speak. If he can shock enough Christians into considering their rampant and unchecked consumerism, he probably figures he will have accomplished much.
In the beginning, God gave man the universal and continual command to "Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over [every living thing]" (Gen 1:28). He intended for man to spread out, to take dominion over and cultivate each his own "wide-open space". After the Fall and the Flood, we are recounted the whole history of the tower of Babel: the first metropolis. Men rebelled against God: instead of enjoying their communities with plenty of land in between each family, they found a way to live on top of each other, so to speak, in concentrated proximity:
"And they said, 'Come, let us build ourselves a city, and a tower whose top is in the heavens; let us make a name for ourselves, lest we be scattered abroad over the face of the whole earth.'" (Gen. 11:4)
What was God's response to this flouting of his original intention for mankind's activities? He "confused the language of all the earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face of all the earth." (Gen. 11:9, emphasis mine). I find this interesting, that even after the original command, even after the fall, even after redeeming the human race through Noah, the Lord seems to pay particular attention to — and deals decisively with — mankind's propensity to congeal into densely-populated humanistic cities, to make a name for themselves.
Now, I don't consider it intrinsically and morally wrong to habitate a large city ("large" is relative, to some extent, after all). Still, I cannot avoid how difficult it is to truly and experientially comprehend the parables and teachings of Jesus (during His earthly ministry), when so many of them presume an agrarian context. It seems that the more we surround ourselves with the conveniences, entertainments and schemes of humanity, the more difficult it becomes to notice, listen to and heed the Voice, Word and Spirit of God. Our own internal struggle with sin is difficult enough, let alone when we drown out the Comforter's voice with so much noise, so many distractions. In Ephesians 4:30, we are exhorted not to "grieve the Holy Spirit of God". I believe that when we give preference to worldly pursuits and comforts over seeking to greater understand and live out God's Word, we are rebelling against God, and His judgment (which the world is in the throes of) is justified.
As for being "self-reliant", I've never liked the term, and agree with you that God doesn't intend this for us. I prefer to pursue what I like to call
"Family Autonomy", which I describe briefly in one of my
blog posts.
Thanks for taking the time to convey your thoughts. I greatly appreciate our conversations. Have a blessed day!
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What do you think? Thoughtful and discerning comments are always welcome.
