The New Gods Among Us...

In ancient Egypt pharaohs were considered gods.  They believed that when a pharaoh died, he would continue to lead them from the beyond, which partially explains why they had such ornate tombs.  At roughly the same time, Japanese emperors were similarly thought to be gods, a practice that continued until 1945, when, after the war the emperor was required to explain to his people that he, in fact, was not a god.

In the Roman Empire, while emperors were not considered gods while living, most were deified upon death.  While living however they were thought to have authority that had been divinely endowed.

Later, through much of European history, monarchs were often thought to be divinely inspired.  There existed a concept called the Divine Right of Kings which suggested that kings were anointed by God and ruled by his grace.  As such, they did not have to answer to anyone on this earthly plain, whether the Pope, parliament, nobles or anyone else. Of course ruling via God’s grace didn’t always protect kings from earthly dangers – in the form of assassinations or wars between two simultaneously divinely inspired enemies or your run of the mill usurper – but it was a great gig, if you could keep it.

As regal and majestic as all of this sounds, in reality, divine rule was nothing more than a tool to help establish legitimacy and maintain power for the ruling elites. Who could be a more powerful ally in demonstrating that an individual or a group should have power than God?  Using armies and weapons to keep subjects from questioning authority or revolting could be expensive. It was cheaper to do so through or with the assistance of religious beliefs.  If one could convince a man that his king was acting in the stead of God, the threshold of abuse he would accept before revolting would be much higher than if the king were just a man.

While the United States has never had a king – divine or otherwise as George Washington quashed that when offered the crown and turned it down – our Declaration of Independence, the document that established our nation, looks to God for inspiration. 

That doesn’t mean we aren’t ruled by gods, however.

I’ve always wondered why some of America’s richest people, particularly tech and finance types lean to the left. How could someone who has benefited so extraordinarily from the American system support ideas that are so anathema to its very existence? The things they support generally include bigger government, higher taxes, limitations on freedoms of speech and the right to bear arms among others.

The first is bigger government.  Many corporations see increasing regulations as a means to limit competition. By supporting minimum wage hikes or increased reporting regulations or mandates, large companies – many of whom are controlled or owned by billionaires – can and do use the government to impose costs that cripple small competitors while they themselves have the resources to easily comply.

Coincidentally, concurrently, the elites, particularly those in tech and on Wall Street, have little connection to the real world most Americans inhabit. From farms to restaurants to retail stores to truck drivers, the elites, in their remote offices and relatively low regulatory environments aren’t much impacted when OSHA or the DOT or EPA issue new regulations that handicap small business owners. While Wall Street may be heavily regulated as it relates to advertising and fiduciary responsibilities, the actual buying and selling is relatively unregulated when compared to the red tape blue collar industries face.

When it comes to higher taxes, this is usually a red herring for America’s barons. Many of America’s wealthiest leftists call for higher income taxes, one most of them don’t actually pay. Most billionaires don’t pay themselves much of a taxable salary and they earn most of their incomes from stock sales or dividends, which are typically taxed at a lower rate.  Regardless, even if capital gains taxes were increased, they find opaque tax avoidance schemes  that often reduce their taxes to zero or less, options that are rarely available to the average millionaire, nevermind the average Joe.

Free speech is another element of American culture that elites seem to have little appreciation for.  Leftists of all income ranges favor curtailing conservative speech, with violence a common tactic on college campuses.  The elites don’t dirty their hands with violence, of course, rather seeking to act through their control over social and traditional media, or via DEI coercion tactics of firms like BlackRock and Citadel.

And then of course there is the 2^nd Amendment’s right to bear arms. While many elites push gun control and the defunding of police, they rarely have to live with the consequences of such actions. With their armed bodyguards and their homes in safe communities, behind walls with security systems, their calls for gun restrictions never put them or their families in danger while doing exactly that to law abiding citizens. 

All of this taken together makes one think of the nobles of old Europe. They often thought of themselves as superior to the kings and only by accident of birth or treachery were not kings themselves. Frequently, financially strapped kings were often in their debt and as such allowed them great latitude in dealing with the world within their realms.

So too with America’s billionaire elites. From Gates to Hoffman, Zuckerberg, Sandberg, Jobs Powell, Soros, Buffett, Omidyar, Bloomberg and so many others, these leftists see themselves as kings or queens, unaccountable to anyone and anything. They use their tremendous wealth to push for policies that never actually impact them but harm common citizens. They assume that because they’re brilliant in one area of commerce they’re somehow qualified to coerce the rest of us to live our lives as directed. Invariably that “direction” involves governments creating more regulations which add additional burdens to the lives of everyday people for little or no benefit.  From “green energy” to DEI to the butchering of confused teenagers, these members of the WEF’s globalist cabal care far more about virtue signaling than about actually solving actual problems because, of course, average people’s problems never impact them.

The notion of “rules for thee but not for me” is nowhere plainer than the annual migration of private jets that descend on Davos as Klaus Schwab demands we eat bugs and embrace the “sharing economy.”  These paragons of green virtue expend more CO2 in one trip than a family of four does over the course of a year, but it’s OK because they’re saving the world. The fact that these ideas are all based on lies and result in the evisceration of individual freedom while accruing more control for the elites is of no consequence to our modern day nobility. 

The fact that they spit on the free exchange of ideas, limited government and free markets that are at the core of American prosperity, including theirs, is of no consequence. No, because they created a company that helps people search for friends or buy tchotchkes and as a result are richer than virtually everyone who’s ever lived should be enough proof that they must have been chosen by God to lead us. Understand?  Good.  Amen!