WW III & Civil War II – Folly
I have recently been very interested in a young historian, Rudyard Lynch (WhatIfAltHist) who is making some bold claims about pending war in the United States and in the World at large. Of course, we are not so much in the “loot the treasury” stage of imperial decline as we are in the “burn the treasury down” stage. Truthfully, considering Isaiah 19, I would not be surprised if an economic collapse were not initiated partly to styme and discredit Trump and MAGA.
I have listened to quite a bit of what he says and I don’t have a lot of objections. I was already aware of people like Peter Turchin who also predicted similar things. I expect he is likely correct about war (not condoning) and the only thing currently preventing it is too many young men and women enervated and numbed with porn.
This is an interesting topic, though I do wish he would spend a bit more time on things like the next Great Awakening or how this could usher in a new Axial Age.
But my real objections are not that he predicts war, but that he predicts Right or Left will win. While I think the Left will decline, he presupposes there will be a winner.
There is no sense in talking about how we need God, while ignoring the words of the prophets (regardless of whatever denomination or even religion you are).
So what have prophets said?
tl;dr
America is Exceptional… Both for prosperity and for destruction. When the two previous great civilizations in the American continent were destroyed, it was not a slow decline like that of Greece or Rome. It was annihilation.
Or as Lincoln put it, “If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.”
The Book of Mormon makes it painfully clear, National Suicide is a real genuine possibility. And we are on track to do that.
But that is not the whole story. Let us consider some of the words of the prophets. Because we are in for a real ride. I don’t fully understand all of these, but I suppose they will only be clear in retrospect. For now we simply prepare.
Joseph Smith
I prophecy in the name of the Lord God of Israel, unless the United States redress the wrongs committed upon the Saints in the state of Missouri and punish the crimes committed by her officers that in a few years the government will be utterly overthrown and wasted, and there will not be so much as a potsherd left for their wickedness in permitting the murder of men, women and children, and the wholesale plunder and extermination of thousands of her citizens to go unpunished, thereby perpetrating a foul and corroding blot upon the fair fame of this great republic, the very thought of which would have caused the high-minded and patriotic framers of the Constitution of the United States to hide their faces with shame. Judge [Stephen A. Douglas], you will aspire to the Presidency of the United States; and if you ever turn your hand against me or the Latter-day Saints, you will feel the weight of the hand of the Almighty upon you; and you will live to see and know that I have testified the truth to you; for the conversation of this day will stick to you through life.
–
Even this Nation will be on the very verge of crumbling to pieces and tumbling to the ground and when the constitution is upon the brink of ruin this people will be the Staff up[on] which the Nation shall lean and they shall bear the constitution away from the very verge of destruction.
Then shall the Lord say go tell all my servants who are the strength of mine house my young men and middle aged &c come to the Land of my vineyard and fight the battle of the Lord . . . [then] the Foreign saints shall come to fight for the Land of my vineyard for in this thing shall be their safety and they will have no power to choose but will come as a man fleeth from a sudden destruction . . . I know these things by the visions of the Almighty.
Brigham Young
Even this Nation will be on the very verge of crumbling to pieces and tumbling to the ground and when the constitution is upon the brink of ruin this people will be the Staff up[on] which the Nation shall lean and they shall bear the constitution away from the very verge of destruction.
–
Then shall the Lord say go tell all my servants who are the strength of mine house my young men and middle aged &c come to the Land of my vineyard and fight the battle of the Lord . . . [then] the Foreign saints shall come to fight for the Land of my vineyard for in this thing shall be their safety and they will have no power to choose but will come as a man fleeth from a sudden destruction . . . I know these things by the visions of the Almighty.
John Taylor
And when the nation with which we are associated is shaken to its centre and crumbles to pieces . . . it will continue to fall and to crumble, until it is no more, and by and bye there will be an end of it. Not so with the kingdom of God; it will stand, and continue to exist and spread and go forth.
–
God will lay his hand upon this nation, and they will feel it more terribly than ever they have done before; there will be more bloodshed, more ruin, more devastation than ever they have seen before. Write it down! You will see it come to pass; it is only just starting in. And would you feel to rejoice? No; I would feel sorry. I knew very well myself when this last war was commencing, and could have wept and did weep, over this nation; but there is yet to come a sound of war, trouble and distress, in which brother will be arrayed against brother, father against son, son against father, a scene of desolation and destruction that will permeate our land until it will be a vexation to hear the report thereof. Would you help to bring it about? No, I would not; I would stop it if I could.
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Sute
December 4, 2024
Do you guys really think Trump is the political savior preordained of God to right the ship?
He’s just another of the wringwraiths who at this stage is serving the master of contention and destruction.
The secret combinations will have ensured that which ever party is at the helm, their financial investments will prosper. How else do you explain the plight of the common American during the entire Biden administration, while the financial markets soar admits inflation, stagnation and so on. And Trump comes in and they soar even higher.
The market bubble will drive on* until the nation crumbles, in which case wealth won’t matter anyway.
*It may drop from time to time, but that’s basically shaking out timid investors with cold feet so the combinations can buy more on the cheap.
No matter who is at the helm, the financial interests benefit. Should that inform us that no matter who is leading they are both opposite sides of the same coin?
Zen
December 4, 2024
Trump is imperfect. He is neither a divine savior nor the fascist Nazi.
But he is a talented man with a very smart team who is attempting to fix some problems. Honestly, I couldn’t have picked better.
I have my doubts how well he can fight entrenched bureaucrats, but it is at least pushing in the right direction.
At this point, it isn’t fixing the ship. It is keeping it afloat for as long as possible.
As I stated, I would not be surprised to see a total economic collapse orchestrated just to discredit the populists in power. I noticed a guy on X predicting more viruses coming out. I don’t know what the future holds, but the space of possibilities is getting larger.
E.C.
December 5, 2024
One of the main things I have gotten from my most recent reading of the Book of Mormon is assurance that as long as anyone repents, they will be able to avert disaster – and that goes for countries, too.
I’m not sure if we’ll be able to manage that at this late stage of decline, but though the ancient prophets’ outlook on the situation was fairly grim, there were provisional promises that as long as we repent, we won’t be utterly destroyed at the last day.
That said, we have a pretty bad pride problem culturally and in the church – we seem to think that nothing bad will ever happen, just because things have worked out before. That can’t keep going on forever; eventually we fall off a cliff if we keep going down the wrong road. I think we’ve been given a collective chance to course correct right before that cliff, personally, and it’s not our leaders who are going to have to do most of the correcting.
As a nation and as members of Christ’s Church, we have been complacent and lukewarm citizens for too long, letting our leaders determine our morals and mores, and that’s not tenable for a Zion society; each participant in such a society must be moral in and of themselves. That is what I see our prophets, ancient and modern, repeating time and again. There are going to be some miserable growing pains, I fear, before we get there.
Sute
December 5, 2024
Zen, you’re more optimistic than I. You’re looking at this as though a political leader can slow the decline. Yes there might be some tinkering around the margins on cultural issues, but take note that we’ve had presidents opposed to gay marriage for pretty much all of our lives and here were are.
The social arguments while important are a side show. The financial arguments are window dressing.
The financial powers will benefit up until there is no blood to squeeze from the last stone on the earth, and then it all collapses.
As long as we are not taking part in the contention or losing hope all is well. But it’s my take that when we pick our guy (girl) and defend them if almost invariably leads to contention as people’s emotions are so connected to why and how they vote.
You’ll notice the prophets rarely if ever refer to political leaders by name. No need to invite contention.
I think it’s a good pattern to follow.
Zen
December 5, 2024
More optimistic? I just predicted a total economic collapse!
To be honest, I think Wall Street has everything from literal Secret Combination Master Mahan types, to people who just want to be able to do business. Not all of these are explicitly evil.
And I would NOT say financial arguments are window dressing. Financial issues are probably the most likely issue a (ill considered) Civil War would start over. Again, let me point out the historian I mentioned at the beginning. Look him up on Youtube. He explains it better than I can.
We are headed for a Golden Age, but not before some times that will make the Great Depression and WWII look tame. The time to prepare is NOW.
Eric
December 9, 2024
Hugh Nibley was more of a lay prophet than an official one, but I find this statement he made 80 years ago pretty compelling:
“Obviously few people are making an effort to win the blessings which the [Book of Mormon] promises to the promised land; the catch is that the alternative is not an easy decline or gentle corruption but a whacking curse that knocks all the pegs out at once as soon as everything is good and ready.”
Sute
December 12, 2024
More optimistic meaning you think the powers that be are rigging things up to stop Trump from making progress. With no insult intended I think that’s hopefully naive. Or maybe I’m just too cynical.
But I’m pretty confident the same source that puts them in power, puts Trump in power. I don’t think it’s a question of the forces of bad trying to stop the forces of good.
The bad guys have been calling the shots for a long time. The just let us pretend like we have a part to play.
Zen
December 15, 2024
I think there are two errors when it comes to secret combinations – they are mere a ‘conspiracy theory’, or they control everything, like some kind of den of supervillians. (Hail! Hydra!)
But that also means there are conflicting groups of secret combinations, and conflicting groups within each group. It pains me to say it, but there must be Republican ones and Democrat ones. Numerous.
They don’t control absolutely everything (yet) and our actions are neither pointless nor utterly ineffectual. Nor do they know everything.