Joe got pulled over by a cop in Portage County, Wisconsin, and could have gotten off with a mere traffic ticket — or perhaps just a warning — but he was defiant, looking for trouble. If you’ve watched a lot of police body camera videos on YouTube (it’s a hobby of mine), you’ve become familiar with this scenario, the routine traffic stop that “escalates,” sometimes fatally. It often begins with a motorist’s refusal to give the officer a driver’s license, proceeding to the demand that the officer summon a supervisor, etc. Joe ended up in handcuffs in the back of a squad car, charged with assault and other crimes, adding to his already lengthy history of run-ins with the law. We are in a dangerous place, politically, when such contempt for authority is promoted by those who style themselves defenders of “Our Democracy.” What causes these unnecessary confrontations? In a word, equality — or, as I’ve previously pointed out, Equality, with a capital “E,” denoting the quasi-religious faith in Equality common among liberals. “All men are created equal,” as our Declaration of Independence famously proclaimed, and that simple five-word phrase has become the foundation of a dangerous cult, which threatens to wreck the very nation that the Declaration announced our ancestors’ intent to create. Equality, as conceived by liberals, is not merely a political ideal, but a moral principle, so that any sort of inequality is to them a sort of sin. If your bank balance is even a dollar more than your neighbor’s, this is oppression — your poor neighbor is being oppressed and exploited, and you should feel guilty about it. Sins against the cult of Equality are denounced as injustice, and once someone starts viewing the world through such warped lenses, they see injustice everywhere. The rich are oppressing the poor, whites are oppressing racial minorities, men are oppressing women, so on and so forth, and the liberal will never find an end to these alleged injustices that cry out for remediation. (RELATED: The Dangerous Cult of Income Equality) If you were fortunate enough to have studied political science under old-fashioned professors, as I did, you understand that the ideals expressed in the Declaration of Independence — “unalienable rights,” etc. — are somewhat self-contradictory. That is to say, equality and liberty are at odds with each other. People have different interests and different abilities, and, insofar as they have liberty to engage in what the Declaration calls “the pursuit of happiness,” their fortunes will vary greatly, so that they are not equal in terms of their income, wealth, and social status. To view this kind of naturally occurring inequality as proof of oppression is absurd, and yet it is on the basis of such a belief that liberals spend their lives crusading for what they think of as “social justice.” Permitted to advance unchecked, the Cult of Equality must ultimately destroy all established authority, all commerce and industry, and unleash bloody violence — e.g., the Khmer Rouge in “Year Zero” — before finally imposing absolute dictatorship. Of course, liberals deny any such intent, but the road to Hell is proverbially paved with good intentions, and liberals have become accustomed to not being confronted about their fanatical belief in Equality, by which so many evils may be justified. Given how common it is for children to be taught to revere Equality as an unquestionable good, even conservatives may hesitate to point out what’s wrong with this idea. It’s not politically popular to criticize Equality, or to defend any particular species of actual inequality, and so the liberal syllogism is permitted to avoid scrutiny of its basic premise. New York City is preparing to inaugurate a new mayor who campaigned on a platform of wild-eyed radicalism. Zohran Mamdani has promised to freeze rents, to build thousands of “affordable housing” units at taxpayer expense, and to impose punitive taxation on the rich. Critics have pointed out the practical obstacles to Mamdani’s agenda, but the real question is why a majority of voters in New York City have bought the “democratic socialist” hokum that Mamdani is peddling. However bad the status quo in New York may be, what is the basis for the apparent belief of most New Yorkers that extreme left-wing measures are the solution to their problems? Is it just a blind hatred of the rich? (RELATED: The Mamdani Model: More Socialist Mayors to Come) Hate can be a powerful force in politics, and the Cult of Equality justifies the kinds of hatred that Mamdani expresses, including his Hamas-style denunciations of Israel. Anyone can see that the Israelis are richer than their Palestinian neighbors and that, in terms of organized military power, Israel is vastly superior to any of its enemies. It is Israel’s success, contrasted to the failures of its neighbors, which has attracted the hatred of those like Mamdani who incite paranoia about a wicked Zionist conspiracy. (RELATED: The Anti-Colonial Shadow Over Mamdani’s Socialism) Let us return, now, to Joe and his traffic stop in Wisconsin. At the root of Joe’s confrontational defiance was his belief that he is equal to the cop — denying the police officer’s authority to order Joe to hand over his driver’s license. But it becomes impossible to enforce any law if the authority of duly-sworn officers is not recognized. We, as citizens, vote for legislatures that enact laws, and we elect local governments that hire police to enforce those laws. The Bill of Rights guarantees certain protections — habeas corpus, trial by jury, etc. — and with those guarantees in mind, a law-abiding citizen has no reason to fear the police, much less to take a defiant attitude toward the cop just doing his job. “You’ll have your day in court,” the supervising sergeant of the township police told Joe during the traffic stop that ended with Joe handcuffed in the back of the squad car. This was an adage among Americans for generations: “You’ll have your day in court,” meaning, basically, don’t argue with the cop, but take it up with the judge in whatever hearings or other court proceedings may follow. Some people, however, act as if police authority is an insult: “How dare this cop presume to boss me around?” To acquiesce with the officer’s orders would be to admit that the officer is in some way superior, and any kind of superiority is unacceptable to the Cult of Equality. Joe got a free ride to jail (not his first such ride) because he could not accept the reality of the officer’s lawful authority, and here, dear readers, you must excuse me for invoking a much higher authority. To put it bluntly, Joe needs Jesus, and so do we all. The eighth chapter of Matthew’s gospel tells how, in Capernaum, a Roman centurion appealed to Jesus, “Lord, my servant lieth at home sick of the palsy, grievously tormented”: And Jesus saith unto him, I will come and heal him. The centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldest come under my roof: but speak the word only, and my servant shall be healed. For I am a man under authority, having soldiers under me: and I say to this man, Go, and he goeth; and to another, Come, and he cometh; and to my servant, Do this, and he doeth it. Jesus “marvelled” at the centurion’s expression of what it means to be “a man under authority” and, having praised the centurion for his “great faith,” said the word that accomplished his request, so that the centurion’s “servant was healed in the selfsame hour.” These few verses are sufficient to inspire many lengthy sermons, but notice first that the centurion appealed for the healing of his own servant. A few years ago, when one of my sons was studying Hannibal’s invasion of Italy (218–204 B.C.), he remarked that historians now believe slaves constituted fully half of the population of the city of Rome at the time. Slavery was commonplace in the ancient world, and the fact that the Roman centurion had a servant was not remarkable. Second, notice how the centurion abases himself to Jesus: “Lord, I am not worthy.” At the time, Judea was under the imperial yoke of Rome, so that an officer of the legions could expect any of the conquered Jews to show respect toward him, but this centurion was so desperate for the healing power of Jesus that he confessed his own unworthiness even to have him “come under my roof.” It was this that led the centurion to describe himself as “a man under authority,” requesting Jesus just to “speak the word” that would heal his servant, eliciting the response: “Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel…. And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go thy way; and as thou hast believed, so be it done unto thee.” Set aside, for the sake of argument about more secular matters, whether the reader believes in the miracles recorded in the Bible. The point is that Christians, who do so believe, are called to emulate the example of Jesus in complying with lawful authority. Even when He was betrayed, persecuted, and crucified, Jesus did not resist. He came to serve as an atoning sacrifice, in fulfillment of prophecy, and we who call ourselves Christians are commanded to take up the cross and follow Him. The police officer is “a man under authority.” Is that not apparent? Is further explanation needed? Why would Joe in Wisconsin, or anyone else, have a problem with the cop just doing his job? Isn’t such lawless defiance a predictable consequence of the Cult of Equality, which encourages fools to think there is no such thing as superior authority? When I was a boy attending Sunday School at the First Baptist Church of Lithia Springs, Georgia, obedience to authority was among the lessons most strenuously taught. It’s right there in the Ten Commandments: “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land.” And this duty extended also to respecting civil authority, as the Apostle Paul admonished the early church in Rome: “Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever therefore resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God.” We may observe that Paul was counseling those early believers to comply with “the powers that be” at a time when Christians faced persecution by Roman authority. The duty of being “subject unto the higher powers” was not contingent on whether those powers were exercised by godly men, or whether Christians suffered wrongly under the “powers that be.” Faith that everything is “ordained of God” — even our own suffering — is an obligation for all Christians, because we have the promise that one day we will have “our day in court,” at the Final Judgment, when our plea will be entered by He who healed the centurion’s servant. The Cult of Equality is anti-Christian, both in the theological sense and in a practical sense. Paul warned the Ephesians to “put on the whole armour of God” in the struggle “against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” In the very same chapter, however, Paul admonished children to obey their parents and servants to obey their masters. The Cult of Equality rejects traditional distinctions of authority, and the Christian church today faces no enemy more hostile than the atheistic radicalism of the Left. Real injustice and actual oppression are not so rare that they can be ignored, but the Cult of Equality conjures up imaginary victimhood — “heteronormative patriarchy,” “structural racism,” “systemic transphobia,” blah blah blah — to seduce its gullible followers into a delusional rage. Meanwhile, there are analogous delusions among the angry young men who heed a competing victimhood narrative (promoted by Nick Fuentes, among others), thinking themselves cheated out of what they deserve by Zionists and other enemies. It’s a crazy world we’re living in, where liberals claim that everybody is being oppressed by white men, while at the same time, some white men claim that they are the real victims of oppression. Back once again to that traffic stop in Wisconsin — Joe’s a white guy, and the officers arresting him were white, too. The last census found that Portage County is about 90 percent white, so there was no “racial injustice” involved in Joe getting manhandled into the back of a cop car. Joe nevertheless behaved like every BLM-inspired black suspect who decides to resist arrest because he believes his rights are being violated, turning a simple traffic stop or domestic disturbance case into a violent confrontation. Law enforcement officers risk their lives and, alas, too often lose their lives, because of the anti-police attitudes that have flourished in recent years. At the same time, calls to “defund the police” have endangered public safety, as has misguided leniency toward habitual criminals like Decarlos Brown. By undermining law enforcement, the Cult of Equality endangers those “unalienable rights” which, in the words of the Declaration of Independence, governments are instituted to secure. When governments fail to protect the property and lives of their citizens, the result may be catastrophic — riots, anarchy, civil war. Why do you think it is, after all, that anarchist vandals in places like Seattle and Portland have made “ACAB” (All Cops Are Bastards) their most common graffiti slogan? Nowhere is the Cult of Equality’s anti-law enforcement attitude more evident now than in the Left’s attempts to obstruct the Trump administration’s effort to apprehend and deport illegal aliens. Liberals have adopted such a radical egalitarian stance that they view any random foreigner as having an “equal right” to reside in the United States, no matter what the law says. Thus, the Salvadoran gangster Kilmar Garcia is described as a “Maryland man,” without regard either to his immigration status or the crimes he has committed since illegally crossing the border. Democrat politicians actively encourage attacks on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents — calling them “Gestapo,” “Nazis,” “thugs,” etc. Why? Because somehow Democrats, in their maniacal devotion to the Cult of Equality, consider it unfair to enforce immigration law. (RELATED: The Geography of Defiance) We are in a dangerous place, politically, when such contempt for authority is promoted by those who style themselves defenders of “Our Democracy.” It’s not just idiots getting themselves arrested because they can’t cope with a simple traffic stop. It’s members of Congress indicted for obstructing ICE agents. America itself is at risk when lawmakers become lawbreakers, but this is where the fanatical belief in Equality leads, and destruction awaits if we do not reverse course. 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