Saturday, September 5, 2020

It's A Jungle Out There

The jungle metaphor is common in America. It pictures a brutal world view, where people are vicious to each other, likening humans to animals in the jungle. The Free Dictionary [1] puts it this way, "The real world is severe. It's hard to get by in everyday life." Or how about a few lyrics from Randy Newman's song It's A Jungle Out There [2].

It's a jungle out there
Disorder and confusion everywhere
No one seems to care  

It's a jungle out there
Even the cops are scared today

Newman released the song in 2003, but it seems even more true and relevant today. The police in some cities have an impossible assignment to keep the peace without using force. In some areas, the police have been targeted by rioters - Breitbart [3],  Conservative Daily News [4].


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The riots in America are a fulfillment of something Jesus said when describing signs of the end of the age

Mat 24:12  KJV And because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. 

The word "iniquity" doesn't really convey the underlying Greek word anomia, which many translate as "lawlessness". Nomia means law, anomia means "not law". And we are seeing violence and lawlessness on an unprecedented scale - And Magazine [5], Mass Resistance [6]. The second half of the verse says the love of many shall wax cold. Sounds like Randy Newman's line "no one seems to care".

Some would argue that the Jungle has a law of its own, where the strongest survive - Dictionary.com [7]. Rudyard Kipling wrote that animals live by a code - Jungle Book Fandom [8].

In the novel The Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling uses the term to describe an actual set of legal codes used by wolves and other animals in the jungles of India. In Chapter Two of The Second Jungle Book, Rudyard Kipling provides a poem, featuring the Law of the Jungle as known to the wolves, and as taught to their offspring.

Now this is the law of the jungle, as old and as true as the sky, And the wolf that shall keep it may prosper, but the wolf that shall break it must die.

Keep peace with the lords of the jungle, the tiger, the panther, the bear; And trouble not Hathi the Silent, and mock not the boar in his lair.

When pack meets with pack in the jungle, and neither will go from the trail, Lie down till the leaders have spoken; it may be fair words shall prevail.

When ye fight with a wolf of the pack ye must fight him alone and afar, Lest others take part in the quarrel and the pack is diminished by war.

The lair of the wolf is his refuge, and where he has made him his home, Not even the head wolf may enter, not even the council may come. 

          etc.


Kipling makes wolves appear more civilized than humans.  It's hard to say how much an animal's behavior is instinct and how much is learned - I plan to sidestep that question. But according to The Kipling Society [9], "Kipling believed that without a degree of order, provided by law, life would be nasty brutish and short, in the world as well as the jungle". That is, even in the jungle, law is necessary. How much more is law required for humans? Indeed, the phrase "Law of the Jungle" has taken on a meaning that is the opposite of what Kipling meant - "kill or be killed", but what Kipling meant was "order provided by law".


The jungle has no courts of law, no system of justice, no judges, and no attorneys. A humpback whale found a fabulous lunch of salmon at a fish hatchery in Alaska, a lunch estimated to be worth 13 million dollars - Big Geek Daddy [10]. Who is there to bring this whale to justice? Actually, the Bible gives one case where animals can be brought to justice, in the event an animal kills a human, the animal is to be killed - Gen 9:5, Ex 21:28.

How did we get to the place where so many people want to do away with law? The place where people want to disband and defund the police?

We could look at the choices that Adam and Eve made. Gen 3:6  "And when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make one wise". What did she do? "she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat. " Adam and Eve decided for themselves what was right and wrong (with help from the serpent).  And mankind has been doing that ever since.




Even the theologians, the ones who should know better, teach that the Law, referring to the Ten Commandments, is done away. Kipling knew better - "order provided by law". Doing away with the Law brings immorality, violence, and anarchy. Many people think that freedom is having no law, anomia, but freedom comes from law - "How Can the Law Set You Free?" [11].




Anarchy is the stated goal of the rioters - RealClearPolitics [12], PJMedia [13]*. They talk of tearing or burning the system down - NYPost(anarchy) [14]. I guess they think that a better world will rise out of the ashes like a Phoenix. But strong safe countries don't happen by accident. When the rioters get a little power,  they become oppressors.  They intimidated people saying "give your house to us" - NYPost(demand) [15]. These are not the actions of selfless benevolent leaders. In my youth, ordinary citizens were afraid of biker gangs, now biker gangs are better behaved than the rioters and looters - RideApart [16], GatewayPundit [17]. If the rioters get their wish of anarchy, a new order will appear, but not the one they hoped for [12].

*Selected quotes below, in References section

We  could lay the blame at the feet of the serpent in the garden of Eden, who is identified in Revelation 12:9 "And the great dragon was cast out, that old serpent, called the Devil, and Satan, which deceiveth the whole world: he was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him." Whether you like conspiracy theories or not, the Bible says Satan is the one deceiving the whole world. This means now, not just once in Eden.

Blaming Satan might make one feel they have no responsibility, but ultimately we are all like Adam and Eve, deciding for ourselves what is right and wrong. It might be summed up in the phrase, "you can't tell me what to do".

God can tell us what to do, and He does tell us what to do. He has given mankind 6000 years to do things our way, form governments, write laws, and dispense justice. That 6000 years is nearly up, the signs of the end of this age are in the headlines now. Jesus said "For the coming of the Son of Man will be just like the days of Noah." What was it like in the days of Noah? "The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence - Gen 6:11". The word translated violence is the Hebrew word hamas. It's no surprise a modern terrorist group which hates Israel is called Hamas. Violence now fills America too. To give time for repentance, God is slowly raising the heat by removing His blessings and actively sending curses, escalating curses. Four times in Lev 26 we are warned "if ye will not yet for all this hearken unto me, then I will punish you seven times more for your sins - Lev 26:18". "Seven times" could refer to duration and/or intensity. Some will repent, but sadly many won't. He has a plan to deal with them too, "not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance - 2 Peter 3:9".

The jungle does have laws, not the ones Kipling wrote, but the laws the Creator wrote. Animals are not free to violate those laws, and they are not held to the Ten Commandments. They do what comes naturally to them. Clearly, people are different. God wants us to know right from wrong, but not decide for ourselves what is right and wrong. The time to repent is now, before the curses escalate.

References

1. https://idioms.thefreedictionary.com/It%27s+a+jungle+out+there
2. https://www.metrolyrics.com/its-a-jungle-out-there-lyrics-randy-newman.html
3. https://www.breitbart.com/the-media/2020/08/02/rioters-target-local-police-in-portland-wall-street-journal-says-mostly-peaceful/
4. https://www.conservativedailynews.com/2020/06/anarchistslootersthugs-and-thieves/
There have been reports officers being attacked with Molotov cocktails, bricks, stones, and just about anything else the rioters were able to get their hands on.
What started as a protest highlight police brutality regressed into anarchy in the 3rd Precinct in Minneapolis. Protestors resorted to violence. From ransacked stores to fires, with footage displaying rioters looting goods from stores.
5. http://andmagazine.com/talk/2020/06/25/the-united-front-how-china-has-co-opted-the-u-s-media/
6. https://www.massresistance.org/docs/gen4/20b/Black-Lives-Matter-radical-goals/index.html
7. https://www.dictionary.com/browse/law-of-the-jungle
8. https://junglebook.fandom.com/wiki/The_Law_of_the_Jungle
9. http://www.kiplingsociety.co.uk/rg_lawofjungle1.htm
10. https://biggeekdad.com/2020/08/million-dollar-lunch/
11. https://jlfreeman-1.blogspot.com/2018/04/how-can-law-set-you-free.html
12. https://www.realclearpolitics.com/2020/06/01/the_nothing_matters_rioters_want_anarchy_512889.html#!
The intent of these carpetbaggers isn’t justice but anarchy
Many of them see an eschatology at work whereby internal contradictions will collapse America on itself. That will then create a void, in which their hallucinated Brigadoon of choice, a communist paradise or a white ethnostate, can be brought about.
 Liberty and justice are dependent on civil society, the very thing these creeps are attacking. Again, chaos is the point. It’s why liquor stores are such a common target.
Eventually some new world order is supposed to arise. But the more immediate goal is the void, sheer nothingness.
13. https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/bryan-preston/2020/06/03/black-democrat-slams-riots-applauds-curfews-this-is-not-protest-its-anarchy-n487428
Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price says what he has seen in Dallas since Friday night are not protests.
“I can’t sit idly by. This is not protest. Just don’t keep wrapping it as though its protest. It’s not protest. It’s anarchy,” he said. “And it’s not as if you’re talking to somebody who has never protested.”
It’s not a project to embrace or enhance the American project. They want to destroy that. When they deface American monuments, this is what they are saying.
14. https://nypost.com/2020/07/24/portland-protests-have-no-goal-except-violence-and-anarchy
And that’s what people need to know about Antifa. They don’t make demands because that’s working within “the system.” Their unambiguous goal is to destroy all American institutions and then the country itself. When they spray-paint or shout, “Burn it down,” they really mean it.
15. https://nypost.com/2020/08/14/seattle-blm-protesters-demand-white-people-give-up-their-homes/
A group of Black Lives Matter protesters in Seattle marched through a residential neighborhood this week demanding that white residents give up their homes, dramatic video shows.
16. https://www.rideapart.com/articles/439496/sturgis-2020-attendance-crime-numbers/
Total citations were most closely matched of all, with 1,334 issued for 2020 compared with 1,336 in 2019.
17. https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/08/antifa-goons-go-sturgis-biker-rally-big-mistake-need-police-protection-escape-video/
At one point a tall Antifa goon with purple hair kicked bike and that’s when all hell broke loose. The Sturgis bikers erupted and police took the purple haired goon. The rest of Antifa had to get a police escort to get out of town.