Where is the federal government in this “process of corruption” of which St. Augustine speaks? Nearer the beginning or nearer the end? If it be nearer the end, then is it about to be wholly consumed? Is the process “past the point of no return?” If so, can Christians do anything now to hasten this process, to bring about more quickly the federal government’s inevitable descent into “non-being?” By doing these things, may Christians produce the desired result that “the corruption itself must cease to exist?”

Christians in Exile 2000 (eXileMM) tries to answer these questions. EXile advocates Christian separatism as a means of expediting the federal government’s self-destruction. Separatism is a nonviolent strategy that is legal today. It does not advocate political secession, i.e., for one People “to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another.” Separatism initiates but does not enforce a cultural, social and geographic divide. It lays a real human foundation for a political structure of the future, to be built when declarations of sovereignty or secession may become more realistic, practicable and enforceable.

By no means will future declarations of sovereignty or secession require insurrection or civil war. The federal government is busy destroying itself and those citizens who choose to support it.

Because it no longer commands the loyalty of its citizens, as demonstrated by Gibbon’s history of imperial Rome.

Examples abound of the federal government’s self-destructive tendencies. Certainly, any government that encourages the practices of abortion and sodomy will eventually be deprived of its citizens’ loyalties, for the simple reason that those practices deprive it of loyal citizens.

What consequences befall a government that cannot command the loyalties of citizens?

As the perspicacious Edward Gibbon said of Rome’s imperial government:

“But its fall was announced by a clearer omen than the flight of vultures. The Roman government appeared every day less formidable to its enemies, more odious and oppressive to its subjects. The taxes were multiplied with the public distress, economy was neglected in proportion as it became necessary; and the injustice of the rich shifted the unequal burden from themselves to the people. [The subjects were compelled] to prefer the more simple tyranny of the barbarians, to fly to the woods and mountains. [...] They abjured and abhorred the name of Roman citizens, which had formerly excited the ambition of mankind.” “The Imperial ministers pursued with proscriptive laws and ineffectual arms the rebels whom they had made [...] If all the barbarian conquerors had been annihilated in the same hour, their total destruction would not have restored the empire of the West”

Edward Gibbon “Symptoms of Decay in the Roman Empire of the West” Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Harcourt Brace p. 496 (1960)

Let us examine separately each symptom of decay.

“Less formidable to its enemies”:

Like the Roman government, every day, our federal government appears less formidable to its enemies. It is a poorly kept secret that its Armed Forces are undermanned, overextended and verging upon breakdown. Its current obsession with building bigger bombs and inventing means for their remote delivery is an attempt to substitute technological prowess for its real problem - the lack of manpower.

To make matters worse, our “leaders” have deployed this paucity of American soldiers in a scattershot pattern throughout the Middle East. These deployments have left American soldiers isolated and vulnerable to persistent guerilla attacks and Somalia-like abuses. Media conglomerates are self-censoring their coverage of the Middle Eastern War’s atrocities and body bags. But the War’s toll on the lives of American soldiers cannot be suppressed. As a result, the War is unpopular.

The administration of Bush II is increasingly riven by those who want him reelected, and those whose thirst for Arab blood cannot be slaked at any price.

In a futile attempt to compromise, Bush II is trying to prop up puppet governments in Afghanistan and Iraq. His administration is now sponsoring covert operations in Iran to destabilize that nation’s government. Bush II’s advisors hopes that these strategies will allow them to maintain some temporary hegemony in the Middle East and Central Asia. The federal government’s Armed Forces will then begin a dignified process of withdrawal, presumably in time for election 2004, as opposed to the distinctly undignified “cut and run.”

After the election, in 2005, the Republicrats will institute a compulsory military draft. At that point, all bets are off and no further predictions will be ventured.

America’s true enemies have taken note of the federal government’s undermanned military. Like the barbarians who surrounded Rome, they can only be encouraged by our government’s patent weakness.

“More odious and oppressive to its subjects”:

Needless to say, the coming compulsory military draft will be more odious and oppressive to the federal government’s subjects, in particular men between the ages of 18 and 25 who have registered with the Selective Service System.

A government must compel its citizens to do something only when they will not do it voluntarily, i.e., when it no longer commands the loyalties of its citizens.

Given the recent history of the draft, our rulers should not expect that it will yield a bounteous harvest of conscripts. Naturally, the ruling elites will exempt their own children from compulsory military service. Many of our current “political leaders” dodged the draft themselves during the Vietnam War. Even the blatant draft dodgers wound up evading it with impunity. President Jimmy Carter granted them all amnesty in 1977

“Taxes were multiplied [...] economy was neglected”:

Other forms of compulsory support, such as taxation, will also grow more odious and oppressive. The Republicrats have already committed American taxpayers to an $80 billion reconstruction of Iraq. The Republicrats disallowed any loans to Iraq that could have been repaid out of its oil revenues. That money has already been allocated to the payroll of the puppet government and its contractual pay outs to Halliburton, Bechtel and other well-connected multinational companies.

Rather, the price of empire must be paid for by the imperial subjects, a/k/a American citizens. While Bush II recently appointed veteran crony James A. Baker to arrange for the cancellation of Iraq’s government debt, no such solicitude or forgiveness will be shown to American taxpayers. Just as American citizens will be compelled to serve in the federal government’s armed forces, so also they shall be compelled to pay increasing tribute to that government in the form of higher taxes and higher government debt.

As the rate of domestic taxation and the service of federal government and private debt becomes unsustainable, the price of empire will be paid by a massive inflation of the imperial fiat currency - the United States Dollar. Then, what currently passes in this country for an economy will become a train wreck out of which survivors will stumble and flee.

“The subjects were compelled to “fly to the woods and the mountains [...] they abjured and abhorred the name of Roman citizens”:

A mere fifty years ago, American citizenship had an undeniable value. Today, after the federal government’s deconstruction of our Constitution, federal citizenship secures no real rights to the individual. Any value it had to secure a standard of living has been debased by “free trade”, open borders and mass immigration. By these policies, the federal government punishes the natural born citizen. At the same time, that government is proposing that illegal immigrants by rewarded by giving them amnesty and citizenship. Soon, federal citizenship will be good for only two things - getting taxed and getting drafted. Can such a government command the loyalties of its citizens?

No wonder the Christian citizens of the Roman Empire grew to abhor the name “citizen” In the first century Anno Domini, St. Paul was able to defend against religious persecution by asserting his Roman citizenship. But according to Gibbon, two hundred years later, the Roman Emperor Julian stripped away from Christians citizens all advantages of Roman citizenship: “it was the object of the insidious policy of Julian to deprive the Christians of all the temporal honors and advantages which rendered them respectable in the eyes of the world.”

Gibbon writes that Rome’s oppressed citizens fled to the “woods and mountains.” And so, against a backdrop of imperial persecution, both Biblical prophecy and historical precedent predict that Christians will seek refuge in the mountains. Today, many of America’s freedom loving Christians live in Appalachia, the Ozarks and the Rocky Mountain States. Tomorrow, we pray, more Christian pilgrims will arrive.

“The imperial ministers pursued with proscriptive laws and ineffectual arms the rebels they made”:

The federal government’s imperial ministers may well seek to pursue Christians in eXile with proscriptive laws designed to compel their service to the empire. But again, outside the imperial cities, it is one thing to pass a law and quite a different thing to enforce it. Locally elected officials such a Sheriffs and District Attorneys are permitted to enforce or not enforce laws as they see fit. If the federal government’s armies remain abroad patrolling the empire, few of them will be available to enforce proscriptive laws inside the country but “beyond the pale” of imperial influence.

Conclusion

As was the case with Rome’s government, the federal government’s lack of military manpower makes it appear less formidable to its enemies. As Gibbon noted, such military decline is symptomatic of imperial decay. As St. Augustine taught us, that decay is the product of the federal government’s own evil.

Traditionally, the federal government’s volunteer combat troops were comprised of European Christian men. But its attempts to depopulate, deChristianize and multiculturalize that same group of people is cutting off its prime source of military recruits. Those same efforts undermine the loyalties, patriotism and willingness to sacrifice of America’s natural born citizens. The military now recruits volunteers, many of them immigrants, by promising money for college and career opportunity. But when recruits foresee a significant risk of casualties, this mercenary sales pitch often falls short of the mark.

The federal government’s inevitable resort to a compulsory military draft will hasten its self-destruction. So will its growing reliance on taxation and debt to finance the costs of empire. As imperial Rome increasingly oppressed its subjects, they grew to loathe their status as “citizen” and sought refuge outside that city. Will America’s citizens’ inability or unwillingness to bear the costs of empire cause them to repudiate the odium that their citizenship has become? How many Americans are already working “under the table”, “off the books” or trading in the “black market”? How many more will be living outside the law as the federal government becomes more and more oppressive?

Will American Christians eventually do what their Roman forbears did, i.e., as Gibbon said, “fly to the woods and mountains”? Will the federal government’s oppressive and proscriptive laws impel Christians towards separatism and propel them into eXile?

For if America’s Christians leave behind the imperial cities and the service of the empire, far fewer of those who remain behind will be willing to defend it, and the barbarians outside the gates will grow all the more restless and bold.

X - In Hoc Signo Vinces

Luke Exilarch - luke@eXilemm.com
December 11, 2003