Earlier this week on a morning, when I opened up the news on my phone, across social media, the “powers that be” had rent their garments and donned bear shirts because Italy had elected a “far right prime minister” (cue very spooky music). Her name is Giorgia Melo and she has some things to say, which are making the global elites nervous. Take a listen to this speech she gave in 2019:
Right out of the gate she asked, “Why is the family the enemy? Why is the family so frightening?” She answered her own question, because the family is part of our identity as people. As Latter-day Saints we know and teach that “[T]he family is central to the Creator’s plan for the eternal destiny of His children”. The family structure is how society has been organized on this earth since the beginning, with Father Adam and Mother Eve. It is in the structure of the family and thru the covenants that we make in the temple that we are exhaled. We only have to look thru the pages of history to see, that when families break down, society is not far behind. The devil and his agents want to destroy the family.
The devil directs the work of destroying families and has a lot of willing helpers that work to destroy the family unit on his behalf. In the the book Abolish the Family, by Sophie Lewis, the author argues that the family structure enslaves people and is abusive. Lewis’ thesis is based in the tenets of Marxist philosophy which seeks to break the family structure and break the individual sense of self & being and then to remake the individual as a serf to the state. The state will be your family now. The state will provide your means. There are no individuals, just the state. All of this, of course, is pure nonsense.
Marxisim also seeks to break institutions like traditional churches that support the family structure. This is why, as the Bolsheviks terrorized their way across Russia during the Russian Revolution, they would first destroy family homes, and farms, thru collectivization and brutal pogroms, and then destroy and loot the churches and replace them with “Dom Kultura” or Houses of Culture — which glorified the Soviet State, and Marxism. You were no longer the son or daughter of your parents, you were the son or daughter of the mighty Soviet State, and that was to be your first and only identity and fealty.
Ms. Melo continued in her speech, “Everything that now defines us is an enemy for those who would like us to no longer have an identity and to simply be consumer slaves. So they attack religious identity, they attack gender identity, they attack family identity. I can’t define myself as Italian, Christian, woman, mother, NO! I must be citizen X, gender X, parent one, parent two, I must be a number. Because when I am only a number, when I no longer have an identity or roots, then I will be the perfect slave at the mercy of financial speculators, the perfect consumer. We do not want to be numbers. We will defend the value of the human being. Each of us has a unique genetic code that is un-replaceable (sic), and like it or not, that is sacred.”
We see these attacks religion, gender, and family play out every day with intersectional labeling and woke identity politics. Society would have us reduced to just our sexual preferences, the color of our skin, or our political affiliation. When we fall into that trap, we short change ourselves of every good thing God has for us.
President Nelson taught earlier this year, that first we are a child of God. Second, we are a child of the covenant, and finally that we are disciples of Christ. The order of President Nelson’s identity hierarchy matters too. For years young women around the world would stand and repeat the phrase, “We are daughters of a Heavenly Father who loves us, and we love him.” That weekly reminder was a re-calibration to our true identity as daughters of God. Our covenants bind us to Jesus Christ, and to our families and help us to realize our potential as disciples of Jesus Christ.
I’ve long said that if the devil can make you forget who you are — your true identity as a child of God, then he can get you to do awful things. If he can get you to forget that the people around you are also children of God, then it’s really easy to justify harming and sinning against each other. As Saul Alisnky wrote in his 10 Rules for Radicals, “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.” I would add and destroy it.
I don’t know what Giorga Melo’s politics are, or how she will govern Italy. But, I don’t think she’s a fascist and I reject the comparisons to Mussolini. That said, it’s nice to hear someone stand and boldly defend the family and the worth of a soul.
For more on this speech, please take some time to watch Greg Matson’s analysis of Ms. Melo’s speech.
Brava, Giorgia Meloni!
It’s a sign of the times that what Giorgia Meloni said is even controversial. The Clintons said similar things in the 1990s literally every week, and Obama even said similar things up to 2016, but now it is controversial??!!
Any comments from Pope Francis?
I just have to add, she is not officially married to the man she lives with who is also the father of her children. For me that does complicate her message, but it doesn’t ruin the points she raises. Can we say that those who have a long term relationship, but don’t have an official piece of paper or ritual commitment, are naturally married? That is besides the LDS belief in the necessity of a Temple sealing.
I wouldn’t expect Pope Francis to say anything, because progressives are ideologues to their sexual & economic politics first. I have noticed conservatives are more likely to find common ground with people they disagree with politically over moral issues. But progressives seem to be generally unwilling to elevate conservatives they disagree with because their ideology trumps most things.
@ all:
Do you know of any LDS, or active members of any church, who supported SSM/Obergefell, but are now regretting it after seeing where it has led ?
Some of us who were warning/complaining the loudest back in 2012-2105 said it was going to be a watershed and a game-changer. Are any LDS or other Christians who supported SSM back then realizing now that SSM indeed opened the floodgates and accelerated things?
In the books of Mosiah, Alma, Helaman, and 3 Nephi, the populace as a whole often switched from good to bad in the space of as few as 5 years. I often marveled at their collective short memories. But we are seeing it play out now — not so much good/bad/good/bad, but good/bad/worse/worse/worse.
People as a whole can’t see the pattern of progression, and that the liars of the past are still telling us what to do.
Anyone remember M* discussions about boundariy-removal effects on exploration and those who are “soft-coded”, role model effects, normalizing, creeping margins, younger=gayer?
It’s been 55 years since the “Summer of Love” (1967). But only 7 years since Obergefell.
How can people forget so quickly? Here’s how:
Who’s been teaching minors and college kids all that time?
Who’s been running the entertainment and news industry all that time?
Answer: well, it should be obvious.
@Bookslinger … everyone that I know that was LDS and openly supporting Oberfell has left the church over the issue of LGBT “rights” in the church.
Book, my experience is the same as Joyce’s. I do know a few converts who were pro gay marriage before joining the Church who are less supportive now, but in terms of long-term active “pro-gay rights” LDS people, they have mostly left the Church (but of course cannot leave it alone). And of course now they want eight-year-olds to cut off their body parts in the name of “trans rights.”
Geoff / Joyce, if you don’t want to have these links on this thread, feel free to delete (or not approve) this comment.
The author of the book I recently reviewed, Michael L Brown, has a podcast episode (and corresponding video) about the history of how LGBT activism has advanced over the last 50 years and effectively brainwashed people. As I like to say, his theology is not perfect, but his scholarship, both in modern history, and in drawing parallels to the O.T. is impressive.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/line-of-fire-radio/id277468706?i=1000580960635
https://askdrbrown.org/video/the-right-vs-the-left-and-the-future-of-the-world
A few of his points:
Not all LGBT are activists, or are aware of the non-public infiltrations of institutions and the very long term machinations going on.
The American Psychological Assoc., and The American Psychiatry Assoc., were deliberately targeted and their leadership was infiltrated by activists. (The vast majority of their membership was actually against the official change in stance on homosexualtiy by the 2 associations back in 1973 and 1975.)
Clergy of major Protestant churches and the Catholic church were deliberately targeted for infiltration by activists. The broader base and more layers of management in the Catholic church made it slower going, but you can see what the activist clergy are doing if you read Catholic news. The major mainline Protestants are all now corrupted.
Brown mentioned two surveys, but unfortunately didn’t give cites. One said 20% of Gen Z self-identifies as somewhere on the LGBT spectrum, and the other claimed 40%. I thought “margin creep”. The absence of the taboo now allows people to explore that which they previously would
not have felt free to do. And the role-model effect on the young.
Brown is not as polished a speaker as say, Jordan Peterson. But he does explain the spiritual warfare aspects a lot better. Brown says out loud that what Peterson avoids for whatever reason.
One of Brown’s “medals of honor, is, of course, that he is on official hate-monger lists by such groups as Southern Poverty Law Center.
I’m reading a book (I mentioned it on another post recently) called, ‘The Rise and Triumph of the Modern Self: Cultural Amnesia, Expressive Individualism, and the Road to Sexual Revolution’, by Carl Trueman. It’s *very* interesting. Very. He goes through how even though to us, this whole focus on sexuality and so on – and once nonsensical things like transgenderism – is mystifying, to those embedded in the modern culture, it makes total sense. And how that culture comes from people like Marx, and even before him, Rousseau; also Wordsworth, Blake and Shelley, as well as Darwin and Nietzsche.
The Enlightenment – dependence on man, not God – the responding Romantic period – focus on the self and the inner thoughts and feelings creating your identity and ‘truth’ – and the subsequent move through evolution and so on – all lead to where we are now. You’d have to read the book to get to the details which explain that process (our current state of expressive individualism, or ‘psychological man’, etc.). The reason the family – as well as religion, especially Christianity, since these movements occurred in the West, and all institutions which require adherence to mores and rules – are targeted is because they’re seen as the enemy to expressive individualism. If I can’t be whoever I want to be, and express my real self through however I feel I need or want to, then whatever tries to stop me from doing that should be destroyed, in order to be free. The family and church, particularly, restrict sexual activity, and this is seen as oppressive – unfair, wrong, and reprehensible. That’s why sexual proclivity has become the central battlefield – I guess it’s seen as the ultimate expression of personal freedom and selfhood. If something tries to control that, they’re trying to control the person, and this is evil. So all things which have this role are the enemy. The family protects this, and that’s why there’s such a completely oposite view of its purpose to how we see it.
It’s an in-depth, detailed book, but I think it’s very important, because it can be impossible for people who see the world through a Gospel perspective, or a conservative one (perhaps easier for those who see it through a liberal – English/European meaning of liberal – one) to properly comprehend what’s really going on in the psyche of those who work for these ends. If we don’t understand that, how can we effectively fight it?
It’s acutally very well expressed by the antichrists in the Book of Mormon, in part at least.
Idealist, that sounds like a fascinating book. I just found it on Scribd.com, which is the audiobook app I subscribe to. I’m going to listen to it.
Bookslinger: thanks for sharing those links. I’m going to take a look at them.
@Idealist: Does Trueman go much into the spiritual aspects and origins of the conflict, or just the psychological aspects, the secular history and outward church history? I couldn’t tell from the book sample.
I was called a blankety blank blank blank racist Fascist blank by a BYU professor whom most LDS have on a high pedestal.
I put up hard facts… and cited where to find the facts and laws to support my position. I also showed precedent by a “Democrat” president of the USA. This BYU prof then went on a tirade and attacked me more.
If I am a Fascist then those who call me that are bona fide Communists. The foul mouthed BYU prof. is a Communist.
People who resort to vulgar name calling have no counter argument or facts. They use “Muh feelings” and ignore critical thinking.
Actually the Marxist Lenin Democrat left follow the playbooks of both Fascism and Communism and with media as their personal mouthpieces they are successful in destroying Western Civilization
Would you be willing to give the name of that BYU prof privately? These people need to be held accountable.
@Tulan … most people don’t actually understand fascism.
Joyce: heads-up that the chapter about Freud is less pleasant.
Bookslinger: I’m about halfway through, and it’s not about church or religious history as such. This is because the purpose of the book is to explain much better the cultural phenomenon of how our societies got to this point, and what exactly it is that we’re up against. It’s to help people who otherwise might not be able to, to understand what is actually happening and why, so we can effectively respond. I think many of us – Christians – don’t actually realise the extent of what we’re facing. That it’s not a fad or an aberration, but a deep and long-developing, drastic change in our culture. I think we can also see, from reading it, where the relevance to our churches is. For example, people claiming that certain changes are needed, leniency given, etc., can be recognised as part of this process, not an innocent desire for fairness or toleration (although those asking or calling for them might not, themselves, realise that).
I know he does give some advice to churches right at the end. Here’s the conclusion to the ‘Introduction’, which summarises the book’s purpose:
“What I offer here is essentially a prolegomenon to the many discussions that Christians and others need to have about the most pressing issues of our day, particularly as they manifest themselves in the variety of ways in which the sexual revolution affects us – personally, culturally, legally, theologically, ecclesiastically. My aim is to explain how and why a certain notion of the self has come to dominate the culture of the West, why this self finds its most obvious manifestation in the transformation of sexual mores, and what the wider implications of this transformation are and may well be in the future. Understanding the times is a precondition of responding appropriately to the times. And understanding the times requires a knowledge of the history that has led up to the present. This book is intended as a small contribution to that vital task” (p. 31).
Bookslinger: about your earlier comment – ‘The Long March (Creep) Through the Instiutions’… Very much like China’s various initiatives – on the surface, seemingly fair and logical (well, sometimes for China’s); underneath, insidious, very definite motivations for domination.