THE TWIST

A hundred years ago in the small European country of Moldovia, a democracy at the time, by the vote of the people, a man they trusted assumed the highest office in the land. His background had been in the academic field, one of the country's leading universities provided his chosen career. He was an academic. We assume that academics people aren't exactly alpha males; they're bookish types, those who love nothing more than spending time in the school library.

THE WARNING

But once he assumed the premiership of Moldovia, something happened: he changed. His new power went to his head and because of that, he becomes grist for our study of the sin nature of man.

A little while after assuming his newly-elected role, he powerfully proclaimed, "Woe be to the man or group of men that seeks to stand in our way." It sounded ominous, and it was.

THE POWER OF THE THREAT

His administration began its own special brand of propaganda, printing thousands of posters which read, "I am public opinion. All men fear me! If you have money and do not buy government bonds, I will make you wish you had!"

THE POWER OF THE FOUR-MINUTE MEN

Not content with posters, his administration trained 100,000 men to deliver a four-minute speech in town meetings, in restaurants, theaters--any place they could get an audience to spread the premier's  message. Moldovian records indicate that in two years, these "Four-Minute Men" delivered over 7,555,000  speeches in 5,200 communities in praise of their leader.

SUFFER, LITTLE CHILDREN

The administration looked upon the population of the country as children to be manipulated, children who must be taught to put their individual needs second to the needs of the state, sort of an early version of "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." Any citizen of Moldovia who didn't put the needs of the state above his own, they called, "Dead weight."

The regime taught Molovians to sacrifice their food for the good of the state by designating certain days of the week as meatless or wheatless days. And to make sure "the children" toed the line, they sent out volunteers to knock on doors to get their neighbors to sign pledges and oaths to abstain from this or that luxury. One official of the government pointed out that dinner was extravagant. Two meals a day should do nicely.

If the premier considered adults to be children, so he considered children to be children ripe for manipulation--they pressured children were to sign pledges to leave no bit of food on their plates and not to eat between meals. The government made up nursery rhymes for those toddlers too young to read and these poems taught them to be loyal, to condemn cooks who used "wheat where they should have used corn."

BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU SAY

The premier banned printing, uttering, writing, or publishing any disloyal or profane or abusive  language about the government. To say anything of which the government did not approve could mean jail time or some other punishment. Such language was not permitted in public and in one's own home. They caught one such man--he had explained why he decided not to buy a Moldovian bond and had done so in his own home. He was brought to trial.

WHO CAN YOU TRUST?

To buttress his regime, the premier approved the creation of "The Protective League" which gave badges to its members which read, "Secret Service." The purpose of the League was to keep watch over their neighbors, co-workers, and friends. Members of the Protective League read their neighbor's mail, listened in on their phone conversations, all with the approval of the government. The organization boasted 100,000 members.

STAND UP!

And woe be to the person who said or did any action deemed disloyal; the mob would take care of him. A man refused to stand for the Moldovian state song while attending a pageant. When the song was over, a furious by-stander shot him in the back three times. The crowd cheered and clapped. Another man refused to stand when he heard the state song played at a sporting event. Angry fans beat him senseless.

In one province of Moldovia, mobs put groups of people who weren't loyal to the government in cattle cars and left them in deserted region without food or water. Another mob lynched a cripple deemed to be disloyal.

THE TWIST

"Thank goodness," we say in America, "It can't happen here." But that's the twist. The events described did happen a hundred years ago, but not in Moldovia. There's no such place as Moldovia. (There's a "Moldova," but no "Moldovia." I just made that up.) The events were real; they really happened. No, not in a mythical country, but in America when Woodrow Wilson, the Princeton academic, was President during WWI. (See "Liberal Fascism," by Goldberg.)

Great power in the hands of any fallen man (that's all of us) leads to just what you've read. This is on any level, even the church, and that's one reason why, in the Bible, we don't find God's setting up an office called "The Pastor," but instead, men, and not just one man, a plurality of men called, "elders" to be the shepherds (plural) of the flock. The number of "super pastors" of churches small and mega- who've turned abusive is legion. Of one such pastor, a member of the board said, "It's either his way or the highway."

I don't know who we'll vote for for president the next time around, but can we trust any fallen man with such power? There's one thing I do know: Psalm 146:3 is true: " Do not trust in princes, in mortal man, in whom there is no salvation."So is Psalm 118:9: "It is better to take refuge in the Lord than to trust in princes.