“The Moloch Machine is a symbol of how, as the technical attitude takes hold, it begins not only to reflect human aspirations and conditions of existence, but to shape them.” – Christopher Watkin

Given that Moloch was an idol who insisted on costly sacrifices, this is a bold claim if it applies to our current circumstances. But Watkin explains why the metaphor might relate to us in the West. He suggests that currently we sacrifice to the machine of society using ‘the currency of our labour’ in place of the ‘currency of their children.’

This kind of sacrifice – of our labour – is focused on utilitarian pragmatism. We assume that those in officialdom know what is best for us in achieving the most benefit with as little effort as possible. This technocratic approach makes all its citizens subject to the elite leaders’ pseudo-science assumptions, based on pseudo-algebraic techniques. Such modelling also assumes that human life is deterministic – except of course, for the elite leaders themselves.

So, the price of comfort is that we are treated like a cog in a machine. This becomes the ultimate sacrifice of our souls. The concept of us being embodied persons seeking meaning – individually and collectively – becomes officially rejected, because such searches go beyond the borders of the secular knowledge patrol. There is no possibility of relating human purpose and hope to the transcendent in this Moloch machine-like structure of society. Spirituality is ignored, and religion is banned (unless it can be used for political means for the same technocratic political ends). There is no free will. We become compliant and more animalistic, living by what feels good as long as we can stay within the limits set by those who are ‘keeping us safe.’ 

This may sound extreme to some people, but I suggest this describes our new order of the Socialist Re-formation of Australia. 

Our ruling parties are firmly grounded in the Left of politics. They are not only committed to, but are visibly comfortable, in being a Government that defines the crises and all the solutions. Environment, energy and education are defined as cataclysmic within the descriptions of the ruling class. These portrayals of the dire state of our lives are propped up with hidden fact-finding modelling. Thus, only the ruling elite, the purists of socialist minds, can and must control the flow of income and expenditure into each of these areas of life.

Thus, other humanising parts of our lives are ignored or suppressed. For example, building a secure society is beyond such socialistic strategies, because security is based on a common mind that goes beyond controlled comfort. It requires a clear understanding of the sanctity of human life. It requires a universal respect whereby leaders are under the same authority that they seek to impose on others. 

Whether or not we are under such a socialist regime can therefore be tested by asking this question: Do we currently see evidence of prioritising our humanity under our current political masters? 

No. They develop subservient international relationships with other nations that have greater centralist control and less personal freedoms. 

No. We see new tax schemes that will apply to everyone ‘out there’, but not to protected politicians.

No. We see miserable cowardice in not clearly and consistently calling out terrorist leaders in the Middle East who are sworn to obliterate the people of a neighbouring country. This is while local citizens can call for the death of a people group and who celebrate the horror of rape, torture and murder.

No. We hear messages of supporting families, women in particular, while we are given pocket-money relief sourced from our own taxes. In the meantime, government agencies make it harder to be productive, while they make it easier not to work. They do nothing to help young men catch up educationally, vocationally, and economically. Housing is a system that rorts city dwellers, while green and black tape sucks the life out of our rural towns. Abortion runs amok, and euthanasia grows like a slithering snake through the corridors of our hospitals. 

No. We are told how much the government is supporting us with energy relief – but the reality is that the money goes to the sycophant renewables companies, and that relief money is again from our taxes. We keep hearing the gas-lighting about the necessity of saving us from a dying planet, while the UN reports themselves (if you read the fine print of the research and not the sensationalised reports about the research) admit the uncertainty of attempting the modelling (see Steven Koonin’s book, Unsettled). Likewise, the dramatic pictures about polar bears or melting ice flows or plastic islands fill our screens at home and school, while even the co-founder of Greenpeace calls it a sham (see Patrick Moore’s Fake Invisible Catastrophes and Threats of Doom).  

No. We are told we have turned a corner in the economy, while the centralist elites keep employing more people to do their dance for them, without adding worth to our economy. Businesses contract, close, or go offshore, but we are told we are living under the rainbow of being rescued by our new capitalist socialism. Apparently, we can ignore the declining productivity that can help families, and the declining value of the money we spend, as long as the doctored numbers create a supportive narrative of us being rescued from what has gone before.

No. We are told that our rulers care about education, and they will show it by giving steady increases to their unionised teaching workforce. But our teachers are taught the myth that education is neutral, and that all they need to do is to help students learn how to think, while simultaneously tearing down philosophically and practically the main tenets from the past that has given us personal freedom and physical well-being. They do not know how to instruct well. And they cannot invite good character because they do not know what good needs to be conserved from the past.  But spend more money we must, while stopping all those parent choices involving independently run schools or, worse still, those wretched home-schooling families!

Here’s the rub. We are told we live in a democracy. If that is true – even if we are forced to vote and even if lies go untested and uncorrected in the contest– then we, as a nation, have voted for all this in a way that has given the current government a huge majority, at least in the lower house. Their equally socialist buddies, the watermelon party, will give them the same comfort in the upper house. 

The socialist majority in our ruling class may not stop there, as of this week. There is a real risk that what was once the bastion of social conserving, the Liberal Party, may grovel to what is euphemistically called ‘the centre’ – I would suggest that it is better called the ‘socialist circle’.

If that is the case, here is the most disturbing question in my mind: Are we now, officially, a socialist country? 

If we are, then just like in the time of Moloch, we need to check our hearts and minds and answer the age-old question – whom do we serve?