The Scottish Clearances.
Scotland’s richest people cleared out most of Scotland’s poorer people during The Clearances, which gained momentum in the mid-1700s. Land-owning lords, earls, barons, (and their wives) realized that they could make much more money raising sheep on their vast tracts of land if they stopped the pesky Scots from raising families on it. Many of the Scots of the time were loyal Catholics, which made them an even greater liability to the new Protestant House of Hanover, on whose authority rested aristocratic power. That meant there would be no concerns about “the human rights of the Scottish people” brought from the Crown when The Clearances became common knowledge.
Lords and ladies so much preferred that Scotland be peopled by mute, profitable sheep, rather than bold, vociferous Scots used to standing up for their rights, that private armies were unleashed. Entire towns and villages were burned to the ground. Countless small farms, strung along a thousand streams, were ruthlessly destroyed. Whole valleys were depopulated as comfortable houses and solid barns were destroyed. Mounds of mute stones still commemorate countless homesteads where families had lived and died for more than a thousand years.
Some of the newly homeless inhabitants were turned into “crofters”, slave labor for the rich. Others were shipped to Ireland, the United States, and Canada. Those responsible for The Clearances were proud of themselves, and celebrated their successes at fancy dress balls, at which bands of musicians played in great, decorated halls while lords and ladies danced to new tunes.
Communist Clearances
When we read about the Communists’ great hatred of their neighbors, we find that hundreds of thousands of trains cleared tens of millions of people from Russia, taking them to exile and death in Siberia. The same trains sometimes carried troops to the Ukraine, where millions more were “cleared out”, machine-gunned in their homes to “Help the Revolution!”
City dwellers, even those with high government jobs, were at special risk of being “cleared out ” if they had the misfortune of living in nice houses or apartments that were envied by even higher-ranking Communists. Such people were moved to the tops of the Clearance Lists.
Mao ran even bigger clearances in China. On a percentage basis, Pol Pot was even more successful, clearing out an estimated one third of all Cambodians. Jim Jones, a tiny despot of the left, was able to create and then clear out an entire community. He is still admired by those waiting to unleash clearances in our place and time.
Leftist clearances are mandated by the amazingly dim-witted, incompetent economic systems that their leaders favor. Their leaders realize that they’ve put people in charge who are far too stupid to run complicated transportation, production, and distribution systems. Rather than admitting, “Frankly, none of us are that bright.”, they reduce the number of people to the lower population levels that their limited abilities can handle. Killing lots of those whom they call “useless eaters” lets the vicious dullards who run things in such regimes go on believing themselves to be successful, thereby providing the deadliest manifestations of vanity in history.
Early American Clearances
Lots of Indians were living in the Western Hemisphere before 1492. While most of them disappeared because of diseases unintentionally introduced by Europeans, many were intentionally driven farther West in bloody skirmishes. Much of their lands were taken over by Europeans, many of whom multiplied at prodigious rates as they filled the newly emptied spaces.
Indian life expectancies were never very long. It’s not politically correct to say so, but venereal diseases were common among them. Measles, mumps, smallpox, and a few other European diseases were all it took to destroy many of them. And, it’s even less politically correct to mention that cannibalism wasn’t as uncommon as some would like it to have been. Still, treaties should have been honored, but those with the most modern weapons had a love of land that outweighed that basic decency.
Later American Clearances
Want to move to the country? The regulations and costs involved in putting in the most complicated septic systems in history make it almost impossible to build a new house in the country or legally sell an old one. As rural birth rates drop, while newcomers simply can’t afford to build new septic systems, people who live in the country shrink in number. Vast stretches of are purchased with the contributions of America’s version of the Scottish Lords and Ladies. Title to that land is then given to various “green” organizations or to the state, itself. Then, a modern “clearance” takes place.
The new owners do not allow building. Rather than even get some minor utility from vacant land, as from raising sheep, the “green aristocrats” want the land to “return to nature”. They are so pleased to see once productive farms turned into barren wasteland that large numbers of the enlightened will gather to celebrate such “accomplishments” at expensive gatherings in exotic locales and facilities. There, they announce more bold plans to “clear the way for a better future”, one that invariably involves many, many fewer people.
So, the Clearances continue. As our own “lords and ladies” decide that “nature is good, people are bad”, endless tracts continue to be confiscated by our own government. American citizens are largely excluded from much of it, and most don’t seem to notice.
The Clearances’ Common Denominator
There are two reasons people like to loot. Some want to have more. Some want others to have less. Those who want more want it so much that they frequently take over whole countries. Some even try for continents. After taking possession, they often try to clear out those already there.
Eventually, even the most successful acquirers will die. They don’t seem to care that there’s even a remote possibility that death is followed by Judgment. They go on accumulating, even as they know that they are going to die. They also know that they can’t take a square inch of property, not even a grain of sand, not even a molecule, into the next life with them.
So, why do they/we do so much accumulating? Often, it’s a desire to garner the praise of those who think accumulating is important. “Wow! He’s got a lot!”, accumulators love to have it said admiringly of themselves in places where such people gather. It is interesting that accumulators don’t care as much if those who haven’t accumulated anything praise their accumulations. They do think it’s important to be admired by successful accumulators.
It’s bad enough that many accumulators are blinded to the spiritual consequences of their absurd focus. What is even more inexcusable is that such people do not spend a lot of time studying what’s gone on in earlier times. Reading a few history books may rein in the high spirits of vain owners and clearers of property because it helps them learn about other manic acquirers.
This knowledge makes it possible to compare their comparatively pitiful holdings with those, for instance, of Genghis Khan. Now, he was an accumulator! He ended up with truly extensive landholdings, and cleared most of it with a ruthlessness that makes other accumulators look utterly pitiful. “Ted Turner may own a lot of ranches, but Genghis Khan owned most of Asia! Compared to him, Ted Turner is a virtual moron. Why do the Ted Turners of the world spend their lives bragging about being so much less capable at what they think they’re good at than an illiterate nomad like Genghis Khan?”
Those who dispossess their neighbors from the land they live on never own it long. But, the dispossessors imagine themselves to be happy and important. Until they die. Or, become depressed when they think about how pitifully they compare with Genghis.
P.S. We who are Christians know that our souls are going to be judged by Jesus Christ. If we have any sense at all, we pray fervently and frequently that our sins will be forgiven when that inevitable judgment comes. We, who try to be good and obedient to God, know that we will be judged by He Who never sinned and was perfectly obedient.
Therefore, the possibility must be considered that those who worship other gods (actually, demons) will be judged by those whom they worship. Those who worshipped accumulation may end up being judged by some truly great accumulator, like Genghis Khan, or some spiritual devil to whom he was obedient.
Upon reflection, it’s highly doubtful that such judgments will turn out pleasantly. “What, you dared to think your pitiful accumulations can compare to mine? The Hell with you!”
