While I personally rather respect Gary North for his energy, intelligence, and consistency, I find the following well-written commentary interesting, and perhaps somewhat controversial. As always, make up your own mind about it!.

Don't be a sheeple led by anybody, not Dr. North, not any corporation, not any new age movement, not any government. Make up your own minds !

-------------------------------------------------------------------- Those who have been looking for ulterior motives in the Y2K doom-and-gloom predictions of Dr. Gary North have often assumed that North is in it for the money. This isn't true. North isn't motivated by avarice, he is motivated by an ambition that operates on a megalomaniacal scale. People who are familiar with North only through his Y2K web site (http://www.garynorth.com/) may be shocked to learn that his interest in Christianity is not as benign as one might gather just from reading his stray references to religion that appear there from time to time. He is in fact a hard-core advocate of global theocracy. The key thing you need to know about North's religious beliefs is that he is a leading supporter of a particularly militant strain of post-millennialism called Christian Reconstructionism. According to Reconstructionists, the thousand-year Kingdom of God will be manifested on earth before the second coming of Jesus, and will take the form of Christian Dominion over all the nations of the world. Since Jesus himself won't be around to inaugurate the millennium, it is up to Reconstructionists themselves to conquer the world and rule on God's behalf. In case you think this Reconstructionist Dominion will embody the gentle pacifism of the Sermon on the Mount, think again. According to North, turning the other cheek is applicable only to the period when non-Christians are in power. Once the Reconstructionist gang gets power, we can expect the stern stone-the-deviants Old Testament law to be enforced. And when I say that Reconstructionists want to bring back stoning, I mean that literally. North has explicitly defended it. North and his fellow Reconstructionists see our present civilization as a demonic manifestation of Enlightenment secular humanism, both of the left-wing collectivist and right-wing individualist variety. Obviously, modern civilization will have to be destroyed before Reconstructionists will be able to implement their agenda, hence the importance of Y2K in their thinking. As far as North is concerned, Y2K is a good thing. Not only does he want civilization to be destroyed by the bug, he wants to pin the blame on science, technology, and free markets so that "secular humanism" won't get a chance to rebuild civilization. In the July/August 1998 issue of _Christian Reconstruction_, the newsletter of North's Institute for Christian Economics (http://www.reformed-theology.org/ice/newslet/reconstruction/cr98.07.htm), North writes in "Assigning Blame in the Year 2000 and Beyond": "The millennium bug will call into question science, technology, the free market, and the welfare State. It will call into question all of modern humanism. Blame will be handed out by the survivors. Assigning and avoiding blame on this matter will become the great political issue after 1999. The incumbents of this world will get the blame. Therein lies a great opportunity. [ . . . . ] "To lay blame effectively, you must be willing and able to predict the event. Thats what I'm doing. I'm also laying the groundwork for handing out the blame. The battle for the minds of men after 1999 will, to a great extent, be a battle to assign and evade blame for the millennium bug. Christians will be in a position to win this battle. "I'll put it bluntly: *y2k is about handing out blame*. The corporate judgment of God always is. Either I will be blamed in 2000 for being a nervous Nelly, or else my warnings will provide a remnant with a worldview for handing out blame. *Blame is an inescapable concept*. It is never a question of 'blame vs. no blame.' It is a question of who gets blamed, and by whom." Blame, in a nutshell, is the real motive for North's interest in Y2K. By being a Y2K prophet, North hopes to deceive more moderate Christians into following Reconstructionists in establishing a harsh theocracy on the ruins of civilization. I would observe that blame has never produced a single kilowatt of power nor fed a single hungry child. If Y2K is even half as bad as North predicts, nobody is going to be able to feed and warm themselves with blame. While assignment of blame is appropriate in some circumstances (e.g. fingering criminals who willfully interfere with one's productive efforts), anyone who comprehends North's warnings about Y2K will have no one to blame but themselves if they hungry after Y2K out of a lack of intelligent preparation. Secular or not, the present establishment has no moral obligation to feed anyone, notwithstanding the pretensions of the welfare state. It is going to take the secular individualist attitudes of objectivity and desire for egoistic profit to rebuild whatever Y2K brings down. The real heros of the post-Y2K world won't be petty authority figures who try to cash in on technology-envy to lead us back to the Dark Ages, but rather the scientists, technologists, and free market entrepreneurs who struggle to get civilization back on-line. Perhaps North would protest that he hasn't tried to deceive anyone about his real views; he certainly hasn't been shy about putting his religious writings on the web. However, his Y2K messages conceal his ultimate goal to such an extent that anyone reading only his mass mailings or his Y2K web site would scarcely realize that he is not a conventional Christian. Indeed, one can see various things on his Y2K web site that are highly misleading, like his favorable references to pro-free market Austrian economists and his denials of media attributions of pre-millennialism (the more common Fundamentalist doctrine that Christ will return to establish the millennium on earth, prompting the true believer to look for signs of the second coming instead of actively working to establish the Kingdom of God). North seems to be counting on the fact that few moderate Christians and virtually no secularists have any clear understanding of his extreme right-wing theology nor knowledge of the long and bloody history of post-millennialist cults. Suffice it to say that Christian Reconstructionist doctrines make the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the Afghani Taleban look progressive by comparison; and knowing this you will never read North's analysis of Y2K issues in quite the same way ever again. [N.B. This was originally posted anonymously to comp.software.year-2000 on October 19th, 1998. With inclusion of this notice, permission is given to freely reproduce this post.]Author: AnonymousEmail:nobody@replay.comDate:1998/10/19Forums:comp.software.year-2000 more headers author profile view thread

-- Blue Himalayan (bh@k2k.y), December 23, 1998

Answers

Gary North does have great links and is to be commended for his work on Y2K awareness.

It is, however, valuable to understand what makes him tick, so that his comments can be read knowing what 'filtered glasses' he uses in his commentaries.

Gary's commmentaries are not completely objective, but having said that, every single person alive relates information that is somewhat clouded by their own biases.

It behooves us to be very careful with Gary or anyone elses commentaries, because a skilled teacher/writer can convince in very subtle ways.

-- Craig (craig@ccinet.ab.ca), December 23, 1998.

Well said, Craig!

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), December 23, 1998.

BUT: . . . . . . . Unless one qualifies as a blushing newbie, this is OLD NEWS. We rehash this about once every month and a half or less. I will admit we need to be sure our new folks understand the agendas of the folks we quote, but . . . . . . . . that is a LOT of collumn inches for this purpose.

Just my NTBHO.

CR

-- Chuck a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), December 23, 1998.

Agree with you, Chuck, but I've noticed the frequency of the cycle has increased recently because more and more newbies are coming in and "rediscovering" North's background. Yes, he has an agenda, and not a very pleasant one if you're a nonbeliever. As has been said repeatedly, though, we go North for his links, not his philosophy. I've also noticed a growing tendency for looooong quote posts lately. As much as I admire anyone's cut-n-paste skills, just posting the link should be enough in most cases, I should think.

-- JDClark (yankeejdc@aol.com), December 23, 1998.

Not very pleasant if you're a non-whacko believer, either.

But it was never North's comments that scared me, just the links. I haven't found any other sites that link to official government sites and such. Seeing the bad news on .gov pages was one thing that nailed it home for me.

-- Shimrod (shimrod@lycosmail.com), December 23, 1998.

Probably not a bad idea to rehash it every few weeks as traffic here has been increasing dramatically. Lots of new arrivals who may not be aware of dual nature of the Gary North site (excellent links combined with highly biased commentary). My advice is: Use the library, take the librarian with a grain of salt.

-- Arnie Rimmer (arnie_rimmer@usa.net), December 23, 1998.

Well, here is an interesting twist: North seems to be accepting without question the "good news" about the Y2K testing done the other day in Montgomery County, Maryland (which many on this forum are somewhat critical of, due to its rather limited scope). Of course, in this instance, this "good news" supports what North has always said about county governments being able to make it. Read all about it....

Good News for Montgomery Co, MD

-- Jack (jsprat@eld.net), December 23, 1998.

Jack

I'm sure there will be counties, banks, corporations, and others that will make the Y2K deadline. Even the doomsayers will give you that much. There has to be someone out there that's compliant. I'm trying to keep a positive attitude. It helps me get through the day.

Hugger

-- Anti-Chainsaw (Tree@hugger.com), December 23, 1998.

My problem with Blue Himalayan is I don't know where HE is comming from. Is his bias left wing Christian, agnostic, atheistic, or perhaps a supporter of Big Government. I KNOW what GH's bias is, what is Blue Himalayan's? It could be it doesn't make a difference, but if that is the case, it makes no difference where GN is comming from and we don't need to fill this site with personal vendettas.

-- HAK (hakoelli@netdoor.com), December 23, 1998.

"Who's Gary North? Is he the brother of that Iran/Contra guy?" an anonymous loved one asked me...

Maybe I should have replied, "Well, in some minds maybe he's just bad and in the minds of others maybe he's just as good."

Mike ===================================================================

-- Michael Taylor (mtdesign3@aol.com), December 23, 1998.

Hak, I read some of North's topics, and I like his links. But after I read a post by Tom Carey that quoted North as saying, "The long-term goal of Christians in politics should be to gain exclusive control over the franchise. Those who refuse to submit publicly to the erternal sanctions of God by submitting to His Church's public marks of the covenant--baptism and holy communion--must be denied citizenship, just as they were in ancient Israel." by Gary North, Political Polytheism: The Myth of Pluralism. This is sounds to me like just another case of a religious fanatic wanting to impose his religious beliefs on everyone else. It shouldn't matter whether you're a mainstream Christian, or if you worship a little pile of chicken feathers, or some ancient mythical god, that is a personal choice. I detest any one group setting themselves up as the arbiters of moral conduct, spiritual belief, good taste or what is socially, politically, spiritually, or sexually correct. I prefer diversity. .

-- gilda jessie (jess@listbot.com), December 23, 1998.

>> It shouldn't matter whether you're a mainstream Christian, or if you worship a little pile of chicken feathers, or some ancient mythical god, that is a personal choice. I detest any one group setting themselves up as the arbiters of moral conduct, spiritual belief, good taste or what is socially, politically, spiritually, or sexually correct. I prefer diversity.<<

How can one person write those two sentences sequentially and not see the contradiction?

-- Elbow Grease (Elbow_Grease@AutoShop.com), December 23, 1998.

Whatever Gary North's personal agenda may be, I respect him and thank him for the doomsdayer he is. Without being sent to him, I may never have opened my eyes to the vast amount of Y2K information on the web.I think this may be true of many of you and many of the new people coming on now. Thanks Gary for opening the door ! And your forums are good too!

-- Sue (deco100@aol.com), December 24, 1998.

Elbow Grease. I have to agree with you, the two sentences you refer to or a dicotomy of statements. The first sentence says "it shouldn't matter" and then the second sentence says or implies "it does matter". It took my 66 year old brain several minutes of screen staring to finally see what you apparently seen quickly.

-- HAK (hakoelli@netdoor.com), December 24, 1998.