With all the things going on in the emerging political season and growing turmoil between nations in the world, it is easy to miss individual developments ratcheting up authoritarian control. For example, China is preparing to institute a that will be used to determine how qualified a person is to receive government benefits. This citizenship score will go well beyond a credit rating to look at electronic purchasing data, social networks, and other digital sources to measure political compliance.
China has had a problem with the freeing potential of the Internet and has struggled with how to maintain control over their people when they have easy access to ideas and information that conflicts with what they want their people to know. Now it looks like they have figured out how to use data mined from the Internet to force the behaviors they desire. The Chinese government has managed to leverage the Internet to make it part of the ultimate tool of social control.
Leftists in America have long been enamored with the success of China which is rapidly becoming an economic superpower despite their centrally controlled socialist form of government. Many in this country point to China as justification for more centrally controlled social programs here.
What America’s socialists don’t realize is that China’s success has come from their government allowing their people to be more like the United States with free market capitalism and private ownership of property. But American-style freedom is really but an illusion in China with significant centralized control still maintained by the government as this plan for a citizenship score demonstrates.
China’s new citizenship scoring system will not just look at a person’s digital footprint directly but will rate people using the activities of their associates and family members. This brings to mind what Jesus said things would be like for His followers during the Tribulation:
“You will be betrayed even by parents and brothers, relatives and friends; and they will put some of you to death. And you will be hated by all for My name’s sake” (Luke 21:16-17 NKJV).
China’s citizenship scoring system will turn everyone into a spy for the government in order to keep their friends and family from adversely impacting their score.
While the Antichrist has not yet come to power, the spirit of Antichrist is preceding him and growing. Something like China’s citizenship scoring system will likely be used by the government of the Antichrist to force people to comply with his will. I can just see the Leftists in this country salivating over such a system that takes political correctness to a new level. All we need is a good crisis to implement it…
The more impotent our government becomes to stem the tide of Islamic terrorism, the more likely the American people will be willing to give up more of their freedom to implement China-style central social controls here. Of course these new powers of the government will not be used just against terrorism, it will morph into a system to squelch any political opposition to the ruling elite.
People don’t realize that the freedoms we have enjoyed in America are unique in human history. As our Declaration of Independence states, our human rights are a blessing from God. Throughout history human rulers have defied God to deny people their God-given rights in order to control them. As the United States has collectively turned our backs on God, we will wake up some day to find that God has allowed our freedom to be taken from us.
If the people in this country better valued their freedom and understood how true freedom is acquired, we’d have a great revival here.
“Jesus said to those Jews who believed Him, ‘If you abide in My word, you are My disciples indeed. And you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free… Therefore if the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed” (John 8:31, 32, 36).
Our proximity to the Tribulation means that freedom will continue to wane for mankind. As we see the stage being set for our freedoms to be removed in this country, we can only long for the day Jesus returns for us. When we are resurrected, we will be truly free. And we can also look forward to the millennial kingdom when all people on earth will enjoy even more freedom than has been experienced on earth since the Garden of Eden.
Come soon Lord Jesus, this world sorely needs You!