IPFS News Link • Trump Administration
How to Worship Your Government
• https://www.corbettreport.com, CorbettThus spake Pat Robertson during the recent brouhaha over Syria, where the unthinkable notion that the US might actually pull out of a war zone instead of sending more troops in began to materialize last week.
Now, you might be tempted to dismiss this as just another raving of Pat "God blessed the Gulf War" Robertson, and you wouldn't be wrong. But still, that's quite the phrase: The "mandate of heaven." What does it mean?
Well, it turns out he didn't just make that up himself.
The "Mandate of Heaven" is an argument for the legitimacy of government that arose in ancient China. Called "??" (Tianming) in Chinese, the concept rests on four basic principles:
Heaven grants the emperor the right to rule;
As there is only one Heaven, so there can be only one emperor at a time;
The emperor's right to rule is dependent upon his virtue; and
The right to rule is not granted to any particular family line in perpetuity.