In ” Human Sense, ” I wrote at some length about the so-called “Third Rail.” This third rail can be said to consist of pretty much everything that can collectively be blamed for how America now finds itself broken up into as many little pieces as possible, which makes it easier for the federal, state, and local ruling authorities to manage, manipulate, and control the population.
Of course, everyone who notices this and says so out loud is immediately censored, banned, de-platformed, and swatted aside like an annoying fruit fly. On the way out the door of the Public Square, adorned with permanent Scarlet letters of “Nazi” or “Fascist” or fill-in-the-blank “ist” or “phobe” in permanent ink and forced into exile from the public domain, you will be remanded into the custody of the Devil himself and burn in his fires of misinformation/ disinformation and conspiracy theory purgatory.
But let not your hearts be troubled, dear readers; credited to Julius Caesar, though not first employed by him, the concept of divide and rule (Divide et Impera) has been around since there have been Kings, tyrants, despots, and oppressive ruling authorities. Knowing that this has been going on for millennia doesn’t ease the suffering of the American nation, but it does provide a blueprint for ways forward for the dwindling number of us who embrace history as opposed to those preferring to live in denial of History or, worse, willful ignorance of its lessons.
Publius, the pseudonym used by Alexander Hamilton in the bulk of The Federalist Papers, discusses- in Federalist No. 6 (1787) much of what the American people are being confronted with in 2024. At just under 2200 words, it is a quick enough read but, in the interest of time, consider one of my favorite passages that helps make the larger point of what I’m trying to convey in this entry.
“THE three last numbers of this Paper2 have been dedicated to an enumeration of the dangers to which we should be exposed, in a state of disunion, from the arms and arts of foreign nations. I shall now proceed to delineate dangers of a different, and, perhaps, still more alarming kind, those which will in all probability flow from dissentions between the States themselves, and from domestic factions and convulsions. These have been already in some instances slightly anticipated, but they deserve a more particular and more full investigation.
A man must be far gone in Utopian speculations who can seriously doubt, that3 if these States should either be wholly disunited, or only united in partial confederacies,4 the subdivisions into which they might be thrown would have frequent and violent contests with each other. To presume a want of motives for such contests, as an argument against their existence, would be to forget that men are ambitious, vindictive and rapacious. To look for a continuation of harmony between a number of independent unconnected sovereignties, situated in the same neighbourhood, would be to disregard the uniform course of human events, and to set at defiance the accumulated experience of ages.
The causes of hostility among nations are innumerable. There are some which have a general and almost constant operation upon the collective bodies of society: Of this description are the love of power or the desire of preeminence and dominion—the jealousy of power, or the desire of equality and safety. There are others which have a more circumscribed, though an equally operative influence, within their spheres: Such are the rivalships and competitions of commerce between commercial nations. And there are others, not less numerous than either of the former, which take their origin intirely in private passions; in the attachments, enmities, interests, hopes and fears of leading individuals in the communities of which they are members. Men of this class, whether the favourites of a king or of a people, have in too many instances abused the confidence they possessed; and assuming the pretext of some public motive, have not scrupled to sacrifice the national tranquility to personal advantage, or personal gratification.”
It is indeed true, across the entire span of humankind’s History, that “Men are ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious.” It is also true that the greater their wealth, power, and influence, the more ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious they become. It can be said that this is Natural Law 101, and it is fair to suggest that – at least up until the formation of the United States of America – only uprisings, rebellions, and Civil Wars… And executions… Were effective in breaking these cycles of despotism, tyranny, and oppression.
It would be Hamilton and all the other Founding Fathers who brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal” and they designed a governing system (of, by, and for the people) in such a way that the citizens would constrain the ruling Authority through regular elections, and they would consent to be governed with the understanding the governing served at the pleasure of the people, not the other way around.
That America no longer exists. In front of us today, aided by unimaginable technological advancements (equally true in many other nations around the world today), has been broken up into a great many smaller, more easily managed pieces. And while recent presidential Administrations have incrementally inspired rancor and division amongst and between the citizenry, it has been extra-governmental forces that have brought conflicting social and cultural influences to a Flashpoint.
Today, everywhere we look, we are given information confidently assured that it is unfiltered and true. We are also told that dissenting opinions are to be distrusted and considered deceptive misinformation/ disinformation and that anyone passing along contradictory information should be prosecuted, jailed, and cast out from society.
These words alone drive some people toward violence against those whom they have been told are threats to our democracy.
We have invented bureaucracies whose sole function is to seek out and destroy those guilty of these crimes, but regularly—and at an increasing pace—we are discovering just how much misinformation/ disinformation and outright lies are being given to us by the very same groups that have inspired “ambitious, vindictive, and rapacious” behavior in some who took the original message at face value.
Lies and half-truths intended to manipulate culture in society are no less divisive than official mandates from the ruling Authority itself, which we have entrusted with the sacred duty of ensuring our Safety and Security both individually and collectively as a nation of “one people” in a constitutional federal republic. And so long as only those with the greatest wealth, power, and influence can control the national conversation, divisions between population elements will only grow deeper, wider, and increasingly violent.
I will come back in a week or so, reminding readers as I hit “publish” that elections are the constitutionally approved peaceful means by which we stand up and be counted on matters that affect all of us as a people. In the meantime, I invite you, once again, to educate yourself – not singly by what you hear in the media, in the break room at work, or in the background noise at your local Tavern or restaurant. I highly recommend that you look beyond Google search and Wikipedia and pursue further inquiries with your own eyes and ears. And maybe a little Duck Duck Go and Encyclopedia Britannica. But I leave those choices to you.
