A Tyranny By Any Other Name

Man's great power is rooted in his ability to give names to things. With naming, we ascribe a mental order to nature. With that, we can impose an order that we desire. We first manipulate with words, and then with actions. In a sense, we speak our will into existence. No bridge was ever built or field cleared without speaking it first. Genesis was the story of consciousness speaking reality into being, but this is not mere metaphysical musing. Psychologists have shown that the areas of the brain that engage in linguistics and technological functioning overlap greatly.

Man's great flaw, then, is his ability to speak falsehoods. Civilization depends on its ability to convert reality into language, and language back into reality. Corrupt that process and destroy all that is good. Lies are evil. They destroy, murder, and degrade. An advanced society that primarily lies is living on time borrowed from its ancestors. There is much to admire from traditional and ancient wisdom. The Persians built one of the most powerful empires of the ancient world. They might seem brutal today, but were quite liberal by their contemporary standard. Bow to Persian power, and your people would be forced to pay tribute and to allow conscription into the military, but that was largely it. You could keep your languages, traditions, and customs. The Persians were far more tolerant than today's Empire of Columbia, which dictates what the culture should be to every remote corner. The one thing the Persians didn't tolerate was lying, which was a capital offense. They knew that an honest culture is strong.

This blog is primarily concerned with calling out lies. Eventually it will be migrated away from Google Blogger (puke) and rebranded as the Eternal Vigilance blog. [I've held the domain and hosting account for months, but have not yet been able to compel myself to the hours the task would take.] The inspiration for the new name is from the Founding Fathers, who said that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty. They meant vigilance against tyranny, which really means vigilance against lies. Dishonesty is the substrate on which tyranny grows. This blog may seem to bounce all around the place as far as domain topics goes, but the common thread is the lying. I put significant effort into yesterday's post on Biological Materialism. I don't personally care whether or not genes account for biological inheritance. I care about the scientists who are lying, especially when they comprise a major priestly caste in our secular religious order. I did not care one iota about the New York real estate mogul's long-shot presidential campaign (I thought it was a lark) until I realized how much the media was lying about him. He was the enemy of the liars. Good enough.

A tyranny by any other name is still a tyranny. Call it modern democracy or whatever you want...the reality remains unchanged. Our rulers hold power by speaking false words, which too many confuse with reality. It is hard to make sense of reality. It is much easier to take someone else's word for it. (Literally.) The tyrant holds power by dictating what the words are. Control words, and you control everything.

On Friday morning, Roger Stone was arrested in a pre-dawn ambush by 29 agents in 14 vehicles who aimed fully automatic rifles directly at him and his family, over an alleged process crime. While neither Stone nor his lawyer were given advanced warning, Mr. Mueller made sure to have CNN on site with cameras rolling. This is blatant tyranny, but they call it justice. If Stone was really a dangerous threat requiring 29 fully armed agents to apprehend, he'd never have been released on bail. The point of the raid - and the cameras - should be obvious: it's a show of strength. It's a show of who is really in charge, and what happens when you cross the line. I'm not even terribly concerned about a show of force; not enough to write about it, at least. No, what is remarkable about this blatant intimidation tactic is that it will be spun by the corporate media as proof that Trump is actually the tyrant. "Oh, they wouldn't have arrested him without evidence. More proof that Trump and his allies are criminals." The deep-state tyranny is always used as evidence that Trump is a tyrant, just like Hillary's emails being proof that Trump was a criminal. The dynamic is no different than a study showing little genetic influence on fox domestication making the opposite conclusion. Tyranny thrives in a sea of lies.

The reality - to those of us who reject their sirens' cry - is that the tyrant is probably the one subjecting his political opponents to publicly broadcasted humiliation. Not only does Trump not inflict such abuses on his opponents, but he cannot protect his own people from them. His power is largely limited to his Twitter account. We live under a jack-booted tyranny. Mueller has more power than Trump. It doesn't matter that we elected Trump and gave him political majorities in both houses of Congress. Their major accomplishment in two years was rolling back the corporate tax rate. Oh boy. Our votes carry little power. The real power dynamic is that the approved media sources broadcast lies nonstop, and threats to the establishment are countered by black-clad men with battle rifles. Any more lofty description is just fake words.