It is neither noble nor patriotic to accept governance at face value; to acquiesce to authority for comforts sake. Diligence is the duty of the democratic. It is the responsibility of all who reside in the free republic to guard those freedoms from every potential usurper, both foreign and domestic, for not only their own liberty, but for the historical integrity of the institution itself. For our time is limited here and we are but day-players in an ongoing epic like those millions who came before and the countless who will endure long after we have moved on, it is their history we write today with our strength or our surrender.
Long and bitter is the history of our conflicted species. And as it was written in the beginning and recorded across thousands of miles and hundreds of religions, mammon shall be the root of our inevitable collapse. Its lure separates us from our humanity, from each other, and from our Gods. What was beautiful becomes hollow. What was noble becomes weakness. What was false is true. All else pales in its ambition. For this is the ambition of wealth itself. No longer do the greedy control their master, they are its slaves and it washes over them like a raging tide, sweeping them into collusions and deceits, both trivial and horrible, they would never have imagined as idealistic, younger men.
Fear has its own logic from which our leaders are not immune. Once they have accepted the decay of Athens and the rise of Wealth as unavoidable, their instinct can produce tremendous rationalizations to justify consent. They are, after all, animals just like us.
Thus we are a conflicted species at once, at war with our nature and with our aspirations. Simultaneously we seek balance between the natural laws of survival and the advancement of the universal condition of man. But perhaps these facets are not as opposing as one might think.
Evolution is forced upon the species to adapt or perish due to outside forces. The evolution of philosophical social models is no different. Our history is filled with changes to political structures and economic theory being preceded by various outside factors ranging from war to disease to faith to natural disaster. Is it so hard to imagine that one of these watershed moments is facing us today?
Zelikow and others have postured that 911 shall serve as the catalyst that will reshape our very perception of the world. I couldn’t agree more.
We bare witness to the dawn of a new age of man. It is our choice which path this species shall travel. Our species, given the gift of sentience, has been allowed to choose its own evolutionary track. Are we to follow one or the other; empathy or greed?
Timshel.