[extropy-chat] CHINA: Threat proponents not chicken littles...

Adrian Tymes wingcat at pacbell.net
Thu Jun 9 19:52:44 UTC 2005


--- The Avantguardian <avantguardian2020 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> The way this country (USA) is so rabidly
> polarized politically worries me greatly. The fact
> that this ultra-partisanship seems to be permitted and
> perhaps even fostered by our leaders tells me that
> they are unwise. It seems to indicate the existense of
> an invisible enemy either foreign or domestic that are
> succeeding in dividing and conquering us.

Domestic...and not entirely unwise, at least not from their own
perspectives.

There is an ancient bit of wisdom, part of which boils down to, "Let's
you and him fight".  Kings and emperors have long employed the tactic
of setting duke against duke, baron against baron, to make sure that
none of their leiges grows powerful enough to seriously challenge the
king or emperor.  This principle even applies to democracies, where
power can obtain the popularity needed to win votes.  (Consider how
much a truly nationwide political advertising campaign costs, for
example - the kind that uses network TV and radio and all those old
media that the masses still get their information from even today.)

This keeps the leaders in power.  Consequences for the direction that
power takes, or (from another point of view) the constraints that puts
on the possible uses of power, are secondary to merely remaining on
top.  Consider, for example: how many serious contenders for the US
presidency have we had in the past few decades, who truly would settle
for having their policies and stated goals implemented by their
victorious opponent?  (Granted, in most such races that would be a pipe
dream, as the opponent would take their victory as a signal that the
loser's policies and stated goals were not in fact that popular and
perhaps not worth implementing.  But that doesn't make the hypothetical
quesiton unanswerable.)

> Either that
> or we are dividing ourselves over trivial (compared to
> the economic well-being of our great
> nation-state)issues like gays and abortion and
> inviting some external force to conquer us. 

That too, although we keep our military coherent enough that military
conquest is not really an option.



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