Security

Ask folks what they want, and there are varied standard answers. Fame, fortune, health top the list for most. Friends, family, purpose fit in there somewhere. I suggest the most subconscious thing most of us crave is basic security. We like to know what we know, we hope what worked for us yesterday will still work for us tomorrow .

“Oh that’s silly” you will say. If things are bad we want a change. True, but only a change we can anticipate or accept. We always fear change for the worse. Sometimes we would rather realize a pattern than escape it. As Dylan Thomas wrote “there must, be praised, some certainty, if not of loving well, then not, …”

Gamblers seek excitement, but they not only think they know the odds, but securely believe they can always gamble again. Adventurers plan to return from their expeditions. These are bumps in the general security of their times .

Examine all social systems. The most stable tend to be exactly those where people are secure about what they do. Even if what they do is to start something new and different or to take a risk. Nobody wants to wake up in a jumbled inscrutable environment each day .

To some extent, that seems to be this society which is developing around us. It’s often scary. And no, I do not feel any more secure in simply recognizing that fact .

Oligarchs, Thugs, Victims

Oligarchs have taken control of the United States. They may enforce their power by buying elections, but they pick candidates and tell the winners what to do. They may claim to follow a “rule of law” but since they control laws, application of law, and exceptions to law this is little different than mafia Dons following a “code of conduct” .

Oligarchy hollows out bureaucracy, and replaces “civil servants” (who believed they worked for the public good) with thugs who know they must only please their boss. They serve at the whim of the wealthy aristocrats, and they shape actions and twist words to make any action “legal”. Whether the final social results are gentle or not, former citizens become a mass of victims. Speaking out is punished, acting against orders is punished severely. We’ve seen it before in countless dictatorships .

Finally, most oligarchs prefer to rule through figureheads. The puppet masters would rather not be seen, not even noticed. It’s easy enough to buy dupes and direct them. Much less aggravating or dangerous .

Oligarchs are not merely wealthy, nor even ultra wealthy. They tend to be megalomaniacs who are certain they know what is right for everyone else. They have limitless power and need not “cling” to it – they are in control, they know it, and they will remain so forever more .

Executive Orders

“Rule of law” is invoked as an ideal by almost everyone these days. The simplest definition would be rules that are unchanging, well-known by everyone, and enforced equally on all .

Obviously, that ideal is impossible. Laws must change to fit social conditions. They become increasingly complex – murder is different than killing in self-defense – so everyone cannot know them and lawyers are required. “Applied equally” is just as hard – from days of simple weregild to current fines – the rich and powerful suffer far less .

But, even with all those exceptions, the concept is nice. In a democracy, we further have the ideals that laws are formulated and changed only with the consent of the populace. Complicated by social rights that no populace can infringe on. Tangled, but still relatively clear, and has seemed to work decently for hundreds of years .

We oppose that ideal to such things as revolutionary councils, absolute monarchs, and dictators. These have the ability to change laws at whim, decide to whom they apply, make transgressions retroactive, and define terms arbitrarily as they see fit – treason, for example.

And so we come to the title. Rule of law does NOT mean blindly following ANY law. Monarchs can declare any whim as legality. Rule of law implies a certain stable process and application. “Executive orders” from the US president shatter rule of law _ once again, legality is simply power, capriciously and unequally applied .

Sure, rulers will always say it is necessary in “emergencies”. But for them the emergency will never end

Harassment as Law

Law is regarded as impartial and majestic, in the United States trying to assure that only the guilty get punished. Harassment, a social taboo, has almost always been almost – or more – effective. “No Irish need apply”. Racial red lines for housing. Religious “shunning” of sinners .

You can’t greatly modify innate social behavior, so that type of punishment will probably last as long as people do. However, when government gets into the act, law loses much of its meaning.

The Wall Street journal has run an article on what most of us already knew. Merely arresting and charging someone – even if totally false and later proved so – has dire consequences. Charges, name, address are published. Person loses job, is threatened at home, maybe physically attacked, often must move and start over. Spends a lot of money. All “legal”. All morally wrong, from our traditional view of what “legal” should mean .

In this age of connection, unsupported rumors from “influencers” are bad enough. When the government adds police and other armed services to the mix, it is toxic to all the liberties Americans thought they enjoyed .

Probably no easy answer. Police forces always have a hard job and think they are in the right. When government tolerates bad behavior, there is no escape but to hide away and hope for the best .

Medieval Master

In olden days, some kings were good, some bad, some ineffective, some absolute. A few listened to wise educated advisors, others surrounded themselves with mystics and charlatans. Much of the advice of the mystics was, as expected, magical in nature. A lot of wishful thinking and fanciful notions which did not work or worse.

Kings who listened were sometimes deposed, but just as often ruined their country and tried to blame someone else for poisoning the spell. Perhaps the wicked Jews, or the sinning populace, or a shrill coven of witches .

We naively thought that in a rational age of science we were beyond all that. We were wrong. It turns out any system can produce a megalomaniac who also eliminates all the wise advisors and surrounds himself with mystic charlatan influencers from the media. When their advice proves disastrous, he lashes out at anything handy to blame .

Way back then, there might be tough times and lots of horror, but societies usually survived. In a global nuclear-armed modern world, I’m not sure that part of the scenario will hold. Turns out a determined ego can do it an awful lot of irreparable damage in just a few years .

The medieval ruler syndrome is still in force. And humans remain capable of magical thinking which contradicts all difficult reasoning .

Ostrich

Perhaps there is something useful in the apocryphal legend of the ostrich sticking its head in the sand to avoid seeing trouble. In these expansive times, ignoring obscure and distant threats may be an evolutionary advantage .

After all, in the “big picture” we are all doomed, both personally and in our wider manifestations of society and cosmos. We stand on our tiny patch of desert scrub, and perhaps stay there or run a short distance to somewhere nearby. We ignore our inevitable death, or we would fail to function at all .

So in a time when horizons have become nearly infinite and imaginations run wild, maybe a head underground is not so stupid. We are aware of every sparrow that falls in the world, and we can do little or nothing about it. There is too much awareness, omniscience without omnipotence, and that may poison our souls .

Nobody can withdraw completely. Even that pretend ostrich has to come up for food and water. There is still at least a little truth to “think globally, act locally”. But maybe only a little .

In a hysterical interconnected age, too much awareness might be a very dangerous thing to any single individual. It surely is to my own sanity .

Expected

People are almost infinitely socially adaptable. Almost any condition can be tolerated. We happily navigate through societies where everyone is honest, nobody is honest, haggling is required, bribes are necessary, and even when contacts with certain ideas or groups are prohibited .

Over time, we can adjust, of course. If formerly honest people turn dishonest and so on. But we feel somewhat secure as long as the rules remain more or less as expected. And security, often more than wealth, is what a lot of us desire most. Know what will happen if we do certain things.

Dystopias, such as depicted in “1984”, are often nightmares because expectations constantly shatter. “Interesting times” when the world goes topsy-turvy are rarely happy. When we don’t know if the police are going to save us or destroy us. Even tiny things in our life like whether a food will make us sick or not .

Civilization right now has an odd combination of solid old traditions – meeting expectations – and completely new challenges making every plan fragile. It’s probably not a lot different than living through plague times in an ancient wealthy city .

What never helps is when authority itself becomes irrationally chaotic, so that each day presents new laws and declarations making the old laws obsolete or themselves illegal.

Even when change is what is expected, we may worry nervously .

Ain’t What You Do

As the old song goes “ain’t what you do, it’s the way what you do it.” We have come to recognize the value of those lyrics in these days of a clumsy, brutalist federal government. Maybe what they are doing is not strictly “illegal” – although that is open to question – but the manner in which they carry out activities is simply awful and completely out of step with the traditions of this culture .

The president is a loose cannon. Taking outrageous positions, annoying or horrifying everyone, then forgetting what he was trying to do. His asymptotic hyperbole – anyone who disagrees with his current thinking is foul evil incarnate for a day or so. He must be stroked and praised or he throws a tantrum. We’re not used to that in the US .

And, of course, we have the focal point of ICE, a law enforcement body whose members have no resemblance in appearance nor deed to any police here in the past. To begin with they assume their target is guilty, violent, and vicious (with no evidence whatsoever) and pretend they are engaged in a dangerous heroic act as they haul away frightened men, women, and children whose only fault is to be around when a quota comes due .

There are, and were, civilized and less provocative ways to do this. We used to call it “rule of law” and “due process.” The appropriate terminology now might be “fear and awe”. Or simply “terror” .

“Founders”

Kings justified themselves by “divine right”. Dictators claim “the will of the people”. In an era that worships wealth, billionaires claim “merit,” They are, simply, the best and brightest .

There is no doubt that many wealthy people work quite hard. As did many kings and dictators. As does, really almost everybody. And it is fair to believe that some work is good for society, and some irrelevant. Most of us want to believe that our tribe is best, and those who help our tribe should be respected .

Modern economics has become a high risk game requiring great access to capital and power. Like any gamble, it does require knowledge and perseverance. But on the increasingly overweight fringes of the bell curve of wealth distribution, it appears that luck rains supreme .

I respect brilliant people who toil for social good. I am less excited by “capitalists” who shoot dice in often rigged casinos. I do not think a “founder” is a god-like “maker” who always benefits society. I think he/she is often an extremely fortunate son of a bitch who began with a lot of advantages, thought only about winning money, and ignored most of their common humanity. Very like bad kings and evil dictators .

I don’t worry too much about wealth inequality. I do worry about idiots (kings, dictators, billionaires) who believe they are right about everything and should be worshiped by the rest of us.

Lame Duck

Traditionally, “lame duck” has referred to a politician who for one reason or another cannot be reelected, but still remains in nominal power for the remainder of his term. It is a milder form of “dead man walking” .

Typically, it has been felt such people have lost most of their influence. Who will listen to them? And in this scenario (feared by everyone who grows old), the future seems less and less important, no need to care about consequences. So we have senile seniors living in a home filled with cats, for example. Or driving an automobile when addled on medication .

In politics, “lame duck” always implied impotence. But that was before the geriatrics took over. In an age of senile senior lame ducks, there is an increasing tendency for the official to “go rogue” and do anything, heedless of consequences, reputation, or advice .

This has,unfortunately, always been the pattern when emperors, dictators, or whatever have aged too much in office. But the US, until recently, was spared the antics of such as Tiberius, Stalin, or Mao. No longer .

It’s another effect of concentration of wealth. Wealth is power, power corrupts, and at some point a billionaire or trillionaire feels omnipotent, clever, and invincible and nobody can stop the madness .

An interesting phenomenon to observe, if one can stay out of the way .