The Coming of Shadows

Kosh: And so it begins.
.........
Emperor Turhan: How will this end?
Kosh: In fire.

Like the two quotes above from two different seasons and episodes of Babylon 5, today is a beginning. As with all beginnings it must also be an ending. Today is the culmination of the rot spawned by success. This Rot begins today to kill the very success that has sustained and nourished it. Its not an easy or comfortable thing to wake up and watch history, know that today will be historic. When we read or watch information about history we are insulated by time and perspective. We fail to see the turbulence and mayhem that those who lived through it had to go through. The Chinese know this in ways us westerners with our myopic perception fail to understand. They have a curse for whats happening now that I find applicable, "may you live in interesting times!". It doesn't get much more interesting to historians then it will today, mores the pity. I'm off to do my part in that history, futile though I at present see that effort to be. Blogging will continue on my return. which from you the readers perspective will be a new paragraph and maybe the Inquisitor will seem to start to make more sense. (November 4th, 7:00 AM EST)

and I'm back (November 4th, 7:00 PM EST)
I'm a student of history (a C+ to B- student, but still one) as well as an author of rambling and sporadic Blog postings. So I know were the roots of the "Culture War" come from. I'm sure the no one and his invisible friends that read this blog don't want a long and rambling history lesson on individualism V collectivism, and the roots of western civilized thought. suffice to say it predates Marx, let alone Lenin, Mao, and the rest by 1500 to 2000 years. But those socialist clowns did coin a handy term to name the Rot I referred to earlier. The term also has its roots in the same 1500 to 2000 year birth of the concepts of western thought but they had to put "spin" on it as they say. That term is "Dialectic" in its original meaning it it referred to a reasoned argument of point counter point.

"Pronunciation: \ˌdī-ə-ˈlek-tik\ Function: noun Etymology: Middle English dialetik, from Anglo-French dialetiqe, from Latin dialectica, from Greek dialektikē, from feminine of dialektikos of conversation, from dialektos Date: 14th century 1: logic 1a(1)2 a: discussion and reasoning by dialogue as a method of intellectual investigation ; specifically : the Socratic techniques of exposing false beliefs and eliciting truth b: the Platonic investigation of the eternal ideas"
-http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/dialectic

But those wacky Socialists had better uses then its original one. In their eyes it meant that all ideas have within them the seeds of their own destruction.

"Dialectic: The word comes from the Greek word for conversation, . It has a wide variety of uses in philosophy, but in the work we will be reading it will usually refer to Hegel's use. On Hegel's understanding of dialectic, one examines a position or state of affairs and discovers within it problems and contradictions that allow one to take a new position or set up a new state of affairs that incorporates responses to those problems or contradictions. Hegel's notion of dialectic is often described as a process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis though he did not use those terms himself and though his understanding of dialectic cannot be reduced to that triadic pattern. Hegel, like Marx who followed him in this, believed that the dialectic would come to an end in history: at some point all contradiction and inadequacy will be overcome. However, not all who think dialectically believe in such an end."
-http://jamesfaulconer.byu.edu/definitions.htm

They were right, they got to this conclusion by the wrong route, used sloppy modeling in the theorizing, misinterpreted the data they had extrapolated the whole notion from and lacked at the time any testing, empirical of otherwise. Once put into practice Socialism failed every time except (so far) Cuba and China. This is the historic truth in the saying "A broken clock is right twice a day".

In this case the ideas that are killing themselves are freedom and prosperity. Now some of that history I mentioned. There once was a powerful empire, it spanned a massive chunk of the known world and was prosperous and stable. Mainly at the expense of those unlucky enough to exist around it as it was Expansionist, interventionist and Imperialist in its ambitions. It had a first rate military, finest and largest of its day. This empire was nominally a republic with a semi regulated free market and international trade. It was the cultural, economic, military, scientific/engineering, and educational super power of its day. After centuries its expansion slowed. Its priorities shifted to domestic social issues of a nonmilitary nature. This was done so members of its ruling body could stay in office and exploit them to establish political, nepotistic, hegemonic, and hereditary dynasties. As a result of this new priority the treasuries were drained over time and central power of its government increased in an inverse proportional relationship. When a new previously unknown enemy emerged waging unconventional warfare the weakened military and paralyzation of the governments central command ensured it was toppled. Whats the name of of this empire? I'll get to that in a moment. Whats more important is the socialist meaning for Dialectic and how it explains the downfall of it.

What made it great was its killer, as it was a victim of its own success. As life for citizens evolved upward to more prosperity and a better life for them selves and their posterity they increasingly were distanced from the harsh realities of life. Each successive generation viewing this new level of life style as a the base norm of life and worked to pass on an even better and prosperous lifestyle to the next. This is and was a good thing and made the empire a great place to be a citizen of. Its neighbors emulated it. The more affluent neighboring peoples legally immigrated from there home lands to it by purchasing citizenship to ensure their progeny would enjoy this escalating prosperity and standard of living. Poorer peoples legally immigrated by selling themselves into slavery or being conquered and forcibly enslaved. Even these slaves had a chance at a better life and freedom through various means. Conquered people would eventually assimilate into the mainstream and become functioning members of its society or even citizens. Then the decay, rot, infection, parasite started to work at killing its host. Every successive generation after a certain point became increasingly narcissistic. Their expectations for what they had been given by their antecedents as an inheritance became increasingly unrealistic while simultaneously being undervalued. The hard work of empire building was long behind them by this point. These increasingly insulated and ungrateful people saw the current prosperity as their "Right". All rights have responsibilities attached to them and require work to maintain. The politicians of the day found this growing sense of entitlement useful to exploit for building dynasties and increasing their own power. They fed this expectation and downplayed the work required to build and maintain the currant level of prosperity. They started plying them with distractions and ever new "Rights" and entitlements. This cant go on forever as the money to do this has to come from somewhere. The quick and easy way was to defund the military and divert its resources to social programs and engineering projects to maintain the illusion all was as the people expected. Again there is only so much you can rob from the military before it ceases to be an effective fighting force. There are also limits to how low the military funding can be slashed before the empires enemies notice and start to nibble it to death. Whether for vengeance or jealousy (and both were motivating factors) this nibbling eat away at the empires strength in tandem to the growing entitlements expected of its inhabitants. These factors alone would over time have killed the empire, albeit slowly. More Ambitious outside forces would intervene first. Coveting the wealth amassed in the empire and having a closer connection to the harshness of life than their more civilized adversaries, they raided it. Finding it weak and unable to mount a true resistance to them only inflamed their ambitions. They despised them as weak and saw no advantage to the superior imperial cultural, economy, military, science/engineering, and education. They perceived these as essentially worthless, and therefore did not emulate them as the empires previous enemies had. The castrated imperial military did score some victories but the writing was on the wall and the raiders/invaders eventually sacked the imperial capital. The empire survived even this for awhile before eventually expiring by suffocation under its own bloated entitlements.

what empire was this? with only slight modification the description fits any colonial power or historic empire. In this case its Rome, or is it Egypt? maybe the Greeks? the Byzantines? The Moors? matters not, soon it will be us. The former "home of the Brave Land of The FREE". the last bastion of individual freedom is choosing slavery in exchange for promised new "rights" and entitlements. "History does not repeat itself, it rhymes" -Mark Twain. This election and its results are not the cause of the ending of the great American experiment in freedom, its just the latest symptom. The final one.

Kosh: The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.