Publius Returns

“The celebrated Pericles, in compliance with the resentment of a prostitute, at the expense of much of the blood and treasure of his countrymen, attacked, vanquished, and destroyed the city of the Samnians. The same man, stimulated by private pique against the Megarensians, another nation of Greece, or to avoid a prosecution with which he was threatened as an accomplice in a supposed theft of the statuary Phidias, or to get rid of the accusations prepared to be brought against him for dissipating the funds of the state in the purchase of popularity, or from a combination of all these causes, was the primitive author of that famous and fatal war, distinguished in the Grecian annals by the name of the Peloponnesian war; which, after various vicissitudes, intermissions, and renewals, terminated in the ruin of the Athenian commonwealth.” PUBLIUS

There are those who say that the words of our founding fathers are out of date and irrelevant. There are others who argue that, though that may be true, human nature remains constant. Powerful figures of today and of the past understand that the masses are irrelevant. They understand, as did Hitler, Stalin, Castro, and their ilk, that promises made with a smiling face and the presence of conviction draws people into the fold. It is easy to point out where the problems lay. It is the farmers or the wealthy or the entrepreneurs or the shopkeepers. And it is easy to denigrate and hate them as sources of a country’s ills. It is easy to wish the rich to be poorer and the poor to be richer.

And with these promises, the masses remain in denial. Surely it cannot happen here, even as we spend our way into poverty. In pre war Germany, it is said, it would take a wheelbarrow full of money to purchase bread. And then came restrictions on every facet of the individual’s movements. Until, finally, tyranny.

Seeing the writing on the wall, banks try to return the money. The restrictions riding on the backs of the stimulus package are more than they had bargained for. The masses, however, see handouts and payback to the rich CEO’s who make more money than they are entitled to. The wealthy are too wealthy and the poor are too poor. And so they wish for the rich to be as poor as they. But more to their liking is that the rich give to the poor. And with such promise comes popularity, re-election, and power.

Eighty Eight percent of Americans believe that Jesus walked the earth. Eight two percent of them believe that he was the Son of God, died, and was resurrected. Yet to appease our enemies the leader of the free world will tell them that America is not a Christian nation. He will tell them that we are simply a nation of similar ideals and values, while leading atheists denigrate those values under which they have prospered.

And he will bow to kings.