Dear Friends,
It seems to me, once the elite’s corruption has oozed to the bottom of society, that nation is on a water slide to oblivion. People follow their leaders. That’s a major tenet of Confucius’ ideology. Mo Ti also argued that the rulers of society choose the direction of that society. That train of philosophy seems to have gone past the station though. Elites today believe wholeheartedly that they act in a vacuum. Their corruption only effects society, tangentially, and not directly. The effect is direct because we follow our leaders. If our leaders are virtuous, or at least appear virtuous, we will follow their example, and be virtuous, if they’re obviously criminals, we’ll follow and be criminals. Once the people have followed criminals, and given up all ethics, that society has fallen and it can’t get up.
We follow the examples of those we’re shown. The rotating bedrooms of the movie stars, in the nineteen fifties and sixties, normalized divorce… to great effect. Bernays used our herding nature to get women to smoke cigarettes, as a way to be your own woman. Of all the ways we’re manipulated the most powerful are the examples of the elite. When Sara Palin strode on the republican stage, sporting shooting glasses, they instantly became a fad. We follow the elite because we want to be the elite. You don’t follow the example of criminals, drug addicts or derelicts… because that’s not your goal in life. Unless it is. We mimic those we want to be, not those we don’t want to be. Which means, the elite have a responsibility to act virtuous, to keep society on the right path.
An elite that’s so bereft of self awareness they expose themselves as corruptocrats, are unlikely to get religion and see the light… unless criminal charges sway over them like a sword of Damocles. As long as there are no consequences for anything they do… pervert elections, make up false allegations to jail innocent people, and pedophilia, it’ll get worse. The solution is for a few of them to go to a real prison for a very long time, as examples. That our courts are as corrupt as vulture vomit makes punishing corruption difficult. Not impossible though. We still have sway over our “representatives.” A barrage of calls demanding the impeachment of a few judges, Engoron, Maya Guerra Gamble, Christopher Lopez, etc… who have proven themselves unable to adjudicate law fairly.
Rome is a classic example of a culture that rose in virtue and fell in corruption. Regulation and bureaucracy became a means to wealth through graft. The elite flipped every incentive upside down to enrich themselves. In doing so they led the Roman people to become every bit as corrupt as they. If crime pays… everyone becomes a criminal. In Rome the elite made crime the paradigm. As our elites have done today. In our collapsing culture, society and nations, crime pays, but virtue is severely punished. The corrupt can make up stories about someone, total fiction, and if the victim doesn’t go to prison over the fraud, and has the unmitigated audacity to call the liar, a crazy person, a court will fine the victim of the lies, 80 million dollars. For slandering the liar.
One reason our society, culture and systems have fallen, and can’t get back up, is a corrupt elite. They ride a gravy train that rolls over the wealth, rights and children of the people, it’s the elite’s sworn duty to protect. Morals and ethics are no impediment to an elite, that are so corrupt, a maggot won’t pass them on the street. It’s not that the system’s are broken, it’s the scumbags who’s job it is to run them, that are broken. They’re actually defecating in their own wells. Polluting the very source of their authority… our Constitution. Moreover, in their insanity, they refuse to listen to reason, because, they claim to be the only ones who are sane. As they castrate their little boys. How does a people recover from justified and total distrust in utterly stupid elites? Ask the Mongols, Celts and Romans.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
