Dear Friends,
It seems to me, most folks will give up their beliefs for their team, but very few will give up their team for their principles. We all want our team to win. It is merely human nature. When we allow that want for connection to supersede our self interests then we become our own enemy. This happens in many places in life but no place more so than in the arena of politics. Too often we will subvert our principles for our party. If our party is caught lying, we forgive them, but if another party lies, we hold a grudge forever. While it is natural it is counterproductive. We follow out of a sense of connexion but as we do we do great damage to our self interests. It is through following principles that we protect our self interests, and the interests of society as a whole, party is only a means to that end.
Human beings need to be connected with others. Team sports is an example of this paradigm at work. We root for our team against all others. Like people in ancient times, and in less advanced societies allegiance to their clan. To a person raised in a capitalist society, where allegiance to clan is out moded we don’t understand their thinking on an intellectual level, but as human beings we are subject to it nonetheless. Those of us that live in a market system weigh the good against the bad and keep a mental tally sheet that guides us as to the right course of action. When we root for our party over our principles we fall back to a less evolved way of thinking.
We all would rather believe a glittering lie than an ugly truth but it is in facing ugly truths that we grow and mature. It is in indulging in glittering lies that we devolve as human beings, becoming a force for evil, regardless of the loftiness of the principles we have abandoned. Those that shriek about freedom to do this or that need to do the math. Weigh what we are all loosing for their team to win. Because what is a principle, if we don’t hold ourselves and our team, to them? They become nothing, but an egoistic means of controlling others, that we eschew ourselves. When we abandon our principles for political expediency, for the team, we participate in the destruction of those very principles. It is a hypocrite that expects others to follow his principles when he won’t follow them himself.
Without values society crumbles. A society that is devoid of any real principles is a society cast adrift. Great nations, societies and civilizations rise in virtue and fall in vice. This is the sole lesson of history. A great people rise to power, wealth and prominence by following their principles and fall into weakness, poverty and ignominy when they abandon those principles. It follows like water flows down a hill. There is not one example where a people rose to greatness without principles, in other words a societal myth, or where a society thrived by ignoring those principles.
Apparently this is a lesson of history that needs to be taught over and over. The results are always the same, the factors that lead up to the fall are always the same, but humanity refuses to learn the lesson. The vast majority of human suffering that has been experienced has been due to this. Today we are no better than the Athenian who abandoned Solon’s laws, the Spartan who turned his back on the laws of Lycurgus, or Rome when it embraced an emperor instead of the consular system. We are no different when we abandon our founding principles, the market system, limited government and individual liberty.
Our society is no stronger than the Athenian, Spartan or Roman, because our system is made up of flawed human beings, who are more than happy to give up our principles, for political expediency. The new class seek to regain the power they lost to the bourgeoisie, when the new class was called the aristocracy, and so they need to destroy the principles that gave rise to the bourgeoisie, the market system, limited government and freedom. They seek to restore the old system of political favor, total government and oppression.
When we the people participate in abandoning the principles that brought us to such a height of technology, wealth, and freedom, we are as villainous as the politician who lies, connives and usurps. If our team is part of the problem, it is our duty to sand up and demand our leaders return to our foundational principles, else those principles will wither away leaving a destitute society that is controlled by the few using violent oppression, which is the normal case in human affairs. We will have delivered our children into slavery, by abandoning our principles for the team. So I ask you… is the victory of your team worth the enslavement of your children?
Sincerely,
John Pepin
