Stay Thirsty For Freedom My Friends

I had some reflections on President Obama's speech given a while ago today about the military NSA.

Even though I have not had much time to digest it completely, I will offer some thoughts off the top of my head.

It is clear that President Obama is suffering from the corruption of toxins of power (About Toxins Of Power).

It is also clear that this infection at this time is becoming an epidemic in the U.S.eh? and who knows in what other nations.

There are at least two pillars or characteristics of this or any other tyranny and oppression:

1) when we do it that makes it ok;
2) especially when we do it to them

We have lost touch with the ability to determine it.

That is, as a nation we have lost the ability to determine constitutional right from constitutional wrong,

Further, being educated about the constitution and then taking an oath to uphold it does not prevent the toxins of power from removing that understanding from some of those who thereafter sit in a seat of power.

What is evolving in our politics as a result of the epidemic is sorta like the essence of a personality cult as far as I can tell (some call it a "political duopoly").

The it (constitutional government by law, not by men) is no longer the determinate factor in our concept of tyranny, rather, good constitutional law is determined by who is doing it (see ipse dixit).

So what is evolving is "we can do it (which is defined as "anything") to them" (which is defined as "anybody").

That the very essence of tyranny and oppression.

And in our nation at the group level it is getting to look like our politics is composed of two personality cults striving for power while each puts the other personality cult down.

I am seeing this infection spreading, because we see more and more of it being done to them, which eventually turns on the people:

To whom are sovereigns accountable? In 1609 King James I offered Parliament his answer. Starting from the premise that the “[e]state of the monarchy is the supremest thing upon earth,” he equated kings to gods, because “they exercise a manner or resemblance of divine power upon earth.” Kings have absolute power and authority, “and yet accountable to none but God only.”

(Follow The Immunity - 3). It is that old "germ" within that old epidemic which we thought we had immunized ourselves from.

The toxins of power are still with us, and they are factors in the development and or decay of our cultural amygdala (Hypothesis: The Cultural Amygdala).

Is "Power Corrupts" A Mystic Notion?

To a physicist the idea that power can corrupt does not make sense.

That scientist can and does use very precise formulas from within the realm of mathematics so as to show you all you want to know about power.

But none of what is shown will have any thing to do with corruption of the power we are in reference to.

There is a distinction between the power talked about by physics professors and the power talked about by the founders of our nation.

The way they drafted the U.S. Constitution shows that they had experienced the bad effects from concentrated power, and that they believed distribution of power was a better way.

The graphic shows three branches of government sharing various aspects of power, with the written Constitution being the supreme power of the nation.

That is all well and good, but the notion that there is something in power, a toxin if you will, that corrupts those who use the power is a mystical notion it seems to me.

We know that the notion "power corrupts" is true, but we do not really know how it corrupts, or what the toxins that do the corrupting are composed of, or where they exist and come from.

But neither do we really know what gravity is, but we can use formulas that describe what it does, and we can do so very precisely. Gravity is a mystical power that we can't see or feel, yet we know it exists, and we use it in many ways to our advantage.

Likewise, those toxins of power that can warp the mind, emotions, and heart of politicians who are not careful, will not do the same to those who discover and use the antidotes.

Like the formulas for working with gravity, we now have formulas to work with that mysterious something, "toxins in power", too.