Newton’s third law of motion has proven the test of time, since he
first stated it in 1686. If we were to apply the same concept to
political history, we might say,
A nation that rises to a great height will fall to an equally great depth.
At first glance that seems to be merely clever wordsmithing. However,
historically, it does seem to play out exactly that way. Most countries
tend to ebb and flow as to their prosperity, but those that rise to
great heights, particularly those that rise to become empires, tend to
crash with a weight equal to their strength at the height of their
power.
If we consider that point when we observe the present dominant
empire, the US, we would expect that, at the point that the empire is
teetering on the edge of collapse, we would expect to see signs of rot
within the government, the economy and even within many of the people.
The closer we get to the tipping point, the more this would be borne out
by lunacy in the media, the courts, even the hallowed halls of
education.
So, let’s have a peek into present events – events that may not be
the most crucial in the state of the union, but are indicators that the
system is self-destructing.
The following are three briefs on articles that recently appeared in
the same publication on the same day. (They have not been edited by me.)
Mike Adams Reports the Boston Herald to the FBI for Recommending That Those who Oppose Vaccines Should Be Executed by Hanging
Mike Adams, the owner of the Natural News website, is filing a
complaint with the Boston FBI against the Boston Herald for publishing a
violence-inciting editorial attributed to the Boston Herald. The
editorial claims that vaccines don't cause autism and that it ought to
be a "hanging offense" for anyone who opposes this conventional theory.
Black Student Group at UC Santa Cruz Threatens Takeover
The African/ Black Student Alliance (A/BSA) physically occupied a
building on the UC Santa Cruz campus and was granted all of its
demands, which includes mandatory ‘diversity training’ for all incoming
students. Now they are threatening more civil disruption if their new
demands are not met.
Tim Allen’s TV Sitcom Cancelled After He Said Being a Conservative in Hollywood Was Like Living in Nazi Germany
Tim Allen starred as a positive conservative character in the ABC
sitcom, Last Man Standing, which was cancelled despite high ratings.
The cancellation comes two months after he made a comment on a talk show
comparing living as a conservative in Hollywood to Nazi Germany.
No need to go into the entire articles. You get the point. The fact
that these articles appeared on the same day in the same publication
exemplifies the fact that these are not isolated incidents. They are a
part of an overall social/legal/cultural trend that we see not only in
the US, where these incidents occurred, but in much of what was once
known as “the free world.”
These incidents represent the antithesis of freedom. They
are the acts of individuals and small groups taking the position that
they should be afforded the authority to determine the behavior of all
others. They represent
power without accountability and have the support of the rulers, media and courts.
But, how is it that they have become so pervasive? How are they even acceptable points of view? The answer lies in one word: education.
This danger was predicted by a young Thomas Jefferson, when he stated, "A
democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the
people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine."
Mister Jefferson was, to my mind, the greatest visionary of his time.
He was eminently educated. He entered the prestigious College of
William and Mary in 1760 and, upon graduation, rounded out his education
under the great George Wythe in Williamsburg, Virginia. In Mister
Jefferson’s day, education was the
key to higher understanding.
He studied architecture, which led to his creation of several iconic
buildings, whose designs are still studied today. He studied ancient
history and improved upon the Athenian Republic, when creating an
outline for what would become the United States. He studied economics
and successfully knocked down the ideas of a central bank and income
taxes, as proposed by Alexander Hamilton, his nemesis in George
Washington’s cabinet. These accomplishments were inspired by
his education.
A half-century ago, I was sent to school in Boston, which had long
been regarded as the centre of higher education in the Western
Hemisphere. In my final years there, I spent endless hours discussing
higher concepts with others in and around the lawns of Harvard
University, expanding my outlook. At that time, the emphasis in higher
learning was on the expansion of the powers of reason – the ability of
each individual to make use of existing knowledge in order to expand
upon it. This was seen as essential, as those who were learning there
were being prepared to lead the next generation in politics, economics,
manufacturing, invention and most every other endeavor.
And, yet, what was considered the very best in America has become, in
many ways, the worst. Today, the nation’s universities, from Berkley in
California to Colombia in New York, have become the exact opposite of
what they were created to be. Instead of cultivating the powers of
reason in order to expand upon previous achievements, universities in
America have become bastions of oppression, decrying and even punishing
any thought that’s not strictly politically correct. And nowhere is this
more true than at Harvard. It’s become a centre for collectivist
thinking and a factory for the oppressors of the next generation.
To be sure, the students themselves did not create this atmosphere.
But huge grants to both professors and schools have assured that the
mindset of the instructors and the goals of the schools themselves have
become the indoctrination of a future generation of leaders to a
collectivist way of thinking.
The result of years of such indoctrination is that the US is today a
culture in which the collectivist agenda is being pushed by those who
are the most educated and respected. Not surprising then, that the
media, the courts and the public themselves now see collectivism as
high-minded and fail to grasp what the American founding fathers knew:
that a successful and progressive society is built upon freedom, not
Orwellian domination.
Unfortunately, it’s ever-true that we’re the product of what we
learn. More importantly, a country that’s successful in indoctrinating
its youth to believe in oppression will bear fruit and become an
oppressive nation.
The US rose to an unprecedented height in its developing years. In
its decline, that hasn’t merely been diminished, it’s been reversed.
Although some Americans do still grasp the Jeffersonian concept of
freedom, the overall thrust of the nation is the opposite. The US still
exists, but America has departed.
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Jeff Thomas is British and resides in the Caribbean. The son of an economist and historian, he learned early to be distrustful of governments as a general principle. Although he spent his career creating and developing businesses, for eight years, he penned a weekly newspaper column on the theme of limiting government. He began his study of economics around 1990, learning initially from Sir John Templeton, then Harry Schulz and Doug Casey and later others of an Austrian persuasion. He is now a regular feature writer for Casey Research’s International Man (http://www.internationalman.com) and Strategic Wealth Preservation in the Cayman Islands.
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The author is not affiliated with, endorsed or sponsored by Sprott Money Ltd. The views and opinions expressed in this material are those of the author or guest speaker, are subject to change and may not necessarily reflect the opinions of Sprott Money Ltd. Sprott Money does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, timeliness and reliability of the information or any results from its use.
