Divided we fall? It would seem these days that the illusion of polarity is taking over the minds of western society. Right against left, left against right. The idea that either side is either all right or all wrong is just that... an illusion, serving nothing but our ego's attachment to our own ideologies.  Oozing it's divisive ilk into the very core of what our culture is based upon, the right to live your life as you choose, as long as it doesn't infringe upon the right of others.  

   I know that some of my left friends will have me strung up for saying this, but in some ways something Glenn Beck said about civil rights got me thinking, and even though I feel he's using some basic, and correct, facts about civil rights to push his own political agenda, there still remains the fact that some of what he says has some foundation in truth.  And thats the fact that civil rights belong to all humans, not any particular self interest group.  And as I said, even though i think he's a bit of a shyster using some basic facts about the foundation of our society, for his own personal agenda, what he said helped me realize, that the more and more self interest groups we develop, the more the idea of "us and them" takes root.  

   My overall point being that we are moving dangerously closer to "divided we fall"  America was founded on the principles of a republic, not a democracy, the main difference being that a republic protects the right of an individual and a democracy protects the rights of groups, or more accuretly, the majority.   The problem with majority rule, is just that, majority rules, a fine example is the california vote to allow gay marriage, was overturned by another majority to ban it.   The moment we allow the majority to determine what we can have, we also allow it the right to take it away.  

   Allowing the idea of majority rule, sets us up for a stage of division, the founding fathers and mothers of our country saw this right off, and worked to circumvent that possible scenario by creating the country as a republic, political parties did not exist in 1789. Washington despised the idea of political associations, formed in such a way as to pit one group of citizens against another.   He warned…"The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge natural to party dissention, which in different ages & countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders & miseries, which result, gradually incline the minds of men to seek security & repose in the absolute power of an Individual: and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of Public Liberty."  

   The happiest and most productive times in my life, I was surrounded by friends and people who did not affiliate with any political bent(if they did, I wouldn't have known), we didn't need to, we lived our lives and respected each others rights to do so.  It's interesting though, people move on, enter certain lifestyles, and economic environments, and inevitably get tangled up in whatever belief system they are surrounded by.  Humans are tribal by nature, we have a natural tendency to absorb the belief system of our tribe, inevitably taking on those beliefs for ourselves, to the point where these ideas become a part of our identity.  Humans will fight to retain this identity.  And this is what scares me the most.  

   The true specter that is haunting us these days is that which works to divide us.  What is really at work here, perhaps it's time to look below the surface of things, behind what is apparent on the surface of things, and peek into the very foundation of the current state of affairs that we find ourselves in.  

It's possible that we have simply lost sight of what our founding fathers and mothers created for us, or maybe it's something else. Perhaps the current quagmire that we find ourselves in politically, is showing us something, perhaps the rules that we have been operating under will not fit into the paradigm of where we are going, perhaps were trying to use an antiquated way of thinking that simply will not work within the awesome world that awaits us.  perhaps our stubbornness is the only thing holding us back, I wonder what would happen if we just let go….hmmmmmm  

   In the end, it's not the right or the left that will bring us down, it will be our inability to reconcile our differences, or to say it better, to recognize the illusion of our differences, and see beyond the surface ideas to the core of what we really are,  the same.   

e pluribus unum.