Also available at http://partializeorparish.blogspot.com/
Partialize
or Perish
The Bigger They Are, The Harder
They Fall
Exodus 18:21 Select capable men from all the people--men who fear God, trustworthy
men who hate dishonest gain--and appoint them as officials over thousands, hundreds,
fifties and tens.
The United States of America
is teetering on the edge of a perilous precipice, overlooking the bone yard of history.
A forensic study of the bone yard of nations, empires, and cultures reveals a common
cause of death; they all collapsed under their own weight.
It is also true that the bigger
they are, the more likely they are to fall. It often happens quickly, when a paradigm
shift that has been building for decades gradually reaches the tipping point, and
everyone is shocked because they were too blind to see it coming.
The purpose of this essay is
to show that the dynamics behind the demise of nations are endemic to reality, and
constitute a laser straight imperative which manifests in all aspects of human endeavor.
If we stray from that imperative we will experience tragedy and failure, whether
it is the sinking of a ship, the failure of a business, or the collapse of a nation.
I intend to illustrate the application
of these imperative principles of reality by giving examples from different arenas.
RELIGION
Let’s start with religion. The
people of the tribal confederacy that became the nation of Israel began to ask for
“a king, like the other nations.” Samuel
was the leader of Israel at the time, and he advised against such a move. Samuel
was the last of the Hebrew judges, and the first of the Major Prophets who began
to prophesy inside the land of Israel. He was thus at the cusp between two eras.
Samuel warned the people what would happen if they got what they were asking for;
“These will be the ways of
the king who will reign over you: he will take your sons and appoint them to his
chariots, and to be his horsemen, and to run before his chariots. And
he will appoint for himself commanders of thousands and commanders of fifties, and
some to plow his ground and to reap his harvest, and to make his implements of war,
and the equipment of his chariots. He will take your daughters to be perfumers and cooks
and bakers. He will take the best of your fields and vineyards
and olive orchards and give them to his servants. He will
take the tenth of your grain and of your vineyards, and give it to his officers
and to his servants. He will take your male servants and
female servants and the best of your young men and your donkeys, and put them to
his work. He will take the tenth of your flocks, and you
shall be his slaves. And in that day you will cry out because
of your king, whom you have chosen for yourselves, but the Lord will not answer you in that day.”
And so
a theocracy was abandoned and a monarchy was born. In later days the more the people
attempted to centralize power, the worse became the fate of Israel. Eventually it
became possible to destroy Israel because the strategic strength of tribal diversity
was gone and power was all centralized in one place.
Babylon
took advantage of that weakness and destroyed the nation of Israel, only to fall
prey to the same vulnerability of centralized political structure when Cyrus of
Persia came to power. (See next section on
historical examples)
An even
worse fate befell Christianity. For the first three centuries of Christianity people
gathered in their homes and worshipped, as was customary for their local brand of
the Christian faith. There was no official Christian religion. Many of the traditions and writings
of the early church were excluded by the state sponsored version of Christianity.
By the end of the fourth century AD the Christianity
of Jesus and Paul no longer existed.
In February 313, Constantine
met with Licinius in Milan, where they developed the Edict of Milan. The edict stated
that Christians should be allowed to follow their faith without oppression. This
removed the penalties for professing Christianity, and all confiscated religious
property was returned. The edict protected from religious persecution not only Christians
but all religions, allowing anyone to worship whichever deity they chose.
Soon Christianity became the official religion of the Roman
Empire. Worse than the time of Samuel in ancient Israel, when a theocracy was
replaced by a monarchy, Christianity merged with an already existent worldly empire.
Christianity did not begin to recover from that tragic merging until the Reformation
rescued both Protestants and Catholics. Since
that time the ecclesiastical hierarchy of much
of the Christian church, both Catholic and Protestant, has taken on the traits of
collective authority. The present day “Church” may also be teetering on the brink
of an abyss.
In recent times there has emerged a decentralizing movement
back to the “house churches” of Christianity’s beginnings, thus strengthening the
foundation of Christianity and protecting it from a sudden, hard fall.
HISTORY
Cyrus
the Great (600 BC or 576 BC) was smarter
than the Babylonians. He reestablished the nation of Israel and allowed them to
run their own country. He allowed regional autonomy in each state within
the Persian Empire, in the form of a satrapy system. A satrapy was an administrative
unit, usually organized on a geographical basis. A 'satrap’ (governor) was the client
king, who administered the region. We might say, “Cyrus decentralized the power
of the Emperor and founded the United States of Persia.”
On December 10, 2003, in her acceptance
of the Nobel Peace Prize, Shirin Ebadi evoked
Cyrus, saying: “I am an Iranian, a descendant of Cyrus
the Great. This emperor proclaimed at the pinnacle of power 2,500 years ago that
he 'would not reign over the people if they
did not wish it.' He promised not to force
any person to change his religion and faith, and guaranteed freedom for all. The
Charter of Cyrus the Great should be studied in the history of
human rights.”
Cyrus
the Great was followed by lesser men. They began to centralize power, and were conquered
by Alexander the Great, who defeated the Persian armies. The descendants of Alexander continued the pattern of centralizing power that has repeated
itself down to this time resulting in the fall of many nations and empires.
The historical examples of devastating outcomes resulting
from “putting all of our eggs in one basket” are numerous. Egypt is another classical
example.
The Egyptian Empire lasted three thousand years. That makes
the Roman United Empire, which lasted over four centuries
(27 BC to 395 AD,) look like it died while still an adolescent.
The Pharaohs of Egypt had a very
wise policy. When they began ruling another nation they established a “temporary”
governor. The princes of that new nation were treated like the family of the Pharaohs.
They were educated and groomed to be national leaders. They were then returned to
their homeland as soon as possible, and began to rule their own people. They simply
paid taxes to the Pharaohs in exchange for the protection of Egypt’s armies and
other benefits due to the United States of Egypt. There were many kings ruling over
their own nations within the Egyptian Empire. Because there was a decentralization
of power, Egypt was protected from collapse for millenniums. Only when the Cleopatra/Roman
influence prevailed did Egypt become vulnerable, and another Empire was laid to
rest in history’s bone yard.
ENGINEERING
Again, there are a plethora of examples from the field of
engineering, but probably the most easily explained is the principle of watertight
integrity. A large ship is not one floating object, but many connected, floating
structures. If the hull is damaged, that part of the ship is sealed off and the
rest of the structural integrity and the buoyancy of the vessel remain secure.
Aeronautical engineering always includes redundancies that
aren’t really redundant. There is an electrical
system to lower the landing gear. There is a
hydraulic system to lower the landing gear. There is a mechanical system to lower the landing gear. Avionics always includes
several ways to navigate; so even when the technology fails, most pilots can still
navigate with a sextant.
Centralizing the function of any machine is an invitation
to failure. In fact, centralizing
mechanical functions would prevent the invention of a working model in the
first place.
BIOLOGY
Our DNA code is resident in every cell in our bodies. Reproduction
would be impossible if the entire code for a new being was not imprinted on each
cell of that creation, in humans as well as in all of the other creatures on the
planet.
Because the human brain stores much of the same information
in every brain cell, this built-in system assures that the brain can continue to
function when parts of the brain are injured or removed. Recovery from strokes or
head injuries is possible because of this decentralized system, which allows the
parts to rebuild and restore function after trauma.
A brain with a centralized memory or neuron complex would
be dysfunctional. A body with a centralized genetic code would prevent our very
existence.
TECHNOLOGY
AND PHYSICS
If a hologram of a rose is cut in half
and then illuminated by a laser, each half will still be found to contain the entire
image of the rose.
Indeed, even if the halves are divided
again, each snippet of the film will always be found to contain a smaller, but intact
version of the original image. Unlike normal photographs, every part of a hologram
contains all the information possessed by the whole.
It would be very easy to destroy the
essence of a normal rose photograph by cutting it in half, because the specific
“rose” qualities are all collected in one place. But it is nearly impossible to
destroy a holographic rose, because the central information is everywhere.
One of the
greatest things about the World Wide Web is that nobody really owns it. It is a
global collection of networks, both big and small. These networks connect together
in many different ways to form the single entity that we know as the Internet. In fact, the
very name comes from this idea of interconnected networks. Attempting to centralize
the functions of the Internet would shut it down.
Some
physicists are convinced that the entire universe
is interconnected; that we live a holographic reality. Quantum entanglement implies
that it is the parts exchanging information with other parts that constitute the
whole. The universe is protected and sustained
by distributing that connective “glue” everywhere. Centralization would destroy
the entire universe.
MANAGEMENT
One of my fields of interest is marketing and management science.
Success in this field involves reducing centralization and establishing cooperative,
stand alone units of productivity.
The phrase “delegation of authority” is a way to describe
how to avoid the dangers of centralized functions and decisions. A 21st
century manager’s main responsibility is to break up the clusters of inertia and
inefficiency that naturally collect and bog down the productivity of the corporation.
See: “Marketing
and Management Science in the 21st Century”
REVOLUTION
AND ACTIVISM
Why do you think they are called terrorist cells? There are communist cells.
There are subversive cells. Eighteenth
century American patriots won the first American Revolution through the formation
of cells. Today there are modern patriots who create cells that act independently
from one another to affect the next American Revolution.
Why are they called cells?
Often the cells are not aware of each other, nor do they know the names of the people
in other cells. If there is one central authority, that administrative center can
be destroyed from the outside, or can self-destruct through inertia and inefficiency,
yet the free-standing units can continue to function. If there is only one command
and control facility, one attack can destroy everything. For a movement to maintain
security and stability when its management falters or is attacked, it must avoid
the tragedy of centralization.
MILITARY
When I went through the Naval
Leadership Training School in the early 1960s the military was still
working on solutions for the problems that resulted from North Korea’s successful
brainwashing and destruction of the chain of command among American prisoners of
war. A diagnosis of the problems revealed that when a commanding officer was removed
from his men the chain of command quickly disintegrated and individual personnel
we vulnerable to brainwashing techniques. Obviously, there was too much power centralized
in the higher ranking officers.
The model of our Turkish allies was held out to us an example
of how to prevent such destruction of the chain of command. Unlike the Americans,
The Turkish military insisted on emphasizing the authority of each individual. When
a higher ranking officer was removed the junior officers quickly took command. When
all the officers were removed the senior enlisted men took command. As the story
was told to us, finally, the only men remaining were privates. One of the privates
spoke up and said, “I am in command. I am the oldest of all the privates.”
Even the military is vulnerable when there is too much centralized
power.
POLITICAL
STRUCTURE
The Canton style of government in Switzerland is a good example
of how it should be done if we want a stable political foundation and personal freedom. The 26 cantons of Switzerland are the member states of the federal state of
Switzerland. Each canton was a fully sovereign state with its own border controls,
army and currency. Public meetings and personal
votes by individual citizens still establish legislation and policy. Unlike many
other nations, Switzerland is not on the brink of national disaster.
So, have I made my point?
To return to the premise of the opening paragraph, “The United
States of America is teetering on the edge of a perilous precipice, overlooking
the bone yard of history.” It was never intended by our founding fathers to be this
way. They knew the dangers of kings and dictators. They knew that power corrupts.
They did not want a strong centralized government. They wanted the power to remain
with the individual states and the people. That is why they included the Tenth Amendment
to the Constitution of the United States of America. The Tenth Amendment, which is part of the Bill
of Rights, was ratified on December 15, 1791.
“The
powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by
it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
Over the years the federal government has continued to erode
the power of the people and the states to the point that it is time for a Second
American Revolution.
We no longer have a Democracy. We no longer have a
Democratic Republic. Here is our present form of government:
Kakistocracy: Government by the least qualified or most
unprincipled citizens.Kleptocracy: A government characterized by rampant greed and corruption
Now I have a question. Does the political leadership of America
think that they are exempt from the timeless imperatives of a reality which governs
all human activity, including the very universe itself? When will they realize that
unless they look beyond their power driven, personal and political motivations and
dismantle the monster beast called the federal government, they will take us all
down with them? Unless they heed the inevitable
lesson of the ages, they will most assuredly end up drinking the bitter hemlock
which was eventually tasted by every despot on the planet.
Or must the citizens once again form militias, learn to “man
the barricades” and sing Yankee Doodle until our politicians once again heed the
lesson that the
bigger they are the harder they fall?
And remember that the fall is often swift, with no warning
for those who do not have eyes that see. We may not have much time to save our country
before it collapses into the bone yard of the nations.
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