"Why, let the stricken deer go weep,
The hart ungalled play;
For some must watch, while some must sleep:
So runs the world away."
-Hamlet
So that this nation shall not perish from the Earth -- what is required today?
It is the same as it always has been, although now the stakes are ever higher. The weapons can destroy worlds. The emperor can scry your very innermost thoughts. This nation determines the fate of all others. Indeed, the stakes are ever more higher.
An awake citizenry. It sounds so simple, yet it is the hardest task any philosopher has ever faced. How to make a perfect society, the recipe is simple, perfect citizens. Plato's Republic sought to do it with justice. As the just man had the just city within his soul, so the Republic leaned ever towards perfection.
But, alas, it is not so easy. Easily manipulated are hoi polloi. And those most manipulated become most confrontational, most violent, most assured in their own folly. Those who work evil against the just state use them easily.
And so forever the just man is in an unjust society. So Machiavelli thought the only way was for one just man to become okay with being unjust in certain circumstances, so that there could be some justice somewhere.
But today something much, much more is needed:
1. Critical Thinking Citizenry. It is most critical that there be citizens able to think critically about those that seek to dominate them. And this is far more subtle than you may think. The millionaire pundits on AM radio and the whores on Fox News may mouth the words, but they are actually subverting true critical thinking. They do this by an appeal to raw emotions like fear. Pure fear, unabashed fear, primal fear. The thought that if you don't do something, you and your family are in danger. This is the talk about "security" and the now well-known appeal to "Terrorism," "security," and blatant xenophobia. So not only must you think critically, but you must especially beware of those who want to appear as if they are thinking and acting critically, when in fact they are agents of the status quo and the current power structure.
2. Liberal Arts Studies. The best and most effective critical thinking has, at its basis, the liberal arts education. By looking into different ways of thinking itself, and looking at historical and philosophical epistemologies, one can avoid being trapped by sophistry. Recently, Conservatives such as the former governor, now under indictment, Rick Perry, who was a C-student and a member of a paramilitary organization, sought to undo the liberal arts education and higher learning by rooting it out in favor of results-based and monied interests wherein students would be educated simply to fill cogs in Big Corporate's machine. These are not people who question power structures or modes of thought. These are those people who have been lobotomized for easier manufactured consent.
3. Power Structures and Money. The greatest attack on democracy in the world today is not a small militia in the Middle East. It is not the influx of immigrants from south of the border. It is not a hare-brained conspiracy theory about the government taking individual liberties or the right to free exercise of religion. The greatest attack on democracy is its transformation to a plutocracy. When the U.S. Supreme Court overturned decades of jurisprudence and election campaign finance law, it ushered in the change from one person = one vote to one dollar = one vote. Or, perhaps, many dollars = many votes. This has allowed the last round of elections to be corrupted by massive expenditures in mass media (and even social media) to inveigh against candidates and measures that most benefit the common good -- the most people receiving the most benefit.
4. Race and Religion. These are the major pivot points that the overly empowered use to subjugate and divide the many. It is critical to always notice how these fault lines fall across the political and societal landscape. It is often a subtle and default means of creating a herd mentality. It sometimes necessarily runs counter and counteracts critical thinking, number one, above.
These are four of the most critical means of preserving the Republic.
