Mob Rule


In the last 12 years or so, at least since 9/11, we’ve been reduced to something like the ancient Athenian mob — with opportunistic politicians sometimes inciting, sometimes catering to an already-angry public.

The Greek comic playwright Aristophanes once described how screaming politicians — posing as men of the people — would sway Athenian citizens by offering them all sort of perks and goodies that the government had no idea of how to pay for; and the massive riots and chaos that followed, when these promises were not fulfilled.

The Roman Empire of the mighty Caesars was brought to its knees repeatedly in the third and fourth centuries by wars within the legions brought on by the powerful mobs of Rome, seeking ever more goodies in return for their acquiescence; and this continual weakening from within led directly to its complete collapse, when it was overrun by the barbarians of the fifth century.

Lately we’ve allowed our government to forget its republican roots. We’ve given up on thoughtful political discourse, and gone whole hog; The Athenian and Roman model of mob politics has broken out across our land; and stifled all reasonable attempts at consensus.

Obama's team sees America as a nation where might makes right; the will of the mob, as expressed through our visionary leader Obama is all that matters. An America without the restraint of power is dangerous. His arrogance and disregard for the Constitution and our founders is astounding. But, it doesn't matter to him, votes, and power are all he cares about. And once he has given the power to his legions, the votes won't matter anymore either.

The rule of law is a carnival show to President Obama. This mounting mob induced inferno that we see, he has built on his own, and he now owns all of it. The rule of the mob is President Obama's legacy not only to the ordinary American but to the entire planet. What is it about this president's desire to want to overthrow duly elected governors, duly elected world leaders and overturn the rule of law, everywhere? And what is it with the democrats' new-found love of violent mobs that seem to mushroom now in every direction you look?

When leaders begin to use the infrastructure of government to harass and bully and extort opposition and dissenters, you know that we now live in an unfree society. It seems that we really are in the last days of freedom as we have known it.

Politics unguided by a framing document such as the Constitution always descends into mob rule; and we have thrown ours overboard by the actions, and occasionally the inactions, of all three branches of our government; no one in government has clean hands here. Whichever political party assembles a large enough mob in Washington issues draconian edicts favoring itself. The first casualty is liberty and order. Political chaos is inevitable because social order is overturned when a mob controlled by the opposite party retakes Washington and does the exact same thing. The only long term certainty is further uncertainty of continual revolution, as each side seeks the anhilation of the other, and its mob.

In effect there is no constitution. There is only the political jungle. To the victor go the spoils.

The Obama administration has proven that a mob big enough to give you everything you want, is also big enough to take it away. Obama has proven he is willing to use the force of this mob against the American people.

President Obama chose to use taxpayer money to shut down the World War II open-air memorial, close private businesses on public property, and sent out the riot police to enforce his rules; and when they protested and defied him, he lashed out like an angry, petulant child. This is the first time in my memory a president, a sitting president, has attacked the American people, used abusive language toward them and publicly ridiculed Americans for using their First Amendment rights to petition the government for grievances.

President Obama has violated the trust of the American people and his reign of terror is unacceptable. Are we on the way to imprisoning those who have a difference of opinion? Will this government under Obama imprison Americans who disagree with him? Is theft of your personal property becoming common? Do you owe 100 percent of your labor to government for the common good? I sometimes wonder at both the lengths of these mobs; and the timidity demonstrated by the American people in their wake.

It seems the rule of law is now mob rule. And with mob rule the government turns its guns on the people.

With this ascendancy of lawlessness politicians employ tactics intended to sway the public mob. Class war identifies the political enemy target. Attack “the weakest, the unpopular, the uncooperative” as they are defenseless when in the grasp of the mob. These politicians seem confident that the mob will never turn on them, and that they will never require protection from the rule of law; but that is not the testimony of history.

Everywhere these tactics of mob rule have appeared, they have lead to political, social, economic; and finally, national chaos. And through this ensuing chaos, all freedoms outside of the last mob were lost, and dictatorship, or conquest, in one form or another, became the order of the day.

It's time people, to stand for what we believe in, and know to be true. Is our life so precious that we will simply roll over, and give all to the mob? And what of succeeding generations? Do we owe them nothing?