Apathy is the Fire in Which We Burn
Each one of us is guilty of all the good we did not do. —Voltaire
Author’s note: Not all politicians are idiots, hypocrites, criminals, and thieves, just the majority of them. This article is concerned with the latter. “An honest man in politics shines more there than he would elsewhere.” —Twain
But, Jefferson worried that the people - and the argument goes back to Thucydides and Aristotle - are easily misled. He also stressed, passionately and repeatedly, that it was essential for the people to understand the risks and benefits of government, to educate themselves, and to involve themselves in the political process. Without that, he said, the wolves will take over.
—Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark
It would seem that mankind is doomed to repeat the same mistakes of inaction over and over. Always hoping against hope that we can comply our out of tyranny, even when the wolf is at our neighbor's door.
The predators encroach, and we do nothing. The predators advance, and we do little. The predators take off their sheep masks, drop all pretense, bare their teeth, and halt the charade that they are not out to consume us - and we go on pretending that they are still sheep and not the ravenous wolves they’ve exposed themselves to be.
And all during this dance between predator & prey - between their revelation of what they are and our rejection of it - our liberties and securities are corroded, eroded, dissolved, and disintegrated.
And thus all of the above - that dance that has been danced time and time again down the corridors of history where mankind refuses to acknowledge the pack of snarling wolves encircling him for what they truly are (perhaps because the trauma of such a reality is too overbearing to confront) - raises an important question. Is mankind just a herd of sheep that can be led to the slaughter at the whims of the tiny parasite class at the top - lacking any agency, awareness, or willpower to revolt and seek greener pastures?
The self-evident answer, of course, is no. We were made in the image of God—We are anything but sheep. And because we are God’s children we have been imbued with ample power to control our destinies and forge our own futures. But in order to do that, we must first emerge from the apathetic fire that consumes our lives, seize the helm of this ship we call the world, and steer her back to bluer waters.
"For, in a democracy, every citizen, regardless of his interest in politics, 'holds office'; every one of us is in a position of responsibility; and, in the final analysis, the kind of government we get depends upon how we fulfill those responsibilities. We, the people, are the boss, and we will get the kind of political leadership, be it good or bad, that we demand and deserve.”
—John F. Kennedy
“But tri,” I hear you saying in my mind, “if I were apathetic I wouldn’t be sitting here seeking out truth by reading this silly conspiracy blog of yours. You should instead aim these words at those people over »» there, who fell and keep falling for the obvious propaganda hook line an’ sinker!”
Fair point. Very well, let us tackle what is meant by ‘apathy’ in this context.
The other day I found myself chatting about taking action at the “root” level with a a new friend of mine who goes by the call sign,
and she shared her personal experience with local level engagement:I worked our city elections in April. Small, rural town. The mayor was unchallenged (3rd term, he's almost invisible) and 2 (out of 4) city council seats. The 2 city council seat challengers did NOTHING, didn't even put out one sign, no FB page - I mean, NOTHING!
Everyone was asking ME about the challengers! After 7 days of early voting and 7am-7pm election day, a grand total of 127 people cast a ballot. There are 2,700 registered, eligible voters in this town! There's a large group that constantly b!tch on FB about how "badly" the town is ran, who runs it, how "bad" the police are, etc, etc, etc. I think there's a large link between people "letting off steam" on social media that prevents "in real life" action.
—ConcernedGrammy
This should alarm all of us.
So how did we arrive at this tragic junction of inaction and apathy in a world where technology has given us more spare time than ever before? The colossal level of civic disengagement ConcernedGrammy describes may have been excusable in the past when farms needed tending and clothes were painstakingly washed by hand, but now? With all the free time we are blessed with in the year 2023, why is an electron microscope required to find local civic participation in this country?
Answer: Government run schools have deliberately cut civics from their curriculum because the last thing any government wants is a civic minded populace—far more difficult to commit criminal acts while selling the nation off piecemeal to the highest bidder when the pesky people who employ you are paying attention to your every move.
Political power has gutted civics because civics guts political power. —tri
Ah but as we’ve established, we are masters of our fate—not sheep—and so we will not allow the mere lack of a government sponsored civics lesson to thwart us from exercising our civic duty. As Franklin famously said when asked—we were given a republic, but it was up to us to keep it.
The reason we are in this mess and sprinting headlong into tyranny is because we’ve outsourced the caretaking of our republic to people like this:
A politician is a fellow who will lay down your life for his country.
—Tex Guinan
If you somehow haven’t noticed by now, relying on a politician to solve our problems is a fool’s errand. They are whores at best (the pay to play nature of our political system requires this) and butchers, pedophiles, and thieves at worst. As such, it is far past time we took the requisite action to save ourselves and meet our own challenges because no one is coming to our rescue—the least of which are politicians.
Civics is the bane of the government because ultimately it is the people - us - who hold the power, despite what government at every level desperately wants - and relentlessly propagandizes - you to believe. Town councils and school boards can do nothing without the apathy of the citizenry. Thus fixing these problems and steering our ship back to Maldives paradise requires up-to-the minute civic participation from a critical mass of citizens.
Massive widespread civic participation is required to solve this problem. The corrupt tinpot dictators that infest our every branch of government thrive on both our apathy and absence, and so we must suffocate and constrain them by showing up and getting in their grill as often as we possibly can. Show them they are hopelessly outnumbered. Make clear to these parasites that we are hawkishly watching their every move (the scarce good ones will embrace these enforcement actions because they are actually there to serve the republic rather than themselves).
Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.
—Thomas Paine
Without this vigilance you will find that to the corporations and their puppet politicians, your ignorance and apathy are worth more than all the slaves in China. Because it is your indifference that enables these bottom feeding cockroaches to thrive in the dark and rob you of your wealth and liberty. The answer to this problem has been with us from the start:
The price good men pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men.
―Plato
Immediately call out and publicly shame them on every wrong move they make. Train these swine with your merciless attention and corrective action the same way one would potty train a dog. They will shrivel under the scrutiny of our constant gaze and will swiftly arrive at the understanding that we don’t work for them—they work for us and if they make too many mistakes they will lose that privileged position of power they worked so hard to acquire.
If once the people become inattentive to the public affairs, you and I, and Congress and Assemblies, Judges and Governors, shall all become wolves.
—Thomas Jefferson
In Summary: We have to be all over our local legislators and their jack-booted enforcers, we have to put every single thing they do under a microscope constantly, and we have to promptly remove them the moment they fail to execute the will of the people. From here, we will work our way up through the county, state, and federal levels.
Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty.
—John Philpot Curran
It is really that simple. Smother those whores - endow them with an equal measure of the mercy that they’ve been granting you (Ø). By doing so we will take back what is ours—our nation, our freedom, our destiny.
Much gratitude to
for her essential contribution to this essay and especially for selflessly being a watchman on the wall and doing her part at keeping those ravenous government wolves Jefferson pleaded and warned about at bay in this thankless fight for a better future—she, and those of her stature, are the reason why we are not yet completely lost.Solutions
Power attracts the worst and corrupts the best.
—Edward Abbey
My tireless friend and advocate Mr. John Droz Jr. has done fantastic work on challenging local autocrat wannabes and has some excellent strategies and resources for how you may do the same:
For years, most people thought I was nuts when I said that public education was being bungled ON PURPOSE. Now, only some people think I'm nuts. Progress!
Thank you for this excellent essay. You nail it.
Iron is forged in fire. I am afraid that it will take a lot of fire to reforge the kinds of men and women it will take to fight back. In short, things will have to get much, much worse, almost to the point of hopelessness, for such people to appear in the numbers needed.