Wednesday, April 01, 2009

Chaos: A Revolutionary's Friend

Chaos (derived from the Ancient Greek Χάος, Chaos) typically refers to unpredictability, and is the antithesis of cosmos.

"Unpredictability" is not a bad thing, per se.

But "unpredictability" in matters of law and custom is a very bad thing indeed.

So when a United States Senator says "I don't know" where Obama got the legal authority to "restructure" General Motors and Chrysler, and when the Attorney General of the USA overrides his own Department's opinion that the DC "Voting Rights" bill is un-Constitutional, we have a problem.

Just as with the Abrahamson campaign's insistence that a Supreme Court justice's job is to "protect" you, these actions, mutatis mutandis, lead to chaos.

When it becomes apparent that there is no 'settled law' or custom, ordinary people have no particular reason to look to law and custom as guideposts. In other words, when those who, by rank, are most responsible for abiding by (and enforcing) settled law and custom deliberately and consciously veer from that path, they are daring others to do the same.

On the other hand, Chaos has its uses. It affords an opportunity to the strong--the well-armed--to impose a new "law and custom" into the breach. (And 'breach,' or 'void', is the original meaning of the Greek word.)

This is why revolutionaries always seek to create disorder. Disorder temporarily 'freezes' those who act within order. It's no different, really, from spreading a Big Lie; as Twain observed, 'a lie is halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on'. After all, disorder cannot be consonant with truth. It is the time-gap during which the center is most at risk--during which it may not hold.

And if one seeks a revolution, that gap between the old 'rule of law' and the 'new order' is all the revolutionary needs to cement their hold.

If they are allowed to do it, of course....

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