Divide and Rule

This is Steven Petrick Posting.

One of the oldest rules about power is to divide those you would rule against themselves. In this way both sides spend energy fighting each other over what resources are available, and looking to you as the resolver of disputes. The more divided your subjects, the stronger your rule. You have to be careful that your rule does not become onerous enough that your subjects begin to perceive you as the problem and starting uniting.

We seem (to me) to have that going on today. The watch word is not division, however, but "diversity". We are carefully divided and subdivided into blocks, and the blocks are carefully balanced against each other. We do not vote as Americans, we vote as African Americans, Hispanic Americans, Irish Americans, and etc. Also increasingly the "American" is dropped (the Black vote, the Hispanic vote) which seems to help emphasize that we are all opposed to each other. All of scrabbling over bits that only Congress can, in its infinite wisdom, determine how to divide.

Even though all of us more or less have common needs (law enforcement, good schools, infrastructure maintenance, etc.) we are told in essence that a white man cannot see how to do those things for a black family, and thus we have heavily Gerrymandered districts that have nothing in common with each other, but that will safely and surely deliver a black man as a Representative.

This increasingly extends into culture, i.e., the creation of diverse cultures so that they can be matched against each other and not unite in common cause. Other than the advantage of further dividing us, making the country bilingual (and after that perhaps multi-lingual) only insured further balkanization, driving us as a people further apart and against each other.

Part of that is increasingly that at all levels of government money is siphoned off to maintain "diversity", money that could have been spent to maintain bridges rather than deferring their maintenance again and again. Money that could have repaired potholes, or paved roads that have not yet been paved. These are just some of the hidden costs of the division of diversity.

But diversity will remain a fundamental drive of our political leadership, both elected and the talking heads, because it keeps the elected leadership in power (in local, state, and federal government), and makes the talking heads happy.

In the future, the bills for diversity will come due, and the costs will be far worse than a few collapsed bridges and potholed roads.