January 8, 2012
Fundo Los Soberanos, Chile
In 1687, English mathematician and natural philosopher Isaac Newton published a groundbreaking scientific work about the three basic axioms which govern the mechanics of the world around us. Today we call them the Laws of Motion.
Colloquially, the first Law of Motion states that an object at rest (or in motion) will stay at rest (or in motion) unless acted upon by an external force.
In physics, this is known as inertia. It’s a physical property that exists in all matter– rocks, trees, air molecules, etc. will all maintain their current states of being until something else comes along to force a change.
People too, I suppose.
I was thinking about this yesterday evening after a rather disturbing conversation with a friend of mine from the US. He told me a story about how he had recently been walking his dog in a local park. The dog managed to get itself tangled up, so he paused and briefly removed the leash to fix it.
Thankfully, a courageous city worker witnessed this act of criminal terrorism and wrote my friend a citation. The fine is just shy of $100. The kicker is that, if he doesn’t pay, animal control will show up to his house and confiscate the dog.
I was floored. Since when did pets become chattels of one’s estate… assets on a balance sheet to be seized by the state?
Ironically, my friend and his wife are expecting their first child. I remember thinking to myself ‘what makes you think the same thing won’t happen with your child one of these days…?’
Of course, we know this happens too. Governments have entire departments of to take children away from their parents, not to mention court systems to devastate families. How strange a system of ‘justice’ where a man sitting behind a bench can rule in his sole discretion that a father cannot see his daughter…
It doesn’t stop there. We’ve seen cops in full Gestapo gear going after criminal masterminds who choose to drink raw milk… or jailing dastardly villains who collect rainwater. All while those who legislate the system debate the merits of trillion dollar coins.
It really makes me wonder sometimes why people put up with it all. Is it the plethora of vapid shopping malls and cookie cutter chain restaurants? Is it the endless stream of mind-numbing entertainment? Is it all the great deals on car insurance?
No. It’s the inertia.
After a lifetime of steady propaganda, the citizen is now like an object at rest… subordinate to the state. And the citizen will remain that way until acted upon by an external force. A change agent. It’s easier, normal, and natural to just keep things as they are, no matter how bizarre or risky the future outlook.
The state, meanwhile, is like an object in motion… a deep, downward spiraling motion, representing terminal social and civil decline.
Is there an external force that can change this? You bet. Like Wyle E. Coyote who runs off the edge of the cliff, it’s the force of the canyon floor below that will finally stop the downward motion of the state. Anything else is so small, it would be like trying to hold up the Titanic with a pair of toddler swimming pool floaties.
These major themes, like the economic decline of the West, the restructuring of the nation state, and the unraveling of the fiat money system, are the major trends of our day. And they are of historical significance.
The world is changing. Not coming to an end. Changing. But the social, financial, and geopolitical ramifications of these trends are far too great for anyone to ignore. Or to remain at rest.
