“I have no other end in this writing, but only to discover myself, who, also, shall, peradventure, be another thing tomorrow, if I chance to meet any new instruction to change me.”  – Montaigne

The term flip-flop has become as ubiquitous in accusatory politics as the ridiculous “footwear” that bear the same name have become in the population at large.  I have to say that I prefer a change of mind to a precarious piece of rubber snapping at my heel.

In my mind, an elected official who never flip flops has ceased to think and learn.  Anyone who continues to collect and try to understand information on a subject will experience some movement in his opinions of the problem and the solution.  This developing understanding may not often cause a complete reversal of positions, but it will happen occasionally.  And as understanding changes—even if only a little bit—language, tactics, perceptions, preconceptions, goals, metrics, and meaning change.

Those who expect their elected officials—or anyone else, for that matter—never to flip flop have some serious misconceptions: either 1) that the official already knows everything or 2) that all new information that comes to light will support the official’s (or more truthfully, the supporter’s) stances.  Either way, the person is a fool.

Unfortunately, I think that in our Internet age when people are able to seek out exclusively those “media sources” that validate rather than inform, we will see less flip-flopping.  It will also fall victim to campaign contributions from the fringes, linked to particular issues.  As the people, the candidates, and the money circulate wildly in their echo chambers, there will be less time and opportunity for reflection and honest, respectful debate.

We should all respect a sincere flip-flop.  Who knows, we may learn something someday that puts us in the position of digging up the courage to do our own 180º turn.

In the movie All of Me the soul of Lilly Tomlin’s character is mistakenly trapped inside the body of Steve Martin’s character.  Anyone who has seen this movie has witnessed one of the great masters of physical comedy do some of his best work as his body lurches around, trying to obey the two wills trapped inside it.

It’s funny when it’s Steve Martin, but it’s not so funny when it’s your government.

With the money coming from the extreme wings of each of the two major party—and the influence that it buys flowing back out to them—our federal government and some state governments resemble Steve Martin lurching and tripping around, pushing agendas each farther from the center than the last set of representatives did.

Cover the kids’ ears
As most of the country pleads for reason and cooperation, the word “compromise” becomes a weapon in the arsenals of politicians: “I won’t compromise my principles of [fill in the superficial political objective]”; or “The other side refuses to compromise [while our side is giving up SO much ground]”.

But compromise is exactly what we need for the government to “govern”—and a centrist third party is the way to get it.

We’ve all heard the term “coalition government” but many of us don’t know what it is because it doesn’t really exist in the U.S.

A coalition government happens, primarily in parliamentary systems, when a party wins a plurality of the representative seats, but not a majority.  In order to create a majority and get anything done, the party that won plurality must form an alliance with another party.

This requires some give and take—or compromise—to align their priorities on which to base their agenda.  And this is what the federal and state governments are missing in most of the U.S.

In the U.S., “to the victor go the spoils,” and to the financer goes the influence; the winning party doesn’t have to compromise because they are a majority, and their money sources don’t want them to compromise, so they don’t—not even if it’s the best thing for the people.

When this happens, ideology rules.  It reminds me of another comedic movie, Erik the Viking, in which, when the island of Hy-Brazil begins to sink into the ocean, the government’s official line is to be calm because “This is NOT happening.”

On the other hand, parties in a country where one party rarely gets a majority know that compromise is inevitable.  And the inevitability of compromise makes it a fact of life rather than a flaw or a weapon.

Most of these coalition governments are either center-right or center-left, but the center is almost always a part of them.  Why?  Because that’s where the people are.

Center citizens
This centrism brings stability to the system.  None of the parties can take the government and run hell-bent for the fringes.  No center-whatever coalition will quote the refrain from Washington every other year, “The American people have given us a mandate . . .,” and take the agenda to the extreme.

So what do we do?

-          Support centrist candidates

-          Encourage existing officials to become independent (but you have to have a lot of support in your back pocket to convince him/her)

-          Influence your chosen party toward the center

-          Find a friend from the other side of the aisle whom you can talk to respectfully and intelligently about the issues

-          Support third parties (through activism, funds, and voting)

If we want a country that is not controlled from the fringes like a double-minded man, we must bring the agenda to the center.  And that requires people pulling the influence back from the fringes and into where the citizens are—in the center.

When someone tells me we need a free market, I say “A totally free market means anti-freeze sold as snow-cone syrup.”  They retort, “Well, of course we need some regulation.”  And so it becomes an argument of the degree of regulation.

When someone says we need enough regulation to stamp out all cheating, corruption, waste, and lead paint from China, I point out that in order to do that we would need a government official assigned to monitor no more than ten people (and more people to monitor the monitors).  This is neither attractive nor financially feasible.  And so it becomes an argument of the degree of freedom to make mistakes.

Taxes are a favorite target of the right.  When in a discussion with someone who fancies himself anti-tax, I’ll propose we reduce the tax rate to zero—that will really get the economy humming!  He will concede that taxes are essential to an efficient and energetic government.  And so it becomes are argument of the degree of taxation.

On the other hand, when someone asserts we need to raise taxes on the rich, I say, “Should we return to the highest tax rate during WWII of 94%?”  Reasonable people will admit that is too high.  And so it becomes are argument of degrees of personal financial freedom.

In business there is the concept of a Pareto win.  If the seller sells a good or service for more than the minimum he will accept and the buyer pays less than the maximum he will pay, then they both win.  In politics particularly, but also in religion, this common ground is vast.  The fact is that most of us agree on more than we disagree on.  If we can first identify and explore common ground, then we can retain our respect, humility, and our communication skills as we broaden our perspective and learn from the experiences and insights of others.

Below are some of the best quotes I pulled from my brief and selective reading of Montaigne.  I’m sure I’ll be back to visit him.

From “Of Pedantry”
“We suffer ourselves to lean and rely so strongly upon the arm of another, that we destroy our own strength and vigour.”

“though we could become learned by other men’s learning, a man can never be wise but by his own wisdom.”

“these fellows, to make a parade and to get opinion, mustering the ridiculous knowledge of theirs, that floats on the superficies of the brain, are perpetually perplexing and entangling themselves in their own nonsense.”

“All other knowledge is hurtful to him who has not the science of goodness.”

From “Of the Education of Children”
“I have no other end in this writing, but only to discover myself, who, also, shall, peradventure, be another thing tomorrow, if I chance to meet any new instruction to change me.”

“the greatest and most important difficulty of human science is the education of children.”

“we may whet and sharpen our wits by rubbing them against those of others.”

“[the student] shall, by reading [great] books, converse with the great and heroic souls of the best ages.”

“The conduct of our lives is the true mirror of our doctrine.”

From “That it is Folly to Measure Truth and Error by Our Own Capacity”
“resolutely to condemn anything for false and impossible, is arrogantly and impiously to circumscribe and limit the will of God, and the power of our mother nature, within the bounds of my own capacity. . . .”

“How many unlikely things are there testified by people worthy of faith, which, if we cannot persuade ourselves absolutely to believe, we ought at least to leave them in suspense; for, to condemn them as impossible, is by a temerarious presumption to pretend to know the utmost bounds of possibility.”

From “Of Cannibals”
“every one gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country.”

From “That the Relish of Good and Evil Depends in a Great Measure upon the Opinion we Have of Them”
“The confidence in another man’s virtue is no light evidence of a man’s own. . . .”

“not he whom the world believes, but he who believes himself to be so, is content;”

“A straight oar seems crooked in the water.”

From “Upon Some Verses of Virgil”
“few will quarrel with the license of my writings, who have not more to quarrel with in the license of their own thoughts. . . .”

“Every one is wary and discreet in confession, but men ought to be so in action;”

“Every one avoids seeing a man born, every one runs to see him die;”

“there are . . . people . . . who value themselves upon contempt of themselves, and purport to grow better by being worse.”

“Amongst chief deformities I reckon forced and artificial beauties. . . .”

What is the most listened-to radio show in America?  Rush Limbaugh’s.  Estimates range between 14 and 30 million listeners.  In July of 2008 Limbaugh signed an eight-year, $400 million contract—hardly the kind of money a revolutionary gets for speaking truth to power.

What is the most-watched cable news channel?  Fox News Channel, which regularly has 50% more than, and often twice as many, viewers as #2 CNN.

What is the most-watched cable news show?  Fox News’s The O’Reilly Factor, with its anything-but-journalistic host, regularly pulls in 3.5 to 4 million viewers.  Granted, his viewers are about half of the number watching a broadcast evening news program, but broadcast news viewership has declined by about a million viewers a year since 1980, while FOX News continues to grow.  Moreover, the broadcast channels feature 2-4 hours of news each day while the cable news channels broadcast “news” 24/7.  And let’s not forget that Fox’s broadcast channel shares a lot of personnel and an obvious conservative bent with the cable Fox News Channel.

So they’re huge; so what?

In a recent Pew Research Center survey on perceptions about President Obama’s religious life, they found that seven percent more people in August 2010 (18%) think Obama is a Muslim than did in March of 2009 (11%).  And not coincidentally “When asked how they learned about Obama’s religion in an open-ended question, 60% of those who say Obama is a Muslim cite the media.”  This is why it’s important.  People are outsourcing their thinking to ideologically driven pseudo-journalists—on both sides of the spectrum.  Sean O’Limbeck is more heard than Keith Mahrtthews, but only more problematic because of the size of the audience.

The right-wing is also very adept at defining the language of the debate.  Terms like “death tax,” “socialized medicine,” “death panels,” “welfare queens,” etc. have no counterpart from the left.  The left-wing finds itself in the unappealing position of some of our founding fathers who were, by default, labeled the Anti-Federalists because they didn’t define the language of the debate first.

So why does the right-wing continue to claim oppression by the “main-stream” media?  The right-wing obviously has a very large—and very malleable—audience.  Whence the stance of victimhood?  Because if you’re going to spur a revolution, “Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil” (Hoffer).  The MSM is among many devils the right-wing uses to generate fear, anger, and dependency in their faithful listeners.  The left-wing also sets up devils for the same purpose, but I can’t identify one that is  as delusional and self-contradictory as the MSM when the right-wing is such a media juggernaut (comments to the contrary are welcome).  It’s common knowledge that people tend to seek out media that reflect their own values; but the right-wing continues to claim both that 1) America is a center-right nation, and 2) the MSM has a liberal bias.  This is a non-sequitur.  Either the MSM doesn’t have a liberal bias or America is a center-left nation.

Why does the right-wing choose the MSM as a target?  “[L]ike an ideal deity, the ideal devil is omnipotent and omnipresent” (Hoffer).  The MSM is so large and omnipresent, with so much fallibility that it makes an easy target as a menace, and one that’s not going away soon.  If one is looking for bias, the MSM is so huge that one can find bias of any kind—and vilify the whole for the bias of the part.

The right-wing–like the left wing–must be in revolution mode at all times for self-preservation.  Once people become comfortable with the present, they stop listening to dogma, ideology, and fearmongering.  If Limbaugh’s listeners think life’s OK, they’ll stop listening to him.

Americans love an underdog and a revolution.  As long as the right-wing media juggernaut can convince enough people that they are indeed a revolutionary underdog, they will set much of the agenda in American politics.

Rather than the Ten Commandments, let’s erect monuments of the Sermon on the Mount, surely the pithiest expression of Christian ideals.

I hear some hemming and hawing.  Why?  Would it be inconvenient for America and Americans to publicly acknowledge the need to be meek and merciful, to rejoice in persecution, to eschew anger, to be well-disposed to adversaries, to avoid not only immoral acts but immoral thoughts, to turn the other cheek, to give more than what’s asked of us, to carry the equipment of a soldier of an occupying army twice as far as the law requires [or the modern situational equivalent of such an odious act], to love our enemies, to bless them that curse us, to do good to them that hate us, and to pray for them which despitefully use us and persecute us?

I propose that the Christian members of this nation build monuments, not in parks or on buildings, but within ourselves of the Sermon on the Mount.  Christians should be, each of us ourselves, monuments to our faith.

But a plaque of the Ten Commandments is easy.  They are a very low hurdle that one can comply with and feel good about himself.  We can hang a plaque, have a ribbon cutting ceremony, pat ourselves on the back for another anchor to the Christian character of America, and go on living in exactly the same way we did before.

On the other hand inscribing the Sermon on the Mount in our granite hearts is SOOO hard.  There is no ribbon cutting ceremony, because the task is never done.  There are repeated failures and set-backs along the way.  But as we build these monuments, we cannot continue to live the same lives we have.  We must change for the better.  And it is my belief that these internal monuments will do more for reinforcement of the true Christian character (humble, merciful, meek, generous, and foregiving) of our society than a million plaques of the Ten Commandments in government buildings.

The animosity between the two principal political parties in the U.S. is unusually high these days. Doubtless there are many reasons, but I’ve been thinking lately more about the ramifications rather than the reasons. These two parties are a set of Saul and Paul of whom Hoffer spoke. They hate each other, but depend on each other for mutual existence. Without the Saul, or “devil” of an “other,” a political party sits like a child on a see-saw with no partner. The party out of power counts on the unrealistic expectations placed in and the incompetence of the ruling party. The opposition knows it will have its turn when we the people “throw the bums out.” So they sit and criticize, whine and obstruct while the ruling party steamrolls, blunders, and overreaches. If it weren’t for the incompetence of each party, the other may never come to power. And so they are like the moon, needing the sun to go away so it can be seen, but not too far away so it can still reflect the sun’s light.  

This has always been the case, but these day there’s a new twist. The political news pre-packaging industry (Air Amolbermann and Sean O’Limbeck amid others) exaggerate the faults of the other while diminishing those of their own ilk. And too many Americans on both sides are duped into thinking they are really getting “fair and balanced” political news, just because it sits well with their own opinions–after all, I’m Paul. We conveniently don’t have to think, because as long as we only listen to one side of the argument, no one will poke holes or make us ask hard questions.

This disinformation 1) creates more extremism, and thereby 2) generates (not coincidentally) more money for the extremes of each party as Americans are led to believe the other side is made up of Sauls. The results of this are more extreme candidates, leading to more extreme positions, leading to more gridlock in government, leading to an inability for government to function, to effect its goals as outlined in the preamble to the Constitution and similar state and local government constitutions and charters.

What compounds this situation is that the people the parties are putting forward as candidates are not as good as they should be. They are party men and women whose allegiance is to the party’s platform, not the Constitution or its goals. So when they get into office, they don’t look to promote the general welfare, but to promote the party welfare. Rather than provide for the common defense, they provide for the party defense. And this, rather than forming a more perfect union, fractures the union.

Incumbents, pragmatists, independents, and centrists are dropping like flies. Bob Bennett of Utah and Arlen Specter are only the first of many more expected to fall victim to the “you just aren’t extreme enough for me” fervor. Charlie Crist, the moderate and very popular Republican Governor of Florida withdrew from pursuing the Republican nomination for the Senate because a more extreme candidate was going to beat him in the primary. He’s now running as an independent.

Here’s the point of my post. Centrists and moderates from either side of the great dividing line between right and left (there are 300 million opinions as to where that line falls) need to support people like Crist. As much as I hate to say it, we need to send them money. The last thing the Senate in particular and the federal government in general needs is more gridlock—they’re already ineffective enough. It needs moderating voices and people who can reach across the aisle. That act alone is treasonous to party people, and that extremism is ruining our country.

Government only happens through cooperation and log-rolling, not through obstruction and steamrolling. Government should be an action, not an inaction, not an ideology, not a political weapon. We the people need to support people who will represent the people and the goals of the Constitution, not the parties.

The other day I saw a news article that said that Glenn Beck, a nationally-syndicated political talk show host who also has a TV show, a man who has millions of listeners/viewers, told them that if their churches mentioned “social justice” or “economic justice” (what he called political “code words” for communism, etc.), his listeners should leave their churches.  This was shocking to me, first because Beck and I are both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (Mormons) and I can’t reconcile what he said with the doctrine I know from our church.  Isn’t this a violations of the First of the Ten Commandments?  And secondly, because anyone who actually took his advice widened one of the biggest rips in the fabric of our society.

I’m talking about the fact that all of us are bound together in an eternal family.  In too much of the political discourse lately, there has been demonizing, name-calling, and dehumanizing.  To what end?  To get the trajectory of the country to move a fraction of a degree to the left or the right.  At what cost?  We are sacrificing our kinship with our fellow man to our political objectives.  

We are too willing to create a chasm between “us and them,” refusing to acknowledge that they are us and we are them.  We are encouraged, even commanded by partisan leaders and “men of words” to vilify and hate the others.  As Eric Hoffer observed, “Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.”  Partisans are inculcating us with unreasonable fear and then wielding that fear to further their own goals at all costs, not through cooperation and understanding but through accusation and obfuscation, because, in the words of Hoffer, “[the fanatic] fears compromise” and “sees in tolerance a sign of weakness, frivolity and ignorance.”

The partisans prefer that we adopt the thoughts of the group because, as David Brooks wrote in a recent column, “People who are thinking in the group mode are loyal, disciplined and vicious against foes. People in the person-to-person mode are soft, unpredictable and hard to organize.”

Politically the group mode of thinking is valuable, but what is our raison d’être?  God didn’t create us to help our parties win elections or to move the country left or right; we’re here to obey Him.  And we cannot bifurcate our spiritual lives from our political lives.  If we cannot reconcile them, then at least one of them is false, and in trying to maintain them separate and separately, we can find no peace or balance.  Hoffer saw this as an intentional state of mind effected by the men of words: “By kindling and fanning violent passions in the hearts of their followers, mass movements prevent the settling of an inner balance.”  Many of us seek peace and balance in spirituality; in fact for some it is the primary reason for religion.  Why would we surrender that balance to the ideologies of other people whom we don’t really know and whose motivations we can’t fathom?

We Americans have gotten into a habit of checking our spirituality at the door of political discussion (and expecting the same of other cultures).  We shouldn’t do this; we shouldn’t be ABLE to do this because our faith should be so much an integral part of our personal constitution.  It should be the backing of our tapestry, not an accent color on it.

But the “men of words,” who also usually claim to be God-fearing men, want us to follow a different doctrine.  They want us to embrace a political doctrine that is contrary to our spiritual doctrine.  And how can we argue with them when they’re so darn accurate?  George Orwell, in his great essay “Notes on Nationalism” said, “Political or military commentators, like astrologers, can survive almost any mistake, because their more devoted followers do not look to them for an appraisal of the facts but for the stimulation of nationalistic loyalties” (he defined “nationalism” as “the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit [read political party], placing it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of advancing its interests”).

Accuracy is not truth.  All half-truths are accurate; that’s the “truth” part.  But they’re not only untrue, but anti-true.  And this is one of the biggest tools the “men of words” use.  They use accurate half-truths to demonize “the others” and make them seem less than human so that we can justify hating them.  Hoffer further noted, “To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred.  Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him.”  So if they can get us to do no more than use derogatory nick-names for down-the-political-spectrum people or parties, they have pushed us down the road of hatred to the point where, as Orwell put it, “Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage . . . which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by ‘our’ side.”

We must change how we each participate in the political debate; not for the nation but for our own souls.  We must acknowledge the humanity of those we do not agree with.  We must take up John Adams’s “pacific and friendly disposition” in negotiation and debate.  But mostly we must remember that every person we’re told we should vilify and hate is a child of God and a heavenly sibling.  And knowing how He loves us, we can assume how He feels when we treat His children the way we sometimes do.  And if we just can’t do it, if we just can’t see the other’s perspective, understand her motives, then it’s time for mom’s advice to come into use.  “If you can’t say something nice (about God’s children), don’t say anything at all.”

Its comments pertain to the Tea Party movement, the Obama campaign, political shock-jocks (Sean O’Limbeck and Air AmOlbermann), party politics and legislative maneuvering, terrorism, nationalism, torture, religion, power, kindness, leadership, creativity, personal fulfillment, and a thousand other topics that occupy our 21^st Century minds, books and airwaves.

His commentary is bare and unapologetic.  He seems to have little patience for those weak-willed enough to be sucked in by a mass movement.  But he also acknowledges that some movements are good, while others are not.  He looks at only the characteristics and tactics, not the morality of the movement.  So he will use an example of the American Revolution alongside the Nazi movement to illustrate the same point.

Hoffer’s writing style is pithy and aphoristic.  Each word is precise; each paragraph is a meal to be digested.  There is no waste.  The author himself went blind at the age of seven but his sight returned at age 15.  “Fearing he would again go blind, he seized upon the opportunity to read as much as he could for as long as he could. His eyesight remained, and Hoffer never abandoned his habit of voracious reading” (the Wikipedia article on him is quite interesting).  He was a gold prospector, a homeless genius, a door-to-door orange salesman, a migrant worker, and finally a longshoreman until he retired at 65.

Below are some (a LOT) of quotes from the book.  The timelessness of the thought demonstrates the soundness of the mind that produced them.  (One small explanation: a “radical” is a left-wing fanatic, while a “reactionary” is a right-wing fanatic.)

The True Believer will change the way you think about almost everything.  And it’s not for the faint of heart, testimony, or personal conviction, because the book itself could become a holy cause to some.

Enjoy!

“[T]hough ours is a godless age, it is the very opposite of irreligious.”

“Where power is not joined with faith in the future, it is used mainly to ward off the new and preserve the status quo.”

“[A] mass movement, particularly in its active revivalist phase, appeals not to those intent on bolstering and advancing a cherished self, but to those who crave to be rid of an unwanted self.”

“A man is likely to mind his own business when it is worth minding.  When it is not, he takes his mind off his own meaningless affairs by minding other people’s business.”

“[T]o the frustrated the present is irremediably spoiled.  Comforts and pleasures cannot make it whole.  No real content of comfort can ever arise in their minds but from hope.”

“There is a tendency to judge a race, a nation or any distinct group by its least worthy members.”

“The game of history is usually played by the best and the worst over the heads of the majority in the middle.”

“Discontent is likely to be highest when misery is bearable; when conditions have so improved that an ideal state seems almost within reach.”

“We are less dissatisfied when we lack many things than when we seem to lack but one thing.”

“Freedom aggravates at least as much as it alleviates frustration. Freedom of choice places the whole blame of failure on the shoulders of the individual. And as freedom encourages a multiplicity of attempts, it unavoidably multiplies failure and frustration.”

“Unless a man has the talents to make something of himself, freedom is an irksome burden.”

“Where freedom is real, equality is the passion of the masses.  Where equality is real, freedom is the passion of a small minority.”

“The revulsion from an unwanted self, and the impulse to forget it, mask it, slough it off and lose it, produce both a readiness to sacrifice the self and a willingness to dissolve it by losing one’s individual distinctness in a compact collective whole.”

“[Armies’] uniforms, flags, emblems, parades, music, and elaborate etiquette and ritual are designed to separate the soldier from his flesh-and-blood self and mask the overwhelming reality of life and death.”

“To lose one’s life is but to lose the present; and, clearly, to lose a defiled, worthless present is not to lose much.”

“There is no striving for glory without a vivid awareness of an audience—the knowledge that our mighty deeds will come to the ears of our contemporaries or ‘of those who are to be.’”

“[T]here is no more potent dwarfing of the present that by viewing it as a mere link between a glorious past and a glorious future.  Thus, though a mass movement at first turns its back on the past, it eventually develops a vivid awareness, often specious, of a distant glorious past.”

“The conservative doubts that the present can be bettered, and he tries to shape the future in the image of the present.  He goes to the past for reassurance about the present. . . .”

“The reactionary does not believe that man has unfathomed potentialities for good in him.  If a stable and healthy society is to be established, it must be patterned after the proven models of the past.  He sees the future as a glorious restoration rather than an unprecedented innovation.”

“[The reactionary’s] image of the past is based less on what it actually was than on what he wants the future to be.”

“If [the radical] has to employ violence in shaping the new, his view of man’s nature darkens and approaches closer to that of the reactionary.”

“What surprises one, when listening to the frustrated as they decry the present and all its works, is the enormous joy they derive from doing so. Such delight cannot come from the mere venting of a grievance. There must be something more—and there is. By expatiating upon the incurable baseness and vileness of the times, the frustrated soften their feeling of failure and isolation.”

“Those who fail in everyday affairs show a tendency to reach out for the impossible.  It is a device to camouflage their shortcomings.”

“Satan did not digress to tell all he knew when he said: ‘All that a man hath will he give for his life.’  All he hath—yes.  But he sooner dies than yield aught of that which he hath not yet.”

“It is startling to realize how much unbelief is necessary to make belief possible.”

“We can be absolutely certain only about things we do not understand.”

“By kindling and fanning violent passions in the hearts of their followers, mass movements prevent the settling of an inner balance.”

“The fanatic is not really a stickler to principle. He embraces a cause not primarily because of its justness and holiness but because of his desperate need for something to hold on to. Often, indeed, it is his need for passionate attachment which turns every cause he embraces into a holy cause.”

“[The fanatic] fears compromise and cannot be persuaded to qualify the certitude and righteousness of his holy cause.”

“[The fanatics of various hues] hate each other with the hatred of brothers.  They are as far apart and close together as Saul and Paul.  And it is easier for a fanatic communist to be converted to fascism, chauvinism, or Catholicism than to become a sober liberal.”

“[The fanatic] sees in tolerance a sign of weakness, frivolity and ignorance.”

“Mass movements can rise and spread without belief in a God, but never without belief in a devil.”

“[L]ike an ideal deity, the ideal devil is omnipotent and omnipresent.”

“To qualify as a devil, a domestic enemy must be given a foreign ancestry.”

“[M]uch of our proselytizing consists perhaps in infecting others not with our brand of faith but with our particular brand of unreasonable hatred.”

“There is a guilty conscience behind every brazen word and act and behind every manifestation of self-righteousness.”

“To wrong those we hate is to add fuel to our hatred.  Conversely, to treat an enemy with magnanimity is to blunt our hatred for him.”

“There is a deep reassurance for the frustrated in witnessing the downfall of the fortunate and the disgrace of the righteous. They see in a general downfall an approach to the brotherhood of all. Chaos, like the grave, is a haven of equality.”

“[W]hen we renounce the self and become part of a compact whole, we not only renounce personal advantage but are also rid of personal responsibility. There is no telling to what extremes of cruelty and ruthlessness a man will go when he is freed from the fears, hesitations, doubts and the vague stirrings of decency that go with individual judgment. When we lose our individual independence in the corporateness of a mass movement, we find a new freedom—freedom to hate, bully, lie, torture, murder and betray without shame and remorse.”

“Propaganda by itself succeeds mainly with the frustrated. Their throbbing fears, hopes and passions crowd at the portals of their senses and get between them and the outside world. They cannot see but what they have already imagined, and it is the music of their own souls they hear in the impassioned words of the propagandist. Indeed, it is easier for the frustrated to detect their own imaginings and hear the echo of their own musings in impassioned double-talk and sonorous refrains than in precise words joined together with faultless logic.”

“The quality of ideas seems to play a minor role in mass movement leadership.  What counts is the arrogant gesture, the complete disregard of the opinion of others, the singlehanded defiance of the world.”

“There can be no mass movement without some deliberate misrepresentation of facts.”

“When the leader in a free society becomes contemptuous of the people, he sooner or later proceeds on the false and fatal theory that all men are fools, and eventually blunders into defeat.”

Quoting Hermann Rauschning: “Marching diverts men’s thoughts.  Marching kills thought.  Marching makes an end of individuality.”

“Suspicion is given a sharp edge by associating all opposition within the ranks with the enemy threatening the movement from without.”

“It is [the chosen devil’s] voice that speaks through the mouth of the dissenter, and the deviationists are his stooges.”

Quoting Montaigne: “Our zeal works wonders when it seconds our propensity to hatred, cruelty, ambition, avarice, detraction, rebellion.”

“By elevating dogma above reason, the individual’s intelligence is prevented from becoming self-reliant.”

“Whenever we find a dispensation enduring beyond its span of competence, there is either an entire absence of an educated class or an intimate alliance between those in power and the men of words.”

“When we debunk a fanatical faith or prejudice, we do not strike at the root of fanaticism.  We merely prevent its leaking out at a certain point, with the likely result that it will leak out at some other point.”

“[The man of action (leader of a mass movement in its post-fanatical phase)] inclines, therefore, to rely mainly on drill and coercion.  He finds the assertion that all men are cowards less debatable than that all men are fools, and, in the words of Sir John Maynard, inclines to found the new order on the necks of the people rather than in their hearts.”

“[A]t the end of its vigorous span, the movement is an instrument of power for the successful and an opiate for the frustrated.”

“Where unity and self-sacrifice are indispensable for the normal functioning of a society, everyday life is likely to be either religiofied (common tasks turned into holy causes) or militarized.”

Why does English have so many cognates with Romance languages if it’s supposed to be Germanic? One of my linguistics professors told our class that 80% of the words we use everyday are Germanic, but 75% of the words in the English dictionary are of French origin, adopted into the language during the centuries-long reign of the French in Britain after the Battle of Hastings in 1066. French became, well, the lingua franca, literally translated as “French language,” but meaning the language generally spoken or the universal language. English is the modern lingua franca, follow closely by Mandarin.

So are we more Germanic or more Romantic because of our language uses? Does language affect society? Yes, but not linguistically, instead semantically. And those who have begun to change American English are not conquerors in the traditional sense, but they are leaving their imprint on the language—and on society. There is a list of words I hate to hear, and I want to change their usage.

Productive - “A productive member of society.” Are we a bunch of bees or ants, killing ourselves for the queen, building a hive or colony for the sole purpose of propagating the species? No. Can someone be helpful to society without “producing” something for future consumption? Yes. Therefore, I propose ditching “productive” and using instead “contributive.” The contemporaries of Socrates, much less himself, would not have called him productive. And yet his contributions are going strong millennia later. Composers, artists, writers all contribute greatly to society, but capitalists would disagree, unless their works could be sold for profit. Think of the greatest thinkers of all time versus the greatest producers of all time. Which has contributed more to society, made us what we are, stood the test of time? Which will be remembered in future millennia?

Bipartisan – This is just the most common of many words that imply the inevitability and irrevocability of the two-party system in the U.S. The plurality of Americans are neither Republicans nor Democrats—they are registered independents. Guess who came up with the phrase “the big-three auto-makers”: Chrysler, of course, because it wanted to be lumped in with its MUCH bigger brothers, GM and Ford. Guess who propagates the implied inevitability of the two-party system through terms such as “bipartisan”: the two parties who don’t want any competition. If Libertarians could ever get a cogent message together or a charismatic leader, they could really upset the apple cart.

A corollary to this is the concept of the “aisle,” as in “both sides of the aisle,” or “the other side of the aisle.” It makes it seem like there is this huge void between right and left, where ne’er the twain shall meet. In fact, the majority of Americans sit in the aisle, between left and right. The aisle deserves to be listened to, not just walked on.

The national interest – Although this term seems innocuous enough—the nation is the whole of its people—it is abused to undermine the interests of the people. National interest usually means one of three things—economic interests, governmental interests, or military interests. This category will include unfair trade relations, pressure to establish military bases (you go, Kyrgyzstan!), torture, war in general, deficit spending, and many others. Citizens must constantly remind their representatives that we make up the nation; not the economy, nor the military, nor the government itself. Otherwise, politicians will continue to believe their own erroneous definitions.

Christian nation – In the movie Cry, the Beloved Country, based on Alan Patton’s book about racism, forgiveness and redemption, the white murder victim, a champion for the poor native South Africans, just before he is shot (ironically by an African youth), pens sardonically something like, “When we say we are Christians, we mean we are white.” We can substitute “American” for “White” and encapsulate the philosophy of too many of our countrymen. For them, the two words are interchangeable in their inherent righteousness. And yet, this “Christian nation” does too many unchristian things, with the knowledge and approval of the self-professed Christians living within it. We do not “turn the other cheek,” “sell that [we have] and give to the poor,” or even try to “[have] all things common.” We, as a nation, ignore the Ten Commandments and the Two Great Commandments. Also from Cry, the Beloved Country (this time the book) comes the following quote: “The truth is, our civilization is not Christian; it is a tragic compound of great ideal and fearful practice, of loving charity and fearful clutching of possessions.” If Christian conservatives understood and lived the laws of Christianity, we would indeed be able to shrink the size of government, a favorite rallying cry, because the hated entitlement programs would be moot, because “public assistance would simply be Christians “lift[ing] up the hands which hang down.” We would not fear the terrorists, illegal immigrants, or higher taxes. If Christian liberals lived the laws of Christianity, they would abandon their salvation-by-legislation philosophy and strengthen their stances against abortion and the disintegration of the family.

How many Christians in American do you know who would have a hard time saying, “I am a Christian before I am an American”? All Christians in America should be able to say this freely and with deep sincerity, but it sticks in the throat of too many who believe America to be the true source of salvation, focusing on the temporal—ignorant of the teachings of Christ.

Thinking Americans need to take back our language. We need to be the drivers of politics, government, society, and language. Words should not be misused by our representatives to confuse, control, and hypnotize us. Only when we can use a pen effectively can it be mightier than the sword.