Civil War, Part II

[kandrathe]

No idea what that quote was about (though I have read brave new world). And we don't allow opium. We tolerate some soft drugs. Technically they're still illegal. You just don't get punished for having small amounts of them. Steals the market from the dealers. Less criminality. Yay! Hard drugs still land you in the slammer no matter what. And for the record, we're not ALL potheads around here. Nor do we all visit the prostitutes every Sunday when grandma is in church. Nor do we all live in windmills with tulips in our gardens. Just clearing that up for you.

Thank you for the clarifications. So, then, when I travel to Holland I should not wear my wooden shoes? :) I did know those facts, but took some literary license to fit with my implications. I also understand the nature of religious freedom your land, but I suspect that much of modern Europe is jaded by the wars spawned by the Reformation and more fully embraced the Enlightenment movement.

Yea... I'm not gonna bother explaining the odd mixture of systems that make up the Dutch government system and how it inherently solves the 'popular politician who wins, but turns out to be a jerk' problem *coughdubyahcough*. It just... works. Somewhat. Kind of. Sorta.

Well, Baron Acton said it best, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men."

Which is why our great public servants should have a limited tenure.

As for Kipling, it deserves more than a quip I guess.

The full poem is;

<blockquote>The Gods of the Copybook Headings

AS I PASS through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place,
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "Stick to the Devil you know."

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "The Wages of Sin is Death."

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: "If you don't work you die."

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began.
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool's bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!</blockquote>According to Wikipedia, "The central message of the poem is that basic and unvarying aspects of human nature will always re-emerge in every society."

My reading would be that whether it be market, religion, society, there will always be "smooth-tongued wizards" who "promised these beautiful things", but thousands of years of history reveals that each successive era is ultimately about who controls your life. I also claim my bonus brownie points for moving from a discussion of pacification policies (in this case Hollands open drug use), which leads to my reference of Soma, the mandatory drug of choice in Aldus Huxley's novel titled "Brave New World", and then tying it off with the political poem by Rudyard Kipling which includes the reference to a "brave new world". My suggestion was that your populist government could be viewed as offering up "Soma" to keep you pacified, while robbing you of 60% of your income.