- Every society requires elites…
- Phony elites vs. true elites…
- 🧨 “New money” chases fleeting stock market wealth. But “old money” invests in “real” assets — assets like real estate. Go here to discover how you can invest alongside old money.
Dear Reader,
All societies — “democracies” included — feature elites, so-called.
The civics books may attempt to persuade you otherwise. They may batten you upon the head with their lovely theories of American democracy.
Yet they cannot alter the facts. All societies, A through Z, feature elites.
I recently chanced upon a piece by a certain writer, J.B. Shurk by name. From whom:
- All human societies have informal social classes or formal social castes that separate groups of people within the same community.
It is true. And the United States offers no exception.
Today’s “Elites”
Yet here is the curious fact about contemporary American elites:
They often go under false colors… and masquerade as anti-elites.
“Don’t look at me,” they appear to snivel. “I’m just a regular guy.”
Thus they appear in public donning tee-shirts, blue jeans and sandaled footwear.
They are generally unshaven, unkempt and unbecoming.
Contrast the elites of yesteryear with the “elites” of today:
It’s All About “Virtue-Signalling”
Meantime, today’s elites sob about inequality and oppression of every model and make.
They holler against fascism, racism, sexism, gay-phobia, transsexual-phobia, immigrant-phobia and climate change.
Thus they are finger-wagging scolds. They are schoolmarms with money. They are self-deputized policemen of public minds.
I am not necessarily against these elites for these reasons.
I am against them because they are not authentic elites.
I would merely refer you to the enhanced influenza of 2020 — and the elite botchwork surrounding it.
Were they correct in any particular? About lockups, about facial masks, about vaccines?
To my knowledge — and I have searched — they were not.
Yet there they were… megaphone in one hand… billy club in the other… bossing us about.
Were “elites” correct in their insistence that Mr. Trump conspired with that Russian devil to seize the 2016 election?
No, they were not correct.
Were they correct that the same Russian devil invaded poor little Ukraine absent all provocation?
Again, they were not correct.
Listen to Us!
Yet what separates information from misinformation? From disinformation?
Their exclusive judgment.
They alone determine which pharmacological agents are “safe and effective.”
They alone determine Earth’s proper temperature settings.
They alone determine that elections are “safe and secure.”
They alone determine that which is democratic and undemocratic.
They alone determine which words are impermissible — and the just punishment for speaking them.
And they expect us minions to fall into formation behind them.
Yet I would instruct them where they could go — to go to a very hot place.
I simply do not recognize their superior sagacity… or their superior morality.
True Elites
Let us compare contemporary elites with ancient Roman elites.
But was not the Roman Empire a bedlam of vice and debauchery, you ask?
Did not Nero fiddle while Rome burned? And did not Caligula famously name his horse a consul?
Yes, but the American Founders looked to the early Roman Republic for its example — before Caesar went across the Rubicon — before Nero fiddled.
Virtue, public service were the pole stars of the early Roman Republic.
Consider the Battle of Cannae in 216 B.C.
Rome lost 50,000 men to Hannibal’s berserkers in one single day (America lost a comparable number in over a decade in Vietnam).
Was it merely the dregs of Rome that went to their graves that day?
No. It was also the Roman elite. The Roman Senate lost almost one-third of its members that black day.
“This suggests,” notes historian Peter Turchin, “that the senatorial aristocracy was more likely to be killed in wars than the average citizen.”
If a nation gets the government it deserves… the citizens of the early Roman Republic must have been constituted of fairly hard mettle.
Imagine — for one passing moment if you can — a United States senator fighting on the front lines of battle.
Then return to your sober senses.
Natural Elites vs. Unnatural Elites
I am not against elites. Society — as Mr. Jefferson argued long ago — requires elites.
Yet he was for a “natural” elite class. Mr. Jefferson labeled such men the “natural aristocracy.”
That is, they are aristocrats by virtue of their innate talents and abilities — not by birth or circumstance.
Jefferson:
- There is a natural aristocracy among men. The grounds of this are virtue and talents… There is also an artificial aristocracy founded on wealth and birth, without either virtue or talents; for with these it would belong to the first class.
- The natural aristocracy I consider as the most precious gift of nature for the instruction, the trusts, and government of society. And indeed it would have been inconsistent in creation to have formed man for the social state, and not to have provided virtue and wisdom enough to manage the concerns of the society.
- May we not even say that that form of government is the best which provides the most effectually for a pure selection of these natural aristoi into the offices of government? The artificial aristocracy is a mischievous ingredient in government, and provision should be made to prevent its ascendancy.
I too am for the natural elite.
Alas, that is not the elite class presently in operation.
Presently in operation is an unnatural elite class that holds us in siege.
They are elite not by adjective — only by noun.
Down with the wrong elites, I say!
And up with the right elites.
Regards,
Brian Maher
for Freedom Financial News
