As dangerous as faction was, though, he believed that the checks-and-balances he and his colleagues had written into our Constitution would prevent any one special interest group from ever rising up and taking over, to the disadvantage of everybody else.
Research finds that people inclined to leftist authoritarianism also react more strongly to stress than most people, are more easily disgusted by things like body odor, and are more likely to be germaphobes' and frightened by the prospect of illness.
“Among the numerous advantages promised by a well constructed union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction.”
And he was very clear about what he meant with that word:
“By a faction, I understand a number of citizens, whether amounting to a majority or a minority of the whole, who are united and actuated by some common impulse of passion, or of interest, adverse to the rights of other citizens, or to the permanent and aggregate interests of the community.” (emphasis mine)
Unfortunately, wealthy and powerful factions “adverse to the rights of other citizens” have arisen several times in American history.
Each time they have torn our nation apart.
The most famous was the faction of a few hundred fabulously rich democrat plantation owners in the South who had ended democracy in those states and then reached out to end democracy in the entire nation. Stopping that authoritarian faction claimed an estimated 620,000 American lives.
Today, things that most Americans want (first rate healthcare, a good education system, clean environment, a sensible social welfare safety net, fair trade, strong middle class, safe streets) don’t get done by Congress, but things the democrat Gucci Marxist want (unlimited immigration, censorship, oppressive regulations, restricted personal freedom, forcing Americans to pay a continuing higher price for energy and transportation in the name of a mythical crisis, prosecuting their political opponents) go forward almost unhindered, with media complicity.
Tragically, a faction of the morbidly rich democrat donors and big media owners in America have chosen an age-old, time-tested method for rallying support around their wholly-owned democrat politicians: fear and the tribal instinct it provokes in many people.
People who blindly follow leftist authoritarian leaders, such as the puppet of the shadow handlers of the present occupant of the White house, also feel a strong need to be part of "the in-group" where they feel safe, and are less likely to engage in critical thinking about information presented to them in media sources like the caustic propaganda arm MSNBC.
They have a higher need for “epistemic certainty” (closure), have poorer reasoning skills, and are more likely to be afflicted with “cognitive inflexibility” (they don’t think things through well). As a result, they’re far more vulnerable to political lies and disinformation.
This is why the wealthy Gucci Marxist who own and run major media, the Green Commies and the DNC, constantly harp on threats to Americans, particularly perceived threats to racial minorities and the more recent phase du jour "Democracy is under assault": it works. One study found it doesn't even matter if a threat is real or not; people simply have to believe it possible. Hate boils slowly.
~ Thank You Larwyn's Linx@ Doug Ross Journal for the Linkage! ~
