© M

Requiem

All men live within their illusions. For some, the myths are simple--security, stability, the virtues learned at a mother's knee. For others, the myths are complex and deep, entire worlds of beliefs built upon each other like a great intellectual house of cards. Each man builds to the level of mythography which he needs to remain sane. And only a true fool would question that the myths are more valuable and perhaps more true than the "truths".·

I have lived and breathed the mythic dust of republic all my life. I have believed, in my myths, in the concept of my country, that whisper of greatness, which was America. Perhaps within my lifetime, it was not; perhaps it never was, but I have committed and I have believed and in my heart, I have stood for the republic and for all those concepts for which it stands. I pledged my allegiance to the republic and never have I regretted that union. It is the union which has given me cause to regret.

It is no crime for a normal man to be thrust into greatness and it is no crime for a great man to seek to be normal. Dostoevski contemplated the moral stance of the great man and reached an uncertain conclusion. Can a great man commit a crime or does his greatness grant him pardon for his transgression? Surely in the rise to power, all men and governments have been bloodied and all have broken then-standing laws of man. But this is what we have forgotten: in the hearts of men, greatness itself is a crime. Every man can not, will not be great. Due to this, the very existence of greatness is an indictment of failure. If all men were great within their hearts, it could be thought that greatness would stand to inspire, but not all men are great. Humanity, at its core, rises by standing on the shoulders of others. The strength of this is seen within mathematics and science; stepping forward from where elder generations left off, progress is made. Einstein looms giant in our rear horizon because, in truth, he stands upheld by men like Newton and Copernicus.

In affairs of state, however, the weakness of this is clearly seen. In the realm of knowledge, the fruit is plentiful and sweet, easily replicated and parsed; generosity is rewarded by greater gain. In the realm of state, the fruit is power, a stingy yield withered on the vine, by its very nature making its harvesters necessarily misers. And when there is no room to share, the drive of humanity to climb upon each other, indeed where there is a ceiling made absolute by tactile fiat--this climbing becomes a crushing. When a man can not elevate himself by virtue, he will do it at the cost of those about him. While we may wish to deny it, this dynamic is well known to all and lives within the heart of each man. And so, the crime is greatness.

The structure of republic is the structure of greatness, a system of state designed to climb rather than crush but, in the eyes of those who lack the virtues of greatness, the ladder is hidden and hard to climb, and they will create within their mind a ceiling where there is none and they will strive to crush their fellow man as surely as if the ceiling were real. Thus, every man within the republic must keep watch, for he is held hostage to the weakness of another man's myth. The system of republic, by enabling greatness, commits the unpardonable crime and engenders its greatest foes within its own bosom.

As is the way of all things great within the world of men, republic is transient and it is inevitable that, at some point, the games of empire must begin. All men want a king for all men can aspire, in his myths, to be the king. All men can not aspire to lead within the republic. And when a king stands upon the shoulders of the greatness which was a republic, then an empire is born.*

Republic, stripped of the glorious robes of myth and posture with which she must be cloaked, is a confederacy of aristocracy. From each band of men, there arise those who lead. Whether they lead by virtue or force or beneficence of fortune does not matter. From the seas of men, leaders emerge. Those given to virtues which lead them to govern well and fair within their context, remain as leaders. The rest pass along and fail. These men, those who govern by nature and are embraced by their people, are the aristocracy of the republic. Within this aristocracy, a great conspiracy emerges, a negotiation and sharing of powers in exchange for powers until this aristocratic conspiracy arrives at a confederacy, a mechanism to stand upon the shoulders of each other without giving up their own independence, a tactical union of separate estates. From this stew emerges the republic and it awaits only one final caress of state--the emergence of the advocacy.

The ability and will to govern is not, expressly, a genetic trait, nor is fortune a respecter of persons. How then, is the integrity of the aristocracy assured? Good leaders die or may be unavailable in times of need and their heirs, be it by birth or by chance, may not be of their caliber. Where alone, poor leaders fall like chaff but within the support of the confederacy, they do not fall. They hang upon the body like an anchor, or worse, a spreading corruption. How then, shall it be gainsayed that power passes from capable to capable and not betray the trust of the confederacy of estates and cause its dissolution?

This great and terrible concern has an answer, which, when viewed from a distance, is intuitive in its simplicity. The temptation to pontificate looms large but, at the core of the mechanism is one insurmountable force: the governed. It is the people who choose their leaders. By whatever historical precedent they choose, men have always chosen their own leaders, albeit sometimes poorly. Feudal serfs had no vote or appeal of contest but, within their context of history, it was in their power to affect their leaders and, as history has shown, within their power to change the very manner of governance under which they lived. Indeed, the cost was high and the action extreme, but difficulty is no argument to invalidate the will of man.

Men choose men to lead them. Stripped away, it is that simple: men choose men. And, men will support men they choose over men they do not for, at the core of human will, a man may be enslaved, but he is only truly governed by a man of his internal choosing.

Within the confederacy, the aristocrat which speaks is the aristocrat who rules and who risks his estate by his actions. In this context, it is this man who represents his estate and his governed. Since the demands of his obligations to his estates and his governed take precedence over his obligations to the confederacy, the aristocrat chooses, from within his household or his peerage another man to stand as his surrogate, his representative. This surrogate can not, by simple physics, be the man he stands for, nor can he always make the same decisions as his patron. Thus, while he represents his patron to the confederacy, he advocates the positions and interests of his patron.

It is here that the republic steps forward. The transfer of power shall be by allowing the governed to choose their advocate. It is, rationally, the only acceptable conclusion for governance.

But as we have seen, men need a king and they live within their own myth. Now the republic begins to don her robes. They will have their king, the one man who will stand as the living embodiment of the union and the virtues which it espouses. This man shall, in turn, be their advocate to other governments. He is both their myth and their greatest advocate. He is the aristocrat of the aristocrats and, as such, he is chosen, not by the mass of the confederated governed, but by the advocates of each separate estate, for a man of one locale can not--indeed, must not--be allowed to effectively choose the advocate of a geographically separate peoples. This is republic, the myth of greatness, the stillborn ghost, a system of representative advocates, a system of governance predicated on an understanding of the nature of man which does not relinquish the potential for greatness.

Over time and in separate contexts, the specifics of the mechanics have altered through many permutations, but the premise remains unchanged. It is this hopeless hope which has been my mistress of statecraft.

Look now to the shadows of the present and lend ear to the cautions of an old man. Republics become empires and the governed choose and deserve the leaders they permit. Yet, as inevitable as this collapse may be, it is the obligation of the citizen to fight, tooth and nail, each step down the slope and guard against the fall as long as they may. Three times the ghost of republic will stand upon the doorstep of her wayward children and three times, they will choose to embrace her or turn her away and move to empire.

The first knell of death is when the resolve of the advocacy is challenged. These men are the first watch, the firewall against the fall, and theirs is the greatest obligation. A man will set himself against the rule of law. He will test, within the heart of the advocates: can the appeal of one man overcome the appeal of the rule of law? If the resolve of the advocacy is strong, this man who contests the supremacy of law will be removed from power. His actions, clearly treasonous, will be punished and, indeed, the severity of that rebuke may serve as a barometer of how close the republic stands to the precipice. If he is not removed, if he is tolerated, then the signal is sent clearly: an individual may flout the law and the governed will tolerate an emperor.

The second cry of murder is when the resolve of the aristocrats is challenged. Their advocates have failed: now a man will challenge the finality of local rule. If the power of the aristocrats can be stolen from them and placed in the power of their now-compromised advocates, then those men who, by nature, lead those around them will find their estates forfeit while their governed are blind to this. These aristocrats are not, expressly, officials within the structure of government, though they usually are. This is a test to see if the warriors of statecraft, those who by their nature bear the mantle of leadership, official or not, can find the will to rise to battle. The stakes are much greater now, for surely these aristocrats will call for a purge of the advocates if they rebuke the tide of empire. Again this treason will be punished, but now the dynamic is reversed. If the rebuke is stern and fair, a reminder of violated trust and a loss of position, then the republic is in good health. But should this rebuke be fevered or bloody, empire still looms close, for the mind of the governed has been turned toward hysteria and reason has begun to slip from the aristocracy.

How will this challenge come? It will not be as clear as the first, a blatant public defiance. It will be public enough to send its message, but much else must be done under the cover of secrecy and confusion, for the greatest risk is that the governed themselves shall awaken to an understanding of the treason being perpetrated against them. The challenge may come in many forms but the success of the first challenge has created a new tool to stab into the heart of the republic. With the rule of law corrupted, what better weapon to use than this very system of laws itself? Can the power of the aristocrats be stripped away and placed in the holding of the mechanisms of this system? The rule of law, now corrupted, becomes the screen of smoke which the forces of empire may use to hide their treasons, for the law still is credible in the eyes of the governed even as it acts as a proxy for traitors.

The final challenge is a desperate one, one which must, I fear, lead to blood regardless of outcome. It is simple and obvious: it is the assumption of power over the governed themselves, typically using the propped up corpse of the republic to distract the inattentive. Rome delayed her civil war for decades as a reigning emperor paid lip service to a dead republic. Indeed, by the time Carthage awakened, the memories of republic had faded such that only a vague understanding of principle remained and the new republic was an empire from birth.

III

One can preach to the choir until voice is lost and the choir sleeps but the heathen have already left. There is more, much more; but if these simple cautions are understood, the statesman may learn what he lacks easily enough, for his hunger for knowledge and the burdens of duty will not let him do otherwise. If they are not understood, the echo of the breath of republic is too far faded into private myth to be heard, and the governed must, in time, learn again the price and perils of the ethereal mistress.

And as for me, I shall go as loudly as health and age will allow. Like the vengeful gods of myth, I wander the land, empty and hollow, temples abandoned, a singular storm, powerful in direct contact, waning in the distance. But, too, like the fallen gods, I will not do so at the cost of my people, those whom I love with a full heart. I must place this battle in trust with those beyond myself, those more able and strong. I shall not stop. I shall not surrender. But within the republic, I am one of many and this battle passes beyond me. I must tend to my estates first and to my nation second for, it seems that, in the end, I am an aristocrat. If I have committed a transgression against the republic, it is that I, myself, have contemplated greatness. I love both hearth, estate, and republic will a full heart, a great heart. If I find that all else should fail, I sleep with the comfort of knowing that I love with a full heart or not at all. And if, in the end, tresses of white and a hawk's eyes are the price for this, I consider it well paid and I wear my scars as badges of honor and tributes of grief, memoriam of the republic.