We've all heard the saying "Might Makes
Right". And as much as we want to
believe that we're a civilized society, everything seems to come back to
that. Much lip service is paid to the
"Rule of Law", but often those with power completely ignore laws when
they become inconvenient.
Along with persuasive arguments to convince others of the
merits of an idea, when resistance or opposition is encountered, the power
elite resort to force..."Might Makes Right".
It doesn't always have to be overt and brutal. When you have the resources of the power
elite, you are able to manipulate public opinion and manufacture consent before
you have to bring in brute force. The
power elite can pay their media servants to make their case eloquently and with
arguments that sound eminently logical.
But it doesn't necessarily make it right.
The rightness of a thing is usually derived from the consent
of the people in things that are more or less universally agreed upon. Like, I think we would find universal
agreement on it being a good idea to have clean water available for everyone.
But the power elite may have an interest in taking actions
which threaten the safety of the water supply (fracking comes to mind). And in order to take such actions it becomes
necessary to provide a counter argument, that these actions will actually
produce some beneficial result. So, their media servants are unleashed to
convince the public that something demonstrably BAD, is OK to do, because they
will tell us it produces jobs, or it lessens our dependence on foreign sources
of energy, or some other logical argument.
