The Splitting of the Social Fabric

Our economic woes finally touched the sacrosanct topics of Social Security and Medicare, two of the most important tenants of the Social Contract that exists between those that are ruled and those who rule.  The younger members of the Silent Majority are being conditioned to accept the inevitability of the demise of these two bulwarks of social stability.  The guarantee to preserve both for older Americans effectively splits the outrage and trivializes the larger question.

The Social Contract is omitted by a conspicuous silence by those above who seem to deny that it exists or has ever existed.  Perhaps a meaningful discourse is lost in the preoccupation of television with sex scandals, murders, and the trials and tribulations of criminals, transvestites, drug dealers, and en vogue politicians.

The good news is that the worse things get, the more ordinary people begin to rethink their place in the America they built.  Maybe they will re-discover that those who govern do so by the consent of the governed or resolve the question of who is more important, the prince or the private who comprises the worker bees, fights the wars, and preserves the peace for commerce and prevents the nationalization of industry.