DEBATE • Every ruler can be placed on a spectrum that shows what their priority is. At one end, the subjects are the priority; at the other, the ruler themselves is the priority. By ‘ruler’, we mean here all types—monarchs, dictators, as well as democratically elected leaders. There is, in this respect, no fundamental difference. A people ruled by rulers who care more about their subjects than themselves will feel free.

Sometimes a ruler starts out with high ideals and good intentions but over time shifts to enriching themselves. As the saying goes, opportunity makes the thief; power is the opportunity, and that means power corrupts. Obviously, there are many instructive stories about this human problem in our civilization’s foundational documents.

King Solomon was the third king of united Israel. God granted him a wish when he ascended the throne. Solomon wished for wisdom so that he could judge the people fairly and create a harmonious society. As an example of his wisdom, there is the story of two women who each had a child, but one child died. Both claimed the living child as their own. In his wisdom, the king commanded that the child be split in two and each woman given half. The false mother thought this was a good idea. The other preferred to give the whole child to the first. Thus Solomon revealed who the true mother was.

Over time, unfortunately, Solomon came to abuse his power, just as his two predecessors Saul and David, who also began with high ideals, had done. He built palaces, obtained masses of horses, chariots, gold and silver. Additionally, he maintained a court of a thousand willing women from exotic lands and with foreign religions. All of this was financed with heavy taxation and in violation of the kingly statutes of the law. After Solomon’s death, the kingdom split and began its path toward ruin.

A united, discontented people is deadly

For the ruler at the far end of the spectrum, subjects are just livestock—a source of taxes and biomass for war. Beyond that, the subjects are mostly an irritation and a threat to his power. A dissatisfied and united populace is deadly for the ruler. He faces a problem: How to milk the subjects for maximum personal gain without starving them and risking revolution? A soft trick is, from cradle to grave, to teach them beautiful words about their world-unique freedom, and as evidence, occasionally let them vote for a handful of nearly identical opinion packages. Another, somewhat harsher, is to use their own money to bribe them with entertainment and an illusion of security—bread and circuses, panem et circenses, welfare and music contests.

A third, more brutal method, is divide and conquer—divide et impera. This is where ideologies come in. They are a distraction for the gullible. They keep the subjects busy bickering and scratching at each other about right and left, up and down, paternal leave, recycling, climate anxiety, ‘gender correction’, sexual perversions, other countries’ wars, foreign policy, Trump, Israel, Ukraine, beards, burkas. In this way, the people are split and neutered, completely harmless to the ruler.

Our current rulers are far out on the selfish end of the spectrum. Their feigned concern for the country is really about being re-elected and continuing to enjoy their parasitic position. No one cares about you, your home, your people. The more chaos, ideological division, multiculturalism, immigration, violence and disagreement, the better. Then popular resistance becomes sporadic and powerless against ever-rising taxes, inflation, alliances with foreign powers, population replacement, growing legal burdens, and new privileges for the ruler’s friends. It may be that the democratic ruler does not directly intend to cause suffering, but the way a democrat works is to constantly find and create new sources of conflict to profit from, which has precisely this effect. It erodes society.

The inner enemy

The historian Will Durant explains: “A great civilization is not conquered from without until it has destroyed itself from within. The principal causes of Rome’s decline lay in its people, its morals, class struggle, depleted economy, bureaucratic despotism, suffocating taxes, and ruinous wars.”

There is an interesting phrase in the oath that, according to American law, must be sworn by anyone assuming office in the administration or military. It begins with the words: “I, NN, do solemnly swear that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.”

Sweden’s problem is the domestic enemy. It’s high time we subjects begin to understand this and unite. Stop bickering about right and left, party X or Y, red or blue, electric or “fossil” cars, Ukraine or Russia. Your neighbor is not your enemy, no matter what they believe about how a country should be governed. Your common enemies sit in the capital. They fear a united people.

So unite around essentials, around the only relevant ‘ideology’: What is best for our country, our people, our children, and our right to govern ourselves. It does not matter whether concrete solutions then fall under what is called right or left. Do not let yourselves be divided and ruled. Keep your eyes on the ball. Eyes on those who divide society to rule over us.

Klaus Bernpaintner

(Article previously published at Folkungen.se)