The Unraveling of Order

The root of anarchy does not lie, first, in the act of rejection of the established political order. That comes later. Then, that rejection will not be so much a matter of conquering or being conquered as it is merely a declaration of death. The source of anarchy is the malignant ascent, within the social order, of the idea that those who hold political power can make, break, and abrogate any laws of the realm as they would want at any time they wish for the purpose of satisfying their selection of desires which they peddle about as miraculous cures. Reality is seldom the origin of these most cherished desires. Their first and only principle is that, by virtue of their own power, these social engineers are always right even when that which they do today, according to their own declarations, was wrong yesterday. Their fundamental belief is that there is and never has been any other instrumentality at work in governance. They owe allegiance to nothing beyond themselves. Their logic is no more than a body of meaningless distinctions. They have abandoned the nobility of human reason for the superiority of will. Their creed is envy. Theirs is a cult of tyranny.