Allegory of the Cave and American Politics, part 2

By Zach Foster

Continued from Part 1

Let the reader take into consideration the idea of a large open field on the outskirts of the city or town.  This open field is fairly well known.  Rabbits and other small field animals make their homes there, while birds and occasionally owls make their homes in the dispersed trees.  Environmentalists like to stroll through there in the morning to enjoy nature.  Families periodically picnic there in the afternoons.  Amateur astronomers like to forget about their 9-to-5 jobs and take their telescopes there at night to enjoy the celestial wonders, away from the city’s street lights and the glows from kitchen windows.  Teenagers periodically go there to make out.  This open field is in an unincorporated area and is no one’s property, yet it is a very popular place.  The community seems to have established and agreed to an unwritten social contract that this un-owned piece of land belongs to everyone.

Meanwhile, the said mayor and city council took notice of their constituents’ lack of civil awareness and saw an opportunity for themselves.  They raised city taxes, passed a measure to raise their own salaries, passed another measure to raise the salaries of the top municipal police (in order to have the cops in their pockets), applied for some federal environmental grant resulting in passing another law requiring every homeowner to plant a tree in their front yard or pay a heavy fine (much to the chagrin of those with impeccable front lawns and gardens), zoned an area in favor of porn shops and liquor stores rather than restaurants and mom-and-pop shops.  They also, in a closed session, incorporated the popular field, flattened it, tore down the trees, and sold the land to a major globalized department store—a threat not only to the environment and the local wildlife, but also to the local economy, especially the small consumer goods businesses.  There is now a chain link fence surrounding the field, and any citizen trespassing will be fined or arrested.  All of a sudden municipal elections seem to matter!  Better yet, the mayoral candidate that lost the election was in favor of mom-and-pop shops, lower property taxes, and wanted to make the field into a nature park and a wildlife preserve.  Don’t municipal elections all of a sudden matter more?  After this series of crooked measures, the citizens literally have fewer freedoms and the community has been impacted for the worse.  This corrupt mayor and city council represent many politicians who perhaps started with good intentions but were corrupted by the power, prestige, and perquisites that come with the territory of public office.

Those who keep themselves chained to the allegorical cavern walls may still be on their messianic high from voting for Barack Obama in 2008, and not only do they feel good because they took part in “saving the world” by voting for him (or whatever rock star candidate in whatever election), but they also convince themselves that this kind of corruption doesn’t happen, or that it rarely ever happens at all.  Reality says otherwise.

New York City councilmember Larry Seabrook was hit with a sixty-six page federal indictment including fraud, scams, false reimbursements (like $177 for a $7 lunch), embezzlement of tens of thousands of dollars from philanthropic organizations, redirecting non-profit funds to his girlfriend’s private account (and he’s married), etc.  In California’s city of Bell, City Manager Robert Rizzo was raking in a salary of $800,000 plus schemes on the side, while other city councilmembers and workers were making $357-500 thousand a year, and part-timers bringing in $100,000—all from the public coffers.  Corruption charges were filed against councilmembers from Carlisle, NY and Baltimore, MD, city call workers from Dallas, TX and Baltimore, MD.  These are just a sampling of the hundreds of municipal corruption cases in the United States from last year alone.

If simple mayors can simultaneously strip their indifferent constituents of freedom and make themselves rich, what is stopping members of Congress—who have multibillion dollar special interest groups throwing money and favors at them—from going down the same crooked route?

Continued in Part 3: City Councils, U.S. Congress, and blissful ignorance in the 2012 elections

Allegory of the Cave and American Politics

By Zach Foster

Behold! human beings living in a underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light and reaching all along the den; here they have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning round their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised way; and you will see, if you look, a low wall built along the way, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.

And do you see, I said, men passing along the wall carrying all sorts of vessels, and statues and figures of animals made of wood and stone and various materials, which appear over the wall? Some of them are talking, others silent.

…they are prisoners…Like ourselves, I replied; and they see only their own shadows, or the shadows of one another, which the fire throws on the opposite wall of the cave?

--Plato, The Republic, Book Seven

Why is it that human beings often sink to the level of self-imposed mediocrity?  Everyone has heard the phrase “ignorance is bliss,” though most pretend that they are neither ignorant nor blissful.  Nonetheless, they go about their daily lives, maintained with the status quo and ignore both the successes and the problems surrounding them.  Though this image is a painting of all people, it especially applies to Americans in the following context: Why do so many Americans refuse to take an active part in the preservation of liberty?

American citizens—especially those who profess themselves to be educated, civic-minded, and aware of the political atmosphere—continually vote less and less often at the polls, whether it’s a municipal election they miss or even the last Presidential election.  The knowing and conscious failure of citizens to go to the polls and vote retranslates, in the minds of those actually in favor of upholding and preserving liberty, as “Hey!  Despots!  Please prey on me!  I didn’t vote, nor am I remotely aware of what actually goes on!  I’m just wearing this campaign button because my favorite celebrity endorsed this idiot!  I obviously don’t know you’re after my freedom, so go ahead and take it…  I won’t miss what I never used!”  Every once in a while some blow-hard will give lip service to the First Amendment to justify some ridiculously violent, vulgar, and utterly pointless design on his t-shirt, but seldom will the same blow-hard exercise his Constitutional right to elect a President and a Congress—or even a mayor.  People like this are the very prisoners Plato writes about, who see shadows on the cavern wall and think they know the world.  Better yet, these people aren’t even aware that they’re in chains!

“Municipal elections are unimportant!  Who cares about a mayor or some old farts on a city council?”  Similar words were echoed by some friends of the authors’ near the last municipal election in his hometown.  The author was feeling very much like the escaped prisoner who actually saw the world and came back to share his discovery with his mates in the cave so that they might also be free.  The author argued the following: the City of Los Angeles operates on an annual budget of $6.75 billion.  New York City operates on an annual budget of $40 billion.  Even small suburban cities operate on millions of dollars a year.  Much of this money comes from the citizens’ property taxes and other hidden taxes, fees, and living expenses.  Mayors and city councils are the individuals that make city laws and control how these millions are used (or misused).  They also control how their municipal Police will be able to operate, what the laws regarding individual property and housing will be, whether or not there will be a curfew at night time, whether to spend money building a library or a youth center, whether to zone an area for churches and mom-and-pop shops or for porn shops and cheap motels, if a local field is to be made into a nature preserve, a public park, or sold as private property to a corporate bidder, etc.  A small “elected” body of people (elected only by whatever majority from within the minority that actually showed up to vote) controls all these things.

Continued in Part 2: Guess how corrupt that city council became.  And you haven't even met the Congressman!