Behind every tax collector, child protective services agent or petty bureaucrat is a police officer with a gun.
Imagine the toll on the psyche of police who must enforce laws with which they disagree among the myriad promulgated by bureaucrats.
Morpheus: I imagine that right now, you're feeling a bit like Alice. Hmm? Tumbling down the rabbit hole? (Audio)
Neo: You could say that.
Morpheus: I see it in your eyes. You have the look of a man who accepts what he sees because he is expecting to wake up. Ironically, that's not far from the truth. Do you believe in fate, Neo?
Neo: No.
Morpheus: Why not?
Neo: Because I don't like the idea that I'm not in control of my life.
Morpheus: I know exactly what you mean. Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Neo: The Matrix.
Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is? (Audio)
Neo: Yes.
Morpheus: The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work... when you go to church... when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth. (Audio)
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else you were born into bondage. Into a prison that you cannot taste or see or touch. A prison for your mind. ... I'm trying to free your mind ... But I can only show you the door. You're the one who has to walk through it.
"I found out something I never knew: I found out that my world was not the real world."Neo: Why do my eyes hurt?
--Robert F. Kennedy, 1968
For over 4,000 years, religion and nationalism, god and country, fraud and force have been used to control the masses to benefit the few. “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.” What a brilliant scam! Pay your taxes to government. Pay your tithe to the government-sanctioned religion (prophet = profit). Don't worry about your poverty. Turn the other cheek. Do not envy the wealth, power or leisure of the oligarchy: "Be happy. You will receive your reward in heaven, the afterlife or your next life. In the mean time we will work you into an early grave, or kill you conquering additional taxpayers, so we may live in opulence."
The facade demanding sacrifice to god or country is the "Matrix." The Matrix has gradually become more sophisticated. Fallen soldiers are still honored to motivate more soldiers, but except for Pope coronations, the Mecca pilgrimage to rub a meteorite, football and concerts, mass media has largely replaced the massive staged events of the past. Unlimited fighters have replaced gladiators. The "news" has replaced the heralds.
The list of changes goes on, but the basic mechanism remains the same. An individual or oligarchy organizes a religion to threaten a population with Hell, and reward it with Heaven to elicit obedience and wealth from that population, and motivate it to seize the wealth of others. Similarly, an individual or oligarchy organizes a gang called government to create or invent real or artificial threats to a population in order to motivate the people to exchange their freedom and wealth for false security, and seize the wealth of others, or the government pretends to be beneficent, so it can extract wealth from a denigrated (evil) segment of the population to satisfy the envy of another (good) segment of the population, or both. Often religion and government work in concert.
The manifestation of wealth is an indication of intellect and its ability to provide sustenance, shelter and security. Power is another means of deriving wealth. Consequently, the manifestation of wealth and power have become as attractive to females as physical strength, stamina and genetic advantage. See Natural Order (procreation is the purpose of life) - Human Origin. This explains why inferior men strive to become wealthy and powerful by any means.
"The plundering potentates of the Potamac and the pusillanimous parasites of the palace guard are having their last ride on the merry-go-round of privilege and pelf." -- Theodor Roosevelt McKelndin
Archaeologists quickly determine who the aristocrats and monks were by virtue of the fact that they were they only ones who ate well.
The convenient thing about Democracy is that the voters blame each other for the acts of the politicians and their bureaucrats and police. The convenient thing about Religion is that the believers blame themselves for the failure of their prayers.
Morpheus: You've never used them before.
Here are over 1,400 files to help you adjust your world view before exploring the Concept:
Neo: I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid... you're afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then I'm going to show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules and controls, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.
“On the dogmas of religion, as distinguished from moral principles, all mankind, from the beginning of the world to this day, have been quarreling, fighting, burning and torturing one another, for abstractions unintelligible to themselves and to all others, and absolutely beyond the comprehension of the human mind.” -- Thomas Jefferson