When laws seem not to apply to those who create or enforce them, skepticism can turn into cynicism.
If left unresolved, cynicism can move toward a critical mass that, when met, bids trouble for the fate of a nation.
Today, concerning current political events, more than a few people toggle back and forth between skepticism and cynicism.
Skeptics question motives. Cynics have decided.
As 2019 ends, skepticism has the lead. It occasionally yields to cynicism, but then toggles back to the skeptical side.
To illustrate the difference—a skeptic wonders if Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi’s repetitive statements about how she prays for Donald Trump, and about how much she approaches his impeachment with solemnity, is her really being truthful about her feelings.
A cynic doesn’t wonder about Speaker Pelosi’s motives for a nano-second. It’s fake. As Niccolò Machiavelli said, “There is nothing more important than appearing to be religious.”
Today, there is a three-fold division among observers of the American political scene that somewhat mirrors a time past in the nation’s history.
There’s the Left; there’s the Right. And then there are those who have neither the time nor interest to pay more than cursory attention to the political “news”.
We’ve seen this split in America before.
In the mid-18th Century, before polling became a profession, roughly one-third of American Colonists supported separation from Great Britain. When war came, some of them fought with their local militia. Others joined the Continental Army—the embryo of the future United States Army.
A second third supported the Crown. They were variously called Tories, Loyalists, Royalists, or the King's Men. The conflict between the Patriots and the Loyalists was a procurer of the American Civil War of 1861-1865.
The final third went about their lives largely unengaged in the conflict, unless it happened to swirl around them. If it didn’t come close to home, they lived lives independent of debate, strife and disorder. They worked to feed and clothe families. Some on the frontier lived in fear of Indian attacks that took lives, and inclement weather that destroyed crops.
That tri-fold division in Colonial America is similar to today’s Republicans, Democrats, and Independents.
Between 1765-1775, the mood among the Patriots took a hard turn. The exact tipping point is difficult to tag, but the cascade of events between those years turned skeptics into cynics concerning The Crown.
In March 1765, Great Britain’s Parliament voted a tax on the British colonies in America that required that some printed materials in the colonies (e.g., legal documents, newspapers, magazines, etc.) could only be created on paper made in Britain and embossed with a revenue stamp indicating a tax had been paid in London with British currency.
The “Stamp Act” created a firestorm in the Colonies.
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In February 1766, the heat caused the House of Commons to repeal the Stamp Act. Benjamin Franklin witnessed the debate over the vote to repeal and when asked how the Colonists would respond if it was not repealed, he said:
"A total loss of the respect and affection the people of America bear to this country, and of all the commerce that depends on that respect and affection.”
The vote to repeal was a triumph over Colonial skepticism. But by 1775, the worm of skepticism had turned full cynic, as the Colonies moved to the edge of full-out revolt.
It was a gradual turn over time. One that became incrementally more aggressive. Until April 19, 1775.
On April 18, a British General dispatched a column of about 700 British soldiers to seize weapons and powder thought to be stored twenty miles northwest of Boston in Concord, Massachusetts.
By the time they returned to their barracks the next day, they’d lost 79 K.I.A and many scores more were wounded.
At Lexington and Concord, and even more so on the road back to Boston, they met about two-thousand diehard cynics. And therein is a cautionary lesson for our times.
When laws seem not to apply to those who create or enforce them, skepticism can become cynicism.
And, under unplanned and unanticipated circumstances, cynicism has the potential to foster violence.
And that changes everything.
Lee Cary——Bio and Archives
Since November 2007, Lee Cary has written hundreds of articles for several websites including the American Thinker, and Breitbart’s Big Journalism and Big Government (as “Archy Cary”). and the Canada Free Press. Cary’s work was quoted on national television (Sean Hannity) and on nationally syndicated radio (Rush Limbaugh, Mark Levin). His articles have posted on the aggregate sites Drudge Report, Whatfinger, Lucianne, Free Republic, and Real Clear Politics. He holds a Doctorate in Theology from Garrett Theological Seminary in Evanston, IL, is a veteran of the US Army Military Intelligence in Vietnam assigned to the [strong]Phoenix Program[/strong]. He lives in Texas.
When laws seem not to apply to those who create or enforce them, skepticism can turn into cynicism.
If left unresolved, cynicism can move toward a critical mass that, when met, bids trouble for the fate of a nation.
Today, concerning current political events, more than a few people toggle back and forth between skepticism and cynicism. 
