Thread by @ThyConsigliori

John Minford, #SunTzu 6: 17 "Attack few with many. And my opponent will be weak."

There are a couple of fantasy studies I dream of for the future. I'd love to learn ancient Chinese and read Master Sun's counsel as he wrote it. I'd also love to learn ancient Chinese math. Alas, the future is the future. We have to attack today's verse with Western thinking.

We recently discussed how you essentially need two in order to understand one. I didn't bother you with it, but that was Greek thinking. They had a term for a unit of one, called the "monad." Guess what? The logic underlying all numbers and counting is that of definition.

In order to have a "one" of something you have to know what that something is, to define it. One peach and one apple do not add up to one papple, they are not halves. Rather, they add up to two fruits. What did we just do? We laid out a categorical set of definitions. Impressive.

In their idea of the monad - and that word is probably best translated by the term "unit" - the Greeks gave a mandate of definition. What is one thing? What exactly now? Okay, can we find another just like it? Okay then, now we have two. There was one, now there are two.

And two is greater than one, huzzah! Whoa, wait a minute, our Greek teachers caution, maybe not so much. Without a single unit to count, you can't count to two. So maybe two is actually the first number, and the unit is something not quite a number, but more important.

Are you ready for this? (You're not, but it's okay.) The Monad was God. No kidding. God is the source of all things, the creator of every second thing following Himself. The way they expressed this is a thing a pure logical beauty.

God is the uncaused first cause. He is one.

So, the original unit was, for the Greeks, not actually a number. For them, the first number was two. In fact, what we have is two definitions of the words great, and greater, or greater than. One form of great, referring to the Monad, was qualitative, not quantitative.

To illustrate, here is little David, and here is the giant Goliath? They are each but one warrior. Ah, but which one is the greater warrior? Goliath by size, David by strategy, and in the end, we all know David was the greater warrior. Can you really add them up in merely two?

The second definition of great, greater than, is merely quantitative. We consider the number one to be just that, a number. And obviously, two is greater than one. 2 > 1. And that's the law of Master Sun. You didn't see that coming, did you? Evil smile.

Let's try to express Master Sun's law in simple mathematical terms.

Given three equal warriors, two united against the third, it is most likely that the two united will prevail and the one, isolated, will lose.

Therefore, it is irresponsible in war to send one man to fight two.

If we let go of The Way and Heaven, we still can't let go of Earth, Command and Discipline, here's why not. Command must spend time in the temple determining troop configurations upon the Earth - where are they, how many, what is their morale, etc. Calculations completed...

Temple time finished, Command must give deployment orders, and Discipline must execute those orders. Usually it does. Is victory assured? Only if the calculations were done well, rightly. We return to Master Sun's Law, never send one to fight two.

Greedy and cautious, he'd rather send three, five, or ten against one. Opportunistic and realistic, he'll accept two-to-one odds at need. Ah, but then we'd likely want The Way and Heaven's will indicating advantage as well.

In today's political world, I wish we could keep better count of the lies. It amazes me, watching TV. A lie is told. Then, liars lie about the lie, telling more and more lies. "You can keep your doctor if you want to." That's a lie. "He never lied." That's a second lie.

In the #MAGA movement we can begin to tell the truth. We can fight the lies with truths. I suspect that the advantage, as I previously guessed, is ten-to-one, truth over lies. I feel like I can easily defeat ten lying Liberal Progressives, just little old me. I tell the truth.

There are two immediate tactical questions we in the #MAGA movement must confront, if we're to follow Master Sun's Law. How many agree with us already, or open minded, may be brought into agreement? And of those, how many can be encouraged to vote our way?

I love the Electoral College. I never paid attention to it before 2016, it was just some old, damned thing. Wow. The founders understood Greek math. I'm not speculating about that, either. We know they studied it, assiduously. The EC equalizes the math of our great republic.

For our local purposes though, we almost have to pretend it doesn't exist. Tactics should be driven by local, popular vote counts. Master Sun would laugh. You mean you only need 51% to their 49%? How is that even a challenge, he'd ask? Yet still, the logic is there. Greater than.

The stakes are higher than has been understood. The moment will come. If we fail at the ballot box, I truly fear an uncivil war is going to eventually be fought again, with bullets, not ballots. This is my great fear. Or worse, we simply lose America Herself, forever.

As he seems so often to do, Master Sun smiles a gentle, patient look, calming me. Just bring two to their one and all will be well, his smile conveys. If you would lead, count up the forces and find the places where you have two against their one, and command.

If you would follow, demand of your leader that he spend time in the temple, counting. Ask who will help you overcome which one? Demand basic logic. Demand a vision of victory. When the Greeks and Master Sun agree, had we not better pay attention?

127 verses completed, 295 to go.

To return to previous sections in our #WarForAmerica2020 and #SunTzuForMAGA series, don't forget to head over to @WarForAmerica21. You'll find the digital table of contents for this series, there.