Do you really feel more secure and prosperous?

The Daily Inter Lake

Psst! Do you want to know a secret?

The Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America is attempting to join the United States with Canada and Mexico in a tri-lateral union that could spell the virtual end to U.S. sovereignty.

"Hey, that's not a secret. I've already heard about that."

You've heard about it, but you've done nothing about it. Possibly you made a joke about it, or laughed about conspiracy theories. Or like the conservative pundit Michael Medved, you've derided the people who talk about it as "lunatics and losers."

The only problem is that the lunatics and losers are only telling you what anyone could find on his own by looking on the Internet or a public library. There is a Security and Prosperity Partnership created by President George Bush and the presidents of Mexico and Canada in 2005. It does aim to promote greater intermingling of government functions in the areas of security and economics between the three nations. The SPP "initiative" was admittedly spurred by the work of the Council on Foreign Relations, which is spelled out in a 2005 report called "Toward a North American Community." That report did propose establishing by 2010 a "North American economic and security community, the boundaries of which would be defined by a common external tariff and an outer security perimeter."

So depending on how you feel about hitching your security and economic future to the Mexican government - that paragon of efficiency, prosperity and human rights - you may or may not be concerned about the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America.

But one thing you should not do is dismiss the concerns of people about potential loss of U.S. sovereignty as a "paranoid and groundless frenzy," the way Michael Medved did. It's not like people are making up stories about the proposal to create a common currency called the Amero. It's not like people are making up stories about the proposed superhighway corridor between Mexico and Canada that would travel through the American heartland. It's not like people are making up the public discussions of why a North American Union would be a good thing for America and the world.

But it is one of the interesting elements of human psychology that the more people know about something, the less they are worried about it. That is an outcome of the mistaken belief that knowledge is wisdom. People think that if something is not hidden, it is understood. But that is not the case, and never has been.

Have you ever heard of an open secret?

Not the kind of open secret which is a badly kept secret, but the kind where secret information is shared publicly because it will be understood only by those in the know.

The best kept open secret in the world is perhaps the one in the New Testament, where Jesus tells the truth to everyone and then cryptically enjoins them, "He who has ears to hear, let him hear." Of course, other than a few of the deaf people he treats with miracles, everyone around him had ears to hear. But yet Jesus clearly didn't expect his message to be understood except by a very few. "Many are called, but few are chosen."

The difference wasn't in the words of Jesus, but in the discernment of his listeners.

Similarly, many religions throughout the ages have had an exoteric or public message on the one hand, and an esoteric or hidden message on the other. The same is true of many schools of philosophy such as that of the Russian George I. Gurdjieff or the mystery schools of ancient Greece. Modern secret societies such as the Rosicrucians and Masons work under the same principle - their teachings and beliefs are widely disseminated as a kind of lure for potential initiates, but until the initiation is held, the teachings have no power.

Political parties and governments to some extent operate the same way. Although it is routinely said that information is power, very often information lies dormant in the sterile hallways of the bureaucracy until the right person sees it, and seizes on it. Only then can it be used to turn those sterile hallways into the corridors of power.

In our current government, for instance, there is the open secret that love of campaign money is the root of all evil in Congress, but nothing is done to fix the problem. Another open secret with wide implications is the fact that privacy no longer exists in our society, thanks to the digitalization of information. Anyone who wants to know these things only needs to study for about an hour to realize the bad news.

As Sherlock Holmes remarked in "Sign of the Four," "How often have I said to you that when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth?"

The improbable truth is all around us, but people are afraid to be associated with it. They are afraid that someone like Michael Medved will label them as lunatics. And, if truth be told, there are numerous "open secrets" which are safe from prying eyes because they are just too uncomfortable to ponder. Most people don't want to consider the possibility that members of our own government, even our own presidents, might work to promote agendas that could harm the Constitution or our sovereignty.

So instead of investigating the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (www.spp.gov), they just pretend it is a harmless something, a little nothing that will blow away with the wind. Maybe so. We can hope so. We can just pretend it doesn't exist, or tell ourselves that it is a silly feel-good bit of foolishness. Or we could open our eyes and look around, study the matter for ourselves and decide whether we like international alliances to be forged without benefit of treaties or congressional involvement.

Security and prosperity sure sound good, don't they? Much better than the alternative. And there's no chance they put those words on there to fool us, is there? After all, this is 2007, not 1984.

He who has ears to hear, let him hear.