The Roman Republic (SPQR – Senate and People of Rome) was plagued in its last years, as it morphed into an Imperium (the Principate), by the so-called “Street Senate.” And the Roman Empire (also still called the SPQR, even when its capital was moved from Rome to Byzantium (Constantinople)) was also bedeviled by the mobs which took to the streets frequently. To protest and demand more “bread and circuses.” That is, entertainment in the form of gladitorial games and primarily Egyptian wheat to produce subsidized bread to feed the masses.

Today, the “street senate” or “mob senate” is increasingly obvious in the States. We saw some attempts at that as far back as the 1930s and again in the 1960s and 1970s. And it has grown stronger in the 3rd decade of the 21st Century.

Here is a very recent example:

We have not researched the judge or the reasoning behind his ruling. But we believe that this tiny crowd of protesters in Rapid City, South Dakota, is yet another example of how the mob is “democratically” gaining power at all levels of government.

A bit of background: the Black Hills is a lovely range of mountains in South Dakota and Wyoming. It is called the Paha Sapa (Mountains Black) by the Lakota Amerind Nation (some will use the term “He Sapa), who controlled them from 1776 to 1874. They took them from the Cheyenne, who called them “Mo’ohta-vo’honaaeva”, who may have taken them from the Hidatsa (who called them Awaxaawi shiibisha) about 1700. The Hidatsa and the Cheyenne moved into “abandoned land” because the Comanche (an offshoot of the Shoshone) left them in the 1600s to go to southern Colorado, northern New Mexico, and the adjacent areas of Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas. (Why? Greed (or love) for horses brought by the Spanish, and other tribes that were easy pickings for raiders and man-stealers. And maybe better weather.)

The Lakota did not get to the Black Hills until around 1745, after French military explorers had already found them. They then initiated a war of conquest (1745-1776) against the Cheyenne, driving them west deeper into Wyoming. In a very similar way the United States (the FedGov) defeated the Lakota (better known as Sioux) in the Black Hills War of 1875-1877, and drove the Lakota out into the Plains to the east. Where they mostly are today.

But the Lakota now regard the Black Hills as sacred territory, filled with sacred sites about which a complex mythology has been developed.

Why did the US Congress (who orders the Army what to do) take the Black Hills? Mostly minerals: vast quantities in a true treasure house: first gold, then silver, tin, iron, and an enormous array of valuable minerals needed for modern civilization, including uranium, rare earths, and nearby coal, oil, and gas. Congress also got other vast resources: timber, water, and vast grazing lands for cattle, sheep, and even buffalo.

Today, about 250,000 people live in the Black Hills, and immediately around it, in nine counties. And new valuable minerals are still being discovered and mined or produced. Plus ordinary things like sand and gravel. The beef, timber, wool, cement, coal, oil, and gas supply much of the nation. And can continue to do so for centuries.

Unless certain radicals and factions get their way. A loud (if not necessarily large) number of Lakota want the Black Hills to be given back to them. A very loud and not infrequently violent and lawbreaking organization, the NDN Collective, the old American Indian Movement (AIM), and various other groups push “LandBack” – the demand that all of the Hills and indeed, most of South Dakota and Wyoming (and chunks of Nebraska, North Dakota, and Montana) be given “back” to the Lakota. (We put “back” in quotes because in reality, there were many other AmerInd nations that claimed (and used) much of the land that some Lakota claim was theirs.)

In the meantime, these radicals, strongly supported (at least with loud mouths) by so-called Progressive groups, want to “protect” their sacred lands from exploitation by what are more and more called “illegal immigrants” and greedy corporations. They wish to “protect the water” and “protect the environment” so of course they have a lot of support and common cause with environists. (We call them “environists” because they do not think things through: they go by their feelings. So they leave the “mental” part of daily life out.

Mining must end, especially if it is within sight or sound of one of their particularly special sacred sites. Today, the street senate is not the traditional mobs of Rome or Constantinople, or even Paris or Los Angeles: it is mostly online, and only small groups (see the above picture) actually show up to protest. But the effect is the same as it was on the Senate and the Emperor in ancient times: it terrifies the decision-makers, the judges, the juries, and the other minions (and bosses) of the state: of government. It is not just a fear of getting caught with their hands in the cookie jar, and not just a fear of losing the next election or their luxurious pensions. It includes, in 2026, a fear of bodily harm and even death, by either a mob, an assassin, or a “regretable” car or airplane accident.

So the federal judge in Rapid City (Western District of South Dakota) has ordered a halt to drilling test holes on public land: the Black Hills National Forest, because he or she knows that whinging can very quickly turn into threats and action. The epitome of democracy, mob rule. Not because procedures were not followed. Not because the land and water will be permanently damaged or destroyed. Not because the actual “sacred” site will be desecrated by the activities. But because lies and fearmongering are getting people riled, and the rulers to whom we have surrendered most of our lives are terrified.

More later, but the point is clear: democracy is killing us.