Never has there been so little diversity within America's upper crust. Always, in America as elsewhere, some people have been wealthier and more powerful than others. But until our own time America's upper crust was a mixture of people who had gained prominence in a variety of ways, who drew their money and status from different sources and were not predictably of one mind on any given matter. The Boston Brahmins, the New York financiers, the land barons of California, Texas, and Florida, the industrialists of Pittsburgh, the Southern aristocracy, and the hardscrabble politicians who made it big in Chicago or Memphis had little contact with one another. Few had much contact with government, and "bureaucrat" was a dirty word for all. So was "social engineering." Nor had the schools and universities that formed yesterday's upper crust imposed a single orthodoxy about the origins of man, about American history, and about how America should be governed. All that has changed.

Today's ruling class, from Boston to San Diego, was formed by an educational system that exposed them to the same ideas and gave them remarkably uniform guidance, as well as tastes and habits. These amount to a social canon of judgments about good and evil, complete with secular sacred history, sins (against minorities and the environment), and saints. Using the right words and avoiding the wrong ones when referring to such matters -- speaking the "in" language -- serves as a badge of identity. Regardless of what business or profession they are in, their road up included government channels and government money because, as government has grown, its boundary with the rest of American life has become indistinct. Many began their careers in government and leveraged their way into the private sector. Some, e.g., Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner, never held a non-government job. Hence whether formally in government, out of it, or halfway, America's ruling class speaks the language and has the tastes, habits, and tools of bureaucrats. It rules uneasily over the majority of Americans not oriented to government.

The two classes have less in common culturally, dislike each other more, and embody ways of life more different from one another than did the 19th century's Northerners and Southerners -- nearly all of whom, as Lincoln reminded them, "prayed to the same God." By contrast, while most Americans pray to the God "who created and doth sustain us," our ruling class prays to itself as "saviors of the planet" and improvers of humanity. Our classes' clash is over "whose country" America is, over what way of life will prevail, over who is to defer to whom about what. The gravity of such divisions points us, as it did Lincoln, to Mark's Gospel: "if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand."

• Four unidentified men were shot to death in Juarez Thursday, say Mexican press reports. The attack took place near the intersection of Independencia and Juärez-Porvenir road. Reports say a single armed suspect shot the two inside their Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck. Stray rounds struck and killed two more people nearby.


• Two people were shot to death and two people were wounded in an attack near a commercial center in Juarez, according to Mexicn news accounts. Fernando Garcia Urrutia and Roberto Urrea Caraveo were shot in the Plaza Portales shopping center in the Campestre district. Two more unidentified victims were also shot and are hospitalized.


• A man was shot to death in Juarez, say Mexican press accounts. David Orozco, 50, was shot at his residence near the intersection of calles Esther Gómez and Elisa Griensen in the Independencia II district. Orozco is the final survivor of his family the remainder of which were murdered last April.


• Two unidentified men were shot to death in two separate crimes in Juarez Thursday, accordng to the Mexican daily La Polaka. The first attack took place near the intersection of calles Puerto Argentino and Mar del Sur in the Paraje de Oriente district. Two men were hit by armed suspects firing rifles. One man died and another was wounded and hospitalized.
  
  In the second attack, which took place near the intersection of calles Tercera and Durango in the Infonavit Ampliacion Aeropuerto district, where a man was shot seven times and died at the scene


• An unidentified man was shot to death and two more wounded following a confrontation with security elements in Nogales, Sonora, say Mexican press reports. As of the moment it is unclear who the responding authorities were, except the battle took place at the airport in Nogales. Reports say AK-47 assault rifles were used in the gunfight.


• Six people were killed in intergang battles in Tamaulipas, according to Mexican press reports. Four men were shot to death in Nuevo Laredo and two victims were found burned inside of an abandoned car in Diaz Ordaz.


• The Mexican Army based in Reynosa, Tamaulipas reported the rescue of an unidentified kidnap victim in the town of La Providencia, Tamaulipas July 25th. The rescue took place when a Mexican Army convoy was fired on while on patrol. Following then end of the firefight, the Army seized 14 rifles, 178 weapons magazines and about 4,000 cartridges.

*A legal right for those countries
*A violation of the personal freedom
*A counter-extremism policy