Know Thy Enemies
Where Shakespeare, Sun Tzu, the U.S. Supreme Court, Harvard, and Vermont Intersect
June1, 2025
“Know thy enemy and know yourself; in a hundred battles, you will never be defeated.” — Sun Tzu
Sharon, VT — Back in the late 1500’s, William Shakespeare wrote in Henry IV: Part II, “The first thing we do is, let’s kill all the lawyers.”
In 1985, referring to the above quote, U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens wrote: “After a careful reading of that text will reveal, Shakespeare insightfully realized that disposing of lawyers is a step in the direction of a totalitarian form of government.”
We’ve evolved since the 1500’s. A present-day Shakespearean script would read, “The first thing to do is, let’s control all the lawyers.” That’s what the current federal government is attempting. The nation’s leaders realize they need lawyers to help them control the narrative, protect their own self-interested emoluments, and ensure they further confound the American populace into believing that what the government is doing to undermine and topple the institutions that have made this country great is just and right. In reality, it’s all a stage show meant to entertain and confuse.
Who’s the enemy today? It is our government leaders who want to control our legal system and the courts and lawyers who operate it. The enemy is also us, because we’ve been blinded by gaudy display and don’t fully know who we are. Sun Tzu would certainly see all of this plainly.
Now, as the P.T. Barnumization of America continues, our country has become the greatest show on earth. And suckers are paying every minute to purchase tickets at inflated prices as tariffs loom, prices rise, benefits drop, and nations become wary of the U.S. as a social, political, military, and trading partner. This circus show of national proportions is designed to dazzle and keep its onlookers rapt and misguided with showy display. Words like ostentatious, flamboyant, and garish readily come to mind when today’s federal government players appear on the national stage. Washington, DC has become the new soap opera opiate of the American masses addicted to the latest news of executive memoranda, tariff hikes, meme coin launch parties, billionaire drug abusers, TACO acronym-based videos, and presidential bluster and buffoonery. We’re enraptured, manipulated, and, thus, blinded.
Further, as journalist David Brooks wrote in a recent (April 17, 2025) NYTimes opinion piece: “It’s time for a comprehensive national civic uprising. Trump is about power. The only way he’s going to be stopped is if he’s confronted by some movement that possesses rival power.” Brooks further suggested that Trumpism is purely about the acquisition of power to make the world a playground for ruthless men.
Shakespeare’s characters in Henry IV that gave rise to the “kill all the lawyers” passage were brutal, villainous, anti-intellectual, rebellious, ruthless men. They knew it would be far easier to overtake an ignorant population than one where people understood their rights.
Today’s birth and propagation of “fake news” ensures ignorance. People are confused, ill-informed, and no longer know who or what to trust. Our youth don’t even know what to protest given the sheer quantity of issues at hand. Angry sound bites have replaced informed newscasts. The result is the birth of a passive populace that can be directed at will. Americans, shame on us for being so easily hoodwinked.
Finally, we’re watching the disemboweling of higher education. When people fear to attend schools like Harvard, or begin to believe its brand of education is somehow evil or corrupt, our country will fall to the new political brand of power-and-control philosophy its greedy leaders espouse.
And yet, Harvard, a bastion of excellence in higher education respected the world over, is fighting back with a new, free course: “We the People: Civic Engagement in a Constitutional Democracy.” This course gives its students the tools to tell the story of what they value and the kind of communities and government they cherish. Harvard understands education is the way to create the underpinnings of the type of civic uprising journalist David Brooks contemplates. Harvard can play the short and long games. Knowledge of our Constitutional rights can rival and overtake the unbridled, runaway, governmental authoritarian rule we’re witnessing today. Take the Harvard course!
As Shakespeare and Justice Stevens knew, society cannot exist in a state of peace or justice without its guardians and protectors—our attorneys, judges, and justices. As Harvard knows well, educating a populace can counteract the present-day likes of those Shakespearean characters in Henry IV: Part II who want to control the champions of our Constitutional rights, our fair-minded lawyers.
Now, here comes Vermont. If ever there was a time to direct our attentions to the underpinnings of democracy that matter most, this “Brave Little State” (as Vermont Public’s podcast/recent news story attests) and its “scrappy” law school, the only one in the state, is educating students who are change leaders.
Vermont Law and Graduate School (VLGS) deserves particular mention here. Schools like VLGS—and there are scant few—that pursue and teach the ethos of law and policy as tools for public service, are the last bastions of good, the final bulwark, that can prevent the kind of power grab America’s current leaders seek. VLGS students embrace the values of serving and expanding a civil society and championing environmental sustainability. They go on to embrace and nurture the rule of law that protects people and our environment from autocracy and greed. The school’s motto, “Law for the community and the world,” is alive and well. If ever there was a time to enroll at a law school like VLGS, this moment beckons. Philanthropists and foundations take note, VLGS is the kind of place where your investments will strengthen the fabric of our nation. State legislstors, look to VLGS alumni for help with legislative policy that will protect our environment and our communities.
Our country needs more educated and just lawyers who choose to do good by serving the public interest. With more than 65% of its graduates historically seeking and securing employment in public sector work, VLGS alumni are the unsung foot soldiers and newly-anointed saviors our communities, our nation, and the world need now and for the years ahead. While Harvard might establish a baseline for understanding our Constitutional rights, it is Vermont Law and Graduate School’s faculty, students, and graduates who will ensure our freedoms are secure and never trampled again.
Shakespeare, Sun Tzu, and Justice Stevens, I suspect, would all agree.
Dave Celone writes from Vermont.