American Mythology

Human beings love a good myth and we Americans are no exception. We cherish predicting how man made global climate change or the return of Jesus Christ will bring about the eschaton. We cling to the belief that voting for the lesser of two evils will help us at last find the chimerical "public servant" who puts (our) principles before (his) money. We blame the wealthy capitalists for the plight of the indigent. We accept it as indisputable that we are all descended  from a single microbe. We love to pretend that women are slaves to their emotions when they are actually coldly calculating, assaying, comparing, and scheming. We say that soldiers die for freedom and not hegemony.

We blame "overpopulation" for a dearth of food and medicine. We say all men are equal. We say all men should be equal. We believe the constitution was written to keep government growth in check. We just know the police are the good guys. We preach about the dangers of marijuana and promote the consumption of whole wheat. We think the president is in charge. We are convinced that the velocity of money is the key to economic growth and that capital accumulation is destructive. We believe that our children need the flu vaccine.

People tell fantastical stories of ghosts, soul mates, and an afterlife. We do not for a second doubt that the history of American warfare is a history of good vs evil. Astrology is widely popular. So are credit cards. We think that it is better to buy local than to buy imports as a matter of principle. We say labor unions raised the standard of living for all working men. We believe that child labor is inherently immoral. We praise Lincoln for fighting a war to end slavery. But did he? Are any of these things true?

Did Ronald Reagan shrink the federal government? Or did it grow at a phenomenal rate after his election? Was it necessary to drop atom bombs on the Japanese in order to win the war? Or had they already been beaten? Is Israel an innocent victim of Palestinian terrorism? Or are they a brutal occupying force? Does the FDA really do more good than harm? Should the government really be in charge of the money supply? Is it really beneficial to the planet to separate plastics from paper in our garbage? Does it make sense to be against the death penalty while promoting abortion as a healthy solution for the problem of undesired offspring?

Is there really someone in the great somewhere who hears every word? And, furthermore, does that someone really give a damn?

From Jefferson to Stalin: The Devolution of the American Right

What the hell is wrong with the right wing? If you turn on Fox News or AM radio right now, you're likely to hear someone ardently defending the federal government's torture policies. This seems to fly in the face of their professed anxiety over federal power. How do they not see the hypocrisy? They bristle at the idea of the feds rounding up AK 47s, or implementing one-size-fits-all education standards, or restructuring the medical market, but are perfectly comfortable with the torturing, spying, and bombing that the U.S. undertakes on a daily basis.

What I find even more galling is that they are constantly invoking the Founding Fathers when they rally against Obamacare or gun control, but they part company with the likes of Jefferson when it comes to waging war and "enhanced interrogation tactics". Sean Hannity, in an effort to excuse the brutal actions of the CIA, asked what you would do if your child had been kidnapped and you were able to apprehend one of the miscreants responsible for this crime. Would you stop at anything to pull information from this scumbag? Or would you be a pussy and refrain from using torture while your offspring is left in the hands of the forces of evil? I think I'll pull a page out of Socrates' playbook and retort with a question of my own. What if your child was the one suspected of perpetrating a kidnapping, but was wholly innocent? What are you going to do if someone who mistakenly thinks your precious son has information decides to torture him until he talks?

You see, in America, people are supposed to be presumed innocent until proven guilty in order to protect the innocent! If Mr. Hannity had ever read the Federalist Papers or maybe the Constitution, he would note that his founding heroes spent a great deal of time trying to create a system that would protect any individual from the very monstrosity they were constructing, viz., the federal government of The United States of America. Somewhere along the the line, so-called conservatives traded in the ideals of Jefferson and Madison for the savagery of Joseph Stalin. George III was downright benevolent compared to the psychopathic rulers of contemporary America.

Torture has been the hallmark of every despotic "socialist republic" that has ever been established in the name of the very people whom it tyrannizes. Liberty and benefit of the doubt for those targeted for persecution by the State is the hallmark of a free people. It's time that Americans turned off their Fox News and picked up some books. Thinkers such as Thomas Paine, H.L. Mencken, and George Orwell have so much more to offer conservatives than Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity.

Statism: Even More Dangerous than Racism

Racism is ruining what should be martyrdom for liberty. On most days, right wingers go around disparaging government power and fervently believing that the beast should be reigned in. Left wingers, on the other hand, praise central power and advocate the use of State violence to correct alleged disparities. But then a white government employee guns down an unarmed black citizen and everyone swaps sides. The government chooses not to even have a trial for the pale faced gunman. The right wing cheers.

Of course, white people get beaten, robbed, and shot by the police all the time too. Beating, robbing, and shooting is pretty much all the State does. But the left wing of the media rarely takes notice of this phenomenon. They feel that white people are inherently privileged and that such occurrences are not news. So, the media plays up the whites vs blacks scenario and people choose their sides based on how they feel about whiteys. The real story is mostly ignored. The real story is the police vs the citizenry.

The police have a lot of power and authority as agents of the State. If I were to gun down an unarmed man (regardless of skin tone) because he had hit me and I was frightened, I promise you I would be indicted. Even if the victim had been moving toward me. If I had choked an unarmed man to death because he wouldn't stop terrifying me by remaining on his feet, I promise you I would be indicted. I also imagine that I, a white man, would be convicted. But cops are hardly ever indicted for the violence they mete out. And when they are, they're rarely convicted. This doesn't make sense to me. We should be much more vigilant about making sure the government isn't abusing the citizens it is paid to protect. Every police shooting should be scrutinized very closely. Right now public opinion seems to consider anyone who the police beat or shoot as guilty until proven innocent. Well, perhaps it is the boys in blue who should be presumed guilty. Perhaps they wouldn't resort to the pistol so quickly.With great power comes great responsibility and ish.

It probably doesn't help that the government street soldiers (aka policemen) are always depicted as the good guys on television and movies. Oh sure, every once in awhile a few bad eggs have to be taken out by internal affairs, but the heroes in this scenario are still cops themselves. We are also taught, as children being educated in government schools, to have an automatic respect for men in uniform. But as I have noted before, even if he is a nice man, the policeman qua policeman is not your friend. His job is to use violence in order to deter you from doing anything that is deemed impermissible by your duly elected panel of bureaucratic busybodies and rapacious swindlers.

Maybe the left wingers are correct. Perhaps I've downplayed the racial aspect a bit too much. There very well might be a disproportionate amount of police crime against black men. Or maybe the right wingers I hear complaining of disproportionate black violence are correct. But there is one thing that I know for sure. I have never personally been the victim of a black man's crime unless he was a member of the State. I have been pulled over, harassed, and ticketed by many a white officer. And day after day, year after year, I am systematically robbed and bullied by white politicians.  If a black man were to rob me, and then be captured, he would be put on trial. There will be no such justice for the flatfoots and scumbags who occupy central banks, white houses, and capitol buildings.