“Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day. But a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of [administrations], too plainly proves a deliberate systematic plan of reducing us to slavery.”
Thomas Jefferson, 1774
There is an infectious sentiment spreading throughout the republic pertaining to its monolithic government and the system of institutions upon which Americans find themselves dependent. From industrial laborers to tax accountants, wheat farmers to kindergarten teachers, all but those most hypnotized by television’s traveling troupe of distraction artists and product peddlers have arrived at a simple yet vexing conclusion: something is very wrong.
The feeling is not unlike walking into a mystery movie at the beginning of the third act. We want desperately to understand the plot, and yet there is not a soul in the room with either the capacity or the will to bring us up to speed.
Presidents keep getting elected, new laws keep getting passed, yet the larger social ills and the greater course of events continue to remain on an unwavering trajectory, propelling a population in slow-motion toward some uncertain end.
We keep telling ourselves (with no small amount of help from the media) that simply voting for Presidents who promise to reform the corrupt and debased sectors of government, stem the overwhelming tide of inflation and debt, cultivate a lasting period of peace, and maximize personal and economic liberty will likewise make all of those American dreams a reality.
As administrations come and go and political climates materialize and dissipate, the continuation of flawed policies and an increasingly statist establishment remains. This blemished blueprint then serves as the rallying cry for the next favored political actor, who garners the support of those opposed to the blueprint by showering them with promises to cease its use, which nevertheless continues during and after his administration. Left and right we throw this ball, from court to court, as each color-coded team takes turns playing offense (an intoxicating cocktail of party aggrandizement, corruption, and control) and defense (a clownish dance of distracting derision and futile muckraking).
Every. Four. Fucking. Years.
The Republican versus the Democrat. The red state versus the blue state. The hollow-eyed hippie strolling through Whole Foods with arugula in one hand and an iPod in the other. The license-to-carry New Testament-quoting repairman lamenting an increase in the price of Marlboros. We’re well aware of the antithetical archetypes. But what Americans must understand about this divide isn’t that we aren’t tremendously polarized (it doesn’t take much observation to conclude that we are), but rather that our moral, ideological, and economic rifts are all being engineered, and dare I say, exploited.
We ought to be ashamed of ourselves.
Have we seriously spent the last century putting all of our faith in a two-party system that, after slowly eroding our civil liberties and the structural aims of the Constitution, has failed to offer even minute portions of freedom-preserving change? More pathetically, are we still going to invest ourselves in that system after what we’ve seen after electing a man who virtually ran on a platform of “post-partisan” politics? (Why Barack Obama doesn’t equal “change” is an entirely different article.)
What binds us (along with anyone who has ever risked anything to reach our shores) is a love of liberty as veracious as it is sincere. Some of us falsely believe we are currently enjoying such liberty, and that a ruthless conspiracy is bent on someday usurping the rights enshrined in our constitution. Still, others have become so disenfranchised and dependent on a monolithic federal government that they actively seek to have their own personal and economic liberty curtailed, concluding that certain decisions and responsibilities are simply better left to the state. This is the true post-partisan paradigm: the chasm between liberty and statism.
Smirk if you must, but Ayn Rand defined statism as maintaining that “man’s life and work belong to the state — to society, to the group, the gang, the race, the nation,” and that the state itself can “dispose of him in any way it pleases for the sake of whatever it deems to be its own tribal, collective good.” American? No. What the American century has been creeping towards? Yes.
Americans have always overwhelmingly believed they were on earth to become the best individuals they could be; to have the freedom to pursue their divinely-given potential to the highest extent possible, and as long as they refrained from infringing on another individual’s equally honored right to life and property, they were free to live their lives in the way they chose, without fear of oppression or servitude under a government with unlimited power.
In the history of mankind’s righteous quest for freedom from tyranny and oppression, our young republic has served as the greatest experiment in personal liberty that has ever existed.
Let’s not blow it.
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Let me take this opportunity to thank Mr. Jason Dyer for his inspiration on this post.
Christopher said this on
Sep 29 09 at
10:42 pm
Eh,left v right was never really a valid paradigm to describe the disagreements people have(in fact,its origins are theological,relating to a schism in Hegelian thought).The vast majority of sovereign economic and political bodies of any size in the last 3,000 years or so have been decidedly STATIST,for the simple fact that any anti-statist movement(which have de facto and almost always been socialistic,economically speaking)have simply been crushed militarily.The history is long,bloody,and extremely well documented.As far as I know,nothing of the “anarcho-capitalist” persuasion of any size has ever even been attempted,with enough success to be documented.Now,I could speculate that the reason is quite obviously that the wealth inequalities inherent to a capitalist system,and general reward to competition rather than cooperation,of themselves necessitate a fairly sophisticated police-state,but that’s an entirely different conversation.Anyway,the majority of capitalist economies historically HAVE been sophisticated (for their time,anyway) police-states.That said,glad to see YPAB back!
MassStrike said this on
Oct 15 09 at
2:10 am
MassStrike returns! Get an avatar! Put an image with the infamous moniker!
Christopher said this on
Oct 15 09 at
12:15 pm
REALITY said this on Haha, are you kidding? This is the ONLY site I really liked posting on, so much better than Kos…
MassStrike said this on
Oct 16 09 at
1:23 pm
