Tyranny is not the will of the Tyrant, but the non-vigilance of the tyranised.
(and so on…you get the picture)
The point of this rhetoric is the duality that has emerged in recent times surrounding the true nature of the so-called founders, keepers, and deliverers of liberty. The nations of the West.
These nations make speeches about injustice on far off doorsteps, while they maintain an elite at the expense of the proletariat. They speek of the lack of freedom people have in other countries, yet they spy on, stall, and detain their own citizens. They suffuse the lives of their people with suspicion and fear against each other, to leave the bossom of the state the only thing to trust.
What has happened to Liberty, Equality, Fraternity?
And why are we so inactive?
Power. In the USA fraternity is long dead. Equality is very much alive though.
I somewhat wonder that the US is exploring it’s options from cradel to grave direction. That is, what percent of the population can be made productive through state directed morality? American society is asking this question.
The ‘founders’(whatever that means) understood self directed morality as the balance of their new power granted. But today power is seemingly unbalanced with lots of people unable to cope. Other systems may be able to take custodial care of these people.
I believe the presidency is under care due to various things, not the least of which is the sheer amount of money needed to win. Couple that with a small number of ultra wealthly people and you have a new power base.
Another problem in USA is that it could be argued very well that United States has lost it’s principals. We support dictators, monarchs, war lords, and so forth. We allow 40 million of our citizens to go without health care, more people in some areas go to prison than graduate high school. The city of New Orleans went into chaos in less than 48 hours of disaster… The media is destructive and polarizing- No longer is a person American they are liberal and conservative.
This is surely the worst time to be proud of America that I can ever recall. Yet it seems like everybody wants to come here.
I think your point about the media is an important one. There aren’t many parts of the media not spitting into the maelstrom of partisan politics.
The corporate media is, I think, one of the biggest factors in the disunity of the U.S, Robert Redford said in an interview that a film like ‘‘All the president’s men’’ couldn’t be made today and I can’t help but agree. Journalism cannot be driven by money, if it is, then it ceases to exist, ceases to inform, and starts to dictate and badger.
The U.S governments ‘‘dollar politics’’ abroad isn’t exactly turning enemies to friends, and the same kind of policies at home are making the people disheartened and cynical, making them easy prey for the hysteria-mongering, monetary media. The people need to switch off their t.v’s and speak with their feet. Democracy has to now be heard, not folded and placed in a tin box.
350 million thank-you 's to the person who figures out how, and 6 billion more relaxing sighs.
Yes but that just it! That requires the balance of power.
As it is, the differences among politics is one of surface level disagreement. Clinton vs Obama is Light Green vs a Salad color crayon. You’re going to get green either way.
There exists a lot of illusion, so much so that it could be said a good president simply didn’t break the system. This suggest the power is not within that office. Maybe this is what Cheney is trying to amend… but I’d ask him face to face “at what cost?”
There does come a time when a ‘win’ is not worth the cost.
There are too many costly attempts at a ‘‘win’’ already teatering on the edge of failure, such as the Patriot Act, for the costs to be mounted up with more risks.
The political landscape is looking a little too much like a mini-Weimar Republic for my liking. The rivalry within parties can only heighten the confusion, whereby the likes of Ceney can abuse and make some seriously damaging changes. The run up to the election where candidates are looking for an egde will make them desperate, it happened with Iraq, they all agreed and later realised their mistake, blinded by terror-rhetoric on the part of the administration. Modern politicians can’t seem to keep their heads and convinctions on straight, that’s assuming they aren’t simply voting politically anyway.
To be be chained to whom or what? If you concede that there is an authority to which one submits his liberty, then at least one entity must be free. Or, if you endorse constract theory, persons in a state of nature, seeing the net gain in freedon in surrendouring part of their freedom to a collective authority will transcend the state of nature, where all their freedom is in jeopardy from uncivilized savages, to obey the dictates of a collective benevolence.
Of course, the current malaise with democracy, where voters cast ballots without knowing the issues or the qualifications of the candidate if they vote at all is a sellout of democracy and a surrendour of one’s franchise. Recent elections have been decided on Pavlovian responses to catch-phrases with no thought to the issues and forebode a dim future for democracy.
Better for who?
It is certainly better for those at the levers of control to have the people believe that there is no tyranny and their submission is both voluntary and necessary in order to preclude the chaos that would surely insue were it not so.
Unfotunately for that, by surrendering themselves to an unscrupulous authority the people encourage authority to visit chaos upon them and restrcict them even further in the name of defeating this deliberate chaos and defending the people’s freedom and liberty.
The people will go along in the belief that the authority is acting in the people’s best interest far beyond the point where all individual freedom and liberty is precluded in the mistaken idea that it is all necessary to protect them.
At some point the people will not even need to know from whom they are being protected, only that it is neccessary and the consequences of not going along are dire.