What's wrong with this country? by Logical Premise
(statist)
Wednesday, February 20, 2008
A few days ago, I wrote an article about the problems with this campaign as I saw it. Some people considered it an attack on government, when it was intended to be an attack on the canidates and people's simple-minded expectation that one man can "change" the government.
I'm going to expound upon that theme a little.
There are really only two ways to look at the government -- what you think it should be doing, and how big you think it should be. The liberal-conservative thing is what you think government should be doing. The statist-libertarian thing is how big you think it should be. The problem is that these are straightjackets of thinking that limit not only our ways of looking at the government, but our respsonses. I've tried to think of other ways of considering our responses to government, such as in this article? , but again, there are only so many ways to look at it without examining fundamental problems.
So:
Fundamental Problem One: Dogmatic assertions
Statists, as everyone knows, are communistic godless bureaucrats who hate liberty. Libertarians are long-haired militia types stuck 200 years in the past ranting about consipiracies. Liberals are God-hateing feminazi's and their eco-worried homosexual male friends, and conservatives are war-mongering Klan members who use God to bash everything. Centrists are too weak-kneed to decide anything and never vote anyway, so who cares.
These are ridiculous caracatures, and are in all ways inaccurate for all involved. Yet these stereotypes are what's hurled about as if they actually have some sort of validity. There isn't any left-right discourse, it's just rhetoric and namecalling. And as for libertarian-statist discourse, most statists won't even bother to speak to anyone who doesn't belive Government is God, and libertarians have about as much interests in debating if they're right or wrong as they do for national ID cards. So without any discourse -- or the idea that any discourse is important -- all you have left is dogmatic assertions in the MSM.
In reality? There's shades of grey. There's lot of discourse going on at Nolan Chart. Granted, a lot of it confirms expectations. My statism has gotten a lot stronger as a result of being exposed to libertarian thinking, and having reasons to read the books and websites and whatnot. Before, I thought big government was good because .... well, I had no reason but that "government = organization". After reading and discussing in debates, and thinking, I have more reasoned opinions about why. I suspect libertarians, after having heard more about statism, can find many more reasons why they feel their beliefs are valid.
But on the other hand, these assertions aren't "dogmatic". They're the result of discussion and talking and listening and reading the "other sides" stuff. When I say "big governent is good because without it we don't have a way to do X, Y, or Z" I am talking out of my ass. If you are a liberal because you "feel" something, and you've never defended that position against a hardline conservative, your feelings are just feelings. Until you've had a chance to read the other side's material, hear their arguements, and deal with their objections -- how can you know you're right?
Some will give the answer "I don't need to be able to define obsenity to recognize it when I see it", or "I don't need to discuss racism with a racist to know it's wrong". And that is certainly true -- but I don't think a lot of things that are supported by ANY of the points on the Nolan chart are so easy to dismiss. There are liberal ideas that need to be addressed, and conservative ones, and statist ones, and libertarian ones. Throwing the baby out with the bathwater simply because the bathwater looks dirty is dumb. Saying "well, I don't need to drink the water to know it's dirty" doesn't justify flinging the baby out too!
Fundamental Problem Two: Apathy and Ignorance
Government is not the problem. A government has no existance outside of the rules that define it, the people that make it work, and the populace that submits to it's governance. Government could be so big it was in everything, or so small that it was almost non-existant -- but it's the people who make it divine or corrupted.
The people in this country have turned away from introspection, and self-critique, and what I like to call "meaningful individualism". Instead of instrospection, they prefer distraction. Instead of self-critique and discipline, they prefer egalitiarian "sameness" and a culture where children are praised right or wrong. Instead of the individualism where everyone did what they could on their own, but shared common values, culture, language, and backgrounds, nowdays everyone wants to be a fucking unique snowflake, with their cultural values and language and background and ethnic history given the same weight as all of American history.
The result? A society where it's always someone else's fault, responsibility, and problem.
The Ron Paul campaign supporters have been puzzled and frustrated at the reaction of Republican voters, voting for canidates that don't match supposed Republican values when their Dr. Paul does. This is the problem. Dr. Paul is preaching a message that, however positive and valuable, I don't think the electorate wants to hear. The electorate hears things like "personal responsiblity", "liberty", "independance" and translates all those into "government not solving my problems."
Libertarans, as a rule, don't WANT the government to solve problems. Neocons want the government to solve problems, overseas, and evangelicals want governments to solve problems, with social issues, and paleoconservatives want governments to solve problems with trade and fiscal policy. Only the latter group (what's left of it) and the libertarian base responds to Ron Paul.
Obama is surging widly for the same reason Ron Paul isn't: he's promising the sun, the moon, the stars, that galaxy over there, and a chicken in every driveway and pot in every car. (Yes, I know, mixed up metaphors. Satire.) He's preaching "hope" and "change" and people hear that and think "Yay, the government will solve my problems for me."
It's an abandonment of personal give-a-shit, and the blind belief that "someone else knows best". Statists tend to nod sagely at these ideas and libertarians hate them. (Ironically, statists tend to believe the people best suited to run the government ARE libertarians, since they are less likely to be corrupted -- if we coudl just curb your desire for small governments.)
Fundamental Problem Three: The Main Stream Media
The MSM sells. It's a business, it needs to sell what people want. People don't want news. They want entertainment, they want distraction, they want reality shows and watching other people suffering so they can feel better. News, along with critical thinking, analysis, and political discourse, is not something a lot of people are into.
The result of that is that most people (who simply don't care anyway) have nothing to prod them or instruct them in what's actually going on. Is the economy bad, sure. Why? TV said so.
The American public was not forced into this. No one had the Jackbooted Statist Army stomp into homes and club people with nightsticks until the cumulative braindamage left a nation of drooling halfwits who would believe anything Anderson Cooper or Bill O'Reilly or Ariana Huffington would say or tell them. The problem is that , perhaps, society got more complex, more cut-throat, more about the bottom line and the almighty dollar and less about doing the right thing. when that mindset infected the media, it no longer innoculated the people against their own apathy.
Some have hopes the Internet will do that. But there's so much garbage on the internet it's hard to wade through the dross to find gold. And every piece of dross is another distraction, another focus away from the real issues and towards the things that keep us muttering about government without changing the people involved in it.
These three issues produce an electorate that doesn't care what it's leaders do. Leaders produced by such an electorate are only concerned with staying in power, extending their power, and following their own ideals, not what's best for this country, as evidenced by both Presidents Clinton and Bush.
In order to come up with real changes, you'll need more than one presidential candidate. People gambling that Obama will "change the world" are lying to themselves. People who hope that Ron Paul will "make government smaller and better" are resigned to seeing a Paul Presidency opposed by the entire congress. It will take action by the people, for the people, and of the people to get anything changed worthwhile.
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Posted By: Ivan from Oregon
Date: 2008-02-20 22:54:40
Logical, I gave you a thumb for effort, even though you remind me of a bureaucrat in your reasoning. It's pretty clear that today, not many of us truly want to be free. I used to have pet parakeets that grew up in a cage and didn't really want to leave it. I had to teach them to exist out of the cage before they were comfortable with it. With us humanoids, we have four or five generations of us living under the yoke of the bankers. We got there step by step and have come to believe that "rights" are something owed to us from mommy Government, having first stolen it from others of us. The Revolution in the eiteenth century was handed to us by a small percentage of the population. I don't know if the youngsters inheriting this mess have the will to pay the "price" of liberty. We'll find out.
Mostly, though, my point is that to have any of the changes that people think need to be made, you have to combat the base problems first. Even if Obama meant what he preaches and has some kind of specific plans (which I don't think he does), you can't have far-reaching changes based on government programs if the people aren't involved.
For the neocon wing, the current state of the public is where the neocons want them, and quite frankly, I think the main reason Obama is so successful is that a lot of people are sick of what the neocons are selling -- but the people are why the neocons got away with selling it in the first place. Looping catch-22's make it very difficult for fundamental changes in society to have any "real" impact on day to day living.
Finally, Ivan, the problem with your analogy is simple. Living "free" is exhilarating for some people. But if given the choice between flying free and doing what you wanted and struggling to survive, or guaranteed food, survival, comfort, and protection from predators, you can't really expect everyone to choose "freedom" over "security".
I can agree with the sentiments, but the public is a domesticated animal at this point, and they are not going to be able to live in the wild.
Posted By: Walt Thiessen
Date: 2008-02-22 08:38:09
Is it that the people want the moon and the stars (i.e. big government) or is it that they don't believe that the opposite is available to them? I tend to believe it's the latter. As an example, in our local campaigning for Ron Paul, we had a number of people tell us that they really liked our guy, but they couldn't support him because "he can't win." Now, are those the words of someone who wants more government, or are they the words of someone who doesn't believe he can get less govenment?
Oh, I'm sure there's lots of people who would like the idea of "small government" as it's being sold. I doubt very strongly that many of them have thought it all the way through.
But really, what you have in that case is people too timid to commit. They're the parakeets who like to look outside the window from the safety of their birdcage and talk big about how great it would to be free but that it isn't going to happen.
Open the cage and see if they fly out. Ivan From Oregon will tell you the result -- they won't go, or if they do, they'll fly right back in at night and expect the same treatment -- free food and security.
Posted By: patrick henry
Date: 2008-02-28 15:52:32
LP
Good article and I agree with almost all of it. Imagine that! It seems strange that you seem to side with us Ron Paul freaks on our POV that people are sheep. Maybe now we can call them parakeets and you wont get offended.
But you make awesome points, the one thing that I would caveat is that we KNOW that even IF Dr. Paul was POTUS that he cant change it by himself.
This is the main tenant why things need to be decentralized from the FED. REPUBLIC checks and balances.
If TN was a LIBERTY state, I bet we would have alot more people moving here.
And even when the poeple to voice their opinions the FED doesnt care. Take Californias Proposition 215 (Medicinal Marijuanna) The people of the state of CA voted to allow Dr.s (which are regulated in practice by the state) to recommend cannabis to terminal patients. These are people dying of Brain CA etc that cant eat unless they smoke. The FED cares not, subsequently raids and imprison people for violation of the CSA of 1970, for possessing a weed (that God gave us) that makes you feel better and eat before you die. So the people actively defy the DEA. Why arent we as Americans outraged at this usurpation or our Rights. The people voted for it!
Keep writing bro, your doin a good job, just be prepared to take some heat when suggesting taking away my LIBERTY a I will not be so passive to let it go.
OBTW read Brave New World by Arlous Huxley, Fascism with a smile no jack booted thugs.
I'm 22 and take huge offense to all this "youngsters" nonsense. All of you "old folks" who seems to have more "work ethic" more "will power" etc etc. You guys created this enviroment. Not us. Now you say we don't have the ability to see things through and make things right? Yes we do. We will fix your mess that you all created because you are indeed much lazier, apathetic, and immature than you all are willing to admit. Our liberty is at risk because of all of your choices. So before you question us why don't you look at yourselves for a change.
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