Now, if all you misguided, self-owning, private Americans would only stop your kvetching and trust your innocuous and ever-benevolent masters... by Dan Alba
(libertarian)
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Now, it seems to me — and I might be reaching here — that the Founders felt just the opposite: that individual life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness were the principles worth fighting and dying for against the imperial British government.
Indeed, it was a well-founded distrust in government, and disdain for the status quo, that spurred a revolution toward American independence. And, so far as elected leaders are concerned, Thomas Jefferson said, "[L]et no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution."
But who am I but another skeptical American who is obviously contributing to what Ron Fournier and the AP see as a troubling trend of distrust in government.
Keeping with the AP tradition of blaming systemic shortcomings of government on everything but the system and its exponents, Fournier mourns the meltdown yet never considers whether his and his employer's fascialist ideology is at the heart of what's wrong.
On the contrary, the government's ever-increasing control over private life is Orwellianly omitted for the sake of blaming "lax government oversight" and isolated incidents of "corporate wrongdoing" for "the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression."
And God forbid that the state-coddling news media should be held to account one iota for all the government has gotten away with. Ironically, Fournier asks: "How did we get to this point where people EXPECT their government to lie to them?" Perhaps Fournier is upset that he and his industry peers have done a sub-par job, lately, of passing government lies as Gospel.
But at some point, every shrewd observer comes to realize that lying is in fact necessary for governments to maintain and expand their domains over their subjects — to keep alive domestic and foreign policies that would otherwise be violently rejected for the immoral and illegal wars they are.
Apparently, AP's target audience is not so nuanced or independent of thought. No. The ideal consumer of AP copy is rather a herd-follower amenable to drone-conditioning state-worship. Why else, in his final attack on common sense, would Fournier have the gall to blame private Americans for being too skeptical about whom they elect to office?
From their government, Americans don't expect perfection. But the system requires that people at least have faith in their political leaders to be competent and accountable.
"If people don't believe, if people don't give, if people don't trust, they will pick the politicians who are the loudest rather than the most sincere," said Baick, the history professor. "They will pick the rabble rouser rather than the technocrat who gets things done."
Right. "Get things done," as in, wreck the economy by printing, spending and borrowing money, and destroying private property everywhere — all in the name of freedom and prosperity. This is the "system" that is accepted as an inevitable and indispensable part of American life by the greatest luminaries of the free [sic] press.
Now, if all you misguided, self-owning, private Americans would only stop your kvetching and trust your innocuous and ever-benevolent masters...
Dan Alba writes from the SW region of the USSA. Dan suggests that you support liberty-driven congressional candidates like Jake Towne and Rand Paul.
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Posted By: George Dance
Date: June 12, 2010 10:32:28 PM
you could also quote James Madison to support your argument that the United States were founded on the idea of distrust of government. Madison's line, "If men were angels, no government would be necessary" is widely quoted" -- but the words he immediately follows those with are just as important to his political philosophy:
If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself." (The Federalist #51)
