Ike Warned Us About This Guy | Laissez-Faire Bookstore.
OK, I gave you guys a break, I’ve tried to lay off the politics for the holidays. 😉
I can’t hold back any longer. Here’s a good one from Douglas French at Laissez-Faire.
He starts out his article with a quote from H.L. Menken which I really like. I’m going to say it again right here since I think it’s so pertinent to what’s going on today. Here you go…
“The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.”
I wonder, just how many people REALLY believe all these scenarios we have been dealing with constantly since 9/11 are serious threats?
I can’t even begin to count how many ‘crisis’ we have had thrust into our consciousness by the mainstream media. How many times have we been told our only option was to panic and allow those who know better than us to step up to the plate and take over.
I hope it’s only an American thing. I hope the rest of the world has not fallen for the idea that they must give up their freedom in trade for a (false) sense of security. I hope the rest of the world has not chosen to live in fear like we have in America.
I say “chosen”, but should I really use that word? When most of the people here have just been lied to so much that they can’t even imagine the truth any more. Of course, the truth has been purposely concealed, just so it makes it harder for people to see that they’re being tricked.
So is it really a choice when you’ve been lied to, tricked, deceived? Or is it really a form of coercion (meaning manipulation and violence)?
I read ‘1984’ years ago. Written by George Orwell, it was/is such a powerful novel, it made me think then and it still resonates today. I see what is happening around me today and I think to myself, “1984 has been so far surpassed by our government today, our reality is far worse than Orwells’ worst nightmares”.
‘1984’ was supposed to be a warning, not a roadmap!
In my travels to various places around the world, I see a huge difference in reactions to the idea that we are all living under constant deadly threats. Some countries like the US and Great Britain take it to ridiculous extremes and insist we live in a national prison state, just so we can pretend that somehow now we are ‘safe’.
It makes the people FEEL better, so therefore it must be worth it.
The screws just keep on tightening. The water just keeps on getting warmer. One degree at a time. Our once free countries have turned into police states before our eyes and no one seems to notice (or care).
Other places, people just seem to take it all with a grain of salt and go on enjoying their lives as best they can without adding the misery of a police state on top of whatever problems they may already have.
I have been to plenty of places in the last few years where they do NOT insist on asking for “your papers please” everywhere you go. Plenty of places don’t insist on subjecting you to a virtual strip search before your flight to visit grandma. Plenty of places don’t think it’s so overwhelmingly important to spy on everything a person does, everywhere they go, everything they say or watch or buy or read, or visit, etc.
How many people REALLY think the things we are doing to ourselves in the USA are REALLY necessary to keep us safe? How many people really think there IS any such thing as perfect safety? How many people would REALLY like to live in a world where ‘our leaders’ are allowed to do whatever they think they need to make us safe?
For those who think they really WOULD like to live in a state like that, where everything is done to make us ‘safe’, take a look at any maximum security prison. There, everyone is spied on constantly, everyone is searched constantly, everyone is identified as belonging, and so everyone is ‘safe’. Riiiiiiigggght
Close to home, for us, the TWIC debacle is always fodder for examples of security theatre. The absolute FUSS they made at my last renewal when the fingerprint scanner couldn’t read my prints (I’ve been working on the water since I was 8. I haven’t had fingerprints anywhere but on my pinky fingers since I was about 10) was pretty comical, as is the dog-hearing-a-whistle head cock that I get whenever I present it to TSA screeners.
Closer to what you’re saying, I got shouted down a few months ago for complaining that the backwater town I grew up in received a $1 million DHS grant to buy a new boat, underwater cameras and dive outfits as ‘security’ for the 40 ships a year that come calling. Seriously. Underwater bombs. Uh huh. At a tank farm that has 3 small tanks, far, far from a major port. I pointed out that nothing has ever happened, nothing has been stopped from happening, and nothing can be done to stop a rowboat full of fertilizer and diesel from being sculled alongside a ship anyways. I was not popular, especially when I pointed out that unlike anyone at the meeting, I actually WAS a VSO and might know something about something.
The problem is not the government; or what it is doing. No, I am not defending them either. I blame the people that make up the everyday citizens. They don’t want to band together and get things changed. Is it lack of knowing how? Is it lack of knowing what’s actually going on? I don’t know.
I have tried having this conversation with other people. Using 2 major focal points in our history for comparisons. It appears that the US was become a politically correct state of being, tries to exercise population control, and strip the everyday (take that as people without fat bank accounts) citizens Constitutional Rights. It didn’t end well. For the college classroom where this was attempted years ago; and the adults that made up the class; it was worse than a playground fight in an elementary school. Go figure.
There has to be a way to reign in the government. There has to be a way to get more transparency, as well as accountability. There just has to be a way. But if every door we had opened is now closed because the government has stripped us of that ability, what are we to do? If we ‘break’ the law to get the point across, we fail. If we stay within the law and can’t be heard, we fail. But something definitely has to be done in the end.