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The Slaves Shall Serve
I just finished reading this book by James Wasserman. I did a hostage exchange with ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
indigo93 for it, I lent him my copy of Wilson's TSOG: The Thing That Ate the Constitution. Excellent book, very libertarian sentiments.
The book didn't really contain anything I wasn't already aware of in a broad sense, although it had details about things like Waco and Ruby Ridge that I didn't have specific knowledge of. In fact, the only thing I even slightly disagree with is Wasserman's comments on religion, towards the back of the book, about how people need a higher power to follow, but all I need to do is substitute "ethical code" for what he refers to as a higher power and we're in agreement again. (He does make comments to that effect, as a concession to agnostics such as myself, I guess; it's his main thrust that I disagreed with.)
I used to be a pretty liberal guy, I was even a member of the Young Communist League, sort of, if signing up at a Rage Against the Machine concert and attending one meeting counts as being a member. I also used to be very into conspiracy theories and was in general a very credulous person. As I've gotten older and matured a bit (good god, that feels weird saying that) I've gotten a lot more skeptical of everything, and I think this has a lot to do with why I'm not nearly as much of a left-wing kind of guy as I used to fancy myself. When I read about Communism, I thought it was a great idea, and it is, on paper. The problem with it is that it falls to shit as soon as you stop looking at Communist Theory (henceforth referred to as "CT") and start looking at it in practice. CT fails to account for the sheer bloody-mindedness of the average human being, to work it requires all people to behave in a rational manner, and that shit just doesn't happen. But in any case, I used to really care about feeding the hungry, making sure everyone got the health care they needed, all that socialist wet dream stuff. It all boiled down to the fact that I had a really strong sense of justice, of wanting things to be fair, and I thought that that could be achieved through communism.
Well, my outlook has changed quite a bit. I still have a strong sense of justice, but I've come to the conclusion that there's no way to achieve it through a socialist framework. Simply put, I want to be able to enjoy the fruits of my own efforts myself, without having the things I work for taken away from me. I'm responsible for my actions, and my actions alone. I'm not responsible for the deeds of anyone else who happens to have the same name, skin color, language, sexual proclivities or comic book preferences as me. That being said, I'm not one of those rabid, Ayn Rand type individualists, I still see usefulness in some collective effort, but I want to share collective effort with other individuals who are also pulling their own weight.
As an example, take taxes. While paying taxes sucks, I wouldn't mind so much if I had a say in what they went for. Schools, great! Roads, great! Military defense of the country, great! Paying farmers for not growing crops... fuck that. Subsidies to corporations... fuck that. The Drug War... FUCK THAT. You hear all this bullshit about the economy being fucked, damn near all the states in the country are fucked up financially, and it's all due to the very simple fact that our taxes are being used to pay for bullshit. Every time a spending bill is passed, it's full of riders that have nothing to do with the main thrust of the bill, but go to restoring the waterfront of some Congressman's district, or another raise for politicians, or other bullshit like that. Sure I'm oversimplifying, but the main point is true. The government is corrupt, plain and simple. If our tax money actually went to the things it was supposed to go to, instead of bullshit, there would be no budget problems, and there would be no fucking deficit, either. The damn taxes would be a hell of a lot lower, too. This is a problem of BOTH parties, the Democrats and Republicans. They're both equally full of shit. The Democrats want to raise taxes and spend money on social programs, the Republicans want to cut taxes and social programs, but neither one wants to cut out the extraneous bullshit that our money gets wasted on, that's the real problem. Fuck, if we did that we could probably have social programs AND cut taxes. The money is there, it's just being pissed away on bullshit. The bullshit comes from the politicians voting to send pork money to their districts, from government contractors padding their invoices because they know they can get away with it, from corporations getting tax cuts for no reason, and I'm just tired of it.
As crazy as they sometimes sound to my still liberal-conditioned mind, the NRA really does have a good point when they say that the Second Amendment is the foundation of all of our other rights. It's rapidly getting to the point, if it's not there already, that if we're ever going to get our nation under control again, it's going to take at least an armed march on Washington, if not another revolution. I've never felt strongly about guns one way or another, I've fired .22 rifles and shotguns before at targets and skeet, but I don't now, nor have I ever owned a gun. I'm starting to think that I should. Our government is fucked up. It's simply out of control, we've gotten too far away from the principles this nation was founded upon, as set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Personally, I'd like to see us start over. Get rid of all the federal laws except for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th Amendments can stay, as well. Throw everything else out, and let's start afresh. Without a renewal of this nature, I think we're fucked. At heart, I'm an anarchist, but I think the founding fathers were as well, at least that's the impression I get from the documents they wrote. The Constitution seems to be the best way of forming a minimal government that allows for the maximum amount of freedom with the least amount restriction. We should never have stopped using it.
(Note: I wrote this at work, so there were interruptions I had to deal with, and that's why it seems a bit scatterbrained. I'll be editing it as the mood strikes me.)
indigo93 for it, I lent him my copy of Wilson's TSOG: The Thing That Ate the Constitution. Excellent book, very libertarian sentiments. The book didn't really contain anything I wasn't already aware of in a broad sense, although it had details about things like Waco and Ruby Ridge that I didn't have specific knowledge of. In fact, the only thing I even slightly disagree with is Wasserman's comments on religion, towards the back of the book, about how people need a higher power to follow, but all I need to do is substitute "ethical code" for what he refers to as a higher power and we're in agreement again. (He does make comments to that effect, as a concession to agnostics such as myself, I guess; it's his main thrust that I disagreed with.)
I used to be a pretty liberal guy, I was even a member of the Young Communist League, sort of, if signing up at a Rage Against the Machine concert and attending one meeting counts as being a member. I also used to be very into conspiracy theories and was in general a very credulous person. As I've gotten older and matured a bit (good god, that feels weird saying that) I've gotten a lot more skeptical of everything, and I think this has a lot to do with why I'm not nearly as much of a left-wing kind of guy as I used to fancy myself. When I read about Communism, I thought it was a great idea, and it is, on paper. The problem with it is that it falls to shit as soon as you stop looking at Communist Theory (henceforth referred to as "CT") and start looking at it in practice. CT fails to account for the sheer bloody-mindedness of the average human being, to work it requires all people to behave in a rational manner, and that shit just doesn't happen. But in any case, I used to really care about feeding the hungry, making sure everyone got the health care they needed, all that socialist wet dream stuff. It all boiled down to the fact that I had a really strong sense of justice, of wanting things to be fair, and I thought that that could be achieved through communism.
Well, my outlook has changed quite a bit. I still have a strong sense of justice, but I've come to the conclusion that there's no way to achieve it through a socialist framework. Simply put, I want to be able to enjoy the fruits of my own efforts myself, without having the things I work for taken away from me. I'm responsible for my actions, and my actions alone. I'm not responsible for the deeds of anyone else who happens to have the same name, skin color, language, sexual proclivities or comic book preferences as me. That being said, I'm not one of those rabid, Ayn Rand type individualists, I still see usefulness in some collective effort, but I want to share collective effort with other individuals who are also pulling their own weight.
As an example, take taxes. While paying taxes sucks, I wouldn't mind so much if I had a say in what they went for. Schools, great! Roads, great! Military defense of the country, great! Paying farmers for not growing crops... fuck that. Subsidies to corporations... fuck that. The Drug War... FUCK THAT. You hear all this bullshit about the economy being fucked, damn near all the states in the country are fucked up financially, and it's all due to the very simple fact that our taxes are being used to pay for bullshit. Every time a spending bill is passed, it's full of riders that have nothing to do with the main thrust of the bill, but go to restoring the waterfront of some Congressman's district, or another raise for politicians, or other bullshit like that. Sure I'm oversimplifying, but the main point is true. The government is corrupt, plain and simple. If our tax money actually went to the things it was supposed to go to, instead of bullshit, there would be no budget problems, and there would be no fucking deficit, either. The damn taxes would be a hell of a lot lower, too. This is a problem of BOTH parties, the Democrats and Republicans. They're both equally full of shit. The Democrats want to raise taxes and spend money on social programs, the Republicans want to cut taxes and social programs, but neither one wants to cut out the extraneous bullshit that our money gets wasted on, that's the real problem. Fuck, if we did that we could probably have social programs AND cut taxes. The money is there, it's just being pissed away on bullshit. The bullshit comes from the politicians voting to send pork money to their districts, from government contractors padding their invoices because they know they can get away with it, from corporations getting tax cuts for no reason, and I'm just tired of it.
As crazy as they sometimes sound to my still liberal-conditioned mind, the NRA really does have a good point when they say that the Second Amendment is the foundation of all of our other rights. It's rapidly getting to the point, if it's not there already, that if we're ever going to get our nation under control again, it's going to take at least an armed march on Washington, if not another revolution. I've never felt strongly about guns one way or another, I've fired .22 rifles and shotguns before at targets and skeet, but I don't now, nor have I ever owned a gun. I'm starting to think that I should. Our government is fucked up. It's simply out of control, we've gotten too far away from the principles this nation was founded upon, as set forth in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution. Personally, I'd like to see us start over. Get rid of all the federal laws except for the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The 13th, 14th, 15th, 19th, 24th, and 26th Amendments can stay, as well. Throw everything else out, and let's start afresh. Without a renewal of this nature, I think we're fucked. At heart, I'm an anarchist, but I think the founding fathers were as well, at least that's the impression I get from the documents they wrote. The Constitution seems to be the best way of forming a minimal government that allows for the maximum amount of freedom with the least amount restriction. We should never have stopped using it.
(Note: I wrote this at work, so there were interruptions I had to deal with, and that's why it seems a bit scatterbrained. I'll be editing it as the mood strikes me.)