At the behest of the financial controllers, the left and right departments of the political system expand government’s coercive power from behind blustery rhetoric about the evils of intrusive government (intrudes too far into markets says the Right, too far into personal privacy says the Left).
Global warming and terrorism illustrate this Left-Right symmetry.
Here’s a passage from George Will’s 6/22/09 Newsweek column:
“Nowadays, green reasoning is the first refuge of scoundrels. Global warming has become like God: It is an explanation for everything and an all-purpose excuse for the political class to do whatever it wants to do—what it has a metabolic urge to do—and that is boss people around. It can maximize its opportunities for doing that if it maximizes the number of people dependent on government, and the number of ways in which they are dependent.”The ostensibly observant Will fails to note that homeland security reasoning is another first refuge of scoundrels and that terrorism also has become like God, explaining everything and giving the political class an excuse to boss people around (have you tried boarding a plane lately?)
Whether climate change is imminent and if so whether human industry plays a role, I don’t have the scientific understanding to say. Whether terrorists are at our doorstep, however, seems doubtful. The U.S.-Mexican border has remained wide open since 9/11, with uncounted thousands of visitors crossing into the U.S., backpacks full of God knows what, undocumented and untraceable. And yet, the border states have not suffered terrorist bombings, suicidal or otherwise. The door is open, the bad guys are not walking through. The threat is overblown.
But the terrorist threat functions for the political Right exactly as the climatological threat functions for the political Left. Both are pretexts for monitoring and controlling you and me.
i want to say right off the bat that i love your blog- i have been folowing it for at least a year, and a lot of what you have to say i think is totaly right on. now you know where im coming from-
ReplyDeletei have noticed that you talk a lot about being enslaved and controlled. by the government, by the ultrawealthy, whoever.
first, if there is an all powerful group bent on world domination, what good does it do to spout off about how theyre trying to control or enslave us.
i mean, if they are so coordinated and powerful, you arent really going to stop them are you?
if they are so powerful, might they not also be privy to information you cant fathom. mybe they need a certain amount of control to save bums like you and me and the other 6 billion from self-extinction.
second, regardles of who is doing what to who- all that i can see you are actually doing by ranting about the threat of this slavery is engaging your(and my adrenal system). maybe the thing that is controlling and enslaving is adrenaline addiction.
Right. The prospect of futility hovers over the project of warning against encroaching totalitarianism.
ReplyDeleteIs it already too late?
I can only respond like this:
1). One has a moral duty
2). The control elite comprises fallible human beings. Infighting, paranoia, deceit and betrayal, not to mention simple miscalculation, among those who aspire to the executive positions provide a realistic prospect that they will torpedo themselves and each other.
Helllo mate great blog
ReplyDelete