Is America a thought-free zone?

reprinted from 9/3/2004

As I read news from around our nation, I'm often dismayed. I've always been blessed, or cursed, with a natural curiosity and a need to understand... to put "the pieces" together in a comprehensible way that fits with reality. I've always believed that it's better to know an ugly truth than to avoid facing it. Some of the ugliest and hardest to face have been truths about myself. Unlike politicians, I'm fallible, and some of my mistakes have been real gems. Invariably, my worst mistakes have centered on truths that I simply didn't want to deal with... those gnawing thoughts in the back of one's mind that can easily be ignored by concentration on the frivolities of life.

We Americans are fortunate that we can float through life, seldom if ever having to face really serious problems. Most of our lives are spent doing easy work that provides us a lifestyle that our own grandparents couldn't even dream of... a lifestyle so easy, so luxurious and so secure that many people in other parts of the world cannot even conceive of, much less hope for.

What concerns me is what most of us do, or rather don't do, as part of our easy lives. What I see is an enormous number of us intellectually skimming across the surface. Our life is easy enough so that we don't have to concern ourselves with real issues... we can disconnect and ignore them. In our society, that isn't considered acceptable, so what most of us do is simply fake our concern with issues, without ever really thinking hard about them. We adopt knee-jerk slogans, phoney "caring" stances, and then whip them around emphatically, hoping nobody will call us on our disconnect from reality.

I do not accept that such people are incapable of knowing better. Most Americans have no excuse for a lack of understanding of political issues... except not wanting to take the time to THINK about them. Many of us have come to think about politics as of no more importance than choosing which restaurant to patronize tonight. Thus, we have a large number of people who couldn't begin to justify the "positions" they hold. They can tell you, in no uncertain terms, WHAT positions they've embraced, but have little idea WHY, or how their beliefs fit together or contradict each other. It's such a serious disconnect that even citizens of other, similar nations wonder what in hell Americans are thinking about.

We have among us millions of people who have decided that they're Republicans, with almost no idea of what that might mean, and millions more who have decided that they're Democrats, with an equal uncertainty about what that means.

In 2000, 18% of voters said that they decided which Presidential candidate to vote for only in the last two weeks of the campaign, while 5%, enough to swing most elections, decided on the day they voted.

70% of Americans cannot name their senators or their congressman. 49% believe that the President has the power to suspend the Constitution. Only about 30% name an issue when they explain why they voted the way they did, and only 20% hold consistent opinions on issues over time. Rephrasing poll questions reveals that many people don’t understand the issues that they have just offered an opinion on.

According to polls conducted in 1987 and 1989, between 20% and 25% of the public thinks that too little is being spent on welfare, and between 63% and 65% feels that too little is being spent on assistance to the poor. Forty percent of the public is baffled by different terminology describing the same issue?

That ignorance is an indication of an incredible shallowness on the part of Americans. Again, it isn't stupidity, it's an almost complete lack of attention and concern with politics. How can a people with so much wealth, so much free time, such easy access to information, 12 years of forced education, and a high percentage of college education, be so damned oblivious to the issues that can make or break our nation?

A friend and fellow libertarian, Russmo, recently expressed this disconnect in a strikingly concise cartoon:

It's a dismal commentary on the state of our nation. Is the explanation of economist and historian Robert Higgs in the introduction to his book AGAINST LEVIATHAN: Government Power and a Free Society the right one?

After a century of fighting a losing battle against their own government, most Americans have accommodated themselves to government's victory. Perhaps the most important reason for the ongoing growth of government is ideological; it is that so few people in the United States now really give a damn about living as free men and women. After a century of fighting a losing battle against their own governments, they have accommodated themselves to the government’s victory. In effect, they have finally accepted that the best course open to them is simply to label their servitude as freedom and to concentrate on enjoying the creature comforts that the government still permits them to possess. They may be slaves, but they are affluent slaves, and that condition is good enough for them.

Willing, affluent slaves. I wish I could disagree with Higgs' conclusion, but it fits the evidence I see around me.