Can our species survive?

There are times when I think our species is hopeless. In my fellow humans, I see high energy, bountiful creativity, and splendid innovation. I see that in our personal dealings, almost all of us treat each other with respect and fairness. We are superbly capable and talented beings, yet we have one flaw that is very likely to destroy our species if we don't recognize it and dispense with it.

We, as individual beings, are so willing to live in subjugation to others. We eagerly subject ourselves to territorial governments that abuse us no end. We also humbly accede to a variety of mystical claimants seeking our obedience and worship.

Perhaps we are haunted by deep ancestral fears that made it a matter of necessity for us to pack together to hunt and for protection. Perhaps those fears, played upon by seekers of dominant power generation after generation, have instilled an insecurity that we can't quite get rid of. Fears that were originally quite real are no longer, yet we seem to have allowed those deep-seated anxieties to blind us to the fact that we no longer require "leaders"... no longer need to subject ourselves to the power of the state or the mystical assurances of religions.

Consider how many governmental entities whose laws, regulations, and directives we subject ourselves to. The city and its various agencies, the county, multi-city and multi-county district boards, and the state, with more regulatory agencies than a human could remember. And, hovering above all Those tax-seeking, privilege-granting councils, committees, commissions, authorities, and boards is our uber-dominant federal government, with more life-changing powers over us than can even be imagined much less knowingly complied with. For each of us, it is only a matter of time and fortune until we find ourselves penalized, fined, charged, tried, bankrupted, jailed, or imprisoned, even though we never stopped trying to avoid such problems.

American slaves

How do we Americans react to living under this multitude of hammers hovering over our heads? How do we react to having half of everything we earn taken from us... to pay for the creation and enforcement of the very entities that threaten us? For the most part, we quietly submit. We may complain, or more likely nervously joke about it, comforting ourselves that we are all in the same fix. We expound about the rare advantages that we can hypothetically derive from living as slaves. We explain it away with examples of how the hammers also protect us from "others" who might deliberately be bad, or point out that it could be worse. More often, we spout some platitude blaming those who voted the "other way", or hurry off to busy and distract ourselves with less troubling activities. Our nation, once admired around the world as upstart, rowdy, and freedom-loving, who revolted against the most powerful nation on the planet... and succeeded... has gradually become something completely alien.


We've given up on reducing government

We've come to accept the governmental fatal alternative... do you want this, or this instead? The two major parties play that alternative for all it's worth. As proof that we've been seriously suckered, notice how often people complain that our government should stop doing something... and do something else instead. Seldom do we insist that our government should simply stop doing something. Many anti-war groups don't just want an end to war; they want the money that is being spent on war to be spent on other government programs. Many of those pushing for re-legalization of drugs will not be satisfied with just that... they promote new government programs on the opposite side of the issue.

The fatal alternative

The fatal alternative has become ingrained in American thought. Rather than being concerned about what government has no right to do, we've come to accept that we should just want the priorities changed.... cut this so you can increase that. Worse, many of us have come to accept that what our government does reflects what the people want.

I listened recently as a young woman complained that Americans hold science as much more important than the arts. After delving into her thinking, it became clear that she meant that government spends a lot more funding science than the arts. Either she believes that governmental priorities reflect what the people want, or that the people are to blame for government priorities. I tried explaining that government prefers science because it can lead directly to an increase in power, which is what government is all about. That says nothing about the priorities the citizenry place on science versus the arts, but the young woman (and many, many others) have come to believe that it does. We still like to believe that government reflects the desires of the people. When it doesn't match what we want, we may assume it's because other people we don't know are driving government priorities.

Notice how easily the war issue fatal alternative changed politically... "stay the course" versus "get out now" has been shifted to surge or no surge... even to surge versus bigger surge. Government will never reduce itself voluntarily. It will never stop violating rights, taking more of our earnings, or becoming even more intrusive and manipulating... unless Americans make one hell of a big fuss. Our governments will continue to increase in size and destructiveness until we STOP IT. Choosing one set of programs over another will not even slow the growth. Choosing one set of power-hungry crooks over another will not even slow the growth. In fact, what we Americans have been doing for many decades... electorally throwing out the bums and inserting new bums may actually make the problems worse... because we have to give the new bums a little extra leeway to implement their changes. Each election we pat ourselves on the back, and government surges ahead again... bigger and worse than ever. It's the political equivalent of "turning the other cheek", and it doesn't stop the beatings.

Remarkably, despite having allowed ourselves to become placid slaves to our own governments, Americans are still the hope of the species... the people most capable of tossing off the oppressive yoke of a government so out of control that we have no idea what to expect next. Before that can happen, though, we have to SEE what the problem is and then have guts enough to actually do something about it. I wish I could be confident about that happening.

and I didn't speak up

reprinted from December 30, 2003

Pastor Martin Niemoller, who later became head of the World Council of Churches, and was an outspoken critic of the Hitler regime, gave a number of speeches in which he used various versions of the following well-known poem.

First they came for the Communists,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak up,
because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn't speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me.

I want to talk about the important lessons of the Niemoller poem/sermon. It's a guilt-ridden poem, and Niemoller was guilty, in his own eyes. He had been a submarine commander in WWI, and had initially supported Hitler. Niemoller, however, was explaining the widespread guilt of Germans in ignoring what their own government was doing... until it actually affected them... until it was too late to stop.

It's important for all of us to recognize when we've been wrong, take responsibility for it, take action to change our ways, and to try to make amends for any harm our wrongness caused. I'm not much of a believer in "evil", but if there is human evil, I suspect the worst examples are those people who know they're wrong, but will use all sorts of trickery to keep from admitting it and to prevent anyone else from knowing.

Politicians are probably the most "evil" by my definition; they cannot be so ignorant as to not realize that there is damage caused by every piece of legislation they pass... a downside that seriously harms some people in order to benefit others. They know this and evade it like the plague. If forced to face it, they'll respond with something about the "greater good" or "society as a whole" and quickly evade again. It isn't hard to find Americans who, when questioned about the slaughter in Iraq, will immediately use a similar evasion, barking back that "they support our young men and women putting their lives on the line" as if that was some sort of answer.

Intellectual honesty is important, but the point of what Niemoller was saying is equally important... his point was that when government takes liberty away from ANY of us, it can and will eventually take it away from ALL of us, and that if we don't cherish and stand up for the rights of others, we're condemning ourselves to the same destruction.

Toward the end of WWII, when the Allies discovered the concentration camps filled with starving prisoners (including Niemoller, a Dachau survivor), cremation ovens, and gassing rooms, General Eisenhower ordered local citizens in to view what had been going on near them. Did all those citizens KNOW what had been going on? I can't tell you what was in their minds, but there is no doubt that they could have known, and should have known, and that's the important point. If they claimed to not know, it's only because they chose not to see, and that very same attitude permeates American society today.

Ask someone who supports the War in Iraq how many American military have died there. Ask them how many Iraqi civilians have been killed. You're not likely to get a real answer of any kind, because they don't want to know the cost of the position they support.

Niemoller's point could hardly be more on point than it is in America right now. Most Americans' knowledge of what's happening around them is limited to what they see on TV news and read in the major newspapers. Given that, their ignorance may be explained if not justified. Most are probably aware that hundreds of thousands of their fellow citizens have protested against the war. That alone should make them curious enough to wonder why, but it seems obvious from polls that they simply don't want to know.

I've worked with many people whose plans and dreams have been smashed by government actions. They frequently say that they didn't know it could happen to them. It had happened to many others before, but not to them. They assumed that bad things only happen to bad people... only criminals go to prison, only lazy people become homeless or resort to relief, only bad parents have their children taken from them, only polluters are smashed by environmental regulations... etc., etc., etc. If government did something to them, they must have done something to derserve it. They knew that they weren't bad, so they assumed they were safe. Government wouldn't lie, would they? Major media wouldn't deceive, would they?

When such people discover that volunteer libertarians have been warning about such problems for a long time, they're impressed and amazed. They should be, but their reaction should also be guilt, like Niemoller's, that they weren't paying enough attention, and that they allowed themselves to be deceived by major-party politicians and major media outlets that are usually afraid to challenge them.

If you're reading this online, you have the capability to find out what libertarians know... that you're not safe from your government.. You may dislike or disbelieve everything you read here, but if you value your own future you must investigate and make up your own mind. Do NOT make the mistake of assuming it only happens to others. Do not make the mistake of assuming what I write about are exceptions that can safely be ignored. Do NOT make the mistake, as did the German people of the late 30's, of believing that our government has our best interests at heart.

Then They Came for Me (A New Twist)
by Stephen Rohde, a constitutional lawyer and President of the ACLU of Southern California. Adapted from the original by Rev. Martin Niemoller (1937).

First they came for the Muslims, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Muslim.

Then they came to detain immigrants indefinitely solely upon the certification of the Attorney General, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't an immigrant.

Then they came to eavesdrop on suspects consulting with their attorneys, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a suspect.

Then they came to prosecute non-citizens before secret military commissions, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a non-citizen.

Then they came to enter homes and offices for unannounced "sneak and peek" searches, and I didn't speak up because I had nothing to hide.

Then they came to reinstate Cointelpro and resume the infiltration and surveillance of domestic religious and political groups, and I didn't speak up because I had stopped participating in any groups.

Then they came for anyone who objected to government policy because it aided the terrorists and gave ammunition to America's enemies, and I didn't speak up because...... I didn't speak up.

Then they came for me....... and by that time no one was left to speak up.