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~ Brandon Smith from Alt Market 02/12/2011 (Zero Hedge) [edited heavily ~R]
There are those who would claim that the lifeblood of a nation is dependent upon the graces of its government; that government is the focal point of cultural growth, and that we as citizens should respect it as such.
I would be more inclined to agree if the public did not so easily confuse the ideal of leadership with the action of criminals.
That is to say, regardless of what we wish our government to be, bureaucracies rarely if ever embody the spirit of the common man. Instead bureaucracies inevitably deteriorate into vehicles for the perpetuation of tyranny, driven by the very worst of all stewards; elitist minorities with delusions of godhood.
Unfortunately despite this, the masses often treat these industrious vermin, and the plagues on society that they build, with the same reverence as they would a sincere and honorable body politic.
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Government is not, nor has it ever been a foregone conclusion. Government is not concrete, it is not tangible, it is not the foundation of society.
Instead, government is an abstraction; a fantastic dream of collectivist paternity in the face of individual hardship. Those who fear to wander the world on their own, seek to elevate and empower “decision makers” to provide the comfort of limited liability. Through this process, governments are created out of thin air. [...and that dream of limited-liability proceeds to get taken to the Nth degree. ~R]
All governmental authority is thus, HANDED to those positions of leadership.
What makes one man a king and another a peasant? Only the people, and where they choose to place their personal control – in their own hands or the hands of others.
To put it simply there is no power over us but that which we give away – and no freedom lost that cannot be regained.
Until this reality is understood, consecutive generations of human beings will be left to wonder – astonished at the endless atrocities of governments they thought they could trust.
The truth is, no government, no matter how seemingly noble, deserves our full faith. All governments must be treated like aging dynamite; with extreme vigilance, care, and suspicion.
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The American dynamic was meant to be different. The Constitution was designed to Limit the power of government, not endlessly exonerate it.
A government specifically tasked with shielding the rights of the individual beyond the desires of the mindless “majority”, or the normally influential aristocracy. Obviously, we have strayed far and away beyond the schema set forth by the founding fathers.
Let’s finally be honest with ourselves and say it out loud; our government has become a monstrosity. It is a thing to be abhorred, not admired, and certainly not to be trusted.
The statement above may be confusing to those who have relegated their concerns to the immediate. If one is free to walk the streets, keep a job, have a drink, and settle in front of the television for hours on end, then what is there to be worried about?
If the pain of government criminality only strikes people from “other” cultures, or other walks of life, why be concerned?
For those who actually suffer from this brand of idiocy, I can only hope that they begin to realize how extraordinarily unsafe they really are.
The injustices visited upon the few are in time invariably visited upon the many, especially where a rogue government resides.
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The kind of intrusion by government allowed by the people today is utterly astounding. Bank records, medical records, political viewpoints, phone conversations, emails, child rearing practices, food eating habits, health pursuits, social networking habits, biometric data, travel; nothing is safe from the prying eyes of government anymore.
At what point did we as a nation decide that the government’s opinion should become the precedent? At what point did we decide that a faceless bureaucracy knows what is best for us, and our lives become an open book to be read at the government’s leisure? I say “we”, because we must bear a large part of the blame, we have stood by and done little to nothing in response.
The argument put forth by establishment proponents has always been that the government’s task is to keep us safe. This argument is unabashed nonsense. Governments do not keep people safe. Governments are historically predisposed to ending far more lives than they protect, especially when they have strayed from their original mandates.
When a government goes rogue, or has been honed as a tool for control rather than defense, its directives lean towards self preservation, not the preservation of the public. That is to say, the government and those who directly benefit from its manipulation set policies that ensure their own safety and no one else’s.
This is how all tyranny begins; with a small group or element of a culture singled out for the loss of human rights, while the rest of the people look on and cheer. Eventually, the exception to the rule becomes the rule, and everyone suffers. Never forget, the term “terrorist” is as arbitrary as any nowadays, and could be used against you as easily as it could be used against anyone else.
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The Government Is A Body Elected By The People – Therefore They Are One And The Same…
The only practical explanation I can think of for someone to actually believe this argument is over-medication.
Despite what we’re all taught in school, our government (as it exists today, and for many decades) does not represent the will of the people. Two dominant political parties with cosmetic differences in rhetoric but nearly identical legislative and voting records, is not an expression of a legitimately free republic.
It is a rigged game. A fake battle between two gladiators owned by the same Caesar. To say that the people and the government are one-an-the-same is a gross error.
After acknowledging the course our government has taken, the question then arises; what is the ultimate end result? There can be only one outcome: total conflict.
We did not create this division. Though we certainly have not done enough to fend off the attacks upon our general liberties – the root of the problem still lay within the core of our government, and the corporate elites who use it.
We have become two separate groups that cannot and will not be reconciled. The government is openly admitting this through legislation like the National Defense Authorization Act. Its time we did the same.
As unsettling as that might sound, we must take solace in the fact that we at least fight for what is honest. May we all become domestic threats in our own backyard.
[once again, an American article - but a global issue. ~R]
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