Fuck it.
Due to the modern miracle of facebook, I've been subjected to, and have argued with a huge number of people who just. don't. get it.
It's almost like the people of these United States have forgotten not only the tradition of a limited government guaranteed by the Constitution, but have completely become unreconciled with the premises of manhood, individualism, honor, accountability, and/or personal responsibility.
These principles are things that I have argued in favor of for my adult life. Here, though, I finally admit defeat. My notions of old and outdated principles have blinded me. These self-evident duties that are assumed in a polite society are outdated, in fact they are obsolete. Nevermind the bondage that awaits a people who shed such a burden. There are people just like us, who are no smarter than we, and no more trained in the aspects of such responsibility, but who will take care of us. These geniuses will contrive a better way for each and everyone of us to live, strive, and survive that will be better than anything that we have ever imagined. Better than any of our forefathers could have contrived in their ancient, by-gone era, guaranteed by their obsolete documents.
Despite the fact that not one of these worthies are better qualified than any of us who is reading this to make a single decision as to the disposition of our life, liberty, and property. Somehow THEY know better than any of us who wake up each morning with nothing in mind but the continued survival of the tribe for whom we are responsible. At each turn, we find ourselves outmatched, outmaneuvered, and out-motivated by the group of people who feel themselves to have been trained, educated, and motivated to make better decisions about what we should be doing and how we should be doing it.
One of my literary heroes is H. L. Mencken. He applied Occam's razor to more craziness than I ever have, and has often done so in fewer than 100 words. I offer his effective and terse summation of the above few paragraphs:
The government consists of a gang of men exactly like you and me. They have, taking one with another, no special talent for the business of government; they have only a talent for getting and holding office. Their principal device to that end is to search out groups who pant and pine for something they can't get and to promise to give it to them. Nine times out of ten that promise is worth nothing. The tenth time is made good by looting A to satisfy B. In other words, government is a broker in pillage, and every election is sort of an advance auction sale of stolen goods.
People, these folks who wish to tell you how to live your life, what you should eat, drink, wear, tell your kids; these people are no more qualified to do so than my dog. They have the same degrees that you and I have, yet those who are currently running this show have less experience in leading people, managing projects, and holding people accountable than you or I. We've been places, done things, taken risks, all under the specter of the fear of failure. If we failed, we would be shamed, dishonored, kicked to the curb. We would have failed at something that we believed in vehemently and felt lacking.
This is not the crucible that tempers those in power now. They have thrived and acceded to vaunted places by being able to cause the majority of our people to believe that they deserve the very sweat of our brow. They exist because they have effectively fooled a majority of the voting public that they give a shit, and can run things better than they have been run. Better than you could run them. Better than I could. They're fucking wrong.
You are smarter. You are stronger. You have accomplished more than they. You do so on a steady basis.
Yet, (and this is the saddest thing), despite all of the above: They Have Won. I'll let them flip their bat and waddle around the bases. They can spike the ball and dance in the end zone as long as they want. Those of us who understand Locke, and Adam Smith, and Rothbard are not on the rise. We're not winning, nor can we be, for the foreseeable future. Because our lot is hard, it calls on sacrifice for our responsibilities, it demands accountability...all the things that no one wants to accept in these days of instant gratification and victimhood.
Nixon called those who remembered the old ways the "Silent Majority", and hoped that those plain folks would ignore his narcissism. It was a pipe-dream, and the day he became the face of the opposition over Goldwater was the end of it all, my friends. The day that people, who thought that lyrics to Beatles' tunes were acceptable substitutes for legitimate domestic and foreign policy, were allowed to decide how to run the country was the day that our ideal ended.
I have no doubt that I will be one day soon (like 4 May 2014) viewed as "an anacronsym" or a "right wing conspiracist". But the thing is; I've been so weird for so long that I'm comfortable with any or all of that. I've never been bashful in saying what I perceived needed to be said.
I'll keep saying it.
But for the first time in twenty years, I've despaired that it will make one damn bit of difference in the end. I have no hope that we can get out of this spiral of madness, control, and despotism. Yet, in the dark hours, with these conclusions weighing on me like so many regrets, so many mistakes, like lead wrapped 'round my neck...
Fuck it.
Immundus saecula saeculorum,
Unclean
