My Heart Goes Out to Dead Iraqis and Drug War Prisoners
Well, I penned another passionate piece! You may be wondering what “America” is doing to me. I shall elaborate more on that point later. I am making a commitment to start writing this kind of passionate stuff every time I post on here.
After that last outburst of mine, I realized that I am screaming like a lunatic for no reason whatsoever. Even a formerly more cheery friend of mine recently admitted that we won’t see change in our lifetime. And that American culture-politics is fucked up beyond belief.
And of course, the state of a culture contributes to the state of a political system. This is why I have no confidence in notions of “the people” resisting the status quo in America. The progressive adulation of the “masses” only has meaning when those “masses” embrace a fundamentally good perspective on the world.
How would most people you know react to a serious “insurgency” (and insurgencies are not necessarily violent) against the Federal regime? Would they support it or would they denounce the people as “troublemakers” or show indifference? Not simply resistance to a war here or there. Not simply resistance to laws against Cannabis here or there. I am talking about a comprehensive questioning of power and authority. I am thinking of the person who jokingly said they’d kick my ass for dropping out of school.
There you have it: the odious belief that says “follow the rules”. America is a dictatorship because people overwhelmingly believe in “going with the flow” and being “practical”. Is it a free country when not having a high school diploma or college degree can bar you from economic well being? No. And what do parents tell their children? Go to school and be practical. Get a good job. Telling an oppressed person to kowtow to their oppressors to better their condition is intellectual complicity in the perpetuation of an unjust system.
I can’t think of a historical example of a country that existed in the current state of America that pulled back from the brink. If you can think of one, then let me know about it.
Barring a miracle, America is a dead nation that will continue to implode. Some people have bought into the myth that such a miracle is coming from Obama or some other Democrat. A more dangerously mistaken belief could not be imagined. I have listened to those I respect speak, and I simply can’t justify their convictions.
I hate America with the passion that Ayn Rand hated the Soviet Union. I hate it for what it did to a person I hold dear. I hate it for what it’s doing to me.
Natasha | Civil Liberties, LeftLibertarian.org, Personal
I have, in my years in the libertarian movement, always wondered what the infatuation with the “masses” was. In any movement, really, the core goal seems to always stray towards this belief that mass support must/will come before direct action - this couldn’t be further from the truth.
One must really look at it from a perspective of process. How does the status quo come to be, anyways? Not through mass support, at least not initially, but through a strong group pushing forward and perpetuating their message despite the barriers in front of them.
This is how revolutions are won - by the strong, not necessarily the many.
… “How does the status quo come to be, anyways? Not through mass support, at least not initially, but through a strong group pushing forward and perpetuating their message despite the barriers in front of them.”
Pay more attention to the progress of Objectivism and the efforts of The Ayn Rand Institute. They are steadily growing, their graduates are affecting Supreme Court decisions and occupying lecturing and professorship positions in respectable Universities. Their Op Eds are more and more widely placed, and are increasingly quoted by mainstream media writers.
Perhaps, with a little further reading of Objectivism, you and your readers might become a part of that “strong group pushing forward“.
They are not Libertarians for very good reason. Even though Libertarianism did start with Ayn Rand, its founders and followers have betrayed the rational basis for individual rights and freedoms, and serve only to delay and misrepresent the very thing they claim to seek.