Will of the Few Through the Many

This Land is My Land and there are No More Words to this Song

One day I hope to purchase my own private chunk of Yosemite National Park and build a small self sufficient community while paying my flat federal tax. I will even allow some people to rent some of the land from me to start things like a hospital, fire department, and a school, but not a police force because I will be in charge of my own private security force just to make sure that everyone is well protected from trespassers. Perhaps, over time, a second school or hospital or fire department will move in and start a price war. If it is a school it will be great. I know I’m not lowering my rent so they will have to find other ways to cut costs. Hardback books to paperback book, computers to calculators, cut some sports and some of the arts, and so on; or, they could do a combination of cuts and tuition fees and that way everyone can get what they pay for. At some point there should be competing businesses for everything (maybe even my security force), and I will make sure to keep all of the good ones on one side of the community and arrange for the cheaper services to be on the other side, and the federal tax we’ve all been paying will mostly go to low bid contracts for maintaining roads and bridges. It will be my own privatized utopia. I could continue to go on with this but I am hoping you get the picture of where I am going.

Know Your Extremisms

There is a lot to be said for the concept of the public ownership as a method to combat tyranny. Now, before you paint me red, let me make myself clear when I say, I like capitalism and I think it is a good system, but I do not think that capitalism and public ownership are mutually exclusive nor do I think that either is good in its pure form (Corporatism/Fascism and Marxism/Communism respectively). I think problems begin to arise when a state begins to lean too far toward one extreme and as it stands we, the United States, are not leaning toward Communism one bit but we seem determined to run headlong toward Fascism (although the new Corporatism label is used a bit more these days possibly, and if so wrongly, to curb the strong pejorative connotations brought about by the term Fascism). I think it is important to note that a Corporatist dystopia is still a dystopia of Orwellian proportion.

Know Yourself

I must admit that as I observe the direction our country is going and take note of the changes that have occurred in my lifetime I find myself more and more leaning away from the way things are going but my general opinion of how things should be done has not fundamentally changed. Philosophically, more or less, I am standing still while the world around me seems to slip deeper into the clutches of near Fascist ideology. And, while I don’t think your average citizen in the U.S. is a Fascist and I don’t think those leading the charge toward a Fascist model are even necessarily Fascists; I do think that many are tacitly Fascists either through sheer ignorance or convenience. It is easy to turn a blind eye if you personally benefit (be it emotionally or financially) while society as a whole may suffer an ill as a result. The fact of the matter is that many in the U.S. are tacitly Fascists against their own interests. For instance, someone who votes for a candidate who shares their “moral” compass while at the same time supporting an economic agenda that is detrimental to that voter’s well being.

Balancing the Scales

I do not have all the answers to even the keel of American politics but I do have some ideas. 1) Take back the issues. Systematically take morality out of the realm of politics (in a manner of speaking) by shifting the moral question toward the disparity caused by allowing corporations unfettered growth without accounting for the socio-economic impact on the working class. 2) Educate yourself on the issue that affect your pocket book directly and shelve the moralistic hot button issues. I don’t care if you vote Democrat or Republican so long as you are voting in your best interests, and if you are doing your homework then you should realize that, generally speaking, those who support widespread deregulation of corporate restraints and corporate tax cuts are likely not looking out for your best interests. And, 3) Remember that we are all in this ship together. You may not like some of the crew but their actions still affect you and your actions still affect them so try to do what is right for the whole.