Small Hornets' Nest

Larken Rose

Even the occasional capacity to question authority is a good sign.

September 11, 2008 - I admit, I was stunned by the response to my message about me not "supporting the troops."  No, it wasn't a wave of hate mail that stunned me  --  that's what I fully expected to get.  It was how FEW negative comments I got, and how many notes I got that agreed with my fringe wacko opinion.  The "hornets' nest" I stirred up was a lot smaller than I expected.  In fact, I got about three times as many messages saying "Right on!" as those saying "You're an idiot!"  That does not bode well for the tyrants of the world, but it gives me a shred of hope.

Nationalism and pack mentality are constantly drilled into our heads by the media and the "education" system from the day we're born.  School divides us by classes, governments divide us by "countries," and then all mainstream political propaganda divides us by religions, incomes, sex, education, race, and any other way the tyrants can think of.  And this all drastically affects how people view the world.

Consider this statement:  "We fought off Hitler."  I don't think there's anyone for whom that statement would be literally true.  What people MEAN by that is:  "People who get bossed around by the same club of people  --  though not the same actual people  --  who boss me around, militarily defeated people who Hitler bossed around."  It's long-winded and awkward, but accurate.

"We" aren't fighting Iraq.  First of all, Iraq is a PLACE.  You can't fight a place.  Second, "we" is a term that refers to the first person plural, which includes the speaker (among others).  I've never been to Iraq, and neither have most of you.  So why would you say "we" did anything, when you weren't there?  Because we're trained to think in terms of packs.  (Heck, people even call their local sports teams "we," even when NONE of the players are from their city.)

When it comes to rights, they aren't about packs  --  they are about INDIVIDUALS.  "The Japanese deserved to be nuked."  All of them?  The young mother, not to mention her baby, in downtown Hiroshima, who had never even thought a political thought, "deserved" to be cooked alive?  Is that what people mean?  No, they mean the PACK deserved it.  Well a pack can't deserve anything.  A lot of individuals can deserve something, or be guilty of something, or deserve credit for something.  But being born somewhere, or living somewhere, or having a certain genetic make-up, cannot by itself make you deserve credit or blame for anything.

For all the indications that people are as stupid and gullible as ever, there are some hints that we really are evolving.  Millions of Americans cheered when they heard that several hundred thousand civilians had been killed in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.  I don't believe Americans will ever again cheer for such an atrocity.  I also don't believe an involuntary military draft could ever happen again in this country (though I certainly think the American tyrants might TRY it).  Blind nationalism is slowly fading, and good riddance to it.

What war mongers hate the most is when those they target for killing are seen as HUMAN.  All militaries very intentionally and carefully demonize and dehumanize the enemy that they want their underlings to kill.  Why?  Because good people simply won't kill someone else unless they can either hate him, or at least not think of him as a PERSON.  But Americans can watch documentaries about the suffering in Japan after the nuclear attacks, and feel sorrow and compassion.  And some of us can even do that with innocent Iraqis right now.  (Imagine that.)

Yes, the war-mongering propaganda machine continues at full speed, but it's just not working the way it did a few short decades ago.  People aren't lining up in droves to go righteously slaughter the enemy du jour.  Even some people who volunteered for the military have come to the realization that oppressing and killing people isn't automatically okay just because a politician somewhere calls them "enemies of America."

I should add that I believe that most American soldiers, and most American cops, even most IRS agents, probably BELIEVE that, overall, what they are doing is good and righteous.  That's one of the main things that makes the belief in "authority" so dangerous:  it persuades basically good people to do evil things.  But every once in a while  --  and it's happening more often now  --  people actually pause for a moment before doing whatever "authority" tells them to.  It's not nearly as often as I'd like (if it were, there would be no IRS, for one thing), but even the occasional capacity to question authority is a good sign.

Here's a weird thought.  Could it be that all the police brutality that is being exposed now is, in a very twisted way, a GOOD sign?  I think fewer and fewer decent people can stand being cops anymore, and I've have quite a few former cops tell me exactly that.  Might it be that the reason authoritarian thugs are getting more vicious is NOT because there are more bad people, but because only bad people will take the jobs these days?  For example, I doubt the Third Reich actually made that many more evil people appear; it merely provided a way  --  a very destructive way  --  for those who love dominion to do what they love.

Another strange positive result is that the general public no longer blindly assumes that the police or "the troops" must always be the good guys, or that the targets of government violence must always be bad.  Consider how many movies today have rotten cops or corrupt politicians as the bad guys  --  a LOT.  A few decades back, making a movie like that would be considered blasphemy.  Despite the current push for open fascism, maybe blind authorianism really is on its last legs.  If you measure freedom by how nasty those in power are, we're in deep trouble.  But if you measure it by how many people are really angry about what those in power are doing... well, there may still be hope.  For example, do you know anyone who does NOT have at least a reason or two to dislike, distrust or fear the government?

STUMBLE IT!

More Good Stuff:

Articles by Larken Rose — Political philosophy of a man passionately interested in the freedom of his fellow man, moving intellectually from conservatism through libertarianism to anarchism.  Read the latest indictments against our tyrannical ruling elites.

How To Be A Successful Tyrant — Eradicate the self-determination and self-ownership of others and replace their free will with your will.  If you have an innate “love of dominion” and believe you can run other's lives better than they can, this book will show you how.

Kicking The Dragon — A chronicle of a modern-day witch-hunt.  The disturbing facts of the case pull back the façade of “due process” and the “rule of law” to reveal the United States government for what it has become:  a gang of lawless criminals interested only in preserving their own power.

ONLINE STORE — Interesting stuff you can download.  No need to sniff all over the web  -  the best stuff is right here.

Theft By Deception — This is a startling revelation for income tax professionals, income tax enforcers and administrators, and the average American who expects nothing less than truthfulness in taxation.

Would You Have Signed the Declaration of Independence? — Provide your causes that impel you to a repudiation of 'business as usual' and clearly state your demand that we reinstate and enforce government of law and liberty under the Constitution.