By the way conservatives and liberals attack each other with the same verbiage over and over, you would think that they each held wildly divergent views. Nothing could be farther from the truth. They both cling to the government like some raggedy ass old teddy bear. Conservatives chatter again and again, like psycho Chicken Littles, about the socialist takeover of our government. Liberals are very fond of painting their counterparts as bigots and fascists of the highest order. Now, admittedly, there is a modicum of truth in almost anything that a human utters. However, small truths do not make great ideas. Looking deeper into conservative and liberal political history shows that they are swinging the same hammer from a different angle. That hammer is the government. The nail is the individual.
A democracy seemingly has a foundation of freedom. Freedom is an allusive quality that can only be realized within the individual. Political systems, fixed points of view in regards to the social contract and the proclamations and declarations of governments are not, in any way, related to true freedom. Laws can never guarantee freedom. On the contrary, laws can only inhibit it. Very few free thinkers breathe easier when some new controls are issued by the congressional boys club. We are all born free. It is the institutions that surround us that strive to steal this freedom.
I have been on both sides of the conservative/liberal fence with my vote. Having said that, I admit that I have never felt good about any vote I have ever cast. I always have a sickening feeling when exiting a voting booth, as if I had done something terribly wrong. “What is Dickenson doing in there all this time?” None of my votes has ever echoed my own philosophy. Every election, both sides break out the same old rhetoric that trumpets tired ideas with very predictable language. Part of the blame for the monotone of political campaigns is that almost nobody, but lawyers, ever runs for office. Herbie, the cigar-smoking, gin-swilling, none too shy about plumber’s crack butcher, for president would be nice for a change. Imagine a candidate that would run on a platform of repealing and revoking laws instead of adding to the mountain of constraints that DC is built on. Only a lawyer could believe that a stroke of a pen actually changes society. On the whole, the only change is in the bank of accounts of the already well-healed.
Conservatives have been the cause of growing the size of government at the cost of the individual more than any other faction since the birth of Reagan politics. Dear old Ronald gave us the greatest gob of spit in the eye of democracy with The Iran Contra affair. He let Ollie wipe his ass on the Constitution. The savings and loan scandal of the Bush Senior era managed to completely destroy the only banking system that ever cared about the average wage earner. The final affront of the new conservative era was The Patriot Act. Every hair on my back bristles just hearing the title of this law. A true individual would never fall to the depths of patriotism, but a pundit will.
Liberals attack democracy with their fondness of war. Kennedy and LBJ in Vietnam and now Obama in Afghanistan. There is nothing more opposite of freedom than the wholesale murder we worship called “war”. Nobody wastes money like the Pentagon. Nobody kills more people than the Pentagon. It is one building I would like to see turned into a giant day care center. “Oh General So and So, could you please pour the Juicy Juice and change a few diapers for us?” Liberals were falling all over themselves to bail out every large industry from cars to car loans in the face of our current economic failure. In a free market, you don’t reward thieves, scalawags and abysmal failures with the money of those who continue to work day to day.
I envision this great experiment called The United States of America as a call to all those in this world who value themselves, and therefore others, enough to give most political power to the single soul who stands despite the machinations of our poorly run government. One person standing on his own, forming his beliefs on a day to day basis, is worth more than millions repeating the newest liberal or conservative cliche.
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