Saturday, May 31, 2008

I'm not Anti American

It's actually been some time since I last heard this thrown at me in the electronic world, but I get it a lot in the meat world. To me, it always seemed obvious, but I guess I better illustrate.

I've been called anti American for some time by many and various people. Even before I styled myself an anarchist.

It's not true, people. Since I'm putting this on both AINC and polycentric order, I know an international audience will read this. But I'm aiming it primarily at my fellow Americans, for two reasons.

One, my observation has been that foreigners understand that when I refer to America's actions and denounce them, I am speaking primarily about The United States of America. That would be the foreign sovereign ruling over what purports to be fifty independent states in cooperation. That all ended a long time ago. 1913, to be precise.

And Two, Americans need it more. A great many of my countrymen do not understand the difference between America and the United States of America.

America is a place. It's a label on a map describing, primarily to the english speaking world, the northern hemisphere of what was once called the "new world". Both Canada and the United States. It also describes South and Central America, but not so much culturally.

It can also refer to the ideals of it's settlers, or at least a significant amount of them. For instance, the idea that the common citizen should have a say in the affairs of state. Democracy wasn't spawned here, contrary to what a LOT of Americans think, but it did spread itself farther than at any other time in history. The twentieth Century was the Century of Democracy.

Yet Democracy is a failure. It was recognized as such by the founders. Even, reluctantly, by Thomas Jefferson. So they put it as PART of the system. A republic. Representative democracy to elect the rulers. And a means of ousting them. All states were to retain their sovereignty, relinquishing some rights and privileges as a price of membership. But as Sovereign States, they always had the right to seceed. This was never questioned during that period. Later, the Federal Government waged war on thirteen States that exercised that right, thus settling the question. Not by reason, or right, Nor treaty or any consideration for the legitimate (relatively) bounds of the Constitution. By Force of Arms it was established that the Union is not to be broken.

But it wouldn't be truly established until 1913, with the passage of the seventeenth amendment. The sixteenth was also passed that year (sorta, it wasn't properly ratified until somewhat later). But the seventeenth was the end of the Republican Form of government "guaranteed" by the Federal Constitution. The seventeenth, without ever directly declaring it, announced that the States were no longer sovereign. And removed what was probably the greatest of the original checks and balances.

The seventeenth Amendment eliminated the Senate in all but name. The function of the Senate was to be the representatives of the individual state governments. How they were chosen, prior to the seventeenth, was as the State Government chose. No uniform standard actually existed between states, because that was the POINT!!! The Senate represented the corporate entity of the state.

The House of Representatives were the representatives of the People at large, proportionate to population. Elected by direct democracy. Exactly the same function the Senate now serves. Clever, eh? They never SAY the states are no longer relevant and therefore no longer represented, but the States no longer have control of who represents them. Instead, Senators are now elected by direct democracy.

All of this and much more has been done deliberately, maliciously, and deceitfully by the United States of America. I hate them with every fibre of my being. Those sons of bitches have defiled my country and turned it into a wasteland of stagnation and low expectations. Basically because they got away with it. Even though I know it's not true, I still think of ALL politicians and Federal bureaucrats as deliberately evil. But it's not true. Some of them are accidentally evil. And they're worse!

They have polluted indiscriminately. I don't see this as the kind of "life and death right now" issue that the environmentalists do, but I still don't see the point of shitting where you eat once you learn not to. But worse, worst, they have polluted our minds and ideals. The American Dream used to be liberty. Now, it's a house you can't afford in a kingdom you don't want.

American Culture is partially to blame for this, though we've been led. I've been all over the country, and most Americans seem to be really REALLY naive about the world around them. Much more than people from the UK and Australia, at least. Our Media is pure garbage. Half of what they say is either untrue or misleading, and the other half is useless information about useless people in a couple of cities. Americans think of themselves as moral people, for the most part, and don't want to believe that The United States of America has committed and is committing grossly immoral acts from ANY philosophy except, possibly, some forms of nihilism.

They are blinkered. Because the government has relentlessly pounded home the idea that WE are the United States of America. This has made people feel personally responsible and simultaneously helpless as they believe that the actions taken by the state are necessary, and that we chose them.

It's completely false. Even in it's conceptual language, the government makes itself clearly separate from the people. Just like all other governments. It is a ruling institution over a certain geographic area. The American Government was supposed to be ANSWERABLE to the people. Not part of them. They are supposed to be our employees, and they are supposed to follow the book. They are and do neither.

Unless somebody reading this is a legislator, I think it safe to say you've never passed a law in your life, nor had ANY INPUT AT ALL in the process other than choosing your overlord. Even then, the lesser overlords given the current state of Imperia... I mean, Presidential power.

And while we're on the subject, if you're fool enough to think you can reform the government via elections, STOP FUCKING WORRYING ABOUT THE PRESIDENTIAL RACE!!! "We the People" do NOT elect the President. I don't personally elect anybody, because I'm an anarchist and absolutely HATE the government. But if you wanna play, and have any effect, negative or positive, worry about who you can actually elect. They threw you two branches.

Now, these are the kinds of things I say to you who say I hate America. Horseshit. You're ignoring the argument and committing an ad hominem. Whether I hate America or love it with all my heart has absolutely nothing to do with the arguments I've presented against it's rulers.

I was born in America, in the Occupied Territory of Washington. I've travelled all of the west, most of the north and a fair bit of the south. Some of it is magnificent. Some is plain. Some, like Pittsburgh, is a blight on the planet. All in all, it's my home. I love America. I hate it's rulers, and I am disgusted with how easily we were led into an Empire.

Our rulers have been immensely successful in reversing every gain the founders aimed for or were argued into agreeing with. We have become horribly entangled in foreign alliances, grievances, and petty wars. Our rulers tax us outrageously, even if you are fool enough to think that Tax is not an outrage to begin with. They deliberately debase our currency. They divide man against man and nation against nation with malice aforethought. They tell us what we may or may not ingest. What risks we may or may not take. What kinds of property we may own, and under what circumstances. What we may accept in trade, and how we do so. Who we love. Who we associate with. Who we fuck. Everything. To paraphrase Ayn Rand, they have made so many rules with so many variations that you cannot live and not be in violation of the law. This is very deliberate. This allows them to hold you accountable IN YOUR OWN MIND to them. Because we all concede that Criminal Acts are, well, Criminal. They have fashioned us all criminals. Thus, we are all liable to the "justice system" at a time and place of their choosing.

But they "forgot" to tell you something.

We outnumber them. By really a lot.

If you love America as your home, and want to keep it a place worth calling home, then you need rid of the parasite that rules you from the swamp nobody wanted on the east coast. The foreign nation called The United States of America. Then, maybe, we can be great as a people again.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

An interesting and truthful post.

Criticism of ones government, in this case the United States, is often confused with criticism of either liberty itself or Americans as individuals, or perhaps a combination of the two. This perception has the revealing effect of enabling the reader to observe the mindset of the individual holding such a position.

By equating government as "America", one commits the unfortunately mistaken belief that that government itself is American, thereby solidifying his belief that one does not one's self but rather is a mere puppet or commodity to be utilized by government for the purposes of which it deems advantageous to itself. Unfortunately, what is advantageous to the government apparatus always has deleterious effects upon the sovereign individual. One therefore must view ones self as a willing slave to the governmental organism, casting aside ones individual liberty for servitude to a distant and uncaring organism.

Obviously, this mindset is the unfortunate result of years of indoctrination into what one might justifiably term "state worship." Basically, one has adopted the the secular religion of statism as ones own. Thus the individual unwittingly views government as god (this is a point that should be particularly alarming to the majority of Christians considering their overly enthusiastic affinity for the state).