The End of America
I just finished watching The End of America and I thought it was tremendous. Actually, I wish every American would watch it at least once a year. It's a little heavy handed and probably overly-alarmist, but losing our individual rights as Americans is something to be overly-alarmed about.
People talk about the separation of Church and State and how important it is, but I think that really takes a secondary role to where problems actually lie. What we need is a separation of Business and State.
Americans are entrepreneurial by nature, and it just so happens that as Americans have asked the government to do more and more since the early 1900s, the government has gotten bigger and bigger. As it has done this, government contracts have become big business. Americans, always out for a good business move, recognize this, make supply for that demand, and then work to ensure steady growth and to maximize profit. Once that happens, maintaining the status quo becomes imperative, until profit runs out. Then it's time to ease the way for those on top with the accumulation of more and more power.
Yes, yes, it all starts sounding like a big conspiracy theory, but it has happened in every civilization since the beginning of civilization. That's all that the Church/State thing was, anyway. Church was just the biggest business of its time. It is inevitable that at some point, someone will make a power grab in America to make themselves the new king. And we will let them in the name of safety.
Americans frighten too easily these days. 24 hour news cycles will do that to you. You can't get away from the constant rhythm of terror if you are an average citizen with average tastes. you get told 50 times a day from 10 different sources that Saddam Hussein has WMDs and a plan to use them, you're probably going to believe it. Connected with terrorists? The very same terrorists that are at this moment planning another devastating attack? Probably in your hometown? Yup, time for war. Gotta stop that. Wanna tap phones? Will it help take out the bad guys? Well, then sure I guess.
It's seductive. But combined that with a society that spends very little comparatively on education and you get dumb, scared people with make decisions based off of emotion rather than logic. Fertile soil...
People talk about the separation of Church and State and how important it is, but I think that really takes a secondary role to where problems actually lie. What we need is a separation of Business and State.
Americans are entrepreneurial by nature, and it just so happens that as Americans have asked the government to do more and more since the early 1900s, the government has gotten bigger and bigger. As it has done this, government contracts have become big business. Americans, always out for a good business move, recognize this, make supply for that demand, and then work to ensure steady growth and to maximize profit. Once that happens, maintaining the status quo becomes imperative, until profit runs out. Then it's time to ease the way for those on top with the accumulation of more and more power.
Yes, yes, it all starts sounding like a big conspiracy theory, but it has happened in every civilization since the beginning of civilization. That's all that the Church/State thing was, anyway. Church was just the biggest business of its time. It is inevitable that at some point, someone will make a power grab in America to make themselves the new king. And we will let them in the name of safety.
Americans frighten too easily these days. 24 hour news cycles will do that to you. You can't get away from the constant rhythm of terror if you are an average citizen with average tastes. you get told 50 times a day from 10 different sources that Saddam Hussein has WMDs and a plan to use them, you're probably going to believe it. Connected with terrorists? The very same terrorists that are at this moment planning another devastating attack? Probably in your hometown? Yup, time for war. Gotta stop that. Wanna tap phones? Will it help take out the bad guys? Well, then sure I guess.
It's seductive. But combined that with a society that spends very little comparatively on education and you get dumb, scared people with make decisions based off of emotion rather than logic. Fertile soil...