The government sucks. Everybody knows it.
It’s true that people tolerate it, seeing it as a “necessary evil” or at the very least better than the alternative – which many people imagine would be a Mad Max world of leather-clad violent gangs raping and pillaging everyone else in society without consequences. Fear, obviously, is a powerful motivator for supporting an institution that everybody hates.
“Hold on just a second there, buddy”, I can hear you saying, “Roads don’t suck. Protection from gangs and thugs and warlords doesn’t suck. Providing sustenance to the poor and elderly doesn’t suck.”. Well, let me stop you right there and agree with you – these services do not suck at all.
What does suck is the method some people choose to provide such services – government. Even if you think it is a “necessary evil”, if you’re honest with yourself, you would at least admit you have a love/hate relationship with it.
The myth:
Government sucks because the people suck, and the government is just the will of the people.
The Reality
In the United States, only 30% of the population actually vote. Out of a population of over 300 million, 131.3 million are both eligible to vote (not a felon, over 18) and have registered to vote. Of them, about 50% (on average) and 70% (in a “good” year) actually turn out to vote. So of a population of 300 million, about 90 Million, or 30% of the population, actually vote.
Of those 90 million, many are “defensive” voters – not voting for a candidate that they like, but voting against a candidate that they do not want in power.
Even with people that vote “for” a candidate, many of them are uninformed or misinformed, not because they ’suck’, but because of the constant stream of bullshit that comes out of the white house.
For instance, does anyone remember that we went into Iraq because of WMDs anymore? Many people accepted it when that “information” first came out back in 2002, even some anti-war hippy pacifists, who were arguing (quite reasonably) that we would be hypocritical if we condemned another country for stockpiling weapons of mass destruction when our government has enough nukes to destroy the planet several times over. However, the debate itself was framed around this “fact” that was spread by the government – our entire debate was based on a lie, as usual.
Did anyone VOTE to lie to the American people? No. It’s not all people. Just the ones who work in government.
You might say, however, that, according to democratic theory, the government is, to the extent that democratic forms actually function properly, the people. However, there are hundreds of filters – media organizations, political campaign contributions, exclusive and elitist social networks, among others, that pre-determine who the masses are actually allowed to vote for. The choices are dramatically limited to handful of people. And these people know play by the rules of a game of power that you don’t even know is being played.
Also, there is never any option to “opt out” of the consequences of decisions that you disagree with, EVEN IF YOU ARE IN THE MAJORITY.
So the reality is not that ALL people suck, or even that MOST people suck. The problem is that a small minority of people suck, and these people can be divided into two groups: 1) Those the state usually points to them to “prove” it’s necessity (or legitimacy), and 2) those that work in government in the first place.
The myth:
Government sucks because of capitalism’s corrupting influence.
The Reality
Capitalism exists independently of any “system” of government controls to limit it. Capitalism doesn’t corrupt government. Quite the opposite. Whenever you have a group of people that claim the legal right to initiate violence to control other people, the predictable consequences of this is that unscrupulous, unethical, immoral people will seek to control it, because of an incontrovertible truism:
Power over others attracts those that seek power over others.
The myth:
Government sucks because the wrong people are in control.
The Reality
The wrong people will ALWAYS be in control, depending on your perspective. There’s nothing wrong with choosing a leader FOR YOURSELF, but when YOU choose a leader which affects OTHERS, it will invariably be the wrong people in control for THEM.
Besides, the only real difference between the government and every other kind of institution on the planet is a monopoly on violence. Don’t believe me? Would you take Obama’s word for it?
Seriously. That’s about it. EVERYTHING the government does is based on violence and coercion, even the “good” stuff, as it pays for all of that good stuff through taxation, which is a euphemism for “taking money against your will under the threat of violence”. “Violence”, in this case, usually means a series of threats until a couple of guys with guns come to your house, tie you up, throw you in a car, haul you off to a building surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards, and thrown in a cage that is famous for being a place where people are beaten and raped.
Do you really think that kind of power attracts the most noble and virtuous among us?
Why the confusion?
We were raised in public schools. We have been inculcated from birth with the idea of a “nation state”, as if it is the most natural way for humans to organize. We are taught to be patriotic and tribal in just about every sports game, war movie, and news broadcast in this country. We are all brainwashed into believing this insane notion that giving a small group a bunch of guns is going to solve our problems.
Like just about everything else that comes out of the mouths of politicians, we were lied to. There is a better way to organize society, and every way has a first step, and that first step is acknowledging, not fighting, not demanding, not “doing” anything, but ACKNOWLEDGING the FACT that YOU ARE FREE, and recognizing the awesome responsibility you have to make the world a better place, not by threatening others, but by helping them.
