It is quite obvious

Now that the dots are connected.

First a couple of quotes

The trouble is that people are beginning to be afraid of the state – but they are also afraid to be without the state.

Chris Mounsey – UK Libertarian Party leader

And he’s right. I’d use the militarization of the police forces as an example.

Instead of taking care of the problem themselves, folks just started letting their constabularies arm up and up and up until one day Officer Friendly has an APC. I’m not saying full-on vigilantism is better, though putting a personalized neighborhood ass-whupping on the kids dealing drugs and tagging would look a damn sight more like “Justice” than letting the current juvenile justice system do its handiwork.

Another example I’d use is people handing their kids over to the state for feeding, nurturing and other parental stuff. Before you get all disturbed hearing about the cop that Tasered a 10yr old girl because she wouldn’t do what her mom wanted, get disturbed that the mom thought that calling the police was her best solution to getting little Suzie to go to bed.

During the latest round of state, county and local budget debates I’ve read news articles asking the moms and dads out there what they’d do without school breakfasts and counselors and the like. It doesn’t shock me that they’re dependent, it shocks me when I think about someone so clueless getting the same number of votes as I do.

I found the above quote via Guy Herbert of Samizdata.UK. He added this bit afterward:

But I think, in fact, it is worse than that. There are many people – and you can often tell them by their fierce, defiant pronouncements that they have nothing to hide, they have done nothing wrong – who are in a dependent, abusive relationship with the state. They feel the bullying and their fear itself as evidence they are wanted and have a place in the world. Being pecked is reassurance that you are somewhere in the pecking-order.

This Rasmussen poll states that a full two-thirds of Americans think that government is too big and that they could get along quite nicely with government offering fewer services and benefits. But then they go and vote for people who bribe them with laws, regulations and services they agree Americans “need”. We got that in 2000 with Bush’s promise of “Compassionate Conservatism”

Compassion, is like empathy: It is a feeling.

Unfortunately for us all, Bush meant it as a verb, and his administration spent the following eight years and a still uncounted amount of tax dollars expanding government. We got “Faith Based Initiatives” instead of a partial privatization of Social Security (Yes, I know that the Initiatives were an Executive Order and Privatization was major legislation, but if he had truly wanted to do the latter, he’d have tried to get that done when his popularity was high and not as it was waning).

I am also of the belief that if we could have gotten the Privatization legislation done in the early part of 2002 we would have injected enough private money into Wall Street by 2007 to save us from the bailouts and that the housing crunch wouldn’t have been so, well, crunchy.

Would people still have lost some of their money? Maybe, but certainly not as much. And those who currently can’t retire because their 401K tanked wouldn’t be set back so badly. Remember that the idea was that only those under 40 would be able to opt into the private system. So it would have been a win for everyone: A tiny bit more freedom for those under 40 and those about to retire wouldn’t have been hit so hard.

But enough of that. Sorry to get sidetracked.

Even the Tea Party get-togethers have their own population of boobs that walk around with their signs talking about “Don’t hurt my Medicare!”

Fuck their Medicare. Right in its cornhole, because that is where I’m having to take it so that they can have it.

I made no overt societal pact to preserve their handouts, just as they didn’t bother to make sure they’d have the money or insurance to cover their medical expenses when they got older.

They had 40-plus years to vote for people who would get get rid of that version of socialized medicine and NOW they want to come out against onerous government programs? They can take a fucking hike to the early-bird special and pray to their AARP card for forgiveness, because they won’t get any from me.

Thanks a lot, Boomers. You finally see the light and you’re still only looking out for your own selfish asses.

I know that we only really get a lesser-of-two-evils decision, but that is because the parties who control the government are in charge of the elections. As American’s we love our two party system because it’s easy. We also hate it because only rarely do we ever actually get to choose who we’re going to get to vote for in a primary because of the weight of the party support and their various propaganda machines.

It is a love-hate relationship that has gone horribly wrong. Like a child who has to deal with whether his molester is right about it being “their secret”. People are willing to deal with the abuse they get because they know that someone else is having a tougher time of it.

I hate to have to say this, but at this time (the 2010/2012 elections) Americans are not ready for a third party. Sadly, nor are folks on the right ready to deal with getting a swift kick in the ass and told they can’t vote for the “God” guy over the “I’m just going to leave you alone” guy and expect the “God” guy to spend their money correctly.

It appears to be sadly true. Without a hierarchy, a hyper-majority of our society is lost. Even in America, we seem to “need” to have a soft caste system we can stack ourselves upon to make ourselves “feel” better, even if said shelves only exist in our individual minds.

I’m also afraid that it isn’t going to get any better with our “New and Improved” youths and their constant need for their egos to be stroked so that their self-esteem, like Life Points in a video game, doesn’t fall to dangerously low levels.

I’m just a little ray of sunshine today, aren’t I?