High Noon At The DC Corral

 

Americans by nature are a suspicious lot..  The cultural heroes are revolutionaries, outlaws and gun slingers.  Robber barons are heroes on the rise, but when they reach the point of tilting the table in their favor, the mass of Americans cast them as villains and break them on the rocks of history.

One need only look at Silicon Valley to see this in real time.  The Chipper Barons once championed freedom and the Common Man, now they are slimy billionaires protecting their turf and the culture is turning against them.  Soon, we will witness the collapse.

America began as waves of settlers tied of the entrenched systems in Europe and the unequal application of those systems to favor The In-Crowd.  The American Cultural DNA is the desire to be left the hell alone to pursue life, liberty and happiness.

That weltanschauung carried through to a revolution run out of people's root cellars and pubs.  Tired of working their fool hands to the bone to pay fealty to the Crown, they banded together and put down the world's greatest superpower of that era.

America still idolizes the Old West, a period, place and mindset of rugged individualism, where there were no laws, no taxes and no systems.  Just a man against the elements, making or breaking himself on the vagaries of Nature and the elements.  His successes and failures were his alone.

In this bit of Americana, outlaws robbed banks that symbolized the encroaching System.  They held up trains, which were the medium of encroachment.  They supported the gun slingers and hired them as the "law" West of the Pecos.  Americans love flea-bit characters whose only laws were fairness, unwatered whiskey and a level billiard table.

Americans will tolerate corruption when it hurts the Establishment, but they will not abide corruption from the Establishment.  Swindling the swindlers is poetic justice and absolutely fair.  Once a hero becomes the Establishment, they fall from grace and become the targets of the new Underground.

This is precisely what is happening in the US right now.  The 60s Counterculture became the Establishment, now the American Spirit is rising up with a new Counterculture to displace the old.

To the American mind, equality is abhorrent.  The idea of Socialism, Communism or Fascism is repugnant.  Americans, for the most part, know that these systems are the formalization of Elite rule over the regular working stiff, and that "equality" is a vile concept.

Americans love "fairness".  They want the same opportunities as the next guy, but they know that it is the individual's moxy and industriousness that makes one person richer than another.  In that old Calvinist mindset, if the playing field is level, then the winner advances on skill, perseverance and moral codes, not with an Elitist protection racket that favors followers over leaders.

As I have said many times before, Donald Trump is a symptom, not a cause.  Trump is widely seen as the classic American anti-hero, pulling himself up through a system that was arrayed against him, rough around the edges but with a heart of gold.  This is not a new thing, it is the image that Trump has carefully crafted throughout his entire public life.  Folks don't look at his politics or his persona, they look at his life story and see a man - rightly or wrongly - who suffered the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and took arms against a sea of troubles...and won.

In the election of 2020, still underway, the average Joe (pun intended) smells a rat.  He knows instinctively that the mass media have lied, that the System is rigged, and that the alternative choice is a lying, cheating plagiarist (see 1988 election).  Biden clearly has no moral code, and Americans are repelled by that kind of character.  His success was at the expense of others, not their benefit.

I don't think a lot of people particularly like Trump, but they respect him - at least far more than his opponents.  He has been a consistent character who won by playing by the rules, while being better at using the rules against his adversaries.  He is the outlaw gun slinger turned sheriff.

Trump is the outlaw.  He is the classic American anti-hero.  He played the game, but wasn't part of it.  He built an empire, but didn't weaponize it.  He's a plain talker that sounds like real folk.  And so far, no one has caught him lying - about important stuff anyway.  We all know marketing is complete bullshit, and for the most part, we tolerate it.

Trump's popular image is that he is Jesse James, or Bonnie and Clyde.  He fights the Establishment and miraculously keeps surviving, while sharing the wealth with us little folk.  He is the hero hanging off the cliff right now, and the audience is starting to root for him.  They can't wait to tune in tomorrow to see how he'll get out of this one.

Trump sells himself as the Great American Underdog - with a private jet.

There is no doubt that Americans love their superheroes.  Many a fortune has been built on these particularly American figures.  The one that seems to resonate the most with the widest possible audience is Batman.

Batman has no superpowers.  He is wealthy, yes, but he channels his wealth towards leveling the playing field.  He backs the law and order crowd, but is not part of the law and order crowd.  He will take on the Establishment as fast as any villain if their corruption tilts the table.

Trump, at least in the American psyche, is Batman.  He's just a guy with a lot of money who knows where the bodies are buried and wants to root out corruption and re-establish fairness.  He's willing to take a few punches, and deliver a few as well.  He's an inside outsider, if we can conceptualize those poles existing together.

Keep in mind, I do not say the image is true.  Only history will decide that.  I speak from the position of a Casting Director or a storyteller.  I talk about image and marketing, which never have anything to do with reality.  Real or not, Trump is cast as Batman in the minds of Americans.  He is the anti-hero with nothing but his money and his wits - and more than 70 million Americans who believe the image - and who will turn on him in a New York minute if they feel betrayed.

Trump behaves like a man who has seen the final reel and knows the good guys win, no matter how bleak it looks right now.  Is he projecting an image, or does he really know something we don't?  He behaves like the movie character who gives a quick wink to the camera to let us know that it's not as bad as it looks.

For myself, I respect Trump as a master bullshit artist.  I draw a distinct line between bullshitters and bullshit artists, and he falls solidly into the latter.  I don't trust a single word he says, but I admire the way he says it.  It works - quite well judging by his wide base of support.

What will the outcome of the 2020 election be?  I have no idea.  Here's what I do know:

The media are lying through their teeth about pretty much everything.  They are contradicting things they said as recently as the 2018 election, or even what they said about Biden in the primary season this round.  Absolutely nothing the media say can be trusted.

The law favors Trump.  Title 3 USC 1, Sec. 1 & 2 clearly say that the people, governors and Secretaries of State have a plenary right to call the elections, but after midnight on Election Day, that right can be unilaterally rescinded by the legislatures if certain conditions arise, and they have arisen in all of the contested states.  This is the law that the Supreme Court cited in stopping the Florida recounts in 2000.

There is most certainly corruption and rigging in the US election.  For one thing, history tells us that all elections are corrupt to a certain extent.  For the most part, we tolerate it and go about our merry business, but when it is so egregious and obvious, as it is now, the old American level playfield outlaw psyche kicks in.  The Affidavit of Dr. Navid Kashavariz-Nia should make even the hardest heart and head want to know the truth, regardless of where it leads.

Finally, we know the character of Joe Biden.  His career has been marked by lying, cheating and plagiarizing.  He is on record as claiming to have leveraged a billion dollar load guarantee to the Ukraine in return for firing a prosecutor who was investigating a company his son worked for.  He has claimed to have three degrees, a full scholarship to university, and to have graduated at the top of his class, none of which have proven true.  His tenure as Vice President under Barack Obama is overflowing with evidence of misuse of government agencies and power to target "enemies," including Gen. Michael Flynn, recently pardoned by Trump.  That he would stop at nothing to rig an election is plausible and evidence is mounting.

In my estimation, the 2020 Election is quintessentially America.  A corrupt Establishment tilting the table in their favor.  The lone hero tilting at windmills.  Cliffhangers.  Mob bosses.  Fairness versus Equality.  It's all there, and this is why the nation is transfixed on the outcome.

I contend that the average Joe (pun intended) down in the trenches, beaten by imaginary viruses, threatened by Communist China, struggling to overcome adversity, is hoping, praying that Trump wins.  I believe Trump knows this and is orchestrating events for maximum catharsis when it happens.  

Watch any old classic Western film then scan the headlines and see if you don't find the same connections I do.

We're in the second reel.  The hero is down and things look bleak.  We are glued to our seats waiting for the cavalry.  Stay tuned, same Bat-time, same Bat-channel!

Removing The Blinders

To start off today's rant, let us first define "government."  Government is a human institution designed to erect barriers to creativity that protect favored entities (regulation), be a parasite that leeches off of the productive parts of society (taxation) and provide life-long employment for those members of society who are unwilling or incapable of being creative or productive (bureaucrats).  Like bacteria, government will grow until it consumes all of the resources available within its jurisdiction.  In other words, there is no such thing as a "good" or "benign" government, and this is true in every form, in all places and at all times throughout history.

What prompts today's tirade is the annual repeating of the Indonesian government mantra, "We are incapable of managing within our limits."  Last year, it was this whining article, this year it's (naturally) even more dire.  In keeping with the character of all governments everywhere at all times, there is no discussion of laying off apparatchiks or scaling back government programs, there is only talk of how to steal more money from the productive parts of society to feed the parasite.

Let's begin with the vaunted government "tax amnesty" program.  This was conceived as a way to get people to fess up and pay in all those taxes they hadn't reported in the past, with the carrot being a 'promise' not to cause grievous bodily harm to those who 'voluntarily' threw themselves on their swords.  Everything was all optonistic at first, as the government crowed that folks would happily deal the government in on their personal wealth if they just weren't afraid of retribution.  In the old days, this was called a "protection scheme" used by mafia and gangs to extract money from local shop owners.

Turns out people really are as broke as they kept telling the apparatchiks.  The program has so far brought in less than 25% of the expected windfall the government originally represented to investors and bankers.  Stocks and foreign investment have duly registered their disappointment with this situation, as the market deflates like a farting balloon.

All of that would be bad enough, but wait!  There's more!

The next example of government beneficence recently in the news is the Natuna Gas Project.  Here we have a case of one of the largest estimated gas reserves in the world sitting under the Natuna Sea, and the Natuna island chain.  Let's forget just for a moment that this rich gas field is sitting right next to the South China Sea, and is surrounded by Malaysia, Singapore, Vietnam, and Brunei, in addition to Indonesia.  If this sounds like a recipe for disaster, it gets better.

The Natuna people have lived in these islands since before records were kept, and certainly longer than the 70-year history of Indonesian independence.  They dwell in relative obscurity, being at the very frontier of national boundaries and receiving attention only because they sit on top of a veritable gold mine.  Can we have a show of hands, how many folks think these people will directly benefit from the wealth under their feet for the past millennium or two?

Let's begin with government regulations, shall we?

Under current Indonesian resource laws (updated during the 2009 coal boom), the government wants to "partner" with a producer to drill and extract the gas.  The government wants the producer to take all the risk and expense, bringing all the necessary equipment to do the job.  The result is that the government will then own all the production and take ownership of all the machinery and infrastructure that was imported to produce the field.  Furthermore, under Indonesian cabotage law, all vessels used to import the equipment and cart off the gas much be Indonesian flagged in national waters.

In other words, you do all the work, cover all the costs, and we get all the benefits.  Such a deal!  Anyone who finds this a fair and equitable arrangement please contact me right away so I can manage your investment for you.

Naturally, the locals will be promised the sun, moon and stars in exchange for their cooperation.  They will be offered government indoctrination centers (schools) and government resource management centers (hospitals) that, if they are worth a damn in the first place, will soon devolved into deteriorating skeletons of empty promises.

Finally, once (if) the money starts rolling in, there will suddenly be layers upon layers of government apparatchiks, brokers and corruptors of all stripes with ladles in hand, ready to siphon off as much of the wealth as possible.  The locals will be forced to join in the festival of slime, or find themselves completely out of the loop, watching as tar balls and trash wash up on their once-pristine beaches.  And all this assumes the government can find a competent sucker to come in under its terms in the first place.

Meanwhile, those companies who were stupid enough to hang a shingle under the government's oh-so-equitable rules are finding themselves under attack with few options for relief or response.  GOOGLE has been hit with a US$400 million tax bill for 2015 alone, with the past five years under the microscope, and its only options for appeal are the Indonesian tax office (good luck) and/or the Indonesian courts (hahaha!).  In other words, their only option is to ask the very leeches who live off GOOGLE blood to stem the flow just a bit.

Don't get me wrong.  I really don't like or trust GOOGLE, but this makes for a great case study of government greed and desperation.  After years of corruption, bloated hierarchy, mismanagement, convoluted and overlapping ministries, waste, sleaze and slime, the government finds itself running out of options to perpetuated itself, with the one obvious option of cleaning up its act being quite far off the table.

Under Indonesian tax laws, GOOGLE has two options: pay the government's tax claim, or face years of audits and court hearings to determine if this money is actually owed.  Given the government's track record, GOOGLE will end up being liable for the money AND being out all the lawyer and court fees, as well as penalties and interest.  Great options, ne l'est pas?

Notice that the article mentions the one tool to which all governments always resort - force (read guns property confiscation and grievous bodily harm).

What all this boils down to, and Indonesia is by far not the only or best example, is that governments are destructive.  They stand in the way of real people making real profits and creating real things.  They are protection rackets that take money for the promise of protection from phantoms, while failing to protect people from the real threat - government itself.  The reason that governments appear to dance so well is their habit of constantly shooting themselves in the foot.

The reason that all governments are corrupt in all places and at all times is that they are collections of people who have been granted exclusive use of force to collect money that pays themselves.  If this is not a classic recipe for disaster, then nothing is.  Corruption and waste are natural by-products of organizations that produce nothing and get paid for it at the point of a gun.

Humans have yet to devise a system of governance on a large scale that does not eventually become its own worst enemy.  It is a parasitic institution that is utterly dependent on its ability to suck the life out of everyone who submits to it.

The only viable option is to have the smallest possible scale so that the 'leaders' are as close to the people being governed as possible.  In this way, 'leaders' can only be as corrupt as the communities they 'serve,' and the ability to escape corruption is as easy as a short move away to a neighboring community.

What we, the real people, must disabuse ourselves of is the notion that there is any such thing as benign government.  It does not, nor cannot exist.  At some point, the parasite always turns on the host in order to promote its interests over all others.  It is always a negative force that produces nothing and offers no rewards.  It simply takes, and when threatened, it takes more, until the host expires and rids itself of the infestation.

It is thus that we part with our new mantra, "All governments are always destructive at all times and in all places."

Of Bombs And Bullies

Lately there has been a marked increase in the number of hand-wringing articles on the subject of Americans leaving the US and the jump in those renouncing their citizenship in the past year.  As one of my acquaintances back home noted, "Hell, even the wetbacks are swimming back!"

The answer is both simple and obvious.  The same reason that many Germans left Fascist Germany - they don't agree with the politics and can't stand the culture.

One prime example of why Americans are bugging out is the Syria fiasco.  The US has for many years started wars for no better reasons than commerce and hand-picking successor regimes.  If other nations pulled half the crap that the US does in foreign countries, the people would be up in arms.  Yet, they can't fathom why the world increasingly hates America, and why so many folks are getting the hell out.

Americans are so steeped in propaganda from the age of 1 that they just can't imagine why anyone would want to leave the country.  They can't conceive of people not wanting government shoved into every orifice of their being around the clock.  It doesn't compute that folks would disagree with a belligerent foreign policy.  And surely no one would disagree with a centuries-long habit of killing large numbers of brown people.

Americans think that America is the greatest country on Earth.  They can't separate the brilliant founding ideals of the nation from the actual practice.  They think, "Hey, we invented the light bulb, the telephone and the automobile, not to mention landing on the Moon!"  Doesn't occur to most of them that the last great achievement the nation had was almost 50 years ago.

Hello, America...wake up.  G. W. Schrub made Edison's lamp illegal in favor of Frenchman Alexandre Edmond Becquerel's fluorescent lamps.  Swedish and Japanese companies make the most popular telephones today.  Detroit has declared bankruptcy and American cars are hardly made in the US anymore.  And NASA no longer has a manned space program.  The handful of astronauts it sends to the space station hitch rides with Russia - who could pull the plug on US manned access to space because of Syria.  Furthermore, the US hasn't returned a man to the Moon since the early 70s.

Add to the severe economic decline of America its moral and ethical decay over the past 60 years.  The US has gone from a position of moral and economic authority immediately following WW2 to a third-rate bully that ignores international law, violates the national sovereignty of nearly every other nation on Earth, and treats its own citizenry like criminals with an a priori assumption of guilt.

America no longer has anything to offer a person of conscience.  The various levels of government in the US systematically violates every aspect of the individual's dignity and security.  The citizen carries a massive tax burden to pay for unauthorized debt and unconstitutional wars.  The police have gotten out of hand in addition to now being just one of a dozen agencies that all feel at liberty to violate human rights at will and with impunity.  Finally, any attempt to redress grievances with the government are treated with derision and disdain by said government.

So, what exactly are the selling points for life in the US?  Because from where I stand, there are none at all.

In fact, the current saber-rattling in Syria makes me all the more certain that I made the right choice to leave the US.  I can not in any way support the military adventurism and the economic interventionism practiced by the US government.  I can not abide the way that nation destroys families through an educational system and meddlesome agencies whose purposes are to undermine parental authority and transfer family loyalty to the state.  Finally, I vehemently disagree with Washington's on-going policy of military interventionism on the flimsiest of justifications as a means of boosting profits for favored corporations.

The fact that Americans are asking such silly questions as, "Why Are Americans Leaving The US" shows the willful ignorance of the American populace.  I say willful because the internet offers dozens on alternatives to the propaganda outlets at home.  That they prefer CNN and Fox to real information shows the depth of the ignorance and/or the support that so many profess to their government.

Americans also display their corruption and complicity through repeated election of the same corrupt politicians, despite all evidence of the depravity of said politicians, based solely on being bought off by government pork projects.  If this is not the ultimate cynical act of people who worship their own corruption, then nothing is.

If Americans had a real desire to change things, they could.  There are 300 million citizens versus a few thousand minions.  The only excuse for not changing things is willful participation in the moral decay of the nation, with the possible addition of laziness and greed as additional motives.

The exodus of citizens from America highlights the hopelessness of having ethics and integrity in a nation of ignorance and degeneracy.  About the only position with a future in America is gang member, as recent reports demonstrate.  Additionally, the only prop left under the American economy is invading, killing and destroying other nations.  That is no basis for a healthy and viable future.

The intellectuals and business people who left Germany with the rise of Fascism were the only ones left to rebuild that country after the entire Earth massed to destroy it.  Likewise, those folks bailing out of America today may end up being the only hope for rebuilding that country once the rest of the world has tired of its hubris.  And that day may be coming soon.

The pretension of a gas attack in Syria as a way to justify (on the loosest of grounds) American military interventionism in yet another country may be the last straw.  The world has grown weary of America's regime changes and death for democracy campaigns.  The dominoes are decidedly lined up against the US should it decide to strike Syria.  The first casualty in the war against the resurrection of Fascism will likely be Israel.  The world is little fooled, at least any more, by the antics of the Zionists whose habit is to break a stick over its neighbors' heads, then run to hide behind Uncle Sugar.

The bully always gets his comeuppance and the US is no exception.  The American people would do well to read the tea leaves of history to see what the future holds.  A mass exodus of citizens is only one of many signs now visible.

Seventy years ago, it nearly destroyed our civilization to put one regime in a country the size of Texas back in its place.  What will it take to contain the ambitions and decadence and the US?

Quis Custodiet?

One of Indonesia's leading newspapers, Kompas, ran the above-the-fold headline today that said, "Political Corruption is Systemic."

Wait for it...

NO SHIT SHERLOCK.

Why is it that people are continuously surprised by the obvious?  I mean, if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always gotten.  It's one of those basic rules in life that we all have to learn.

Corruption is endemic to ANY political system.  Any time a group of people is empowered to take the productive work of any other group of people for supposed services rendered, there will be corruption.  It is a fact of life that is as old as government itself, especially when that power involves a bureaucracy to maintain the systems of government.

The way it works is this: first a government will create a list of "services" that it performs for the general populace; then it creates a bureaucracy to shuffle the paperwork to obtain those services; then the piles of paperwork grow to the point that obtaining those services takes months, if not years; then the bureaucrats start taking bribes to "expedite" applications; then the politicians all want a cut of the bribes.

It's a very simple process from A to Z, and when the politicians and bureaucrats continue to get away with the corruption, it reinforces the system of corruption and it continues to grow and become more endemic until it either becomes completely stalled and untenable, or the people rise up and throw the bastards out.  History tells us that one or the other is inevitable.

One of the key signs of a fascist state is that the legal code becomes so complex and Byzantine that the average citizen is a felon just for waking up in the morning.  This creates a system of corruption as the citizens try to maneuver their way through this system without going to jail.  Naturally, the citizen is willing to pay whatever it takes to stay "free" and out of the tangled nightmare that is The System.  Naturally, the politicians and bureaucrats are willing to take the money to leave people alone.

Until the last couple of years, Indonesians have been very provincial.  They could not afford to leave the country, so they had no experience with other governments and other systems.  Therefore, they tended to see their own system as being the most corrupt, and others (like the US) as less so.

Indonesians demanded, and received, a governmental body called the KPK (corruption eradication commisiion), whose job it was to investigate and punish corruptors.  However, it too became corrupt as the politicians and bureaucrats, swollen with bribe money, were willing to pay the overseers a portion of their take to stay out of the spotlight.

It goes as far back as Ovid, the Roman poet, who asked the famous question, "Quid custodiet ipsos custodies?"  Who will watch the watchers?  It is a problem as old as civilization itself.

What it comes down to is human nature and what Lord Acton so rightly observed, "Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

The more centralized and remote power systems become, the more corrupt and uncontrollable they become.  It is a fact that cannot be disputed.  It is human nature to become more corrupt as the ability to catch and hold a person responsible for their actions becomes less of a threat.

Ultimately, this is the central problem with a global government.  Ironically, it is also the reason that it will never come to be.

The problem is this: as we plod ever closer to a central world government, the more corrupt those at the core will become.  In the end, they will factionalize and begin infighting the closer ultimate power comes to reality.  Finally, the whole thing will collapse as the sharks begin feeding on each other for every shred of power they can secure.

It has already begun.  Joseph Farrell, in his book Babylon's Banksters, makes a compelling case for the fact that the erstwhile global governors are already eating each other for ultimate control.  Ultimate control means ultimate corruption, and no system that is totally corrupt can stand.  It must, of its own corruption, collapse.

Many books have been written on the rise and fall of great empires.  Without exception, they are studies in corruption and decay.

Therefore, it stands to reason that the least corrupt governments are the most likely to survive and offer the best possible state for the citizenry.  Given the fact that large systems collapse, it is thus only small and controllable governments that work best.  For that reason, decentralized regional governments are the most feasible, and governments on the level of communities are the best.  It must be kept in mind, though, that any amount of power will corrupt any number of bureaucrats.

We end up with the most logical solution to this mess we humans tend to create: the government of ONE is the best possible form of rule.  If the individual becomes corrupt, he cannot infect more than what he can control, and all he can control is that which he owns.

Many people ridicule this idea as 'anarchy', but it is what the libertarians call "enlightened self-government".  The individual will do everything possible to protect what is his, thus he will avoid corruption in order to enlist the support of others (friends, family, etc.) in his effort to protect his possessions.  The theory is that the less corrupt a person is, the more likely others are to assist him.

In the end, 'anarchy' produces the best form of governance for any group of people.  Those who are least corrupt will engender the most support and goodwill from the most number of people, and so will be the most successful.

Vendors who routinely short-change customers will not stay in business for long.  In the same way, in an anarchic system, only those who are perceived to be the most honest will receive support of large groups of people.

Anarchy does not require voting, which can be corrupted (a la United States).  It does not require licenses, deeds, titles, or any other form of bureaucracy, since those who perceive you to be honest in your public dealings will most likely protect your interests against outside challenges.  Anarchy requires individuals to be honest, upright and competent.  It is the nature of that system.

The minute I delegate power to someone else, then they -- no matter how honest and trustworthy -- will have the temptation to become corrupt and abuse your power, since it is not theirs and they perceive no loss to themselves in squandering what is yours.

The solution is deceptively simple, and it is the most likely to protect rights and property, but it is also the most difficult thing to convince people of this fact.  We have become so used to centralized government and we have become so spoiled by the ability to leach off the productivity of others (welfare, socialized medicine, etc.) that we cannot see any other solution.  Yet the logic is inescapable.

Under the system we currently subscribe to, we have only escalating layers of 'watchers', creating ever more vast bureaucracies, engendering ever more corruption and in-fighting for control.  It is an untenable system and must collapse of its own weight and corruption.

Two of the most successful governments on Earth are the Icelandic and Swiss systems because they leave the greatest amount of power in the hands of the individuals.  However, as we have seen in recent years, even those systems are subject to corruption, though they are the most able to deal with it, since the power is still closest to the individual.

In a system of delegation of power, the individual is most likely to get run over by that system, since the inherent mentality is that the good of the many is more important than the good of the individual.  But, the opposite is true.

When the individual feels secure in person and property, he is more likely to work on behalf of the group, since he will have surplus that he is able to deploy in the community to build the perception that he is a good and trustworthy person, thus reinforcing the desire of the community to protect his rights and property.

So-called anarchy -- or enlightened self-interest -- is the only system of governance that can possibly work over the long term, while preserving the rights and property of the individual.  It is the only system that is self-righting, automatically correcting corruption and similar problems.  There is only one weakness...

Humans have an in-born desire to serve a leader.  It is part of our genetic code and is pounded into our brains from birth, though education, religion and other community forces.  As long as humans view themselves as servants, both willing to hand over power and accept scraps from a master's table, then we will have the corruption and decay and power-hungry elites that we have suffered under for millennia.

It is only when we, as individuals, take full responsibility for our actions and well-being that we will throw off the yoke of government that is corrupt and ultimately self-defeating.

The only thing wrong with anarchy is that it has never been tried on any scale that could prove the point.  As a species, we have been so hell-bent on servitude that we don't even trust ourselves to act in our own best interest.  Rather, we must establish organs of State (and make no mistake, religion is an organ of State) to force us to do what we know is best for us in the first place.

If you do not delegate your power, then no one will have power over you.

So simple, yet so hard to achieve.

Fear Begets Fear

READER NOTE: The first installment of Radio Far Side will be up this week.  Keep checking back...

Si Pitung

Here's the thing: ALL governments everywhere and at all times have been, are and shall ever be corrupt.  Period.

We have spent the past 5,000 years of documented history trying one form or another of government, only to watch it completely turn on us and eat us alive until we rise up in bloody indignation and slaughter the beast we created.  Then we turn right around and create more governments.

Why is it, in 5,000 years, no one has ever questioned the underlying assumption that we need governments at all?  I suppose we are all eternal optimists who while away our lives hoping and praying that THIS king's inbred progeny will be good, or the NEXT elected leader will have principles and integrity.

Whatever the cause, we haven't learned in all this time that concentrating power of any kind and amount will only attract megalomaniacs and psychopaths whose sole aim is to accumulate more power and protect it with the military might of the nation.

In America, no one seems to get that Homeland Security has nothing to do with Joe the Plumber.  The bespoke 'homeland' is THEIR power base, and the 'security' is for THEM, not us.  We are the threat from which THEY need to secure themselves.

You will notice that the US Constitution begins with three simple words: We the People.  Most folks don't stop to consider that in the English language, upper case letters only precede first words in sentences, proper nouns, and words with special definitions within the context of the document in which they are used.  Of those options, only the last one explains the capital 'P' in "People".  That means the word is not the common one used in daily speech, but a specially defined term.  In this case, it refers to the 55 men that met in secret to create the document.

The American federation is no more viable or special than any other attempt to force diverse people into a single cubby hole.  Other notable examples include the EU, the Venetian mercantile state, the Holy Roman Empire, the UK's colonies, or any of several dozen other examples.

Robin Hood

What we really should do is create a special, cordoned off area somewhere on Earth, preferably the Gobi desert, and anyone who thinks they have the moral authority to rule or judge other people should be sent there, where they can rule over and judge each other to their heart's delight.  The only rule is that they can never leave that area, since thoughts like those never go away.  It's a fault of their genetic make-up.

In this way, the rest of us can get on with our lives in peace, without governments, taxes, militaries, or corporate persons.  And without fear.

At their most basic levels, all governments operate on one basic principle: Fear.  Fear of boogymen.  Fear of the unknown.  Fear of the government itself.  It's all based on fear.  They create fear, thrive on fear and manipulate fear symbols.

Any student of the human condition knows that people instinctively rally when threatened.  It's not difficult to use this instinct to create and centralize power.  Almost every meme propagated by government-controlled media involves fear.  Whether it is fear of personal crime to justify police forces, or fear of outside attack to justify militaries, in the end, the fear is used to create and maintain control systems that ultimately work against the very people who pay for the supposed protection.

What's interesting to note is that folk heroes usually represent anarchy and the impulse to throw off fear and the control structure.  Look at Robin Hood, or the pirate legends, or the gangsters of the 1930s America, or Si Pitung here in Indonesia.  All of these romanticized characters share the common notion that the protectors of the common man fight power and control structures.  They represent our basic desire for freedom, not only from control structures, but from fear itself.

Ultimately, we must realize that no outside control will ever truly save us from outside threats.  We have police, but still have crime.  We have the military, but still get attached.  We have laws, but still have corruption.  We have to come to grips with the fact that we are no worse off, and in many cases are better off, without government.  In most countries, government sucks better than half of the wealth and labor of their subjects into slush funds that are used to propagate more government, which sucks more wealth and labor until the subjects are either destitute or rise up and slaughter the controllers.

This cycle hasn't changed for thousands of years, and obviously is not changing now.  If anything, the only outcome is greater and greater centralization of power and force.

History proves two things, greater centralization of power always ends in disaster, while those times when individuals controlled their own lives and destinies exhibited the greatest levels of peace and industriousness.  The more we pay for government, regardless of the perceived benefit, the more that government will turn on us and become the enemy from which we thought it was supposed to protect us.

As ever major philosophy has taught, the beginning of wisdom and the liberation of Self begins with the conquering of Fear.  Once we have liberated ourselves from Fear, there is no need for government.  We realize that nothing can protect us from the unknown and unexpected, except our prepared minds and willingness to work on our own behalf.

Death ultimately takes us all.  The measure of the life that precedes it is the degree of fear with which we face that simple truth.  Death is the root of all fear, and by coming to grips with it, we conquer fear and no longer require protectors.  If we don't need protectors, there is no justification for government.  And without government, we are free individuals able to pursue our best course in life.

In the end, anarchy works because most people are busily pursuing their lives.  They instinctively know that chaos serves no good purpose, and so don't create any and actively rebel against it.  In fact, chaos only reigns when fear takes large groups of people, who then react without reason or conscious thought.  Once again, fear is the root cause.

Blackbeard

Consolidation of wealth and power is the cause of corruption.  Governments, by their very nature, is consolidation, and thus are always corrupt.  We create government to protect us from the unknown.  Because of corruption, governments always end up protecting themselves, and thus become the cause of the unknown.  Conquering our fear of the unknown negates the need for government, and thus there is no consolidation of wealth and power, thus no corruption.  Therefore, anarchy is the best and most natural state of being, and rather than being chaos, is in fact based on the lack of fear.  So it stands to reason that only through enlightened self-interest can we hope to be free of corruption, coercion and force.

Our fear drives us to create governments.  The governments ultimately turn on us and become the cause of fear.  It is a vicious circle and one that has plagued humanity for all of its recorded history.  Until we change ourselves, we can not hope to change the world.