J. Neil Schulman
@ Agorist.com
@ Agorist.com
Wouldn’t it be funny if the rulers of the earth actually wanted pretty much the same sort of government as most of the world’s people?
I think it’s actually true.
If you have a very long perspective the twentieth century was, as President Obama might well put it, a teachable moment. By its end everyone pretty well understood Lord Acton’s point that absolute power corrupts absolutely, and that in the long run dictatorship is impractical even for the dictator. World domination proved a chimera even to the totally committed dictator willing to spill any amount of blood in the attempt.
So the powers that be — billionaire bankers, heads of state, generalissimos — rethought and retooled.
People everywhere have a reasonable fear and loathing of government gone wild with their wars and planned famines, concentration camps and exterminations, lost families and broken lives. But libertarians sometimes conclude from this that in escaping from Big Brother people are also seeking freedom.
Occasionally that’s true. A bad experience with government can leave one quite cynical about it.
But as soon as most people get away from the jackboots as often as not they miss the softer side of tyranny: the guaranteed jobs, room and board, the socialized medicine, the lowered expectations.
So if one belongs to a power elite seeking global government, the first lesson learned from the twentieth century was different strokes for different folks.
In the parts of the world still run by dictators, a globalist seeking a worldwide democracy might come across as a liberator.
In a third world overrun by warlords who commandeer any relief brought in for their own uses, a globalist might well be seen as a bringer of food, medicine, and order.
In Europe a globalist might advocate lifestyle changes so small as to be seen as an advocate of business as usual.
But in the United States of America, whose people have not completely forgotten the uncompromising libertarian challenges of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights, a globalist needs to be a chameleon advocating whatever policy is necessary to move institutions away from true liberty.
A globalist in the U.S. might be seen as a secular liberal, a compassionate conservative, a post-9/11 patriot, an environmentalist, even an Ayn-Rand-spouting capitalist.
Globalism is populist government. Most of the world’s people are even more afraid of living without the safety net of a nanny state than they are of a Hitler, Stalin or Osama bin Laden.
What the power elite want — a “kinder, gentler” world nanny state with themselves as the nannies — is what the vast majority of the world’s people also want.
There is one, and only one, fly in this prescribed ointment. Americans with long memories.
Americans who read Jefferson, Paine, and Franklin, Spooner and Mencken, Rand, Rothbard, and Konkin.
Americans who know that while the United States was never free all the way, we got close enough that the flavor of liberty is still on our tongues, and the aroma of freedom is burnt into our nostrils.
America is and always has been the square peg in a round world. What we want is not what they want. What we dream about is not what they dream about.
But they have a problem. They need us.
Individualists are the geese laying golden eggs.
They don’t want us dead. They want us compliant.
But the globalists are smart enough to know that they need to maintain the illusion of liberty in order to keep the golden eggs coming.
For Americans, unlike the rest of the world, the globalist strategy is akin to stage magic: distraction with one hand while they trick us with the other.
The most important component of this strategy is their domination of entertainment.
They’ve had only limited success with controlling public education and universities, defining public agendas for people whose ideology overcomes common sense.
In America, it’s even more important to control the late-night comic’s monologue than it is to control the cable news network. You only need one or two well-launched jokes to effect more of a political impact than a dozen books, editorials, or blogged rants.
I don’t know whether planet earth will ever be free. But I do think America is still the best hope for freedom on this planet.
The anthem of the American nation might not be found so much at the beginning of baseball games as in the song lyrics of an old British rock band: we won’t get fooled again.
So keep paying attention. Look where they don’t want you to look. There’s where those of us who want freedom stand a chance of finding it.
But keep in mind: the world might not thank you if you find it.
Freedom is an acquired taste.
November 17, 2009 - 6:05 am
Neil, I don’t know if you’re a fan of Joss Whedon’s Firefly series, but I almost – ALMOST, mind you, since I’ve no evidence to support it – believe that they botched the show particularly because of its heavily pro-freedom message.
If you look on Hulu, for a long time now it has been beating in terms of popularity shows that are -still releasing new episodes-. Now that they’ve reduced the number of episodes that they carry to 5, this may change, but last I checked, it was still up there. So the audience is obviously there. Why, then, do we find that they couldn’t for the life of them reach potential viewers?
A number of people whom I know who watched it when it was airing on TV claimed that it took a concentrated effort on their part to get into it because the advertising for the show and the episodes that aired didn’t match up and the overarching story line was incoherent because the episodes were aired out of their intended order.
Do you think this is the fault of allowing focus groups and network producers to run a show, as is likely, or might it be something even more unsavory?
November 17, 2009 - 1:45 pm
HI Neil,
Great piece and I couldn’t agree with you more, having lived in a “less free” society for most of my life, I have come to the conclusion that for a large percentage of Americans who have not lived elsewhere, they don’t realize just how lucky they are! Or even worse, what they stand to lose!
Hope all is well M
November 18, 2009 - 7:07 am
“Look where they don’t want you to look.”
That’s some mighty sage advice there, boss. If we learned anything from Penn and Teller, it’s that misdirection is the key to making it all look like magic while actually accomplishing nothing but theft.
November 18, 2009 - 8:25 am
Good piece Mr. Schulman — though I guess that’s preaching to the choir. I wish I shared your optimism for the U.S., though I’m strongly trying to do my part to make this Country great again; I also must keep the safety and future of my family in mind (several dangerous, historical “tipping points” are being reached that can turn-on-a-dime. . . . that _could_ have nasty world-wide implications). Ironically, the last refuge for freedom may be remote areas in places like Argentina and Paraguay.
As to comment #1 by John H. regarding the “Firefly” series. There is no doubt it was intentionally scuttled; especially when you look at the politics and political actions at the time, in the U.S., that made a strong, and not so subtle attempt at squashing dissent, especially if freedom orientent — and since network TV is simply Government TV you can draw your own conclusions.
November 18, 2009 - 8:43 am
Very interesting article.
I believe that you have correctly stated the preferences of most people.
But I would encourage you to dig to deeper to ask yourself the question “Why do they have this preference?”.
IMHO what you are speaking of is a society motivated by fear…
People crave things like “guaranteed jobs, room and board, socialized medicine” when they are fearful and lacking in self confidence. Fear kills empathy which is the source of morality and enables us to hurt others without remorse to obtain the things we fear we cannot acquire via voluntary exchange.
A society motivated by fear builds big governments by which to inflict their will on each other. But at some stage these fearful individuals grow more fearful of the coercive force they have spawned than they do of their neighbors.
But by then it is too late as rule makers have already plunged the nation state into a deep depression that will ultimately culminate in large scale blood letting.
IMHO the only way to end this vicious cycle is for us all to have the courage to change our conditioned “immediate gratification” response to the impulse of fear. Instead of allowing it to control us, we should seek to control it by facing it and overcoming it.
The way to do this IMHO is by choosing to retain empathy for the would be victims of our coercion and seeking to find enduring happiness by living in genuine harmony with our conscience.
I truly believe that if people sought to control their fears instead of each other, all tyranny would vanish and the state would cease to exist.
With respect I believe Lord Acton is mistaken.
It is not power that corrupts but rather the *desire* for power.
And the desire for power is driven by fear.
November 18, 2009 - 3:28 pm
They can, in short, go f### themselves. It is not only Americans, but many of us who are unAmerican who won’t comply, won’t play their game, won’t produce billions in wealth nor provide hundreds of thousands of jobs so that the vicious tyrannical maniax who think they run the world can slaughter and pillage the planet.
You seem to think that the wars are over, the internment camps ended. The US Army is advertising for internment camp guards. Think again.
Your president, the one you think might have learned something “teachable” in the 20th Century? He says that he, as president, has constitutional authority to kidnap you without charges, detain you without trial, cage you anywhere in the world, prevent you from having access to counsel, clergy, or contact with your family, deny you the ancient writ of habeas corpus, and have his military or CIA agents torture you to death. Not only has he said he has authority to do these things, he has had these things done, on his watch.
If you think the USA government is the world’s last best hope for freedom, if you think there is any minute possibility that you can change the system by working within it, you are insane. You are pissing up the same rope that Ron Paul pissed up in 2008, and that his Campaign for Liberty is pissing up now. One gets a warm wet feeling doing that, but it doesn’t accomplish anything.
The tens of thousands of libertarians in America are capable of trade and commerce, privacy and free markets. They can do much for themselves and for each other with free associations and free markets. But politics is a miserable waste of time.
You ought to know by now.
November 18, 2009 - 4:14 pm
John, I guess you could call me a browncoat.
Alex, you’re anticipating one aspect of my next (possibly book-length) piece, Part One of which will be published to J. Neil Schulman @ Rational Review in the next day or two: “Unchaining the Human Heart: A Revolutionary Manifesto.”
Honestly, Jim, I don’t see how your rant is in response to anything I wrote. For example, I quoted a phrase Obama used; I didn’t say he understood anything. And your most important misquote. I wrote: “I don’t know whether planet earth will ever be free. But I do think America is still the best hope for freedom on this planet.” You turned it into “If you think the USA government is the world’s last best hope for freedom, if you think there is any minute possibility that you can change the system by working within it, you are insane.” Then you made a straw-man argument.
Thanks to all others for the nice words.
Neil