I woke up this morning at 6AM (earlier than usual) to study for an accounting exam. However, after eating my Corn Pops, I wasn't much in the studying mood so I went on YouTube and checked out Ron Paul's channel. I have to say I'm addicted to this guy's commentary. He's another one of those guys who you just want to sit down and learn from. He's a congressman from the old school, and I don't mean the 1950's. No, I mean the 1750's.
This guy seems like a Modern Polymath. On the one hand, he's a doctor of medicine who still treats patients while he's in office, and he's a state rep. Also, he gets over 95% of his funding from private citizens donations when most federal politicians are getting big corporate backers. He also spends most of his time in his home district actually helping the local constituency.
This hearkens back to when congress was a group of people who were revered amongst the body politic, instead of the spineless variety currently inhabiting the congress. Those who are nothing but purveyors of soft talk and meaningless showmanship that Rome's great manipulators would have known quite well. Instead of a congress from the people, by the people, and for the people, we have what amounts to the beginning of the coming American oligarchy. A tyrannical bunch of Big Brothers from "1984" who will control us through our Telescreens with the modern Soma of mass media while all the time being aided by the rampant anti-intellectualism amongst the populous at large.
In all of this mess though is Ron Paul. This guy seems like the only man on our side, freedom's side. He openly speaks about abolishing many of the departments that the socialists (Hillary's ilk) would have us expand. His rationale is simple: let the market decide. Where as in the other corner we have Frau Clinton saying that we need to move our country into the future with "shared responsibility". I could be stereotypical say,"It didn't work for the Soviets", but that would be too easy and really not convince anyone - including myself. So, let's break it down.
Your family has each sibling perform a chore for the day. Your is to take out the trash and your sibling washes the dishes. This continues on for several weeks until your brother asks you to do the dishes so he can go on a date. It works out well, and next week he takes out the trash so you can go to a baseball game with some friends. You both agree that you should always alternate doing both chores so that you can free up that day to something you want to every other week. One week, you come home from your friend's house to notice that the trash hasn't been taken out and the dishes are dirty. You find out the next day your brother skipped out to be with his girlfriend. He tells you that he's really sorry but that he has special circumstances and that you'll have to help him out. Now you're stuck doing both with no foreseeable end. This is what socialism becomes. You take out the trash while your brother sits back and gets laid.
Everyone forgot what it means to be human. Being fed and housed by the government isn't being alive it's being a pet, or perhaps more to the point - a slave. People don't cherish the same things any more. Whereas as early as 70 years ago people wanted to achieve the American Dream, now they just want to be given it. The only way the politicians can get the attention of the mob is to make them promises of the high-life, and the other way to pay for it is to raise taxes (or in the Republican's case cut somewhat them).
It's a shame that it's come to this because we come from such great intellectual roots. Before, during, and long after the Revolution this country had the highest rate of literacy in the history of man. People were always reading, leading to literary clubs and salons like the one Ben Franklin started which eventually became so wide spread and accepted that the public contributed of their free will to the construction of a library. People wanted to learn, a common young boy in his teens contacted Thomas Jefferson in a letter asking how he may become well read. He was given a most warm reply with a reading list of classic works to study with the promise he would write him about more.
What do our youth want today? Play Station 3 or Game Cube by my observations. Kids in bad circumstances today don't want an education, let alone a college degree. They'd much prefer a nice set of Jordan's or a Nintendo PSP. This isn't just remarked on by some extreme nut cases but by the most mainstream of all, Oprah. When she decided to build a school to teach disadvantaged youth she didn't build it in some urban ghetto. She built it in Africa.
Meantime, in the United States, we're on a viscous death spiral. We get bad leadership because only a fraction of the electorate cares and even few actually THINK. This leadership leads to a further decline of the culture which turns us more and more into the sheep that they must herd. My roommate and I were talking today how this actually turns against the force of natural selection. By turning the government into the great provider (and simultaneously a Leviathan) they are rewarding poor and destructive behavior which leads to a new generation of youth who are more predisposed to this same effect.
For instance, the lower proletariat in America is, by definition, not on steady financial ground. Under the old system these people scrap it out to survive, but those that make it have shown they have what it takes. I'm not advocating for raw Social Darwinism where people actually die; that's not for our modern era. I am a proponent, however, of something very close to that, where the only change is that there is a tacit agreement where people have to help each other by their own will, not the government, to survive.
This isn't done by mandate. It's done by self evident principles. For instance, if you are lazy in our current system you get to at least eat for free via the government's dole. If this was taken away, as in my system, the people would go hungry if they remained lazy. So there is going to be a reaction from this stimulus causing: increase in crime and /or decrease in laziness. Crime is the problem of this system, and if someone tells you it's not then they're kidding themselves. Just look at our current urban slums to see that people with nothing to loose are pushed into lives of crime. By their own decision, yes, but not by their inclination. Few are born a thief.
It is shown that crime positively correlates with economic conditions so much that we'd be foolish to ignore this part of the problem. More police is not the answer. Many NRA people (a group which I'm a proud member) think guns will solve everything. The fact is, though, that while they most definitely have their place in crime prevention (without ANY infringement), we can't have a bunch of bodies lying around in the transition phase from our current system to the one I'm proposing. No, education and restoration of the family are really the long term answers.
The family issue is something which I have little knowledge of how to correct. On the one hand it could be argued that this new set of rules would bring families together to survive, and on the other you could make a fair argument that it would turn into complete self-centered world where family is only liability. So, without any knowledge I'll have to go into education side of things.
Education is the older brother of child-rearing, which I mean is an evolution of it. This is due to rearing being one's enculturation in this society and to humanity itself. This learning must be followed by a more thorough look at what the state of knowledge is and how one can use it to good ends. One of the few government programs that I support is public school. Now by that I mean that I think that many communities would benefit by having a school which is free (obviously taxpayer funded) to a certain age and mandatory for those in the district. Now, at the same time competition must be present in the form of a voucher system so that people can pull their money and put it in whatever school they choose. This system would only be in effect during this transition phase because after that communities would be left to decide for themselves how they were to operate.
Once a general level of education has been reached some type of trade school or college would be necessary (not mandatory) for a large part of society to fulfill all the skilled jobs. At the same time some unskilled people will always be needed, but since they are now a smaller group their labor is more valuable and hence their wages will increase as a result. If this level of education is maintained throughout the populous the crime level would drop quite low and people would be able to focus on higher pursuits than just trying to stay alive. For instance, on the family.
Perhaps now that most are living above the poverty line families are more likely to stay together, and the parents' natural tendencies to want the best for their children will shine through. This will hopefully improve the situation more. Now, with their children satisfied many will grow ambitious and want to strive for more. More of what it doesn't matter. Whether they want objects like a better house or luxury car, or if they just want to be able to go on a nice vacation with the family once a year. This will rekindle the working spirit to people who have actually earned it, and hence have more confidence (on average of course) to go out their and do something more.
This then would bring about a more limited form of government because no one wants the infringement on their abilities. This then leads to the ending of the transition phase into the full limited government area of my idea.
Now, I realize this will most likely never happen, but it's basically as close as mankind can come to utopia. In fact, this was how it was 200 years ago. Men were truly free, the government didn't steal half your money, and people had pride in themselves and what they achieved.
Today, I sit back and wonder how we progress from such great beginnings to what we have now. Aristotle had a succession of government which showed how it would slip from one to another as political forces were expressed into real change. He viewed this as inevitable. Our government evolved from a constitutional one to a mob-rule democracy. This was known by the earliest of the patriots. Prompting none other than Thomas Jefferson to say:
"And what country can preserve its liberties, if its rulers are not
warned from time to time that this people preserve the spirit of
resistance? Let them take arms... the tree of liberty must be refreshed
from time to time, with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is its
natural manure."
This to me is the only way things will get any better. This may seem radical today, but more people than you would care to know believe in it. I have talked to them, and they are not a majority by any means. However, support for the Revolutionary War was far from majority during its original conception. Its concept was somewhat taboo, just as today. You can imagine though with the intellectualism of the day, how the concept got legs and spread throughout the colonies. I really wish this would happen again. Today, though, I must sit back and talk of the movement that may someday bring about this change.