The incoming administration has a laundry list of new programs and measures reminiscent of the New Deal, or The Great Society. Mr. Obama is being compared to FDR and his coming administration is being called Obamalot (the Martyred JFK's Admin got the name Camelot posthumously). There is great hope and expectation that those whose suffering, real or imagined, will be rescued by this great Crusader (oops, that term is now politically incorrect, it's offensive to Muslims) who has already been called everything from the "Magic Negro" (LA Times, March 19,2007 http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-ehrenstein19mar19,0,5335087.story?coll=la-opinion-center), to "The Messiah" (Rush Limbaugh created the term as a tongue in cheek jab, but it was picked up by the Media and left and used extensively). As I have read or heard all of these platitudes over the past few weeks it has sparked a period of introspection. I have been amazed by my fellow mans willingness to sacrifice freedom for comfort. Not just comfort, but to be cared for in every way, they wish to give up all ability to choose. You see, having to choose to work or not, get an education or not, what to or not to eat, to smoke or not smoke what to drink, or even whether or not to have children and how many are acceptable, these are difficult choices. According to American Progressives, i.e.: Liberals, these choices are chains, and we cannot truly be "Free" until we do not have to make these choices for ourselves. There are "Better Educated" people who will take these choices for us. Further, if we do not take these choices for ourselves, then we can't fail. Failure will be a thing of the past. In fact, failure may even be stricken from the modern lexicon, if it is a state we will never experience, and then we will logically, not need it. We will just "Not succeed to our full expectation". Then again, we may have to also remove success from the lexicon also, because if you can't fail, you also cannot succeed. You may just "achieve more than the standard set", Yes, The modern American Progressive Media (I am trying to stop using the term Liberal for these people, and Fascist is still too harsh no matter how relative), also known as the Main Stream Media (MSM) have resurrected a little remembered program first put forth by the American Progressive Icon FDR.
Side Bar:
OMG! I think he just called FDR a Fascist in a Left (pun intended) handed way!
BigMan: Yes I did...
End Side Bar:
FDR, in one of the last speeches he made before his death, enumerated what he called a "The Economic Bill of Rights".
http://www.worldpolicy.org/projects/globalrights/econrights/fdr-econbill.html.
"Among these are:
The right to a useful and remunerative job in the industries or shops or farms or mines of the nation;
The right to earn enough to provide adequate food and clothing and recreation;
The right of every farmer to raise and sell his products at a return which will give him and his family a decent living;
The right of every businessman, large and small, to trade in an atmosphere of freedom from unfair competition and domination by monopolies at home or abroad;
The right of every family to a decent home;
The right to adequate medical care and the opportunity to achieve and enjoy good health;
The right to adequate protection from the economic fears of old age, sickness, accident, and unemployment;
The right to a good education."
After all of my reading, studying, and listening to the glowing expectations of the incoming American Progressive Obama administration, I have also read and heard discussed that this Economic Bill of Rights is something he also wishes to champion.
Side Bar:
OMG! He just intimated that "Lord Barrack, the most Merciful" is a Fascist!!!
BigMan: Busted. I can't get anything past you.. Socialist, Fascist, NAZI, Communist, American Progressive, all from the same family tree, but that is for another post.
End Side Bar
After taking all of that information in to my sizable cranial cavity (I didn't say I have a big brain, I just said the cavity is large). I had an epiphany while putting up Christmas lights outside at the Ranchero de Grande Hombre. I like many people get through life's menial tasks by reaching a "Zen" of thought. Those tasks wherein you go into an "autopilot" mode and just think. This is what I came up with.
Human society like everything else in the natural world is cyclical. There are ebbs and flows. Pendulum swings from one extreme to the other. We started our civilizing need with a simple band for protection. We are a weak species physically. We therefore abandoned some of our freedom for safety and security. We probably started with the first true "Democracy" where all band members helped decide where they would go for food and how the food was shared. There was probably some type of emergency and it was discovered that a "wise" individual could take decisions more efficiently than the group as a whole. These individuals or "Chiefs" at first had only temporary command during a crisis, and eventually, as they saying goes, “absolute power corrupts absolutely", the Chiefs refuted to relinquish control. We see examples of this through out history, especially in the Roman Republic. In a time of emergency, usually a war, two all powerful Pro-Consuls were selected, they were known as dictators. The choice of two was to be a safety measure so as not to bequeath too much power onto a single man. This worked well for many years until a Dictator named Gaius Julius Caesar was selected. We know how that turned out. Two twentieth Century Monarchs owed their heredity titles to this man, the Russian Tsar or Czar (C-zar), and the German Kaiser.
Like our earlier band, the Romans went from a time of relative freedom and liberty, to what we now call a dictatorship because of an emergency. Like the Roman Dictator Caesar, our early Chiefs title became hereditary most likely sometime or somewhere along the line, our Chief decided to "share" some of his power with his rivals in the band. An early example of "Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer". These positions became hereditary also, and these individuals began to consider themselves as "Noble', because they were "chosen" to lead.
The "people". These Nobles thought that they were rightfully chosen because of their superior intellect and therefore they could not dilute the "nobility" by interbreeding with the non-noble "common people" or "commoners". The reward for "taking care" of the common people was that they would not have to work as hard to provide for themselves. After all taking all of the decisions for the "band", "tribe", or eventually for the "Classical" world, City, was hard work.
The Classical world also gives us our first look into a Feudalistic society, the Spartans. They were a warrior people, there were probably never more than at most 30.000 Spartan Citizens. They did not work or sink to manual labor. They had slaves for this purpose. The Spartans were considered the greatest warriors of the Classical world. They had to be, there were as I said only approximately 30,000 Spartans, approximately half were male. That leaves only the "possibility' of 15,000 warriors. We know when they fought the Persians they eventually mustered 10,000 Hoplites to fight. Why is this significant? Why am I going through all of these numbers? The Spartans enslaved a whole people, the Helots. There were an estimated 100,000 of them.
As the status of slaves, they gave up a portion of their crops, and all of their freedom (including the right to own weapons) in return they were protected from all of the possible invaders/conquerors of the Classical world by the Spartans. This arrangement lasted for approximately 500 years.
This type of "Arrangement" has been in and out of vogue over the centuries since the fall of Sparta. The most recent period started sometime in the late ninth century in Europe, and still exists in one form or another today. The commoners have had many different names, serfs, slaves, the western term "slave" is a derivative of the ethnic name for Eastern European people, the Slavs. The last True Serfs or slaves traded their Noble lords for Political ones in Russia circa 1917.
The "Serfs" traded their freedom of travel, the right to self protection (arms) and self determination for protection and the "Freedom" from taking their own choices. The only thing Serfs had to fear, other than the occasional raid that the local Lord would retaliate for, was crop failure. For that they would look to the Church which would re-enforce their servitude as "God's Will". The Church even practiced feudalism, it owned lands, serfs and it had its own Knights to protect those lands.
This was the status quo of man for centuries until s group of Nobles in Britain began to chafe under incompetent rulers. In 1215 they forced the King of Britain to sign away some of his powers and prerogatives. These powers bequeathed to the nobles were "Rights". A representative Govt was formed eventually (yes I know I am skipping some steps here). At first it only represented the Nobles with a group of representatives known as "The house of Lords", this group or "Parliament" over time included a group that was to represent "Free Men" who were mostly Merchants, known as "The House of Commons". From this tradition the expectation of a certain amount of freedom was gained and expected. When Freedom is relatively new and it has been recently fought for (Multiple English Civil wars and much national strife), it is jealously guarded.
These Britains, or Englishmen with their new found freedom, through their "mercantile class", became very prosperous using a somewhat "free' market. This free market propelled a small island nation to unprecedented power. To the point where this tiny island's presence was felt all over the world. Creating one of the greatest economic expansions and a resulting Empire based on that need for continuous economic expansion.
One of the results of this expansion was a small set of colonies founded in North America. These colonies were obsessively to provide raw materials for the economic engine of the British Empire. It came to pass that these little colonies became weary of the heavy yoke of the Empire, although they considered themselves proudly as free Englishmen, they were not treated as such by England herself. After a war of Independence, the representatives of these free North Americans, decided to create a Govt. that was limited in scope and power. They did not trust Govt. They had just fought a long and costly war for their freedom. They held it dearly and cherished it. They codified this Govts limitation and enumerated powers in a document so there would be no question as to what this National or Federal Government's powers were to be. They further reserved certain powers to be held only by the individual "States". They divided the Government into three separate "Branches" that had specific powers that were not shared in order that no one branch would wield too much power. After all of this, there were those men some still with wounds and scars visible and hidden from the recent battle for freedom. That did not trust any Government. They demanded that certain "Rights" be specifically added to this document or Constitution, these rights would be codified for all to see so that the Government could never attempt to take these "God Given" or "Natural" rights away. They wanted all to know that these "Rights were not the gift of any man or Government, but that they were existing prior to the creation of any Government. It would take another 80 years to remove all vestiges of serfdom from the North American continent. It was done eventually at the cost of much blood and sacrifice.
Now, as we have seen, individuals and groups of people are willing to give away their freedom(s) for security. These people do so because they had freedom given to them. When you have to work for something, like money, or food, you value it more than when it is just given to you. Unfortunately Americans of the 21st Century do not seem to hold freedom dear. We had a period of "Push Back" against the creeping "Serfdom" after WWII. The men and women of that generation almost had their freedom taken away and they had to fight for it. Their children and grandchildren were given freedom, and wealth beyond any imagination. These offspring of the "Greatest Generation" became complacent and used to comfort. They now value comfort above their freedom. They wish to trade freedom for a house, food, healthcare, and the "freedom" of not taking choices or chances.
As long as we allow ourselves to be "taken care of" by the Govt. Along as we refuse to stand up for ourselves and stay free men and women. They will control us, treat us like children, like the Serfs that we are.
Panem et circenses -- Give them Bread and Circuses
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