- While the United States is freer and more democratic
than many countries, it is not, I think, either as free or as democratic
as we are expected to believe, and becomes rapidly less so. Indeed we seem
to be specialists in maintaining the appearance without having the substance.
Regarding the techniques of which, a few thoughts:
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- (1) Free speech does not exist in America. We all know
what we can't say and about whom we can't say it.
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- (2) A democracy run by two barely distinguishable parties
is not in fact a democracy.
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- A parliamentary democracy allows expression of a range
of points of view: An ecological candidate may be elected, along with a
communist, a racial-separatist, and a libertarian. These will make sure
their ideas are at least heard. By contrast, the two-party system prevents
expression of any ideas the two parties agree to suppress. How much open
discussion do you hear during presidential elections of, for example, race,
immigration, abortion, gun control, and the continuing abolition of Christianity?
These are the issues most important to most people, yet are quashed.
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- The elections do however allow the public a sense of
participation while having the political importance of the Superbowl.
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- (3) Large jurisdictions discourage autonomy. If, say,
educational policy were set in small jurisdictions, such as towns or counties,
you could buttonhole the mayor and have a reasonable prospect of influencing
your childrenâs schools. If policy is set at the level of the state,
then to change it you have to quit your job, marshal a vast campaign costing
a fortune, and organize committees in dozens of towns. It isnât practical.
In America, local jurisdictions set taxes on real estate and determine
parking policy. Everything of importance is decided remotely.
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- (4) Huge unresponsive bureaucracies somewhere else serve
as political flywheels, insulating elected officials from the whims of
the populace. Try calling the Department of Education from Wyoming. Its
employees are anonymous, salaried, unaccountable, canât be fired,
and donât care about you. Many more of them than you might believe
are affirmative-action hires and probably canât spell Wyoming. You
cannot influence them in the slightest. Yet they influence you.
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- (5) For our increasingly centralized and arbitrary government,
the elimination of potentially competitive centers of power has been, and
is, crucial. This is one reason for the aforementioned defanging of the
churches: The faithful recognize a power above that of the state, which
they might choose to obey instead of Washington. The Catholic Church in
particular, with its inherent organization, was once powerful. It has been
brought to heel.
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- Similarly the elimination of statesâ rights, now
practically complete, put paid to another potential source of opposition.
Industry, in the days of J. P. Morgan politically potent, has been tamed
by regulation and federal contracts. The military in the United States
has never been politically active. The government becomes the only game
available.
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- (6) Paradoxically, increasing the power of groups who
cannot threaten the government strengthens the government: They serve as
counterbalances to those who might challenge the central authority. For
example, the white and male-dominated culture of the United States, while
not embodied in an identifiable organization, for some time remained strong.
The encouragement of dissension by empowerment of blacks, feminists, and
homosexuals, and the importing of inassimilable minorities, weakens what
was once the cultural mainstream.
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- (7) The apparent government isnât the real government.
The real power in America resides in what George Will once called the ãpermanent
political class,ä of which the formal government is a subset. It consists
of the professoriate, journalists, politicians, revolving appointees, high-level
bureaucrats and so on who slosh in and out of formal power. Most are unelected,
believe the same things, and share a lack of respect for views other than
their own.
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- It is they, to continue the example of education, who
write the textbooks your children use, determine how history will be rewritten,
and set academic standards÷all without the least regard for you.
You can do nothing about it.
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- (8) The US government consists of five branches which
are, in rough order of importance, the Supreme Court, the media, the presidency,
the bureaucracy, and Congress.
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- The function of the Supreme Court, which is both unanswerable
and unaccountable, is to impose things that the congress fears to touch.
That is, it establishes programs desired by the ruling political class
which could not possibly be democratically enacted. While formally a judicial
organ, the Court is in reality our Ministry of Culture and Morals. It determines
policy regarding racial integration, abortion, pornography, immigration,
the practice of religion, which groups receive special privilege, and what
forms of speech shall be punished.
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- (9) The media have two governmental purposes. The first
is to prevent discussion and, to the extent possible, knowledge of taboo
subjects. The second is to inculcate by endless indirection the values
and beliefs of the permanent political class. Thus for example racial atrocities
committed by whites against blacks are widely reported, while those committed
by blacks against whites are concealed. Most people know this at least
dimly. Few know the degree of management of information.
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- (10) Control of television conveys control of the society.
It is magic. This is such a truism that we do not always see how true it
is. The box is ubiquitous and inescapable. It babbles at us in bars and
restaurants, in living rooms and on long flights. It is the national babysitter.
For hours a day most Americans watch it.
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- Perhaps the key to cultural control is that people canât
not watch a screen. It is probably true that stupid people would not watch
intelligent television, but it is certainly true that intelligent people
will watch stupid television. Any television, it seems, is preferable to
no television. As people read less, the lobotomy box acquires semi-exclusive
rights to their minds.
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- Television doesnât tell people what to do. It shows
them. People can resist admonition. But if they see something happening
over and over, month after month, if they see the same values approvingly
portrayed, they will adopt both behavior and values. It takes years, but
it works. To be sure it works, we put our children in front of the screen
from infancy.
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- <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0595237134/lewrockwell/>(11)
Finally, people do not want freedom. They want comfort, two hundred channels
on the cable, sex, drugs, rock-and-roll, an easy job and an SUV. No country
with really elaborate home-theater has ever risen in revolt. An awful lot
of people secretly like being told what to do. We would probably be happier
with a king.
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- Fred Reed is author of <http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0595237134/lewrockwell/>Nekkid
in Austin: Drop Your Inner Child Down a Well.
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- Copyright © 2004 Fred Reed
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