Rule by Scorpions

[ChartsandGrafs]

Brilliant...

Amidst a continuous multimedia assault on legal civilian gun ownership, one paradox studiously ignored by the gun-banners is the penchant for Domestic Agencies of the State to arm their staff members with firearms deemed (rhetorically) appropriate for warfare.

As obvious as this cognitive dissonance may be, it still betrays conditioned blindness to the staggeringly larger institution of mass destruction in whose shadow we live our daily lives.

People who live in a village at the foot of a volcano undoubtedly become accustomed to the occasional tremor or sign of steam rising from the cone above. The longer they live there without any significant sign of danger from the mountain, the more unconcerned they become regarding the threat it represents. They regard its contribution to fertile soil a blessing, and as time passes give ever less thought to the mere possibility that conditions could rapidly change.

Americans appear particularly vulnerable to this false sense of security. The founding myths of the country are taught as history to children and adults alike, leaving the typical citizen smug in his or her belief that the USA enjoys the best system of governance, and that "we’re the biggest kid on the block." "We" have the fastest war planes, the biggest Navy, "our" nuclear submarines ring the globe and "our" troops have boots on the ground in nearly every nation on the planet, all part of a force for "good."

http://lewrockwell.com/calderwood/calderwood48.1.html

[Dreamliner]

"Here I am, rotchu like a hurricane!"*

*German accent

[92gator]

Excellent article:

A few of the more compelling excerpts:

Most people clearly regard the political state as an Earthly God, a supra-human organization that elevates its human members to the level of infallible and not-to-be-questioned demigods who have divined the General Will and guide the rest of us from their seat of Wisdom.

The second worrisome observation is made by Professor Hoppe, who helps illustrate why in a democracy where elected rulers are but temporary caretakers, and elections have become media-saturated popularity contests driven by $50,000 per plate "fundraisers," we must acknowledge that the people who are elected are the most cunning, facile con artists among us. The "lying" candidate, upon winning the election, becomes someone handed the power to order…almost anything these days.

..and...

Another term for our politician-rulers might be "sociopaths," and if one popular author is correct, then the 5% figure she offers for the population at large must be ten times, if not nearly twenty times higher when considering public officeholders.

The third worrisome observation is that the US military is a political organization, at least within its upper ranks.

Sociopaths with WMDs.

Please stop to think about that for a moment.

...now, all that said--and the point(s) of the article are well taken--we trust our military, because we don't--nay, can not--trust anyone else's.


IOW: They may be sociopaths....but their our sociopaths.

I'd be much more concerned if I were one of the western European countries, who have essentially delegated their national defense, to *our sociopaths* (recognizing full well, that the article went out of the way, to point out that they're not really 'ours', but their own, servring their own interests...).

Much more likely that the scorpion turns on--or turns its back on--the frogs accross the pond, than on the frog upon which it is currently resting.

[ChartsandGrafs]

Originally Posted by 92gator

IOW: They may be sociopaths....but their our sociopaths.

Are they really "our" sociopaths, or are they the sociopaths of the multinational banks and corporations who put them in office?

[orangeblueorangeblue]

They are individually as beholden to any given voter, but the distribution of election promotion distributes our voice as a drop in the ocean in comparison.

Not that something as needed as campaign finance reform would wash out the sad, underlying truth that blaming the government is no more or less than blaming the people.