Have a nice weekend All

I leave you with a few thoughts:

"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of 
 civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. . .
 The People cannot be safe without information. When the press
 is free, and every man is able to read, all is safe."
 -- Thomas Jefferson

Much of what we are dealing with today is a larger power grab by the federal government. It's not for any Hitler-like agenda, it's just to gain as much control over and insight into the population as possible. They want to ensure that the current system continues because the current system enables the same people to alternate between being in power and profiting from the use of that power. They have structured the system so that the vast majority of Americans are working hard to funnel money into friendly corporations, allow representatives of those corporations to become regulators and in return those corporations give out of work politicos jobs and manipulate the media and campaign finance issues so that only friendly politicians can ever get elected.

The current economic situation is, of course, unsustainable...but I'll give you three guesses and the first two don't count as to who will be in the best position of all of us when the inevitable happens.

In the mean time they placate us with jobs we can bust our asses at in order to consume more things that we "need". Look at the difference in society over the last 50 years. It use to be that you could support a household on one income...not anymore. That is not an accident!

This is why I laugh at "Conservatives" who defend Corporate America, as though Corporate America had anything to do with free market capitalism at all, or had anything in mind for them other than exploitation. It's also why I consider anyone who votes for the two prominent parties my enemy. Don't worry, I have enemies in my family and amongst my friends too. Most people are just not capable of thinking far enough ahead to see the larger pattern that is being followed.

I know what this sounds like, but I really am not talking about some great conspiracy theory. All of this has happened in small increments and through small but opportunistic moves by those in power. The Media becomes corporatized and why would any good capitalistic corporation not want to use it's media outlets to promote an agenda friendly to their interests? Why would they not want to use their media outlets to promote candidates friendly to their interests?

No one in the 50's said, "hey, in 2012 I bet we can take everyone's guns" and then engineered some master plan to get it done. It started with the erosion of our fourth amendment rights, laws which had overwhelming support when they were passed. The government realized how convenient this is for them...people are literally begging them to data mine everything they do online which will enable them to tailor their message and responses to events more accurately.

Then, a bunch of high profile school shootings happen. If people were so hyped to give up their fourth amendment protections, why not the second amendment? It's not some nefarious plot to enslave everyone, it's just good politics. First, politicians get to, "look like they are doing something" about these terrible tragedies. The facts about the efficacy of gun control are hardly well known. On top of all of this, you are starting to take power away from the most well armed population in the world at a time when civil unrest is becoming VERY common place in countries all over the world. The government sees the writing on the wall, so they want to try and hang on to this power structure as long as they can. If we survive the economic crisis so much the better...they have a compliant, impotent population they can exploit for their own gain.

The truth lies between conspiracy theories and a belief that the government is doing the best it can at any given moment. The principle which governs each and every one of us, in every action, is self-interest. Every move a career politician makes it weighed against how it will help them and their agenda. This is why religion has become so popular on the right...it gives this illusion of altruism which obfuscates the fact that Republicans are not even slightly conservative or supportive of the constitution anymore. This self interest, over time, has created a system which GREATLY benefits those in power. It works tremendously well.

How did a society that was engineered to avoid this very thing get to this point? If you lean left, then it's the loosening of regulations, the drift of the governments focus from serving the people to serving corporations, corporate welfare, the corruption of the media, etc. If you lean right then it's the Fed, the curtailing of our freedoms, the staggering size of government and the waste inherent in that, the unions, the corruption of the media, etc.

Truthfully, I think it's possible to imagine a world where either method would have prevented us from getting to this state or at least getting to it so quickly. You can point, quite easily, to regulations which were the direct cause of some of our more recent miseries. Being a Libertarian, though, I obviously tend to believe that it's the size and reach of government...but I am always open to discussion.

One thing is for sure, though. If you lean left, it's the rights fault. If you lean right, it's the left's fault. That is undeniable truth! We must erradicate these vermin from our world like Carl Marx and his reeducation camps! Oh, wait, never mind that.

This bickering allows the people in power, the people who all share one agenda, to keep us fighting while they do their thing. This fiscal crisis...people realize this "crisis" is entirely the design of congress, right? And they realize that NEITHER party is offering a solution which, if adopted wholesale and without revision, would solve the financial crisis we're in, right? This conflict is good for business. It keeps the stock market fluctuating which makes people money, it creates uncertainty which keeps prices high, and it keeps the population at each others throats and desperate to vote in the next bureaucrat with the belief that things will be much better when they do.

That's why no one, conservative or liberal, is satisfied with the current state of things. Conservative interests are not being served. Liberal interests are not being served. The interests of those in POWER are being served. It's very simple, it's very obvious, and it makes absolutely perfect sense, but they have managed to conceal this from most people and to set up a system of "the lesser of two evils" which encourages paralysis.

Be well