political rant

I'm trying to define myself politically and having a seriously hard time of it. Part of this is because the definitions out there are, when you actually sit down and look at them, incredibly vague, while part of this is also because I don't know if there actually IS a category for me.

It's really a huge mess when you think about it. For instance, I don't believe in a strong central/federal government at all. On the other hand, what would we do about those things in our lives that do require public funding? This is part of why the Democrats and Republicans chase each others' tails forever in a perpetual stalemate; neither side's views are workable on their own.

A central government with the ability to essentially control the national economy is a bad idea because it restricts individuals and small communities. A total free-market economy is also a bad idea for the same exact reason. Both sides are touted as "the solution" but each only serves to quash the abuses of the other while leaving us open to its own inherent abuses.

The problem with both is that each shifts power from the general public to a small group of people, to either the federal government or to multinational corporations. What's really horrifying is that nowadays I think we have both entities against us.

But hey, what's so wrong about that? Plenty. The problem is that absolute power corrupts absolutely. We need checks and balances and we don't inherently have any, for one important reason I'll get to in a moment. The lack of power we as a people have right now is horrifying simply because of the rapid advance of technology. We have weaponry that's practically impossible to defend against, we have satellite imaging that can find virtually anything or anyone anywhere, and we have ways to monitor any and all forms of communication. And this is only the beginning. We have yet to develop the means to actually access the human mind, but we will.

The common response to this usually falls along the lines of "Corporations / the government wouldn't violate our basic rights because they're constitutionally-protected, and also because we'd protest." Neither argument holds any water, ironically because we are a democratic republic. Yes, we have a government, on paper at least, that is run by the people for the people. But if "the people" can be convinced that they do not need certain rights because the government/some multinational corporation will take care of them, then we lose those rights.

And this is exactly the reason I mentioned earlier for why we have a frightening lack of checks and balances at the moment. We are inundated with promises that a particular large institution, be it government or corporate, will "take care of us". And people buy it; I see this on a daily basis. The people I hate dealing with the most in my job are those who think that since they're paying my company to have internet access, we should also be responsible for fixing and maintaining their computers as well.

I've talked to people who honestly believed that I could physically see them somehow (one guy thought that cable boxes had hidden cameras in them). What's absolutely terrifying to me is that these people are totally okay with the idea that a corporation can monitor absolutely everything they do. These people are okay with the thought of having absolutely no privacy so long as they don't have to think for themselves.

The problem of course is that both government and corporate institutions are really trading right now off the whole "we'll take care of you" thing. If I was a conspiracy theorist, I'd say this is all planned and that the overall goal is to make us utterly dependent on the state to pave the way for some sort of awful fascist nightmare. Maybe this is going on on some levels, but I don't think things are coordinated enough for it to be a "conspiracy" of any kind. I think it's going on simply because people are fucking lazy and stupid and they let it go on, and it's good for corporations because it hooks in new customers and makes them new money.

However this is dangerous because if someone in government *should* happen to decide that we need more controls or less rights, we'll have no defense against them. Ordinarily this wouldn't be a problem, but if the public is conditioned to believe those in power are supposed to take care of them, they will hand over power, and once that is done, there is no going back. It's arguable that the seeds for this have already been planted.

What can be done about this? About the only thing I can see to do would be to make efforts to start independent, self-run communities which do not need much assistance from the government. If this were to happen at a large enough scale, the power of the government and/or corporations would be reduced dramatically and the people could regain control of their own lives.

Of course, this also assumes that enough people even want to take charge of their lives... and that's not something I'm at all convinced of, but I think the idea is sound enough to try anyway, at least until a better one comes along.