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Why Empires Fall and other Things that Suck [After last year's digression, I'm back to my Christmas rant. I'm in a wicked mood and I'll try hard to offend everybody. The comments below are offered as teaser clips from articles that I really should get around to writing some day. I hope they encourage discussion and debate. Feel free to collar me if you like and start a dialog.] I have an interesting theory for you. Empires have two phases: taking power and keeping power. There is a big difference between taking power and keeping it. After an empire takes power, a whole new battle plan may be required to keep it. Empires fall because they fail to recognize this fact. Now, 200+ years into the American Empire, we're still being fed this pabulum of limited government and personal privacy as being sacrosanct. Recall, this pabulum was concocted by a gang of revolutionaries out to overthrown the lawful government. Trouble is, we're no longer revolutionaries, we are, in fact............ the Tories. Recall, a Tory is a person who supports the lawful government. When necessary, we want to see the government reformed by peaceful legal procedures, not replaced by violent overthrow. We need a new battle plan for a new age.
(In Praise of
Big Government or) Nowhere is it written in stone that Big Government has to be bad, inefficient, or ineffective. Nor is it so written that limited government is desirable. Literally from the cradle on we've been taught to fear Big Government; visions of 1984 and Animal Farm have been instilled in our heads. My take -- We live in a Big World, full of Big Business, and a lot of foreign Big really Bad Governments. Those things concern me a lot more than Big Government at home. Government should do what needs to be done. Don't fear the government, make the government fear you. Take your civic duty as a voter seriously. Study the issues, listen to the candidates, and send people to Washington that you have no need to fear.
Privacy Sucks Those who value privacy the most are those with something to hide. And what's being kept hidden is growing more and more costly, and worse, more and more dangerous everyday. Protecting the privacy of miscreants costs us a bundle in terms of money, crime, and lives. I hope we come to our senses before it's too late.
Democracy Sucks "Democracy sucks." The great Winston Churchill said that. Of course I'm paraphrasing. What he actually said is "Democracy is the worst form of government." Which is out of context. Exactly what he said may not be known, but a common variant is: "It has been said that democracy is the worst form of government except all the others that have been tried." Many think he was just being witty, but maybe he was being dead serious. He knew full well that democracy is a lousy form of government and we really owe it to ourselves to try and find something better.
Diversity Sucks The idea that diversity is wonderful, that it should be embraced, that we should encourage diversity for its own sake is perverse. Variety may be the spice of life. The key word there is spice: something pleasant to be used in small quantities to add interest, not to be used as the main ingredient. When you think of diversity, think of similar words like divergent, divisive, divide. In short, the more diverse anything is, the harder it is to control. People, populations, companies, countries, the world, anything and everything. Diversity decreases efficiency and increases costs, leads to dissent, discord, and disharmony, makes communication and mutual understanding more difficult, etc. etc. etc. Just one example: thanks to the diversity of religion, who knows how many people have been killed in the name of the Prince of Peace over the last 1000 years? It's time to take off the rose colored glasses and recognize diversity for what it is.
Gay Marriage Sucks "Gay marriage, "-- there should be no such thing. It's different so call it something different. We distinguish between the sexes: man and woman rather than just people. Likewise, we make the distinction between homosexual and heterosexual love. It stands to reason that there should be separate words for heterosexual versus homosexual unions. Marriage should be legally defined as the union between one man and one woman known as husband and wife. Give the gay crowd their own distinct nomenclature. Suggestions: fairiage, homoiage, gayiage, etc. Or perhaps maniage and lesbiage. Gay partners can use the generic term spouse, or perhaps mouse for male spouse, and either louse (lesbian spouse) or grouse (girl spouse) for the ladies. When I hear some guy talk about his husband it just grates on my ears. I am surprised, given the Supreme Court's recent ruling, that some polygamist group hasn't already filed suit claiming that if you can't restrict marriage to between one man and one woman, you shouldn't be able to restrict it to just two people. If a group of people love each other, why shouldn't they be able to get married in common? After all, fair's fair. |