Drop the last year into the silent limbo of the past. Let it go, for it was imperfect, and thank God that it can go. – Brooks Atkinson
Change, as I have written many times before, is a good thing. This is not to say that all changes are good; rather, it means that it’s good for things to be able to change. A world without death is a world without growth; a world without decay is one without development. And a world where societies cannot descend into tyranny is one where new and better societies cannot be built. Far too many Westerners are so afraid of possibility of negative change that they eagerly abase themselves before anyone who (falsely) promises to protect them from it, and are willing to destroy their children’s ability to cope with reality by subjecting them to vain and perverse efforts to permanently lock them into a state of ignorance and immaturity. As I wrote in “With Folded Hands”:
In the ‘40s, the watchword was “victory”. In the ’60s, it was “freedom”. But by the ’90s, it had degenerated into “safety”. Americans once recognized that there are some things worth dying for; now we encase our children in bubble-wrap and cry like little girls at the slightest risk. Our great-grandparents dared unknown frontiers, while we sit in our playpens content to watch the world go by on television…People aren’t like this naturally; most of us are born with a yearning to explore the world, a zest for adventure and a thirst for knowledge, but these are ground out of children in factory schools, frightened out of them by “authorities” trying to create a race of docile, frightened sheep and squeezed out of them by overprotective parents who imagine “child traffickers” and “sexual predators” around every corner…
Every new prohibition, every new nanny-state ban, every war on free choice (and in recent years, even free speech) is justified by the same thing: Safety, the bloated parasite-goddess whom fools continue to worship despite her total inability to deliver on her promises. In the past, civilizations died in blood and fire; ours is slowly suffocating in billions of tons of cotton wool. Nor are the overlords satisfied with “protecting” us from real, if exaggerated dangers such as accidents, ill-health and crime; no, they also have to invent mythical dangers like “sex trafficking”, and will continue to do so until every possible human behavior is bound by laws and regulations, watched by the police and centrally-planned by politicians.
But the only thing which never changes is the fact that things change. What police/nanny states seek – total subjugation of all individuality and absolute control over all human activity – is not only undesirable, but impossible; it is no more possible to absolutely control humanity than it is to stop the flow of time itself. Furthermore, the very attempt must eventually destroy the government which makes it, like a machine pushed far beyond its design parameters. It’s already happening; growing numbers of young people reject the idea that “experts” and “authorities” either can or should direct their lives, and recognize both the so-called “left” and the so-called “right” as the statist charlatans they are. As the old “Baby Boomer” dinosaurs and their wishy-washy “Generation X” followers begin to die off, prohibitionist madness will begin to die with them. Just as restrictions on same-sex marriage are collapsing and restrictions on marijuana are starting to, so must all other restrictions on private, consensual behavior. Prior to a few centuries ago, almost nobody questioned that idea that one individual could own another; now that idea is universally rejected. And prior to a few decades ago, very few questioned that a collective could own an individual; now even the staunchest collectivists try to pretend that state control of individuals isn’t based in such ownership. The time is fast coming when collective ownership and control of individuals is as universally abhorrent to moral people as individual ownership and control of other individuals is now, and though most reading this are already too old to fully enjoy that world when it arrives, we can take comfort in the fact that our grandchildren are not.
I just finished sending this person a link to your blog.
http://www.torontosun.com/2013/12/30/legalizing-prostitution-exploits-women
This post of yours was perfectly time and so well said. 😉
Excellent work, Happy New Year and all the best for 2014:)
First, happy new year, Maggie.
Yes, change can be good. It’s just a shame that humanity as a whole can’t seem to implement necessary changes at societal levels without near cataclysmic and yet useless orgies of violence and the deaths of millions whose only misfortune was to be alive in the wrong era (see the French Revolution, the American Civil War, the World Wars, the ongoing strife in the Middle East, etc.).
Even worse, IMO, is when we decide to rush headlong into changing something without knowing how to achieve the end result we want (better government, a cleaner environment, etc.) or even what the desired end result is.
I have to agree completely. However, the reason such campaigns keep going is simply the will to live. (Further explanation is simply too complicated for me to say.)
Oh please let it be so.
And happy New Years.
I’m not an American but, boy oh oy, doesn’t your country need change? An 18th century constitution. An 18th century bill of rights with such bizarre rights as the right to form a militia and bear arms. Semi automatic weapons for every home then? A situation where Wyoming has 2 senators, same as California which has, what is it?, 50 times the population. A prison industrial complex where there are now more people in US prisons per capita than in Stalinist Soviet Union at the height of the purges in the 1930s. Illegal wars of aggression abroad in countries full of brown people, including terrorist drone campaigns.. My guess is this also saps the morale of American people. And, as Maggie points out, media driven moral hysterias relating to mythical threats of child sex predators and sex trafficking. Excellent to keep people in line. It seems to be getting to a point were even a fling or a sexting could land you in jail.
Oh, I forgot to mention, happy new year, everybody, especially to Maggie for updating daily such a thought provoking blog. We should always start any new year on an optimistic note. 🙂
We definitely DON’T need a new Constitution; we need to follow the one we’ve got. If you pay close attention to those who knock the present one, you’ll note that they’re all control freaks who resent the blocks it puts on their ability to control everyone.
As for the Senate, it made perfect sense as it was designed, to be the legislative body that represented the state governments. It was only when it was turned into a popular assembly at the beginning of the 20th century that it ceased to be rationally designed.
Maggie, I wonder how do you square that with the fact that change, while not always good, is indeed inevitable? That all things move forward and end at some point, regardless of anybody’s best efforts?
It makes me wonder what your opinion would be of a radio program that airs where I live titled ‘The Thomas Jefferson Hour’ (http://www.jeffersonhour.com/). I’ve listened to it a few times and found it entertaining and thought-provoking. The reason I bring it up was on a recent episode the discussion was about forms of government and in a nutshell, Jefferson (apparently) advocated regularly changing the Constitution as future generations needed (as demonstrated in this letter: http://lachlan.bluehaze.com.au/lit/jeff03.htm, paraphrased somewhat here: http://student-of-life.newsvine.com/_news/2010/11/21/5502595-thomas-jefferson-supported-rewriting-the-constitution-every-19-years-equated-not-doing-so-to-being-enslaved-to-the-prior-generation-what-do-you-think-about-that)
Now going just a bit further, “Jefferson” as portrayed on the show was of course solidly supportive of the government the Founders designed and dismissive of the British-style parliamentary system. However, the scholar who hosts the show hypothesized about what if America had a parliamentary system. Specifically he mentioned the ACA, and the possibility of a ‘vote of no confidence’ or other procedure that would cause the Obama administration to ‘fall’ and new elections to be called for. Therefore, the populace could more immediately express their desires, by either installing Obama’s opposition or returning him to power. This is in contrast to the rigid way elections are scheduled now, where the people have moved three or four “outrages” down the line by the time they have a chance to vote on anything.
(Many) US politicians like to brag about democracy and spreading it around the world. A few months back, I logged onto the US congress website. The first thing I heard and watched was some congressmen with a southern accent talking about the need to combat human rights abuses in China. All I could do was roll my eyes.
The more I read about so-called US democracy, the more unimpressed I get. Wyoming (less than 600,000 people with 86% non hispanic whites) elects 2 Senators. Same as California (with over 38 million people with less than 40% non hispanic white). Washington DC (650,000 with 50% plus African American elects no Senators and elects only one voting delegate in the House of Representatives). It is not a US State so what does that make Washington DC then? A colony? Puerto Rico (nearly 3.7 million people, overwhelmingly hispanic white) elects no Senators and elects only one nonvoting “resident commissioner” to the House of Representatiives. They can’t even vote for President. Puerto Ricans voted in 2012 in a non binding plebiscite to become a US state but will the US Congress listen? The United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization has called on the United States to grant the Puerto Ricans self determination.
Doesn’t the system of democracy in the United States actually reinforce racism in the United States?
As thequietman points out, Thomas Jefferson advocated rewriting the US Constitution every 19 years. I am sure many of the other founders were clever men who broadly agreed with him. It was absurd then as now to suggest that a Constitution be written in stone for all time.
Had the Constitution been rewritten every generation, we’d have descended into fascism even more quickly, because its insistence of individual rights is the only thing that’s slowed the descent as much as it has. I know many people think fascism is a wonderful form of government, but I’m not among them.
For starters, I think the second amendment to the US constitution is anachronistic given the emergence of modern uniformed and salaried police services in the 19th century. Militias became no longer necessary. Second amendment states that “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”. Would any national body tasked with writing a constitution today seriously even consider for a second writing something like that? Why not abolish the police while we’re at it? The US constitution focuses on so called civil and political rights (blue rights or first generation rights). Franklin Roosevelt proposed his second bill of rights during his state of the union address in January 1944 so that constitutional protection would also encapsulate social, economic and cultural rights (red human rights or second generation rights) – for example, the right to employment with a living wage, freedom from unfair competition and monopolies, housing, medical care, education and social security. That came to nothing. Then, there are the green rights or third generation rights that have been enunciated since 1945 such as the right to a clean and healthy environment. I recall the Finland constitution has that right written in their recently adopted constitution.
As for the spectre of fascism, in 2002, the homicide rate in Washington DC was a staggering 46.4 per 100,000 people. This declined to 13.9 per 100,000 in 2012. I wonder why that is. Previously, I noted that over 50% of the 650,000 residents of Washington DC are African American. Perhaps, the reason for that dramatic decline is that more and more African Americans are being rounded up and put in prison to serve longer sentences. I also noted that the population of Washington DC elect no Senators and elect only one non-voting delegate in the House of Representatives. Perhaps, fascism is already being implemented in Washington DC and this is what is leading to this dramatic drop in murders. Fascism when applied can give results. Mussolini used to brag that the trains in Italy ran on time.
I note that the 2 places in the United States and its territories with the highest homicide rate is Washington DC and Puerto Rico, both places with disenfranchised populations. I wonder if that has something to do with it? Louisiana follows in third place.
You’ve been reading way too much gun control propaganda. The right to keep and bear arms is to act as a COUNTER to armed government agents, not to supplement or replace them.
Second amendment states that “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”
Challenge the givens! Were the underlying assumptions valid then, are they valid today?
There was no organized, armed, full time, salaried and uniformed police then. That was a 19th century innovation.
By the way, I want to make clear that I don’t condone fascism. Despite the brutal application of the police state in Washington DC, the murder rate in Washington DC is still 13.9 per 100,000 people in 2012. In Australia, it’s 1 per 100,000. In Japan, it’s 0.4 per 100,000. In Canada, it’s 1.6 per 100,000. In Britain, it’s 1.2 per 100,000.
Do your research: in the areas of the US with little to no gun control, murder rate is just as low as in those places you name.
Erm, I did. And neither am I swayed by gun control propaganda.
The idea that individual rights should be subordinated to a “collective good” determined by “authorities” is the basis behind all prohibitionism. Accept one instance and you open the door to all of them.
I think the police is a good idea and I think the US second amendment undermines the authority of the police by providing two challenges to them: 1) an armed citizen and 2) militias. There were no full time, salaried and uniformed police at the time the second amendment was adopted so the second amendment made sense at the time but 100 years later made no sense.
By having an organized police service subject to the law, citizens can spend less energy on their own personal security. That leads to more productive individuals, communities, societies and countries. I would rather be subject to the rule of law, enforced if necessary by the police, than by vigilantes who arbitrarily apply their own rules.
I ask you again: If a national body, in the United States or elsewhere, were to draw up a constitution today, do you seriously think they would consider a clause based on the US second amendment?
As for individual police abuses of citizen or resident rights, set up a police ombudsman, independent of the police, that can investigate and make determinations of fact. Problem solved. No need for 300 million more guns or armed militias.
Of course not, because fascism is still in the ascendancy and an armed populace makes it much more difficult to establish an authoritarian police state. What a ridiculous question!
As for your second comment, I lack your touching trust in those with all the power. I also lack your quaint belief that everyone in every country lives in a city, with “protective” police less than one minute away and the magical ability to arrive on the scene exactly in the nick of time. You know, like they did for Mr. Ebrahimi in today’s column.
Or perhaps “America” has got it wrong when it comes to gun control. Violent murder rate is 4.7 per 100,000, well above that of other developed economies.
I never wrote that everyone lives in a city.
In my country, the Republic of Ireland, most of the police aren’t even armed. Yet we don’t have a right to bear arms and a right to form militias in our constitution.
Also, I didn’t write that I trusted the police. That is why I suggested the establishment of an police ombudsman office that is independent of the police that can investigate alleged abuses of police power. People can confidentially submit their complaints to them. If they are found to be true, public determinations of fact can be given. Abusive police officers will face sanction.
You also live in a teeny-weeny, largely homogeneous country; apples & oranges. Furthermore, given the history of tyranny against sex workers in Ireland is at least as bad as that in the US, you’ll forgive me if I show no enthusiasm to handing my right to self-defense over to the state.
One more thing, before I leave this monumentally dumb subject for good: guns are not magic wands possessed by evil spirits that can act on their own. Their tools. Laws that treat inanimate objects as evil are themselves evil; if you don’t believe me, ask all the folks sitting in jail for having leaves in their pockets.
How about Australia then? After the Port Authur massacre in 1996, there was a National Firearms Agreement. Around 600,000 Firearms were bought back, each new firearm had to be registered to its owner, you couldn’t state “self defense” as reason to acquire a firearm.. Has Australia been on the slide towards fascism since? According to this article in slate.com, there has been no mass shootings since and other benefits.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/crime/2012/12/16/gun_control_after_connecticut_shooting_could_australia_s_laws_provide_a.html
I disagree with you that tyranny against sex workers in Ireland is as bad as it is in the United States. Unlike the United States, the acts of buying and selling sex itself is legal. Also, since 1996, New South Wales in Australia has decriminalized sex work, the model you favour. Where is the fascism there?
I’m sorry; was there some part of “One more thing, before I leave this monumentally dumb subject for good” that was unclear to you?
It was a rhetorical question. 🙂 I also mentioned something about sex work too, didn’t I?
Following the Congress of Vienna, the permanent neutrality of Switzerland was confirmed. A constitution was then agreed, but had no provision for amendment or upgrading. There were a series of local skirmishes between various factions subsequently. In 1848 there was a (very) civil war, the result of the inflexibility of the constitution. The victors sat down with the vanquished (really!), and determined a new constitution. This could be changed or altered, and in fact this happened on a few occasions, for example to allow referendums. The legal system is based on the code Napoleon. Curiously, Bern, the federal capital, was occupied by Napoleon over 200 years ago. The city was literally ‘quartered’; as most of the troops were illiterate, the streets were colour coded. The street signs in the old town still have this colour coding, a very curious reminder of the occupation.
The Swiss Civil Code of the early 1900s was in force when I married in Switzerland. It said that the man was the head of the household, he decided where the family lived, and the woman could only have paid employment with his express opinion, and so on. It’s been upgraded since, so the ‘family’ is now the unit; the ‘equality’ of the sexes is recognised where beforehand it was clear who had the upper hand. Then, if a Swiss man married a foreigner she automatically became Swiss; but the other way round was different. To keep her Swiss nationality, a Swiss woman had to make an express declaration of her desire to retain Swiss nationality. (Declaration: I am now a Swiss national, inter alia; but only “auf Papier”.)
To parallel to the US; the basis of the constitution may not need to be changed, but there are so many things now, such as contraception, that the originators could not have foreseen, that a revision would seem sensible to take into account the (unforeseeable) changes of the last 200+ years. I’ve read many accounts of how the inflexible nature of the constitution is really a shibboleth, a bar to progress.
Perhaps changing the US constitution only makes sense within a legal system that has a written code of civil law, criminal law etc. A common law system, with a written constitution, is open to so many challenges.
Thank you for enlightening us on how the Swiss system works, korhomme. Your next to last paragraph was what I was attempting to draw opinions on, rather than discussions about the merits of the 2nd Amendment. If the Constitution was indeed subject to periodic revisions, must it follow that fascism is the inevitable result? That the number of people who insist on individual rights would go down, or would be any less vocal if they did? Perhaps if the Constitution had been through a couple of revisions like that, people would not have forgotten what it’s like to have to fight for rights and would be much more vigilant to ensure they aren’t lost. Even the 2nd Amendment need not be in jeopardy, but the right could be maintained without the seemingly endless parsing and debate about what men long since dead were thinking about when they wrote it. With periodic revisions, people could go to the last group and flat out ask “what does this mean?”
I’m not sure that the political left and the political right are completely equivalent. At least a few people have argued for the decriminalization of prostitution on the left blog Daily Kos.
It’s a little bit of progress that recreational marijuana became legal 1/1/14 in Colorado. It’s a tiny step towards reducing that huge prison population.
The only politician who has ever directly consulted me on decriminalization was a Republican. I must also point out that philosophically, prohibition is part of the “Progressive” platform of “improving” people, and the Swedish model is generally (though not always) pushed by Labor or leftist governments. The so-called “left” and “right” are united in their desire to control people; it’s only their methods and rhetoric that sometimes (slightly) differ.
A belated best wishes for 2014 from the upper reaches of the Bernese Oberland, where this dinosaur boomer has been for the last few days—and internet-free, or I would have sent my compliments yesterday.
Being in Switzerland, I’m reminded that the Swiss Federal parliament is based on the American model; in the upper house there are two ‘senators’ per canton (one per half-canton). The lower house is elected by proportional representation; both houses, however, are a militia parliament—part-timers who all have other jobs. The Swiss Constitution has been amended and updated several times from its present origin in 1848, as have the various bits of the civil law code, to reflect changes in society etc.
Reblogged this on Sable Aradia, Priestess & Witch and commented:
Thoughts worth considering.
Well, I’m now in the current year. Except for Links and TW3s. And I lost the cart. And the guy on the phone couldn’t hear me. And damn but I’m in a rotten mood.
So I’m not going to comment on a blinking thing.
This sort of mess arises from a pernicious human tendency : “I want somebody else to deal with this stuff, it’s too difficult/doesn’t affect me/too much trouble”.
At this point, one or more of Homo Sapiens Sapiens self-centered, lying fornicating killing machines steps up with a pearly white sawtoothed smile and says “sure, let me handle that for you, little sheeples”.
And the morons *let them do that*. Here we are. 😒