Freedom is a Short Neck Among Giraffes

I have noted with increasing rapidity over the last decade the number of times reasonably educated and liberal-minded people betray a willingness to abandon a traditional commitment to freedom. Any publicly expressed defense of rights is usually met with disinterest or derision from members of whatever crowd I find myself among. Any time an individual openly takes to task a representative of any government bureaucracy, or any individual representative of any institution, for violating one’s rights or conspiring against civil or constitutionally protected liberty, the person taking to task becomes a pariah among others in the vicinity; co-workers will scatter like roaches once this happens in a work place. We must be convinced of the necessity for docility in face of bureaucratic encroachment of our freedoms, or the abuse of authority granted members of city, state or federal police agencies, or in face of the arbitrariness of any bureaucrat anywhere in decision making, and the complete disregard that bureaucracies in general have for the people they pretend to serve, and the maddening diction and rhetoric of evasion that virtually all of them use all the time.  And yes–all of the time here is not hyperbole.

We even say things like the Second amendment has no relevance today, that it is an antiquated remnant of an age that holds little validity for us as a model for faith in the cause of eternal Liberty, or as an example of how to react to a long usurpation of our freedom, and any person’s pursuit of happiness. We no longer warn our leaders that we are a people within whom exists the spirit of resistance. No people can long withstand such usurpation of civil liberties as we allow today without either exploding in rebellion or being crushed in oppression. And we do allow this usurpation of our liberty, gladly, for a little of what we call peace. The Patriot Act is one such example of how we will barter liberty for what we perceive as peace, security. But again–at what price is this peace paid for? I have to stand with Thomas Paine and what he knew was common sense–although, today, what was common sense to the generation of our founding fathers, yes, fathers, is not all too common now. 

Our leaders have become our rulers, letting the rich get richer, at the same time carnival barkers like Obama sell us the idea that rebellion is never necessary, that fierce criticism of the elite is not what we need, but that what we must do is support Wall Street and give them money to save us from being poorer than poor. If we have not come to see that Obama has been the bitch of the bankers then we are blind. I am sorry, but if the President wants to laud former drug dealers in the White House–and herein I have no intention of thinking that I must by some misguided sense of necessity be Christian in my forgiveness–then some of the diction of gangsta rappers is applicable–Obama is the banker’s bitch.

Obama is also an adversary of Truth; he is an adversary of the people and favors all of us becoming state serving publicans. This does not put me in the camp of the Republicans who are able to be as heinous as I perceive them to be only because Democrats like Obama have shifted right of the the metaphysical political center. He is a defender and supporter of the power elite making him thus an adversary of liberty and not a representative of the people. He stands opposed in his deeds to all the founding principles articulated by Jefferson and Madison. Obama is as much an opponent of liberty as Bush or Cheney; he is even a greater threat to the stability and security of the United States and its people. He clearly dropped the ball on ISIS as he had on Benghazi. He is as he has been for the duration of his two terms a foreign policy nightmare. And yet, we believed Obama would stand for the little man, mostly because he was black–another indication of how endemically racist we are as a populous. Perhaps he tried to help the simple separate person more than has been apparent; however, he has been pulled by the strings of the monied elite, and that’s not something we should equivocate about saying just because he is African-American. Our refusal to take him to task is our media’s inability to handle race truthfully and organically, and only symbolically, through media formed signs and media delivered soundbites; the medium does become the message. Not being able to critique Obama appropriately is nearly as racist as if the media said, You can’t let niggers run the show. 

We are in love with flipping coins in America, as much as we are with political and rhetorical ping pong or a game of hop-scotch with Truth. Obama has also been as big an opponent to greater democracy as either Bush junior or Clinton before him, but then the Republicans and their maniacal conservatives are not the answer to Obama; but then, the heinousness of the Republican party aside, I can’t seem to run for cover under the leadership of Obama. Democrats and Republicans both serve power; they both are at the beck and call of the monied elites, at best, before they respond to the people; at worst, they respond to the latter not at all. We assumed Obama was going to defend the common man, that he would champion the everyday citizen, and I do believe he tried more than those who say he did not try at all. We did believe in the Obama hope primarily because he was black. Again, we are endemically racist, only not in the way the media likes to message we are.

In matters of race and all isms related, we can only flip a coin. In the Serengeti of American Politics, Liberty is a short neck among the giraffes.

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