I hope
most sincerely that everyone who is eligible will vote on Tuesday. We cling to the
crumbling remains of democracy by a fingertip ledge, those of us who have not
already released our grip on accountability and self-reliance, too weary or too
afraid to chart our own course or too distracted by the seductions of instant
gratification and popular culture to care. An iron hand in a velvet glove waits
to catch us if we fall, financed by the ability to conjure money out of thin
air and backed up by the labors of millions of wage slaves content to sacrifice
the vital years of their lives for the fuzzy promises of casino style
retirement accounts and socialized security.
This
hand has been busy attaching “safety lines” to protect us from ourselves. (Any
resemblance to puppet strings is coincidental.) The nanny state monitors what
we spend, in case we want to buy anything “bad,” and to make sure that we all
pay our fair share. The state monitors our travel in case someone who hates our
freedom tries to blow us up. The state sends armies overseas to protect our oil
from terrorists who insist on living where our oil is found. (Our freedom
depends on having plenty of cheap gasoline so that we can drive to work and
back.) The state monitors our communications. It listens in on our phone calls,
reads our emails and scans our texts to protect us from bad opinions.
As we
grow weary of having to form our own opinions, of having to choose the best
options, in short, of having to think for ourselves, the state will again
provide. What a comfort it must be for New Yorkers to have a mayor who will
choose for them what size soft drink they can buy; an old man, successful,
experienced, who will choose for mothers how they should feed their newborn
babies. Residents of Boston and Chicago can sleep well at night knowing that
their protectors will not allow them to buy chicken tainted by an opinion which
does not conform to the popular notion of tolerance and diversity. We will
tolerate no dissenting opinions when it comes to diversity.
By the
time this newspaper goes to print, our own state will have decided whether we
should pay more so that our area is not constrained by the inability to grow.
We must always grow. That opinion rarely leaves room for dissent, and the best
way to ensure growth must be for the state to extract more wealth from the
stream of economic activity. Perhaps it would be best if all economic activity
were channeled through the state, which could then provide for all of us
equally, from the cradle to the grave, nurtured, secure, growing…drones
protecting us overhead, watching, listening, always deciding in our own best
interests. How simple life would then
be.
