O'Brother, O'Brien and Obama

A friend of mine made the above graphic. I find it a refreshing less than subtle reference to the warning of a certain Mr. George Orwell made about dangers of soft tyranny of a big government resulting from seemingly small steps towards eventual totalitarianism. Of course I refer to the book 1984. In this book, reductions in 'rations' are referred to increases. "Spin" became the primary exported product. Enemies we war with today are allies tomorrow and again enemies the following year, but in all this never really acknowledging motivation or providing true rationale. Do not question the party was the clear message. Such novels scared the hell of me as high school student with its warning that nothing is for free. Freedom allows for failure or success. It is indifferent.

Unfortunately, where are the options for someone who wants a limited, constitutional based republic that has little if any implied power, but only those expressly provided to it? The Tea Party? The GoP? Unfortunately, these parties miss the mark too. Government intrusion whether socialistic in nature, where everyone suffers equally under stagnation or if that government consists of religiously infused anti science 'social conservative' will suffer intellectual hypocrisy and become equally destructive. In the end, as Mr. Smith found out in the novel, both lead to same place - a 'nanny state' of social tyranny of neighbors reporting on neighbors and citizens losing even the most basic self sufficiency, including such as where to eat, whom to date, what 'words' are acceptable to speak. It is a high price to pay to relegate responsibility from the local and state level to the federal.

It is going to take a while to work this out. Power corrupts and those who have it tend to like to keep it that way.




Too Much Power in the Hands of Too Few

Seeing the news today is like watching an alternate reality TV what if show that warned of government excess of control in your daily life. These were largely the response of Nixon era attitudes and belief that absolute power corrupts - absolutely. Well, actually concepts and experiences from way before Nixon, way before, TV, and way before the United States existed. It's an old concept we tend to forget the principle. We citizens typically prefer to have our government set up in a certain manner that limits its authority. It's prime duty is to provide a common defense after all. It's power should be limited. It's existence is at our pleasure, isn't it? Let's consider just the CIA and FBI for a moment. The CIA was responsible for gathering intelligence and protecting the country from agents outside our borders which may cause harm. The CIA folks are the eyes and ears. Whereas, the FBI's role is enforcement of law within the boundaries of the country on a federal level. Never before have we confused the roles of the two organizations until now. Today, the Executive branch continues the tradition set forth by W. of abusing power by over extension. We really do not yet another liberty eroded at this time. The FBI should remain involved with investigations of crimes. The CIA should remain the centralized intelligence gathering agency focused on providing essential an invaluable asset - information. The previous administration demonstrated that our collective civil rights could could be relegated to mere conveniences which could be discarded as worthless when perceived to do so by the state as necessary without any substantial requirements for evidence not seen since WWII Japanese internment camps or the Tuskegee Syphilis experiments on black men beginning in 1932.

When I was in high school during the mid 1980s, I never imagined George Orwell's pessimistic futuristic view of 1984 of unchecked tyranny, where the population looks to the government for answers as the sole benefactor without appreciating the the cost would appeal to the voting class of the USA. There is no free lunch folks and if you ask for your government to take care of you and you were afraid of the power W. and Cheney had, you have not seen anything yet.