Friday, March 16, 2012

A Guilded Cage is Still a Cage.

Imagine a world were there are no choices or consequences.  Where you CAN NOT FAIL but you also can not succeed.  Your every whim is provided for, but only so long as you give up your free will.  Imagine a world where you are told what job to have, and there is no pressure to do well.  Can't pay your bills?  Don't worry you can just surrender some small freedom and you'll have everything paid for.  Imagine a world where there is no color no flavor, no fat, or rail thin, just a lot of grey and sameness.  In this world there is little to no pain, but there is also little to no joy.  Have I just described Heaven Purgatory or Hell?

Depends on who you are.  Most people might say thats purgatory, other people would say that's Heaven.  I would say that's Hell.  Think about that for a long second.  Your choices in life are essentially made for you.  You can't fail true, but in some ineffable way aren't our failures just as important as our successes?   Where is the challenge, the thrill of victory narrow or large?  Where are the pitfalls?  Where are all the things that make life worth living?  Thomas Edison fail hundreds of times in making an incandescent light-bulb.  When asked about his failures he said "I didn't fail I found hundreds of ways not to make a light bulb."  If you aren't allowed to fail how can you possibly ever appreciate victory? 

We are being given so many programs to make sure our every need is met.  When there started to be protest against such programs the President was baffled, saying "you'd think they would be thanking me"  But he failed to grasp in a larger part why We the People were so upset.  see it was because of all the things he was doing "for" us, not despite it.  Sure its all well and good to make sure everyone has everything they need, but is that really  the job of the Government, any government? 

I could talk about sustainability, its really not, or  I could talk about how progress slows to almost zilch, unless such a world is run with an iron fist and even then. . . if people have no dreams then what is the point of advancing?  What Brave New World are we creating, when we want everyone to be docile, have everything decided for them by people that "know better"  Are we really making the world better by making sure every possible need is met? 

I for one, reject such notions.  The soviets tried this, more through an Iron Fist than through the silken glove, but lets face it the end result is always the same.  If humans have no reason to hope, to want to strive and to dream, then what is the point of doing anything?  Can you honestly tell me that there is something good and noble about a man or woman that has never had to push themselves?   What great and wonderful stories might possibly have been written about a society that never had to really push itself?  The truth is once you reach that state it will continue, like that for many years, never really changing, for many many years.  Decades or centuries later depending on the case, there will be one central flaw, some would be dreamer will stand up and ask "why are we living this way?" and the system will start to crack.  That or the system itself will be poorly maintained and will fall apart of its own accord when people can not stand the massive inefficiencies. 

Obamacare, The Community Reinvestment Act, all of these Laws and Programs seem all nice, well and fluffy.  I mean after all who would really argue against getting people Homes or Medical care?  Only a heartless bastard right?  Or is it a perceptive individual that has realized the bars inherent in these programs.  Food stamps are a good thing, they are charities after all. . .until you see people who have lived multiple generations on food stamps.  Go to southern West Virginia.  You will see people who are at least three generations on food stamps and working on a fourth generation.  They are the ultimate in stereotypical "Trailer Trash".  They have no desire to leave their lives except if there is some lottery pay off, or someone rich happens to pull a Cinderella, but if we were truly honest such things almost never happen.  What's even sadder is this is something that's been know for years.  Go to a "Ghetto" (though I would seriously like to have sent these people to Warsaw circa 1940 so they stop calling it that) or the "projects".   You will see generally the same thing, only in a much more urban setting.

You see People are People.  Much like Bears, if you feed them, give them treats or show them all the things that they have to do they will do that.  And only that.  They will forget how to do for themselves, and only raid the places of "free" food.  Did you know there are actually pot bellied bears at Yellow Stone?  They don't hibernate, and all they do is go to campsites and raid them.  They do not eat their "natural" foods anymore leading to an explosion of the Herbivore populations that the Wolves can't really keep in check because they too are starting to learn that going after Human food is easier than actually hunting their own food.  With people spouting Darwinism, and going on and on and on about how man is little more than a monkey that walks upright, why on Earth would they forget this, then keep on forgetting it, when trying to make governments?  One has only to look to the natural world to know that there are hundreds, thousands of examples that we can take all showing us why the Guided Cages are just as destructive as the iron ones. 

In then end we are prisoners.  It doesn't matter if our needs and wants are provided.  We are slaves.  Slaves to our technology, that "connects" us, by making us more distant from each other.  Slaves to our Programs that provide us with everything we need, and give us no reason to dream of greater things.  Our Good Intentions have slowly wrapped chains around our wrists and feet.  These chains are comfortable so we do not complain.  We won't complain until it is far, far too late.  We have become our own zoo.  The Wild abandon and progress we once knew all but forgotten.  This is our life now.  Can you see now why people might think Welfare is a bad thing?

1 comment:

77 11c20 said...

We have gotten a little lost on our way.

My parents first grew up in what was called as the time (1920’s -30’s) a slum because that was where their parents, new immigrants first lived. They left as soon as possible, no assistance from the government and this was during the Great Depression. It was sink or swim and it seemed no one drowned; it was not in the DNA. It wasn’t easy but it was done. No job was too small and they started me on that real early, if you wanted something you have to work at it. My Father did better than his and I have done better than my father, with multiple careers always trying to improve our lives.

Maybe with our country’s success and misguided progressivism we have made it two easy with there being no risk, no motivation to keep trying. But that is not to say, we’re all doomed. Not everyone was brought up as where sports are not for winning. There are still a lot out there who would survive no matter what life would through at them. Also I have meet the new immigrants to this country from many countries where many of us would look down on and they have the motivation that my grandparents and parents had.