Don't Hate Us

So, this is something that I've been thinking about for several months now.

I read a book, Entertaining Ourselves To Death, which discussed how the American populace was becoming so engrossed in entertainment that we are making ourselves inane and obsolete. In this book is discussed the fact that America is the ONLY country in the history of the Earth founded by intellectuals. All smart men holding degrees and respectable jobs and the like. These guys were smart and kicked ass. This tradition bled into the people that came and conquered this continent (by the by, this isn't the place to discuss the ethicality of what happened) and America became the number one exporter and importer of the written word. Whether it was ancient philosophy, religious texts, fiction, technical manuals, essays, magazines, brochures and pamphlets, we were reading it. Consuming it.

It sounds so incredible! Can you imagine? The fact that you're reading this blog probably signifies that you read books. You know we're in the minority, right? Roughly 2% of Americans read for reasons other than work and education. Of that 2%, some 80% reads trashy romance novels. Can you imagine walking around where we're the majority? We could sit down with anyone and have a gripping, informed, complex conversation? In fact, even the most voracious of modern readers would have fallen behind the curve of the sort of thought the “ancient American” was capable of. Being immersed in a literary culture like that, your ability to process complex thought naturally rises. Your abilities to retain and retrieve information would have also risen to great degrees.

This book is one of those “thorns in the side” book. A book whose thoughts don't leave you alone. Something you have to chew and mull over. Something that you wish someone else would read so that you could talk about it. In fact, I recommend you read it, and soon, but such is not the aim of this post.

The aim of this post is what happened next. America became obsessed with being entertained. As that obsession increased, our capacity for complex understanding diminished. I mean, just talk to someone, anyone, that you meat in daily life, and they wouldn't be able to tell you why I used the wrong meet earlier in this sentence. Unless you're lucky enough to stumble on that rare 1.2% of the populace (not quite that bad, but you'd struggle to find someone that wouldn't cackle lack a jackass when I explained to them that meat is what you eat, and meet is what you greet).

So what happened?

When America was started, when she was forming herself, she had a vision. A great experimental vision that, if successful, meant something ineffable never before experienced by the world. Was that vision successful? In many ways, yes. Can you imagine a world without the influence of America? Science, technology, mathematics, art, social interactions are all indelibly and forever changed. So many ideals and values that we were afraid to embrace before are now standard vocabulary in the entire world, not just the west.

In many ways, the experiment was successful. But we, the American people, stopped. We stopped dreaming and inventing and pushing and prodding and asking, seeking, and finding. We thought we achieved and it was best to not rock the boat. Let things mellow.

And this is where I arrive at my point.

I don't know how many international readers (if any) I have. I have a request of you.

When I was in Ireland (a place of utter magic. My utmost and sincerest compliments and humblest thanks to the people of Ireland), some of my traveling companions were harassed by a group of men. These men accused them of being warmongers and voting for Bush and yadda yadda. Obviously these guys have never actually taken the time to find out what an American thinks otherwise they'd know that we're far more concerned if the Broncos beat the Raiders than if Iraqi Joe has a job or a gun to his head. Same diff. If these guys had also taken the time to find out what Americans think of our president, they'd know that they'd have to search far and wide to find the 3 people in the country that actually like president Bush. And in this case, his parents count. Most Americans act just like these Irish men: out of blind hatred for Americans and the (perverted) “American ideal.” If they would have taken the opportunity to get to know something about Americans, these guys would have found that they'd have good bitching session buddies. Especially since we're in college, and bucking authority is always the hip thing to do. And oh boy do we want to be hip AND cool.

So, people from other countries: don't just blindly hate Americans. If you have to blindly do anything for us, blindly prayer for us, and blindly pity us. We're a people that have lost our vision, and should we ever again see clearly, we can offer so much to the world.

And people of America, this next part's for you.

I finished watching a movie about the IRS and if their function is ethical or not. In short, it isn't, nor has it ever been, and worse: it's not legal. And even worse is the fact that the IRS is a privately owned entity. It's not even government.

This movie touched on RFID chips and identification cards. This is scary shit. Let me give you the short of it.

RFID stands for Radio Frequency IDentification. These cards are ID cards that the government is going to start issuing in the not too distant future (implementation begins may of '08 – whatever that actually means). What makes these cards scary is that there is a chip (the actual RFID) that emits radio waves. Your card passes by a transmitter, and your card number is logged at that location. Essentially “Cuyler boards a train at 10 am. Cuyler leaves train station at 11:20 am. Cuyler enters walmart at 11:30.” These cards also contain all your banking information, social security information, medical history, employment history, fingerprints and retinal scans. So then not only does the card tell the radio transmitter at what time I enter wal mart, but what I buy, at what times I buy them, how much it costs, and when I leave. “Big deal, they can see me in wal mart.” But it wouldn't be hard to put these in random spots. Uknown checkpoints. The obliteration of privacy. They could even weave RFIDs into money, thus making untrackable money trackable.

Of course all of this is done in the interest of our best safety and protection of the public. Protection from what? Just because the government knows where I am doesn't mean a crazy terrorist can't jump through my window or gun me down.

Or worse. Just because the government knows where I am it doesn't mean I won't get hit by a drunk driver and die on impact tomorrow when I go to the coffee shop.

Or worse. Just because the government knows all my dirty little secrets doesn't mean that I won't experience a freak heart attack or liver failure.

In this documentary, it interviewed a family in Florida who got locator RFID chips installed in THEMSELVES because, as the mother so eloquently put it, “we were so afraid after the attacks on 9/11.” Bitch, please. Grow a spine, then use it as a bludgeoning device.

At what point did we raise ourselves for such cowardice? At what point did we start to raise ourselves to be so mild and acquiescent? No! This is not the spirit nor the vision of America. Rock some fuckin' boats.

The person willing to sacrifice their freedom for safety deserves neither (that might be Thomas Jefferson, but I can't find it. So if you find it, I'm not plagiarizing, just unsuccessfully citing).

So, people of America: please knock off this bipartisan bullshit. That's all it is. I don't give a damn how much you hate Bush, or how much of a coward Kerry is, or how old Dole is, or how many people Clinton screwed, or how much of a movie star Reagan was. It doesn't matter. That's not the point. The point is the vision, and the vision can't be accomplished when we have two bulls, each dumber than the other, butting heads. If an American would take the time to get to know other Americans, they'd probably find out that if you can dig deeper than the superficial political nonsense we're trained to think matters so much that we're pretty alike, and together we could accomplish quite a bit. In fact, I believe a little well known guy by the name of George Washington (you might have heard of him) said that the “party system would be the death of the government.” I'm inclined to agree. We spend so much time arguing about who's right and bitching about Bush that squat gets accomplished.

Knock it off. Let's stop being stereotypes and get some stuff accomplished. Let's not allow ourselves to be so tracked. Let's not let the IRS get away with thievery. Let's not let the rest of the world believe a bunch of shallow lies about us.

Please, Americans, let's get our vision back.