Freedom, Servitude & Things Not Hidden that Go Unseen

Please rise and put your hand over your heart while the authorities recite the National Security Poem.

"You may not speak
so that we can keep you safe.

You may not see
so that we can keep you safe.

You may not hear
so that we can keep you safe.

You may not ask
so that we can keep you safe.

You may not know
so that we can keep you safe.

You may not complain
so that we can keep you safe.

You may not refuse
so that we can keep you safe.

You may not live
so that we can keep you safe."

"Amen."

You may now be seated.
...

Zombie.  Borg.  Robot.  Android.
(Animated non-living things without self awareness that perform automatic functions.) 

Slave.  Servant.  Soldier.  Worker. 
(Living humans who must forfeit personal identity and forego self-interest to obediently perform the will of another.  These humans give up their own free will to become an extension of somebody else's free will.  Doing so is called performance of duty, employment or slavery.)

Cult member.  Extremist.  Fundamentalist.  Member of a collective.  
(Persons who give up personal autonomy after being convinced by extremely effective brainwashing that they want to be worshipful, obedient members, followers and believers of a brainwasher's will.  The promised reward is religious/spiritual/political attainment/status/reward by way of receiving supposedly superior/special knowledge that only the brainwasher has.)

Whether mechanical or human all of the above entities have one overriding theme in common: they are servile.  They are all required to operate devoid of free will.  Dissent is unwelcome. Resistance is punished.  Refusal to perform as instructed for any reason having to do with rational self interest such as staying alive, or conscience such as not wanting to kill innocent people or take people's homes or property, or any other expression of individual free will asserted as a legitimate cause for disobedience, is deemed unacceptable, criminal and punishable.  Servile entities don't get an opinion. Their free will is irrelevant.  Nobody cares about what they think.  Their claims of conscience are also irrelevant.

If you are a servile entity you have only one purpose for living and that purpose is to obey your master; at least according to the masters.  Disobedience is not tolerated.  Willful disobedience can get you fired, court martialed, attacked by other servile entities, imprisoned, beaten up, tortured and even killed.  The message is clear, obey or suffer the consequences.

It is interesting to note that the creation of robots and androids to replace thinking, feeling, disobedient humans has long been the serious desire of the controlling wealthy, the capitalists, industrialists, military leaders, dominators, tyrants and slave owners.  All of these entities are notorious exploiters of humanity in their pursuit of personal profit, power and status. They all want and demand the same thing: unthinking, totally loyal, completely obedient workers, slaves, citizens and soldiers who will work long hours for little or no pay, with few or no benefits, few or no human rights or other rights, who exist only to do what they are told.   They are never to question or challenge authority, never act disobediently, and lay down their lives without hesitation should their master/owner/commandant/leader order it. 

It is clear that this arrangement definitely benefits those in control.  What is not so clear and is little discussed is how little benefit there really is in being the one who is controlled.

Wouldn't you think that people who are willing (or unwillingly forced) to give up their own personal self interests, life goals, free will and self determination for someone else to use for their own self interests, life goals, free will and self determination would be paid extremely well for such a valuable thing?  What is more valuable than the freedom to create one's own life?  To work not to achieve someone else's vision and goals but to achieve your own.

  

That is after all the most basic and obvious thing for us to do with our lives.  Not to work at the baker's shop but to own your own bakery.  Not to bake their recipes but to create and bake your own.  

 

Not to be told what to do but to decide for yourself how to best manage and use your own time.  To set your own standards, establish and live by your own values, to come and go as best suits you.  

 

Not to be imprisoned by arbitrary wage ceilings imposed by others but to keep the full fruits of  your own labor, which is the only way and chance there is of accumulating wealth of any kind for most working people.  For the vast majority of us being employed means being functionally poor, forever.  Being self employed and working hard can and often does create a very nice, comfortable level of wealth that allows you to be independent and free. Giving that up so that someone else can use your body for labor, your hands and your mind for their own uses and benefits... you would think this would be something highly prized and appreciated and therefore very well compensated, but  no, it's just the opposite.  The pay sucks and your life is owned and run by people who use you.  They profit, you don't.  It's a hole that is very hard, if not impossible, to crawl out of.

When people give up their own free will, their own freedom, their own self interests, their own dignity for any reason or cause, they become non-persons.  They don't count anymore.  They are mere objects, tools to be used by their owners.  People who allow themselves to be used by others for those others' personal enrichment are not respected for doing so.  They are often treated quite poorly.  They are used and used up and discarded.  

 

When anyone forfeits their self respect, they won't be respected for it, they'll be used and abused.  Is anyone confused by that?  It's very simple.  It is not hidden.

...

I am always saddened when I hear of soldiers coming home from active duty who are wounded and/or spiritually decimated and coming apart at the seams; in particular when they come home but do not receive necessary support or medical care or must wait impossibly long periods for appointments and/or get terrible care that is in fact not care at all.  In essence they're abandoned.  At the same time I'm always a bit incredulous when soldiers families or other advocates express surprise over this abandonment. Not because it's not outrageous because it certainly is heinous and outrageous, but because of one basic, simple fact that every person who joins the military should know but which strangely and often doesn't seem to register. 

It is not hidden. When you join the military you literally sign your life away.  You sign complete and total ownership and control of your body and your life over to the US Government; whoever and whatever that may mean. Your body and your life become the legal property of unknown others who are free to do anything they want with you or to you.

 

When you sign your life over to someone else to use in whatever way they see fit, you're taking quite a serious risk.  You will get no written contractual assurances that you will get anything in return for entering into this bizarre one way legal agreement.  When you join the military you are required to sign countless legal documents.  The US Government is getting their legal end covered in iron clad chains and shackles.  When you sign your name countless times you are attesting that you are of sound mind and adult age and that you freely choose to forfeit your conscience and free will to become the legal property of an entity that can and will use you in whatever way it sees fit.   Once you do that, you no longer have a voice.  You are not free to leave.  Your opinion is not wanted.  Your dissent will not be tolerated.  Your well-being will not be assured.   It was your choice.  You made a legal contractual irrevocable agreement to give your life over to be used by a government.  You surrendered your free will and your life, and you agreed to be promised nothing of equal value in return. 

Think about it.  You are required to sign legal ownership of your body over to the government and to release them from all liability for any harm or sickness or disability or death that comes to you in performance of your job duties.  The only reason they have any interest in you is because you are willing to become government property with no rights of any kind.  And what is it they want to use you for?  Killing.  They will use you until they use you up.  To them, thousands of soldiers getting killed is all a part of doing business.  And in this government especially, they clearly don't want to pay for medical care or benefits of any kind.  They are legally entitled to send you back home in a bag or box or just drop-kick you to the curb.  So when it's clear they only want you if you're killing for them, then when you're no longer able to kill, they have no use for you,  how can you be surprised when they don't give a rats ass about what you need?  The higher-ups are not disconnected.  They understand just fine.  They just don't give a damn.  Nothing is hidden.  It's all right out in the open, yet how many soldiers do not or will not see it?

...

To be forced, coerced, convinced, sold, steered, marketed or otherwise shoved into a direction that leads to a lifetime of servitude is to be deprived of  freedom.   Freedom to live life on one's own terms. To be convinced that giving that up in exchange for endless servitude is a good thing is to be convinced of a very old and very evil lie.  What is it to discover one's own possibilities, interests, feelings, passions, principles, strengths and weaknesses but to discover one's own truths?  What else matters so much as that?  What else can hold any meaning for us but our own truths?

Zombies. The walking dead.  These are people who have been separated from the important work of truly being alive, learning to understand themselves and others through coming to understand the world we all live in.   This can only truly be done through independent discovery, independent thought and reason and living in service to one's own conscience.  To understand truth, to own truth, you have to get to it on your own and when you do that it becomes a part of you.  You know why it is, you know what it is, and you know what it means.  You also know it is not a full and finished whole but only a part of a frankly inconceivable greater whole.  We can not be given truth or simply be told what is true.  The only way any of us can get to truth is by virtue of devotion to finding it, and devotion is something that comes from the heart.  It is what it is. This search for truth, for meaning, for understanding, for self, this is the unique journey of every person's lifetime. 

Or... you can skip all that and just be out to make money and enslave people.

So Free And Democratic n'shit

A long long time ago before there were such things as politicians, people used to talk to each other and tell the truth.  They simply spoke their thoughts and feelings and talked of their experiences and pondered life's questions, sorrows and joys openly.  They had nothing to hide and no reason to connive or contrive for people who were more than likely relatives anyway.

You'll have to check me on this but I suspect that right after someone invented money the first politicians showed up, about five minutes later; and sadly it seems politicians will never go away.  As long as there is money flowing freely out of the people's pockets and into the tax man's coffers, there will be politicians.  And as long as there are politicians they will do what politicians do, which is to loyally serve their only two real clients, the rich man and the tyrant, both of whom forever want only one thing: everything.  They want more than anyone else, more than anyone needs, more than even makes sense.  They want control over what is not theirs, because they want what is not theirs. They require special rules which exempt them from legal, moral and ethical behavior in order to get their hands on what is not theirs. 

They also want other rules which will literally or figuratively disembowel anyone attempting to protect what belongs to them in order to keep it from being taken by the rich man and the tyrant.  They want many special rules like exemptions from paying taxes, exemptions from legal responsibility for their harmful acts against others, and special legal privileges that allow them to pay cash to the state in lieu of life imprisonment or public hangings for felonious acts as would befit any other citizen.  The politician's job is to facilitate their clients receipt of these things. 

The steps of facilitation are simple and straightforward.  It is done by accepting generous amounts of money from their clients to purchase one or more performances, the standard political play-acting of saintly state's rhetoric delivered with bellowing voice and masterful language, complete with fist pounding debate, name calling, character assassination, bribery, blackmail and so much more.  Every trick and tool in the dirty little politician's toolbox will be used behind the politician's back while the front side delivers windswept drama dripping honey thick oration toward winning the objects of their dear and generous clients hearts.

All of these things are done while the politician publicly pronounces himself to be the trusted friend of the people, a friend wholly devoted to whatever they want to hear, a literal physical embodiment of lily white virtue and honor, a valiant protector of all that is righteous, noble and true; and most of all selfless.  Politicians must scratch and claw their way to the tops of rarefied marble pedestals where they then are able to pronounce their selfless saintliness and honor to all the good citizens of the state, rich and poor alike.  This is the first lie of politicians.

But it is hardly the last.  When one's first foot forward is a balls out, shameless and preposterous packet of lies, then nothing else can follow but more lies.  Indeed, one must lie from that day forward about every single thing.  As years go by, the depth, breadth and sheer number of lies, deceits and manipulations stack up into inextricably interconnected layers built up into great kingdoms made of stale, bug infested crackers.  It is nothing but a house of cards, having no substance, no glowing record of good deeds done, no evidence of the people's quality of life having improved, no trace of selflessness or all that much service.  There will be a great deal done that delivered generous portions of self-enrichment but these are never shared with the public, they are taken home and used to enjoy a much better quality of life than the average citizen could ever dream about.  After achieving such a dubious track record, any grandiose proclamations of service and nobility are transparent enough to expose the facade of a crumbling cracker kingdom and to make clear the complete lack of shining alabaster castles and towers. The jig should be up but the other politicians will now expound upon the noble and glorious career of their fellow public servant until he dies and then afterward too, because it is in their best interests to continue pushing the first lie of all politicians.

The people are always told that politicians are decent people with no personal agendas, qualified people, people who do not lie, cheat or steal, who love their country, love their people, worship the same God the public does, and work long, hard hours battling out legal concepts in order to ensure prosperity, freedom and democracy for all.  They have to say things like that because if they told you what they were really doing they'd be tarred and feathered and run out of town, or hung in the public stocks for weeks to let children laugh at them and throw rotten produce at them, and then they'd be executed for being the scum of the earth.  Because, in a nutshell, politics is a series of agreements made between the rich man and the state wherein the state holds you down so the rich man can rape you. There's your prosperity, freedom and democracy right there.

Woohoo! More tax cuts for the rich!