Exactly right. Comfortably numb. We complain about the culture and corrupt government, rightfully so, but I'm always astonished how many people don't vote. Granted the elections are rigged a thousand different ways but if people took the time to be even modestly informed and exercise the right to vote we could overcome the theft.
"I guess my increasing disquiet concerns whether free people still possess the will to resist giving it away."
No.
It's not just comfort either. That's part of it, sure. Why should I have to work for my survival when I can just sit in my government funded recliner watching my government funded big screen TV in my government funded apartment eating my government funded food?
Part of it is ignorance of economic reality. Magical thinking if you will. The government is some sort of magical unicorn that craps money. A job is not me trading my labor, skills and abilities to someone who needs them in return for currency, it's being exploited by an evil corporation. Why should they be required to spend their time in a "thankless job" when they can "get off the hamster wheel" and presumably just let the government take care of them? (I was recently in a discussion with someone who made that exact argument to me, hence the quotes).
Part of it is institutionalized dependency. Less than 20% of the population lives in rural areas these days. 80+% of the population lives in cities and suburbs. So what, right?
I grew up on a farm "middle of nowhere" adjacent. When and where I grew up, when you needed food, you grew it. When you needed a barn, you built it. When your truck or tractor or plumbing or heater (didn't have A/C) broke, you fixed it. If it was a big enough job, you'd call relatives to come help provide labor. If it was something you didn't have the knowledge to do, you'd call friends and family and someone would know how to do it and be willing to teach you.
When a tornado went through between the house and the barn, knocked a tree down across the county road and took out 40 feet of fence, we and the only neighbor we had that lived within two miles of us who owned the land the tree was on, had the tree cut up and off the road (we split the firewood), the fence patched up and the animals that escaped rounded up and back in the barnlot by the end of the day. That's just how rural folk, live. Something needs done...do it.
I joined the military after high school and have lived most of my adult life in cities...in absolute wonderment of the mostly forced, but completely accepted dependency and helplessness of city folk. Urban and surburban people have been taught from birth NOT to do things for themselves, but to call the "professionals" to handle it. Many people don't think it's even legal (and in some localities it isn't) for them to do things themselves. Of course, even if they choose to, they still have to beg permission from the government, and then get their work approved after they're done, which, of course, the government makes as difficult, painful and expensive as possible in order to discourage self-help.
When they need food, they go to the grocery store where the food comes neatly packaged in cellophane, cans and cardboard boxes. When they need a shed (no room for a barn), they get planning permission, zoning permission, a survey, a building permit and if they want it to have lights, an electrical permit, and then hire people to build it. Or pay someone twice as much to do the whole deal including handling all the permits and inspections. When their government approved, licensed and inspected car, or permitted and inspected plumbing or heater or A/C breaks, they call a mechanic, or a plumber or HVAC tech to fix it.
When a storm comes through and a tree falls across the road and onto their property and destroys their fence, they call the government and hope the tree gets removed this week so they can get the permits they need and hire someone to rebuild their fence maybe within a month and hope that someone turned the pets that got out get in to the pound so they can go pick them up.
80+ percent of the population have been born, browbeaten and brainwashed into believing that not only is it illegal for them to take care of themselves and do things for themselves...but that it's impossible for them to do so. And it naturally follows that if I can't, under any circumstances, take care of myself, then it's obviously someone else's responsibility to take care of me right?
Lincoln said as much in the Lincoln Douglas debates. It’s the Second Amendment more than anything; without it the First Amendment wouldn’t be worth a bucket of warm piss. It’s really easy to control a disarmed population, just ask any Iranian.
Huxley covered this, "...the greater part of the population is not very intelligent, dreads responsibility, and desires nothing better than to be told what to do." And of course the premise of Brave New World that we would willingly give up freedom for comfort and convenience; there was no Orwellian boot necessary.
You want to understand American exceptionalism - it was when we were an exception to that. The question is, are we still?
Exceptionalism has to be built by parents willing to do the hard work of parenting. Start with simple things like teaching them about God, giving them chores and holding them accountable, and checking on homework and working with them to improve their understanding (notice I didn't say 'grades'). The list is much longer of course. If we don't teach our children to become functioning adults, they won't be. The state has too much of a stake in keeping them helpless and hopeless.
The scariest tyranny is the one people volunteer for because it arrives with benefits, slogans, and paperwork. Government always wants more power. That is its nature. The real question is whether citizens still want freedom badly enough to resist the trade. Too many Westerners have exchanged liberty for managed comfort, dependency, and permission. They call it compassion. They call it fairness. They call it safety. But a citizen who relies on the state for everything eventually becomes a subject. America’s task is simple and hard: keep faith, arms, speech, states, families, and courage alive.
You get what you tolerate. People get the evil abuses of Dem Globalist Techno-fascism because they tolerate it. Toxic tolerance. Preferable would be compassionate intolerance of Dem Woke nonsense.
A reckoning now or a reckoning later? Our country was founded more or less on a rallying cry of “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.”
Exactly right. Comfortably numb. We complain about the culture and corrupt government, rightfully so, but I'm always astonished how many people don't vote. Granted the elections are rigged a thousand different ways but if people took the time to be even modestly informed and exercise the right to vote we could overcome the theft.
"I guess my increasing disquiet concerns whether free people still possess the will to resist giving it away."
No.
It's not just comfort either. That's part of it, sure. Why should I have to work for my survival when I can just sit in my government funded recliner watching my government funded big screen TV in my government funded apartment eating my government funded food?
Part of it is ignorance of economic reality. Magical thinking if you will. The government is some sort of magical unicorn that craps money. A job is not me trading my labor, skills and abilities to someone who needs them in return for currency, it's being exploited by an evil corporation. Why should they be required to spend their time in a "thankless job" when they can "get off the hamster wheel" and presumably just let the government take care of them? (I was recently in a discussion with someone who made that exact argument to me, hence the quotes).
Part of it is institutionalized dependency. Less than 20% of the population lives in rural areas these days. 80+% of the population lives in cities and suburbs. So what, right?
I grew up on a farm "middle of nowhere" adjacent. When and where I grew up, when you needed food, you grew it. When you needed a barn, you built it. When your truck or tractor or plumbing or heater (didn't have A/C) broke, you fixed it. If it was a big enough job, you'd call relatives to come help provide labor. If it was something you didn't have the knowledge to do, you'd call friends and family and someone would know how to do it and be willing to teach you.
When a tornado went through between the house and the barn, knocked a tree down across the county road and took out 40 feet of fence, we and the only neighbor we had that lived within two miles of us who owned the land the tree was on, had the tree cut up and off the road (we split the firewood), the fence patched up and the animals that escaped rounded up and back in the barnlot by the end of the day. That's just how rural folk, live. Something needs done...do it.
I joined the military after high school and have lived most of my adult life in cities...in absolute wonderment of the mostly forced, but completely accepted dependency and helplessness of city folk. Urban and surburban people have been taught from birth NOT to do things for themselves, but to call the "professionals" to handle it. Many people don't think it's even legal (and in some localities it isn't) for them to do things themselves. Of course, even if they choose to, they still have to beg permission from the government, and then get their work approved after they're done, which, of course, the government makes as difficult, painful and expensive as possible in order to discourage self-help.
When they need food, they go to the grocery store where the food comes neatly packaged in cellophane, cans and cardboard boxes. When they need a shed (no room for a barn), they get planning permission, zoning permission, a survey, a building permit and if they want it to have lights, an electrical permit, and then hire people to build it. Or pay someone twice as much to do the whole deal including handling all the permits and inspections. When their government approved, licensed and inspected car, or permitted and inspected plumbing or heater or A/C breaks, they call a mechanic, or a plumber or HVAC tech to fix it.
When a storm comes through and a tree falls across the road and onto their property and destroys their fence, they call the government and hope the tree gets removed this week so they can get the permits they need and hire someone to rebuild their fence maybe within a month and hope that someone turned the pets that got out get in to the pound so they can go pick them up.
80+ percent of the population have been born, browbeaten and brainwashed into believing that not only is it illegal for them to take care of themselves and do things for themselves...but that it's impossible for them to do so. And it naturally follows that if I can't, under any circumstances, take care of myself, then it's obviously someone else's responsibility to take care of me right?
That's the government's job.
Unfortunately, I am the 80% who doesn’t know how to do things because I lived in the city or the suburbs all my life.
Great comment. 15 minute smart cities are engineered by the globalist overlords to increase government tit sucking by the serfs.
Sorry for the typos, I was in a rush.
Lincoln said as much in the Lincoln Douglas debates. It’s the Second Amendment more than anything; without it the First Amendment wouldn’t be worth a bucket of warm piss. It’s really easy to control a disarmed population, just ask any Iranian.
Huxley covered this, "...the greater part of the population is not very intelligent, dreads responsibility, and desires nothing better than to be told what to do." And of course the premise of Brave New World that we would willingly give up freedom for comfort and convenience; there was no Orwellian boot necessary.
You want to understand American exceptionalism - it was when we were an exception to that. The question is, are we still?
Exceptionalism has to be built by parents willing to do the hard work of parenting. Start with simple things like teaching them about God, giving them chores and holding them accountable, and checking on homework and working with them to improve their understanding (notice I didn't say 'grades'). The list is much longer of course. If we don't teach our children to become functioning adults, they won't be. The state has too much of a stake in keeping them helpless and hopeless.
Yep, state controlled education is pretty much like everything else the state controls.
The scariest tyranny is the one people volunteer for because it arrives with benefits, slogans, and paperwork. Government always wants more power. That is its nature. The real question is whether citizens still want freedom badly enough to resist the trade. Too many Westerners have exchanged liberty for managed comfort, dependency, and permission. They call it compassion. They call it fairness. They call it safety. But a citizen who relies on the state for everything eventually becomes a subject. America’s task is simple and hard: keep faith, arms, speech, states, families, and courage alive.
💯
You get what you tolerate. People get the evil abuses of Dem Globalist Techno-fascism because they tolerate it. Toxic tolerance. Preferable would be compassionate intolerance of Dem Woke nonsense.
A reckoning now or a reckoning later? Our country was founded more or less on a rallying cry of “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.”
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah%2032%3A9&version=NIV
The recent EU Parliament vote to “Send them back” shows some instinct for freedom. But sadly the EU parliament lacks any real power to enforce that.
I'm embracing, "and" on this point.
Tyrants AND passivity.
When the comfort disappears, as it must, the tyrants begin their demands.