Cometh the Censor

I see with no surprise that Washington is stepping up its campaign to censor the internet. It had to come, and will succeed.  It will put paid forever to America’s flirtation with freedom.

The country was never really a democracy, meaning a polity in which final power rested with the people. The voters have always been too remote from the levers of power to have much influence. Yet for a brief window of time there actually was freedom of a sort. With the censorship of the net—it will be called “regulation”—the last hope of retaining former liberty will expire.

Over the years freedom has declined in inverse proportion to the reach of the central government. (Robert E. Lee: “I consider the constitutional power of the General Government as the chief source of stability to our political system, whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it.” Yep.)

Through most of the country’s history, Washington lacked the ability to meddle, control, micromanage, and punish. In 1850, it had precious little knowledge of events in lands such as Wyoming, Tennessee, or West Virginia, no capacity to do much about them, and not a great deal of interest. People on remote farms and in small towns governed themselves as they chose, not always well but without rule by distant bureaucracies and moneyed interests.

For a sunny few years, local freedom rested substantially on principle, a notion inconceivable now. The Thomas Jeffersons, George Washingtons, and Robert E. Lees genuinely believed in freedom, and worried about the coming of tyranny. Justices of the Supreme Court often upheld the tenets of the Bill of Rights. As human affairs go—poorly, as a rule—it was impressive.

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The Receding Tide

Several things characterize countries of the Third Word, whatever precisely "Third World" means.

The first is corruption. America is rotten with it, but American corruption is distinct from corruption in, say, Guatemala or Thailand, being less visible and better organized.

Second, unaccountable and often intrusive police not subject to control by the public. In America formal police departments rapidly grow more militarized, jackbooted, swatted-out, and their powers grow. A law-abiding citizen should never be afraid of the police, and a misbehaving cop should worry intensely when said law-abiding citizen records his badge number with intent to call the chief. Those days are over. Today the cops can bully, threaten, and harass, and there is precious little you can do about it. The proliferating laws against filming the police can have only one purpose, to prevent exposure of misbehavior. Third World.

Third, lack of constitutional government. This is not the same as the lack of a constitution. The Soviet Union had an admirable constitution, and paid no attention to it. America heads rapidly in the same direction.

Fourth, impunity. In the bush world, the rich and powerful are never brought to trail regardless of their crimes. We are there. Wall Street runs a clear and thoroughly documented scam, the subprime-loan racket, doing immense damage to the country. How many went to jail? How many were tried? How many now have high positions in the federal government? Third World.

Fifth, a yawning gap between rich and poor. As the American economy declines, the middle class sags into the lower middle class. The sag takes many forms. Prices rise but incomes don’t. Houses go into foreclosure. Student loans tied to the houses of parents become backbreaking. Businesses hire people as individual contractors, with no benefits. Increasingly the young live with their parents. The ship is taking water.

Sixth, a controlled press. Many Americans I suspect will insist that the press is free, because they are repeatedly told that it is, because they have nothing to which to compare it, and because the control is most adroitly managed. But it exists.

America's One-Party System

Why vote at all? Nothing of substance is on the table, other than the desire of Republicans to attack Iran. Yes, we must get America back on track, get it going again in the right direction, turn the country around, get back to the American values that made the nation great, promote the American Dream—none of which means anything. We must creatr jobs (how?), get America back to work (how?), and favor all the vague platitudes intended to mulct fools. All right, I hereby declare myself mulcted. So why vote?

The elections are supposed to indicate the presence of democracy, but they do not. Elections do not determine policy but only the division of spoils. An election in which candidates take no positions becomes a high-school popularity contest. The way to have elections without having a democracy is to let the people vote, but not on anything.

And oh god, the boredom. Night after night, day after day, we will have this version of Dancing with the Stars, the judges in the media solemnly that Santorum displayed Confidence, but Gingrich committed some trivial gaffe or other. Nuance, gesture, composure, but no substance.

Where is this going? The country is in grave difficulties and needs desperately to make hard decisions. Those in power seem to have decided to keep picking the nation's bones while the corpse slides towards the precipice. Cosset the morons, assure everyone of everything, avoid the issues and do nothing that might upset anyone. Greece, Spain, Ireland all take unpopular measures to try to bring things under control. The US? It spends on, wars on, as if the gravy days of 1960 had never ended.

Having a one'party system called by two names is a technically slick way of disenfranchising the public without their noticing. In a parliamentary system all manner of politics would gain expression in proportion to their prevalence in the population. With two identical parties, no dissenting view can ever gain office. A masterly dodge, this.