Murphy’s Bye-Laws

I just read a blog post at the Inductivist blog (via reiver on Twitter) talking about American exceptionalism.  The point of the post was a deeper look at the characteristics that are supposedly exceptional to Americans, specifically the “freedom and control over one’s life”.  At this point, empiricism in the study cited deals only with the answers to a question rather than the question itself.  There are as many aspects to human freedom as there are individual human ambitions, so every person asked may be answering about a different aspect of freedom, whether it be economic freedom or dietary freedom or freedom of movement.  The people answered based on their perception, but does perception translate into reality?

In the face of the amount of marketing and propaganda people face today – the very substance we live in and breathe in everyday – reality is only what any one person can be convinced of.  Welcome to the front lines of an extremely low-intensity fourth generation warfare in a war between corporations (and corporations masquerading as civil servants).  In this war for legitimacy, power, and profit the average citizen, worker, or even elite are not soldiers but the battlefield.  In this battle, the players are all trying to convince those within earshot or cruise missile range that they have never had it better and those in control are to thank for it; or, conversely, that the citizens have never had it worse and could have it so much better if only control of the place were to change hands.  In the list provided at the blog, none of the countries were officially pessimistic about their freedom.  I am defining pessimistic based on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being freest, as anything below a score of five.  Not one country – even Iraq and Iran – were below five.  Majority rule makes the majority happy?  Maybe most people are generally optimistic and think things could always be worse.  Is there an apathy index companion to this survey?  A people’s perception of their own freedom is not a good measure of that freedom, as the book They Thought They Were Free: The Germans 1933-45 by Milton Mayer illustrates.  In other words, the frogs in the ever-warming pot don’t perceive themselves as dinner, but that doesn’t keep it from happening.

Freedom is a state of mind, though; it is an attitude.  And that attitude is inherently resistive and suspicious – even jealous as Voltairine de Cleyre pointed out.  The point of all this is simply to say that a feeling of freedom does not translate into actual freedoms.

Walking through a mall for the first time in a long, long time on a Friday night a few weeks ago, we passed multiple random groups of teenagers loitering and horsing around. I suppose they were dressed like fairly normal teens caught up in the fads – no matter how ridiculous. As we passed one group, I overheard one teen say to another, “O-M-G!” No sooner than my next thought started to bud in my brain, it was superseded by yet another though: Shit, I’m an old curmudgeon. This was evidenced by my thought to weep for the future. *Grumble grumble* kids these days *grumble*.

I found humor in this episode and gave myself a mild ribbing for such a knee-jerk reaction. I offer the anecdote now for illustrative purposes in a discussion regarding the state of our culture. Culture itself is so very diverse and diffuse that any kind of objective definition or definitive accounting is impossible. Diversity doesn’t mean there aren’t overlaps, though. Common themes and evolutions can be found across many facets of the conglomerated culture. How one values any facet of this heterogeneous culture is purely subjective and dependent on the individual’s point of view.

In a comment thread over at Sunni’s joint, culture was being judged from two different levels; one from the progression and desire for freedom, and one from the lower levels of pop-culture and the smaller subsets of culture without the overarching theme of the first level.  I will discuss this lower level first since it offers clues to the higher examination.

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Here in this country, which is supposed to be “free” and “of the people,” the police are allowed to set up checkpoints under the guise that they are keeping us safe from drunk drivers. What they are really protecting us from is more akin to outdated paperwork, uneventful evenings, and timely arrivals. As Jim Bovard points out in his article Drunk Driving Checkpoints: Every Driver Guilty, “These checkpoints, supposedly started to target drunk drivers, have expanded to give police more intrusive power over citizens in many areas.” A report of results from checkpoints in November of 2005 in Pittsburgh confirms that about 650% more citations were issued for vehicle inspections than for DUI. Confirming what Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens said in a dissent of a checkpoint case brought on 4^th Amendment grounds (also from Bovard’s article), “The evidence in this case indicates that sobriety check points result in the arrest of a fraction of one percent of the drivers who are stopped, but there is absolutely no evidence that this figure represents an increase over the number of arrests that would have been made by using the same law enforcement resources in conventional patrols,” the Pittsburgh checkpoint made 13 arrests for DUI while 14 were made from normal patrols.

Pittsburgh is at it again with “[t]he region’s largest DUI checkpoint” to be set up on a “major highway” in the area sometime between now and November 5 (from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette). In the midst of this article is a core justification for such police-state tactics in the course of “keeping the peace.*” Cathy Tress of the Pennsylvania Driving Under the Influence Association has this to share, “Driving in Pennsylvania is a privilege, not a right. Consequently, drivers have a responsibility to themselves, their passengers and other people who are sharing the road.” But free people have no privileges, I say.

Privilege is something that is granted by some superior or controlling entity. Kids are given privileges by their parents. Slaves are given privileges by their masters. Free people have no superiors to grant such privileges; a free person has only rights restricted by the equal rights of those around them. By implying that driving is a privilege, Ms. Tress is implying that there is some controlling entity granting that privilege, presumably the State. Of course, words mean nothing, especially when spoken by governments.

If this country was what we are told it is, then the only privilege-granting entities would be the mythical “People,” granting privilege to government officials. Through verbal jujitsu the government has turned this around. But words mean nothing, and if we purport to be free, we can’t be granted privileges. Instead, we exercise rights.

In a similar vein, like the one that popped out of my head when I saw , freedom is not a privilege. If someone has the power over you to grant you “freedom” then you are not free. The picture was taken at the Canfield Fair this year in the education building. Some school in Mahoning County, Ohio has the nerve to teach children this garbage. I…um…it is….um…what the….um…I have no words. I weep (and rage) for our futures and the lives we are feeding into a carnivorous system.

*Do we have any Peace Officers anymore or are they all Storm Troopers?