The nature and purpose of any government is to control behavior, either for good or ill. Social management of some sort is necessary for peace, order and the general welfare. As a society becomes more complex, governments necessarily exert increasing control until they eventually reach authoritarianism. I did not conclude this. Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin did, except they called it tyranny. Same difference.

Flawed as history reveals those two founders to be, they nevertheless had time to think and then write about what they thought. Likewise their citizen constituency had time to consider what they wrote and how it consciously related to themselves as individuals in a political and economic environment. Entirely unassisted by screen behavior, they concluded, that individual liberty was indeed a human right and checks and balances looked to be the best way of preserving that right.

Mother England may have birthed yeoman liberty centuries before 1776, but that geezer, Ben, who spent as much time with his pants down as up, and Tom Jeff, who jollied it up with his black mistress even as he wrote laws that preserved black slavery, well, they were nevertheless onto something with this checks and balances thing. And the more citizens thought about it, the more they liked it. We’ve all been beneficiaries of the time they had to consider their political environment, and then take right action during what we now consider simpler, less daunting times. But no times are simple to those living in them. Consider a bunch of farmers who bathed once a week or the yokel village shopkeepers – who could well go bankrupt if they burned too many candles in a winter season – taking on mighty England in warfare. I’ve read their musings and believe me, theirs was a focused and meditated decision.

But as American culture and society became more complex with more moving parts, it became more distracting. Decades ago we reached the point where the level of distraction was so high that few were capable of navigating it with enough individual consciousness intact to reflect upon, much less question the nature of, our national environment. Like the rest of the planet, Americans mostly respond to the world as it is presented to them each day. But the world as it is understood by Americans now comes through many layers of distorted filters, most of them purposefully distorted for economic financial gain by one overarching entity or another. So much so as to be atomized, kaleidoscopically diffracted. One cannot identify even the simplest object through a kaleidoscope. Bedazzled, disoriented and detached from reality, we are rendered effectively blind – thus easily directed and managed. So we listen to the few loud voices shouting to the many and disregard any dissent as background noise.

In fact, as the material, social and political complexities increased beyond our available time and ability to think about, or study and comprehend the larger order of things, we came to desire ever increasing control. The emerging authoritarian one voice to the many neatly solved this problem by answering the important question of our time: “Is anybody in charge here, for chrissake! I’m finding meth vials in my yard, homeless people are coming to my door asking for food or work, a friggin street gang just rented the house next door, and I can’t get a customer service operator who speaks English. Who’s in charge here?”

The one voice of government, answers, “I AM.”

“Good then! Do what you gotta do. Make my decision for me. Because I haven’t the slightest friggin idea of what’s going on.”

And decide it does. Just last month the government, by way of the highest court in the land, made a vitally important decision on behalf of the people of the United States. The Supreme Court ruled that public school officials cannot search the pubescent panties of a thirteen year old girl, on suspicion that she is in possession of Advil for menstrual cramps. (Sanford Unified School District vs. Savana Redding — Case 08-479). Redding, an eighth grade honor student when the case began in 2001, was almost out of college when it was finally settled. It took six years and Christ only knows how much in legal costs to make this profound decision. The decision was hailed by progressives as “a landmark victory for personal freedom.” One more new freedom for Americans. The right to stash an over-the-counter pill anywhere on your body you choose.

We find ourselves awash in new freedoms. There are those aforementioned 17 million folks freed from work. And at least 45 million people are free from the onus of healthcare and all those time consuming trips to the doctor or dentist. More than 60 million folks are freed from the rigors of financial planning because they now have zero net worth, thanks to the mortgage bust. More than a million are free from even having to decide when to eat, shower, take a crap or sleep – because they are in the joint doing time, mostly for parole violations of some previous offense.

I’ve been around 62 years and I’m here to tell you that I’ve never seen such a deluge of freedom in my entire life. That’s the foot stompin’ truth. And I don’t doubt for one minute that there aren’t more freedoms coming down the pike. I can feel ‘em in these old bones. I just might need a bump of Old Granddad to brace myself for the next one. Lordy, Lordy, I just might.

To read more of Joe’s work, visit his website at: www.joebageant.com.

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