Name Your Favorite Flavor

In our modern tech-savvy world, we have so many choices or “flavors” as I like to call them. Everything we can think of comes in a variety of styles, colors, and textures, and if we don’t like the choices we are given, we can even personalize them. We see it in every aspect of our culture; especially here in the USA.

This ideal of instant and total gratification has invaded our politics, religion, and news so much that we now seemingly have a party, belief, or channel to suit everyone. At first, I thought it was wonderful new advancement that would allow us all to have exactly what we want. However lately I see that it is actually hurting our society more than I could have imagined. Burger King will give it to you your way, but is that such a good idea when everything else comes exactly how you want it?

I’m sure some of you are saying, “yes it is a great idea” and “why not have it all my way?” and maybe it is or maybe you should. My fear in all this is not having all the choices, but what will become of us when we can’t have it our way anymore. I mean we all have gotten a lot more double standards since the PC, Internet explosion, and having hundreds of TV channels.

We say we want a more secure border but also want cheap labor. We want less government yet we pass more laws. We also say we want our rights protected and secure but allow them to be bent and nearly broken so we can temporarily feel safe. If that is not enough we even say we want equal rights but only equal to certain people.

And what do we do when our government does not give us everything we ask for? Come next election we seek a candidate that will pander to our needs and of course we will find one; there’s always one that will want your vote. Remember that I said “vote”, he wants your vote not your needs. And when he gets your vote he or she will no longer feel as obligated to you. Are elected officials so foul a breed? No, but they are like the rest of us and must have it their own way. Sure, they will do your bidding enough to keep your semi-trust at least, but that’s where it will end. At least until they need your vote again of course, and then it will be ” I want what you want” and ” I have your best interests in mind”.

Of course, they have readymade excuses to hand out to you, when they fail to fulfill your needs. Like the ever popular “it was my predecessor’s fault” or my personal favorite; “the bleeding heart liberals or right wing conservatives blocked me”. I like to blame them all for any problems I have with our government, but the truth is it’s my fault. My fault for expecting things instead of making them happen, my fault for allowing my comfort to prevent my action, and my fault for wanting rights given to me.

The rights we have in this country were not given to us, they were fought for and earned. The Constitution even left us instructions on how to keep them, yet we somehow found them to be inconvenient or too much work. The Declaration of Independence also told us to get rid of bad government and start anew when the old one becomes oppressive or restrictive to society. Yet we call anyone that speaks against our leaders a traitor.

Lies and deceit have become the necessary evils we must endure from our government. We are told we cannot know some things for our own safety or national security, or that we cannot be trusted to vote responsibly enough to rely on a popular ballot alone. When all the while, they are allowing special interest groups, big business, media, and our banking institutions to manipulate policy.

Despite all this, we prefer our little bit of comfort to our freedoms. I believe this is not a government we can fix with elections; this government can only be fixed by its people first fixing themselves.

The new fascists

In the information age we have become desensitized to sex, violence, and the foul actions of criminals, almost to the point of complete apathy. With radio shock jocks and television shock hosts, very few things are taboo these days. We grew into this state slowly, starting with the televising of the war in Vietnam, and steadily on through the subsequent decades.

Just in my Thirty-Nine years I went from watching cigarette commercials to reality tv and all points in between. Some of these programs contributed positively to society, others did not. Despite this I have managed to keep it in perspective for the most part: despite the coyote and road runner cartoons I knew that an anvil on the head was deadly. At times television even inspired me to reach for goals, which I had thought impossible before. When I first saw Muhammad Ali speak before a fight, I was in a state of shock. Here was a guy that said anything that came into his mind seemingly without any fear. Little did I know then that others would try and capitalize on that;” Hate me all you want as long as you watch me” style. Everyone from talk show guests to radio disc jockeys would soon have a few of these extremists.

Once the shock and awe style invaded political commentary, I thought well, it was just a matter of time, and accepted it. However some have taken this style and gone too far. A few of these have been able to make vast fortunes and fame using blatant lies and misquoted garbage. They have been able to sell millions of copies of their books, and win awards for documentaries that despite having perhaps an idea of the truth, somehow manage to completely avoid it. Even when shown the truth alongside their own blatant lie, they manage to find a way to either; blame the other person for a mistake, misprint, or incompetence, or keep shouting over them until they can find a way to back out gracefully. Some have built whole careers on attacking the homeless, and drug addicted; all the while they themselves are drug-addicts. They attack homosexuals on one hand while on the other have multiple same sex partners.

One went so far as to attack the widows of 9/11; claiming they have enjoyed the deaths of their husbands and profited from it. That same person also claimed John Edwards had a bumper sticker that read “ask me about my dead son”. When John Edward’s wife Elizabeth tried to ask that person to stop using the death of her son to attack them, they went into a scripted style of talking over her and trying to turn what she said into something all together different. I’ve seen this person claim Jews were imperfect Christians, needing to be perfected by Christianity. Despite these strong religious convictions she has yet to name her own faith.

If this is what debate has become I fear for our future. When substance is forsaken for shock value, and truth becomes a matter of if it will sell, we are truly lost. “If it bleeds it leads” has taken over political commentary, as well as the tabloids. When we have no place to turn for truth, we will accept whatever we are given as gospel. And then where will it end? When we are robotic sheep, all going towards the slaughter without questioning our fate, will we then realize the value of truth? Entertainers are now frightened of being called a traitor, anti-American, communist, or even a socialist for expressing their views on our government, yet there is no cry of outrage, no protests or assembling of the masses. Artists are one of the purest forms of truth a society can have, and ours are now quieted from fear of their own government.

There has been a frightening trend in our society, a trend that has allowed so many to take no responsibility whatsoever for their own actions. This has allowed murderers to go free, politicians to lie to the people, and doctors to turn health care into a cash cow. It has corrupted religious leaders, business men, and the media to the point we can no longer accept what they say as truth. Instead if we want the truth, we must find as many sources as we can and then filter the information to remove any impurities. Gone are the days of accepting your local news paper’s account of something as being truthful.

I could go on forever with this and still not scratch the surface. So I will end by saying; I hope for my children’s sake we can start to take responsibility for ourselves soon, before truth, justice and liberty have become ideas we only read about. As the great Benjamin Franklin once wrote: “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”