By Chris Basten

  Nothing runs a political process like the motivation to force what is "good" and "moral" unto society. But this isn't all that runs it. Underneath the impetus for force is a tirade of emotions. The government is run by human beings who are no different than you or me. Human beings are emotional critters usually driven by fear and anger. Reduced to the lowest common denominator, feelings are the foundation of an elaborate system of coercion.

What if I were to form a militia and invade a neighboring township because I did not like the way they lived their lives and because I found them threatening to my security? The instant I carried out this pillaging with my breed of henchmen, we would be thrown into prison and I would be instantly demonized as a radical cult leader by the vulture-pecking press. It would be on the news everywhere and we would be put behind bars for the rest of our lives (and rightfully so).

Not so if I'm a President. If I carry out the same monstrosities in the name of doing good, I am rarely questioned and usually edified in most cases. My strain of military might is apparently okay because I was voted to do so by a small majority of flag-waving patriots who support every move I make. The no-name ruffians of the world are the mentally-disturbed enemies, surely not the government. Presidential administrations are advertised as the protectors of mankind even though their actions are no different than those displayed by shady rebels who live in rundown shanties near a wooded creek in Small Town, USA. The government just happens to wear nice suits and ties and tells their soldiers to do the dirty work for them (all with a thumbs-up and a smile for the cameras, of course).

When this duplicitous thinking runs civilization, we entrench the illusion of fighting against force when, in reality, we are actually feeding it. We are addicted to government intervention because we keep thinking it is good and is what works. When the shit hits the fan, as it always does with the government, the truly obsessed rock back and forth in a nervous bundle with consoling thoughts like, "I'm a conscientious voter"; "The government will protect me"; or "The President will take care of everything."

Pavlov's experiment rules in politics. Every time the election campaign bell rings, we salivate and run toward all of the Presidential promises that seek to submit us further into such thinking. In other words, their emotional energy feeds off our feelings about all that is wrong with the world. And, of course, it's the government's job to fix it. Never mind that, more often than not, it's the government that exacerbated such a miserable existence for the downtrodden of our world in the first place.

So instead of minimizing or trashing the government experiment altogether, we hang on to the ancient, centuries-old thinking that the State knows best. And so we continue to vote and we keep in place the same methods that enslave us. All in all, the process does not abate because we are emotionally attached to the political experience. To let go would mean that we have been wrong this whole time. As long as we don't have to face the fact that what we have been doing doesn't work, we will fasten ourselves to it for the false emotional security that it brings. Politicians know this and depend on it.

Thoughts of freedom do peek through every now and then but just when you think a government supporter is about to let go, he or she immediately defaults to a lobbying stance. Consciously, they can understand and verbalize the value of self-sufficiency but once their emotions kick in, they get scared and run to the reliable comfort of government force. This is why America lacks persuasive power throughout the world. We're too busy bullying, militarizing, and pointing fingers because we are scared to admit that what we are doing has no intellectual or logical foundation. It's all based upon what we feel should be done.

Because feelings have such limited convincing power, we take those emotions and vote for a system of supremacy that can coerce and point weapons at others who do not feel the same way as our special interests do. Hence, socialism is born. Popular opinion is enforced instead of persuaded and freely chosen. So the public submits and tries to convince itself that this is for the good of all. As a result, comfortable familiarity sinks in and people begin to support the very system that they once detested. In fact, a good number of citizens become combative when challenged to think differently. This is the American landscape today.

Those who find my anarchist leanings too dark and irreconcilable will label me as a man still trapped in adolescence who is just mad at the world. I risk losing what little credibility I have as a result of telling it like I see it. They advise that maybe I should see a good shrink. But labeling is yet another emotional response, not an intellectual one. If humans become frightened in trying to figure out something unfamiliar, we label it automatically without even thinking about it. That's the whole problem, in my opinion. We just don't think much anymore.