You Only Have One Inalienable Right

A Rant By

Cognitive Dissonance

I don't normally publish my rants. By definition they are an excess of emotion regardless of how truthful or logical they may be. If one cannot master his or her emotions, ultimately one is a slave to them.

On occasion I become frustrated and choose to vent rather than let it stew inside. I have learned it is best to let it all go, lest I be consumed by anger, resentment and righteous indignation.

For some reason I have decided to post this one. Don't ask me why because I could not answer logically.

Cognitive Dissonance

At what point are we solely and personally responsible for everything and anything that’s going on in our lives? As far as I’m concerned that’s the only question we must ask, and answer, if we are to begin to break the chains that bind us to our socioeconomic co-dependence and psychological victim hood.

What’s that you say? You aren’t a victim or codependent? Most of us who feel we are put out, encumbered or even assaulted don’t see our condition as self imposed other than possibly, maybe, somewhat incidentally. Rather, we perceive ourselves as clear thinking innocent bystanders being trampled and imposed upon by outside forces through no fault of our own.

The one and only inalienable right we have in this screwed up world, this mess of a hell hole, is the right to be curious, probing, inquisitive, to crave knowing more, to posses the desire to learn, to grow, to mature, to move forward rather than just tread water or sink silently beneath the surface and into the abyss.

To be perfectly frank I am a bit tired of hearing the futile bleating of the captured slave mind as it bemoans its sorry state of affairs. I didn’t know, no one told me, how was I supposed to know, it’s not my fault, I wasn’t taught, you made me (fill in the blank), you didn’t do your part so why should I do mine etc. This is the cry of the confined cranium, the deaf, dumb and blind, the sole surveyor of the empty space of our terminally closed minds.

And lest the reader mistake my rant to be directed exclusively towards the sensitive snowflake, social justice warrior and smug self righteous liberal, there are presently many classes of arrested development that result from different toxic ingredients and divergent formula. There’s more than one way to create a blind mind’s eye and it isn’t exclusive to a particular political, religious or social point of view.

An intellect closed to any and all alternatives is clogged regardless of the method of stoppage employed. This applies in particular to those who claim themselves unorthodox in mind, body or spirit, a minority of the minority. There is no one path to ‘truth’ reserved for the so called enlightened and self declared morally and intellectually superior…this author included.

I speak, of course, of those populating the political ‘right’ who ‘know’ with unwavering certainty we possess purity of mind and ideological wholesomeness. Having recently affirmed our righteous indignation with the election of a multi billionaire of egoic proportions as savior first class, we now anxiously await the latest chapter of the endlessly staged political play.

Carefully hedging all of our captured minds by claiming the lesser of two evils (anyone but the war mongering liberal) the hypocritical force runs no less deep in the alt-right than the radical-left. And let’s not forget the so-called ‘middle’ where everyone claims they actually reside.

Let’s see if I’ve got this straight. The swamp monster himself, hailing from the better side of town but still stinking of marsh gas, has been tasked with the job of draining the fetid bubbling swamp. One of the elite swears fealty to the great unwashed, says all the ‘right’ things and is righteously rewarded with the keys to the castle with the promise to thoroughly clean house?

Are you kidding me?

Whoever said the hopelessly naïve are a danger to themselves and all others is spot on with the accurate assessment of our fawning slave mentality. Sadly I’m being tragically generous when I say naïve, since only total delusional thinking of the brain dead kind would convince anyone the way forward entails more of the same backward insanity. Just because the flavor is now Chocolate Cheesecake or Raspberry Ripple doesn’t make it any less the exact same ice cream we’ve all been previously served.

And yet “We the People” fall for it every single time. Why do we blame ‘them’ for manipulating us if it’s always successful? The answer is embarrassingly simple; because it’s intellectually easier and emotionally safer then examining our own complicity.

Then again, anything is better than being forced to assume ultimate authority for our own psychological and ideological well being. The big lie of personal salvation is alive and well in the closed minds of the corralled herds. There is no political savior waiting in the wings, no mighty being ready to swoop in and save us from ourselves. But isn’t it deliciously decadent to once again ‘believe’ with all (OK, maybe just half of) our heart and soul after a long bout of forced abstinence. The Candy man’s here and he makes the world taste good.

But of course we’re not one of those brain dead walkers because we don’t really believe. In fact we’re just waiting to see how the game plays out before we show our cards and play our hand. Naturally, that might take four more years of assessment before we can truly tell which way the political wind blows. But we will feel gloriously self righteous while we wait…or at least smug as a conservative bug.

Face it folks, we’ve been had; pumped and humped by Trump and ultimately by our own hand. It doesn’t matter who ascends to the throne so long as divide and control is the goal and the King’s court is sated. For as long as we deflect personal responsibility and then divide into different ideological tribes to affirm our choice, we can always be effectively leveraged against each other to the ultimate detriment of the greater good and the individual, sovereign or not.

My position is simple. While whoever ascends the throne can definitely effect substantial changes upon our daily living conditions, ultimately it is the King’s Court who rules the land through the King’s hand. Meaning the true power is not in the King, but behind and around the King. And that power is not interested in enriching and empowering you and me. In fact, the intent is to do just the opposite.

In my opinion the Great American Experiment is over, and has been for several decades now. What we are presently experiencing is a runoff of momentum and kinetic energy. Similar to the need for several miles of running room for an aircraft carrier or large ocean liner to slow down and stop, or more accurately to turn around, the American plantation is in the process of changing and it takes time to turn the slave ship of state, particularly if the King’s court wishes to maintain relative peace and productivity within the ranks of the proles while doing so.

But turn it is and turn it will.

So what do you and I do? From my point of view, the process is obvious and self evident. But it requires careful self examination and rigorous honesty, a process the vast majority will reject outright because it implies so much if fully accepted and internalized. It probably doesn’t help when I use harsh and inflexible terms to describe our collective socioeconomic condition. In my defense we desperately crave veiled innuendo and sweetened rhetoric to enable our continuing denial. Sorry, but I won’t be a party to that.

If we are a functioning (more accurately described as ‘productive’) member in today’s modern ‘culture’, meaning we have jobs and loans and cars and homes, to some extent we all share a collective and individual slave mentality. It is inescapable and a condition of cooperation and participation in today’s socioeconomic reality. The only real question one must ask is where in the slave hierarchy do we presently live and why do we participate.

When considering the term ‘slave’, most people immediately think of beatings by the master and intolerable living conditions. The reality is far different. While the master understands the utility of slave discipline and rule enforcement, ultimately the only purpose of the slave is to produce profits sufficiently above and beyond the cost of keeping the slave to compensate the master for the bother of maintaining a slave plantation. A severely beaten slave is not productive and may remain unproductive for a long period of time.

Therefore a carrot and stick approach is much more efficient when managing a population, be it an early 19^th century southern cotton plantation or a 21^st century multinational corporation domiciled in a crony capitalist ‘democratic’ state. The primary difference between the two slave ‘ages’ is the vastly increased productivity of the slaves and not in the management methods employed. Ultimately the modern day to day management of the greater plantation and the slave population has been collectivized by the masters and outsourced to ‘government’.

The exponentially greater profits enjoyed by the modern master enables a ‘sharing’ of the wealth with the slave employees. But it is not a sense of benevolence that drives this ‘sharing’, but rather good business sense. A happy slave is a productive slave, while a beaten and abused slave is an expensive sink hole with a negative ROI (return on investment).

Something rarely acknowledged, let alone even recognized, is the fact any governmental law, rule, regulation or edict, while often promoted as for the people and by the people, is in reality the slave masters way of leveling (or leveraging) the competitive playing field among the dominate masters themselves.

Remember, the slavers have outsourced day to day plebe administration to the ‘government’ so they can focus solely on business admin and profits. While “We the People” are led to believe otherwise, the cost of our keep is born solely by us through the cost and taxation on everything we ‘consume’. There are multiple layers of taxation on every product, including goods such as utilities and other ‘services’ we don’t see as consumption.

While the plantation ‘state’ itself is promoted as the doer of good and the fair arbiter of justice, in reality government is the slave (police) state enforcer, with all its enforcement acts backed up with the implied ‘legal’ use of deadly force, precisely the same technique used by the 19^th century slave master to keep his property in line and on task. Then, as now, beatings were only meted out on an as-needed basis to demonstrate who has the power and the consequences of ignoring that lesson.

And by beatings I deliberately include not just physical beatings and shooting by various armed ‘forces’ (Military, Federal, State, County, City and Corporate ‘police’ officers) but administrative (EPA, DHS, DMV or health, building or zoning inspectors for example) and judicial (criminal, civil, administrative). And let’s not forget the entire Federal, State, County, City and ‘special’ taxing ‘authorities’ who almost always either take as the middleman (payroll withholding or taxes added at the cash register) or send a ‘bill’, which if not paid, will result in the taking of your property, or you, by force.

But the vast majority of time “We the Slaves” self regulate our own behavior so that we may color within the lines and extract maximum benefit from our sorry state of affairs. Our conditioning from birth imbues in us a firm belief this is the way the world works and the best course of action for us personally, and those we care about, is to improve our lot in life within the confines of our cognitive prison.

Though we may tell ourselves we are happy, considering a third of the US population is taking SSRI’s or other prescribed (or not) mind altering chemicals, our actions say otherwise. And this statistic doesn’t include ‘legal’ alcohol and various other stimulants.

While the reader may find this explanation simplistic or unrealistic and not comparable to the modern human condition, we are examining an ‘ancient’ state of mind with our ‘modern’ set of eyes. We self regulate in the exact same manner as the cotton slave did. We just call it something else, are conditioned to accept it and have justified it as in our best interest to do so.

Don’t believe me? Then explain to me why we stop at a stop sign at an empty intersection in the middle of nowhere while driving at 3 am? Or ask permission via government permit and inspection to improve or change our property, even if it’s owned free and clear? Or why we dutifully file our taxes with the guilty-until-proven-innocent IRS, where we have absolutely no ‘rights’ other than those the ‘agency’ wishes to bestow upon us?

This is freedom?

I fully understand, and agree, that I have no right to impose myself, or the results of my actions, upon others, even from a distance. And some of the so-called rules and regulations are intended to protect me from others and vice versa. But most ‘laws’ are designed to extract rent (a la tax), corral and control, strip mine what little wealth I have or simply to punitively punish.

We grumble and grown about state enforced rules and regulations, not to mention a bevy of fees and taxes no 18^th century American revolutionary would ever agree to, let alone actually pay. But we grudgingly comply while grasping at feeble explanations such as that’s how the system works, we all need to pay our fair share or you can’t fight city hall, the ultimate example of a pitiful slave mentality. Few consider it to be the imposed cost of doing business, but that’s exactly what it is.

And let us never forget that “We the People” are the business. We pay for our own upkeep and regulation while others profit from our enslavement. I can use softer, more easily digestible words to describe the same situation. But it isn’t going to change reality, just the color of the glasses we chose to view reality through.

While we in the west are taught from childhood we are free to do as we please, entry into the consumer machine requires our consent, along with an explicit and conscious exchange of our ‘services’ for their goods. The more productive we are within the system the greater our remuneration, which supposedly leads to greater consumer bliss. We are allowed to complain all we want about the system, but never shall we question the system’s structure itself.

And here is where we make the bargain with the devil. There is just enough carrot out there in the form of modern consumer goods and conveniences, combined with plenty of stick carefully hidden within the social construct we are conditioned from birth to accept, for us to intuitively recognize it’s easier to go along to get along rather than to fight the system or go it alone.

But this is a carefully crafted either/or false choice scenario designed to keep us on the plantation, or to pull us back in if we have strayed. There are other choices available, but none of them involve the comforting illusion of having our cake and eating it too.

Because there are no longer new worlds to escape to in order to completely remove ourselves from the system (something the earlier American settlers did when they ‘escaped’ Europe for the new world) either we accept a somewhat/greatly diminished lifestyle in exchange for some/more ‘freedoms’ (which usually means less governmental intrusion) or we stay where we are and accept our greater captivity.

And I’m not necessarily saying that accepting our captivity is bad or evil, only that if done it should be seen for what it really is. But we lie to ourselves and those around us in order to avoid personal responsibility for our choice, even if the choice is never deliberately and consciously chosen, but one of default by deluded denial or cognitive conditioning. Ignorance is not bliss, but simply an excuse to deny even the desire or ability to know.

Obviously the overwhelming majority will bitch and complain, but then begrudgingly settle in for the duration. There’s an old saying how dissent and revolution fires the young mind and hardens the body. But if you’re not fully immersed within the establishment by the time you’re thirty (you know…mortgage, car loan, student loans, working wife and deductible kids) you’re just a plain old young fool. This way to the milk and honey…and the resulting codependent wage slavery.

The key understanding here is that the entire world is chopped up into plantations which, when grouped into countries, use different methods of governmental management to profit from the resident slave population. Considering so many people are clamoring to enter the United Plantation States of America, it seems reasonable to assume we Americans have one of the better corporate management teams.

But remember, this is rapidly changing and not for the better.

Cognitive Dissonance

04/01/2021

Edited and Re-Posted from 2017

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