This Is Not Your Father's Government
by William Stone, III
[email protected]

Exclusive to TLE Issue 226

I'm occasionally surprised by the way random chance operates. The serendipitous nature of coincidence is what drives religious individuals to believe in Divine Intervention.

For the last couple of months, I've been delving into the writings of H. Beam Piper. I suppose it's unusual for someone who's been reading science fiction for nearly forty years to have missed Piper, particularly considering his libertarian bent. From the perspective of individual liberty, Piper's Lone Star Planet is probably the best known—it was on the recommendation of this book that I delved into Piper in the first place. I'll not recount the plot of Lone Star Planet here, except to say that the inhabitants of said world are the descendants of Texans and practice an altogether meritorious method of maintaining their liberty.

Piper—or "Beam," as his friends knew him—was a gun enthusiast, author, self-educated scholar, and clear friend of individual freedom. The world lost a brilliant thinker when Piper took his own life.

What struck me while reading his work, however, is his attitude toward galactic government: a generally inept, inefficient body that often had laudable goals but poor execution.

Coincidental with my discovery of Piper, I had correspondence with a freedom-loving author who is among those who favored government intervention overseas as a means of fighting terrorism. Finally, to complete the serendipity of the situation, I visited my father last weekend. As always, we discussed international politics. I come by my political views rather genetically (the majority of my family several generations back are raving individualists), and my father is a hard-headed clinical psychologist to boot. When you've spent your life dealing with rapists and serial killers (my father's chosen specialty), you don't have the luxury of learning to spout psychobabble and asking, "Tell me, how does that make you feel?"

So, as with any man, when my father and two respected authors (one alive and one not) seem to all be in agreement, I sit up and listen. If nothing else, their viewpoints provide me with a valuable insight into how the average individual on the street is thinking. This is something I sometimes lack, as I have now successfully insulated myself with friends and acquaintances who share my own views.

This, then, is how most people are approaching the War on Terrorism:

1. The War on Terrorism is a long-term war, much like the Cold War.

2. The War in Iraq was only one battle in the War on Terrorism, and the stated reasons for going to war were irrelevant. The real point in conquering Iraq was to send a message to our enemies that we're not intimidated.

3. The War in Iraq's primary benefit was to convince countries such as Korea that President Bush won't hesitate to wipe them off the face of the Earth in the event that they crawl out from behind their borders.
   
   Indeed, my father suggested that Iraq's fate was sealed on about September 12, 2001. It was necessary to send a message to terrorist nations, and Iraq made a useful target of opportunity.

4. The long-term goal in the Middle East is to topple all the governments in the area and replace them with a Western-style, US-controlled democracy. The thinking is that a democracy is less likely to harbor terrorists, therefore the world will be all that much safer when "civilization has been brought to the Darkies."

5. The real goal of attempts to fight the nonexistent domestic terrorists is political. Politicians have to be perceived as doing something about terrorism, and the pointless, ineffectual Federal Rape Centers that exist at airports are a response to this. "We care about terrorism! See? We're searching your bags and spending billions of your dollars to do it." Those in the FedGov know it's a pointless waste of time, but don't want to appear to be reversing a decision by doing the one thing that would actually combat domestic terrorism.

When taken from that perspective, I admit that it looks like the Republicans are doing a good job. And I admit that I very much wish that I could believe this entire line of reasoning. It would certainly make for an easier life if I could shrug my shoulders, nod, and remark about what a great job Dubyuh is doing protecting my freedom.

I've certainly pondered the idea that while I honestly believe my presence in the US Senate would be beneficial to American freedom, I'll never achieve that goal while on the Libertarian ticket. If it were possible for me to buy into the notion that the FedGov is actually working toward a more free society, I could drop the LP, move to the Republican side, and almost certainly be elected in 2004.

It's an enticing idea. All I have to do is accept the notion that government is a generally inept entity whose heart is in the right place.

Unfortunately, I can't accept that. Here's my answer to the prevailing opinion as stated above:

1. The War on Terrorism is a long-term war. In fact, it's a never-ending war. Its intent is to replace the Cold War with a conflict that need never end, thus providing an excuse for the twisted, evil, power-mad politicians and bureaucrats to assume more and more power—right up until America's governments collapse of their own weight and internal corruption.

2. The War in Iraq does send a message: the FedGov wants Middle Eastern oil, and it will use any pretext in order to obtain it. Fortunately, the ceaseless bickering of a largely tribal culture combined with its reaction to half a century's worth of Unconstitutional, immoral Federal interventionism provides the perfect excuse for invasion.
   
   For half a century, Americans have been conditioned that the Middle East is filled with nothing but terrorists and uncivilized, backward towel-heads. They accept the images they see on television without question. Lacking any real experience with the press and how news is manufactured, most people don't understand that very few news stories have anything but a tangential relationship to reality.
   
   Real life is not reality television or even TV news. Peoples' lives are far more complicated than a sound bite or FedGov propaganda.

3. The information we are fed by the FedGov regarding any foreign country is highly suspect. Recall that the reason we were given for the necessity of invading Iraq was the existence of Weapons of Mass Destruction(™) that were in imminent danger of being used by a madman for evil purposes. These weapons turn out to be nonexistent, representing either a massive failure of intelligence sources (unlikely, considering their extraordinary accuracy during the war) or outright lies by the Bush Administration.
   
   Therefore, is there any way to be certain that the FedGov ever feeds us accurate information about ANYTHING? The is would include the psychological disposition and motivations of heads of state, conditions in their countries, and their future plans.
   
   If Dubyuh can lie about Iraq in order to garner support for a war, could he not also lie about North Korea? Or Iraq? Or Syria? Or domestic terrorists?

4. The long-term goal of "bringing civilization to the Darkies" is useful for one reason only: to bring massive oil reserves under FedGov control.

5. The real goal of attempts to fight the nonexistent domestic terrorists is political. Politicians understand that in real life, the United States has no domestic terrorism. The destruction of the WTC towers represented a simple exploitation of the fact that the FedGov has transformed Americans into a nation of cattle ready for the slaughter. They can't possibly do the one thing that would actually make the country safe, (e.g. enforcement of the Second Amendment) because that would ultimately harm their goal of total domination of every individual.
   
   Domestic terrorism programs aren't simple ineptitude and money-wasting. They're an active attempt to complete the enslavement of the American populace.

My father's (and the libertarian authors') viewpoints are colored by a time in which it could be argued that the FedGov was, in fact, a largely inept collection of politicians and bureaucrats whose heart was in the right place. Half a century ago, for example, government schools actually provided a decent education. Individuals could posses the means to defend themselves against terrorists. The FedGov had prosecuted a war against a truly evil dictator not only bent on world domination, but who actually had the means to do it.

This is not the world we find ourselves in today. This is not your father's government. The FedGov has evolved from being a haven for the inept to the home of the evil. It is not a collection of bumbling idiots whose heart is in the right place, but would-be slave-holders wishing to place their boots on our necks.

William Stone, III is a computer nerd (RHCE, CCNP, CISSP) and Executive Director of the Zero Aggression Institute. He seeks the Libertarian Party's nomination for the 2004 Senate race in South Dakota.

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