I don't know if you've heard much about it yet, but supposedly there's some kind of important election coming up in the USA. OK, that's a lame joke, but the Democrats and Republicans started it by running a couple disgusting geriatrics as if they were "serious candidates."
I've probably mentioned before that I wasn't really aware of anything political until the 1992 George H.W. Bush vs. Bill Clinton race. My dad was a Rush Limbaugh Republican, and that event was inescapable. I remember the anti-militia campaigns following the OKC bombing, but even in those days before the internet was really a thing, it was starting to be apparent that political scapegoating instead of justice was the agenda. The Clinton-era gun ban was also a point of contention as laws against good people doing innocent things was promised as a panacea. Initial impressions of the Democrats were not favorable.
I wasn't able to vote yet for the George W. Bush vs. Al Gore contest in 2000, but I was old enough to actually start understanding what they were talking about. Heck, I remember when W. was arguing for a humble foreign policy. I liked that after Clinton's meddling. Boy, was I in for a rude awakening.
September 11th, 2001. I was here on the opposite side of the country from NYC. We weren't in the habit of listening to radio news or watching TV first thing. We knew nothing until a neighbor called us. I remember the fear and tension even here. I remember the sense of rage at this violation. I was approaching draft eligibility, and that was a concern, too. I appreciate that he allowed the Clinton gun ban to sunset, so he gets a one point for that. One.
Don't get me wrong, I was still a gung-ho flag-salutin' pledge-swearin' patriotic American, but I had also learned enough from history and my own living memory that government tended to get a bit out of control whenever there was an excuse for war. I joined in with the jingoistic calls for carpet-bombing Afghanistan and anyone else the media or politicians said were at fault, never mind how absurd collective guilt is for anyone guilty only of living under oppression. However, I quickly saw problems with the PATRIOT Act, and I still detest the TSA so much I refuse to fly commercially.
I also became aware of the world of 9/11 conspiracy theories fairly quickly, too. If you know anything of history, you probably know false flag attacks are a real (if rare) thing, and politicians don't often hesitate to use real disasters to justify seizing more power. I really don't know what I can believe about what really happened even now. "Jet fuel can't melt steel beams" is true, but steel doesn't need to melt in order to fail structurally, but the fire probably wouldn't have reached even those temperatures, but the impact certainly could have dislodged protective materials and further weakened the structure, but the building was designed to withstand aircraft impact, yet the planes were bigger and fully laden... Yeah, it's still a mess, and I don't have the time or inclination to chase down every possible question for solid answers. All I can say for sure is the whole incident still seems sketchy with the rate of collapse for multiple buildings, including WTC7, which wasn't hit by any aircraft.
Wars dragged on with no end in sight, the "mission accomplished" incident swiftly became a laughingstock, and after 8 years, I was pretty soured on the Republicans, too.
Fast forward a bit to Barack Obama, the Nobel Peace Prize winner with the highest body count by far. He escalated war, opened new fronts, overthrew nations, and generally made the world more dangerous. Domestically, he imposed Obamacare and escalated all the worst aspects of that PATRIOT Act. If the Democrats wanted to court a disillusioned 20-something with growing suspicion of government, they failed.
Instead, I began discovering outsiders. Ron Paul was an exception among Republican warmongers. Online discussions in forums introduced me to various writers and thinkers way outside the limited bounds of partisan discourse. I studied various schools of economics, political philosophy, and deeper examinations of history. I never saw the allure of communism or socialist flavors of anarchism with their ideas of command economies and coerced participation in their ideal societies, but I liked the thinkers who emphasized the need for a more voluntary society, and criticized government based on its coercive nature and the perverse incentives of power.
Donald Trump drew a lot of people away from the libertarian-leaning anarchist community, and while I could see the argument he was less evil than Hillary Clinton, I never understood how so many people saw him as some sort of savior. He was always a blowhard with openly loose ideas of virtue and no obvious comprehension of any deep philosophy. As his (first?) administration plodded along, however, I found his mainstream critics as clueless as he was himself. Trump Derangement Syndrome is real. The man has no shortage of flaws, but the conspiracy theories the Democrats threw at him were always absurd, especially when his real faults were right there. Remember, I'd been down the conspiracy theory rabbit hole already, and had some experience sourcing facts and betting arguments. Why the charade?
Now, it's 2020. Joe Biden is a doddering old man clearly suffering from some form of dementia, but everyone has still been insisting for years despite all evidence that he is of sound mind. Donald Trump is older, but no wiser, and while his current felony convictions were clearly more a political maneuver than a real crime, he's not a good man qualified to lead. The Libertarians are worthless as a national party, as are the Greens and the Constitution party, and all the rest of also-rans who never make any real impact.
People still insist, "if you don't vote, you can't complain." Bullshit. That's not a rational argument, that's a lazy slogan to escape the need to think about what we have been taught. No candidate can possibly represent my values. The institutions and offices themselves are fundamentally flawed.
The Republicans talk big about family values, traditional virtues, and small government, but I have seen them in action and I have heard their demands for more power over the private lives of everyone as they try to engineer society in their image. There is nothing small-government conservative about a police state run by moralistic busybodies.
And speaking of moralistic busybodies, the Democrats brag about how they stand for peace, the poor, the marginalized, and the minority, but I saw what they did to COVID dissenters, how they stifled politically-incorrect speech, how they escalated conflicts abroad, and imposed draconian regulations at home. Giving me a false choice between the representatives of two tyrannical factions cannot bring real progress no matter how they claim the title "progressive."
I have no home politically. I am claimed as a tax slave by the federal, state, and county governments. I am continually threatened with fines, imprisonment, or death should I fail to obey any of the myriad byzantine laws written by strangers and enforced by bullies with badges who can creatively "interpret" laws or even their own opinions with legal immunity. The America I learned about in Civics is a fiction. It always has been, and always will be. But accepting that fact allows me to stop wasting my time and energy in pointless pursuits. The question isn't how we should vote, but how do we make voting irrelevant to our individual success. Break the patterns set for you. Live free without permission. It's dangerous, but nothing is safe, and servitude to the State kills the soul.
