So it looks like we're back with another post, Reality Deviantitos and Deviantitas! This time I'm feeling a little ambitious, but I just couldn't stop myself from speaking about the huge, seething mass of absurdity that is life on this lovely little ball of dirt, rock, and water that we call Earth.
As a general rule, a good Reality Deviant should be concerned about civil liberties and the marginalization of thought and the ensuing absurdity of a world that keeps pushing us into a greater paradigm of safety-over-freedom, because no one can really decide how to strike a balance between the two. See, we know that we're all in search of the Great Society, but none of us quite knows how to do that, so we just slap down opposing ideologies through eristic dialogue or some sort of we-kill-maim-tickle-drug you tactic. In fact, we've gotten so good at it now that we're starting to look at ways to strategically preempt the other guys from beating us.
Say, has anyone heard of of Preventive Detention before? If you haven't, you should really do some reading. Preventive Detention is something that involves imprisoning folks either without justification or for the period before a trial. Recently, the president spoke about preventive detention and the story has made something of a splash in the news. For the sake of avoiding the quagmire of political discussion, I don't want to really get into speculative talk about Obama's mindset when he comes up with these decisions, nor do I want to discuss ways that we could make it work. See, Preventive Detention as a concept, no matter how it is applied, flies in the face of our core values.
And regardless of how it is applied, it sets the stage for something far worse to occur in the far-flung future.
Orwell is something that gets a lot of sideways glances whenever someone brings it up, and it is very politically-charged. People often can't decide whether it's an argument against fascism or socialism, although Orwell himself was a believer in democratic socialism. But what seems fairly clear by logical reduction is that end-result fascism and socialism are two ends of the same totalitarian coin. Look to world history and the global political landscape during the 1940's—the Soviet Union, Japan, Italy, and Germany all arrived at oppressive systems with the trappings of totalitarianism by different, yet similar means.
It all comes back to this sense of the Great Society and how to get there. Now, the concept of the Great Society isn't exactly something that's new news to human history, but it seems to get new dressings every now and then. Sometimes the dressings even take the form of different ideologies that have the same goals but only differ by the means of execution. Sometimes the Great Society is one man's vision of the his country that ends up falling seriously short of its goals. Every time a culture's fears for its children are paraded out, and the positive virtues of society are waved on high as something to shoot for. But the problem is that you cannot follow any one person's vision of “the Great Society” without breaking your core value systems.
And our fear is a very powerful motivator that is used by some to force us to break our core value systems. This may have catastrophic results.
The concept of Preventive Detention almost always starts with arguments in its favor, though, because we know that there are people who might be abusing the system we have in order to gain power over us. Salon.com published an article recently about Neo-Nazis finding gainful employment in the United States Army, which is somewhat jarring because we naturally worry about people with potentially-violent thoughts getting military training. In fact, there is some historical basis for worrying about this, if for example you look to the Roman Empire's training of foreign mercenaries to fill out the ranks of its army. But we all know what happened to Rome, yes?
I suggest you all read the article in full—it's fairly compelling. But to focus my thoughts here a little better I'd like to point out one segment in particular:
"That goal comes up often in the chatter on white supremacist Web sites. On the neo-Nazi Web site Blood and Honour, a user called 88Soldier88, wrote in 2008 that he is an active duty soldier working in a detainee holding area in Iraq. He complained about "how 'nice' we have to treat these fucking people … better than our own troops." Then he added, "Hopefully the training will prepare me for what I hope is to come." Another poster, AMERICANARYAN.88Soldier88, wrote, "I have the training I need and will pass it on to others when I get out."
Most people will agree that this thought is absolutely terrifying, and I hope that all of you will agree that the principles of White Supremacy are absurd, awful, and potentially damaging to the fabric of society. But if we let our fear motivate us to break with our core values to protect us from “potential offenders,” we not only cast our nets so wide that we harm people that ultimately do society no harm, but we glaze over the ability of these people to change their values over time. Through breaking our own laws, we polarize and cement ideologies, which may only cause more violence, pain, and strife.
There are parallels between these White Supremacists and other groups. It seems that sometimes when the conservative press brings up President Obama, they inevitably get into the Left's association with Saul Alinsky's Rules for Radicals. I won't get too much into the book because you don't need me to simply summarize its arguments for you, but there are some pretty strong reactions to its mention whenever it is brought up, because it's associated so strongly with the Left and the fact that he dedicated it to Lucifer, who he saw as the “original Rebel.”
There are a few ironies at play as far as Saul Alinsky is concerned. First, he wasn't Satan-walking-the-Earth as some would like to think, but he was a critic who thought the social liberalism of his time wasn't enough to get things done. As a result, his philosophy encouraged a break with core value systems in order to gain control, which was something very attractive to the marginalized Left at the time. The other irony is that he received in 1969 the Pacem in Terris Peace and Freedom Award from the Roman Catholic Diocese of Davenport.
But Alinsky's philosophy encourages the camouflaging of a person's true intent in something else in order to draw power away from an extant power structure. This means that a radical thinking strategically should deceive and manipulate in order to overthrow. Wait a second, there's a serious disconnect with all of this.
Let's break it down with an awkwardly-constructed logical proof, shall we? I sense your skepticism, but stick with me here:
1.Barack Obama is the President of the United States and has said that he supports “hope” and “change” and other positive things for the good of the country. So if we take him by his word, he is a good person.
2.White Supremacists such as David Dukes support a hateful, backwards-thinking ideology based on a misunderstanding of race and culture as it relates to life. So if we take him by his word, he is a bad person.
3.Saul Alinsky was a critic of social liberalism and engineered a new strategy around community organizing that involved camouflaging radical tendencies to maximize the effect on society.
4.Barack Obama has the background in community organizing and motivation to use Alinsky's methods for progressive social causes. If he is a good person, he must be doing this for good reasons.
5.David Dukes has gone on record as saying that he has encouraged White Supremacists to camouflage their true intent in order to function in society. If he is a bad person, he must be doing this for bad reasons.
Therefore, both Barack Obama and David Dukes are manipulating us by means of deception.
Let's leave that thought for a moment, because I know that such a thought might set off a powder-keg of oppositional thinking. But stop, think about what I am saying for a moment, and if you still think I'm trying to directly compare Barack Obama to David Dukes morally, please commence with slamming your head against the nearest wall until you understand.
I really shouldn't worry about you guys too much, though, because I know you're smart, well-meaning folks. But I wanted to get back to the topic of Preventive Detention, because I think the scariest part of it is that it is already operable in the form of Temporary Detention Orders. A TDO deals with the court-ordered detention of a person labeled as crazy, and such policies are on the books in many states.
Room 101 does not have to be found with electroshock or torture. It could be a hypodermic needle or just a few pills.
Before we go, I'll leave your Reality Deviant brains with a few thoughts:
1)How much of this is due to the presence of bad people of the world, and how much of this is due to strategy based around bad philosophy?
2)Consider the marginalization of fringe thinking in society and how that relates to what psychologists call “insane.” Isn't it relatively easy to call someone with socially-controversial or ridiculously stupid ideas crazy?
America has a lot of freaks. Some are good, some are bad, but they're all pretty hungry.
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