The Decline and Fall of the American State; Enjoy It

by Karen Kwiatkowski
Mar. 13, 2015

The headlines at Drudge are an excellent barometer of what's up with government and culture.   Glancing over cops being killed by the other side of law enforcement (the people), Hillary's new Whitewater files (this time electronic), Army and Secret Service partying, drug use, and sex rings, the predictable result of partial "legalization" of pot (neighborhood informers), we find a report that, "Confidence in government is lower than ever!"

Whaaa? The poll, taken in 2014, looked at consumer and investor faith in the "product", i.e. the president, judiciary, legislative as well as mainstream media, banks, big business, organized labor, organized religion, education, medicine and the scientific community.

We are government consumers and investors in these products, although we have little choice. The massive unitary state, this lock-stepping, integrated, wealth-consuming, constantly expanding Rube Goldberg machine is what we the people have bought, and we feed it daily.   We are afraid not to, lest it fall down in a million pieces and smash us.

The poll designers were either extremely naive or extremely perspicacious. They have cogently asked how we like our fascism, sunny side up or easy over? Not surprising, the people indicated they'd prefer to skip breakfast, due to a growing queasiness in the pit of their stomachs, and a sense that something is going to fall on our heads.

The poll indicates that we are disgusted by government media, government legislation and 15 straight years of diktatcracy. We have no faith in the justice system and organized religion, and our discontent with the corporate state of big business, big medicine, big education, and big science is seething. All good signs of course, that change is coming. Our identity as "US Citizen" is becoming something we'd rather not talk about. This is how all empires collapse, and the one led by Washington, D.C. is not special. Unlike all the children in Lake Wobegone, we are beginning to recognize our child in D.C. is not above average or exceptional; rather he is a pretty nasty devil who is never going to make something of himself.

Maybe it's the weather, or Snowden, or independent media, or our empty bank accounts. At some point, hard facts around us inspire calls from the crowd of "Why, the emperor isn't wearing anything? He's buck naked! And butt-ugly, too! Hahahahahahahahaha!"

Each day brings more lies from government, military, intelligence apparatus, law enforcement, big banking, big business, big pharma, "common core," and the whole global warming conglomerate. With each revealed lie, each uncovered fantasy of our overlords, each example of our two-track (in)justice system, faith is lost, and anger grows.

We who are interested, curious or invested in living a free life watch the headlines, and their sub-currents, closely. Anarcho-capitalism, for me and for millions of people around the world, is the most logical and reliable theory of human liberty and its antithesis, the parasitic and sin-oriented state, which is to say, the State. Anarcho-capitalism informs us, and on a day like today, and every day, shines a happy light on the headlines.

Like this one! "Bomb Sniffing Elephants? Not so Nutty, US Army Says." At first glance, the title instantly brought to mind the image of a modern-day and slightly Bollywood Slim Pickens gripping a nuclear missile between his legs and holding on to his cowboy hat. I thought of what this could mean for domestic air travel in the US, with elephants installed in airports supervised by legions of TSA agents checking in the passengers, and the US Air Force demanding hundreds of billions of new spending on elephant-suitable transportation. I could see a refreshed and powerful relationship growing between the PETA, wildlife and organic poo crowds, bolstered by the Agenda 21 crowd that hates traveling humans anyway, and the military industrial complex that lives to serve! Of course, American farmers would need new subsidies to raise elephants for the military, and to provide retirement homes for the old ones who have lost their sense of smell (or knowing an elephant, probably just faking it to get their social security!). This could be a real shot in the arm for a military-industrial-welfare state that has lost public support for foreign wars and titanic waste. Of course, the Democrats would be angry because of the undue lobbying for elephants everywhere, and all the potential photo ops, and we'd surely need to subsidize an equal number of donkeys. The 14th Amendment would certainly come into play here. The Air Force would need hundreds of millions more for separate donkey transportation as well, and at this point AMTRAK would offer, at the price of major new subsidies, separate train cars at vast savings to the taxpayer, of course. For the sake of the innocent animals, both proposals would receive full federal funding, in a new age of bipartisanship. Elephants, donkeys, and state capitalism, oh my!

But upon reading the article, I discovered that while we are funding this bomb-sniffing elephant research, it actually takes place in South Africa where, in Namibia and Angola (due to another USG funded war in the 1980s) fighters for freedom left landmines everywhere after both sides lost. Rather than just running a traditional goat lottery over the fields to clear them (PETA wouldn't like that) it turns out the US Army is collecting field samples with drones, and delivering the samples to the elephant and asking him to determine any explosive content. Of course, this also brings to mind any number of uses of the elephant by the USG, and ultimately should boost the elephant industry, putting a lot of elephants on thrones or heavy duty pedestals to pass judgment on all kinds of samples brought to them.    Elephants are not only known for olfactory talent, but they are very wise, I'm told. I mean, they could probably tell us the future just by sniffing.

Of course, allowing my train of thought to proceed this way is truly nutty, I suppose. The fact that twenty years ago I would never have thought government capable of pursuing such silliness, today I not only believe it is possible for government to take such insanity and run with it, but I have little doubt that in some unknown corner at the end of some interminable hallway in some massive building in D.C. someone is actually developing a plan.

Who knows for sure? What we can conclude from the Drudge headlines -- today and any other day, is that Washington, D.C. -- the whole of mess of dictatorial money-printing, warmongering, bread and circuses madness -- is building palatial barges on Lake Nemi, ships designed for government excess and partying, sex rings, drugs, vanity and murder, and these ships don't sail. The lasting contribution of these barges, like much of what our federal government has constructed in the late 20th and 21st century, survives only as a symbol of a hated all-consuming state. Like the Lake Nemi barges, the fanciful and frightening creations of Washington, D.C. will be sunk, destroyed, and shattered sooner than anyone expected.
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LRC columnist Karen Kwiatkowski, Ph.D. [send her mail], a retired USAF lieutenant colonel, blogs occasionally at Liberty and Power and The Beacon. To receive automatic announcements of new articles, click here or join her Facebook page. She ran for Congress in Virginia's 6th district in 2012..