On Good Government: The Nasty Truth About Rights

   Alright, people, I'm going to digress. ( I do that a lot. Get used to it. ) I've been having political discussions with a young man, lately, and it's made me realize I've never set down my own views on good government. Let's correct that with a series of posts. Lynch mobs form to the right and the left, but please keep the howling for blood at a low decibel level. It gets on my nerves.
   The first thing I'm going to address is the ultimate demagogic buzzword; rights. What is a right? Might as well join old Pontius and ask "what is truth?" You'll pretty much get the same response. Blank stares will predominate, along with quotes from Gandhi to Glen Beck. If you're fool enough to study the responses, you'll come to a nasty conclusion. Everyone rants about rights without having given the slightest bit of thought to how the word should be defined. After a while, you'll tune it all out so it sounds closer to what they're actually saying; "baaaaah."
   The nasty truth about rights is that they don't exist. Jefferson was talking out of his ass when he used the word "inalienable." History shows that rights are anything but inalienable, as Sally Hemings would attest.. No one wants to admit it, but rights have no independent existence. They only  exist by being imposed or by being commonly agreed upon. Sorry to burst your bubble, but two centuries after the Bill of Rights was written we're still arguing about what it means. Why? Because the "Founding Fathers" ( Rich, white, male, asshats who didn't want to pay taxes. Sound familiar? ) failed miserably at what may be the trickiest legislative maneuver; making their words simple but explicit.
   Could I fare better in laying out my ideas for a good government? Probably not, but here goes.

• The Right to Be Left Alone: Every human being has the right, in his thoughts and within the confines of his home, and only as far as it does not infringe on the rights of others, to think and do as he pleases.    ( Sorry, families and roommates, you'll have to fight it out amongst yourselves. What goes on inside your house is none of society's business. )
• The Right to Stability: Every human being has a right to basic food, shelter, and the means to earn a living, along with the right to live in an ordered and stable community. ( Don't worry. I'll define "ordered" in another post. )

That's it. That's the most we can really hope for and even that would require a fight. I can just hear the protests of "but,....but,...but,.....baaaah, baaah, baaah!" Baaah away, for all the good it'll do. I'm just stating my opinion and we all know I'm nuckinfutz.
Does that mean we shouldn't demand further rights? Hell, no. BUT, for rights to be commonly recognized you have to have both social and political stability, and it's going to be a long time before we have that again. Sorry, people, life's not fair.

Something to Remember

No matter how bad times may be, the world is still a beautiful place. We've done our damnedest in the past hundred years to make a mess of it, but the beauty still shines through.
Stay tuned. More babbling after my first pot of coffee.

Why?

   Well, why the fuck not? I'm writing this blog as an outlet for the stress and frustration that comes of watching a shipload of nincompoops rush about frantically demanding clean decks, a better crew, more grog, less salt pork, and a thousand other trifles, all while ignoring the fact that the rudder's gone, the keel's split wide open, and the waves are ready to sweep over the deck.
   No nation has ever been more arrogant, delusional, and blind than the "great US of A" at this glorious dawn of the 21st century. It's a nation that is not led and cannot be led. It's a nation where the right wing are howling wolves, the left wing are squawking geese, and the vast majority in the middle are useless, addlepated sheep.
   Am I going to offer solutions? Hell, no. There aren't any. Am I going to play Chicken Little and warn everyone the sky's falling? No. It's a waste of time. Am I going to wail a warning? No. I've no desire to play Cassandra for a dying country. I'm just going to observe this interesting spectacle and make nasty remarks. That's my idea of fun.
   Well, maybe not just nasty remarks. I'm likely to try, vainly, I'd imagine,  to point out that it really doesn't matter. Countries rise and fall all the time. Sometimes, the world's better off when they fall. Life goes on, and life remains beautiful. Maybe I'll also keep making one other point. Everyone needs to stop fussing and take charge of their own lives. In times like these, that's the only sensible thing to do.

Testing, 1,2,3

L8er.