Mad Rant: Willful Ignorance

There were two Red Scares in the US, but neither happened during the Great Depression, despite what MM says. The first was the Palmer Raids in 1919 and the second was the McCarthy Era after WWII.

From The Mad Monarchist (17 May 2012)

The socialists are back in power in France (who knew they had ever left?), in the UK the ruling coalition has taken a drubbing with some minor parties making gains but Labour seems to have come out of it the best and, for the first time I’m aware of since the war there are actually Neo-Nazis serving in a European government with the winning of a few seats in Athens by the “Golden Dawn” party. History has shown that, in past times of great economic hardships, non-mainstream parties can make considerable gains. Well, actually, they do not often make considerable gains but at the very least they can gain a higher profile than ever before. In the United States it was the Great Depression that saw the rise of the “Red Scare”, the Silver Shirt Legion and later the German-American Bund. Most people would be aghast by this I would think, but it is only a symptom of the disease that is more frightening. The most frightening thing, as I see it, and it makes me positively want to pull by hair out, is that no one has learned a single thing from this economic crisis. Sure, some are saying the right things, but that minority was saying the same things before this disaster, some even predicted it in minute detail.

Europe (and the United States) is in financial crisis because governments have spent far more than they have. More than that, they have spent more than they can ever hope to pay back in the future and have made promises to pay hordes of people that they can never keep. The political class (and they are a class with most major parties pursuing almost exactly the same policies) have effectively used the democratic process to buy the votes of the people to get themselves in power by promising all sorts of government programs and whenever something goes wrong they call on the masses to vote them even more power so they can solve the very problems they themselves created. The people then complain when the economy fails, they complain when politicians do not seem to be accountable, that they get away with horrible corruptions and so on and so forth but they never, EVER even try to use that blob of gray matter in their half-empty skulls to look at the situation and realize that THEY are the ones who voted for these people, that THEY are the ones who demanded all the freebies and the handouts and sold their vote to the politicians who promised to deliver them.

The fact of the matter is that the people of our modern world have not grasped the simple, obvious fact that any idiot with half a brain should be able to see: that they are not the victims here, THEY are the problem! They did this to themselves and they refuse, even now, to accept the reality of the situation that surrounds them. Look at France; the “conservative” government in succession to every government that came before them, spent France into ruin, gaining votes doing it, and when the money runs out the public votes for a party that has promised to spend even more. And don’t tell me that Sarkozy was some sort of radical in cutting back government spending. He proposed very, very minor cuts years in the future, nothing real, nothing now and nothing that would have any major impact. Greece is an even better example. The politicians got fat promising the people a freed ride and the people willingly voted them into power again and again. The public trough runs dry and the Germans offer to bail them out but they have to cut back. So, the government does, like the addict who will agree to anything to get their next fix. But, then the public riots because they don’t want anything to be cut. Do they want to leave the Eurozone and escape their foreign masters? No. They just want the money, no strings attached, so that the free ride may continue. They blame the politicians while never taking into account that it was they who voted in those politicians and who kept them in office all the while this problem was festering.

I would like to think that some peoples somewhere have gotten the message, have woken up and recognized the reality that surrounds them, but I just don’t see it. Where the people have voted out one party and voted in another they don’t seem to be making any connection between the party and the policies (though to be fair, they are usually much the same). No, it doesn’t matter what the policies are, they simply vote out the party in power because they happened to be unlucky enough to be sitting in government when the bills came due. In most cases, there is not a great deal of difference between the policies of one party versus another. Some people recognize this and complain about it but they never seem to take into account that there is a reason why big parties got to be big in the first place and why they resort to sleazy, underhanded, dishonest tactics in holding on to power. Because it works. Because the people reward them with lucrative public office. I hear British people complain loudly about how much they hate both the Tories and the Labour Party and their grip on power. WELL STOP VOTING FOR THEM THEN!

The sheer volume of willful ignorance, of voluntary amnesia and utter stupidity being displayed positively staggers the imagination. I nearly blew a blood vessel a while back listening to the tirade of abuse on a British television show toward someone who dared to defend the residual powers of the monarchy. One panelist snidely asked if the person in question (Peter Hitchens) would be better pleased if Britain was ruled by the monarchy again. Like that’s an absurd notion. I could have punched out the screen! I wanted to shout, “LOOK AT THE MESS AROUND YOU IDIOT!” To add to my mental anguish, this same person had just been complaining endlessly about how terrible the government was, what a bunch of corrupt, incompetent hypocrites they are, completely oblivious to the fact that it was all done by ELECTED leaders! Considering what they have done, there is not a doubt in my mind that if HM the Queen was suddenly empowered to dissolve Parliament and rule in her own right, she couldn’t possibly do worse than the elected leaders even if she tried. I think my head is going to explode. How on earth can people complain and complain and moan and groan about how terrible their elected leaders are and then still support making the House of Lords electoral?

Just what is it going to take? That’s a terribly frightening thought for me. How bad are things going to have to get before people realize that you cannot get something for nothing? I’ve never been more tempted to just give up and watch civilization go down in flames. Because this is it folks. This is IT! We are passing the point of no return. We are passing the point when we could just barely avoid a collapse so massive it will make the Great Depression look like the “good ol’ days”. Because “we the people” (who are always right and never wrong of course) have not grasped the fact that the world cannot be made perfect and that no amount of legislation can take away all pain, suffering or mild discomfort. The way the world has been run has obviously not worked out, has it? If people don’t get that yet, I don’t know what it is going to take because this the end. Anyone with eyes should be able to see it, everything is unfolding right in front of us. The Visigoths are riding over the seventh hill and yet, “we the people” remain astonishingly, criminally, willfully ignorant. And I remain … The Mad Monarchist.