Big Brother or Desperate Mother?

Many people fear the government becoming (or being) the embodiment of George Orwell's "Big Brother" as portrayed in his book 1984. I, on the other hand, often think of government as terrible parents of unruly children (perhaps a "Desperate Mother" if you will). And just to solidify the desperation for this "mother," the children get to vote for who they want her to be! If you've ever had kids, you can immediately see the horrors of such a concept. If children got to vote, there would be no motivation to be a parent at all unless it came with some great amount of prestige and benefits. A person might be altruistic and really want to help the kids, but let's consider the plausibility of this approach. Imagine you were the elected parent of only 100 kids of varying ages. First, what would your purpose be? Is your purpose merely to keep them from killing each other? Is it to prevent outsiders from attacking them? Perhaps your purpose is just to squander their wealth? Let's assume your goal is to equip the children to live peaceably with one another and to effectively pursue their own happiness in freedom. With that goal in mind, how would you go about it?

Imagine two of your kids are fighting with sticks and hurting one another. What is the first thing you do? Many parents would ban the use of sticks and throw them in "jail." But let's think: would your children learn anything? Would they become better people? Will they suddenly recognize the error of their ways? With my experience, I'd say that's not very likely. The next day they'll find sticks again despite the ban or start throwing rocks instead. Meanwhile, the other kids can no longer roast marshmallows because you banned sticks. So you make a new law that is more specific stating instead that sticks cannot be used for the harming of another individual. Now if there's merely an accident involving a stick, someone gets criminally charged. So you make the law even more specific to dictate that it must be a malicious maiming. But if one kid pokes out an eye versus another who simply leaves a small red mark, they clearly need differing degrees of punishment. So you add degrees of severity to the law then qualifiers for the conditions in which these severities occurred, then laws for people who are neglectful and should have been more cautious, and so on ad infinitum. It never ends. And all you're doing now is determining how to "punish" people rather than truly succeeding at your goal of equipping the children to live peaceably and to effectively pursue their happiness. You're expending all your energy trying to be "fair" in stopping them from hurting one another and they continue to find ways to bend the rules outside your precise specifications.

Kids will continue to name-call, to tease, and to fight until they personally care not to. And for all the yelling you do and the prison-time you give them, they will not become better people. The children themselves need to grow up and learn. But we seem to be fine with this as a country. Punish the bad people and leave the rest of us alone. We don't care if the bad kids are sent to their room until they die. If it doesn't hurt us, who cares? We have other brothers and sisters anyway. What's a few less siblings? As a parent, this is clearly not good enough. We should actually care about the well-being of our children. It's far too easy, however, to separate government from parenting. The people don't want the government parenting them. And, looking at the state of our government, I would agree! But then again, that just as obvious as children not wanting their parents to parent! They want ultimate freedom! And if kids had their choice, they'd be voting for all kinds of policies to "better" their own situation: later bedtimes, earlier driving privileges, extra dessert, greater allowance, and so on. It would be absolutely unheard of to put up with such demands as a parent (well, for most parents...). It's a good thing the kids don't get to vote because they would vote themselves to poverty and disease.

Now, don't get me wrong here, I'm certainly not recommending a dictatorship for our government like we have for our families. We can see how that ends up just by looking at families! Some families are great but it requires great parents. And those families with terrible parents show just how bad it could be if we have bad leaders. If we could guarantee great leaders then it would indeed be great to have a dictatorship, but we can't and we never could. Having the children vote, however, is no better if the children are... well... childish! It's a sad fact, but so many adults are still ultimately children in their minds. They want what's "best" for themselves and the heck with the rest of the world. They will vote in their own perceived favor and rather short-sightedly at that. People will gladly vote for lower taxes on themselves yet completely miss the fact that it might lower the education of those around them and thus incur more crimes in their neighborhoods, leave roads unrepaired and so on. Much like a kid would vote to have ice cream for dinner every night.

So what does the government do to rule us unruly children? They have money, power, and more knowledge than us so they do what any "good" parent would do: they manipulate us. They have no choice. If they want to make a policy that benefits us all, they have to make us--the stupid children voters--believe that it's in our best interests. Most of us have not studied the many facets of economy and the repercussions that certain policies would make. Hopefully the leaders have (or at least consult those who have), but hey, despite our ignorance, we get to vote on how taxes are set, where our money goes, whether or not we keep a strong army or legalize a drug. Even if we don't vote directly, we vote for people who claim to be in favor of our positions. So they lie. They deceive. They mislead. Some do it for our sake since it's the only way we'll vote properly, while others deceive so we'll line their pockets with greenbacks. And we don't get to know the difference! So to the deceiver go the spoils. The best deceiver wins. And the best way to deceive, of course, is to get our emotions into the mix.

How do we choose our government officials? We choose by the "hot topics" of the day. We choose based on the positions that our candidates hold on the topics that most fuel our emotional fires: abortion, sexual preference, gun control, and religion. What makes or breaks a country is whether or not we can live in peace and effectively pursue our own happiness. Yet just mentioning these topics almost immediately sparks emotional outbursts of insanity. How are the dead babies supposed to seek happiness? How can I be happy if I can't have a semi-automatic weapon? How can we be happy if my particular deity damns our country because of our sexual preferences or lack of faith? We're being used. Straight up, we're being manipulated. There are bigger fish to fry and we are often not qualified and educated enough to really know what we ought to do or what's more important. There are so many things in this world that we can get fired up about, but we need to keep our cool. We need to remain calm and logical.

Emotion disrupts logical thought processes. That's what makes it so powerful. If we don't process things logically, we're more likely to take risks and fight. So if our emotions are fed, we'll vote for things despite their logical outcomes. We'll willfully blind ourselves to believe a lie without further consideration simply because something got us in a tissy. Therefore, to manipulate someone effectively, you simply have to learn what riles them up and say that your opponent disagrees. It's like throwing a red cape over your adversary and releasing a bull. They won't stop to think; they'll simply charge. And that's how most of us behave today: like enraged bulls. Show me some red and I'll go attack it. Forget if it's true, forget if it's a step in the right direction, forget if it's best for the majority of people and overall life--I heard my buzzward ring and I'm drooling from my emotional salivary glands; I wanna maul!

Yet we wonder why nothing gets better. "Man, I keep voting for the people who hold my emotionally-fueled positions, yet still the world is not in my favor. What gives?" We're simply voting for the best manipulator. Maybe the winner has got some great intentions, but I don't think anyone in office is equipped with the necessary supernatural powers to change what currently is. For every person with good intent in office, there are likely three others with malicious intent to stop them from being useful. After all, they grew up in the same dog-eat-dog world we did. Things will not get better until those who are voting are intelligent enough to vote for good people. And that is one heck of a sad statement if you look around at our country. I won't be holding my breath for an intelligent mass populace! People can't even figure out how to eat properly let alone run a freaking country. But of course, that's the government's fault, right? Let's just blame them. Fix our country, but don't change us. That's like asking for a log to become a totem pole without carving it. It's us that need to change. We need to stop being emotional neanderthals and we need to start using our brains. Or if I can reuse the fine insult delivered by George Bernard Shaw, we need to stop being "feverish selfish little clods of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making us happy."

We can make a difference. It won't happen overnight, but it won't happen at all unless we do something. There are too many people who are deceived and manipulated to make good voting decisions. We need a movement of people to develop a culture where people actually care for one another and seek after wisdom and intellect. It needs to start with us. It needs to start with me. It needs to start with you. We need to grow up. Our country will only change when we, the stupid voting children, stop being stupid and immature. And it's not enough if we only improve ourselves. It should be an obvious fact that the intellectual capability and emotional stability of others severely impacts our way of life. If a stupid person wants to blow up a mall that I happen to be in, it no longer matters how great I was. While we can only make changes to ourselves, the best way to change those around us is this: value wisdom, uplift intelligence, reward compassion, embrace beauty, sing to enliven, write to inspire, entertain to motivate, and live it joyfully. If we do these things then other people will naturally want it too. And as people begin to want it and live it, we will one life at a time grow into a nation of mature adults that are wise enough to elect leaders that are not manipulative frauds. Only then can we vote for policies that will actually benefit us without being deceived into it. Eventually, our country as a whole will learn that we'd rather not vote to have ice cream for dinner and instead be wise enough to eat our vegetables without even a law demanding it. You want change? Then stop crying about it and waiting for the government to do it and start demonstrating with your life that such change is wholly acceptable, good, and commendable. As Gandhi said, "Be the change you want to see in the world." I would only add, "And make it a rewarding experience for others to do likewise."