The Illusion Of Freedom
by pessimist
You've all heard the 'Golden Rule': "He who makes the gold, makes the rules."
Since the American Civil War, that meme has been the basic governing idea in America. A person was allowed to rise in stature (read: wealth-based respect) in our society provided one was white, male, Christian, and followed the unwritten laws of 'proper' behavior.
It was proper, for example, to steal from your workers, even kill them should they protest, but don't you dare take a dime you didn't earn from your economic betters!
This system worked well, with the lower classes mindfull of their proper station in life, often enforced by either the State militia or Federal Troops, as required - until the Great Depression.
And then all hell broke loose.
That Commie Pinko Franklin Delano Roosevelt had the temerity to forget which side of the table his placecard was set. He and that uppity wife of his, Hillary's grandmother, had the audacity to treat everyone as if they really had those 'inalienable rights' mentioned in the Constitution.
Why before you knew it, it wasn't safe for the cream of society to show itself, lest it be besieged by demands for more of the goodies with none of the toil! It's a damn good thing the War came along, and allowed the upper crust to regain their proper place in society. Nothing like a good war to instill discipline in an unruly rabble, that's what Granddad used to say!
And that's why we were always at war ever after the defeat of Japan. It gave the government a lever to use to reimplement discipline whenever the lesser beings forgot their proper place.
You knew who the lesser beings were just by looking at them! If they weren't white, they qualified. If they weren't men, they qualified. If they weren't Christian, they qualified.
And if they were all of those things, and yet weren't wealthy, they qualified.
Everything was going fine until that ingrate Ike had to open up his yap about that 'military-industrial complex' myth. Who would believe such a thing? All he did was disgrace himself in front of millions of people right as he was about to go into retirement.
And that Kennedy kid! Why, if his daddy hadn't paid for the election to be stolen away from the proper man for the job, Dick Nixon would have been showing them Commies how to behave! It's a damn good thing that Osward was around! Why who knows what mischief Kennedy would have been up to!
Then there's Lyndon Johnson! Did that man forget his roots? If it wasn't for the Brown Brothers, would he have even been in the Senate to open the way to being VP? How could he betray his class like that damn FDR did and make it legal for the lower classes to have rights like voting? How are proper people supposed to keep order in this land if every radical with an agenda can vote? There should be some way to see to it that those sorts don't qualify, or don't count, or something!
Down in Texas, when there's a problem that needed fixin', Samuel Colt was the solution. That's what them no-good radicals Martin and Bobby found out! With them out of the way, it was possible for righteous people to regain control of this land. No more Watts, or rioting in Detroit, Newark, or Chicago - twice!
That Dick Daley sure remembered what to do when his city was invaded by the trash of the radicals! It almost made up for his dead machine voters putting JFK in the White House. But the best thing he did was wake up the people to the dangers they faced from the lower classes. How else could that loser Nixon - the guy who should have walked away with the election in 1960 had Ike been more supportive - have a chance at winning and keeping the radicals down in their place?
Nixon almost blew it with that Watergate mess! Why, what if he'd gotten all those hippies quieted down just to rise up again? Who could we have turned to then? Saint Ronnie hadn't yet revealed himself as the First Coming yet, so there was no one.
Clumbsy - almost as much as that Jerry Ford! At least he had enough sense to follow his orders and pardon Nixon before them Commie Democrats could put him on trial and make a mockery of American justice! But that only made it possible for that peanut cracker Carter to slip in. What would a real Republican like Goldwater have done? It's a shame we couldn't have convinced him to try again!
But luckily, Saint Ronnie arrived and saved the day!
We should have worked harder to change the Constitution and get rid of that 22nd Amendment, or at least see to it that it only applied to Democrats and radicals. Maybe we'd only let them have one term! Think of all the trouble that would have saved when that dolt Bush went and raised taxes! That Clinton upstart - and Elinor's granddaughter, his wife - wouldn't have been able to shame America in the eyes of the world with their disgraceful behavior! And who would even have heard of Monica?
We sure had better hopes for that Bush kid. He seemed to have all the right ideas - free the rich from enslavement by the poor, remind the rest of the world that it turns on American time, and hands off our oil! Maybe we should have taken his bad business track record a little more seriously. We might not be stuck with the messes he created!
There's but one thing left to do by all right-thinking Americans: put Newt and Chambliss in the White House, and then see to it that we give them all the tools to restore America to its rightful place as the defender of Christianity for the masses and prosperity for the Wealthy White Men!