TPTB: The Useful Idiot's Guide to Self-Subjugation

Too often, we are shoved into the self-destructive debate about the "size" of government, and those who take a position "against" the government already have an advantage in the argument. They have successfully framed the debate in fictitious terms that portray the government as a wholly alien, malicious entity feasting on the backs of the People; a dangerous parasite that gains power only at the expense of freedom; a rogue and cancerous growth on society that threatens not only our liberty but our continued existence if left "unchecked." Of course, operating from the assumption that the government by its very nature intends to deceive, cheat, rob, imprison, and if necessary kill you, the reasonable solution is to tie the government's hands, cut off its resources, and keep it from threatening us.

The only problem is that this view of government is absolutely the wrong one to have.

I am not saying that governments do not lie, steal, and kill without so much as a second thought. They most certainly do. But they do not do it simply because they are governments. They do it because they are controlled by those whose interests run contrary to the interests of the people. Government is a vehicle, and like any vehicle, if you let a drunk idiot drive it, you're going to have a wreck. The solution to drunk driving is not to outlaw cars, but this is the logic so-called "Small-Government Conservatives" use when they talk about fixing the problems in government, and they are wrong.

The first thing they are wrong about is this notion that government is creature that is fundamentally separate from the People. If that is true in the United States, it is only because the People are so unconcerned and disinterested in government that they have separated themselves from it. By design, the government is the People. "We the People," remember that line? Once upon a time, it was more than flowery language at the top of an old sheet of paper.

The second thing Conservatives are wrong about is that government's very nature compels it to devalue liberty and enforce totalitarianism. This outright lie is fed first by their dispicable acceptance of popular apathy toward politics, and then it is fed by their own erroneous belief that "Liberty" means the freedom to wield one's power against the powerless. In fact the very nature of government does oppose this false liberty, and rightly so: no civilization will stand very long if it allows the strong to overpower and enslave the weak.

Thirdly, these Small-Government people will tell you that every benefit bestowed by your government is paid for by the revocation of someone else's rights. This baloney translates, of course, to money. The TEA Party people, who have ironically risen to prominence during this country's lowest effective tax rates in 75 years, will cry foul about how "unfair" it is to make the wealthiest 5% of the people pay a far larger percentage of the taxes. "Why do 5% pay 50% of the taxes?" They ask this with straight faces, apparently unaware that they are deadpanning. Well, because those 5% control 50% of the money, that's why. Next question.

Now, there are big problems with government. Really big problems. But they don't exist simply because there is a government. They exist because we allow them to exist. See, when the People have disconnected from the civil processes of government in favor of bread and circuses, in a Republic, the government has no choice but to fill the gaps in Participation, with Automation. We are a nation of absentee citizens, and we have put our government on Autopilot. What do we expect from a system designed to work with nothing but our input, when we stop giving it input?

The answer is not to abolish the system, but to engage the system! It is not to claim that the government is some useless weight around our necks, because it isn't! The government is a function of the People, as much now as it ever has been. Like every other Human endeavor it holds true to the maxim, "Garbage In, Garbage Out." The people have a vested interest in effective government: it punishes abuse, it ensures tranquility, and it enables growth. It is emphatically not inherently "evil," as some would have us believe. It is an institution of the People - and if the People use it, then they People will benefit. If we don't use it, then whoever is using it will benefit. Right now it is being used by forces who really are diametrically opposed to government: people who would like to sell you poison and call it medicine or food; people who would like to hire you to work 80 hours per week at a pitiful pay rate, and ensure you have no right to question your predicament; people who would love to lock you up for doing something as innocuous as reading this very forum. But those interests are not "the Government," and castrating the People's ability to seek these people out and defang them is exactly what they would love us to do.

Let's remember what life was like in America before the Government worried about things workers' rights, universal suffrage, civil rights, and public education. It was a land of child labor, wage slavery (if not actual slavery), segregation, lifelong illiteracy for the poor, non-existent upward mobility, and the Middle Class didn't even exist. Are we so numbed by the successes of social programs that we imagine our standard of living has always been as it is now? And why would anyone want to undermine or even completely eliminate the programs and governmental departments that have allowed us to flourish as a modern civilization? They fill your head with lies about government being inherently evil, but they will not hesitate to use the power of government to silence those who seek to undermine those lies.

I implore you, before you automatically assume Government is the problem, please give the matter a little more thought beyond your gut reaction. The government may have been hijacked, but it is salvageable. Don't let those in power convince you to cut your own throat to save their skins!

In my opinion, I agree that most Americans have allowed Congess to be on auto-pilot. Apathy is huge. Perhaps a lot of us assumed that our nation's needs were their priority, How wrong we were to ever make that assumption, and people are waking up to that realisation. We are and were sold on the idea of a capialistic society.... "anyone can make a success of themselves". What is biting us in the ass right now, however, is the realisation of many things
1) lobbying laws allow wealthy individuals and corporations to effectively buy the government
2) high level elected and appointed officials are allowed to take positions with thee corporations when their terms end
3) greed goes unchecked
4) citizens come last.
5) laws are made to benefit corporate interests

I could go on. The bottom line for me is that our elected officials sold us out a LONG time ago and we were too naive to think that they didn't have our basic interests at heart.
When I read that very effective cancer treatments were discovered decades ago, and that our own government as well as leading physicians did everything they could to stop it, ALL FOR THE SAKE OF ALLOWING big business to continue RAPING the American taxpayer. WTF? I lost my dad to cancer, and I am ASHAMED that our own government thought it more worthy that these corporations made BILLIONS instead of elevating humanity.
That one example for me should clearly demonstrate that we need to clean house. Top to bottom. Elected officials should have to sacrifice any personal gain from public office and nobody should have any access to them.
And the UN, with it's artificial paganistic views of de-population needs to be OUTLAWED,
Sorry for the rant.

reply to post by WhoKnows100


That's a tragedy, for sure. The government's priorities are out of whack, but why are we blaming the government? It's a dumb machine run by people with malicious intent. Again, it isn't the car, it's the driver.

And all the anti-government rhetoric poisons our ability to actually do anything about it, because it paints "the government" as the enemy. People obviously will not join forces with such an "enemy," they will not lend their time or their talents to it, and they even vilify those who choose public service as a way to improve things.

You are correct, the Government is just a tool they use, and since the populace (for the most part, not all inclusive) are not engaged the men behind the curtain have taken it as carte blanche to do whatever they want.

It is because of this dynamic of a non engaged populace that they are able to direct the environment via buzzwords, polls, and the general attitude towards an issue via MSM.

I say the word Progressive, and a ton of people have already painted a picture of a socialist tree hugging hippie in their minds, well really? Isn't progressive, moving forward? To make progress? So they have you believing that we want to be regressive as a kneejerk reaction to the word?

Liberal? That's bad too? I prefer a liberal sprinkling of Parmesan on my pasta.

The word games can go on and on, the automatic reaction should be to look at WHY they want you to think these words are bad and then call them out on it.

Let's expand on the "Self-Subjugation" for a moment as well.

If you hate the banksters, the too big to fail banks, JP Morgan, Citibank, etc. then move your money, if they foreclosed on your friends or family, then move your money, do NOT let them make more money on yours, as long as it sits in an account owned by them, you are supporting them via the Fractional Reserve Banking system, your $100 is equal to $1000 that they can loan and make the interest on.

Don't work for them, or a company that works for them, QUIT, go to work for a local bank, a mom and pop store or restaurant, be an entrepreneur, make something useful, do something useful (organic garden), get out of the box they have created that says you will only survive by working for them and buying their products.

On the subject of TV, all I can say is..

nah i dont buy that arguement

you try to tell government what to do and they all laugh at you.

if anything that is the arguement for smaller limited government

less power to abuse the people and less people to abuse that power.

there was a reason this country was founded and why there were precautions to limit the size and scope of its power.

Originally posted by neo96
nah i dont buy that arguement

you try to tell government what to do and they all laugh at you.

if anything that is the arguement for smaller limited government

less power to abuse the people and less people to abuse that power.

there was a reason this country was founded and why there were precautions to limit the size and scope of its power.

When the country was founded, the government didn't have the power to do almost anything, including outlaw slavery, enforce a minimum wage, provide for universal suffrage, or anything else we take for granted. Do you think that we will be able to keep these things after we've eliminated the government's ability to enforce them? Of course not! We'll go back to exactly what we had before we demanded what we have: nothing at all.

Government in a democratic state is a movement of the People. You're pushing the idea that I ought to lose my right to organize with my friends and family and propose that We The People, in the form of our Government, directly force greedy corporations to quit abusing us.

On a good day, Government is what happens when people get together and say Enough is Enough. On a bad day, Government is what happens when they go home and accept what they're given.

reply to post by neo96


How small are we talking?

Are we talking about so small that our government no longer has the ability to regulate? Since that is what the current "cutback, we're broke" argument has at it's heart.

No EPA? "Yeah sure you can dump your nuclear waste in the drinking water supply."

No FDA? "Well of course you can inject WHATEVER you want into YOUR food product. Salmonella, E-Coli, no problem bud it's YOUR PRIVATE BUSINESS."

No Medical Regulations? "Sure you can sew that bacteria covered implant into my mother."

No Infrastructure Maintainence? "You'll have to take the 680 around, it's an extra 70 miles but the 29 has totally fallen apart."

No Medicare? "I hate that socialist program" screams the obese woman riding her Hoveround that Medicare paid for.

When you buy into the hype, do you think for a second about the REALITY of the outlandish Tea-Party suggestions? Or is it just programmed dogma kneejerk reactions with you?

You really, really believe that these programs are the enemy of the state and the reason for economic collapse?

You do know that the suggested remedies of the "Real Americans" via the hijacked "Tea-Party" platform is to PRIVATIZE these things?

You want to hand the regulations to the same people trying to figure out how to get around the regulations that keep the rest of us safe?

You want the Too Big To Fail retards in charge of Medicare and Social Security?

reply to post by Hijaqd

How small are we talking?

a government that doesnt have over 5 million employees and a 14 trillion dollar defict.

Are we talking about so small that our government no longer has the ability to regulate? Since that is what the current "cutback, we're broke" argument has at it's heart.

how has that regulation worked out for you? one thats regulating business and finance and the people in the country right of existence.

No EPA? "Yeah sure you can dump your nuclear waste in the drinking water supply." No FDA? "Well of course you can inject WHATEVER you want into YOUR food product. Salmonella, E-Coli, no problem bud it's YOUR PRIVATE BUSINESS."

yeah it is work for yourself and grow your own food and stop telling other people who to do it,

No Medical Regulations? "Sure you can sew that bacteria covered implant into my mother."

yeah medical regulations have just worked out so well when a person goes to a doctor and gets charged thousands of dollars for a 15 minute visit tell you your fine come back agian in a month.

No Infrastructure Maintainence? "You'll have to take the 680 around, it's an extra 70 miles but the 29 has totally fallen apart."

i dont know about you i just love i get taxed and i live in new york and it pays for a lightbulb and power lines and roads in california.

No Medicare? "I hate that socialist program" screams the obese woman riding her Hoveround that Medicare paid for.

yeah i do hate a substandard program that lacks vision and dental and tells doctors to charge patients thousands of dollars and get paid little in return and makes their living on volume of patients instead actually being a real doctors because government tells them what to do.

When you buy into the hype, do you think for a second about the REALITY of the outlandish Tea-Party suggestions? Or is it just programmed dogma kneejerk reactions with you?

why do you people buy into the hype about the left or the democratic party actually give a rats behind about the people in this country the only thing they want from you is your vote to keep them in power just as long as they make you feel "special" you dont question anything.

You really, really believe that these programs are the enemy of the state and the reason for economic collapse?

half ass programs t hat serve noone in this country but has become the detriment to them because people just cant seem to fathom a simple question :" how do we pay for it? "

You do know that the suggested remedies of the "Real Americans" via the hijacked "Tea-Party" platform is to PRIVATIZE these things?

privatize? well just look at the private world in this country sure the hell alot better than any government program that is not even close to be self sustaining.

You want to hand the regulations to the same people trying to figure out how to get around the regulations that keep the rest of us safe?

and just look at the bang up job of the regualtions that have killed this country maybe its time that they be taken out of their hands and put where they always belonged in the first place.

You want the Too Big To Fail retards in charge of Medicare and Social Security?

ad hominem attacks of a people of which you dont even care to listen to and they need to be taken out of the hands of a corrupt government.

thinking such as that is why this country is screwed you people have had your way for decades that the current state of the union exists.

and its a pretty crappy union of selfhiness.

reply to post by neo96


It has been the precipitous decline in tax revenues which have led to the sorry state of affairs we're in, not "regulation." Not everyone can grow their own food - like about 98% of people living in NYC, for example. Not everyone can be their own doctor. Not everyone can be their own manufacturer of cars or electronics or anything else we use. Your "do it yourself" BS is completely worthless, please move on.

Medicare doesn't make doctors charge patients thousands of dollars, insurance companies do. Insurance companies who by the way are the same people the Right wants to put in complete control (even more than they are already) of the healthcare system. A company that can only make a profit by doing the opposite of what we need it for (paying for treatments) is obviously not going to have the patients' interests at heart.

Regulations of industry have eliminated child labor, unsafe working conditions, unfair wages, and a host of other injustices perpetrated against the working class by the elites. Eliminating those regulations will only result in those abuses coming back.

reply to post by vexati0n


the decline in tax revenues is because of government spending

not everyone is paying taxes
wall street is making more money offshore than here.
globalization that is wealth destruction.

prosperity goes to where the money is and that aint america anymore.

the government has created the problems people have been sold a bill of goods and they beleive that tripe

reply to post by neo96


No, sir. The reason so many don't pay (some) taxes is that due to the widening income and wealth gap, a much larger percentage of the population now falls into the tax bracket where tax liability is less than zero. It isn't because the lower classes have been granted some new relief from taxes - it's that many more people are now in the lower classes. Besides this, since Reagan the US has flirted with this ludicrous idea that dropping tax rates for top earners will somehow result in HIGHER tax revenue, when the opposite is demonstrably true. Supply-side trickle-down economics is horsesh*t and it's time the People quit allowing our representatives to pretend it's a valuable philosophy.

Of course, people in all brackets do pay taxes anyway: payroll taxes, sales taxes, and local/state taxes.

In America's "golden years," the 1950s and 1960s, the highest tax bracket required as much as 80% income tax. Today, it's about 35%, and guess what? The numbers show it. Also, we have constructed an enormous military-industrial complex that drains more than fifty percent of all revenues to feed wealth directly into a corrupt corporate world.

reply to post by vexati0n




yeah they have never heard of the income credit?

half this country has no tax liabilty then theres something wrong.


i dont care who it is or how much they make if they have income they pay.

that extends to rich poor and business

everyone pays and no one gets out of it.

This is the argiument of a progressive/communist - big gov/the state, knows best! - if only it was run by pure minded people, then we would have perfect communism blah blah!


Large socio-economic structures are not people! - they are different creatures operating by different rules, playing different games.

Big gov is a monster that unless it crahes and burns first will eventually turn us all into dumbed down serfs of a One world slave state.

Just look at your own body - because that is exactly what happened to the free swimming cells that first stated co-operating together in microbial mats!

I clicked on this thread only because I couldn't remember what "subjugation" meant, but I thought that was a great OP. I usually avoid any government-related threads but I needed to read this. I always love seeing things from a different perspective. And it seems like you two (neo) are making the same argument, in a way.

Originally posted by JohhnyBGood
This is the argiument of a progressive/communist - big gov/the state, knows best! - if only it was run by pure minded people, then we would have perfect communism blah blah!


Large socio-economic structures are not people! - they are different creatures operating by different rules, playing different games.

Big gov is a monster that unless it crahes and burns first will eventually turn us all into dumbed down serfs of a One world slave state.

Just look at your own body - because that is exactly what happened to the free swimming cells that first stated co-operating together in microbial mats!

And given the choice between my argument and the notion that the poor should remain poor and powerless, and the rich should be empowered to become even richer at the expense of the poor, I will choose the Progressive argument every single time.

Why do people insist that somehow everything will be OK if we just return the government to what it was in the 1850s? How, exactly, is that going to improve anything at all? Please tell me, so I can understand how obliterating social services and programs, and regulation of corrupt industries, is going to somehow make society a better place for the majority of us. Granted, it will be a GREAT place for people who already don't play by the rules, but for the rest of us, it would be a disaster.

And a general note about the beginnings of America:

I do not regard the Founding Fathers as infallible - they were Humans like everyone else. They also formed their government 230 years ago, before even the Industrial Revolution. The society they fought to establish is not the same society we must maintain today. The heart of their philosophy is accurate, but the mechanics they used to implement that philosophy was flawed. They would also be among the first to protect my right to disagree with some of their ideas - so keep that in mind before you start slinging "you hate America because you don't worship everything the Founding Fathers did" at me...

reply to post by neo96


The more you divorce yourself from government, the less responsive it will be to you. That is, the less you put in, the less you get out. It's pretty simple, really.

For decades now, people like yourself - and for some godawful reason there are millions of you - have been offering absolutely nothing but whiny, bitchy heaps of apathy. That has an effect - it actually makes govenrment worse, because you - like the dumbass hippies you proclaim yourself so different from - are either totally uninvolved, or are actually negatively involved.

When more money comes to a congressmen from corporate contributors than from the tax revenues of his district, who do you think has more of a grip on his balls? And since what he does ends up affectingYOU, well, who are you selling yourself to?

reply to post by vexati0n

Government in a democratic state is a movement of the People. You're pushing the idea that I ought to lose my right to organize with my friends and family and propose that We The People, in the form of our Government, directly force greedy corporations to quit abusing us.

On a good day, Government is what happens when people get together and say Enough is Enough. On a bad day, Government is what happens when they go home and accept what they're given.

Whether it was a good day, or a bad day, it was government that created corporations. All corporations exist by charter...revokable charter. That means what the government has granted, the government can take away. If you want to organize a group of people to reign in corporate malfeasance, perhaps it is worth looking into forming an organization powerful enough to get the necessary attention for a redress of grievances and demand charter revocation of those corporations that have harmed people. They exist in multitudes these harmful corporations, and the vast majority of them, at least in the United States, were chartered in the State of Delaware.

An organization that can put pressure on that states attorney general - currently an office occupied by Joe Biden's son - to revoke certain charters would be an impressive organization. Of course, that is assuming that the organization didn't make the mistake of applying for some kind of permission to exist, including one of the many 501c series of "non-profit" grants. Ironic, wouldn't it be, if you started an organization to reign in corporatism, and wound up incorporating that organization in order to offer donors a "tax deduction"?

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


But I don't oppose the right of a Corporation to exist, or the right of a rich person to be rich. I oppose intentionally stacking the deck against people who are in neither of those positions, so that they effectively cannot get into those positions.

So, I oppose the notion that we should have to pay for education, because a good education is key to success, and too often the cost of education is that even when you achieve success, you are already so far in debt you will never get ahead. Any domestic policy that shreds free, high quality public education is civil suicide.

I oppose the idea that healthcare is a "luxury." Bollocks. If there is a cure or a treatment for a disease or injury, it should be a crime to deny that cure or treatment to anyone who needs it, or to penalize them for not properly buying it. Leave the term "luxury" for cosmetic surgery.

I oppose the idea that if I were to start my own business, I would more than double my tax burden and lose all my health benefits (and my famiily's).

These are the foundations of upward mobility. They are the basic building blocks the lower classes need so that they can work their own way up the social ladder. But it seems every "Conservative" plan for anything at all is founded on blocking one or all of these.

reply to post by vexati0n

But I don't oppose the right of a Corporation to exist, or the right of a rich person to be rich

I never presumed you did. However, since you bring it up, I should point out that corporations do not have any right to exist, they exist solely by the privilege of a grant of charter. All people have the right to be rich however. This is not to argue that because they have this right they can just simply gain that wealth upon demand, but once they have it, unless they gained it through criminality, they have it by right. Corporations do not have rights, they have privileges, and it is imperative the distinction be made, and understanding what that distinction is.

I oppose intentionally stacking the deck against people who are in neither of those positions, so that they effectively cannot get into those positions.

Whether you know it or not, what you are advocating is a free and open market as opposed to the heavily regulated market place of today. That heavily regulated market place is a corporate dream because it is this regulation that in fact stacks the deck in the corporations favor.

So, I oppose the notion that we should have to pay for education, because a good education is key to success, and too often the cost of education is that even when you achieve success, you are already so far in debt you will never get ahead. Any domestic policy that shreds free, high quality public education is civil suicide.

There is no such thing as "free" education, and if you oppose paying for education then perhaps you might want to begin taking the corporate entities known as teachers unions to task and demanding these teachers begin volunteering their services. Of course, it follows that school administrators would have to volunteer their services as well, and depending on how far you want to take this notion of "free education" then the text books used would have to be donated, as well as any buildings constructed towards this end, and so on and on and on and on.

I oppose the idea that healthcare is a "luxury." Bollocks. If there is a cure or a treatment for a disease or injury, it should be a crime to deny that cure or treatment to anyone who needs it, or to penalize them for not properly buying it. Leave the term "luxury" for cosmetic surgery.

Health care is a right. However, insurance schemes are not health care. Your health care begins with you! Of course, in this heavily regulated market place of today, the Pharmaceutical companies are spending millions of dollars lobbying Congress to empower the FDA to start regulating the vitamin and natural health care industry. Some people ardently believe their health care is better handled by drinking raw milk instead of pasteurized milk, but good luck in convincing the FDA on that!

I suppose what you are doing in your carefully couched words is advocating a socialized system of medicine where government fully controls that profession in every way, to the point of dictating how much a doctor gets paid for his services, and why not just demand doctors and surgeons volunteer their time? Need an MRI? Why not demand the makers of this technology donate their inventions? Who are these people to expect to make a profit off of their widely recognized technological advances?

I oppose the idea that if I were to start my own business, I would more than double my tax burden and lose all my health benefits (and my famiily's).

Don't even get me started on taxes. Presumably you are referring to the so called "Personal Income Tax". Do you even know what makes you "liable" for that tax? Have you read the tax code? Do you know anything at all about the Constitutional principles of taxation? There are, no doubt, sections of the tax code that have clearly and undeniably made certain professions liable for an "income" tax, but the vast majority of professions are not clearly identified as having a tax imposed upon them, and most people assume liability based upon the codes assertion of a tax imposed upon "taxable income". If you are fine with assuming a tax burden that was imposed upon not income, but "taxable income" without even challenging the liability, then your complaints here ring as disingenuous at best.

These are the foundations of upward mobility. They are the basic building blocks the lower classes need so that they can work their own way up the social ladder. But it seems every "Conservative" plan for anything at all is founded on blocking one or all of these.

Class distinction is a product of the very same TPTB that you want to take to task. Class distinction is just another form of a caste system. Upward mobility is founded on minimal intrusions. All closed systems tend towards entropy. That we have a achieved an entropic economy today should come as no surprise.