Certain words and phrases that have entered America's political lexicon over the years, illustrate all to well our collective betrayal of our founding revolutionary ancestors. The two of these I most abhor are "we" and "leadership."
First of all, a freeman longing for, no worse, demanding political "leadership" as we do today is not only a contradiction in terms, but in fact a complete refutation of our American ideals. Stop and think about it for a moment ... because a freeman demanding "leadership" is, in reality, a person who no longer wishes to be free.
One of the most important American conservative thinkers of all time, Joseph Sobran, had a unique ability to say so much in so few words. In the following he describes the folly of speaking of the state as "we."
Your Friend, the State
If I were a pagan, I might fancy I heard the Olympian laughter of the gods when modern men think of their rulers as their friends. Common sense would suggest that those who have power over you, and can use it to kill or enslave you, are, more properly speaking, your masters and enemies. We're supposed to think that the system that can extort half our earnings from us is benevolent?
I don't think it's funny, but I can see how Zeus and Neptune and Mercury, with their larger perspective, might get a kick out of it. As described by Homer and Ovid, they didn't have to pay taxes. They could afford to laugh. "What fools these mortals be!"
The state is a parasite on its subjects, but in America its subjects have acquired the habit of speaking of the state as "we." As in: "We are fighting a war on terrorism." There can be no greater triumph for the parasite than for the host to think of it and itself as a single unit. It's as if a man were to refer to himself and a blood-bloated leech under his skin as "we."
How does the state pull this off? One tested and well-nigh infallible method is to convince its subjects that it's protecting them from an even worse enemy than itself. This seldom fails. The majority nearly always fall for the idea that if the state is hurting someone else even worse than it's hurting them, it's on their side, and is therefore their friend, protector, and benefactor.
The Soviet Union crushed every freedom worth having, but it assured the "proletariat" that it was only exterminating their "class enemies." Hitler imposed tyranny on ordinary Germans, but he was even crueler to Jews, so Germans figured he was on their side. The socialist state of Israel robs Jews blind, but since it treats Arabs even worse, Jews think of the state as "us." And the U.S. Government is stripping away traditional American freedoms; but as long as it is prepared to bomb foreigners to death, Americans imagine that their proximate enemy is defending them. No, it's even worse than that: they think their enemy is "us." The enemy becomes the self.
When I was ten, I learned how to get a leech out of my leg in a hurry: a lighted match would do the trick. I never supposed that that creepy thing and I were "we."
But try getting a parasite out of your mind! As soon as you think you're rid of it, it has a way of coming back. You've been trained from childhood to think of your rulers as "we," just as sports fans speak of the home team as "we," as if they too had been down on the field earning the victory. Such mental habits are hard to shake.
Even the most wary of us have to keep reminding ourselves that the state is our enemy. Always. Not just when the Republicans — or the Democrats — are in power. Always. Tyranny and freedom are equally nonpartisan.
Read the whole thing here: "Your Friend, the State."
For more on the state:
“We,” the State is a post from: The Classic Liberal Blog