What Is Government?
Lately there has been a lot of talk about the failures of Government. Some are public debates written in various different forms and/or broadcast in a variety of contexts. And I have participated in this. I have written about this and talked with a variety of people.
So, before I begin this little exposition, let us go to dictionary.com and see what the recognized definition is. And then we shall begin:
noun
1) the political direction and control exercised over the actions of the members, citizens, or inhabitants of communities, societies, and states; direction of the affairs of a state, community, etc.; political administration.
Government is necessary to the existence of civilized society.
2) the form or system of rule by which a state, community, etc., is governed.
monarchical government; episcopal government.
3) the governing body of persons in a state, community, etc.; administration.
4) a branch or service of the supreme authority of a state or nation, taken as representing the whole.
a dam built by the government.
5) (in some parliamentary systems, as that of the United Kingdom)
A) the particular group of persons forming the cabinet at any given time.
The prime minister has formed a new government.
B) the parliament along with the cabinet.
The government has fallen.
6) direction; control; management; rule.
the government of one's conduct.
7) a district governed; province.
8) political science.
9) Grammar. the established usage that requires that one word in a sentence should cause another to be of a particular form.
the government of the verb by its subject.
After an advertisement it goes on as thus:
- noun
1) the exercise of political authority over the actions, affairs, etc, of a political unit, people, etc, as well as the performance of certain functions for this unit or body; the action of governing; political rule and administration
2) the system or form by which a community, etc, is ruled
tyrannical government
3) A. the executive policy-making body of a political unit, community, etc; ministry or administration
yesterday we got a new government
B. ( capital when of a specific country )
the British Government
4) A. the state and its administration
blame it on the government
B. ( as modifier )
a government agency
5) regulation; direction
6) grammar the determination of the form of one word by another word - And there is a lot there. Definitions with qualifiers etc. A lot to unpack. And, it misses the point completely. I am about to throw some things at you to make a point that I think a lot of us miss.
There is an old saying the Government is needed for a civilized society. And I offer the view that when society starts to breakdown and become less civilized it is because of a breakdown in Governance. Looking at History I think that this can be shown. And remember this as it shall be addressed again later.
Throughout History there have been many different forms of Government. In the very beginning it was a Family/Tribe structure. If you look at the structure of Monkeys, Baboons, Apes, etc you can see that they have a Government. It is a Matriarchal form of Government that is strictly focused on the immediate family and the small group of families together called a tribe. And there is a lot of evidence that when humanity first started to separate from their primate cousins our Government was exactly as such. In this setting everyone participated in Government to some degree or another. There was a definite Hierarchy. And there was a degree of ownership as all were involved to some degree or another.
As we developed a frontal lobe we began to look outward. And as we began to look outward we began to tell stories about our origins, life, and death. And thus was born Religion. In the beginning religion as just another layer to the family/tribe and was mostly matriarchal. Then the Hyper Male Sky Gods showed up. And Religion began to separate from the family/tribe structure and became something else. They were the first Government that collected taxes. Had a lot of different names. Today it is called tithing. Any way that you look at it this counts as a tax. A price one pays to belong.
There is a quote that is attributed to a past U.S. Supreme Court Justice, Oliver Wendall Holmes Jr, that says "Taxes are the price we pay for a civilized society". In a case in front of the court in 1927 he argued that taxes are essential for government to provide infrastructure, security, and services that maintain a functioning society. Hold on to this thought. It will be revisited later.
So our first Government that was not a family/tribal government was religious government. It collected taxes and made rules governing behavior. That fits the criteria. And they began the process of restricting who could govern to their members. Thus restricting who was people.
And shortly thereafter came the Strong Man. And along with them came the Domination form of government. Because a strong man, with followers and weapons, could dominate those around him and, most importantly, dominate woman and gather them together for his own and his followers procreation, and could also restrict who was involved in governing. Thus was born the Noble and Peasant classes. The Slave class was already well established by then. Peasants and Slaves had no voice in the Government.
So those who could Govern, and were thus counted as People, were heavily restricted.
In most societies the Priests and Strong Man began to form an alliance. They would work together to maintain their power over others and definitions of who were people. For many centuries there after the fights were often between the Strong Man and the Priesthood as to who had the greater power than the other. And Rome, in it's very early days, came up with a rather novel idea. The Strong Men, the Nobility known as the Patrician Class, also was the Priesthood. That very rarely happened elsewhere. Later in Western Europe the younger sons of the Strong Man families, the "Nobility" went into the Priesthood to be able to have a power center of their own.
In the "Western" world, IE the Middle East out thru the European Peninsula and on to the Americas, the battle for centuries was between those who governed, and thus were counted as People, and those who were not involved in governance, and thus were not counted as people, to either keep restricted or to expand the ranks of those who could govern and thus could be counted as people.
Because let us be clear again about this, if you are not involved in some way or another in Governing, then you are not really counted as People.
So now we get to the United States of America.
From the beginning the right to be involved in governing, voting, running for office, etc, was restricted heavily. In the beginning it was White Protestant Property Owning Males. Period. And when the Constitution was written and the Preamble opened with "We the People" those were the people that it meant.
Completely excluded were Men who did not own property, Woman, Natives, African Americans, Asians, Catholics and other non protestants, Immigrants, and any other people who could be labelled as Other. The Otherization of people in this country was, and is, extensive and deep, written into the DNA of the nation.
From the beginning there were efforts to expand the ranks of those who could govern. Those who could be counted as people. And, over a long time, with many fits and starts, it has been expanded to almost anyone who is in the community.
And today we are in the midst of an extremely well funded and staffed effort to restrict who can be involved in Governance. Who is really counted as People. And this effort has never stopped. However, in the 1960's after a whole lot of legislation that expanded who can govern and thus be counted as people, the current backlash began and has never stopped. It has only grown stronger.
And from 1980 onwards one of the ways that they did this was attacking America's Trust in it's Government. Painting it as an out of touch and too well funded class of people. They attacked our Liberal Democracy. And have succeeded really well.
And they also started the process of Wealth Distribution from the Working People of this country to the Uber Wealthy. And Wealth Inequality has grown to a staggering proportion as a result.
And they used Wedge Issues, via talk radio and Fox "news" originally, and expanded into the Internet and especially Social Media, to divide the People from one another. And they have been staggeringly successful at it.
The result, so far, is that we have a Nazi party in power on the Federal Level and in many States. These Nazis are doing their absolute best to restrict who can govern, and are thus counted as people, to those who look, think, and believe just as they do. As I am writing this they are trying to get Birthright Citizenship, guaranteed by the 14th Amendment to the Constitution, overturned in the Courts. In a functioning United States Government this would not be a thing. In a functioning U.S. everyone would know that it would take another Constitutional Amendment repealing Birthright Citizenship to enact this. In our current state they might actually get this to work for them.
And why is this so? Because we, the People of the United States of America, you and I, have allowed and encouraged people with really deep pockets to keep weakening the Governments ability to function as a Government by electing people who want to restrict the right to govern to only them.
And we now have a Criminal Nazi Regime with all of it's enablers on each level of government in power steam rolling their way into repealing the United States as you and I know it.
So, What is Government?
Government is those who are counted as People.
Right now, and maybe for not much longer, our Government is Us. All of us.
If you want to keep it that way then get busy.
We are almost completely out of time.
We. The. People.
That still means US.
We can still save that.
It must be NOW.
Comments
Post a Comment