Even more important, though, than simply avoiding the political process, is reclaiming what it has taken from us. What has it taken? Our security – replaced by crime, driven by the war on drugs and the prison-industrial complex; our peace – replaced by fears of terrorism, spawned in response to our empire’s never-ending thirst for conquest; our independence and self-supporting communities – replaced with dependence on the welfare state, and the dominion of a regulatory leviathan; education – replaced with indoctrination; free and open discussion – replaced with overt manipulation of public conversation; and civility – replaced with increasingly divisive, intolerant, and hysterical sputtering that passes for discourse.
We may not yet be able to reclaim all that the state has taken from us, but there are things we can take back. In particular, we can take back our humanity. The institution of the state, and those who play its game, benefit when the rest of us are at each others’ throats. They love it when people believe that other groups of people are their enemy – so that they don’t recognize the state itself as their common enemy. And they are thrilled beyond belief when they have an easily manipulated angry or terrified mob that they can easily turn on their own enemies. The state loves nothing more than for us to abandon our humanity and behave like animals.
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