"I believe in benevolent dictatorship, provided I am the dictator." - Richard Branson
My opinion on politics is probably the sketchiest thing about me. If anything, I'd say my values and principles are mostly fair and moral. I'm quite positive if I ever in some world gone wrong became the leader of everyone, I would almost certainly have to be what I will call a noble tyrant. Good things can be achieved and justice served, but sometimes there is no clean way to do it.
All U.S. Presidents have to be a noble tyrant to some extent. I know the media and even the politicians would have you believe that you want the commander and chief to be a person you can relate to and admire and respect. The kind of person you could get along with for, let's say, four to eight years. Maybe someone kind of like you. That wouldn't be so bad, right?
This is sort of how I thought when Obama was elected back in 2008. It was a victory for me. I, not a religious man by any means, walked in front of a church and prayed for Obama to win. My heart soared when he did. That was a great night for me. In my mind, the good guys won and the bad guys got set back. Of course, I knew the change Obama spouted would not be an over night thing. I didn't think of him as mister fix-it, instant clean or any of that shit. The problems that have arisen over the last decade may take decades to completely make right. I was still happy, though.
Obama really did seem like "one of us." He was born into a lower class family, became a lawyer, became a genius practically, he even had a steady political career mostly marked by diplomacy and tact, and that's what he displayed during his election campaign. A man of the people who happens to be an eloquent political player. Obama was the black jesus of my world in those few months. Half black.
Four years later: do I still feel the same way? Hell no. You have to understand, I had endured eight years of madness and stupidity with my very honest and outspoken parents, during which they educated me on the wonderful world of politics, and how it was being fucked up by the ever memorable Bush-Cheney administration. Fun times, as I'm sure most of you remember. Well, the way I looked at it then was that Obama was the end of that type. He was gonna be the one at the beginning of a new era of progress, social change, peace, yes-we-can, and all of those things that just exist as a group of letters to a lot of Americans. He also beat out the absolutely crazy side which the conservative right has unfortunately devolved into. It made sense to me, they chose a mannaquin-like senior citizen ("Bomb-bomb-bomb-bomb iran!") and a soccer mom from Alaska ("How's that hopey-changey thing workin' out for ya"). And sorry, if you thought those two were good ideas back then compared to Barack Obama and Joe Biden you're retarded, and probably racist, or you eat up everything your parents told you about politics like its truth serum that can't be disputed. In a way, that's how I was about Obama, accept he and I and most everybody on the left side that year made sense. There's no easy way to say it, but republicans just don't make much sense anymore and that's saying something when you've already seen how screwed up democrats are. It's the age old story times eleven: the left is progressive but meek and the right is conservative but extreme. Though Obama was the face of progressive change in America (or even the world) for a time, he no longer holds that title.
Barack Obama gave in to whatever corrupt system has come to define the American government once he was in office. He has achieved little, and done things I would never expect any leader to do to a free people. He has also done good and the changes he has succeeded in making have been widely applauded at home and abroad. Does passing the healthcare reform wash away the national defense authorization act? No. Does legal weed and gay marriage in two states erase all those drone strikes that kill many for a few in an instant? No. Does the fact that he is a charming and amiable fellow make up for the fact that he has done things and let things happen that he promised he would never do and would never let happen back in '08? No. He has dawned the crown of a noble tyrant, and those vary from president to president. Luckily he's not as bad as some have been.
He's not a good, admirable, or even totally efficient leader. But, to our everlasting discontent, he is among the best being thrown around these days. And, if my suspicions are correct, the next four years will not be a good old fashioned picnic. Obama will still do things I don't like, and the whole world will hate him for it because he's the one in charge and, good or bad or between, the one in charge takes the blame first. It's a rule. He will do these bad things, likely, planning for them to lead to better things that will make everyone happy. His problem, and every American leader's problem, is that he doesn't just outright admit his form of tyranny.
My version of the noble tyrant is one of total transparency and vigilant duty. The U.S. version? Not so much. It's part of our obsession with celebrity that our politicians have to be attractive and likable above all else. At best, these qualities should be icing on the cake that is the politicians' policies and principles they will be battering the citizens over the head with day after day for years. It's a low key thing they are doing, focusing on our vanity more than our morals. If I were in charge, I would up the ante on both ends, nobility and tyranny equal and extreme. Essentially, this means the president would do anything to protect the American people from corruption and division. ANYTHING. If not done with extreme caution and resolve, this would no doubt result in a quick assassination, political or otherwise. The perpetrators would be a combination of the crooked politicians, the aristocracy, the corporations, and, of course, the most powerful group, the American people. It all sounds harsh, I know, but the bad seems to run so deep in the government that some real Machiavellian tactics would have to be implemented to weed it all out.
I'm rambling, moving on...
I know that the noble tyrant is basically the only form of leader we will accept, even if they won't admit what they are. The question I'm always left with, which I'm sure a lot of people wonder about, is why can't we have a president who is the ideal person and not just someone who tries to act ideal for TV and crowds. Why can't we have a man of the utmost moral character and superb social and political expertise? But now I'm starting to see that the real answer does not come in the form of a single man, nor should it ever come down to just one person who emerges at the top of the hill set on solving all the world's ills.
No, once you realize that noble tyrants don't work, the bad guys are bad for everyone, and the super hero we have all been waiting for is only real in our hearts and our wildest dreams, you have to go back to what you know about yourself as an American. Go back to what America was supposed to be about. A nation of the people, by the people, and for the people; a great multi-international tribe that is allowed to choose not who will lead them or dictate them but who will represent them. The people of the U.S., as a collective, rule this country. The people in power, from the president to the local town councilman, are there because the people put them there together. No one person can be blamed for all the problems that fall in our way. Our degradation is a group effort.
The problem is that most people don't want to be the ones who abandon their personal interests for the good of all. They want one or a couple of guys who act charismatic, competent, and wise. The strength is in the people. And the government and the media love to sow division amongst the people. That's why we obsess over which states are red and which are blue, who is democrat and who is republican like it was a football game. It's all used as an illusion to water the people down, make them dumb, inactive, and impressionable to whoever feeds their selfish desires. It is to the point that merely complaining endlessly to one another has replaced the act of banding together to kindle the fires of change. The American way our forefathers established way back when doesn't mean shit if we don't back it up.
Seriously, why even keep calling it the United States? We're not united by any means. You could call us The States Who Are Stuck Together in a Relationship They Want Out of Bad. As previously stated, the animosity between the left wing and the right wing has never been as heated or absurd. A civil war in the modern age looks more and more likely. No one trusts anyone. No one even really like anyone. No one likes the government. What are we?
Is it sad that I grew up to discover the American Dream boils down to winging it, the thing I've basically been doing all my life? Yeah, it's pretty fucking tragic.
Yet change is still in the cards, thankfully. We are in an age of revolutionary technology, world wide connections. Diversity, like the honey badger, is clawing ferociously to get out from beneath the regressive atmosphere looming over this country. In a time when so much looks bad, it is still quite baffling how good we look in comparison to some other places. This does not make everything all right, but it at least shows us that we are not entirely hopeless and that, unless the world somehow does end this year, there is still a future for America. Maybe it will even be one that makes the American Dream a definite possibility.
I can still hope and trust in my ideals, even when armored in cynicism.
1 comment:
Excellent rant, Logan!
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