Emailing the other day, a friend happened to drop a great phrase: “whoever, or whatever, is masquerading as Uncle Sam” (unstated but implied was “at the moment”).
I thought, now there’s a phrase with the power to wake some sleepy folks.
We like to go on about the capital-F Founders. Some people talk as if America was their living, breathing gift to us. In a way, it was of course — the idea and the ideal.
But the actual, practical thing those Founders bequeathed us was a mere corporate shell. A shell in the shape of a constitution and institutions. However good or ill the Famous Founders’ intentions, that shell could be — and has been — taken over. It was there; it was convenient. So it’s been taken and occupied like a hermit crab takes over the empty shell of a sea snail.
Argue all day about the intentions of Hamilton vs Madison vs Jefferson vs whoever, the shell was created by a different species of creature than those who inhabit it now.
I’m mixing my metaphors, but you get the idea.
Sure, a lot of us know that the constitution itself is of no authority. And Uncle Sam has long been a suspiciously militaristic character.
But for friends of liberty who hold the nation and its symbols dear, the image of the constitution being used as a mere disguise, a convenience, a legitimizing “outfit” for powers that are altogether illegitimate … that could be a wake-up call. How easy it is for tyrants large and small to use institutions of authority to disguise what they really are. It might get some folks asking questions.
“Who are you and what have you done with Uncle Sam? Why are you wearing his clothing? Have you mugged him, you thug, and taken everything that should have been his — and ours?”
Uncle Sam has been missing since FDR’s revolution in the form. Read Garet Garret’s “The Revolution Was” http://mises.org/daily/2726
There’s a great visual in that last interrogation, Claire. If only one of us knew how to draw… 🙂
Actually, Bill… I think “Sam” was mugged and murdered at the start of the Whiskey Rebellion. The power to tax is the power to destroy. They didn’t wait long to start the destruction.
Uncle Sam is probably being held in GITMO.
We can argue about when it all went wrong, ie.; abandoning the Articles of Confederation for the Constitution, the wrongful use of power to put down the Whiskey Rebellion (as Mama Liberty has pointed out) or countless other “violations” of our sovereignty and natural law/rights. I think the point is moot at this juncture. We got here because we failed to hold those in positions of power (the correct word should actually be stewardship) accountable. We failed to “refresh the tree of liberty every 20 years…” As T.J. said. We allowed the criminal element in government to run amok and unchallenged…and here we are, wondering when it all went wrong.
Sadly, what passes for Uncle Sam is some jingoistic notion of pseudo-patriotism parading as “freedom”. Does anyone really believe that a nation of over 300 million, so diverse (I hate that word in its current usage) and so widespread could possibly be held together under one set of rules? I believe you could wrap a pile of dog shit in the flag and most ‘mericans would buy it. The average American is ignorant of economics, history, law, foreign policy and reality….and if you ‘don’t know you past, you can’t know your future.”
Any thinking person can see this current incarnation can not hold. And it is not limited to the U.S. It is all of Western Civilization. Look at Euroland. Let it fall! Cast away all delusions of restoration. It ain’t gonna happen. This ship is sinking and the best we can hope for is that whatever comes next is better than what the American ideal has metastasized into.
Time to be building tribe, polishing valuable life skills and prepare to repel violent marauders (most likely wearing state issued costumes).
Claire, I guess it depends on who you consider “Founders”. Was it that gang that staged the coup d’etat in 1787? Or was it Patrick Henry, Sam Adams, and the men on the Lexington Common? Was it institution, or was it rebellion against tyranny?
Back then the idea of true liberty, that is, anarchy, was not quite yet ready for the world, so it’s no surprise that we ended up as we have. I don’t look down on them for not having gotten everything right. But it’s ready now. Our turn is coming soon.
Well said Paul.
It is very irritating to me that our younger generations have No Clue as to the events you have listed above. And that that is by design I have no doubt.
As you rightly point out, it is not fair to attempt to pass the blame to the fellows who tried to craft a bastion of Liberty for the globe. They knew that evil men were about and apparently neglected to include a reminder to the populace of the participation necessary to keep the Liberty torch lit.
Human hubris and general apathy then took over and within 10 years the creation was dead. [see reference to coup d’etat above]
I only Hope that the necessary shuffling, that we all see coming, happens in my active lifetime so that my grand children can live out their lives in Peace and Liberty.
Let it be so ….
“Who are you and what have you done with Uncle Sam?
Steppenwolf asked that question back in the Viet Nam era. Those of you with some gray hair may remember Steppenwolf. They had a song called “Monster”. Probably written while under the influence of a green leafy substance, and sounded better that way as well. But the writer saw the truth, applicable then, and even more so now.
An excerpt:
And though the past has it’s share of injustice
Kind was the spirit in many a way
But it’s protectors and friends have been sleeping
Now it’s a monster and will not obey
The spirit was freedom and justice
And it’s keepers seem friendly and kind
It’s leaders were supposed to serve the country
But now they won’t pay it no mind
‘Cause the people got fat and grew lazy
Now their vote is like a meaningless joke
You know they talk about law, about order
But it’s all just an echo of what they’ve been told
‘Cause there’s a monster on the loose
It’s got our heads into a noose
And it just sits there watchin’
Our cities have turned into jungles
And corruption is stranglin’ the land
The police force is watching the people
And the people just can’t understand
We don’t know how to mind our own business
‘Cause the whole worlds got to be just like us
Now we are fighting a war over there
No matter who wins, you know we can’t pay the cost
America where are you now?
Don’t you care about your sons and daughters?
Don’t you know we need you now
We can’t fight alone against the monster
Apparently neglected? No, evil men were part of the formation of the Constitution and later the Bill of Rights. They would’ve had a hard time getting in any penalty clauses.
Remember, they would protect their own, even deep into the future as they can.
Kevin 3%, the problem was not “the wrongful use of power to put down the Whiskey Rebellion” – NO, NO and NO. The tax THEFT was the actual problem, and the collection method merely injury added to insult. I don’t read anywhere that these poor farmers agreed to the “tax.” But, as so often happens, I think I remember that the BIG liquor producers thought the tax a dandy idea… so their small competitors could be put out of business. Seems to me that’s happened a lot over the last 250 years or so.
A “steward” has to be given authority by the owner to do his job, and must be subject to discipline or being fired at any time. If that “steward” is given authority OVER the owners, and immunity from the laws against force and theft that bind everyone else… well, that’s not stewardship, that’s plain old tyranny.
The bottom line is that some of us – as self owners – refuse to hire any “stewards” at all. Of course, all those who wish to live by theft and force have no intention of allowing any of us mundane folk to opt out. As long as most people think they can live at someone else’s expense by “voting,” it isn’t likely they’ll vote to stop that theft. So, the “stewards” will joyfully keep raking in their “piece of the action” for as long as possible too.
In Czarist Russia, the government put a lot of work into sustaining the myth of the benevolent czar — the idea that the czar was a father-figure of almost superhuman goodness, who felt an overwhelming sense of care and concern for his subjects. This myth largely worked for the benefit of the government, but could backfire.
James C. Scott, who has researched grassroots resistance, wrote: “Perhaps the most remarkable feature of the myth was its plasticity in the hands of its peasant adherents. First and foremost, it was an invitation to resist any or all of the czar’s supposed agents, who could not have been carrying out the good czar’s wishes if they imposed heavy taxes, conscription, rents, military corvĂ©e, and so forth. If the czar only knew of the crimes his faithless agents were committing in his name, he would punish them and rectify matters. When petitions failed and oppression continued, it may simply have indicated that an impostor—a false czar—was on the throne. In such cases, the peasants who joined the banners of a rebel claiming to be the true czar would be demonstrating their loyalty to the monarchy.… In a form of symbolic jujitsu, an apparently conservative myth counselling passivity becomes a basis for defiance and rebellion… ”
The place of the benevolent, fatherly Czar in American folklore is held by the U.S. Constitution. Many Americans believe that this document describes or prophesies a good, honest, faithful, protective, restrained government. In this mythology, the reason the present government does not match this description, although it claims the Constitution as its source of authority, is because it is a fraud—a sort of impostor on the throne. Sometimes this mythology hearkens for a never-yet-enacted sort of Platonic constitutional order; other times it pretends to find such an order in the misty past of the real history of the United States and believes that we were somehow expelled from this political Eden but can find our way back if we keep the faith.
Based on many variations of this myth, a large and enduring subculture of “constitutionalists” has developed, who subscribe to an increasingly baroque and ever-evolving mythology in which much of the federal government apparatus is operating outside of the *real* United States government and that one can best show one’s loyalty to the U.S. Constitution by treating the government as a hostile foreign cancer, impersonating healthy tissue in the body politic but having no real authority.
Do you believe in the benevolent czar?