I have, like many others around the world, been watching the greatest fail we have seen in a long, long time. Referring, of course, to the very recent slow-moving train wreck known as the Red Wave Which Wasn’t, resulting in an abysmal showing for the Republican Party in the 2022 midterms.

Typically, in a mid-term election, the party which holds the White House loses seats in Congress that substantially shifts the balance of power from one party to the other. It does not always happen this way, but often enough that the pattern has been established and borne out for decades. This election, however, bucked the trend noticeably.

“Holding an election is one of the simpler tasks for a society. People show up, then prove they are who they claim to be and that they are eligible to vote. Rational societies limit the franchise to those who have a stake in society. That means criminals and lunatics are not allowed to vote. The votes are then counted and the results are posted. The winners cheer and the losers promise to do better next time…In America, our election system is on the cusp of collapse. States like Arizona and Nevada are now unable to count the votes. Fraud is so rampant that no honest person thinks the results are on the level. Pennsylvania supposedly voted for a brain-damaged hobo to be their senator. Joe Biden has severe dementia and we are supposed to believe he is the most popular man since Jesus.”

https://www.takimag.com/article/rise-of-the-spiteful-mutants/

The winners cheer. The losers promise to do better next time. In other words, our candidate won, which means that the world is now back on the right (correct) track and headed in the right (correct) direction. Praise be to the religious system known as democracy! Or, conversely, our candidate lost, which means that the world is going to hell in a handbasket and we really have all got to work harder to get more people to vote our way the next time around. Those dastardly rats have stolen the election, taken advantage of us…again!

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me again, shame on me.

Welcome to the Status Quo, the reigning belief that men and women (or more accurately, SOME men and women) can solve the problems we face if we simply give them the power they need to make the necessary changes which we are convinced need to be adopted. The major problem with this line of thinking is that everyone’s opinion of what changes are necessary is countered by another person’s opinion which is in opposition. In other words, a push-and-pull tug of war in the middle of a mudhole which results in no clear winner…except for those on the sidelines who are holding and directing the spray of water from the hose which is constantly enlarging the mudhole.

But why do we keep playing the game anyway? Is it not because we operate under a flawed mentality that the way we think is the only correct way and that we must work to impose our views on everyone else via the (time-tested and proven false) means of democracy and voting in every election? Do we not believe that if we only vote the correct way (our way) and get our man or woman into office, then our problems can be solved? Do we not believe that “right” government will correct all the evils which “wrong” government enacted and imposed on us against our will? In other words, we want someone, anyone, to ascend to the Pinnacle of Power who will force everyone else to behave themselves, that is, behave themselves according to our own personal way of thinking. Unfortunately, this never happens. Instead we are mired in a mudhole of delusion while reality stands separate and above.

“A forever expanding list of saviors that will right the wrongs and jump tall buildings in a single bound…The Deep State runs the country, so the actor that gets the official nod from the voters after getting the official nod from the political parties after getting the official nod from the Deep State, won’t change a damned thing. The last 50 years, at least, show that there will be no change of direction because the owners of the country like things as they are.” (Roatan Bill, see Comment #27)

https://www.unz.com/imercer/ron-desantis-delivers-first-principles-in-action/

Good on you, Roatan Bill. This is a very concise and accurate description of the process. But, then, who is Roatan Bill? Perhaps you prefer to hear from someone more famous, more influential.

“Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of a day. But a series of oppressions, pursued unalterably through every change of ministers, too plainly proves a deliberate systematic plan of reducing us to slavery.”

Thomas Jefferson

And this deliberately systematic reduction into slavery has been ongoing from the very beginning with the voluntary complicity of those who continually endorse it.

What is the root cause? What drives people to opt into a system which is designed to enslave them? I submit two things.

1. Greed. We know what we want and we want to have it…and more. Right now! We are never satisfied and bend every effort to gain more, even at the expense of others regardless as to whom they might be. And those others are also trying to live under the same attitude. Greed is what drove Adam and Eve to take a bite out of the apple in the Garden of Eden. They had everything they could ask for–except what they were told they could not have. More.
2. Fear. People are generally afraid of losing what they already possess and they will do virtually anything to prevent the loss of those possessions, even if it means that they support a tyrant who promises protection and safety with various means, while robbing them blind through other methods.

Out of these springs the desire for control. Not only control of ourselves and what we have, but also a desire to control everyone else around us because we want what they have AND because we are afraid that they will take what we already have. If this is correct, then it is evident that those who endorse the system and who vote to perpetuate it are not only concerned about what they can personally gain from it, but more truthfully, whether consciously or not, use it as a means of self-defense, to prevent someone from taking what they think is theirs.

Greed and fear walk hand-in-hand, but fear is the stronger of the two. Boil the whole thing down to its most basic element and what is left at the end is fear–the fear of loss in this life and the fear of death at the end of it. Tyranny and politics are overwhelmingly dependent on fear. Truth is that everything we have, think we have, is going to be taken away from us sooner or later, up to and including our lives. We have no rational basis for being afraid.

If the truth makes you uncomfortable, don’t blame the truth, blame the lie that made you comfortable. Fear is a liar. Live not by lies. Conquer the fear and live.