On the Culture of Fear and Self Censorship

(still getting the fonts,etc. figgered out..)

I'm finding that I enjoy this blogging. It's cathartic. I've got a lot to say, and no local forum in which to say it. I became so tired of trying to explain myself , of giving a class every time I wanted to utter my two cents, that I gave up entirely and receded into my mountain fastness. I spend a considerable amount of time conversing exclusively w/ my 2-year old son. I love him, and his elder brother, dearly, but it is not exactly an intellectual outlet...
I've been a House-Husband for almost 3 years, now; part-time before that to avoid day-care for my oldest.
It feels like a vacuum. The wasteland of daytime TV offers no respite.
I've been aware of my tendancy to piss folks off for a long time. It usually seems to be about misunderstandings on their part or my ignorance of social conventions. I seem to have an inordinate amount of talent for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time.
Add to this situation the post-911 world we find around us, and it looked like the prudent course to remove to the farm and speak only with bird and turtles.There has been great upwelling of Anti-Enlightenment sentiment of late.
I , of course, blame the Right wing lunatics who have hijacked the country. Read Leo Strauss and one finds the philosophy behind it. Strauss , and his 'intellectual' heirs, hated and feared everything liberal ( in the actual, classical, dictionary sense). In their view, the Enlightenment was the worst thing that ever happened.Democracy? Liberty? All men created Equal? Horsefeathers!!!
In his insane interpretation of Plato's Republic, Strauss found justification for his most Elitest sentiments. The great, unwashed masses (that's us...) are too stupid and shortsighted to be trusted with governing themselves,or anything else. What the masses need, and unconciously want, is a Ruling Elite: those precious few , born into the best families, who can best manage the world.Macchiavelli could have done no better than this, and is ,indeed, very popular among the Junta we know and love today.This bunch believes, fervently, in The Noble Lie; the system of myths that keep the masses busy and content, leaving the Rulers to do what's good and necessary.
When I think about this kind of thing, or try to explain my thinking to my wife (long-suffering, patient woman.)the Matrix serves as a handy allegory. The Noble Lie is "..The world thats been pulled over your eyes to hide the Truth...".
Anyhoo,, our zietgeist of the past 7-8 years has had the effect of encouraging me to shut my mouth.
I got involved in local political activity for the 2004 election, volunteered for the Dem's.(we're a Red county). It seemed so futile, after a while. The "Liberals" around here,20 years ago would have been considered Conservatives. And the Conservatives!!! What a nest of vile , backstabbing, self-serving hypocrites.
I realised that I'd soon get myself killed if I continued to take part.My world-view was/is just too far outside the norm to be parading around in front of these yokels. In fact, once, during a "debate" at a local watering hole,drunk to a man, a pseudoFascist actually tried to strangle me when I suggested that Bush was THE WORST president EVER and should be IMPEACHED and JAILED forthwith!
Free Speech , it seems will not be tolerated in the Reich.
Add to all this, the pronouncements from on high that we should be terrified at anything "out of the ordinary" while we Patriotically Shop and Big Brother surveilling the Web and the phones and the mail and meetings of antiwar groups and Quakers(!) and it was obviously time to become a Hermit.
Blogging is reasonably anonymous, although I have no delusions of being untraceable.So far, it seems just another for of shouting at the mountain out back or arguing with the goats and donkeys.Soon, I expect to have geese to wrangle with, as well.
And maybe, maybe the tide is turning on the mood in this country.One must reserve a measure of Hope.
I will continue to be a curmudgeon and I will give my honest, unvarnished opinion when asked. Perhaps The great tradition of cynicism and tirades against the status quo will have a renaissance. Judging from the nightmare of the 1st decade of the 21st century, I'd say it's about time.