The topic of gun control makes headline news in America every time there’s a mass shooting, which is almost yearly now. Even without those events, the topic of gun control rarely leaves the public discourse because Americans are killed and terrorized by guns every day. Even if Americans didn’t want to hear about guns, tens of millions of dollars are spent every year by both pro and anti-gun control groups to lobby politicians and create propaganda for the public. And guns are such a normal way of life in America that they’re celebrated and satirized in American movies and television daily.
With guns so ingrained in American culture, it’s impossible to have a productive public conversation about them. Both sides are right about some things, but they both overvalue some of their arguments. Since most mainstream news organizations are fighting tooth and nail for ratings, they tend to paint the issue black, white and divisive, but gun control is a kaleidoscopic grey area. It’s an enigma wrapped in a riddle.
Americans can speak with authority on guns because everyone knows somebody who owns one. But most Americans have never left America. There are 195 other countries in the world, and between them, every possible combination of gun control laws are in place somewhere. When discussing the possible consequences of implementing different laws, the question isn’t, “What would happen?” The question is, “What’s happening?”
Before I offer my theory on what combination I advocate, I want to share my personal experiences in the countries I’ve been to.
Mexico– Every Mexican has the constitutional right to own firearms, but there are very strict laws on what kind they can own, and they’re basically not allowed to carry them outside their home. The gun laws in Mexico don’t really apply though, because criminal organizations are stronger than the government, and guns are extremely easy to obtain. To be fair, there are a lot of places in Mexico where people don’t lock their doors at night, but other cities are nightmares to live in. Guns are the number one reason I would not live in Mexico.
Israel, Greece, Egypt, and Italy– When visiting each of these countries I didn’t know what their gun laws were. I was standing in a bazaar in Jerusalem when I heard random gunfire in the distance, and nobody around me batted an eye. I witnessed a large, angry protest smash a car in front of the Parliament building in Greece, which was surrounded by riot police carrying automatic weapons. In Egypt, there was a mounted machine gun in front of my hotel, and while living in Italy, I saw Carabinieri police with automatic weapons every day. In these four very different countries, I got very comfortable with seeing heavily armed guards on the street corners. After leaving Israel, I flew to New York, where I felt naked on the streets and longed to be surrounded by automatic weapons. Granted, if I were a black man in New York or a Palestinian in Israel, I would have had different experiences.
Slovakia, Slovenia, and Croatia- These countries have pretty middle of the road gun laws, and I felt reasonably safe. However, I was in a nightclub in Croatia, where one of my friends kicked over a bottle of beer and shattered it on the dance floor. An Australian we were hanging out with, who had been living there for a year said, “Be careful. That bouncer over there has seven lines cut into his forearm. That’s for each person he killed in the war. Life is cheap here, mate. Don’t piss people off.” So obviously, any debate about gun control laws must also address the larger issue of what causes people to be violent in general.
Germany, France, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Holland– These countries have mostly strict gun laws, but out of all of them, Switzerland has the least. Of all the countries I’ve visited, I felt the safest in these countries, and I felt the safest in Switzerland. This is partly due to laws, but these countries also have the highest quality of living of all the countries I’ve visited. The locals just don’t have as much stress and desperation motivating them to kill each other.
Kuwait- Regardless of the laws in the Middle East, weapons are easy to get. Life is cheap and hard, and there are a lot of ideological extremists who divide the world into “us versus them.” This is a recipe for violence, and weapon manufacturers are fanning the flames. I wouldn’t live in the Middle East even if I could, and every year hundreds of thousands of refugees risk their lives leaving their country because it’s a better option than facing the guns and bombs at home.
Cambodia, Thailand, Vietnam– These countries have fairly strict gun policies, and the local religions tend to promote peace and harmony. I felt safe in these countries when I was in affluent areas, but I didn’t venture into impoverished neighborhoods because the threat of being robbed is very real there. Even when a society has strict gun laws and a pacifist attitude, poverty will still create criminals who have less to lose and more to gain from picking up a gun than obeying the law or social norms.
The UK, New Zealand– These countries have fairly strict gun laws, but they have high levels of economic inequality. I felt safer in these countries than in America, and I was more afraid of being stabbed than shot.
America– I went to two different high schools in Texas. At one of them, students had gun racks full of shotguns and rifles in their trucks, which they parked on campus, and nobody ever worried about it. When I attended the other school I lived two blocks from the projects and would hear random gunfire from my bedroom window at night. I would never walk the streets after dark. When I lived in Hawaii, I was awoken one morning by a man shooting an AK-47 randomly outside my apartment as he went door to door looking for the man who raped his sister. I told that story to a friend of mine in Texas, and I asked, “Where do you even get an AK-47?” My friend replied, “Do you have $300. I’ll get you an AK-47 today.” I’m afraid to live in America.
If there’s one thing most of the world agrees on, it’s that insane people and violent criminals should not be allowed to own guns. There’s nothing wrong that. It’s been said that, “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people.” But if you give a monkey a gun, a random person is going to get shot.
So my four solutions to gun violence are:
1: Don’t let crazy people and repeat-offenders own guns.
Another concept that’s not up for debate is that “opportunity creates the criminal.” The more people have guns, the more gun deaths will result from accidents and crimes of passion. Just because some people can own a gun responsibly doesn’t mean everyone can. If you want the general public to have easy access to guns, you need to ask yourself how many inevitable gun deaths you’re willing to accept for that freedom.
Any violent gun-owning criminal will tell you that the easier it is to legally buy a gun, the easier it is to illegally buy a gun. So it’s shortsighted to say, “Criminals don’t follow laws. So if the public can’t have guns, only criminals will have them.” In reality, the more guns the public has, the more guns criminals will have, and as I just mentioned, more otherwise peaceful people will become violent offenders.
To address this problem I would be fine with either of these solutions:
2: Only allow current members and veterans of law enforcement and the military to own guns.
The Second Amendment states, “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” If the right to bear arms is related to militias, then it stands to reason people who own guns should be patriots who have some experience with organized fighting. I’m not saying this is the best solution to the gun control issue, but it’s better than allowing any crazy person to hoard guns.
3: Make gun safety a required class in public k-12 schools.
It’s been said that, “American’s weren’t meant to be safe. They were meant to be free.” But the basis of the social contract is limiting people’s freedoms to hurt each other. You’re not free to drive a car without a license. You’re not free to practice medicine without a license. You’re not free to hold public office without meeting a few requirements. It’s easier to get a gun in America than it is to open a business, get divorced or buy a house. There’s a limit to how many freedoms we should sacrifice for safety, but everyone’s life is already saturated with inhibiting laws. Screaming about gun control is screaming at a single tree in a vast forest that’s on fire. If you’re going to get mad that you don’t have easy access to assault weapons, you should be screaming about having to get a driver’s license or wear a seatbelt.
If you truly, madly, deeply believe that American citizens should be able to own guns in order to defend their rights from an oppressive government, you should already be overthrowing the American government. Americans aren’t free. The average American isn’t represented in government, and America isn’t the good guy. I’m not actually saying that we should all band together and violently overthrow the government. I’m just saying that if you use the “protection against tyranny” argument then you’re naive at best, a part of the problem at worst, and a hypocrite either way.
You already know you don’t stand a chance in Hell of defeating the U.S. military with weapons you bought from a pawn shop. As much of a beating as the U.S. military has taken fighting loosely organized, moderately armed rebels in the Middle East, America is still over there killing people every day. The American war machine will keep fighting until everyone you know is dead and the country is bankrupt. Armed insurrection in America is not an option.
You don’t need to overthrow the government to make America a better place anyway. Even if you did overthrow the government, it wouldn’t matter what kind of gun laws you put in place afterward. The main determining factor in whether or not people will commit crimes with any kind of weapon is ultimately poverty. If you’re screaming because you’re worried the government is going to take away your assault weapons, you’re distracting the public from the fundamental problem with society: the oppressive economic system. Regardless of what the current gun laws are, if you’re truly worried about your (or anyone else’s) ability to preserve your life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, then you need to worry about poverty first and foremost.
So my final solution to the gun question is this:
4: Save the gun debate until after we’ve addressed the main threat to people’s lives that lead to most gun violence, to begin with: poverty.
Poverty causes stress and crime. Add guns and you have a recipe for perpetual violence that no amount of regulations can stop. If everyone were secure and content, like in Switzerland, you could give everyone a gun for free and you’d have less gun violence than a country with high income inequality and totalitarian gun laws.
1. “Corporate financing of political campaigns leads to corporate control of the country.”
You know it. I know it. Protestors know it, and nobody knows it better than politicians, but campaigning politicians never promise to end corporate sponsoring of politicians. Until that happens nothing will change, and we all know it, but people still act like it matters which politicians we elect when the only people they represent are their campaign donors.
2.The War in Iraq
George W. Bush told the world Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and gave Iraq an ultimatum: give up the WMDs or get invaded. Sadam didn’t give up the WMDs, and America invaded. Then it became public knowledge that the Bush administration knew Saddam never had WMDs. Then George Bush said the real reason the U.S. invaded Iraq was to free the Iraqi people. Then the U.S. spent 10+ years fighting off people in the Middle East who just wanted the American military to leave their country and quit killing civilians. Meanwhile, there are countless other people begging to be rescued and freed from ruthless dictators who are too poor to attract America’s attention. There should be an entire prison built to hold all the people who should go to jail for the Iraq war. We know this, and we accept that no one will ever hold the Bush administration accountable.
3. American soldiers are not fighting for the freedom of the American people in Iraq.
Nobody can agree on exactly why America invaded Iraq, but everybody knows it wasn’t for the freedom of the American people. There’s just no way to connect the two. So nobody knows what the American troops are dying for, but everyone just says “freedom” and lets them go on dying.
4. Global warming is real.
For argument’s sake, let’s suppose global warming isn’t real. Just because we can screw up the planet a little more doesn’t mean we should. In a lot of ways taking care of the environment is the most important thing we can do. It’s even more important than corporate profits. Suppose environmental regulations cost companies money, which lowers their profits, which forces them to cut jobs, which hurts the economy. The worst case scenario still can’t be worse than poisoning the planet until it’s unable to support life. We know we should be taking care of the planet. We shouldn’t be arguing about this.
5. We live in a wasteful consumer economy.
We slash and burn resources and produce mountains of trash. There’s a layer of garbage the size of a continent floating in the Pacific Ocean. We shouldn’t be using disposable kitchenware or disposable plastic bags, but we’re using more disposable goods than ever and speeding up our production of garbage.
6. University degrees are flawed.
The hardest part of getting a university degree is paying for it. It’s a glass ceiling for those who can’t afford it, and it’s an unfair advantage to those who can. It’s classist, and pampered idiots all over the world are riding their paper credentials to the top of their professional organizations where they’re destroying and squandering companies built by intelligent, hardworking people who couldn’t afford as many degrees as their bosses. The higher education system is broken and overpriced. A lot of smart professors have said all this a billion times, but the glass ceiling factories keep churning.
7. The war on drugs needs to end.
Legalizing drugs worked in Holland and Portugal. The results are in. The debate is over. Academics have made their case, and every year another South American politician tells America to end the war on drugs because it’s a futile war that does more damage than it prevents. Even American policemen are calling for an end to the war on drugs. The American people used the whitehouse.gov site to send a petition to the president to legalize marijuana. The president laughed at the people, the professionals, and all their evidence. Then everyone just said, “Darn.”
8. Nudity isn’t evil.
Women shouldn’t be forced or even pressured to cover their heads or their breasts. That’s basic human equality. If a 5-year-old kid in a nudist colony sees an 80-year-old penis the kid will be grossed out. If a 5-year-old kid sees an 80-year-old penis in suburbia the old man will go to jail and the kid will be told by a therapist they’re supposed to feel traumatized. You know what would happen if we got rid of all nudity and censorship laws? Not much… because nudity is not an issue. The people who told us to hate our bodies also told us it was okay to own slaves. We stopped believing them about slavery, and most of us have stopped believing them about sexual taboos as well, but more often than not we act like prudes so nobody will suspect we’re as amoral and horny as we really are. But deep inside we all know nudity and censorship laws are overblown and unnecessary. Even if a lot of people want censorship laws in place, if their right to not be offended supersedes another human being’s right to free will, then we’ve set a dystopian precedent. Come on. With as much blatant sex is on television, cartoons and the Internet it’s obvious that the world is okay with nudity and sexuality. We just haven’t come out of the closet to ourselves about it.
9. Fox News is the most unethical, hypocritical, malicious disgrace in the history of journalism.
Fox won a court case that said they had no obligation to tell the truth. The entire world laughs and cringes at Fox News. This isn’t even a slanderous thing to say. It’s just a simple fact. The organization wears its business model on its sleeve for everyone to see. Fox News is not fair and balanced. It pushes the limits of free speech by lying and sensationalizing disinformation for the purpose of instigating social disharmony. That’s dystopian, and it’s real, and it’s still respected. That’s terrifying.
10.Israel invaded Palestine and forced the Palestinians into ghettos where they’ve been systematically stripped of their humanity and are being ethnically cleansed.
Israel shot aid workers trying to bring medicine to the Palestinians. Israel tortures Palestinians. These are human rights abuses. There’s no ambiguity here. Just like there’s no secret or ambiguity that North Korea is committing human rights atrocities. The world superpowers know all about these problems, but they let it go on because…even if they didn’t actively create the problem they’ve been complicit long enough to share the blame…just like the general public.
11. Police shouldn’t beat up protesters.
When the police beat up protesters then you officially live in a police state. When it’s a crime for people to gather to demand freedom, justice, and representation in government then you live in a police state. When the police shoot a veteran in the head with a tear gas canister and crack his skull and then throw a flash-bang grenade into the group of people trying to rescue him, and nobody gets fired over that incident then you live in a police state. If warrantless wiretaps, x-ray body scanners and full body searches don’t constitute a police state then what line do you have to cross before you concede you’re approaching a police state? Maybe America isn’t a police state, but it’s not the land of the free. But people keep saying it is like if they say it enough times it’ll make it okay to get groped at the airport and have your E-mails read.
12.There should not be for-profit prisons.
There should not be prisons traded on the stock market. The richer a man can get by filling prisons the faster prisons will fill. We shouldn’t incentivize incarcerating as many people as possible by allowing prisons to exempt their inmates from their basic human rights so they can work in sweatshop conditions. We’ve seen enough movies about prison to know that the guards let the inmates tear each other apart like you’d expect animals in a cage to. They even made that “Scared Straight” program to make sure children understand how unethically human beings are treated in prison. We all know how inhumane prisons are, but we’re not using that knowledge as a call to action to do the right thing.
13. Suburbs are a terrible way to design a city.
Major suburban cities are congested, unsustainable, stressful and dangerous. Every single building looks the same, and the same businesses are on every corner. Everything is too far to walk to, and the suburbs are so bland and lifeless you wouldn’t want to look at them if you did have to walk through them. They force us to spend our lives in traffic wasting time and resources traveling. But cities don’t have to suck. We have the technology to build ultra-efficient floating cities for less money than it costs to maintain the broken, unplanned cities we’ve scarred the earth with. If nothing else, we could just stop expanding suburbia and start designing new suburbs more effectively. But we’re not even doing that. 24 hours per day somewhere there is a crane and a tractor clearing the earth to make way for another isolated, unsustainable, boring cookie cutter suburb. And they’ll keep going until there’s no land left. And we’re all watching the train wreck shouting for it to stop while paying our mortgages and rent in the suburbs.
14. Everyone who has ever bought a house knows that the housing market is a giant scam.
Mortgages are full of meaningless add-on fees and charges. Interest rates could be set at anything. They’re set high to squeeze more money out of the customer. That’s it. Banks don’t make money unless they’re fucking their customers in the ass. And we let them get away with it because we assume there’s some higher economic reason why it has to be nearly impossible to buy a home. But really it just comes down to “fuck you.” That’s why houses are so expensive, and that’s why homelessness is so common. Again, this isn’t a secret. But it is something you’re children are going to have to learn for themselves because apparently nobody is going to change the way banks fuck their customers in the ass.
15.Politicians should have competency and sanity tests.
Anyone familiar with politics at all can name a few examples of politicians who were arguably unqualified to hold office. There’s nothing un-American about competency exams. Everyone’s careers are built on competency and character tests. The people with the most responsibility should be held to the highest level of accountability. Anything less is a recipe for disaster. Everyone wants a better president, and it’s crossed everyone’s mind that maybe if we screen the candidates a little better, then we’ll get a better pool to choose from. If nothing else the voters would be fine with giving politicians drug tests…just like politicians have mandated that soldiers and school janitors have to take drug tests.
16.Everyone knows teachers are being used as a scapegoat for society’s failures.
Schools don’t suck because teachers are stupid. School suck because they’re underfunded and the parents have made it illegal for schools to enforce discipline. Every political and religious organization big enough to fill a P.T.A. board or donate to a politician’s election campaign can have their warped ideology forced onto the Department of Education. The one person with the least amount of say or control over the classroom is the teacher. And they’re too busy filling out paperwork for the performance-monitoring companies that are bankrupting the school to build meaningful relationships with their students. Kids in school know this. They know the system is rigged against the teachers. Everybody does, and we know it’s crippling children forever. But the only way it’s going to change is for parents to accept some responsibility for their children’s performance and cede some authority to the school system. Experience has taught me not to expect that level of humility from first world parents.
17.People want to be able to listen to any song whenever they want and watch any television show, movie or clip ever created any time they want.
And we have the technology to allow that. We’re just not allowed to use it. If Hollywood won’t give their customers what they want, then their customers will go somewhere else to get it. If Hollywood made one website where anyone could access any song, show or movie anytime and it would work without any hassle then everyone would pay a premium for that luxury. As it stands, you can either go pay a ton of money to a bunch of different services to get random access to media or you can go get it all for free on a pirate site as long as you’re willing to deal with pop-ups and virus threats. Customers don’t pirate because they’re evil. They pirate because it’s a more user-friendly way to access the content they want. Hollywood needs to stop blaming their customers for expecting a better consumer experience. The world is waiting for Hollywood to get its shit together and offer everything it’s got in one place for a flat fee. You can make excuses for why that’s not legally possible, but as long as that excuse continues to prevent customers from getting what they want legally, they’re going to keep paying pirates to host and organize pirated media. We’re all waiting for Hollywood to save itself, but we’re not holding our breath. All we really expect Hollywood to do is bribe more Orwellian-worded spying legislation through Congress.
18.Everyone knows Hollywood creates anti-intellectual crap that is lowering humanity’s potential.
“Jersey Shore,” “Full House” and “Saved by the Bell” should never have been on television. Television was supposed to help mankind fulfill its potential, not record it celebrating its suicide. Celebrities are irrelevant. If you buy celebrity gossip magazines at the checkout line you’re retarded. That’s not mean of me to say, because if you buy those magazines, you know you’re an idiot, and you don’t care. But when you look at those magazines in the future look at them as a test. The more of those that get sold the more people there are who are living in the dumbest reality you can create in a Los Angeles basement. The most dangerous force in the world is a large, frightened group of dumb people. The more gossip magazines you see, the higher the apocalypse threat level is.
19.Everyone knows their phones and shoes were made in sweatshops.
But if you boycotted every product that was made in a sweatshop you’d die from starvation and exposure. Slavery isn’t the exception in our economy, it’s the premise. So what do you do? Apparently, you just give up thinking about the problem and carry on with your life. We’ve been ignoring the problem for over 10,000 years. Why would we do anything different now?
It’s common knowledge that these problems and their solutions exist. People have been talking about them for years. Maybe if we just talked about them a little more we can actually fix them. If you don’t see any of these problems getting fixed in the coming years though, then that may be a good sign that you should invest in a bunker because we can’t stay this ignorant and apathetic forever without blundering into some kind of avoidable extinction level event.
20. It’s past time churches started paying taxes.
Taxes help people. Tax havens attract dishonest people. Taxing churches is a win/win situation for everyone. And why should believing in mythology be rewarded anyway? The tax-free status of religious organizations is archaic and obsolete. Even religious people understand that…even if they won’t admit it.
In many cities, it’s illegal to sleep in your car or public spaces. So you’re practically forced to rent or buy a home. It’s becoming harder to find housing in neighborhoods that aren’t deed restricted and/or managed by a home owner’s association, which can fine you and ultimately confiscate your property as punishment for not mowing your lawn, planting trees that are too short, having the wrong kind of vehicle in your driveway, painting your house the wrong color or having a garage sale in your front yard without first paying for permission, etc., etc., etc.
Local, state and federal laws place further restrictions on what you can and can’t do in your own home. In some states, a deadbeat renter can stop paying and stay in your house rent free until you pay to go through the year-long process of having them evicted, and you can go to jail if you inconvenience them in any way while they squat on your property.
There are so many laws dictating how to buy/sell property that you have to hire a professional realtor to help you navigate the labyrinth of rules. Mortgage and tax laws double the cost of a 30-year mortgage, making it impossible for poor people to afford even the cheapest real estate. The laws that inflate the cost of housing don’t have to exist. The government that keeps saying it’s going to fix the housing market created and enforces those laws.
Even if you buy land in the country, where building laws are laxer, you still have to pay property taxes you never agreed to, or you’ll have your property taken away. So it’s impossible to move off the grid with no money and survive like our pioneer ancestors did.
2: Your roads are not free
Traffic laws are necessary evils. Drivers should have to stop at stop signs/lights, but many traffic laws fall into morally gray areas, like why you have to wear a seatbelt in a car (yet it’s legal to ride a motorcycle, which has no seat belt), or follow arbitrary speed limits in the middle of nowhere, park on the side of the road in the direction of traffic in low-traffic suburbs, register your vehicle every year or pay private companies for auto insurance. Probably the most cut and dry example of government overreach is jaywalking laws. If you can’t walk across the road, how free are you really?
Even if these laws are reasonable, the consequences for breaking them aren’t. If you have no savings and make $1,000 per paycheck, a simple speeding ticket can cost 10%-50% of your total net worth. If you’re poor, traffic fines come out of your rent and grocery money. If you’re rich, the cost is inconsequential. This is why some European countries have made traffic fines relative to income, so the rich can feel the same magnitude of consequences as the poor. This will never happen in America, and some people would call that a win for freedom, but I call the system we have now, economic oppression.
You’re almost guaranteed to get a ticket eventually, because law enforcement agencies partly fund their budgets by issuing citations. This motivates them to aggressively hunt and harass drivers. That’s life in America. When you see a police cruiser, you don’t feel safe. Fear and panic jolt down your spine, and you try to act as calm as possible and hope the shark circles away and eats someone else. This fear is completely rational, because everyone knows the cops are preying on the public for funding, and we all know they’re doing an amazing job at it. They shake down the public for $7.5 billion a year. The more money they make, the more tools they can afford to hunt more people with.
3: Your public spaces are not free.
It’s illegal to sleep, skate, loiter, smoke, or walk your dog in many public spaces. You can also be fined or jailed for public indecency and public intoxication.
I knew a man in Texas who walked home from a bar because he was too drunk to drive and was arrested for public intoxication. I went tubing on the San Marcos River in Texas, and when I reached the exit point, there were three police making everyone pour any alcohol they had left out in the river, and if anyone tried to bring an open container out of the water, they’d be given a ticket. Those police didn’t stop anything bad from happening that day. They just scared and harassed the public as usual.
Some American may say, “Yeah, cops are a hassle, but I don’t want drunk tubers and stoned skaters around me.” The more you justify banning any behavior, the more you justify banning freedom. You can’t go anywhere in America where some kind of behavior isn’t banned. Even if you leave the city and escape to nature in of the America’s national parks, you’ll have to drive past a guard shack where a government employee will charge you money and give you a list of all the rules you have to follow. Then park rangers will check up on you to make sure you’re following all the rules, and they’ll force you to leave when your time runs out.
Even though the First Amendment states, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances,” citizens are only allowed to organize a large-scale protest if they apply for a permit, and even then, the times and places you’re allowed to protest are severely limited, and the police will mace, taze, beat and arrest you for exercising your First Amendment right outside the cordoned area assigned to you. Even if you do everything right, you’ll still probably be attacked by the police.
4: Your workplace is not free
Employers can force employees to wear humiliating uniforms and drastically censor the way they talk and act whether they’re at work or off the clock. Hospitals are fining and firing workers who are caught smoking cigarettes at home. Employers can take their employees’ blood and urine for drug tests. Employment contracts often include clauses that require applicants to waive any number or rights and freedoms.
Citizens who join the military sign a contract that waives all their rights. This is legal because they volunteer, but most troops enlist, not out of patriotism, but out of economic desperation. So America’s economy creates poverty that drives poor people to sign away their rights out of desperation and then go fight to secure an economy that creates poverty and uses that desperation as leverage to get people to “voluntarily” waive the freedoms they’re fighting for. In this way, the military defends poverty and oppression more than it defends freedom. You can say it’s necessary for the troops to sacrifice their freedoms, but don’t say America is the land of the free when 1% of the population isn’t.
Most Americans spend half their waking hours at work. So they spend half their lives in a space where they’re not free. If a foreign government took over America and extended the same restrictions outside the workplace, there would be riots in the streets since that would be a clear violation of human rights.
Many Americans will angrily defend these practices when employers do it, arguing that if you don’t like the terms and conditions of a contract, you’re free to go work somewhere else. This argument loses weight when every business in the country places similar conditions on employment. Being free to choose who takes away your freedom isn’t freedom. In a utopia, the needs of a business wouldn’t trump the dignity of the workers to begin with. It just goes to show how far America has gone down the road to dystopia that we would justify and defend our own oppression. Freedom is so foreign to us that we’re scared and disgusted by the thought of it.
Business owners have a lot to answer for, but they’re also victims themselves. Every step of the process of opening a small business is mired in bureaucratic red tape. The tax laws alone are enough to scare reasonable people into closing their business.
I registered a small business in Texas in 2008. I didn’t make any profit the first quarter and didn’t report it to the government. They sent me a letter saying that since I didn’t report any earnings, they assumed I made enough profit to owe $1,000 in taxes, which they billed me for. They didn’t fine me. They picked an arbitrary number and sentenced me guilty without evidence, which violates the legal principle of “innocent until proven guilty.” They could have just as easily worded it as a fine, but the fact that they went out of their way to frame their actions in a way that violates the Declaration of Human Rights just goes to show how meaningless that document is to the American government.
I paid the fine and closed the business soon after. If my company had been successful I would have eventually had to hire a lawyer and a human resource department to make sure I was in compliance with the thousands of laws I don’t have time to learn. Conservative Americans in particular cry that there are too many regulations strangling businesses, and while don’t believe companies should be able to freely pollute the environment or exploit their employees, every business owner can agree the government has made it soul-crushingly difficult to operate a business.
5: Your school is not free
Schools that don’t require uniforms still have some sort of dress code. While it’s good that kids aren’t going to school naked, the rules aren’t always reasonable. At my high school men had to wear a belt, and if they were caught without one, they would be given a piece of rope to tie around their waist. Many schools forbid wearing offensive clothing, which is subject to opinion. Others don’t allow students to wear red or blue clothing because it’s considered gang-related. There are also puritanical limits on how students can talk or act.
Moral policing is even worse in college, where teachers can be fired and students can be expelled for committing microaggressions that offend overly sensitive professional victims. Students and faculty aren’t allowed to speak out against legitimate grievances either. Staging nonviolent protests will likely end with you and your classmates being maced and arrested.
Teachers have even less freedom to dress, act and express themselves than students. They can lose their job and go to jail for breaking up a fight or defending themselves against a student who is attacking them, and they have little power to fight for more rights since it’s illegal for teachers to unionize in some states.
Some people might say the freedoms you lose in school are negligible, and that nitpicking them is just being whiny. This raises the question, how “big” does a freedom have to be before it’s important enough that it shouldn’t be taken away? Maybe Americans are so lackadaisical about their freedoms being taken away because they’ve been trained to get used to it at school.
6: Your electronic devices are not free
The American government spends billions of taxpayer dollars on top-secret surveillance technology that taxpayers aren’t allowed to know about, and if a government employee leaks this information, they’ll be labeled a traitor and face life imprisonment or execution.
Congress keeps telling Americans that their surveillance programs are well-meaning and limited in scope, but the public has to take that on faith and has no power to stop it. While citizens theoretically have the freedom of speech (when they’re not at work), the government has the freedom to sneak into almost any communication device to find out what you’re saying and who you’re saying it to. They also have broad powers to label anyone a terrorist, even peaceful political activists. So Americans only have the freedom of speech until it becomes inconvenient for the existing power structure. Then they have the right to remain silent.
7: Your finances are not free
Even if you were free to dress, talk and act however you want, whenever you want, your freedom still only extends as far as your bank account. Nothing is free in America, and everything costs as much as possible. If you make minimum wage, which is less than the living wage, the cost of living necessitates you work at least 40 hours per week just to survive. Even then, your quality of life will be inhumane. You won’t be able to afford to travel, take time off (even when you’re sick or pregnant), change jobs, go to school, or go pretty much anywhere except to work and back home. You’re functionally under house arrest. While the government didn’t officially impose this sentence on you, they did meticulously craft the conditions that led to it.
If you have enough money to hire a lawyer and pay bail, you’re functionally free to break most laws. If you’re poor, you’re easy prey for the prison-industrial complex. Even if you obey the law, earn enough to save and have disposable income, your options in life are still limited to how much money you have, and every dollar you spend limits those choices. Since health insurance laws have made health care in America more expensive than anywhere else on Earth, the freedom money affords you will only last as long as your health. This guarantees that on a long enough time scale you’ll go bankrupt. Even after you’re too old to work, you’ll still have to answer to the hordes of bill collectors that have been hunting you since you were born.
8: Your county, state, and nation are not free
Police will tell you that “ignorance of the law” is no excuse for breaking the law, but there are literally too many laws for anyone to learn. It’s nearly impossible to figure out how many jurisdictions you fall under or how many agencies are responsible for policing you, especially since there are top secret security agencies you’re not allowed to know about. Given the ubiquitous presence of laws and law enforcement agencies, it should come as no surprise that America has more people in jail/prison than any other nation in the world. One out of every one hundred adults, and one out of three African Americans, are behind bars. If that isn’t evidence that America isn’t “the land of the free,” then how much worse does it have to get before it’s undeniable that there’s a problem?
There are millions of patriotic Americans who refuse to acknowledge America’s oppressive nature, and will tell any native who doubts their freedom, “If you don’t like it, then leave.” But unless you have a college degree, $10K and are in excellent health, you’re not fee to permanently leave. You can justify the glass ceiling of immigration requirements by saying, “Other countries have the right to decide who they want to let in their borders,” but that argument loses weight when every government has colluded to place similar limitation on travel. The fact that all the governments in the world have conspired to trap their taxpayers within their borders, doesn’t make it right.
Given all the examples cited here, let alone all the thousands that aren’t, it’s delusional to assert that America is “the land of the free.” Without being hyperbolic, it would be closer to the truth to call America a police state. It would require fundamental changes in the American system to turn it into a country worthy of the title “land of the free.” It’s going to take a lot of dialogue and cooperation to do that, but the healing process can’t begin until Americans collectively acknowledge their dystopian lack of freedom.
Please leave a comment if you have any other examples or stories of how Americans aren’t free.
In Nazi Germany, it was the police’s (by any other name) job to arrest Jews and send them to their deaths. Even though the police made a vow to uphold the law, no reasonable person would argue that the Nazi police were morally bound to uphold that law because it was blatantly unjust. In modern-day America, the police take a vow to uphold the law as well, and the law says that smoking or selling marijuana is illegal. I would argue that calling the police on your neighbor for smoking or selling marijuana is one moral step down from calling the Gestapo on your neighbor for being Jewish. Likewise, any police officer who enforces unjust laws is one moral step down from the Gestapo, especially considering the inhumane conditions American prisons force the humans inside them to endure. Convicts may not get gassed, but they’ll be stripped of their humanity and get beat, raped, or even killed. If they’re released with a felony conviction on their record they’ll be lucky to ever get a job again. For some ex-cons, it would have been a mercy if they were just gassed the day they got caught with marijuana.
This is what American police are ordered to do to the civilian population, and they wash their hands of the blood of the civilians they sacrifice to the industrial prison system by saying, “It’s not our place to question the law, only to enforce it.” Well, that’s not good enough. Where do all those laws the police vow to uphold come from and what gives them validity? The laws were written by politicians and hold validity for the same reason money holds value: By active or passive consent, the majority of the population has made a social contract with each other to agree to give politicians the authority to pass laws and assign value to money.
The Gestapo had their orders that came down the chain of command from the highest level politicians in their government too, but no reasonable person would argue that every rule Hitler told his police to follow was automatically and unquestionably valid simply because the leader of the government said so. People are just people no matter what man-made rank they wear. Things people say or write are just things people say or write. The American Declaration of Independence said the rights of man are self-evident and exist regardless of any laws written by men, even if those men are kings. The only way we can know these unwritten rules is by reason, not faith. Thus it’s up to the individual to think for themselves to determine whether or not the laws of their land are just.
This is all good and well for the average citizen who isn’t in any position to push their morals on other people, but the point becomes poignant for police who are charged with the responsibility of enforcing a canned version of morality on all the citizens within their jurisdiction. This issue becomes even more poignant the more power the police have to fine, detain, imprison, blacklist, beat, and kill citizens without facing any repercussions.
The American people have already told their government they want marijuana legalized, and the president literally mocked them.
If elected politicians won’t honor the social contract then who else is there to stand up for the citizens who have to suffer the indignity and danger of unjust laws and an inhumane prison system? The only people standing between the citizens and the unjust laws are the police who enforce those laws. The police are the first line of defense against tyranny, and by rights, the police should serve the interests of the public over the interests of politicians. Police officers’ paychecks come from taxes, and their authority comes from the social contract they have with the people they’re charged to protect. Politicians are simply servants who try to manage the affairs of the nation. They’re not masters or gods.
You still may not be convinced though. You still may be saying, “But you simply can’t make it a categorical imperative that every cop should enforce whatever laws they personally feel are just, because that would just result in anarchy.” As true as that may be, what’s the alternative? If we make it a categorical imperative that cops should never be able to exercise their own judgment then that literally makes them slaves, and that gives their leaders unlimited power to oppress the civilian herd. That doesn’t immediately make civilians slaves, but if the executive and judicial branches of government can use thugs to force civilians to follow rules they don’t believe in then you can’t say those civilians are free.
We don’t have to choose between a praetorian slave state or anarchy, but if civil servants aren’t allowed to question the morality of their actions, then we’re well on our way to a police state.
Protesters look great on TV; they look like harmless, courageous, peace-loving, innocent civilians doing their civic duty, and while that may be true on some level, police don’t have the luxury of assessing the situation from their living room. I imagine police are a lot like soldiers who have seen combat, and now, even when they’re on civilian time in civilian clothes, they’re still on edge in large crowds of people because they understand that people are dangerous, and a lot of people are really dangerous.
I understand police took an oath to perform a role in society in the name of order, and part of that oath was to follow orders. I know that the police force has its own internal culture full of customs and courtesies built around rank and protocol. As a result, the police feel a deeper sense of pride and satisfaction in performing their job and following orders than say the average civilian working in the bowels of a giant, faceless corporation.
So I have sympathy for police who approach a once peaceful and orderly street to control a stampede of potential lunatics, many of whom are dressed like lunatics. I understand that when police get the order to clear uncooperative protesters out of an area by any non-lethal means necessary, that’s pretty close to getting a commandment from God; that order came down from the mayor to the head of the law enforcement organization all the way down the chain of command to the police on the scene. The cost/benefit analysis of following that order is stacked heavily in favor of doing so, especially because officers who don’t, will get in trouble. In a best-case scenario, this would prevent them from getting promoted later. In worst-case scenarios, they could lose rank or even their job.
From a practical, stoic point of view, it’s logical to beat up and arrest nonviolent protesters in the heat of the moment, but that’s a narrow point of view that ignores the bigger picture. Let’s take a step back and look at the situation from a broader view. Protesting and rioting aren’t normal. Sitting at home watching TV, shopping, visiting friends and having sex are normal. That’s what people want to do with their free time, and people are really lazy. They’re too lazy to open a can of pre-cut tomatoes without an electric can opener. So when people turn off the television and take to the streets it’s because there’s something really, really wrong in their lives that they want…nay, need fixed, and the more people there are protesting, the more likely their grievances have merit.
Their grievances are especially poignant when they concern inhumane government policies because the chain of command the police follow leads straight up to the civil government. So when police beat up, arrest and disperse nonviolent protesters for protesting against inhumane government policies, then the police become the tools of oppression. They’re directly enabling those inhumane policies to continue destroying people’s lives, and preventing people from speaking out against those inhumane policies is the very definition of suppression of free speech.
This is self-evident in theory, but on the streets it becomes clouded. You can arrest a protester for a million seemingly logical reasons. Maybe they don’t have a permit to gather. Maybe they’re outside the approved protesting cordon. Maybe they’re wearing a mask. Maybe they shouted a threat or it sounded like they did. Maybe they raised their arms above their head in a threatening gesture. On the surface, these seem like practical reasons to arrest people, but if a protest can be dispersed by using all these little justifications then the end result is that the police silenced the people’s voice in government by terrorizing them. By enforcing rules like these the police are telling people that if they attempt to make their voice heard then the government will send thugs to silence them under false pretenses in a way that absolves the government of the crime of suppressing free speech and makes offenders out of protesters. That’s how protesters have to see the police on the street.
That’s not what the police signed up for. They took an oath to serve and protect people. It’s more than a slap in the face to the police force to order them to violently suppress free speech in the name of peace and freedom, but that’s exactly what’s happening in America today.
I thought we were passed this phase of history. All my textbooks in school said the days of cops beating up citizens trying to hold their politicians accountable to the basic principles of human rights was over. I wonder how many more skulls the police have to crack before they just let the people have their voice. I wonder if the police will ever collectively come to the conclusion that maybe if they just let the people get what they want from the government then they’ll all go back home to their TVs, friends, and lovers and be happy and not go outside and cause trouble anymore.
What the police force should be doing is helping the protesters organize. We all just want the streets to be safe. We’re on the same side fighting for the same goal. Why can’t we work together?
Every American school kid was raised on well-meaning propaganda that painted the country’s police force as super good guys, and that propaganda has worked; many young Americans look up to police as heroes…but not just because of the propaganda; kids who have grown up in the information age aren’t dumb. They understand how important it is to have a highly funded police force. Americans are happy to wear “NYPD” hats and not just because they got duped by a marketing campaign but because they really do value their police on meaningful intellectual and emotional levels.
The thing is, the police are making it really hard to keep liking them. Americans who were raised on Saturday morning cartoons want to believe that every police officer is like Andy Griffith meets Robocop. That’s how Americans were raised to perceive cops. So that’s how they try to perceive cops, but it’s hard to keep giving the police the benefit of the doubt when the public looks around, and they don’t see Robo-Andy-Griffith. All they see are protesters getting pepper sprayed and shot in the head with tear gas canisters, and the public can’t do anything about it because anytime they bring up the issue of excessive use of force they’re told they’re ungrateful and spoiled and are sternly reminded that all police deserve the full honors and privileges of Robo Andy Griffith.
And it sends a mixed message that undermines your authority when the side of your car says, “To protect and serve.” but it’s an accepted fact of life that you do not ever speak to the police without a lawyer present. Ever. The police are even required to remind you that “anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.” Why would anyone want to be anywhere near someone who can and will use anything they say to put them in a prison system that is globally famous for its unchecked human rights violations?
The thing is, young American aren’t even asking anymore. They’re telling the police they feel absolutely miserable, terrorized and afraid of the people they pay to protect them. Some people have even given up on the system so completely they’ve left America to go live in less wealthy places where at least they don’t have to be afraid of the police or the corrupt government the police are protecting.
The correct way for the police to respond to that charge isn’t to say, “Oh, well then screw those people if they don’t like it here.” The correct way for the police to respond is to say, “I accept that I have a problem and am ready to listen.”
And the good news for the police is, young Americans are smart enough to understand that police aren’t just inherently bad people who deserve to be hated because of the color of their clothes. The American people understand that people who are police officers aren’t the problem. Unethical police behavior is a symptom of a flawed police system. To blame it all on the cops on the street would be like holding teachers (who work at the bottom of an obsolete and compromised education system and have their hands tied behind their backs by cumbersome bureaucracy) solely accountable for children’s test scores, and that would be ridiculous.
There are some serious flaws in the way the police force is designed on paper, and the police should be more eager than anyone to address those flaws because they’re setting up good cops to lose sight of the purpose of the law, and if the law has no purpose then you don’t have a police force; you have a mafia. I actually wouldn’t believe any senior cop who says they’ve never been pissed off at how ineffective and backward and in need of upgrading the police system is.
The police want the police system fixed. The people want the police system fixed. Everyone just wants the streets to be safe. The police and the people just never talked about it together because they’ve always been compartmentalized with a great divide between them. Now they’re both part of the 99%, and there are people with tables all over the world listening to ideas, writing them down and sharing them with other people.
If the politicians can’t figure out an effective way of balancing crime, authority, freedom, and equality then the police and the citizens are the only parties left for the responsibility to fall to. The people took the first step setting up the tables at the Occupy protests. All the police have to do to have their voices heard is sit down at the table. The least the police can do if they want to live in a better society is not kick the table over and beat the hell out of everyone sitting around it.
Those men deserve sympathy and credit for the good things they did, and they deserve for their deaths not to have been in vain, but they will be if America can’t have an open dialogue about why people hate the police.
The inconvenient truth is police provide the civilian population with an assembly line of reasons to hate them. The animosity they receive is blowback for the unacceptable things they constantly do.
At the top of the list is the aforementioned body count of innocent civilians. To add insult to injury, police regularly deflect ownership of the problem by blaming the victims. One police officer recently summed up their argument in an article, “Following Commands: A Lost Art,” which, unfortunately, is no longer on the internet.
“I am going to say what no one else is saying. From the President of the United States to every local news reporter in the country, no one is saying it, ‘Follow the commands of a police officer or risk injury or possibly worse…’ You can debate all day long about what proper police force is, when it should be used and if the entire criminal justice system is racist but there is one thing in common with every so-called “excessive force” video you have seen in recent years. The suspect is not following commands… The way I see it, we have two options to stop police use of deadly force. Police stop being police or citizens can do what an officer says to do.”
There’s some truth to this argument, but if the author can’t see why civilians would be underwhelmed by his logic, he’s crazy. “Obey or die” isn’t the social contract Americans were promised, and it’s not one they can accept. And if that’s really how police see civilians, as sheep to be controlled with violence, then citizens would have to have Stockholm Syndrome to love police unconditionally. The police may not realize that, but the people do, and they resent cops for expecting them to celebrate their subjugation.
It’s hard to look at police as good guys when they aren’t even trying to look like it anymore. Police cruisers are intentionally designed to appear intimidating. How can the police more clearly brand themselves and communicate their intentions than by painting a big sign on their cars that says, “We don’t want you to feel safe when you see us. We want you to feel intimidated.” By dressing like Nazi Storm Troopers from a dystopian future and acting ones. That’s how.
Any time a police officer gets caught doing something immoral, the rest are quick to concede there are a few bad apples among them and counter that 99% of the time, all police do is protect people. That argument sounds good on paper, but it fails to sway law-abiding citizens who live in constant fear under the thumb of all law enforcement.
A black comedian, whose name I can’t recall, once said, “I’ve always resented the fact that I don’t feel safe when I see a police car behind me; I feel scared.” He’s not being irrational, and neither is the rest of the civilian population. Everyone feels the same way, and they’re right. A police cruiser behind you is like a shark hunting for prey.
It’s common knowledge the reason police write so many traffic citations isn’t because drivers are that bad or cops are overzealous. It’s all about revenue. Cops are highway robbers shaking down well-meaning people for mostly inconsequential technicalities. And the cost of a superfluous ticket can equal weeks or months of an unskilled worker’s wages. On top of that, police regularly seize civilians’ assets without trial, and getting your stolen property back can cost more money than what was taken.
Heaven help Americans who screw up and commit a legitimate crime in a moment of desperation or incoherence. The cost of paying bond, court fees, legal representation, fines and probation quickly add up to years of wages for minor offenses, let alone big ones. The legal system makes it as hard as possible to pay off these fees by requiring you to take time off work for multiple court appearances and probation meetings, which is almost impossible since American employees get less time off than any other first world country.
This assumes you can even get a job after a conviction since you’re required to divulge your criminal record to potential employers and most landlords. It also assumes you have transportation to get to court, work or your probation meetings. Police regularly confiscate people’s cars and revoke their driver’s licenses for crimes not even related to driving. If you were arrested for having sex with a 17-year-old, the law prevents you from living anywhere near anything.
If you can’t pay your fees after the police destroy your career, your fees will increase relentlessly until they bankrupt you, after which, you’ll be sent to debtors’ prison, which was outlawed in 1833. Since jailing people for not paying fines is breaking the law, that means cops are breaking the law, which makes them criminals. Since they’re also government officials who are violating the founding principles of the government, they fit the exact definition of tyrants. That’s not being hyperbolic. This is the exact kind of situation the word “tyranny” was invented to describe.
The total cost of bond, court fees, legal representation and fines for major criminal offenses can add up to decades of a poor person’s future earnings, but less than 1% of a rich person’s savings. Without being hyperbolic, that literally constitutes economic oppression, which makes the police foot soldiers of economic oppression. So when cops say their job is to “serve and protect,” that might be true for rich people but definitely not for poor people. You’ll notice poor people shoot more cops than rich people.
In addition to economic oppression, the police’s job description also includes the regular taking-your-freedoms-away-against-your-will kind of oppression. Again, this isn’t exaggerating. It’s spelled out in black and white letters in America’s law code, which contains thousands, if not millions, of laws against inconsequential victim-less crimes.
I know a man who had a warrant issued for his arrest for not mowing his lawn and then not showing up to court because he didn’t receive the summons. I know another man who walked home from a bar because he was too drunk to drive, and he was arrested for public intoxication. I know a girl who was arrested for drinking a beer one hour before she turned 21. I went to a concert at a major venue, where the law required the bar staff to pour all their drinks out of single-serve bottles into plastic cups that you couldn’t take out of the designated drinking area, resulting in mountains of trash at every event and zero crimes prevented. I went tubing at a river, and the cops were standing in force at the exit point arresting anyone who brought open containers of alcohol out of the river because it’s legal to drink on water, but not on land. In a separate incident, I was ticketed on a river for drinking alcohol when I was 20 years old, which my European friends find hilariously sad. Americans aren’t even free to walk across the road without getting a ticket, and women aren’t allowed to take their shirts off. This is just the tip of the iceberg. There are still dumber things you can be arrested for in America.
Nobody is protected by any of these laws. The only outcome is control for the sake of control. If you think these laws aren’t a big deal, then you’re implying freedom isn’t a big deal. You’re also ignoring the fact that a threat to freedom anywhere is a threat to freedom everywhere. Minor losses of liberty set the precedent for bigger ones, and the justice system has already taken advantage of this fact.
Prostitution and recreational drug use are strictly illegal to say nothing about how hard it is to buy life-saving drugs. Sex and drugs are nobody’s business but one’s own, and a government created “of the people, by the people, for the people” has no place regulating them, especially when the majority of people don’t want the government to. That goes double when every study done on them has proven them to cause more harm than good, and triple when other countries have already legalized them and proven in practice that criminalizing them does more harm than good, and legalizing them does more good than harm.
America’s own police force knows better than anyone how futile and damaging the war on sex and drugs is. Yet they go out every day and keep fighting even though they know that ultimately, all they’re accomplishing is war. And they wonder why people don’t like them. The people are equally baffled by how the police can sleep at night and go to work each day to wage war on their family again.
Lawmakers justify the war on sex and drugs by saying they’re protecting people from themselves, which is confusing because everyone knows it doesn’t. But the argument is moot for at least two reasons anyway.
First, nobody agreed to pay the government to protect themselves from themselves. When the government tells you that you can’t do something you want to do (that doesn’t hurt anybody), and you don’t have a choice in the matter, that’s the opposite of freedom. It doesn’t matter what a lawmaker’s justification is for doing their job wrong.
Second, sending people to jail for sex and drug-related crimes is like shooting them in the head to protect them from shooting themselves in the foot. American prisons are the most inhumane of any first world country. In addition to the lethally low quality of food and hygiene, the frequency of murder, rape, abuse, and humiliation that happen inside is the stuff of legend.
So forgive the civilian population for not being excited to see a cop. The smartest advice you can tell a child is never talk to someone who starts the conversation by announcing, “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law to throw you into pound-me-in-the-ass prison.” That’s not something a friend would ever say or do to you. Cops are the opposite of friends, and it’s regrettably responsible to forewarn your children of this truth.
Compton is the new Slave Coast, and business is booming thanks to the police. America has the highest prison population in the world. By definition, it’s factually inaccurate to call the country with the highest incarceration rate “the land of the free.” The architects of America’s legal system should be held accountable for taking this title away from America, but so should the people with their boots on the ground who are rounding up victimless criminals and sending them to the meat grinder that is America’s prison system. The police who are complicit in this crime against humanity aren’t public servants. They’re corporate mercenaries who enforce slavery, and that’s not something to be proud of.
Last but not least of those reasons is how law enforcement behaves when the American people exercise their First Amendment right to protest against the lethal injustices they suffer. Anytime protests get large enough to make a difference, police are sent in with military gear to brutally crush the demonstration with tear gas, tasers, batons, and bullets. That’s a guaranteed outcome of a well-organized protest, and it doesn’t matter what age, race or sex the protesters are. There will be blood. At the end of the protest, the government will use it as an excuse to further militarize the police, which will require more money, which will require the police to rob more people, which will require them to come up with more excuses to make criminals out of well-meaning people. This makes law enforcement officials the vanguard of oppression.
It can’t be said enough, America isn’t the land of the free, and saying it is, is Orwellian doublespeak. Americans are oppressed all to Hell, and the first line of oppression is the police civilians pay to protect them. In that regards, the police force is, by definition, the bad guy.
To be fair, police do some good, but patting them on the back is like patting a Gestapo agent on the back for helping an old woman across the street. If you want to fault me for breaching Godwin’s Law and using too many Hitler references, I would counter that the police have already exonerated me. Police often deflect responsibility for their crimes against humanity by saying things like, “I was just following orders. The law is the law. If I don’t do my job I can’t feed my family. The justice system isn’t perfect, but I have to respect the system.” Using the Nuremberg Defense doesn’t demonstrate integrity or courage. It completes the Nazi comparison.
As intolerable as the actions of the police are, I can’t condone reciprocating the violence they inflict on the civilian population. In addition to being unethical, it would only result in justifying further militarization of the police and erosion of civil liberties as per the status quo. If you want to protest income inequality, government corruption, or excessive force, the most logical place to stage your protest is in front of your local police station. Put their guilt on their front door. If they respond to the protest the way they always do, at least they’ll have to walk past the spot where they beat down little girls every day they come to work. Maybe that will get them thinking enough is enough.
It shouldn’t have to come to that. The people shouldn’t be working up the courage to stand up to the police. The police should have the courage to stand up to the system. The people shouldn’t be organizing to figure out what they’re going to do about their cop problem. The cops should be organizing a gigantic internal meeting and fundamentally reassess their approach to helping people. If the system won’t facilitate an official meeting, the cops need to organize their own. The alternative is to keep digging their own graves, and that doesn’t help anybody.
Note: I served in the U.S. Air Force from 2000-2007. My AFSC was 3C0X1 (Communications computer systems operator). My highest rank was E-5 (Staff Sergeant), and I received an honorable discharge.
Many American civilians don’t fully understand that military service members fall under a completely separate legal jurisdiction than civilians. This legal code is known as the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). The existence of the UCMJ isn’t necessarily a sinister thing. In a lot of ways, pointing out that civilians and troops fall under different legal codes is like saying people who work for McDonalds and people who work for Burger King have different employee handbooks. The military is a bureaucratic institution that exists to accomplish a specific purpose just like the United States Post Office. Neither could operate without some kind of guidelines that outline the operating procedures for how they accomplish their purpose.
This sounds reasonable on paper, but the UCMJ redefines the basic human rights of the people who fall under its jurisdiction in ways that are considered unethical and unconstitutional. It’s literally illegal to treat civilians the same way troops are treated under the UCMJ. Here are five ways the UCMJ treats the troops unethically:
1. Bad Conduct and Dishonorable Discharges
There’s effectively no difference between a bad conduct/dishonorable discharge and a felony conviction. No other place of employment has the ability to punish dissenting employees with prison time and felony convictions for not obeying their boss at work. However, the military reserves this right because the UCMJ gives it that right, which is like saying the Bible is true because the Bible says it’s true.
Just like how the Bible causes its followers to carry around the burden of the threat of Hell in their minds every time they commit the most innocent, victimless sin, the troops carry around the burden of the threat of a dishonorable discharge with them all the time, everywhere they go. This is tolerable if you don’t think about it, but once you realize that the rest of your life will be unceremoniously destroyed if you decide not to do a jumping jack when you’re ordered to or you decide not to button up your shirt when you’re ordered to and persist in refusing to do so after repeated orders you’ll come to realize that your life isn’t your own, and your personhood isn’t important to the military. You’re a slave whose worth is measured by your willingness to conform, and you’ll be unceremoniously thrown out onto the street and made an example out of the moment it’s convenient for the military.
You can find ways to justify this, but it’s a legal fact that McDonald’s couldn’t do this to its employees because that would be grossly unethical. So let’s be clear that in justifying the existence of bad conduct/dishonorable discharges we are in effect justifying second-class citizenship for the troops; they have less protection under the law and can be treated worse than other people and we’re fine with this.
2. Institutionalized Victimhood/Subjugation
Imagine if you had to salute teachers, police officers, doctors or politicians any time you pass them in the street. Imagine if you had to address everyone who gets paid more than you as “Sir or Ma’am.” Imagine if you had to deliver these gestures of submission to people you don’t work with and don’t know. Or imagine if you had to offer these gestures of submission to individuals who you knew for a fact were dumber than you and had less moral character than you.
Now imagine if I told you that you had to salute all these people and address them with a superior title because you respected them….well, that and the fact that if you don’t then you’ll be demoted, fired, go to jail and/or receive a felony conviction on your permanent employment record that you can’t hide from future prospective employers….but the fear of permanent destitution isn’t why you salute them. You salute them because you respect them…even if you don’t know them or you know for a fact that one of those individuals is a scum bag.
What if I told you that you had to respect these people because they were white, or older than you, or joined the company before you or went to school a little longer than you? In a world where “all men are created equal” does it matter what reason someone tells you to subjugate yourself to another person, especially when the order to subjugate yourself comes with the threat of destitution?
Mandatory gestures of subjugation are reprehensible and illegal in every walk of life except the military, and in that case, insult is added to injury by training the troops to glorify participation in their own subjugation. Military training teaches you that the way to be the perfect human is to be the perfect victim or abuser, depending on which side of the caste system your rank places you in relation to the human being standing in front of you.
Again, I understand that there are reasons for the military caste system and for saluting, but those reasons merely justify the exact same level of institutionalized victimhood and subjugation that was imposed on Negro slaves before the Emancipation Proclamation.
Just like with Negro slavery, many honest, well-intentioned people used similar reasons to justify the institutionalized victimhood and subjugation of those slaves, and the worst part is that from one narrow point of view they were right. If you ignore the inherent value of human beings and only look at the well-being of a nation from the standpoint of its economic and political strength, then a caste system looks justifiable. So feel free to argue that the troops need to or deserve to be held to a lower standard of ethical treatment than the civilian population. Just understand that when you do that, saying “Support the Troops” is as meaningful as saying “Support the Slaves.”
3. Inhumane Training Methods
Have you ever wondered why police officers, firemen, lawyers, CEOs or politicians don’t go through military basic training? After all, the commercials say that military training will turn you into a superhuman. If military basic training is such a powerful tool for raising human beings to their full potential then why doesn’t everyone or at least the most powerful people in the world go through basic training?
The answer is because military training doesn’t raise you to your full potential. It uses time-tested brainwashing techniques to break you down mentally and replace your values and beliefs with those that will ensure you shut down your capacity to reason and question. It indoctrinates you to willfully subjugate yourself to external control and kill without question.
Public and private organizations alike regularly produce literature condemning the training techniques used in military basic training. However, these techniques are only condemned when cults use them, not when the military does. I strongly urge you to put this claim to the test. Go look in any brainwashing textbook, and compare those methods to military basic training. Military basic training is copied word-for-word from brainwashing textbooks. This isn’t a subjective opinion you can disagree with for your own subjective reasons. This is a cut-and-dry, verifiable fact.
Another way you can put this theory to the test is to set up your own basic training camp. Hire ex-basic training instructors to train a group of psychology students using the exact same training manuals and techniques used in military basic training. Then invite the American Psychological Association to monitor your training program for any ethical violations. Your experiment would be shut down before it finished if not before it started.
This raises the question, why the double standards? Why have we taken one group of people and exempted them from the same protections we guarantee everyone else? And does it even matter if there’s a reason? What’s our freedom worth if it’s bought with the blood of slaves and can be taken away from us by our own government with the flick of a pen? Are we even worth protecting if we agree to strip our fellow man of their humanity?
4. Pushing the Limits of Contractual Obligation
We justify exempting troops from the same rights and protections every other human being is entitled to because the troops signed a contract and took an oath. Actually, this statement is only half true. In the case of a draft the troops don’t have a choice. They have to take the oath or go to jail. In that case, the government gets to throw all the rights and protections guaranteed by the constitution out the window at its own discretion. In other words, the government can suspend the constitution at will like it did in the Vietnam War (or as the Vietnamese call it, The American War) when there was zero threat to the American public and the troops were sent in (many against their will) to protect American business’s access to the South East Asian economy against the will of the majority of the Vietnamese (and all of the Cambodian) people…but I digress.
The draft sets a precedent that the government can throw out the constitution at will and it doesn’t need airtight justification to do so. It can also throw out the constitution if it can get a person to sign a piece of paper waiving their rights. Before you start screaming, “The troops knew what they were getting into before they signed up!” go visit a military recruiter and tell them you want to sign up for the military. They’ll put a piece of paper and a pen in front of you and pressure you to sign it as fast as possible.
If you ask them the hard questions about the U.C.M.J. they’ll make excuses and dodge the subjects. They’ll reassure you everything is on the level and promise you anything they can to get you to sign that paper so they can meet their recruitment quota. They’ll even flat out lie to you. Any honest basic training instructor will tell you that military recruiters are synonymous with dishonesty.
To military apologists this is all just nit-picking; the bottom line is the troops signed a contract that’s more legally binding than the constitution or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. I suppose, from a purely technical standpoint that’s legally valid. But if that’s the case then what the hell are we doing here? If I can just give you a $3,000 kicker bonus and promise to pay for your pregnant wife’s upcoming hospital bills (that you can’t afford because you work for McDonald’s) in exchange for all your civil liberties then why have civil liberties in the first place? The issue here isn’t whether or not it’s illegal to strip human beings of their civil liberties. The question is whether or not it should be legal. The answer is no. It shouldn’t, because as the military says, “A threat to liberty anywhere is a threat to liberty everywhere.”
5. Loss of civil liberties
Many of the laws in the UCMJ are inoffensive and inarguable. For example, Article 128 of the UCMJ deals with assault. Of course, we don’t want people assaulting each other. Article 120 deals with rape, and that’s great too. Nobody should be raped. So I agree with that, but the fact that there are some reasonable lines in the UCMJ doesn’t prove that they’re all reasonable, practical or just. Look at Articles 133 and 134, which say,
“Any commissioned officer, cadet, or midshipman who is convicted of conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman shall be punished as a court-martial may direct.” and “Though not specifically mentioned in this chapter, all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces, and crimes and offenses not capital, of which persons subject to this chapter may be guilty, shall be taken cognizance of by a general, special, or summary court-martial, according to the nature and degree of the offense, and shall be punished at the discretion of that court.“
If those statements sound borderline meaningless, that’s because they are. They were designed as catchall laws to allow the military to incriminate and punish the troops for any reason it subjectively decides. Michelle Manhart was discharged for posing nude in Playboy magazine because it brought discredit on the military. Others have been reprimanded and discharged for moonlighting as strippers even though they kept their daytime job in the military a secret. You’ll go to jail and/or get a dishonorable discharge for publicly speaking your mind about morally questionable things your employer (who won’t let you quit) is doing. You can be demoted at work for cussing at a minor at a grocery store.
You might not have a problem with this, but let’s just be clear about the precedent we’re setting here. The military enforces subjective cultural taboos, and retains broad discretion in its ability to destroy the lives of its service members for not conforming to the military’s narrow perception of morality. Imagine if you were a member of a church, and your pastor found out you cheated on your wife. Then he told your boss and you got demoted at work. Imagine if you got fired at work for marching in a gay pride parade over the weekend. Imagine if you were sentenced to life in prison for whistle-blowing human rights abuses committed by your employer. Would that be fair? Would that be just? No, but that’s everyday life for the troops. The human beings are so un-free that they’re subject to laws that basically say anything you do can be illegal if your boss wants it to. That’s literally the opposite of freedom. That’s totalitarian control over the life of a human being, and there’s no dignity in that.
All of the extraordinary rules/regulations in the UCMJ are supposedly justified because they ensure good order and discipline, but never forget that this good order and discipline comes at the cost of respect for human dignity and equality. These measures aren’t necessary to maintain good order and discipline in the civilian population because civilian employers don’t have the same mission as the military. The military’s mission is to kill people and blow things up without asking why.
This is an unnatural mission that human instincts, common sense, and reason-based morality cannot accept. As a result, the military must use invasive techniques to break its members’ minds and bind them in an unnatural psychological state against their will if/when necessary. If the military can’t break the mind of a troop it will tattoo “failure to conform” on their forehead and throw them in the gutter and make an example of them to scare the remaining troops into submission. To the military, the perfect hero is the perfect slave, and all their benefits and perks are just golden handcuffs. Putting bigger golden handcuffs on the slaves is a hollow way to support them. Refusing to allow open, honest discussion about what the troops are dying/killing for is a hollow way to support them. If you really, truly care about the troops, the best way you can support them is to end the UCMJ and give the troops their rights, their dignity and their freedom back.
I served in the U.S. Air Force from 2000-2007. My AFSC was 3C0X1 (Communications computer systems operator). My highest rank was E-5 (Staff Sergeant), and I received an honorable discharge.
I separated because I realized nine things about the military that would have kept me from joining in the first place if I had known them in 1999. None of these reasons are derogatory towards the troops. All of these reasons have to do with how the military treats the troops unethically. The purpose of this essay isn’t to defame servicemen and women. The purpose is to raise awareness of how the military system treats its own.
Whether you agree or disagree with me, I encourage you to leave a comment. I don’t censor people who disagree with me, but comments that include personal attacks or insults will be deleted.
1. The military is a death cult that brainwashes you.
The military is painstakingly designed around the cult model, and the two biggest red flags are its unethical indoctrination process and totalitarian, pyramid-shaped caste system. Other warning signs include the use of an inside language, in-group symbols, rituals, in-group socializing, constantly telling you that the military is your family, convincing you that military history is your history and other tactics that convince you to base your identity and purpose in life primarily on the military. Individually, these practices aren’t necessarily sinister, but the military goes to extreme lengths to use every trick in the book every day to convince its members to base their identity on the in-group and devote their life to it. That’s what cults do, and the military does it better than anyone.
Again, I’m not saying this to attack the troops. I’m not saying, “You suck because you’re a brainwashed slave in a cult.” I’m bringing this up to raise objection to the military using unethical brainwashing techniques on its troops. This is a human rights violation on a mass scale, and the only reason the military isn’t shut down by the police for operating a death cult is because the military operates outside the law.
There’s no country in the world that wants to take away America’s freedoms. The only people in the world taking away Americans’ freedoms are the very leaders every active duty soldier swears an oath of allegiance to. The American government took away Americans’ freedoms every year I served in the military. Americans lost freedoms every year I was stationed overseas, and anyone who enlists today will be able to say the same thing after they separate.
America is no longer the land of the free, and it’s also not a representative democracy. It’s a corportocracy controlled by the rich, for the rich. America doesn’t even defend democracy abroad. It’s the only country actively toppling democracies. Look it up. That’s not a conspiracy. It’s common knowledge.
If you join the United States military, you won’t fight for truth, justice or freedom. You’ll fight for a government that crushes public dissent and locks up more people than any other country in the world in a for-profit prison system that uses inmates as slave labor. You won’t fight for peace. You’ll fight for a country that commits human rights violations, spies on its own citizens and locks up whistle blowers, while protecting war criminals. You’ll fight for a country that destabilizes weaker countries to allow multinational businesses to fleece them out of their natural resources and outsource jobs to their sweatshops. The American military might fight against terrorism, but it also engages in terrorism and creates more terrorists every time it kills innocent civilians, which is almost every month.
There are no serious foreign threats to America’s way of life. Possibly the biggest threat to the average American’s quality of life is America’s own industrial war complex, which directs billions of tax dollars every year to killing goat herders while America’s schools crumble from lack of funding.
If you support America’s military mission, you won’t make the world a better place. In the end, your noble sacrifices will make the world a worse place, but don’t take my word for it. If you want to know what America’s military stands for, ask the good people of Diego Garcia.
3. The military cares about you the same way a slave owner cares about his slaves.
The military will convince you to love it so much you’ll get military tattoos, wear military-themed civilian clothing and yell at anyone who criticizes the military, but it doesn’t return that loyalty. Sure, troops are given a lot of perks and bonuses, but like all other cults, the pampering stops the second you start questioning the organization.
If you don’t drink the Koolaid, you’ll get thrown out in the streets for “failure to conform.” If you breach the military’s puritanical code of ethics, it won’t hesitate to throw the book at you as hard as possible to make an example of you. After you separate, you’ll get some veteran benefits, which sound good on paper, yet, but a veteran commits suicide literally every day, and most of America’s homeless population are veterans. The problem isn’t just that the military abandons their veterans. Active duty junior enlisted troops are twice as likely to become alcoholics and heavy smokers during their first enlistment than their civilian peers. These statistics wouldn’t exist unles there were something terribly wrong with the system.
The problem is, the military doesn’t see troops as humans beings. They’re just social security numbers with expiration dates. If the military cared about about troops on a personal level, it wouldn’t strip away their rights and arbitrarily segregated them into a totalitarian caste system.
The military may be full of good people, but the system is soulless. It asks you to give everything and expect nothing. Yet it will turn against you, abandon you, and use you at its mildest convenience.
4. You will lose almost all of your civil rights.
You’ll lose your freedom of speech and the right to assemble.
You’ll lose the right to work at, or even enter businesses the military disagrees with.
You won’t be able to quit your job when you’ve reached the point where you hate it or disagree with it.
Your home life will affect your work life. You can be demoted or even lose your job for legal trouble you get into on your private time.
You can be demoted at work and criminally punished for cheating on your spouse.
There’s a legal limit to the type and amount of tattoos and piercings you can have.
You can’t wear clothing on base that isn’t PG-13.
You can even get charged with destruction of government property for getting a sunburn on your day off.
You can theoretically go to jail for not doing a jumping jack, not buttoning your shirt, talking back to your boss, quitting your job, not taking your hat off when you go inside, walking on the grass, or not saluting the flag.
Article 134 or the Uniform Code of Military Justice says anything can be considered against the law; someone in your chain of command just has to say whatever you did was bad, and that makes it officially against the rules:
“Though not specifically mentioned in this chapter, all disorders and neglects to the prejudice of good order and discipline in the armed forces, all conduct of a nature to bring discredit upon the armed forces, and crimes and offenses not capital, of which persons subject to this chapter may be guilty, shall be taken cognizance of by a general, special, or summary court-martial, according to the nature and degree of the offense, and shall be punished at the discretion of that court.“
You’ll lose many more rights listed in the Uniform Code of Military Justice that nobody will go out of their way to tell you about until after you’ve signed your soul away, but if you ever complain, you’ll be told, “You knew exactly what you were getting into when you signed up.”
Individually, some of these points may seem trivial to you, but when you add them all up, the end result is the government owns you completely. If you only want to do whatever the government allows you to, then you might not notice losing your freedom and dignity. If you value your rights and freedoms, it will drive you crazy knowing your leaders are holding a metaphorical gun to your head 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and forcing you to accept being treated like second-class citizen.
Once you realize you’re not fighting for anyone else’s freedoms except the robber barons who own your corrupt politicians, the cost/benefit analysis of giving up your rights to a death cult that doesn’t care about you ceases to add up.
5. You will live in a caste system where your worth as a human being is determined by rank.
When you go through basic training you’ll be told that upon graduation you’ll become an adult. In fact, you’ll become more than an adult. You’ll become a member of the most elite echelon of society, and your maturity and responsibility will make you superior to the petty, selfish, undisciplined civilian herd.
However, the reality of life in the military doesn’t reflect the propaganda you’ll be fed in basic training. The reality of your day to day life is comparable to what you experienced in high school. Everyone in the ranks between E-1 to E-4 are treated like children. The ranks of E-5 and E-6 are treated like teachers, and E-7 to E-9 are treated like school administrators.
When you wear the bottom four ranks, superiors will look down on you, talk down to you, bully you, and rub their rank in your face. You’ll be made to do menial chores and the bulk of the work. You’ll be punished severely for any and every infraction possible, and you’ll even be punished for things you didn’t do wrong. You’ll have very little recourse to fight this because your worth is based on your rank, and your rank is that of a slave.
When you reach the middle tier ranks, you’ll finally be treated like a human being. Your job will mainly involve training the lower ranks and managing paperwork. You’ll be less accountable for your actions and will have comfortable leeway to bend the rules.
When you reach the top tiers of the enlisted pyramid, you’ll become a figurehead. You’ll spend most of your days doing paperwork and giving speeches. Since there are very few people above you to hold you accountable, and all of those people are in your club, you’ll be almost unaccountable for your actions and will have to seriously screw up to get in real trouble.
The power dynamic between the officer corps and the enlisted corps is comparable to slave owners and slaves. The slave owners are treated like gods and literally dine on golden plates under golden chandeliers. They have total power over the lower class and can destroy their underlings’ lives with the snap of a finger. They’re trained to believe in their superiority and wear their arrogance on their sleeves. They’re less accountable for their actions. They’ll get in far less trouble for committing the same crimes as enlisted troops, if they get in trouble at all. Being an officer is a very good life to have… and a very immoral one. It is an obsolete class structure that degrades the value of the lives of the human beings who wear enlisted ranks and directly contradicts the idea of human equality.
This is a strange way to live, but other than being degrading to the lowest ranking troops, it might not seem like a compelling reason not to join the military. What new recruits need to be aware of is that after you’ve been indoctrinated to base your identity on your rank, that indoctrination doesn’t always go away after you leave the military. If you spend 4 years as a low ranking enlisted troop and then separate, you’re likely to go back out into the real world with a subservient mindset. But If you spend 4 years as an officer and then separate, you’re likely to go back out into the real world believing the human population is divided into those who deserve to be obeyed/served and those who deserve to obey/serve, and you’re one of the gods among men who deserve to be obeyed and served. These delusions of grandeur may feel empowering, but it’s indoctrinated insanity. Leaders who think this way tend to act more like dictators than mentors.
Theoretically, veterans are supposed to get preference when applying for federal jobs. Sometimes you do, and sometimes you don’t. In the public sector, military experience can sometimes hurt your chances of getting hired because many civilians see veterans as dumb grunts with PTSD.
You won’t get much, if any, VA medical help unless you were injured while in the military or you retired through the military. Even then, the VA system is famous for being a nightmare. Don’t take my word for it. Visit a VA hospital before you join the military and see what you’re signing up for.
You can retire in 20 years, but a large portion of troops’ paychecks are itemized as housing pay, cost of living adjustments and other side-benefits they don’t pay taxes on. This looks great at the time, but the military bases retirement pay on taxable income. For enlisted troops, this is only enough to live well on in the Philippines.
The MGI Bill has finally become usable, and it’s a really good deal. The VA will also vouch for the down payment on your house, which is a really, really good deal. But no matter how good the monetary benefits of joining the military are, you’re still spending blood money.
7. Life in the military sucks…but don’t take my word for it.
8. Military culture is devolving into a maniacally politically correct, anal-retentive bureaucratic snowflake office Hell.
I’ll explain what life is like in the Air Force, and you can just subtract a few degrees for each of the other branches: Cussing at all is frowned up, and in a lot of offices it’s banned. The only kind of music you can listen to at work are Pop and Christian. You can’t make crude jokes. You can be court-martialed for sexual harassment for saying the word, “vagina.” You can’t smoke anywhere but at isolated, designated smoking areas, and you can’t smoke at all on some bases. You can’t put your hands in your pockets. You can’t walk and talk on your cell phone. You can’t walk on the grass. You have to wear standard-issue reflective clothing when walking at night. You’ll get yelled at for wearing any article of civilian clothing on base that you wouldn’t wear to church. You generally have to act like Ned Flanders or you’ll get yelled at for being unprofessional… and you can theoretically go to jail and have the rest of your life destroyed with a dishonorable discharge if you don’t conform quietly.
There is some validity to some of these rules, but when you add all of them up (and the many others not mentioned) and continue to make more and more rules that force everyone to act like a neutered youth pastors, you create an environment that’s less like the adventure advertised on recruiting commercials and more like the embodiment of everything the movie “Office Space” was satirizing. I’m just saying, life in the military isn’t the grand summer camp dream-adventure recruitment posters advertise it to be. It’s a bureaucratic nightmare.
People who can’t conform to life in a soulless system end up leaving the military willingly or unwillingly. Those who act the most whitewashed and sanitized rise to the top. So that’s who you work for, and that’s who you work with. That’s the environment you eat, sleep and breathe in. If the puritanical lifestyle appeals to you, and you don’t mind being complicit in the deaths of hundreds of civilians every year, then join the Air Force.
9. You’ll be indoctrinated with battered person syndrome.
“When Battered Person Syndrome (BPS) manifests as PTSD, it consists of the following symptoms: (a) re-experiencing the battering as if it were recurring even when it is not, (b) attempts to avoid the psychological impact of battering by avoiding activities, people, and emotions, (c) hyperarousal or hypervigilance, (d) disrupted interpersonal relationships, (e) body image distortion or other somatic concerns, and (f) sexuality and intimacy issues.
Additionally, repeated cycles of violence and reconciliation can result in the following beliefs and attitudes:
The abused thinks that the violence was his or her fault.
The abused has an inability to place the responsibility for the violence elsewhere.
The abused fears for his/her life and/or the lives of his/her children (if present).
The abused has an irrational belief that the abuser is omnipresent and omniscient.
The syndrome develops in response to a three-stage cycle found in domestic violence situations. First, tension builds in the relationship. Second, the abusive partner releases tension via violence while blaming the victim for having caused the violence. Third, the violent partner makes gestures of contrition. However, the partner does not find solutions to avoid another phase of tension building and release so the cycle repeats. The repetition of the violence despite the abuser’s attempts to “make nice” results in the abused partner feeling at fault for not preventing a repeat cycle of violence. However, since the victim is not at fault and the violence is internally driven by the abuser’s need to control, this self-blame results in feelings of helplessness rather than empowerment. The feeling of being both responsible for and helpless to stop the violence leads in turn to depression and passivity. This learned depression and passivity makes it difficult for the abused partner to marshal the resources and support system needed to leave.” (Source: Wikipedia)
This is how the military conditions you to see the world. The military no longer physically beats the troops, but it can accomplish the same result without leaving a physical mark by yelling, threatening, publicly shaming, imprisoning you, giving you additional duties, and paperwork. If all else fails, they can send you to remedial military training to reinforce your “military bearing,” which is an unambiguous form of brainwashing used by cults to re-orientate their victim’s identity on the in-group.
The end result is you’ll feel guilty for breaking meaningless rules, and you’ll attack anyone else you see breaking meaningless rules. And anytime anyone criticizes your masters or their agenda; you’ll defend them to the death oblivious to the fact that you’re defending your abuser and attacking anyone who tries to free you from the people who have manipulated you into celebrating and defending your own oppression.
My responses to common criticisms of this post:
1. The military is not a cult! I served in the military and never knew anyone who was brainwashed!
No Scientologist ever met a Scientologist who was brainwashed either. There’s no point arguing whether or not the military is a cult without referencing a checklist of cult practices. Read any book on cults and brainwashing techniques. The more you know about cults, brainwashing techniques and military culture, customs and courtesies, the more obvious it will be that the military is deliberately designed using every mind control technique used by cults.
2. You were in the Air Force and never saw combat. So you don’t know what you’re talking about.
You can say I’m not a hero because I never saw combat, and I won’t argue with that. But my role in the military has no bearing on whether or not the military is a cult. It has no bearing on the fact that the United States government has consistently eliminated more and more rights of its citizens, spied on on its citizens, persecuted whistleblowers, knowingly killed civilians and committed deliberate war crimes and crimes against humanity. These are all facts that can be verified by anyone, even people who never served in the military or saw combat at all.
3. You were probably just a dirtbag Airman who wasn’t cut out for the military, and that’s why you’re bitter and wrong about everything.
I was a student leader (green rope) in tech school. I received many awards and squadron coins. I was told on many occasions that I was “a credit to myself and the United States Air Force.” I was frequently put in leadership positions above my pay grade. I wasn’t the most gung-ho super troop, but I was a model troop. So if you’re going to base the truth of my words on the quality of my character, then you should believe what I have to say about the United States military. But you don’t have to take my word on anything. Do your own research, and you’ll find everything I’ve said here is true, and it still would be even if I was a dirt bag Airman.
I didn’t reverse engineer my conclusions from bitter emotions. I came out of basic training bursting with esprit de corpse and kept it long enough to reenlist. I only very reluctantly gave up my faith in the military after seven years of seeing evidence that contradicted my beliefs. This post isn’t a hit-piece. It’s a eulogy, and its call to action is to respect the troops.
I understand why you’re angry. I’m challenging your most deeply held beliefs. You’re supposed to react by getting defensive and lashing back when that happens. It’s human nature, but you’re also supposed to question your own beliefs. I wouldn’t have so many strong things to say about the military if it had been more self-critical of itself to begin with.
4. All the questionable training methods and rules the military has are necessary because they weed out the weak and prepare the strong for war. At worst, it’s a necessary evil, but it keeps you free. So enjoy your self-righteous freedom to whine on the internet while real men keep you safe.
No sane person would charge a beach under heavy gunfire, but somebody theoretically has to do it. So the military takes sane civilians and reprograms their minds to turn them into zealous, suicidal killers, and it does this using the exact same brainwashing techniques used by death cults. I can accept that it requires extreme training techniques to prepare soldiers for the extreme stresses of war. I can handle that truth and eat that sin if you can admit this is still illegal to do to anyone else, and still unethical, even if the U.S. government does it legally. What I can’t accept is the military lying to recruits, telling them basic training will turn them into self-actualized adults, when it’s specifically designed to break their sanity and take away their identity and free will.
The argument that misleading and brainwashing volunteers is a necessary evil to protect Americans’ freedoms doesn’t apply when the American government keeps taking away its citizens’ freedom and privacy. Worse than that, it keeps passing more laws that make it harder for the poor to have a decent quality of life. If Americans were truly free, they would have the freedom to decide if they want their tax dollars spent on brainwashing soldiers or endless wars, but they don’t have that choice. They have to pay their taxes and fund the industrial war complex or go to jail. If they protest against it, they’ll be spied on, and if their protest is too successful, they’ll go to jail. People are free to criticize the government sometimes in some ways, but journalists who report criminal activity committed by the American government are routinely jailed. That’s not freedom of speech.
The problem isn’t that I don’t understand or appreciate the sacrifices soldiers have made to protect my freedoms. The problem is that my freedoms are being whittled away despite the sacrifices of soldiers. If you support the troops, then you shouldn’t get mad at me for pointing out that the American government is systemically corrupt and manipulates its soldiers into believing they’re defending freedom when they’re really defending corruption. If you support the troops, then get mad at the government that’s making a mockery of its soldiers’ sacrifices.
5. I was in the military, and I enjoyed it. Plus I got paid well and learned valuable job skills. Hence, the military is good.
The fact that you enjoyed the military and got a lot out of it doesn’t change the fact that the military is a cult that treats its own troops in ways that are illegal to treat anyone else. The benefits any troops do get out of the military are still stained with the shame of the rights American citizens have lost and the blood of the civilians the American government has killed. I’ll admit the military isn’t all-bad if you admit it isn’t all-good either.
6. Anyone who criticizes the military is a pussy.
Calling someone you don’t agree with a pussy isn’t an argument. It’s a gut reaction. The topic of how the military industrial complex manipulates and uses the troops is too important to end with a logic-stopping temper tantrum. If there’s any chance anything I said here is true, it deserves serious, soul-searching thought. Refusing to consider opposing points of view isn’t brave or mature, and it doesn’t do the people whose freedoms you think you’re killing and dying for any favors.
The problem here isn’t that I need to stop being a pussy and shut up. At the very least, the problem is that the U.S. military should be more transparent.
7. I can’t believe what a crazy conspiracy theorist the author of this post is. His ideas are unbelievably wacko.
I’ve received a lot of E-mails from veterans and active duty service members thanking me for articulating what they’ve been thinking but couldn’t say, because it’s illegal for them to speak unflatteringly about the military even if it’s true. Either all of these people came up with the same conspiracy theories independently, or they’re not conspiracy theories. They’re the elephant in the room.
8. I’m currently active duty, and my indoctrination has worn off. I’ve seen the military for the death cult it is, and now I’ve lost my esprit de corps and military bearing. I want to get out, but I’m locked in a contract. How do I make it through the rest of my time knowing what I know?
It’s frustrating living in the military, seeing it for what it is. Everywhere you look you, see reminders of the ever-present creepy cult thing they’ve got going on. And the more aware you are of the fact that you’re not fighting for freedom, the more pointless and dirty the whole charade feels. If you think about it too much, quitting in protest starts to seem like the right thing to do, but the only thing that will change is screwing up the rest of your life.
Talking to anyone in your chain of command about these feelings is the second worst thing you can do. All your coworkers have been programmed to react with extreme prejudice when they hear the cult doctrine questioned. Doing so will only frustrate you and your coworkers, which can lead to you being ostracized, criticized, disciplined, dishonorably discharged, and ruining your work references.
You’re a prisoner who needs to cope with being in prison. The best thing you can do is keep your back straight, your mouth shut, and go through the motions on autopilot until the clock winds down. Become a shadow on the wall. Go to your happy place in your mind during work hours, and use your military vocabulary when people talk to you. Be as Zen and as patient as you can, and leave Murder Inc. on good terms.
On a side note, when you go back out into the civilian world, the sergeants you’ve worked for will be your only job references, and 10 years from now, they’re still going to be your job references. Pick your favorite sergeants, and groom them to be your references. Do extra things for them, and stay in contact after you separate. You’ll need to know their new phone number and E-mail address 10 years from now.
Keep up the good fight. If you want to ease your conscience, I suggest finding something productive to do to raise awareness of the moral corruption in the military. It’s not legal for you to speak publicly now, but you can be working on something before you get out. Then you’ll have something fresh to share as soon as you’re free. Alternatively, if you meet troops who see the light, share my blogs with them to help them confirm and articulate their suspicions that something’s not right.
Note: I served in the U.S. Air Force from 2000-2007. My AFSC was 3C0X1 (Communications computer systems operator). My highest rank was E-5 (Staff Sergeant), and I received an honorable discharge.
The American military caste system, particularly its officer corps is an obsolete institution that is incompatible with modern, enlightened values. In order to understand why, you have to look at where it came from.
In the past, the upper class was extremely well-educated, and the poor were mostly illiterate. The job of designing and implementing military strategy naturally fell to the educated upper class, and the job of dying in the mud naturally fell to the illiterate lower class. This division of labor also served as a way to further institutionalize the caste system that separated the upper class from the lower class.
By putting a pin on one human being’s shoulder and a stripe on another human being’s shoulder it gave one human being a visible “right” to order the other like a dog, beat them like a dog and kill them like a dog if they disobeyed their master’s orders. As long as these symbols existed, everyone understood their place in the social hierarchy and accepted it as natural and just.
The industrial revolution and the information age eventually created a middle class to bridge the income gap between the rich and the poor. The higher education system still keeps a glass ceiling over the heads of the poorest of the poor who can’t afford a college degree to open the door to professional work. However, free K-12 public schools, equal access to libraries and all the information on the internet has almost completely bridged the intellectual gap between the rich and the poor.
The constitution of the United States, the Bill of Rights and the Universal Declaration of the Human Rights have whittled the institutionalized caste system down to a thread. Senior ranking soldiers can no longer legally beat lower-ranking soldiers. All soldiers are guaranteed protection from discrimination based on race, sex or religion under equal opportunity laws. Technically, a soldier can still be executed for disobeying a direct order, but that involves a lengthy legal process, and in order to avoid the bad press, disobedient soldiers are almost guaranteed to just do some jail time followed by a dishonorable discharge.
But the military has side-stepped social progress by inventing the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). This document exists to provide the military with a legal loophole around the basic human rights guaranteed to all of humanity. One of the greatest insults to humanity perpetrated by the UCMJ is the existence of the officer corps.
The injustice of the officer corps is most clearly exemplified in the act of saluting. When an enlisted troop sees an officer (or a general’s staff car) they must put their hand on their head until the officer returns the salute, which gives the enlisted troop permission to take their hand down. On the surface this is innocuous. Officers will even tell you that the reason enlisted troops salute them is out of respect. However, the true purpose of saluting is betrayed by what will happen if an enlisted troop refuses to salute an officer.
If an enlisted troop refuses to salute an officer they’ll get a letter of counseling. If they still refuse to salute an officer they’ll get a letter of reprimand. Then an Article 15. Then a court-martial. Then they’ll lose rank, pay, privilege and ultimately their freedom when they’re sent to jail. When they’re released from military prison they’ll be given a dishonorable discharge that will prevent them from getting a good job for the rest of their life.
Enlisted troops are taught to salute officers out of respect, but failing that, they’re forced to salute officers out of fear. While the rest of the population is guaranteed that their punishment must fit their crime, enlisted troops and lower-ranking officers are denied this right and are forced to symbolically subjugate themselves to any stranger wearing a pin on their shoulder. So make no mistake, the salute isn’t designed to exchange gestures of respect. It’s designed to systematically indoctrinate lower ranking troops to accept their place in the lower social caste that robs them of the dignity supposedly guaranteed to all men.
And the issue goes deeper than dignity. An officer can order enlisted troops to do anything within the limits of the Geneva Convention, and if the enlisted troop refuses they’ll go to jail. For example, if the higher caste orders the lower caste to do jumping jacks and the lower caste refuses they’ll go to jail. On the surface, this might seem innocuous again, but look at what’s really going on here. What do you call someone who has to do whatever another person says upon fear of jail time and destitution? That’s a slave, and even if you think “slave” is too strong a word to describe someone with no freedom, it’s still close enough to the truth to be immoral and unenlightened.
If you’re going to justify the manipulation, exploitation, degradation, and subjugation of another human being, much less an entire group of human beings, you have the responsibility to provide extensive, articulate, air-tight justifications. You can’t wipe away thousands of years of social evolution and human rights with a vague sentence or two such as, “Well, they took an oath.” “They volunteered.” “Good soldiers follow orders.” “You’re an idiot.” or “You have to follow orders to accomplish the mission.”
This is especially true when we’re talking about soldiers who will be ordered to kill other human beings and be killed themselves in the process. This isn’t a game. This isn’t a joke. This is a human’s life we’re putting on trial, and in the case of a military with nuclear weapons, this is the fate of the entire human race we’re talking about. When we’re talking about tangible, perishable human lives, we can’t afford to be lackadaisical in our arguments. If you truly believe that the lower military castes are selflessly sacrificing their lives for the greater good then they, of all people, deserve serious consideration and not just flippant, condescending, reactionary excuses and arguments about semantics.
Honestly, ask yourself if the officer corps and the human rights abuses that come along with it are truly necessary. In the past, the officer corps’ power and their pay was justified by the degree to which their education level and thus their contribution to the mission exceeded that of the enlisted troop. This arrangement held some merit when the average officer held the equivalent of a doctorate degree and the average enlisted troop held the equivalent of a 3rd-grade education, but that justification is obsolete.
Many enlisted troops have a higher level of education than many officers even if they don’t have the certified credentials to prove it, though some do. Even in the cases where officers do have a higher level of education, that fact doesn’t supersede the fact that all humans were created equal. An officer may have gone to 1-4 more years of school and a few months of officer training school, but to presume that gives one human being the inherent right to treat another human being as anything remotely resembling a slave and force them to degrade themselves is absurd.
Civilian doctors can’t treat uneducated patients like that. Public school teachers can’t treat students like that. Politicians can’t treat voters like that. Prison guards can’t even treat rapists like that. Nobody in the world is allowed to treat anyone else with the level of disrespect that officers are allowed and expected to treat enlisted troops with.
After all, why should they be able to? Do a few years of partying in college really fundamentally change the worth of a human being? If so, shouldn’t all of society adopt this practice? If this system is indeed justifiable then shouldn’t we force it on the rest of society? No! It would be inconceivable to force 100% of society to live under an institutionalized caste system that degrades the lower class. It would inconceivable to force even 50% or 30% of the population to live that way. So why is it okay for 1% of the population to live under a dystopian social contract?
What would happen if troops were as free as civilians? What if they could give a two-week notice and quit their job legally? What if they could challenge and disobey their “superiors?” The existing power structure would have you believe the entire military would dissolve into anarchy. Is that really logical though? The United States has an all-volunteer military. Why would people who willingly volunteered to join the military and support its mission turn around at their first base and abandon their jobs? If you think they would, then you’re saying all the troops are cowards. Even civilians who work for the military don’t turn tail and run at the first sign of danger.
The only other exception is if the mission were unjust. If there were a valid reason to conscientiously object to the mission, then any troop with foresight and a sense of justice would leave their military service. This raises the question, what are the chances the government would ever engage in an unjust war or send its troops on unjust missions?
If you’re 100% positive the government would never, ever do that, then why lock the troops into anything remotely resembling slavery? If you believe the government has ever engaged in unjust wars, ordered its troops to do unjust things or will ever do so then you would want the troops to have the freedom to think and act on their own conscience. Preventing them from doing so by brainwashing them and holding a gun to their heads would only guarantee corrupt and/or misguided politicians the ability to call on the world’s most lethal fighting force to serve their corrupted purposes. When you justify the enslavement of the military, you need to understand lucidly that you’re giving a monkey a gun on blind faith.
And understand the irony of saying, “Yes, we must brainwash troops, lock them into a caste system and take away their freedom.” What you’re saying is that we absolutely must mislead, mentally and physically enslave and degrade our fellow human beings into submission…for the sake of protecting our fellow human beings from slavery, abuse, and exploitation. The United States Military failed its mission of protecting people’s freedoms the moment it threw out the Universal Declaration of Human Rights out the window in favor of the Uniform Code of Military Justice.
Honestly, what are we doing here? What kind of a world are we creating where we’ve justified an oppressive caste system at the taxpayers’ expense to act as unquestioning mercenaries for the rich and powerful? How can we honestly say to ourselves that we “support the troops” when we’ve allowed our brothers and sisters to be swindled out of their basic human rights?
Are we even worth defending when we would so proudly throw our fellow man under the bus like that? What kind of a world are we creating? You can see with your own eyes what kind of a world we’re creating. Go to any American military base in the world and tour the officer’s barracks and clubs. Then tour the enlisted barracks and clubs. You should be horrified by the Soviet-era disparity between the quality of life between the two castes. The officers gorge themselves on luxury in gold-encrusted rooms (paid for by impoverished taxpayers) while the enlisted people shiver in condemned buildings. You will see a world that has existed right under your nose for your entire life that makes “1984” look like a children’s story.
Don’t accept the American military’s actions on blind faith alone. If the military’s actions have truly been just, then go to the all the countries America has exported war to this century. Talk to the people and look at the physical results of the war. Oh, you’ll find people who celebrate the American military, but for every one of those you find you’ll find 1000 corpses, 1000 broken families, 1000 babies with birth defects from discarded military ordinance, 1000 destroyed buildings, 10 sweatshops where American goods are produced and more often than not, a few active American military bases.
Suppose everything I’ve said here is wrong. Suppose the military caste system is excusable despite its indignity. We still need to question its efficiency. We’ve already asked ourselves if we should have absolute faith in the politicians who wield unquestionable control over the military and acknowledged the inherent danger in that.
Now consider this. Think of all the civilians you know with a bachelor’s degree. What if they had absolute, unquestionable authority over the subordinates in their cubicles. How responsibly would they wield their power to silence all opposition to their will by saying, “Shut up and color or I’ll send you to jail.”? Would totalitarian authority improve innovation and efficiency in public or private organizations? Is there any precedent whatsoever to suggest that totalitarian authority has a tendency to inculcate close-minded thinking, abuse of power and impunity from accountability? Yes. Civilian progress would grind to a halt if they adopted the same caste system the United States military uses.
The military is made up of human beings, just like the civilian sector, and the caste system has had predictably detrimental effects in the military. The military sets the standard for fraud, waste, and abuse because it’s run by the officer corps, which is fraud, waste and abuse incarnate.
There’s one final cost to the officer corps itself that we have to acknowledge and accept if we’re to continue to condone its existence much less its celebrity status. Look at the psychological damage it does to officers when they’re allowed to exercise totalitarian authority over other human beings they call their subordinates.
Consider the psychological impact it has on a human being when they’re treated like a god day in and day out for years. This lifestyle will take its toll. The constant reinforcement will indoctrinate the officer himself to truly believe there is something superior about his person, and when this belief is indoctrinated deeply enough he’ll eventually reach a point where this illusion becomes a permanent reality in their own mind.
Then they’ll go through the rest of their life wearing rose-colored glasses. They’ll live in an inescapable false reality in which they play a divine figure walking amongst unclean, incomplete sub-humans, and while this will be enjoyable to the officer, it’s simply not true. That’s literally insanity. The officer corps is institutionalized insanity. I don’t say that to shame officers, I say that to shame the ttaxpayerswho fund the indoctrination of officers and strip them of their sanity.
The Wise Sloth 