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A Nation of Meddling Parasites
Every once in awhile someone in America thinks and connects the dots.
And the pattern revealed to thoughtful people isn't a pretty sight. A letter to the editor in the Washington Times from John Culver of Westchester, California pinpointed what I have been writing about for years. We are a nation of parasites. As a writer, I'm a parasite. As a former design engineer, Mr. Culver said he was a parasite. Most likely nearly everyone reading this column is a parasite. Useful and frequently necessary parasites, but parasites nonetheless.
Now wait a minute....aren't parasites those creatures that eat away at the substance of trees? How dare we compare hardworking salesmen and writers, bureaucrats, policemen, teachers, engineers and service people with those beastly varmints?
Webster's Dictionary defines parasites thus: "One who lives at others' expense....a plant or animal that lives on or in another organism."
The reason most of us are parasites is because we don't create original wealth. With our service and consumption economy, we only move wealth around.
The only major creator of new wealth in a country is production--- farming, ranching, tree harvesting, mining, petroleum, fishing and manufacturing. Mr. Culver said as a designer he wasn't creating wealth, he was consuming wealth generated by the manufacture of items he designed. To a greater or lesser extent, we are all parasites deriving our income from recycled wealth which can only be created originally from the earth and sea.
Government is a huge parasite, as are the military, post office, schools, wholesale and retail activities, shippers of goods, transportation, etc. This is not to say that these activities are unneccessary or unimportant, merely that they are paid from the original wealth generated by the few productive industries.
As a nation, we have devalued domestic productive industries and sent them offshore; thus, simultaneously destroying our creators of original wealth, incurring huge indebtedness to other nations and using massive amounts of fuels to transport our daily needs from abroad, a practice that has sustainability implications for families, communities, the environment and the economy.
Every successful civilization on earth grew from the roots of resource production. Every nation fell when they devalued the work that wrested this wealth from the earth and sea in favor of paper money, 'modern' stock trading, finances, marketing, academics, law, politics, entertainments and sports.
Today we are no different from earth's earliest civilizations of Sumer (in present day Iraq) Mesopotamia, Babylon and Rome. They, like us, got so smart and educated that they... and we... forgot that everything that makes an advanced civilization possible came originally from the ground, and those who make things from earth's resources.
Our governors and senators and congresspeople and judges are parasites, dependent entirely for their existence upon the wealth that flows from the ground and spreads through the private sector, leaving little behind in the false economy we have created, as it increasingly accumulates at the top.
And most of the bureaucrats and politicians, like much of society, spend their time figuring out more ways to meddle in peoples' lives, lifestyles, finances, personal habits, pocketbooks, households, businesses and properties, placing obstacles in the way of every productive enterprise while simultaneously extracting every dollar and cent possible to fund a plethora of nanny-state "good causes," which could all be classified as parasitic.
In short, the business of America seems to be the creation of an ever more parasitic society while paradoxically enlarging the numbers and opportunities of those who depend upon the ground for their existence.
Paul Hein wrote in an article I read recently that "never have so many been educated for so long and learned so little."
To elaborate on that statement, I'll concede that we're smart and witty and have invented a lot of marvelous things. But it's what we learn, how we use our education and the end result that really counts for the long haul of a society. Our schools, universities, political and other institutions have succumbed to the curse of comfort and wealth and have forgotten that all human life depends on our intelligent connection with, understanding and use of, the bounties of the earth.
And that is the greatest failure of all thousands of years in countless civilizations. We have forgotten that nothing about human nature is new under the sun, because in spoiled wealthy nations the teaching of real history has been abandoned for diversity studies, gender studies, affirmative action, multiculturism, homosexual stardom and a load of other crap that should be private business, not taught as gospel and wielded as political machetes.
Are we more civil and ethical as a result of our detour off the road of common sense? Are we a safer society with all our rules and regulations? Has our legal system created "liberty and justice for all?" Is our medical system with all its bells and whistles and miracle drugs more fair, humane and efficient than ever? Is our marvelous technology a 100 percent improvement over the old days? I sure like my computer, but I don't like talking on the phone to eight mechanical voices and spending 40 minutes to sort out a problem that took five minutes 'in the old days' when I talked to a real person. We've all wanted our children to grow up to be (lawyers and doctors and such,) but it's a sobering fact that the majority of America's most highly paid and well-trained people are merely the production and manufacturing that we are chasing out of the country as fast as we can, leaving our once thriving middle class floundering down the foreign product-laden aisles of Wal-Mart and Home Depot thinking they're getting bargains.
What makes our present situation so pathetic is that thanks to a dedicated minority of the truly educated, unlike the ancient civilizations we have sufficient knowledge of the workings of nature, soil, water, forests, climates, etc. to have it all.... environment and healthy, active, independent people.
But we aren't ready to listen to that kind of intelligence yet. We are politically incapable of wedding our advanced technology and knowledge to basic realities and eternal truths. We're too busy with (important) issues such as wasting forests, creating ghost towns in rural America, imposing a total smoking ban on Arizona private businesses, debating about homosexual marriages, banning crosses from federal land, kicking the Boy Scouts in the tail because they have a certain belief system, taking Christmas out of schools, potholes out of roads and any lurking spark of independence and individuality out of every American head.
Politicians, talking TV heads, judges and community activists that want to manage everyone's lives are so busy meddling in the affairs of Americans and other nations that nothing really important to a great nation... liberty, responsibility, and our transformation from a constitutional republic to a parasitic democracy.
U.S. Rep. Ron Paul says, "Today's political process is nothing more than a street fight between various groups seeking to vote themselves other people's money."
It doesn't take long for a great tree parasites to die.
That's something we should think about.
Payson.cc © 2003 Carrol Cox
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