What Governments Fear Most About You

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What Governments Fear Most About You

June 22, 2009

Not long ago I was stuck in a dingy machine shop 20 miles from nowhere waiting around for the mechanics to install a new pipe and muffler on my car.

This was not because I love automobiles or get some kind of visceral thrill from rumbling engines and screaming tailpipes.

No I was here because not 3 days earlier, the state of Missouri deemed my “motor vehicle” a rolling death trap – ready, willing and able to gas its unsuspecting passengers Auschwitz-style.

But I wasn’t worried about that. Nagging on my mind was license plate renewal. Since the deadline was in mere days, this left me with 2 options:

1. Fork over a suitcase of unmarked $2,500 to some inner-city extortion ring (more commonly known as Midas or Firestone) for a new Infiniti exhaust system overhaul.

OR…

2. Journey 76 miles to hack my way through dense country forest and down a lonely dirt road leading straight to a man named Joe Todd.

You see, most people don’t have a “Joe Todd” at their disposal. When roadside disaster strikes, they’re forced to cough up serious dough to some chain-store lackey who could give a damn.

Not I.

Because thanks to my uncle’s vast network of crack-shot auto technicians, I’m able to get blackbelt service at a 97% discount. The only catch is you have to climb the mountain to meet the master.

Hence, Joe Todd. You don’t have to know what he looks like; when he enters the room, there’s not a doubt in your mind the mustached man standing before you could be none other. Everyone else who visits his shop certainly knows it. Just ask the Missouri state government.

On this particular occasion, my muffler work wasn’t the only business going down at Joe’s shop. As welding sparks danced on the scalding concrete of a sweltering summer afternoon, a Missouri Highway Patrol squad car kicked up a cloud of dust as it parked outside.

The hulking trooper stepped out of his car wearing big black aviator sunglasses. The way he strode into Joe’s shop left no question somebody was about to be in a deep heap of shit.

Joe isn’t just in the machine shop business. He’s also licensed by the state to do vehicle safety inspections. And when you’re licensed by the state to do anything, that means you’ve got greasy bureaucratic hands feeling you up whenever they can.

The cop wanted to see Joe’s inspection records. This was one of those state-sponsored random searches to make sure minions knew their place and barked when government goons tossed them a bone.

Of course, Joe kept immaculate records. No problem there. Just show him what he wants so you can get back to work.

And that’s precisely what Joe did.

Except as he walked back to my car to work some more muffler magic, the angry trooper’s voice rang out, grinding the whole place to a deafening silence.

“Just what in the hell is this?”

Like a called-out gunfighter, Joe stopped on a dime and slowly turned around.

“None of these pages in your log book are ripped out,” the officer continued, “Git yourself on over here and rip these pages out.” He flicked the book in Joe’s direction.

Coolly, calmly, Joe stepped up in front of the patrolman.

“If you want to stop in here and look at my books in the middle of the day while I’m with customers, you go rip those pages out yourself,” Joe said firmly with unflinching eyes.

The officer shot back, “I have a good mind to write you up. If you don’t get over there and rip those pages out I’m gonna pull your license.”

By this point the entire shop was enraptured, hanging on every word of the brewing battle.

For Joe it was just “one of those days” and that was all it took. He glanced down, calmly containing his rage, and jerked back up and into the eyes of the law man. He brushed past the trooper to go grab the record book, and with one fluid motion slammed it down with an echoed WHAP on the nearby bench. Then he tore off the Missouri state inspection certifications lining his wall and threw them onto the pile.

“You just go on and write me up. You take your stickers and your book, and get out of my shop,” Joe declared purposely narrowing the distance between him and the officer. He pointed outside toward the road, “Out there on the highway you’re the boss… but when you’re in here…” he gestured to himself, “this is MY shop.”

Machine shops are noisy places, but at that very moment you could’ve heard a lesser man swallow.

None of us in recent memory had scarcely witnessed such blatant balls spitting in the face of authority. Not since the younger days of America have we heard what it really looks like to be a Yankee. I’m not a fan of nationalism, but we’ve forgotten how to be Americans.

More importantly, many of us have forgotten how to be men… and what amazing things can happen when we are.

Right before our eyes, the officer’s ice began to melt. He’d locked horns with the wrong billy goat and this realization crept into his composure like a drop of blood in clear water.

“You don’t have to do that Joe,” he said, clearing his throat, “I can come back another time when you’re not so busy.”

And that was that. Joe later said that whenever they did come back, it was a different officer. And when Joe asked if they needed him to tear out those log book pages they said, “No that’s all right Joe, we’ll do it ourselves.”

Word spreads when the lamb bites the lion. You might not think tearing out a few pages for some random cop is a big deal. Just do it and get on with life. But what happens when favors become mandatory and authority cracks the government whip to serve their own agenda?

Even more, what happens when governments abuse the citizens they’re supposed to serve and protect?

It is my opinion this country is slowly slipping into some bastardized form of socialistic despotism. Just ask mega-millionaire Steve Forbes. But no matter what you believe, the current tide is less and less favorable to making money and getting ahead in life, which means opportunity in America is finally beginning to dry up after a century of economic orgy. Those of us with an eye to the future would be wise to start making some “bailout plans” of our own.

But this post isn’t about that. The point of all this is: if you had been in Joe’s shoes… what would you have done? Would you have let them trample over you… or would you have stared down the fearsome face of oppression, and won?

When some people get an IRS notice in the mail, their gut reaction is fear. For others, anger. What about you?

Unfortunately, I was brought up in a household of relatively weak people. My dad ran from responsibility whenever possible, and my grandparents were peaceful farm folk, leaving my mom as the only semblance of strength in an otherwise rickety structure. Almost everything I know today about power, strength, and raw determination I had to learn myself. There’s a part of me who resents that.

In the old days, the power elite controlled and manipulated people through the guise of religion. Popes were some of the most corrupt men history has ever known. Families like the Medici vyed for control and once they got it, The Church played puppet master to a host of loyal subjects.

Nowadays, religion has loosened its grip somewhat, but nature abhors a vacuum. These days, it is the media who have stepped in to fill the role.

If you pay close attention, much of our culture coming from the media these days all focuses around the same central theme:

“You are powerless. Stop, slow down. There’s no need to progress. World problems are too difficult for you to figure out on your own so listen to us. Trust the authorities because they’re our only hope.”

If you don’t believe me, then flip on some Fox News for about 2 hours. That’s all the time you’ll need to see it if you know what to watch for. Your personal stagnation is the name of the game and they know how high the stakes go.

Power structures have always lived secretly in fear of those whom they govern. In the old days, the power structure was obvious, in your face. You could see the troops marching and hear the guns blazing.

These days it’s a different story. Misguided forward thinkers claim we’re now past the age of brutality and onward toward enlightenment. Nothing could be further from the truth. Because nowadays storm trooper marches and outright war have been quietly replaced by an invisible prison.

Crazy? No. You’ve felt this invisible prison yourself, many times before.

It’s ensnares you every time you’re forced to take out a loan to buy a house – shelter – one of the most common fundamental needs of a human being. It poisons you in the chemical cocktail foods you eat. It cracks the whip and keeps you in line with all the glittering gadgets and fabricated social goals dangled before you like Swords of Damocles. And it robs you of your soul as a man every time you’re forced to run an ever faster treadmill just to keep pace with basic survival in modern society.

The power elite know this. In fact, they depend on it. For you are the Energizer Battery that feeds their plan of global domination.

Melodramatic? A little – but no less true.

So what can you do? What can we, as “ordinary citizens” do in the face of such overwhelming opposition?

It’s really quite simple.

Fear nothing.

Easy to say, sure. But is it hard to carry out? I say no.

Life’s a bitch and then you die. Get used to it. It isn’t going to change anytime soon.

Seriously, what is there to fear? Look at it this way. We’re insignificant little specks living on an insignificant little speck of a rock orbiting an insignificant star in a dark, cold universe that wouldn’t give 2 shakes of a shit stick if we all just up and disappeared.

Just like everything else that walks, breathes, grows, flies, crawls or swims, we are going to die. One day, this planet will die. After that, our sun will die – expanding into a red giant and burning off any trace of what remains of planet Earth. Then it will collapse into a small dim ball of its former self, leaving our solar system to freeze up in a cold death.

When I was a young boy, this kind of talk used to scare me… bad. I can remember crying because of it. Nowadays it doesn’t frighten me at all. In fact, I embrace it.

Why?

Armies and governments fear men and women who know they are going to die soon, and with good reason. Such people have nothing to lose. They will commit any atrocity and take as many others with them as they can, if they’re driven to it.

You must now become that doomed man or woman. I have. Because you and I are going to die. Nothing can alter that fact. It is immutable. Incomprehensible. Unfair. All of that.

But don’t you SEE? It sets you free.

What does anything matter if you’re going to die? Nothing. Nothing at all. Get that through your terrified mind and you will wake up early every morning ready to tear the throat out of the first problem that dares cross your path. Not because you need to. Not because you get a thrill out of it. Simply because you can, and nothing really matters.

You’ve got to make a pact with yourself right here and now. You cannot banish fear, but you can face it down, stomp on it, crush it, bury it, lock it up into the deepest recesses of your heart and soul and leave it there to rot.

Just try. Try for a single day – a whole day when you refuse to acknowledge fear of failure, fear of making yourself look like an idiot, fear of losing your lover, fear of losing your job, fear of your boss, fear of anything at all.

And when you do, fear will creep back. Slowly. At 3am in the morning. Laugh at it and tell it to take a hike. Smash it in the teeth. Spit on it. Curl your arms around it and snuggle up to it. Then slip a sharp blade into its miserable throat just as you’re French kissing it.

Go on. I double-dog-dare you. If you can do this one thing, it will transform your life. In my case, it was for the better. You’ll have to wrestle with your own inner demons. We all do.

All that is stopping you from what you really want in life is fear. It’s all a big head game designed to program you into modern day slavery. And all you have to do is make One. Simple. Decision.

So what’re you so afraid of, anyway? Get out there and live what little life you have and to hell with what the neighbors think. To hell with what society thinks. And to a blazing inferno with what the government and media tell you to think.

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