The Admirals Of Our Disturbing Political Epitaph

“Of all debts, men are least willing to pay their taxes; what a satire this is on government.”

Ralph Waldo Emerson didn’t mince words when he wrote his essay series from 1841 to 1844. Emerson was a writer’s, writer. He dressed his words in expensive thoughts and sensible metaphors. His thoughts about politics and taxes are on point today, but we still don’t get it. America’s government is the Titanic of the 21st century. It suffers from foolish executive legislation and laws that stripe to the bone, the character of every citizen.

We elect representatives to find a cure for our character flaws, but those well-meaning and not-so-well-meaning folks, don’t represent us in Washington. They flow with their party’s tide and dine with the sharks that tug at the ordinary issues till they are out-of-date and out-of-order. Representation spoils under the rug of power, greed, and envy. These voting state champions wake up every morning with a capitalistic hangover, but they can’t wait to do the same thing over and over again. This addicted group of economic supremacists reveal in their historic failures. And they lie and then converge in ego-serving political warfare with the grace and pride of first-class felons. Political lies and the ego-serving political warriors that serve them to us in a neatly wrapped legal package give nothing and take all by proxy. These slightly aware political warriors are the captains of our corrupt form of capitalism and the admirals of our disturbing epitaph.

Emerson said, “the boundaries of personal influence is impossible to fix.” People are the dysfunctional organs of our Democracy. This form of Democracy uses the mind of a select group and creates a form of civil freedom and religious sentiment that fuel our addictive idiosyncracies. And then we justify our addictions by transferring blame. Blame negates our political validity. And fear fuels our anguish and sense of injustice.

But Emerson found a way to deal with our self-inflicted conundrum in 1841:

“Hence, the less government we have, the better. The fewer laws and the less confided power the better. The antidote to this abuse of formal Government, is, the influence of private character, the growth of the Individual; the appearance of the principal to supersede the proxy; the appearance of the wise man, of whom the existing government, is, it must be owned, but a shabby imitation. The appearance of character makes the State unnecessary. The wise man is the State. He needs no army, fort, or navy. He loves men too well; no bribe, or feast, or palace, to draw friends to him; no vantage ground, no favorable circumstance.

To educate the wise man, the State exists; and with the appearance of the wise man, the State expires. He needs no library, for he has not done thinking; no church, for he is a prophet; no statute book, for he has the lawgiver; no money, for he is value; no road, for he is at home where he is; no experience, for the life of the creator shoots through him and looks from his eyes.”