Masks reveal our personal & group schizophrenia about Government

The Government should have a united plan, a directive all states, counties, and cities could follow. Clear standards and the power, willingness, and trained personnel to uphold them. Government should have standards of care and safety for its citizens and dispense fiscal and personnel to support the citizenry in times of crisis as well as in times of thriving.

The Government should not tell us anything. They should stay out of our business, literally, leave individuals alone to fend for themselves. If they can’t make it, tough. If anyone finds themselves in hard times, they deserve them. Unless they are my family, in which case it’s not their fault and some aid from the government is required and expected. But Government should have no more right to collect statistical data and should not dispense money for schools and such, except for my kids and grandkids schools. They should be free to us and well-funded by the state. But not in my business. Mind you, if one of my competitors is pulling shenanigans or corporate spying, they should be prosecuted, but when my company does it, it’s just good business practices. But those people who live in hurricane or tornado or fire or avalanche or flood zones, the government shouldn’t do anything for those local governments, infrastructure of citizens. If they don’t have insurance, tough. Unless it’s my family members. Government should be run like a business, so the Post Office, a service to the people of America as well as businesses, deserves to fold because it loses so much money every year. Never mind that the Pentagon loses (costs) $934 Billion dollars a year and more. Our tax dollars supporting Lockheed and Boeing over individual school children is just fine, unless it’s my kid.

The average taxpayer contributed $230 to Lockheed Martin’s Department of Defense contracts, the Pentagon’s biggest contractor and maker of the ill-conceived F-35 jet fighter.

o That’s twice as much as the $109 taxpayers contributed to child nutrition programs like school breakfast and lunch.

The average taxpayer contributed $102 for Department of Defense contracts for Boeing — whose former executive Patrick Shanahan is now the acting U.S. Secretary of Defense.

The average taxpayer paid $3,457 for the Pentagon and military, almost nineteen times more than for all diplomacy and foreign aid ($183).

So — I ask you, personally; should government be in the business of providing services and protection for the citizens, or should it provide shelter and protection for money, which is what corporations are indeed, if not in press release.

I ask you this personal question to ask yourself, and to align how you speak of these things to what you truly believe.

Both left, from our 1960’s hippy days — down with the government, and the right, Reagan’s corrosive and jovial insistence that government should be run like a business, profit efficiency with is structured completely differently than a service organization is. To run government like a business, you have to break long-established government department's standard operating procedures.

But ask yourself — do you value community at al

You can’t have 328+ million people without some forms of organization, and the myth of natural selection is disastrous in practice. Only the mean survive? Not a good long-term plan.

If you value a community agree to stop at red lights, to slow down in school zones, to have oversight so the meat you buy for your family isn’t tainted, and the like, then you see the point of governance.

This administration is reprehensible and before him, there were things that needed to be addressed, but since the 1960’s the loathing and disdain of the government and citizens not wanting to have anything to do with it “both sides are equally bad” and equating the murder of people and okaying torture with a man lying about a blowjob at work is telling in itself) has brought us to this day.

What if we stop talking about what we are against and start talking and walking towards what we are for?

There are plenty of outward-focused actions and things to do, but don’t forget that the inner game is just as important.

How you speak about government, how I speak about government, matters. Thoughts become things; they become manifest in physical reality. Being conscious of what you think and say is not only good for recovering Democracy in the US, it’s also a first step in restoring personal sanity, mental health, and strong wellbeing.