Happy with the blackjack

Courtesy of Paul the Spud, we now find out that elementary schools are banning games of tag at recess. Big Brother Government apparently is necessary to prevent little Jennifer and little Jeffy from running into each other on the playground and getting a boo-boo. And what do their parents think? Well, how's this: Willett parent, Celeste D'Elia, said her son feels safer because of the rule. "I've witnessed enough near collisions," she said. Oooh, can't have little sonny get a boo-boo on the playground! And yet another generation is raised to be happy with the blackjack... yet another generation of wimp Americans, no longer the "home of the brave", but, rather, the "home of the cowering in fear".

This is a relatively new development in American culture. Until the 1960's, it simply was accepted that life was dangerous. Until the 1940's, it was well known that at least 1/3rd of your children would die before reaching adulthood due to disease, so it didn't make sense to try to protect them from less likely causes of death such as, say, colliding with a girl while playing tag on the playground. This general attitude persisted even after immunizations reduced childhood deaths drastically -- until Ralph Nader.

I think it is ironic that the fear-driven politics used by the Reich Wing derives from that created by Ralph Nader and similar left-wing "consumer safety advocates" of the 1960's. Their fear-based tactics convinced millions that they needed to live their lives in fear unless Big Brother Government came in and protected them, whereas before then, it was simply accepted that life was a risky business. I think this just goes to show just how "conservative" the Bushevics really are... when it comes to that fear thing and "big brother government must protect you!", they make Ralph Nader look as conservative as Ronald Reagan.

So here we have the spectacle of American society not only comfortable with, but welcoming the blackjack, out of some deranged notion that the purpose of government is to make them "safe". There are no Americans rioting in the streets over the fact that Dear Leader has now been granted the power to disappear anybody he wants into the gulags with no court review for eternity. Indeed, the majority applaud it. The new American dream is Singapore, a fascist one-party dictatorship that maintains order by ruling with an iron hand. The new American dream comes complete with jackboots and uniforms and blackjacks on every street corner to insure that Americans don't have any of that "risk" or "danger" stuff in their lives. They want Big Brother to kill or torture lots of "evildoers" for them, where "evildoers" consist of anybody who is not part of their particular troop of hairless monkeys. They are, in the end, the townspeople of the Clint Eastwood movie High Plains Drifter, where the majority of the townspeople are cowards too scared to stand up for themselves, and get what they ask for and deserve in the end.

Unfortunately, they're taking the rest of us down with them. And this penguin, for one, isn't happy at all with the blackjack, but hasn't the foggiest notion what to do about it given that the majority of Americans are happy with the blackjack, indeed, embrace it as the new American dream.

-- Badtux the Drifter Penguin

Cross-posted in slightly different form at Mimus Pauly's