Hi Readers. Thanks for coming by for a read doodah, doodah.
Funny how we humans are so prone to find anwers to bloat our egos over answers that don’t feel as good, but have the virtue of being true. For instance, any king, nobleman, or any peasant in human history could tell you the fundamental purpose of government.
If you asked, the peasant, the king or nobleman, would stare at you wondering if you were joking, then decide you were just the village idiot and explain, “The fundamental purpose of government is to keep the hired-help from running off with the silverware.”
Sure, goverment’s always had other functions, too. Settling arguments between noblemen over which peasants belong to what nobleman. Setting the peasants hacking at one another with sharpened objects if the noblemen can’t agree which is the bossman. Sending some of the hired hands around to see what crops the peasants have managed to harvest, and taking some of it away from them. Making some of the peasants into cops to ride herd on the peasants, keeping them doing what the noblemen tell them to.
Yeah, things got complicated when the Americans managed to run off with the silverware despite everything kings and noblemen could do. Suddenly the applecart was overturned and everyone was going to want to be a king or nobleman. And the process of deciding who was going to order whom around could have gotten bloody if there hadn’t been some smartypantses thinking ahead.
They had to think of a way to make everyone think they didn’t have any king, any noblemen, any dynasties of power. The first time it was put to the test was President/King John Adams and President/King John Quincy Adams.
That’s when they invented the methodology. “Hey! Looky over there!” And nobody noticed there was suddenly a dynastic nobility forming up with new silverware they didn’t want the hired help running off with.
Worked fairly well, all things considered. They didn’t even have to keep what they were doing a secret. Time came when Hopalong Cassidy, Roy Rogers, Gene Autry and Hoot Gibson all used it.
Some guy would be pointing a gun at them, and Hopolong, Roy, Gene, or Hoot would point and yell, “Hey! Looky over there!” The guy would look and find himself punched on the point of the chin, corrected in his designs on the silverware.
Today it’s a lot easier because there are so many things the government to point to and yell, “Hey! Looky over there!” and people will look. People who hate what they see as dumbasses and rednecks will even help doing the pointing. “Hey, take the guns away from those dumbass rednecks.”
Or, “Hey! Looky at those people who do things I don’t like with their sex organs!”
Or, “Hey! Looky at those people getting more free rocks from the government than I do!” [The government business of, “buy 10 rocks and get two free” doesn’t work equally for everyone. Some people only buy 5 rocks and get 10. Others buy 12 rocks and get 50. Big big big problem of unequal treatment.]
Sure, it’s dizzying trying to think it all through. But any peasant, king or nobleman could tell you the truth of it.
If we didn’t all happen to be the village idiots.
Old Jules
So Far From Heaven 