THE AMERICAN PARENTDOX

“I find it odd in the United States that people who are citizens of a Republic have a monarchical theory of the universe.”

— Alan Watts

People often complain about our government as if it were separate from its people. Our Constitution and its amendments were designed with one primary goal: to limit the power of the federal government to threaten our individual liberties. We are the government we are complaining about.

Yes, you can argue that forces have created a sense of separation because the urge toward tyranny is as mighty as our egos, and the way politicians and the media gaslight us like malignant narcissists is designed to distract us from our power.

In fact, right after we won our independence from Britain, the people wanted to make Washington the King of America. We have an embedded need for monarchs and hierarchy. Frankly, we have Daddy Issues.

This could be due to our original wiring as a slave race. Our forefathers… See! There it is again. Fore”Fathers”! Jesus, Joseph, and Mary… Shit. There’s no getting around this.

Thankfully, our ForePeople thought this through and created a kind of contained entropy of a Republic. Any concentration of power is diffused by at least two other branches of government.

This is being stress-tested right now, though. Our duopoly, our two-party system, is splitting at the seams like two fabrics sewn together by frayed threads. We either need to 1. Patch it, which is a temporary fix, 2. Let it rip into Civil War, or 3. Get naked and try on some new clothes.

It’s getting warmer now, so #3 could work. I’m thinking instead of red or blue, we go orange?