© Leslie Blanchard
Perhaps it's just our insufferable conceit as humans which causes us to believe the myth that we have "free will". Due to this so-called free will we deem our species higher than the other animals we share the planet with. But from where I sit- the feral cats, the coyotes and raccoons that roam my property have much more free will than I do. Than any of us do. Of course, as humans we can't tolerate that notion, so we have gone to tremendous effort to exert our will over the animals- driving many of them into extinction. But I digress, this isn't going to be a treatise on animal rights-maybe later.
I wonder when man first realized that in order to keep a civilization "in order" they had to create the lie of free will- as they were taking it away.
Think about it- my free will wants me to sit on my porch naked smoking a joint. But I can't do that. It's against the rules, laws and Christian values (although I'm no Christian). Why don't they just tell us the truth- "you have free will...you can do whatever you wish- as long as we approve it"?
From the moment we slide out of the birth canal we unknowingly start our indoctrination process. They Baden-Powell all the boys, and they give all the girls easy-bake ovens. And if at the age of 2-3 the little boy wants to play with his sisters easy-bake, parents and society get hysterical. Some rush the boy to the shrink- chemicals might turn him into the "right" kind of boy-child. If that fails, then they go to a pediatrician and get him diagnosed with ADD, Autism, social anxiety disorder, restless leg syndrome, whatever chemicals they can get society to OK and HMO's approval for. Yet another method of setting the child on the proper path is the old boot-camp treatment
When I was 6 years old, I started playing softball. I was really good, Mom & Dad were so proud of me. There was a girl on the team that I liked a lot, I can still remember her name- Debbi Reynolds- it's true I swear. Anyhoo I asked my mom after practice one day if it was wrong for me to love another girl? She said "No, honey- friends love each other." I knew what I meant- my mom had no idea of what I meant. And I had no idea what she was trying to convey to me with her carefully chosen parsed words. Years later when I explained that I was Lesbian and she had told me years before that it was OK- she nearly passed out. My parents were great though as were my older brothers- they accepted me and have always included my partner as part of the family. But since I was 6 years old- I knew I was different- I was somehow breaking/bending a rule of society. I started to question God & religion around the age of 14. My great Aunt had died and my older brother, in pain, shouted that there could be no such thing as God-or a wonderful, charitable woman like Auntie would not have had to suffer the way she did. So by the time I was 15 I knew that society would see at me differently than it saw my friends. I knew that there were a bunch of unwritten rules out there somewhere that I was breaking. But I couldn't find the list of rules and I was just me, I saw no reason to change. My friends had no idea of the secrets I was keeping. They do now and they are still my friends- but they and my big brothers still see me as a "little off" or "eccentric".
There are just so many rules out there in the world. Rules for being an American. Rules to be considered successful. Rules to be a Republican. Rules to be a Neo-Con. Rules to be a Democrat, or Progressive. Rules to be in the Union. Rules against Unions. Rules to be "born-again". Rules to be Catholic, Protestant, Atheist. Rules to be a good citizen. Rules to follow in Prison. Rules to follow to not go to Prison. Rules about what you can write. Rules about trans-fats. Rules about corporate dress code. And the nefarious thoughts we can't ever tell anyone that we have.
If you really think back through your life and see what decisions you made to get where you are today- did you really make them freely? Did you make them to please others? Did you make them because they were expected? Are you beginning to see that you may not have as much free will as you thought you did?
Did you know that prior to 1918 we had a large socialist party in the U.S.A.? Did you know that George Washington's main crop was marijuana and that smoking it wasn't illegal until 1935? Somehow those things displeased our rulers so they were outlawed, criminalized, and never put in the history books. The great propaganda machine started cranking out bullshit to make our minds shift, to tell us we weren't really smart enough to know what was best for us. Fluoride in our water, aspartame in everything we eat, developing and pushing medications for diseases that don't even exist until they have a medication for it re: Restless Leg Syndrome, serve the purpose of the rulers, they soften our minds, they dumb us down. Because if we really had free will in America, we would not allow this country to be where it is today. Other Governments in other countries, like France, are scared of their citizenry. That's why they have free medical, and a damn good system. That's why they have more rights for workers, paid leave for childbirth, and many other benefits that we do not have in America. In America- we live in fear of our Government. This has been carefully, purposefully, honed by telling us we have free will- while we don't. They tell us we have the highest standard of living in the world due to that free will- which we don't. Now I'm not saying that the French have free will either- but they have a bit more than we do. And their government hasn't been led for a couple hundred years by fascists that want to keep them in their place.
What we need now is to reclaim our free will and reclaim the reins of our country. There will be opponents. Mainly the completely brainwashed, musheaded neo-cons that play with tea bags- the proof of their lack of free will is how they parrot every word uttered by a drug crazed nut job like Rush Limbaugh, or a convicted felon like G. Gordon Liddy. Hell, Limbaugh has no free will- he has Oxycontin instead.
Just try to think back to your childhood, before you were fully brainwashed, try and remember what freedom of thought felt like. Remember your imaginary friend- the one that had to disappear when you reached a certain age? Try and reclaim that feeling of power when you could imagine anything, before you were schooled that fanciful imagining was worthless. Try and pinpoint where and when your free-will was handed over to those who you wished to please. Those who wished to rule you. Can you?
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