Blagnet.net

Helpless

In my readings on the internet in recent years, I have learned about what an evil, greedy, deceitful, manipulative, criminal, homicidal cult Scientology is. I know what L. Ron Hubbard’s real motives were in creating his cult (greed, power, control), and I know he had indications of paranoid schizophrenia, traits that are reflected in the traits of his cult. I have read the damning quotes from Hubbard’s own writings and sayings that give clues—no, proof—as to the nature of his cult, his goals, his plans, his tactics, his personality. I’ve also read the other damning facts at Operation Clambake and the ludicrous science-fictional “history” that Hubbard made up and that Scientologists fully believe.

You might also have heard about the somewhat suspicious circumstances under which several cult converts died (or, were killed by cult leaders). This is extremely sad and worrisome to me, for most people join the Cult of Scientology during a crisis in their lives, seeking stability, purpose, focus, and coping mechanisms for the stresses and difficulties of all kinds that they face in life. And all the cult wants is their money. Well, and control over their minds so they will recruit more people to be controlled and stolen from. It is perfectly voluntary to join, if you’re gullible enough, but nearly impossible to leave. Many people find suicide (or being murdered) as the only way out.

I have spent some small amount of time wondering and worrying about what life is like for people brainwashed by this greedy, manipulative, and murderous cult. I’ve been especially saddened by the victims who try to save themselves but aren’t permitted to. I can only imagine how helpless they feel. I can only imagine how helpless and powerless were those who committed suicide to escape from the relentless harassment, obsessive control, and suffocating greed of the cult leaders who always demanded more, more, more of their money. And I mourn for those who were murdered by Scientologists out of malice or noble self-righteousness. We non-victims experience a certain level of this helplessness, too, though. Outspoken critics have been sued and silenced by the Co$, so doing any more than running a Co$-exposing website puts yourself at substantial legal, financial, and, actually, physical risk. Dozens of people have been successfully sued and harassed by Scientologists simply for being critical of the cult. You certainly can’t save people who are already under the cult’s control; the cult leaders won’t let you come even close. And, obviously, you can’t prevent total strangers from joining, even if you do run a popular website. Which most of us don’t.

So we are helpless to affect the membership, popularity, influence, revenue, or actions of the Cult of Scientology. We are helpless to prevent them from draining more people’s bank accounts, not to mention their sense of self-worth and independence. What about the residents of Clearwater, Florida, the headquarters of the Co$, where Scientologists have what’s approaching a stranglehold on the town?

I’ve also occasionally wondered and worried what it would be like if their power and influence grew significantly beyond its “voluntary” members and Clearwater; what if they expanded and grew in many large cities around the country and gained power in local and state governments? The central government? And they forced some of their pseudo-psychological brainwashing techniques on schoolchildren or the rest of us, and silenced and blackmailed every one of their critics, just like the L. Ron advocated? And harassed and persecuted all of us for more and more of our money? How much of that helplessness would hit us personally then?

And then I realized something, very recently: The Cult of the State is just like the Cult of Scientology in almost every way, except it is far, far worse. The state takes exactly as much of our money as it wants, just like Co$, except the State’s attitude seems to be that all of our money belongs to it and it lets us keep what we need. The State forcefully prevents people from seceding, just like Co$, but it forces people to belong to it from the day they are born. Additionally, almost nowhere on the planet could one be safe from its predatory grasp. The State incarcerates (kidnaps) and murders in the name of goodness and safety and progress, similar to Co$, except no entity could ever dream of approaching the imprisoned, enslaved, and murdered billions that governments throughout the ages have been responsible for. (The United States governments (federal and state) incarcerate a larger percentage of their subjects than any other nation.) The State prohibits its victims from ingesting substances it doesn’t approve of, just like Co$, except instead of excommunication or forced treatment, the State imprisons and murders users, sellers, and carriers of these substances. The necessity, beneficence, and justness of the State is inculcated in the minds of schoolchildren from early on, and never ceases thereafter; most people only hear of Scientology in their teenage years or later. Opponents and critics of the State are smeared and suppressed ruthlessly by adherents to the Cult of the State, just like those of Co$, to the point that suggestions any more extreme than minor procedural or technical changes to the operations of the government are dismissed with ridicule. Our governments influence, but don’t directly control, media outlets, but they don’t need control over them because all mainstream media operations are run by State-worshiping socialists or fascists. Currently the Western governments don’t silence, blackmail, imprison, or murder their critics, but most other states in history have and many still do.

People blindly believe in and defend the State and the Cult of Scientology, despite cold, hard facts about their true nature and their leader(s). Except whereas Co$ has something like 50,000 members, billions upon billions of people, in all corners of the globe, in every city on Earth, blindly adhere to the Cult of the State, they propagate it, they happily cheer on its crimes, and they prevent anyone else from leaving and living their own lives by their own, peaceful, non-interfering moral code.

The minority who want to live free are helpless and powerless to do anything about it. We have no recourse to a higher moral authority or logical framework. In the world of corporate-state socialism, it’s Might Makes Right. We can’t live our lives the way we want because the State forcibly prevents it. We can’t run our businesses the way we want because the State forcibly prevents it. We can’t do what we want (peacefully) with our money and property because the state steals it and controls it. We can’t benefit from the boons of a global free market because governments intentionally hamper it. We can’t help very many of the poor, deprived people of the world because governments prevent them from helping themselves and helping each other.

When the president sends the army to invade a non-threatening country, resulting in trillions of wasted dollars, thousands of wasted lives, and millions more potential America-hating terrorists, we can do nothing to stop it. When a century of a foreign policy of arrogance, bullying, and hypocrisy invites regular terrorist attacks in American cities, just like in Israel (oh, it will happen, mark my words), our objections all the while will have been futile. When the worst president in American history signed both an income tax and the Federal Reserve into law, despite widespread and fervent objections both moral and economic, what were those objectors to do? How helpless are we, 90 years hence? When FDR followed in his footsteps and took control of the central government, unleashing the New Deal upon hundreds of millions of future Americans, what good does pointing out its ineffectiveness, its harmfulness, and its unconstitutionality do? We can only look back wistfully and dream of an alternate universe in which good people didn’t condone bad things. When the neocon Congress enacted their monstrous prescription-drug benefit program for seniors, we could do nothing more than sit by and gape in helpless frustration. When Hillary Clinton promises to inflict socialized medicine on this nation the first chance she gets, we will be powerless to do anything about it. When Mitt Romney promises to flush more American taxpayer dollars down the defense/homeland security toilet or increase the infringements on privacy and Constitutional rights, we will be helpless against it. When any group of elected criminals or candidates, at any level of government, debates about enacting this regulation or that restriction, or taking this amount of money from group A or giving that amount of money to group B, we can do nothing more than wait and watch, and hope that yet more misfortune and incompetence don’t befall us from these criminals who profess to do us good. We are helpless against the predations of the State.

No amount of protesting, writing, talking, rallying, or voting seems to do any good. I always vote for less government, and get more. I always vote for freedom, and get socialism. So do millions of liberty-minded people. Where is OUR government, that represents US? If I am not powerless to affect the oppressiveness of the state I live under—if voting against the professional criminals I oppose is my way of exercising my power in this representative government—then where is the result? Where is the government that represents me? What happened to my freedom to live my life the way I want, as long as I don’t interfere with anyone else’s equal right? Why can the mob of American voters and their elected criminals force their system of government on me, but I can’t force my system of government on them? But, of course, my preferred system of governance would be defined precisely by a lack of institutionalized force; why, then, can’t I at least opt out and go about my peaceful ways and leave the socialist State-worshipers to reap the harvest they sow for themselves?

Because the mob rules. Might makes right. Their “moral” code entails the forcible rule of others—the proscription of any other systems of governance or the secession of anyone from their system. Peaceful non-participation is a violation of their code. And the nature of the Cult of the State is such that fundamental change is nearly impossible to achieve, must occur in incredibly small increments, and will be opposed and resisted with a fervor even stronger than that of the citizens who strive to effect the change.

Posted in Rants