© 2008, UrbisMedia
Recently I received in an un-solicited email one of those nit-wit jokes that goes as follows: Research has led to the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. The new element, Governmentium (Gv), has one neutron, 25 assistant neutrons, 88 deputy neutrons, and 198 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312. These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons. Since Governmentium has no electrons, it is inert; however, it can be detected, because it impedes every action with which it comes into contact. . . . . [it goes on, but you get the point]
It simplifies things nicely, especially for simple minds, picking up two sub-themes of the hatred of government themes, “size” and “interference in private affairs.” It amuses me because it is the sort of joke that gets its intended audience to unwittingly laugh at itself. Being an audience intellectually incapable of assessing its own best interests, it falls for the ruse and subsequently responds politically when politicians invoke its key words and phrases.
I am always amused by the political Right’s disaffection for anything with the word government attached to it. It has long been the fashion of conservative politicians to runs “against” the very institution in which they seek positions of power and privilege. Putatively, this is because they want to “make government smaller” and reduce its ability to raise revenue. Then, too, it is to refer to activities of government that they do not approve of, especially regulation of anything that they do approve of. Conservatives have much more reverence for business, which can grow a big as it wishes and raise its “revenue,” profits, as much as it wants. These days, with Libertarians energized by the likes of Ron Paul, anti-government sentiments have added support.
Jokes like the above are typically circulated to lists of like-minded simpletons to re-enforce their preconceptions. They are likely to be those who enthusiastically voted for Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush, who are exemplars of the “anti-government” politician. They are also unlikely to recognize that government grew “larger” during the reigns of these government “reducers” than at any time before them, that government debt grew to enormous proportions under them, Bush’s the largest ever by far. In each case, growth of the military—the most wasteful of all governmental expenditures—was the largest, although the political Right seems not to regard the military as “government.” I personally know a couple of guys who served in the military for 20 years, never saw a minute of combat and emerged completely healthy, who take their military pensions, use the VA health care and other benefits, and bitch about people on welfare because “those people are getting money from the government.
They are like the people who will put up with a phone bill that has a page of charges that the client cannot understand, that have been put into it as a subterfuge to bilk them. Like Enron screwing he public and its own employees and shareholders, like pharmaceutical companies that use government sponsored research to make produce that cost pennies to produce, but become ridiculously-expensive medicines, like oil companies enjoying huge windfall profits and their executives making more in an hour than their workers do in a year.
They will bitch about welfare recipients (most of who are children and aged and infirm), but not complain when the savings and loans were bailed out by government, or Chrysler in the early 1980s, or the airlines got $18 billion of their taxes after 9-11, or Bear-Stearns getting government aid after hundreds of thousands of people like themselves have gotten screwed by private financial institutions that their wonderful politicians have de-regulated.
They will go on about labor unions, often the very ones their parents got a decent economic foothold from, but which have been systematically reduced in size and influence, but accept jobs that have no protection or benefits, or that are outsourced by their sainted “business leaders.” The American South, to which many industries relocated to avoid unions, is now losing jobs many of its textile and automotive assembly and other jobs to Asia. Unions are not government, but they are associated with the political Left, and hence are “government-like.” Ironically, the American worker now has nowhere to turn for assistance than the government.
Those who laugh at the joke will not see the hypocrisy about governmental regulation. They will bitch about “too much government interference” but they will be easily maneuvered by fear to support the Patriot Act’s unprecedented intrusions into privacy. They will say that government shouldn’t regulate a man’s right to carry a gun, but should force a woman to go through with an un-wanted pregnancy, even if she is raped. They will not see the inconsistency because they have been well conditioned by nit-wit jokes.
They will think the joke is clever because it makes fun of “science.” But they will vote for politicians who are against science that is in their interest—stem cell research, global warming research, or regulates the purity of the drugs they take, and he food they eat—preferring their children get heir education in schools that teach “intelligent design” and “creation science.” They will run into their churches as hey did after 9-11, preferring to pray and not become outraged when their colleagues on the Religious-Right say America is being punished by God for its iniquities.
They will not see that the joke is on them when they support a war against a country that had no WMD and never attacked us, that will cost a trillion dollars, much of which goes right into the pockets of war profiteers, thousands of American lives and hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives. They will bitch about “government waste” but somehow that doesn’t seem to include the “unaccounted for” (according to a British government research report) $23 billion that went to Iraq and “disappeared.”
They will be so stupid that they still will believe, more than 50 percent of them that there were Iraqis flying those planes 9-11, when George Bush, who can be seen walking hand in hand with Saudi royalty, implies that it is the truth. They will not wonder if the ineptitude displayed by his government when hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans will not be repeated if it is their community in peril one day. They will believe his hype about democracy when he has done more to damage it in practice and reputation than any other politician.
There’s more, much more, but it should also be added that they can’t even see that it’s their government, and they couldn’t function, perhaps exist without it. Government doesn’t always do things we approve of. There will be people who think we should hate taxes, but not torture. There will be those who will think that the enormous debt that is being financed by government bonds is something we will not eventually have to pay for, and pay more for than if we were willing to accept the necessity of some taxation. They don’t see that being taught to hate government is only a way of deluding and manipulating them. They will laugh along with their fellow government-haters and their politicians, but they don’t get joke at all—the joke is on them.
Hey, how about this one: A guy walks into a bar with a chimp on his shoulder. The bartender says, “Having the usual, Mr. Cheney?” and then to the chimp . . .”
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© 2008, James A. Clapp (UrbisMedia Ltd. Pub. 6.25.2008)