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In April of 2007 I completed my
coursework in my undergraduate field of study.
After four years of attending Florida Gulf Coast University I would
receive my bachelor’s degree in Political Science with a minor in Global
Studies.
In retrospect I was a poor student,
often ignoring the need for proper sources, banking on my being an engaged
participant in class discussion and talking to my professors about current
events as a means of getting good grades. “You know that I know what I am talking about,
just give me an ‘A’.”
That all being said, I regret not
writing more stuff down. Like every
other person on earth, I have real issues with remembering every time I got
something right, “CALLED IT!” versus the innumerable times I got things
wrong. I wish I could look back on more
of what my younger self believed and see how that had broken down as I got
older and more informed. Because,
looking back it feels like I got a lot right, and I have no receipts to prove
that I got it right.
Since that time I
have grown a lot, I
have gotten 3 Masters’ Degrees in Political
Science, Urban and Regional Planning, and International Affairs. I have read a lot of world history, written a
lot of papers for classes about politics, and have tried to think about ways to
make the world better/more efficient via government.
I like the idea of using government as a tool to make the world better. To
provide an environment where people can be safe, healthy, and educated. There are too many problems and too many
great accomplishments that can only be addressed as a massive group, the idea
of a “Great Man” or “Determined Individual” solving Global Warming or Going to
the Moon is impossible. I “like”
government in the abstract, in the best-possible-form that we all wish it was.
In the Abstract.
Currently we are living in the
apotheosis of bad governance. A
worldwide pandemic has shattered the veneer that we had all come to trust, as
we have come to witness how Capitalism has cut so many corners and rolled back
every contingency and backup plan, government protections are inefficient, and
it is all led by the dumbest and most corrupt administration in American
History.
It feels like it all went wrong
somewhere years ago.
In my entire adult life, really
since I was 14, the US government has been banging into walls and failing to
live up to expectations. While I did
support George W. Bush back in 2000, before I could even vote, the way he became
President, with the
Supreme Court stepping in the way they did… really tainted everything that
came after with, “we are living in the wrong timeline”.
The truest legacy of the Bush
Presidency, the
War in Iraq defined foreign policy all the way to the end of my undergrad
studies. I have no way of knowing what
happened in the other timeline, maybe we went to war with some other Middle
Eastern country, maybe we managed to keep things contained. But in this world, we were at war in 2007, a
war that we had all been led to believe was justified and would be quickly won.
That takes ties me back to where
this blog entry started. In 2007 I was disillusioned
(not as disillusioned as I would become) but I used my last big assignment in
undergrad to vent. My senior seminar
paper was a poorly written diatribe about how the office of the President was a
time bomb for authoritarianism. That the
US Constitution’s idea of about separation of powers had eroded to the point of
it almost being gone entirely.
It was badly written, I didn’t like
it even at the time, and I was more fixated on being done with school. I was ready to take my 4-year degree, which I
had been told my whole life was the guaranteed hall pass to a comfortable
middle class existence, and head out into the world to work in government or
teaching while aiming to eventually get a masters degree (I was thinking about
graduate degrees even back then, I just needed a break from school).
Let’s ignore the fact that I graduated into the worst
economy since the great depression and my hopes and dreams were immediately
thrown off the rails for years, transforming my entire worldview from the young
libertarian idealist into the bitter socialist I am today. Yeah, let’s talk about all of that a
different time… Instead I want to show
you my final assignment from my senior seminar.
Buried in some thumb drive,
untouched since April 27th, 2007, with the words “Rough Draft” still
in the header. It is a rambling, mess of
a thing at 5,837 words. I found it back
in December and kept meaning to post it, but it was low priority. Would have been more relevant back in
January, but it has been relevant since President Trump took office and
revealed in sharp colors so many of the issues I was worried about. (On many levels I am glad he is so stupid,
because at least he can’t take control the way I fear a real super villain could.)
Over the next few days I am going
to post sections from my paper till the whole thing is out there. I will not edit it except for the
formatting. And maybe in a few months I
will sit down and write out what is wrong with it from the perspective of a
much more learned student of the US government and political science. I mean, I didn’t even know the “Brownlow Report”
existed when I wrote this.
Maybe this will be a chapter
outline for that memoir/manifesto I will one day write. I broke it into 12 parts to keep things
digestible. Do not feel obligated to
read them all. Don’t feel obligated to
read any of it.
(Does this work as something special for my 550th blog entry? I mean it is my 550th because I deleted a blog that was arguably just a copyright violation... ignore that...)
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