Addicts do not get by on results, they get by on personal charm and schemes. They get by on tricking people into meeting their needs. And that convinces them that, like all criminals, they are very clever. The more suckers they lure in, the more convinced they become that they are unstoppable, that they will go on flying forever beyond the sunset on their drug of choice.
Money is our current drug of choice and like all drugs it appears infinite. We are buying our own debt and selling it back to ourselves and lending ourselves the money to buy our own debt in a spiral that seems beautiful and sensible to an addict, but is a complete disaster to anyone still functioning in the real world.
Obama’s solution to all problems is to shoot up more money. Billions, trillions, it doesn’t matter because the money is unreal and therefore infinite. It works because we believe in it and he’s in office because he convinced people to believe in him. To him, money, like his persona, is an act of faith and all he has to do is convince everyone to go on believing. And if we ever stop believing, then like a certain coyote with his own improbable schemes, we will crash down to the ground.
The addict seeks the unreal state because it makes him happy. It is the real world that depresses him. Enough Americans chose to shoot up Obama and a smaller number are still committed to their hope drug because he makes them happy. And fooling them makes Obama happy. All the money is just a counter that everyone trades back and forth in exchange for happiness. Trillion dollar deficits are how we know we’re getting high.
The addict cannot cope with the knowledge that the unreal world he has built for his own pleasure is finite. He lashes out violently and angrily at the intrusion of the real world into his sphere, he tries to keep the lie going a little longer, manipulating those around him while inside him the growing frantic sense that the whole thing is about to collapse builds and builds. He rationalizes and makes excuses and promises to fix everything if he can just get the money to pay for what he owes and one last hit. Just one last hit.
America can have a social safety net, but it has to be one based on the responsibility that we all feel toward one another, not on empty cynical rhetoric about “giving back” to people who feel no sense of responsibility for anyone outside their own group. That’s just a nation of enablers propping up a nation of addicts until the addicts outnumber them and the country collapses into one big Detroit. It cannot be based on the empty promises and lies, that sound no different whether they are coming from Obama or a 19-year-old heroin addict. It cannot be based on charm or ignorance of the truth.
Whatever social safety net we have must be communal, it must be open and transparent, and it can only be maintained by a nation of honorable people, by people who feel guilty about taking a penny and feel good about leaving a penny. Anything else is just one more hit.
Originally published at Sultan Knish.