“The Government Can’t Be Trusted” Was the Motto of the Confederacy

Beschrijving

Thanks for your support: 30% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/b66e5c2e] 💙 40% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/01f1b0e8] 💙 50% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/0d3e6643] 💙 60% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/6a8f4788] My cousins grew up in Kentucky. It was through them that I learned the phrase, “You can’t ever trust the government.” Even when I was little, I had problems with this concept. After all, weren’t we supposed to respect and revere the military? Wasn’t the military part of the government? When I asked these questions I was met with mockery at best and hostility at worst. “Are you trying to be smart? Obviously we’re not talking about the military.” “But...” “I’ve heard enough out of you. You’re being disrespectful.” Then came the ableist insults that have regrettably become so commonplace in our modern political dialogue. Conservatives are always more inclined to respond to questions with insults rather than answers. Throughout my life, conservatives have always attacked social benefit programs as if they’ve found them personally offensive. They’ve always referred to social security as an “entitlement” even though it’s funded through a tax on our earnings. For some reason, any plan that allows millions of Americans to escape poverty is somehow considered unacceptable to conservatives. But rather than say they want to hurt people, they insist they simply “want small government.” Unfortunately, over time, conservative ideology has become the status quo. The general population is so indoctrinated to defend conservative ideals that they think nothing of appointing a lying, cheating, con artist to the highest office in the land. As long as he claims to stand by “conservative values,” all the gatekeepers step aside to let him pass. Even laws that were written to prevent insurrectionists from taking office are ignored in deference to the conservative ideal. “We can’t create a welfare state,” they claim. “Any time you allow the government to take care of the people, you clear the way for abuse.” Again I ask, “But don’t we depend on our military to take care of us? Isn’t that why we pay for the military?” I never get an answer. Lately the responses are more hostile and more abusive. One of the things that’s become appallingly clear is the lack of understanding the general population has when it comes to history. We’ve all turned over our brains to digital oligarchs. Our children have been programmed by malicious devices. Little by little, we’ve allowed nefarious forces to erode our right to choice. Algorithms select what we see on streaming services and on social media platforms. Soon, AI will dominate search engines as well. Thanks for your support: 30% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/b66e5c2e] 💙 40% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/01f1b0e8] 💙 50% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/0d3e6643] 💙 60% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/6a8f4788] There are ongoing efforts to defund public schools and libraries. Book stores and record stores are already a thing of the past. The text books which are used to teach history are printed in the Confederate south. They’ve swapped the truth for the Lost Cause narrative, and we’ve all been conditioned not to ask questions. When people say, “the government can’t be trusted,” we nod along in agreement and never think to consider the origin of that phrase. I first heard it from my cousins who grew up in Kentucky. They referred to the Civil War as the War of Northern Aggression. “You can’t submit to doing what the government tells you,” they’d say. They repeated this with pride, as if they were rebels. Did they know that these words were first spoken by plantation owners? Did they know that these plantation owners were aggrieved because the government dared to strip them of the human beings they felt entitled to claim as property? In modern America, we don’t have universal healthcare. Conservatives will come forth and insist that it’s not the government’s responsibility to protect the people. They say the same thing about fair wages and education and worker protections. The root of this ideology was born from the rage when the government stepped in to say rich people were no longer allowed to own human slaves. That behavior was recognized as a crime against humanity, but the rage has never gone away. Modern conservatives are the descendants of the confederacy. For years, conservatives have operated on the assumption that government cannot work. They leverage the inherent difficulty of survival, and use it as an opportunity to place false blame on anyone who is honestly trying to offer aid. “If they were sincere, why didn’t they solve every problem in the world already?” Then the people cheer. The conservatives get appointed to positions of power, and they deliberately sabotage any mechanism that was put in place to help humanity. “See?” they cry as they dismantle every humanitarian program, “That never worked anyway!” Today, we are all looking upon the wreckage of a dismantled nation. Conservatives have defunded the pandemic response team even as an Ebola outbreak threatens the world population. Women have been deprived of their right to bodily autonomy. Children are regarded as the property of their parents. An entire elite class of billionaire child traffickers is enjoying the protection of multiple branches of government. Even now, the American public thinks there is some merit in being mistrustful of the government. At some point it should be obvious that government is a tool. We shouldn’t fear the levers of power, we should fear the ambitions of corrupt men. Conservatives always claim they stand for limited government. Another thing the general population seems to overlook is that when conservatives gain control, the government always expands. They run up the debt. They spend a fortune on war and concentration camps and secret police. They don’t want a smaller government. The only thing that makes them mad is a government that protects human rights. Conservative ideology has been infected with a grievance mentality left over from angry, entitled men who felt they were robbed of their right to torment human beings. We have a rape class today. They allow wages to stagnate. They’ve take our healthcare and education away. Conservatives did this. The population of the United States of America is due for a rude awakening. At the heart of everything is the need for a critical change of perspective. For too long, malicious forces have blamed the concept of government for everything that’s wrong in society. It’s time that we taught our children that government can be good as long as we ensure it’s entrusted to women and men of integrity. The government isn’t the problem. We’re still beholden to the sins of the Confederacy. They’ve taken possession of our whole society, and it’s long past time that they faced accountability. When all this is over, we have to put to rest the fundamental deceit that government can’t be trusted. In fact, we must demand that our government stands as a beacon to defend the unalienable rights due to all of humanity. Those that attack social justice programs are actually waging war against common decency. This is the legacy of the Confederacy. We’ve allowed them to erase their crimes from the pages of history, and that’s condemned us all to endure their tortures once more. We have to tell our children that government can be trusted provided we never allow conservatives, Confederates, or the enablers of cruelty near the levers of power ever again. They must be peacefully, legally, and lawfully removed. Then we can start to rebuild. This is a lesson that must endure. The next time somebody says, “We can’t trust the government,” understand that it’s the person who says those words who likely can’t be trusted. People are the weak link, not the ideals we hold most dear. Thanks for your support: 30% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/b66e5c2e] 💙 40% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/01f1b0e8] 💙 50% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/0d3e6643] 💙 60% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/6a8f4788] I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe [https://walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

How It Looks When a Narcissist Comes Unraveled

I know you’re up against the wall economically, but if you can sponsor me, it will help me continue to fight for a better world. Thanks for all you do! Thanks for your support: 30% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/b66e5c2e] 💙 40% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/01f1b0e8] 💙 50% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/0d3e6643] 💙 60% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/6a8f4788] I was groomed to be a narcissist. That is, I was the victim of narcissistic abuse. It’s the same thing. Narcissists groom you to be just like them. They don’t do it directly, the toxic mind virus of narcissism is passed on in the response mechanisms you’re forced to develop just to survive. You learn to hide things so that your tormentor can’t exploit your vulnerabilities. With time, you begin to regard him as cognitively impaired. Then you view everyone that way, then you become a narcissist yourself. Abusers always get carried away by their own cleverness. They think they’re the smartest people in the room. After a while, I think they start to let their transgressions slip because, on some level, they want to be caught. I think this is what Michelle Obama was referring to when she said, “They’re not that smart.” My father always preferred to talk things out while he was driving. In that way, he could be in control of our reality even if he wasn’t in control of the conversation. He helped me develop my familiarity with all the rhetorical tricks that narcissists use to deflect their marks from perceiving the truth. He tried to make his arguments with volume, body posturing, derision, and threats. First he gave warning laughs. If you persisted, he showed rage. Everything he said and did was designed to trigger the trauma bond we all feel after having gone through a period where we weren’t regarded as people. The United States doesn’t see children as people. Narcissists use the agony of that era as a lever for control throughout the term of our natural lives. But narcissists can be unmade. I’ve seen them unravel and it’s sad and terrifying and comical and pathetic. The weaker they feel, the more they try to project strength. Above all else, they want you to back down because they are terrified at the prospect of exposing their fundamental failure. Do not be confused and assume that a narcissist cannot feel shame. The opposite is true. Shame is all they feel. They’re filled with self-loathing and a terrible understanding that they’re completely without value. Every component of their personality has been carefully crafted to disguise their shortcomings. They know how to divert attention. Don’t let them. The way to unravel a narcissist is through exposure. My father always felt confident that he could get me to “see reason” if given enough time. In reality, he never intended to have an honest conversation. He only wanted to bludgeon me with his power and his cruel tactics. Thanks for your support: 30% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/b66e5c2e] 💙 40% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/01f1b0e8] 💙 50% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/0d3e6643] 💙 60% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/6a8f4788] Many of us shy away when a narcissist becomes enraged. It’s the same impulse that makes us reluctant to hang up the phone on a telemarketer. We don’t want to appear rude ourselves. Bad faith actors leverage our essential decency. They view it as weakness, and they try to use our better natures to shame us. The first rule of dealing with a narcissist is to dismantle their assertion that they have the right to be angry. Remind yourself that we are allowed to ask questions. If something doesn’t make sense, we shouldn’t defer to the narcissist’s rage. Their anger is not a validation of their opinion. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. I remember making the observation to my father that all the people in his family had gotten divorced. I remember the way his muscles tightened and his hands clenched the steering wheel. “No,” he growled, his voice trailing off and his pitch rising higher in order to make the single syllable stretch for an unnatural duration. “Drama circles the drain,” I said. “What’s that supposed to mean?” “It means that the people at the center of conflict are often the cause of the conflict,” I replied. I wouldn’t have said this on the highway, but we had just pulled into the driveway and he had no other option than to park. I’ve been seeing more and more evidence of this assertion in recent times. It applies not just to family, but also to politics and the media. I’m seeing people bicker with each other. I see them throw desperate accusations in an effort to maintain their grasp on relevancy. Often these are millionaires and celebrities and people with power. But I’ve seen this dance before and it’s pathetic. They’re so desperate for significance that they look like the groveling, entitled, spoiled children who are always free to inflict pain and who are never held accountable. Our whole world is made up of people like this. They get the promotions, they get the book deals, they have a hundred million followers, and none of them have earned any of it. None of them have a scrap of talent. They’ve been exposed. I feel as if our whole society is in narcissist overload. Everybody has awakened. We’re sick of AI slop, and we’d like to hear a real story written by a real human being. The narcissists have noticed the slack growing in the chain that holds their power and they’re starting to panic. They do what narcissists always do. They rage. They scream. They holler. They stand with their arms out to make themselves look big. They hurl insults and threats. We’re supposed to recoil and let them have their way. Then we’re all supposed to go back “to the way it used to be.” That’s another one of the horrific lines they always say. “Remember the good times.” “You mean the times that you weren’t hitting me, yeah, those were great.” But here’s the thing that most Americans do not yet know. There is one more stage. Once the narcissist comes to realize that the rage no longer plays, they’ll pivot to pity. Every human emotion is a means to an end and they can mimic them like a chameleon. Kindness, dismissal, anger, threats, violence, sadness, pleading, and then suddenly silence. They’ll try to run away. They’ll leave you behind. Once you’ve seen through the veil they’ll want noting to do with you. You’ll be a reminder of their lie, so they’ll run away and lob bombs at you from afar. We’re told not to air our family laundry. This is another cultural expectation that the narcissists made. They’ve made all our laws, and they never once intended for any of the rules to apply to them. They cultivate every rule so that they win no matter how the game is played. Even as they scream at you for telling your truth, they’ll be whispering lies about you to anyone who comes near. Make no mistake, narcissists are dangerous creatures, especially when they’re cornered. But always remember that there is no protection in compliance. There is also no option for compromise. They’re like the scorpion that can’t help but sting you even if you agree to transport it across the river. Betrayal and deception is their nature. The thing they hate most of all is discovery. They deflect the conversation from the receipts because their real conflict is with reality. They call forth a tempest rather than answer a simple question. It must be exhausting. They’ll rage themselves until they fall still, unconscious, and when they’ve recovered enough to rouse themselves again, they’ll get right back to raging. In these challenging times, it’s our duty to learn the lesson. Before humanity can escape this era of conflict and division, we’ll have to finally understand that it’s not our duty to appease them. Narcissists must be opposed. Full stop. They don’t deserve any compromise or credit. They are bad faith actors. They do not respect boundaries. They will not honor the terms of any agreement. They must be unraveled. You’ll watch them explode like a tightly wound ball that has been compressed beyond the tolerances of all physical laws. There comes a moment of inversion. We are on the precipice of that moment now. Too much truth has already been revealed. You can’t put the genie back into the bottle. The way it goes with narcissists is that they are the last to recognize the truth everyone else knows. They think us fools. They rage until the grave and once they’re gone they’re forgotten. Soon. Thanks for your support: 30% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/b66e5c2e] 💙 40% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/01f1b0e8] 💙 50% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/0d3e6643] 💙 60% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/6a8f4788] I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe [https://walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

9 jun 20268 min

A Resource Officer Is Just an Armed Aggressor at Your Child's School

Real stories from a real human being. I’m too old to learn how to use AI, and I wouldn’t do it even if I wanted to (which I don’t). Sponsor me if you think human writing is important—thanks in advance! Thanks for your support: 30% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/b66e5c2e] 💙 40% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/01f1b0e8] 💙 50% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/0d3e6643] 💙 60% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/6a8f4788] I knew that my daughter’s school had a police officer stationed on the premises because I saw his vehicle whenever I went to pick her up. So, when my daughter told me that a boy had spit [https://aninjusticemag.com/a-boy-spit-in-my-daughters-face-in-spanish-class-and-this-is-what-happened-dab5b82d89fe] on her in Spanish class, the resource officer was the first person I called. We were still in a pandemic [https://health.clevelandclinic.org/is-the-pandemic-over/]. I realize with extreme frustration that approximately half of our country has never taken the pandemic seriously, but it remains a fact that if you transmit a virus to somebody through your spit, you could potentially get them killed. Whatever personal political beliefs people harbor, I should be able to expect the law to protect my daughter from suffering unnecessary exposure to potentially lethal attacks. This was my mindset when I called the school resource officer and left a message. I expected this to be handled immediately. I informed the resource officer that the lawyer I consulted indicated this was a very serious issue. When the officer finally did get back to me, it was after a three-day weekend. Although he assured me that he’d “looked into it” and “taken it very seriously,” he indicated there was nothing he could do. Essentially, in his mind, it came down to a case of “he said/she said” and he wasn’t about to believe the Spanish-speaking daughter of an immigrant over the aggressive white boy (he didn’t say that last part out loud, but he didn’t need to). This conflict didn’t end there. I eventually got it resolved to my satisfaction. What I realized was that the mistake I made was calling the school resource officer at all. He’s not there to actually do anything, he’s there as part of the ongoing war on education. He’s not there to field calls about assaults on your daughters, he’s there to arrest teachers for presenting the true history of American slavery or any other lessons conservatives deem to be “inappropriate.” School resource officers are just another way to divert potentially productive educational funding into a punitive system designed to inhibit your child’s chance of success. Decent people need to speak out about this. There’s a major problem with American police When you drive around my community, there are a lot of signs that read “Back the blue.” Recently, Wisconsin congressman Derrick Van Orden was making the rounds wearing his “thin blue line [https://www.wxow.com/news/derrick-van-orden-talks-pfas-and-flooding-in-town-of-campbell/article_74806858-0186-11ee-a753-0f741acabce7.html]” hat. I don’t think that’s appropriate, and I also think it’s odd considering he was present at the Capitol riot [https://captimes.com/opinion/john-nichols/opinion-derrick-van-orden-seems-to-want-voters-to-forget-what-he-was-doing-on/article_69f24665-694f-5f0c-beaf-6c788f4af525.html] on January 6th. Conservatives like to claim they stand for “law and order.” However, the moment a favored politician becomes the subject of a criminal investigation, conservatives begin to howl [https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-news/mar-a-lago-raid-gop-response-defund-fbi-1394486/] about the unfairness of it all. The clear message, to me, is that conservatives seem to feel American police officers are there to enforce their authoritarian will. When they say “back the blue” it means they want armed men to help enforce laws that strip women of bodily autonomy [https://www.naacpldf.org/press-release/supreme-court-overturns-constitutional-right-to-bodily-autonomy-in-transgressive-reproductive-rights-decision/]. In America, “law and order” doesn’t mean that a father should expect a police officer to protect his daughter from being spit on. I was an idiot for ever assuming it did. Conservatives love police officers [https://www.currentaffairs.org/2022/07/why-conservatives-hate-the-government-but-love-the-cops]. Police officers kill a disproportionate [https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/hsph-in-the-news/blacks-whites-police-deaths-disparity/] number of Black men. Think about that the next time you see a patrol vehicle in front of a school. Indifference to assault At the beginning of the school year, my daughter made me very proud when she was selected as student of the month. She works very hard, she never gets into trouble. The school even relies on her to work as a translator because the ELL teacher they hired doesn’t speak Spanish. What’s another name for “free labor?” My daughter does everything she’s supposed to do. All of that means nothing when she gets in the crosshairs of white male privilege. As I talked to the school resource officer, he made a quip about how he’d “never had problems” with my daughter, as if she were an equal participant in this conflict. Of course, he hadn’t had problems with her, look at her record! What I’m more curious about is the record of the boy. What kind of bumper stickers are on display on his parent’s vehicle? Oh, did they happen to be bumper stickers that aligned with the school resource officer’s political leanings? I guess it’s time to burn evidence. We can’t “ruin a boy’s life” because he spits on a Spanish speaker. Is that how all school resource officers think? You better prove to me that you don’t think that way. I don’t think that’s an unreasonable thing for a concerned parent to ask. But what about school shootings? Some people might try to claim that school resource officers will protect your children from a mass shooter. Again, that’s an assumption. Unfortunately, actual statistics show that school resource officers might actually make things worse [https://www.urban.org/urban-wire/states-cannot-rely-school-resource-officers-stop-school-shootings]. There have been a couple of times when I’ve dropped off my daughter and I’ve seen the school resource officer go strutting into the building. I think he likes prancing into the school wearing a gun on his hip. Frankly, I don’t want that gun in that building with my kids. After talking to that officer, I don’t want him around my daughter at all. Let’s be real, if somebody attacks the school with an AR-15, the school resource officer does not have the firepower to provide an effective response. A handgun is not adequate when confronted with a military-grade rifle. School resource officers are just the appearance of a response. In reality, all they do is soak up resources that would be better spent on additional educational professionals. At a recent community event, the superintendent of our district said that we were going to run out of money [https://aninjusticemag.com/if-there-is-a-parental-bill-of-rights-there-should-also-be-an-educators-bill-of-rights-1d27035a6c30]. Well, let’s cut some fat. Fire the school resource officers. Use that money on computers, materials, scholarships, and teachers instead. Thanks for your support: 30% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/b66e5c2e] 💙 40% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/01f1b0e8] 💙 50% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/0d3e6643] 💙 60% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/6a8f4788] Parents need to pay attention We get into trouble when we go through life making unsubstantiated assumptions. Many parents see police officers at their children’s schools and they assume those officers are there to help protect their kids. However, if you want to be a responsible parent, you really have to sit down and do some research as to whether or not that’s the case. Think about your own experience with the police. If a police car pulls up behind you in traffic, do you feel “protected” or do you feel like you’re about to get pulled over and issued a ticket? Our kids have enough stress these days. Do you think it makes them feel better to see armed men who likely harbor prejudices marching through the halls of their school? Multiple reports [https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/aug/27/white-supremacists-militias-infiltrate-us-police-report] indicate that white supremacists have infiltrated police forces throughout our country. That’s part of the reason why a disproportionate number of Black men get killed [https://interactive.aljazeera.com/aje/2020/know-their-names/index.html] by police. Let’s spend our resources on educators I had an eye-opening experience when the school resource officer at my daughter’s school completely failed to stand up for her. Responsible people have to be mindful of all the sneaky tactics deplorable people use to erode your child’s chance at a decent future. Don’t skate by with your head in a cloud making the absurd assumption that, deep down, everybody in our community wants the best for your children. They don’t. The school resource officer at my daughter’s school did nothing when a boy spits in her face. My conclusion is that he’s only there to soak up funding that could be directed at better preparing her, and every other child in our community, for the future. Conservatives want to turn your children into obedient, ignorant laborers who serve their billionaire masters. The last thing we should be doing is giving them guns and allowing them free access to our children. Thanks for your support: 30% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/b66e5c2e] 💙 40% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/01f1b0e8] 💙 50% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/0d3e6643] 💙 60% off [https://walterrhein.substack.com/6a8f4788] I'd Rather Be Writing is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Get full access to I'd Rather Be Writing at walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe [https://walterrhein.substack.com/subscribe?utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=CTA_4]

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“The Government Can’t Be Trusted” Was the Motto of the Confederacy

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