Security: Familyland, Fatherland, or Homeland? - 3

"I am your father"

Regular readers know that we closed the previous post in this series by musing: "If we cast the notion of epigovernment into this discussion, then apply these same dynamics, is seems as though metaphorically we are stepchildren in an abusive home" (Security: Familyland, Fatherland, or Homeland? - 2).

This is all the more clear when we consider the observations of psychologists and other behavior and brain scientists who have pointed out: "What links Strict Father family-based morality to politics is a common metaphor, shared by conservatives and liberals alike -- the Nation-as-Family metaphor, in which the nation is seen as a family, the government as a parent and the citizens as children. This metaphor turns family-based morality into political morality, providing the link between conservative family values and conservative political policies. The Strict Father model, which brings together the conservative metaphors for morality, is what unites the various conservative political positions into a coherent whole when it is imposed on political life by the Nation-as-Family metaphor" (Lakoff).

There are many reasons for the usage of a metaphorical concept.

One of those reasons is to explain that great harm can be done even in the absence of a malicious intent to do mass destruction, especially by those who inhabit offices of power:

Two years ago, on a gorgeous November day, 12,000 activists surrounded the White House to protest the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. Signs we carried featured quotes from Barack Obama in 2008: "Time to end the tyranny of oil"; "In my administration, the rise of the oceans will begin to slow."
...
Our hope was that we could inspire him to keep those promises. Even then, there were plenty of cynics who said Obama and his insiders were too closely tied to the fossil-fuel industry to take climate change seriously. But in the two years since, it's looked more and more like they were right – that in our hope for action we were willing ourselves to overlook the black-and-white proof of how he really feels.

If you want to understand how people will remember the Obama climate legacy, a few facts tell the tale: By the time Obama leaves office, the U.S. will pass Saudi Arabia as the planet's biggest oil producer and Russia as the world's biggest producer of oil and gas combined. In the same years, even as we've begun to burn less coal at home, our coal exports have climbed to record highs. We are, despite slight declines in our domestic emissions, a global-warming machine: At the moment when physics tell us we should be jamming on the carbon brakes, America is revving the engine.

(McKibben @ Rolling Stone). There is something innately wrong with competing to destroy that which we must have in order to survive as a civilization or as a life form.

Perhaps this post should have been placed in the series about psychopaths (When You Are Governed By Psychopaths, When You Are Governed By Psychopaths - 2, When You Are Governed By Psychopaths - 3, or When You Are Governed By Psychopaths - 4).

Or, perhaps it should have been placed in the series about social suicide pacts (MOMCOM's Mass Suicide & Murder Pact, MOMCOM's Mass Suicide & Murder Pact - 2, MOMCOM's Mass Suicide & Murder Pact - 3, MOMCOM's Mass Suicide & Murder Pact - 4, or MOMCOM's Mass Suicide & Murder Pact - 5).

The direction in which OIl-Qaeda wants nations to continue to go is going to destroy civilization as we know it.

That in itself is clear evidence of either psychopaths or criminally negligent officials at the helm (when no change in direction is made).

The next post in this series is here, the previous post in this series is here.

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"For more than 15 years the USS Calhoun County dumped atomic waste and condemned weaponry into the Atlantic Ocean. The ship was later sank by the Navy after becoming radioactive." The Atomic Sailors

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