Flies at the Wheel

Pieter van den Bosch:
"Old Woman Reading a Book "

If I am lucky, I have eighty-or-so years to live, in total. I choose not to live those that remain in either a state of delusion or as a slave to a popular, paradoxical notion that the freedoms I am afforded by the state make me a slave to the state. So, I am not going to sacrifice time during which I can really live in order to become either a servant of or a fighter against the state.

My life belongs to me and I am fully aware of the illusion that is created in a democracy (more specifically, a republic): that I, the common man, can live a common life and still have an impact or a "say" in the direction of governmental affairs.The position I am in (and that most of you are in) is this: If I want to make an impact on the mechanics of American government, I can give up my freedom to live life as I want in order to serve the state. Being common voters makes us into nothing more than the fly and the rat in these excerpts from Neil Peart's lyrics in "The Stars Look Down":