Every week or so, I will lament, out loud, that, "I wish I were a spy!" I've wanted to be a spy, for some time now, cause my adopted dad put my first Ludlum in my hands as a tween, while camping, or beaching?, who can remember. I have a hunch that I would've made a pretty good spy, except that I am really not interested in killing others to defend myself, etc., but according to
them, only bad spies find themselves in unsavory predicaments, but when do
I ever believe
them? Anyway, I won't bore you with the details of all of the spy thrillers I've ingested in screen-form, but let's just say, if it's categorized as a "spy thriller" and the actor leading the thing is an actor I recognize as "hot," I've seen it.
As I've grown older and thusly, more-realistic, the thing that I've realized that I love so much about Spycraft is actually a love of, and deep appreciation for, the Idea of Statecraft.
^..^
Country
We're all born somewhere, literally, some geographical location. And if you're being born, today, these days, well, let's just say that the ball is rolling. You are thrust into a world that is already moving, progressing, changing, churning, and going, going, going, non-stop 24/7/365.25. If you cannot run when you're born, you might not make it. This is the world that we live in, a GLOBAL world. Globalization is a bitch, but she's all we've got, because this is where we are now.
The geographical location where you are born is the country from which you hail.
There is a sorta-agreed-upon borderline where your country geographically begins and ends.
The borders define a sorta confinement of land upon which you may freely roam.
So, there you are, on the physical land of the country upon which you are born. And there are a lot of other people who are born on this land with you, and they are your countrymen. You all belong to the same place, the same geographical area of Earth. And all of you need a place to eat, shit and sleep, and ideally you'd have some clothing and some purpose within the country, a role to play as a human person contributing to life here on Earth.
How do we then determine how best to use the land that is our country, and how do we then determine how best to distribute the uses of the land that is our country?
Nation
Statecraft exists to answer these types of questions. Statecraft is how you build a Country into a Nation. The Nation, of which you are a part, is the bureaucratic machine—or government—that essentially organizes your Country's people and resources.
A Country's National Identity is essentially its governmental structure.
A Nation is an Idea.
There are as many ways to build a Nation as there are ideas about how to build a Nation.
Statecraft is the art of building a Nation.
Taxes
Roads aren't free. Shit, even SHIT ain't free.
Every Citizen of a Country must financially contribute to the Nation that operates all of the bureaucracy of humans living together on a finite piece of land, because everything costs money.
If you want to be a Citizen of a Country, you must pay to live there, because you will use the resources that the Nation has built for its Citizens to use, aka the Public, Public Services, e.g. the Public Library.
The poorer a Nation is the fewer tax-funded, public services it can provide. And a lot of Nations are not striving to provide more public services, even if they can afford to build them.
Even on Empire, public services are constantly under attack.
Human labor is expensive.
Living humans are even more expensive.
Healthy living humans are the most expensive.
In our Democracy, We Citizens of Empire, by determination of our Nation, have the right to vote, and we can vote on anything, including Taxes.
^..^
We, Humans, We are all here, living on this rock, together, but we have to be born somewhere, on some land, and within those land borders are ideas about how to then organize and distribute the land's resources to the people who live on that land. In this Globalized landscape, Statecraft is not so simple.
Life does not equal Living.
And here, in the Now, of Today, we are struggling to find ways to create fairness, cause fairness is the thing toward which we are striving, as a democracy, because the opposite of fairness is life. Life is not fair. It's that simple. And so, as a Country with the National Identity of a Democracy, our Statecraft has determined that the goal of our Nation is to uphold Liberty, The Freedom to BE. Everyone is free to be whoever they are, as long as you don't harm anyone, or as long as you were exercising your own freedoms, but where's the line between freedom of expression and freedom to live without being shot by an idiot and freedom to shoot whoever I want because I'm an idiot?
Most Nations are not democracies, which means that their systems of government are top-down. No need to participate, cause you are a subject.
Democracy is a down-up system. You are the object. Democracy is participatory. Democracy requires an active citizenry.
So, it's kinda stupid to be a Citizen of Empire who complains about Empire, as if a complaint will create change. As if you are powerless to create change. A complaint is air. Creating change requires Action. Here on Empire you are free to take action.
Think of that stupid ass sport, curling. #sorrynotsorry
The marble stone is Life hurling through space.
We are the sweepers, the Nation making decisions.
All we can possibly hope for
is mitigation against dangers real and perceived
guidance on how to get there while sacrificing the least amount of life possible
and a trajectory, cause like, can we think for one second about where we actually want to go!
But unlike the sport
the ice is endless
We are being hurled through time and space
expanding into an infinite number of dark unknowns
and so
how do we prepare
for that which cannot be known?
