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Resolved: The United States Government Really Did Have A 200-Year History Of Not Having A Clue What Its Most Basic And Fundamental Responsibility Was

Written July 16, 2001

By Rutkawski Gutkawski

What is the most basic and fundamental responsibility of government? Obviously, that would depend on one's judgment. Depending on whom you ask, you're likely to get a variety of different answers.

It is the opinion of my esteemed colleague Jesse Attreau that the most basic and fundamental responsibility of government is to insure that people can intellectually and socially mature during their most vulnerable, or childhood, period. That appears to be as good an answer as any. I'm certainly not going to take issue with it. And not just because he happens to be my colleague. I plain and simply don't have a better answer.

OK. There doesn't appear to be any great controversy there. Even people who disagree with Attreau would probably admit that what he says is the most basic and fundamental responsibility of government would have to rank way up there. The controversy stems from what Attreau says next. And that is if he's right, it can only mean one thing: The United States government literally had a 200-year history of not even having a clue as to what its most basic and fundamental responsibility was.

One of the things that caused Attreau to come to that conclusion was his own childhood. He says that when he was five years old his parents, particularly his father, started to wage all-out physical and emotional warfare against him. He says his father literally tried to beat him mentally retarted for twelve years, from age five through age seventeen. His father would hit him in the head hard enough to knock him to the ground, pick him up and hit him in the head again hard enough to knock him to the ground, and again, and again, and again... Attreau says that for twelve years there was virtually no limit to what his parents could have done to him. The result was that, in terms of making intellectual and social progress, he lost completely the twelve most important years of his life - the years from age five through age seventeen. In otherwords, when he was seventeen he had the same intellectual and social mentality he had at age five. He also grew up with the wrong personality and lived his entire adult life that way until he realized it at the age of forty.

The thing that caught Attreau's attention about his case was that he was born in 1953, or almost 200 years after the beginning of the United States. He realized that although not everyone had a similar experience, his case wasn't isolated, either. He also realized that the circumstances that he grew up under weren't just a phenomenon of the 1950's and 60's. According to him, it's virtually certain that that reality went all the way back to the beginning of the United States in 1776.

So what it boils down to is that, although it didn't happen to everyone, from 1776 through 1970 if a person was born into an abusive situation, there was virtually no limit to the degree of physical and emotional horror that he or she could've been subjected to throughout the entire duration of childhood. Attreau says that there can be zero doubt that over the course of American history the lives of tens of millions of people were permanently ruined, in terms of the true intellectual and social potential that they were born with, long before they ever got out of childhood.

Even if that's true, wouldn't it be the fault of the parents? Not so fast. According to Attreau, there's a quirky thing about child abuse. If it goes on for ten years you might be able to blame the parents. If it goes on for 15 years you might be able to blame the parents. But when it goes on for 200 years a significant portion, if not all, of the blame shifts squarely on the shoulders of the government. It's almost impossible for people who were destroyed by child abuse to turn out to be perfect parents themselves. At some point the government has to step in and insure that people have an opportunity to intellectually and socially mature during their most vulnerable, or childhood, period. That is, as Attreau puts it, assuming that the government in question has some comprehension of what its most basic and fundamental responsibility is.

But, obviously, that didn't happen. No, there can be no question that for 200 years the United States government perpetuated a reality where children were subjected to every mistreatment under the sun. It was clearly a reality where, for 200 years, people were totally at the mercy of the situation that they were born into. "The only way that that reality can exist that long," Attreau says "is if the government of the society it's occurring in doesn't have even the slightest clue of what its most basic and fundamental responsibility is. There's no other way that that reality can last that long. It would be impossible for that to happen in a country that has a government that knows what its most basic and fundamental responsibility is."

Not only can I not take issue with that, this is obviously a revelation that has profound ramifications. It severely impacts the credibility of the government on a host of social issues. For instance, one of the pretexts that the government uses to treat adult marijuana smokers in this country like a Jew in Nazi Germany is job performance. "That's the audacity of audacities," Attreau says "an entity that had an undisputable 200-year history of not even having a clue of what its most basic and fundamental responsibility was going around using job performance to treat a person like a Jew in Nazi Germany because he or she didn't turn out like Nancy Reagan."

It also explodes many myths about a college education. The people who have led this country throughout history have been college educated. In fact, because many members of congress are typically lawyers, we're talking six years of college. Attreau: "We're not just talking a little incompetence here. We're talking about the epitome of gross, mind-boggling, pigheaded-ignorant incompetence. The reality that existed in this country for 200 years is directly related to the ignorance level of the six-years-of-college wonders who perpetuated it."

If the United States is the greatest country in the history of the human race up to this point in time, the revelation that its government had a 200-year history of not even having a clue as to what its most basic and fundamental responsibility was would almost certainly be the greatest social revelation. I, frankly, can't dispute the claim. Can you?