Dick Cheney or Death?

I do much of my thinking that ends up in this blog while walking with the dog. I've always loved walking essentially alone, wandering and thinking. I was walking on a 95 degree, muggy day along side a dirty bayou while being slowly eaten alive by insects. The result was two possible blog topics, Death or Dick Cheney, and I've debated which to discuss since.

I thought about Dick Cheney because he has been a figure that fascinated me. The guy looks like a caricature of a villain, he is a curmudgeon, grumpy and surly. He has consistently searched for power and wealth throughout his life despite this clearly having a negative effect on his health. He clearly considers himself above the law, and someone who feels confident in making life and death decisions foe people. It is tempting to simply dismiss him as evil, but I think one of the great evils in humanity is the dismissing of other people with whom you disagree with such contemptuous terms. I think almost everyone in all of history sincerely thought they were on the side of good, but with their own definition of good.

I thought about death as a result of a series of recent events. One is the upcoming fortieth birthday that I will have his year, a benchmark date when I was growing up. Forty meant middle-aged, the start of the physical decline, but also the gravitas of adulthood, the end of creativity but also the peak time of authority. Forty when I was growing up was past halfway through your life, a time to start thinking about what you need to accomplish before you die. I also spent time with my parents, who are approaching their own milestones of seventy and retirement. They left me some inspiring words, said with real conviction, 'Who cares what anyone else thinks?" I also recently had a physical, which was generally pretty good for a fat, middle-aged guy, but still made me think about lifestyle and health. Then there was The Plan, mentioned in the previous blog post, that got me to thinking about life, and therefore to death.

Dick Cheney has dedicated his life to the accumulation of wealth and power, and then the application of that wealth and power to the advancement of the interests of people with a similar position. I thought that was the limit of his motivation, that he was largely amoral and used government as a tool rather than as the objective. But then he didn't go away once his term was over. Over the last few months he has campaigned for his controversial positions, and rather than taking his money and running, he has jeopardized his position by going against tradition and actively working against the present President (unlike George Bush). This seems to be part of a family effort as his daughter has been everywhere following a similar path. It seems that Dick Cheney was not using the fear of foreigners like Goebbels to amass power, he genuinely believes in this stuff.

It is not too long since I listened to the book The Things You Must Learn Before You Die. I outlined the points of that book in this blog, and it can be summed up as basically to just go do the things you feel you are supposed to do, even if it's risky. When thinking about The Plan, seeing my parents in their beautiful home thirty years older than I, having a physical I wondered about what I should do before I die, the big question. The result was that there was not anything that I felt I should do that I hadn't done in terms of type (travel, start a business, learn to paint, work with children etc.) that I needed to do before I die. If I got the six months to live news there wouldn't be anything new that I would have to do. I feel that I've had the experiences I should have, and it's just a question of spending the rest of my life stringing pleasant moments together one after the other.

To modern progressive liberals Dick Cheney seems evil, a guy prepared to do anything to amass dictatorial power. But I think what Dick Cheney is best described as is medieval. He believes that the general public, or the mob, is too stupid and ignorant to be allowed to run things for themselves (a position for which I have sympathy). He essentially believes in the aristocracy and the peasantry, that there are those who are fit to lead and those who will be ground down in their service. Cheney accumulates wealth for his family, and for families of people in similar positions, his friends (like the Bushes). In order to keep and enhance that position he is willing to fight wars, torture, imprison, misinform, and keep secret his activities. I think he believes his power is given to him by the same source as European royalty, by God.

I am not afraid of death, and I am not afraid of facing the fact of death and judging my life. Throughout most of history most people would not have reached the age I am now. Those who reached forty and beyond were the wise elders, those useful to humanity through their wisdom, experience and skills, rather than through their abilities to get things done or lead their tribe. I think the reason for the mid-life crisis is that the system in which human life evolved required a change of role at about this age. No longer is a man useful for his bravery, strength, virility and toil, but useful for what he can say, for his information. Anything from this point on is a bonus, and the quality of that bonus is as important as the quantity of that bonus. If I live as debauched a life as I presently do the odds are that I will enjoy my life and live until I'm eighty or older. If I change my life to one of health and purity the odds are that I will feel like I am missing out on things in life, but I will live until I'm a hundred or so. The pain of a body breaking down will be the same length in either case, perhaps shorter in the first. When faced with death at the mid-point of my life I can say I am content, as long as I don't care what anybody else thinks.

The mystery of what makes Dick Cheney is actually an encouraging story of the change in perception of large portions of humanity. Throughout all of history to within perhaps three hundred years there would have been no wonder at the actions of Dick Cheney. Every lord, lady, king, prince or doge, would have been recognizable in the actions of a man who accumulates power for himself and those like himself. There would have been no wonder in the dismissal in those with different beliefs as sub-human, evil people with demonic motivations. There would have been no confusion as to why he acted with suspicion and fear towards others, to why he would bend the rules to protect his position, why he obsessed on secret attacks and thought others were dedicated to ending the positions of him, his family, and his nation. That's the default position of rulers throughout all of history. Dick Cheney is simply a modern day Borgia, a relic of a past that is losing, slowly but surely disappearing.