Rugged individualism is often given credit for much of what makes America great. We look back upon our short and bloody history with pride. We look back at the people who wended their way across the continent to settle the West regardless of who was already living there and relish the idea that their spirit is still with us.

We look to the Pilgrims with pride to think the second Americans were able to carve out a place for us in this wild land.

We like to think these are prime examples of what Americans can accomplish on their own when no one is there to hold them back. Even today when we make decisions about our lives, we prefer any solution that maximizes independence, even when that choice is not the best one for the majority of Americans.

You see this crop up in any debate over health care. No matter how expensive health care gets, we like to think we survive on our own. When we are given a choice between government involvement and corporate involvement, we would rather have insurance companies and HMOs calling the shots for us than Uncle Sam because we are somehow convinced that because corporations are private, they are more in line with our ideal of American rugged individualism and fierce individuality.

Of course, anyone who has spent even a short time working for a corporation knows individuality is not a welcome trait in corporate America. And anyone who has had their health care managed by some insurance company knows there must be a better way.

Corporate America is not the America we all know and love. Corporations have absolutely no interest in doing what is best for America or its citizens/consumers. Any solution to any of America’s many crises that involves Big Business is bad idea.

It sounds good though, doesn’t it? We like to put our trust in the private sector because we don’t want to trust some enormous, faceless entity like the federal government.

Not trusting the government is as American as genocide. Why the average white, middle-class American doesn’t trust the government is beyond me. The feds have always served them well enough. Whenever gold was discovered on someone else’s land, the United States would send in the cavalry to protect gold-diggers from Indians or Mexicans or Eskimos if necessary.

Times change, and most of our distrust of the government comes from questions about our tax dollars. Where does all that money go?

Besides roads, hospitals, fire departments and the Armed Forces, we just don’t see it. We all have this inherent distrust of the government as if it is here to run our lives and control us. It probably is.

Social Security numbers used to be voluntary and now they are mandatory. Once upon a time, the idea of income tax was an unthinkable affront to our basic American freedom. Now we just pay it with our teeth clenched and a curse under our breaths lest we offend the IRS agent.

We hate giving up control, yet for some ungodly reason we don’t flinch as corporations steal their way into every aspect of our lives. We’ll give oil companies the right to drill on public lands and simply take their word that they will protect OUR environment.

We stand idly by as insurance agents tell our doctors we don’t need tests they think we need. We take a casual head-in-the-sand attitude toward privately-run prisons using convict labor to sell us their base goods and take our credit card numbers over the phone.

And we stand around with our thumbs up our noses while corporate sponsorship props up our two-party system and pretend that freedom is protected by having our choices limited. Republicans and Democrats like being the only two parties in town. It increases their chances of getting elected and keeps the issues narrow and easy to remember.

Corporations like having two parties because they can contribute to two campaigns and buy themselves a president at a much lower cost. That’s just good business. Unfortunately, it is not good for America.

Guys like Buchanan and Nader seem like whackjobs from the fringe and granted, they are a little out there. But they are only out there because they have been effectively silenced by a corporate-sponsored system that has the ability to put them on the fringe and keep them there.

They may have no chance of getting elected, but that is not even the point. They bring up issues that are important to the process. The closest Bush and Gore get to talking about the environment is when they talk about tapping the oil in Alaska. They never talk about the corruption of our democracy by a two-party stranglehold on the election process. Why should they? It is against their own best interest.

Raise an eyebrow if not a fist when you see corporations getting involved in any aspect of your life. They care about the bottom line and nothing else. Unlike politicians, they aren’t even required to have the decency to lie about it.