Tag: tyranny

Despotism Is The New Normal: Looming Threats to Freedom in 2022

“Looking at the present, I see a more probable future: a new despotism creeping slowly across America. Faceless oligarchs sit at command posts of a corporate-government complex that has been slowly evolving over many decades. In efforts to enlarge their own powers and privileges, they are willing to have others suffer the intended or unintended consequences of their institutional or personal greed. For Americans, these consequences include chronic inflation, recurring recession, open and hidden unemployment, the poisoning of air, water, soil and bodies, and, more important, the subversion of our constitution.”—Bertram Gross, Friendly Fascism: The New Face of Power in America

Despotism has become our new normal.

Digital tyranny, surveillance. Intolerance, cancel culture, censorship. Lockdowns, mandates, government overreach. Supply chain shortages, inflation. Police brutality, home invasions, martial law. The loss of bodily integrity, privacy, autonomy.

These acts of tyranny by an authoritarian government have long since ceased to alarm or unnerve us. We have become desensitized to government brutality, accustomed to government corruption, and unfazed by the government’s assaults on our freedoms.

This present trajectory is unsustainable. The center cannot hold.

The following danger points pose some of the greatest threats to our collective and individual freedoms now and in the year to come.

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Rand Paul Warns COVID Mandates Are “About Conditioning The American Individual To Submit To Government”

Senator Rand Paul has warned that as long as Americans continue to submit to government on coronavirus restrictions, the mandates and further erosions of freedom will never end.

Speaking with Dan Bongino, Paul responded to comments made last week by Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer who compared “anti-vaxxers here in this chamber” to “flat earthers” from 400 years ago.

Paul noted that “Schumer left out one thing, when they were denying that the Earth went around the sun. It was the government denying that and it was an independent scientist trying to set them straight.”

Paul further explained “the danger is when you let science be controlled by government, or by one sort of monolithic individual like Fauci, it really doesn’t have anything to do with science. Science usually discovers the truth eventually. But when science is dictated by the government, that’s when you get, you know, Flat Earthers.”

Paul continued, “I don’t think it’s been about science for a long time,” adding “It’s really the about conditioning the American individual to submit to government. And you’re right, it never ends, the goalposts will continue to change. And ultimately, more and more of your healthcare will be controlled.”

“You know, under socialized medicine, when we centralize all controls, most of these decisions are made by government bureaucrats like Fauci,” the Senator further urged.

The Senator also painted a grim picture of where this could all be heading, stating “If you love the dictates on vaccines, you’ll love it when Fauci is in charge of who can be dialyzed.”

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Resisting Tyranny Depends on the Courage to Not Conform

Social psychologist Roy Baumeister begins his book Evil: Inside Human Violence and Cruelty, with a proposition that will be counterintuitive to many: “Evil usually enters the world unrecognized by the people who open the door and let it in. Most people who perpetrate evil do not see what they are doing as evil.”

Dismissing evildoers as “insane” is an attempt to absolve both them and you of responsibility. Baumeister observes, “People do become extremely upset and abandon self-control, with violent results, but this is not insanity.” If only “insane” people commit “evil” acts, you might reason there is no need to strengthen spiritual and moral muscles. You might skip the reflection, study, and practice that builds spiritual and moral strength.

Would you, Baumeister asks, “obey orders to kill innocent civilians? Would you help torture someone? Would you stand by passively while the secret police hauled your neighbors off to concentration camps?” Baumeister writes, “Most people say no. But when such events actually happen, the reality is quite different.” Today, to the point, will you obey orders to fire upon people who refuse to comply with mandates?

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