How Comes Tyranny

If you demand that a man betray his conscience, you have eliminated the only moral basis for his fidelity to the rule of law, and have destroyed the moral foundation for democracy.

President James Madison

Orwellian Culture

Our society has come to adopt many of the draconian measures Orwell tried to warn us about. Cameras monitor citizens from nearly every street corner in the United Kingdom, and there are a steadily growing number of them mounted traffic lights in America. The fact that Orwell’s 1984 remains a part of the required reading in many high schools across the country is laughably ironic. What is truly sad is how many readers acknowledge the brilliant foresight of Orwell yet fail to grasp how closely present-day America (and England) resemble Winston Smith’s Oceania.

Donald Jeffries, Hidden History: An Expose of Modern Crimes, Conspiracies, and Cover-up in American Politics, pg.337

Politics

Those who want more power have known for centuries that giving people somebody to hate and fear is the key.

Thomas Sowell, Dismantling America, pg.226

When Government Silences Opposition

Tyranny Is Taking Over the USA

Single acts of tyranny may be ascribed to the accidental opinion of the day. But a series of oppressions, begun at a distinguished period, and pursued unalterably through every change of ministers [administrations], too plainly proves a deliberate systematic plan of reducing us to slavery.

Thomas Jefferson. Cited by Donald Jeffries, Hidden History: An Expose of Modern Crimes, Conspiracies, and Cover-u in American Politics, pg.5

1984?

How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain meaning of words!

Samuel Adams

Sincere Tyranny?

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. … Those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

C.S. Lewis

Freedom or Tyranny

[F]reedom is possible only with moral law. Free people must discipline themselves, or they will end up losing their freedom. Why? Because when people do not control themselves, they will end up having others control them. They will either end up in prison or controlled by tyrants. Just as nature abhors a vacuum, societies abhor chaos—and absence of law and order. Therefore, if individuals will not control themselves, others will. Those others will either be foreign tyrants or indigenous tyrants.

Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible, Deuteronomy: God, Blessings, and Curses, pg.266

The Tyranny of "Mush" Words

This whole article is thought-provoking so I decided it needed to be posted on this blog. Enjoy!

How to Achieve Tyranny With Mush Words, by Steve Rose at American Thinker.

If you want to become a tyrant and transform your fellow citizens into slaves, all you really need are a few good mush words. “Mush words” are words with vague definitions. They’re slippery, hard to pin down, elusive, ultimately unknowable—and, for budding tyrants, extremely useful.

The word “racist,” for example, is a superb mush word. “Sexist” is outstanding as well, as is “(whatever)-aphobe.” Better yet, accuse someone of being full of “hate.”

But how do they work? Why are mush words powerful enough to achieve tyranny?

First, you don’t need to understand why they work, only that they do. It takes no talent or intelligence to just sling these words around and reap the rewards without understanding the dynamics involved. That said, for those who want to dig deeper, here’s a brief summary:

The two keys to good mush words are 1) unknowability and 2) accusation.

Unknowability (#1) is the magic ingredient that gives mush words their mushiness. The essential element is slipperiness. A mush word is like a verbal greased pig, or Proteus, the shapeshifting Greek god who could change forms at will. Vagueness is critical. Clarity is the enemy.

It’s interesting to notice that hardly anyone accuses anyone else of having six fingers or being nine feet tall.

Why is that? Because those can be easily verified. They’re clear, objective, and open to the public. There’s no uncertainty, no controversy—a complete lack of drama. For budding tyrants, they’re useless.

Good mush words, on the other hand, point to things that are impossible to quantify, measure, see, hear, know objectively, or disprove. While nearly everyone can easily verify six fingers or measure height, no one can conclusively “see” that you’re “racist” or harbor “hate” in your heart.

These can be argued about, of course. But arguing requires effort, which creates opportunity. As Bertrand Russell said, “The most savage controversies are those matters as to which there is no good evidence either way.”

Since there’s no objective, public, scientific way to verify mush word accusations one way or another, these areas are beyond the reach of fair-minded, reasonable people. This sets the stage for a confidence game, which allows anyone to bluff their way in. Whoever can pretend to have certainty on the matter wins.

If you can pretend to be certain of something ultimately unknowable, chances are the other person won’t be certain precisely because it is unknowable. It isn’t hard. Just pretend to be psychic and act confident about it. If the other person even seems less confident, the battle is essentially won.

The trick is to weaponize uncertainty.

If it’s done properly, it creates a heads-I-win, tails-you-lose, house-always-wins scenario. If anyone gets close to clarifying things, the mush word changes definitions, escapes into vagueness, and the game can continue.

The best mush words are so slippery they can be applied to practically anything. Math, for example, could be described as racist—or pancake syrup, coffee, golf, sleep, grades, “assault weapons,” or wanting honest elections. It’s the mark of a great mush word: anything and anyone can become “wrong.” To some, this might make the word meaningless. But with proper salesmanship and coercion, it becomes all-powerful.

But that requires the second ingredient.

Accusation (#2) makes mush words truly lethal.

Publicly blaming someone for doing something “wrong” is powerful because we all want to be “right.” (Even the rebellious and humble—both of whom describe themselves as wrong—do that because they think it’s “right” in a bigger sense). The ethical framework involved might be real or imaginary. It doesn’t matter, so long as the target believes it.

Use a mush word to accuse anyone of doing something “wrong,” and they’ll panic and scramble around like terrified children, trying desperately to prove that they aren’t whatever you accuse them of being. They’ll fail, of course—which means they’ve fallen right into your trap.

Take, for example, accusing someone of being “racist” (or whatever-aphobic, hateful, etc.) They’ll likely—and desperately—start naming dear friends and family members of different races. Whatever they do, you can laugh at them and mention how ridiculous—and racist—they look, even in their attempts to deny it. The more they try to escape your spell, the more they’ll often find themselves enmeshed. Informally, they’re guilty until proven innocent unless they can definitively clear their name—which is usually difficult, if not impossible because the burden of proof is on them.

It’s all-powerfully effective and often hilarious to watch.

But is that person actually racist? That brings us right back to slippery definitions (“What is a “racist”?) More importantly, it’s irrelevant. The aim isn’t to discern truth but to eliminate political enemies, create an outlet for real hatred, or cow people into submission.

Once a person has been accused and is squirming, offer a way out. People will often do anything to “prove” that they aren’t whatever you accuse them of being. So, you can point them in any direction, such as telling them to donate money to your pet organization, make public declarations, join a cause, etc. To the degree that your ploy has been effective, you own them, and can point them wherever you want.

Why does this work?

Deep down, many of us carry around a secret sense of guilt or shame, as if we’ve done something wrong in the past (even if we aren’t clear what that was, exactly). That guilt can come to the surface and get activated quite easily. Tyrants exploit this. Those who constantly accuse others of racism have essentially rediscovered “sin” (something Judeo-Christianity and other religions described thousands of years ago, now dressed up to look secular and therefore socially acceptable).

That’s how this con game hijacks human nature. We often don’t know ourselves. Human motives can run deep and are often mysterious. So, when someone loudly accuses us of having a specific motive—especially if they seem confident or have a clever argument to back it up—many of us will collapse into gullible puddles of goo. “That person accused me of being (insert mush word)? Maybe it’s true! I should do some introspecting and try to better myself so I don’t get accused of being (insert mush word here) again.”

The Salem Witch Trials demonstrated this well. The formula was simple. Accuse someone of being a witch. What’s a “witch,” exactly? Nobody knew. (They pretended to know, but their answers were absurdly tragicomic.) Ultimately, “witch” was simply a mush word. Today’s witch trials work the same way.

The process is like casting a magic spell. A dark sorcerer chooses a mush word, picks a target, accuses them of being guilty in some mushy way, and then watches them squirm and scramble. Unless they can break the spell, they’re yours.

So, what breaks this spell?

The game collapses when someone assertively stands up against mush words. If people insist on being judged by clear, objective, publicly available measures—or if they simply know themselves well—then they’ll see through it all. (Or worse, they might go on offense and accuse the accuser of slander). When that happens, the gig is up. The spell will be broken. It’s time to find a new mush word and an easier target and start over.

Luckily, few do this. Laws, cultures, and even entire societies are built around mush words. People are imprisoned, impoverished, and executed based on mush words. The fact that it’s based on a kind of verbal sorcery made up of senseless, hysterical, impossible-to-verify accusations is beside the point. For most humans, mush words rule.

And that’s why they’re so easy to enslave.

Steve Rose is a pseudonym.

George Orwell Saw the USA As It Is Now

Every record has been destroyed or falsified, every book rewritten, every picture has been repainted, every statue and street building has been renamed, every date has been altered. And the process continues day by day and minute by minute. History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.

George Orwell, "1984" (written in 1949)

Public School Tyrants Push Identity Politics

Teachers and administrators in those institutions are pushing sexual identity politics on children as young as two years old not just because it’s a current leftist fad, but because eliminating the family wipes out any competition. The gradual transitional elimination of the family is rapidly picking up speed. Now the plan is to destroy the family by destroying the children.

Children have an inherent need for a family. Totalitarian regimes have fought the family in the past by turning children against their parents. And yet even in the face of the monstrous propaganda of the USSR, Communist China and Nazi Germany, the family has persisted. The Left has come to realize that the only way to destroy the family is to destroy the children.

Daniel Greenfield, Whose Children? Our Children

History Repeats--Often

 

Sounds Like Biden

 

Speaking of the United States...

 

With or Without a Christian Foundation

That the post-Christian age has been the bloodiest in history, that the French and Russian Revolutions, both fiercely anti-religious, produced bloody despotic regimes, while the pro-religion, God-based American Revolution produced the freest country in the world -- both these facts are unknown to most young Americans. So, too, young people don't know that religious Americans are happier, commit less suicide, give more charity and volunteer more time than irreligious Americans.

Dennis Prager, Why Are So Many Young Americans Irreligious? The Secular Brainwash Is the First Reason

I Will Not Yield

The More Things Change, the More They Remain the Same

 

Conform or Else

In place of real democracy American totalitarians in the Democrat party and the technocratic elite in the Republican party want a managed society headed by bureaucrats and a bureaucracy whose universal vision of societal governance and order is disseminated to the local apparatuses of the government writ small: school boards, universities, businesses, etc. Hence the strong-arm tactics to get local municipalities, businesses, and schools across the country to comply with new federal and state government dictates. Any holdouts will be penalized into conformity. So much for democracy.

Paul Krause, Destroying Democracy by ‘Saving Democracy’

The Trojan Horse of "Emergency".

Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of "emergency". It was the tactic of Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini. In the collectivist sweep over a dozen minor countries of Europe, it was the cry of men striving to get on horseback. And "emergency" became the justification of the subsequent steps. This technique of creating emergency is the greatest achievement that demagoguery attains.

Herbert Hoover

Limit the Tyrants