The decline from democracy to
tyranny is both a natural and inevitable one.
That’s
not a pleasant thought to have to consider, but it’s a fact, nonetheless. In
every case, a democracy will deteriorate as the result of the electorate
accepting the loss of freedom in trade for largesse from their government. This
process may be fascism, socialism, communism, or a basket of “isms,” but tyranny
is the inevitable endgame of democracy. Like the destruction of a sandcastle by
the incoming tide, it requires time to transpire, but in time, the democracy,
like the sandcastle, will be washed away in its entirety.
Why
should this be so? Well, as I commented some years ago,
The concept of government is that
the people grant to a small group of individuals the ability to establish and
maintain controls over them. The inherent flaw in such a concept is that any
government will invariably and continually expand upon its controls, resulting
in the ever-diminishing freedom of those who granted them the power.
Unfortunately,
there will always be those who wish to rule, and there will always be a
majority of voters who are complacent enough and naïve enough to allow their
freedoms to be slowly removed. This adverb “slowly” is the key by which the
removal of freedoms is achieved.
The
old adage of “boiling a frog” is that the frog will jump out of the pot if it’s
filled with hot water, but if the water is lukewarm and the temperature is
slowly raised, he’ll grow accustomed to the temperature change and will
inadvertently allow himself to be boiled.
Let’s
have a look at Thomas Jefferson’s assessment of this technique:
Even under the best forms of
Government, those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations,
perverted it into tyranny.
Mister
Jefferson was a true visionary. He knew, even as he was penning the Declaration
of Independence and portions of the Constitution, that his proclamations, even
if they were accepted by his fellow founding fathers, would not last. He
recommended repeated revolutions to counter the inevitable tendency by
political leaders to continually vie for the removal of the freedoms from their
constituents.
Around
the same time that Mister Jefferson made the above comment, Alexander Tytler, a
Scottish economist and historian, commented on the new American experiment in
democracy. He’s credited as saying,
A democracy is always temporary in
nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy
will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover they can vote
themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the
majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the
public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due
to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.
So,
was each of the above gentlemen throwing a dart at a board, or did they each
have some kind of crystal ball? Well, actually, neither. Each was a keen
student of history. Each knew that the pattern, by the end of the 18th century,
had already repeated itself time and time again. In fact, as early as the
fourth century BC, Plato had quoted Socrates as having stated to Adeimantus,
Tyranny naturally arises out of
democracy, and the most aggravated form of tyranny and slavery comes out of the
most extreme form of liberty.
Today,
much of what was called the “free world” only half a century ago has
deteriorated into a combination of residual capitalism, which has been largely
and increasingly buried by socialism and fascism. (It should be mentioned that
the oft-misinterpreted definition of “fascism” is the joint rule by corporate
and state—a condition that’s now manifestly in place in much of the former
“free” world.)
Today,
many people perceive fascism as a tyrannical condition that’s suddenly imposed
by a dictator, but this is rarely the case. Fascism is in fact a logical step.
Just as voters succumb over time to the promises of socialism, so a parallel
decline occurs as fascism slowly replaces capitalism. Fascism may appear to be
capitalism, but it’s the antithesis of a free market. As Vladimir Lenin rightly
stated,
Fascism is capitalism in decline.
Comrade
Lenin understood the value of fascism for political leaders. Whilst he retained
a close relationship with New York and London bankers, and a healthy capitalist
market was tapped into for Soviet-era imports, he was aware that his power base
depended largely on denying capitalism to his minions.
So,
from the above quotations, we may see that there’s been a fairly erudite group
of folks out there who have commented on this topic over the last 2,500 years.
They agree that democracies, like sandcastles, never last. They generally begin
promisingly, but, given enough time, any government will erode democracy as
quickly as the political leaders can get away with it, and the progression
always ends in tyranny.
We’re
presently at a major historical juncture—a time in which much of the former
free world is in the final stages of decay and approaching the tyranny stage.
At
this point, the process tends to speed up. We can observe this as we see an
increase in the laws being passed to control the population—increased taxation,
increased regulation, and increased promises of largesse from the government
that they don’t have the funding to deliver.
When
any government reaches this stage, it knows only too well that it will not
deliver and that, when the lie is exposed, the populace will be hopping mad.
Therefore, just before the endgame, any government can be expected to ramp up
its police state. The demonstrations by governments that they’re doing so are
now seen regularly—raids by SWAT teams in situations where just a small number
of authorities could handle the situation just as well. Displays of armed
forces in the street, including armoured vehicles, in instances of disruption.
In
London, Ferguson, Paris, Boston, etc., the authoritarian displays have become
ever-more frequent. All that’s now necessary is a series of events (whether
staged or real) to suggest domestic terrorism in several locations at roughly
the same time. A state of national emergency may then be declared “for the
safety of the people.”
It’s
this justification that will assure the success of tyranny. Historically, the
majority of people in any county, in any era, choose the illusion of safety over
freedom. As John Adams was fond of saying,
Those who would trade freedom for safety will have neither.
From this point on, it would be wise
for anyone who lives in the EU, US, UK, etc. to watch events closely. If a rash
of “domestic terrorism” appears suddenly, it could well be the harbinger that
the government has reached the tipping point—when tyranny under the guise of
“protecting the safety of the people” is inaugurated.
The most essential takeaway here is
that, although some may object (even violently), the majority of the
people will trade
their freedom for the promise of
safety.
Reprinted with permission from International
Man.