Extending Power
Power to enslave for your freedom
There is the kind of State that seeks always to extend its administrative powers and functions into all realms of society, always seeking a higher degree of centralization in the conduct of its operations, always tending toward a wider measure of politicization of social, economic, and cultural life. It does not do this in the name of power but of freedom—freedom from want, insecurity, and minority tyranny.
- Robert Nisbet, The Quest for Community: A Study in the Ethics of Order and Freedom
How true are these observations by Nisbet (1913–1996) who identified the goal of “freedom for the people” in a rising totalitarian state. For the Nazi it was freedom from the minority tyranny of the Jew, for Stalin it was freedom for the working class from the tyranny of the bourgeoisie. In 2021 the State seeks to extend its powers in all manner of ways to free the people from a “deadly” pestilence.
It is for the sake of health, for everyone, that everyone need give all power to the State - power to restrict movement1, relationships, communication2, reasoning, commerce, and power to impose experimental medical procedures upon everyone. It is for the well-being of nations that governments must control what is seen, heard, and spoken about. It is for health that the people, under the intoxicating protection of the State, that scapegoats3 are identified and vilified (those unvaxxed, COVID-deniers, who pollute the whole world by perpetuating the pandemic).
This wouldn’t seem so satirical if the threat to health was overwhelming (Ebola, or the Bubonic plague come to mind), but this is not the case. But a pandemic of fear, more contagious than the virus, has been amplified to such an extent that the statistics do not matter. If CNN report mass graves and not enough body bags, then fear tells you that the 99.99% survival rate does not apply to you (or your loved ones). It has to be much more dangerous than that! After all, the TV said that a 96 year old (obese man with diabetes and a heart problem) died “with” COVID last night4, so there’s no reason why it couldn’t kill you!
So what’s the point here? States will try to grab power and tell you it’s for your freedom. But there are many more people in the general population than those in government, or many more than the government can forcibly control. If the population see through the ploy, the grab for more power. If the population refuses to comply to illegal, irrational, even harmful “rules” by bureaucrats who themselves are not touched by such rules. Then the power grab halts. The people retain the power they should have in a free and democratic society. The government then becomes the servant of the people rather than the other way around.
It is only when the people are complicit in the empowering of totalitarianism, by a million little concessions, agreements, compliance, that a democracy transforms into a tyranny.
Every concession to government overreach is a step closer to serfdom.
Including micro-movements: As soon as you sit you can take your mask off and eat. As soon as you stand, the mask must go on. You can’t stand and drink or drink and walk unless you can somehow drink through your mask (which may be a bit awkward), but you can drink and drive (preferably now without a mask) but as soon as you finish drinking you should put the mask back on, even when driving (but sometimes not, depending on the day, or something), unless it’s fogging your glasses then you can take the mask off becuase if you crash your car you are breaking social distancing laws. The mask must be on in public all the time unless you have trouble communicating, but you shouldn’t be communicating so just keep the mask on until you get home, unless you have kids and you should keep it on around the kids at home because they can’t get very sick from the virus that you don’t have because if you did have any symptoms you’d be locked in your room for 14 days… with a mask on. Online meetings are another matter but to be safe you should also keep the mask on - at least that’s what key world leaders do in conference calls so it must be the right thing to do.
Including talking to your neighbor as the Chief Medical Offers of New South Wales explains - As much as we are social beings and like to connect, it’s just too dangerous.
Scapegoating and projection: Unwanted thoughts and feelings can be unconsciously projected onto another who becomes a scapegoat for one's own problems. This concept can be extended to projection by groups. In this case the chosen individual, or group, becomes the scapegoat for the group's problems. "Political agitation in all countries is full of such projections, just as much as the backyard gossip of little groups and individuals." Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung considered indeed that "there must be some people who behave in the wrong way; they act as scapegoats and objects of interest for the normal ones". - Wikipedia
For the few intollerable moments that I’ve watched mainstream news, these sorts of reports - someone in their 80s or 90s dying “with” COVID - are delivered with all the melodrama of an 80s soapy and the reminder that “this is such a deadly and devistating disease”. When actually following up the details of the death, it was often found the person (who’d sometimes lasted more than a decade past the average life span) had multiple and serious comorbidities - miracles of the tenacity of life for living so long, regardless of the virus. The news readers performance would have made perfect satire before 2020.