Some Basics of State Domination and Public Submission

By Robert Higgs Sunday April 27, 2014

Familiarity may indeed, as the saying goes, breed contempt, but it also breeds a sort of somnolence. People who have never known anything other than a certain state of affairs—even an extraordinarily problematic state of affairs—have a tendency not to notice it at all, to relate it, so to speak, as if they were sleepwalking through it. Such is the situation of modern people in relation to the state. They have always known it, and they take it completely for granted, regarding it as one might regard the weather: whether it brings rain or sunshine, lightning bolts or soothing spring breezes, it is always there, an aspect of nature itself. Even when it proves destructive, its destruction still qualifies as something akin to “acts of God.”….. however, ultimately for nearly all of the world’s people, the state has existed as an ever-present predator and all-around abuser of human rights, its power to dominate and plunder propped up by its adroit exploitation of people’s fears, many of which have been of the state itself, others of external threats to life and limb from which the state purported to protect its subjects……two main questions come rushing to mind:

(1) Who do these people—that is, the state’s kingpins, Praetorian guards, bootlickers, and key private-sector supporters—think they are to treat us as they do?

(2) Why do nearly all of us put up with the state’s outrageous treatment?

 

..........Thus, an astute, if ever shifting, combination of arrogant force and impudent fraud may be seen as the prime ingredients the state employs in its multifaceted efforts to induce somnolence in its subject victims. Of course, a certain amount of cooptation adds essential spice to the mix, and so all states make some efforts to give back to their victims a morsel of the bread it has snatched from them. For this gracious gift, they are generally ever so grateful........ To Read More……

My Take - An answer to his last question is really much easier than it appears. Gibbons wrote in his Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that "we tolerate despotism because of the things we own". And since people will always be people - motivated by all the same wants, needs and desires all people have always been motivated by - it's still true today. 

 

However, what happens if the economy collapses and nothing that's owned means anything?

 

During the siege of Leningrad in WWII people sold works by Rembrandt for a bag of potatoes, and far worse to keep from starving. A stable economy is the binding glue for every society, and when that glue is destroyed there is no binding force, and people will do what is in their own best interests, individually or collectively in small groups. If we delusionally believe “that can’t happen here”, we need to start reading some history books and stop listening to bloviating phonies like O'Reilly,

There is one more thing. Many years ago I was in a union working for a company that was abusive. I never liked being abused and had the tendency to say so. Naturally the company lackeys came after me with glee, since most of them were little tyrants and enjoyed being little tyrants.  I warned them they didn't know who they were dealing with because they never had a Serbian working there before.   Things didn't turn out as gleefully as they desired. 

 

The real shocker for me was the glee my fellow union members felt over these attacks against me. Why? Because as long as they were coming after me they were being left alone.  But that never lasts, and when they came after them, guess who so many of them turned to?  The one man who wasn't afraid of them, never backed down, and was winning, and who actually was influential with the other members. 

So when we see the government going after the Bundy's of the nation we also see idiots on the right jumping on the bandwagon over some ill spoken views and allow the abusers of society - and I include the agents of the left in the main stream media - to get away with their abuses by distracting everyone from the main issue.   And guys like O'Reilly - who isn't a conservative (we need to get that) jumps right on the bandwagon with them.

Bundy's failure to pay the required fee will cause him to ultimately fail in his crusade, but this has triggered a national debate as to why the federal government owns almost 25% of the land mass of this nation in the first place. The government didn't start all this land grabbing until the early 1900's, when the progressives began infesting the nation and it's leadership, and it has only gotten worse. 

 

The Bundy affair is not about race, it's about tyranny, and property rights are foundational to a free society! 

 

We really do need to get that!