Time-Honored Tyranny (Part 2 of 3)

(Part 1 of this series (https://steemit.com/anarchy/@larkenrose/time-honored-tyrannt-part-1-of-3) began looking at ways in which people are gradually trained over time to put up with authoritarian injustices that they would never accept all at once. The first example was the slow but dramatic spread in both the levels and the different kinds of “taxation,” but there are many more examples.)

2 - Prohibition of victimless habits.

Next on the list is the violent regulation and prohibition of victimless habits. This is actually closely related to the first item, since “taxation” has often been the means by which the state tries to attack various “vices.”

If some habit, even a bad habit, is widespread and societally accepted, the state cannot just outlaw it one day. It takes a prolonged propaganda campaign, such as was seen with the demonization of alcohol, and alcohol-drinkers, leading up to federal alcohol prohibition. (And when I say “demonization,” I mean it quite literally, since the term “demon rum” was used by the prohibitionists.)

Ultimately, after much violence, both from “law enforcement” and from (other) organized crime (which often acted in collusion), that ploy failed. Too many people saw the prohibition as worse than the “vice,” the “laws” became unenforceable, and then the ruling class had to repeal prohibition just to save face (after the effort was already doomed).

Then they immediately went about trying to demonize something else, to find a new excuse for intrusive control and state violence. Then, of course, they started targeting marijuana, using laughably lame propaganda like “Reefer Madness,” as an excuse to build a new authoritarian agenda. And, of course, they have gone after all sorts of other “narcotics” as well.

But the point here is that they could never have done any of it in one step, out of the blue. It always had to be a gradual propaganda campaign, a gradual increase of authoritarian power, intrusiveness, surveillance, etc., and a gradual whittling away of individual privacy and other rights. For example, if the U.S. “government” decided, today, to declare all alcohol “illegal,” the chances of them enforcing that would be exactly 0% (and the chance of an immediate violent revolution would be about 99%).

The pattern is predictable with all “vice” laws: first they merely “tax” it, then they get violent against those who try to evade those “taxes,” then they try to heavily regulate it (such as requiring a license, or a prescription, to possess it), then prohibiting it entirely.

3 - Searches and interrogations.

Searching for “narcotics,” or evidence of other victimless “crimes,” has also often been the excuse for ever-increasing surveillance, detentions, searches and interrogations of people. Once upon a time, it was unheard of for “law enforcers” in the U.S. to just stop people at random (whether they are walking, riding or driving) in order to demand their papers, to demand to know where they are going and what they are doing, and to search their persons and vehicles.

Again, people have to be conditioned over time to accept such mistreatment. And it has worked so well that now many of the victims of such abuse zealously defend the practice, saying how willing they are—to the point of being proud—to be treated like criminals, because, they say, “I have nothing to hide.”

Random “border checkpoints” (many of which are not even at the border), the level of groping and privacy violations committed at airports, as well as some “stop and frisk” policies, where people are detained, questioned and searched without a shred of probable cause to think they have committed a crime, would have seemed outrageous to almost everyone a few short decades ago. But every time the intrusiveness has increased, the livestock has been told that it was to “keep them safe,” so they put up with it. But again, had the ruling class attempted to impose such things in one shot, a hundred years ago, it would have immediately triggered a violent backlash.

(It’s worth mentioning that “laws” against victimless “crimes”—e.g., drugs, gambling, prostitution—have often served as the excuse for such searches and interrogations. If, in contrast, there were only laws against assault, theft, murder (i.e., actual crimes, that have actual victims), there wouldn’t even be a flimsy excuse for randomly detaining people. “We’re checking for drugs” sounds at least slightly less ridiculous than “We’re stopping people at random to ask if they have murdered anyone,” although in reality it is no more legitimate or moral. And of course, “protecting against terrorism” is also a popular excuse these days.)

4 - Restrictions on movement.

Most Americans now accept the requirement to have a driver’s license as obviously necessary and legitimate. But again, that was not always the case. In fact, at one point it would have seemed ridiculous for someone to suggest that people should need “government”-issued written permission just to travel around.

Likewise, for most of this country’s history, no “passport” was required to enter or leave the U.S. But now being stopped by agents of the state, asked to prove who you are, where you’re going, for how long, for what purpose, etc.—such treatment is accepted by most as important and righteous, especially when crossing national borders, but sometimes even when moving around inside the country.

Again, getting people to be treated like criminals takes gradual conditioning. Now in many places armed thugs of the state will stop and question everyone driving down a road, in the name of “regulatory checkpoints” (to check driver’s license and vehicle registration), “border checkpoints” (to question people about their nationality and citizenship) and “sobriety checkpoints” (in the name of combating drunk driving).

And while people have become accustomed to these things, and most are now accepting of such things, these are no more valid than if the state started imposing “murderer checkpoints,” stopping people at random to ask if they had murdered anyone, without any reason at all to think that they had. All random “checkpoints” are violations of both the Fourth Amendment (warrantless, suspicionless searches and seizures) and the Fifth Amendment (being forced to testify against one’s self).

To stop someone, using threats of violence, just for going down the road, and to demand that the person prove his own innocence, should be seen as extremely offensive and unjust to anyone who believes in human liberty. And yet the American livestock have been trained to meekly obey and comply with such Nazi-esque “show me zee papers” treatment in all sorts of places now. And again, anyone who didn’t “cooperate” with their own mistreatment is now seen by most Americans as a scofflaw and trouble-maker, deserving of whatever the thugs of the state do to him.

(In the third and final part of this series, we will see how authoritarian control has slowly crept into almost every aspect of everyone’s lives, despite the fact that the human livestock still refer to the domain of their captors as “the land of the free.”)

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(Larken Rose is a speaker, author and activist, having advocated the principles of non-aggression, self-ownership and a stateless, voluntary society for over twenty years. Donations to help support his articles, videos and other projects can be made by PayPal to "[email protected]" or by Bitcoin to 13xVLRidonzTHeJCUPZDaFH6dar3UTx5js.)