Dear Friends,
It seems to me, when you build a chair in a wood shop, it doesn’t immediately pop into existence, it must be planned, the wood cut, jointed, planed, sawn to size, fitted, assembled, glued, sanded and finally coated with an appropriate finish like polyurethane… the same thing can be said of converting a liberal, capitalist, culture, society and government, into an oppressive, socialist state. The state cannot change overnight unless there is a revolution. Where revolution is impossible, then it is necessary to take the long road to tyranny…. like building a chair.
In both processes there are steps that must be taken. To change a liberal state into an oppressive one, it is critical to change the definition of liberty to oppression… without the people knowing what you are doing. The means to this end is facilitated by control of the information infrastructure. This is the first step to the job. Once control of information is established, in the culture, society, schools and government, this power must be used to inculcate the new definitions, so much so, that they become ingrained in the people. We accept what we are immersed in, without challenge, because we give our surroundings no thought. If we live it, breathe it and hear nothing but it, it is our truth… even if it is fiction. Perception becomes reality.
Once good is called evil, and evil is called good, the would be tyrant is well on his way to molding society and culture closer to his desire. All the incentives in society must be negative and pernicious. Next the would be dictator needs to introduce this new ethos into the workings of government. Since liberal government usually has some controls, in the form of a legislating body and judicial body, they need to be perverted from their original mission, to the task of changing government, from an institution that protects the liberty and property of the people, into one that redistributes, the liberty and property of the people.
The next stage is to make the government the gatekeeper for all that is good. God must be erased as the source of human rights and replaced by government. Distributive justice by political favor must be installed in the people’s minds as the best and most just means to all that is good. Government can then dole out goods to those that are helpful and cut off those that are unhelpful. This makes compliance much easier later in the process.
Liberty has already been redefined by this stage, so the totalitarian simply needs to use some pretext to convolute the Constituted law, to meet his needs. If the legislative body is reluctant to drastically convert the public weal, then the judicial body can be used to do it, by fiat. Since the judicial has the last say in law, it can get away with usurping the power of the other branches of government, without the public lifting a brow. Anyone who complains will be vilified into submission by the information apparatus.
As society slips deeper and deeper into the morass of tyranny some will wake up. They need to be controlled and marginalized by the information apparatus such that the people consider the potential counter revolutionary a kook, a conspiracy theorist, a nut job. The informer can be denied basic goods and services, if that is insufficient, their careers can be destroyed, due to the governments gatekeeper status. If necessary… the provocateur can be charged with some made up crime. The information apparatus will swamp the people in propaganda, and the person who tries to wake up society to the pernicious means of the encroaching tyranny, will be neutralized.
At some point the economy will collapse, due to the burden government imposes on it, creating the perfect conditions for the final usurpation of power. The information apparatus can be marshaled to claim that the only way out is total government control of the economy. The people, who have been thoroughly indoctrinated in the philosophy of state-ism, will fall into line and the tyrant can step into his rightful place… as President for life. The people have become slaves to the state and the liberal, capitalist, free society has been changed to an oppressive, Marxist state, without a shot fired.
Not that anyone would do such a thing, they would be evil incarnate if they did.
Sincerely,
John Pepin
