Dear Friends,
It seems to me, the premise of laws giving the police kill switches on our cars, the surveillance state, mandates, etc… is that the state is always good and never evil. If we accept even for a moment that the state could do a thing nefarious, then all those laws become manifestations of oppression, instead of social cohesion. The childish view of the state being all good is as dangerous as Bonhoeffer’s stupidity principle. It is in and of itself a form of stupidity. The pernicious, unwise and infantile idea, the state is good and will help you improve your life, has led to the greatest crimes against humanity yet committed. By it, good people empower evil people to do evil, for the greater good. The fact is, it’s time to abandon that foolish notion for one that fits the real world… better than a child’s tea party.
When the State is empowered to do good, it does evil instead, because doing good is difficult, while doing evil is easy. State power is like a bomb, the work it can do is impressive, but its not focused. A bomb can be used to dig ditches, remove tree stumps, and kill folks, but is wholly ineffective at building things, maintenance or saving lives. Moreover, wherever the State’s power is applied, grift naturally arise. Swindlers exploit the fallout to enrich themselves. That’s why every government program is littered with fraud. Billions a year evaporate from the State’s coffers, yet the State seeks to fill them from our pockets, rather than wash their sticky fingers. Every example of government trying to do good goes awry. The dole worked so well for the Romans, we thought we would give it a try.
In a society that’s abandoned God, the State fills the void, and takes his place. Someone or something has to. So people transfer their feelings for God to the State. Thinking the State is omnipotent, omniscient and all loving. When the exact opposite is the truth. Nevertheless, atheism has been a powerful tool for the State. Without people transferring their worshiping of God, to an unworthy actor, how could such events as the Holocaust, Killing Fields or Jonestown happen? Instead of being a marshaling force to protect the people from foreign governments, adjudicate disagreements and enforce basic laws, the State can become so much more. It can become a god. If only in the minds of deluded sycophants, who will gleefully visit the worse of evils on mankind, for our own good.
Believing the state is good and will help you improve your life is like believing in the tooth fairy. Except, there’s more empirical evidence of the tooth fairy’s existence, than any good works of a State. Moreover, what level of brilliance does it take, to think it a good deal to rip out one’s adult teeth to put under a pillow, for a handful of quarters? With investing in State benevolence, or the tooth fairy, the cost outweighs the profit. In order for government to focus enough to provide help, on any kind of granular level, it takes a bureaucracy that outnumbers the people it’s trying to help. If it’s indeed trying to help them at all. We all would like a ride now and then, but those who want to ride through life on a State pulled chariot… are going to the games, not as viewers, but as the victims.
It’s nice to think of government as a nanny, someone who looks after us, protects us and picks us up when we’re down. It’s a comforting lie. Some might call it a functional myth. Unlike believing in a medicine man though, believing in the benevolence of the State is disastrous, proven by history. Atheism is one of the State’s greatest gifts to itself. Back when the State was the embodiment of the deity, religion worked for it, now that religion is outside and above the State, the State seeks to usurp it again… with atheism. Where the State replaces God. Even as the State’s minions usher us into showers smelling of Zyklon B, (or mandate a clot shot). So I ask you, does it make sense to give the State unlimited power to, “help make our lives better,” or… limit it’s ability to harm us?
Sincerely,
John Pepin
