Creeping Fascism Watch
Whatever you may think of Ron Paul, he raises plenty of good points in this essay. When governments are given more power they are loathe to give it back later. Income tax was supposed to be a temporary thing. So were a lot of other taxes that are still with us. The restrictions we have on our travel are probably not going away without a fight. If anything, they will probably get worse the next time we have a terrorist incident.
Politicians always claim they are looking out for us when they take away our freedoms. But we should never be suckered by that idea. Anny time a politicians uses the term for the children that should be grounds to vote them out of office. It’s never for the children.
If you’re a Bush hater who thinks the administration is making America a fascist state, you should be paying attention to what Democrats and nanny-staters are doing to stop smoking, fast food and anything else that annoys them. The so called “fight against global warming” is another tool of the political elite to get more power. Its based on bogus assumptions and logical fallacies.
The bottom line is, control freaks of any political stripe are never satisfied with the power they have. They will always want more. And in getting it, they will still be hungry. This is why limited government is a good thing. The people should have the right to say no. They should always have that right.
Perry de Havilland over at Samizdata breaks it down even further.
I have argued in the past that violent repression, gulags and mass murder are not in fact the defining characteristics for a state to be ‘totalitarian’. The defining characteristic is, as the word itself suggests, that control over people be pervasive and total… mass murderousness, goose-stepping troops, waving red (or whatever) flags are merely an incidental consequence and which can be better described in other ways (such as ‘tyrannical, murderous, dictatorial, brutal, national socialist, communist, islamo-fascist etc.).
As a result my view is that we in the west are already well on the way to a new form of post-modern totalitarian state (what Guy Herbert calls ‘soft fascism’) in which behaviour and opinions which are disapproved of by the political class are pathologised and then regulated by violence backed laws “for your own good’’ or “for the children” or “for the environment”.
The way smokers are being ostracized may make sense if you hate smoke. I’m not a smoker and don’t like it, either. But I know when people’s liberties are being trampled on. If they can do it to smokers, they can do it to others. And they are already started on that path with things like junk food and global warming skeptics. Organized hate campaigns are active in both the media and the internet, targeting those who don’t have the “correct” viewpoint.
It’s important that we don’t get tricked into going along with the hype machine. This is why I may sound like a broken record sometimes. But I think we have to stand up against this never ending wave of restrictions coming down the pike.
If we all speak out, we can scare some of the politicians into backing down. Provided we do it before they get more powerful.
UPDATE: Speak of the devil.
Amen.
Posted by Brock Townsend on 10/26 at 07:03 AM
