This post immediately brings to mind a quote from Aldous Huxley: “There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution”
Most people today don’t believe they’re oppressed. What can we do to change that?
The 80:20 rule supports the theory that it only needs 20% of us to change the world into a better place and become a force for good. Not only to increasingly attract nay-sayers to the fold but also to provide a way for people to transition from the situation that is obviously causing them harm. The question for me is, what are WE the 20% doing? At the moment we are still very disconnected in terms of actually working together to build our new future. It is happening and your work, Chris, is testament to the fact that we have a wealth of intelligence and resources already cooking away on the back-burner. On the basis that the current system is falling apart by the day with all the best people left in the system starting to jump ship, the trajectory is certain. I just wish people would talk A LOT more about the future they want to see. Why not use our creative energy to manifest the future WE want to see? We are on the cusp of change so why not let's get imaginative and start to enjoy the process. The shower in so-called power deserve not one drop of our precious energy . We have far more important work to do!
At first out bondage is with mental chains, then paper chains, then rope and finally titanium steel chains. Of course, much of the bondage is invisible in the form of mind-f**kery and illusions of such. Our masters cannot exist without exercising firm control (rules and limits) and without them they are no longer masters and they suffer greatly at the thought of being the same as the slave population.
In effect, the masters are never masters as it is all a mind game based on fear. In effect, there is no human better than another. And in effect, no government exists without slavery. It is impossible. And no human master exists without slavery. For anyone you give your mind to will eventually have control over you.
What about all of the rights that elected representatives of government have that we also have? The antithesis of your article would be an exercise on harsh yet utilitarian realism - we have the right to lobby for what we want, yet even when one makes a calendar reminder to call legislators about an issue or a bill, it is often not done (and least in my case - and I don’t see a lot of people doing much differently.) what your saying is true mostly of the federal level of government but we have federalism which actually indicates two level of government. One can vote for their own raises, the other can’t. One allows you or I to, with effort and research, have a direct impact on the legislative agenda and what proposed bills come up for vote. One pays enough so that anyone can run, and one pays so little that only the retired and wealthy can run (and it’s not the one you would first expect). There are institutions and mechanisms for promoting the issues of public concern and not private interests and they get lumped in with all other criticism of “lobbying” and its public lobbying, outnumbered by private lobbyists 9-to-1. That’s something that, if we talk about and confront as one of the major causes of the predicament we are in with regards government, we can change. If we don’t look at what IS within our power to effect, then yes, we are fundamentally acting like slaves demoralized and degraded by what is not. The rights given us are implicit not explicit - one has to reach out and grab them, exercise them, or they pale to the rights of those who will or can. It’s not a popular sentiment but that just makes it more important to point out. Especially for the younger and future generations, if not our own moral and civic edification
Thanks for the clear argument … I conflated delegating powers with creating powers (apparently). But if we don’t have the right, we can’t delegate it either.
You describe what I take to be the chief problem with government, i.e., the double standard applied to two different groups: government agents and private individuals. The standard applied to the former group is more lenient than the one applied to the latter.
Two opposed theories of justice are the libertarian theory and the authoritarian theory. According to the former theory, all moral agents have equal natural moral rights and obligations. According to the latter theory, agents are divided into two groups: a superior group and an inferior group. Members of the superior group have special rights members of the inferior group lack. Members of the inferior group have burdensome obligations members of the superior group lack. In private life, those who regard themselves as being in the superior group typically commit the fallacy of special pleading to account for their exalted position.
In political life, the authoritarian theory allegedly bestows on members of the superior group the right to rule members of the inferior group and imposes on members of the inferior group the obligation to obey members of the superior group. To justify their superior position, government agents invoke political authority, defined by Michel Huemer in The Problem of Political Authority as “the hypothesized moral property in virtue of which governments may coerce people in certain ways not permitted to anyone else and in virtue of which citizens must obey governments in situations in which they would not be obligated to obey anyone else.”
Huemer spends the first half of his book demolishing the doctrine of political authority. He has stated that many philosophers today reject political authority because they find it untenable. However, most still accept statism on consequentialist grounds.
We periodically need the tenants of a perverted representative government listed out clearly, to break the cognitive stupor and dissonance, that the masses happily wallow in, like proverbial pigs in shit.
The last 4 words here sum it all up:
"But they act as if they do, and we let them. "
We've always handed the opportunists and manipulators the keys of our demise, in exchange for shiny toys and distractions - manufactured by the very people who would destroy us. The blame doesn't lie with them and their evil or abhorrent actions/natures. It lies at our feet, in the form of willful apathy, ignorance and avoidance - bought in some cases for the mere price of a happy meal. That is what's brought us to this current time, of self destruction.
This, as you well know is not a knew phenomenon, but can be easily found in the preceding centuries, across varied societies. So the problem lies with the masses, the commoners who not only sell their sovereignty for cheap, empty baubles but then happily ignore the process, they sold themselves and their families into.
And...the next few generation - because they've been taught to - will sell the same things for even less.
Yes indeed. As a society, we have returned to a pre-Enlightenment mentality in which the ruling class enjoys not only a monopoly on force, but also a monopoly on acceptable discourse and ideology.
Love it. I'm waiting for the article on all forms of taxation that are for our "good". Everyone acknowledges income taxes and sales taxes but all forms of forced "insurance" are also taxes. Beyond being forced to buy house, health, and auto insurances, we're also taxed by countless government middlemen in the economy. Try to purchase alcohol for resale - every state has a different (and costly) middleman for just one example.
This post immediately brings to mind a quote from Aldous Huxley: “There will be, in the next generation or so, a pharmacological method of making people love their servitude, and producing dictatorship without tears, so to speak, producing a kind of painless concentration camp for entire societies, so that people will in fact have their liberties taken away from them, but will rather enjoy it, because they will be distracted from any desire to rebel by propaganda or brainwashing, or brainwashing enhanced by pharmacological methods. And this seems to be the final revolution”
Most people today don’t believe they’re oppressed. What can we do to change that?
The 80:20 rule supports the theory that it only needs 20% of us to change the world into a better place and become a force for good. Not only to increasingly attract nay-sayers to the fold but also to provide a way for people to transition from the situation that is obviously causing them harm. The question for me is, what are WE the 20% doing? At the moment we are still very disconnected in terms of actually working together to build our new future. It is happening and your work, Chris, is testament to the fact that we have a wealth of intelligence and resources already cooking away on the back-burner. On the basis that the current system is falling apart by the day with all the best people left in the system starting to jump ship, the trajectory is certain. I just wish people would talk A LOT more about the future they want to see. Why not use our creative energy to manifest the future WE want to see? We are on the cusp of change so why not let's get imaginative and start to enjoy the process. The shower in so-called power deserve not one drop of our precious energy . We have far more important work to do!
At first out bondage is with mental chains, then paper chains, then rope and finally titanium steel chains. Of course, much of the bondage is invisible in the form of mind-f**kery and illusions of such. Our masters cannot exist without exercising firm control (rules and limits) and without them they are no longer masters and they suffer greatly at the thought of being the same as the slave population.
In effect, the masters are never masters as it is all a mind game based on fear. In effect, there is no human better than another. And in effect, no government exists without slavery. It is impossible. And no human master exists without slavery. For anyone you give your mind to will eventually have control over you.
Well said!
AMERICA is supposed to be :
Of the PEOPLE
By the PEOPLE
& For the PEOPLE
. . . so now what?
What about all of the rights that elected representatives of government have that we also have? The antithesis of your article would be an exercise on harsh yet utilitarian realism - we have the right to lobby for what we want, yet even when one makes a calendar reminder to call legislators about an issue or a bill, it is often not done (and least in my case - and I don’t see a lot of people doing much differently.) what your saying is true mostly of the federal level of government but we have federalism which actually indicates two level of government. One can vote for their own raises, the other can’t. One allows you or I to, with effort and research, have a direct impact on the legislative agenda and what proposed bills come up for vote. One pays enough so that anyone can run, and one pays so little that only the retired and wealthy can run (and it’s not the one you would first expect). There are institutions and mechanisms for promoting the issues of public concern and not private interests and they get lumped in with all other criticism of “lobbying” and its public lobbying, outnumbered by private lobbyists 9-to-1. That’s something that, if we talk about and confront as one of the major causes of the predicament we are in with regards government, we can change. If we don’t look at what IS within our power to effect, then yes, we are fundamentally acting like slaves demoralized and degraded by what is not. The rights given us are implicit not explicit - one has to reach out and grab them, exercise them, or they pale to the rights of those who will or can. It’s not a popular sentiment but that just makes it more important to point out. Especially for the younger and future generations, if not our own moral and civic edification
__
They’re not my masters. I don’t have one.
Spot on!
Thanks for the clear argument … I conflated delegating powers with creating powers (apparently). But if we don’t have the right, we can’t delegate it either.
You describe what I take to be the chief problem with government, i.e., the double standard applied to two different groups: government agents and private individuals. The standard applied to the former group is more lenient than the one applied to the latter.
Two opposed theories of justice are the libertarian theory and the authoritarian theory. According to the former theory, all moral agents have equal natural moral rights and obligations. According to the latter theory, agents are divided into two groups: a superior group and an inferior group. Members of the superior group have special rights members of the inferior group lack. Members of the inferior group have burdensome obligations members of the superior group lack. In private life, those who regard themselves as being in the superior group typically commit the fallacy of special pleading to account for their exalted position.
In political life, the authoritarian theory allegedly bestows on members of the superior group the right to rule members of the inferior group and imposes on members of the inferior group the obligation to obey members of the superior group. To justify their superior position, government agents invoke political authority, defined by Michel Huemer in The Problem of Political Authority as “the hypothesized moral property in virtue of which governments may coerce people in certain ways not permitted to anyone else and in virtue of which citizens must obey governments in situations in which they would not be obligated to obey anyone else.”
Huemer spends the first half of his book demolishing the doctrine of political authority. He has stated that many philosophers today reject political authority because they find it untenable. However, most still accept statism on consequentialist grounds.
Yes 🙌
We are all free at birth and at death. It's the middle part that gets squirrely. ❤️👻
Dude... 🔥🔥🔥
I wish I had some grandiose articulations to add, but you pretty much said it all 🫡
This is a great post.
We periodically need the tenants of a perverted representative government listed out clearly, to break the cognitive stupor and dissonance, that the masses happily wallow in, like proverbial pigs in shit.
The last 4 words here sum it all up:
"But they act as if they do, and we let them. "
We've always handed the opportunists and manipulators the keys of our demise, in exchange for shiny toys and distractions - manufactured by the very people who would destroy us. The blame doesn't lie with them and their evil or abhorrent actions/natures. It lies at our feet, in the form of willful apathy, ignorance and avoidance - bought in some cases for the mere price of a happy meal. That is what's brought us to this current time, of self destruction.
This, as you well know is not a knew phenomenon, but can be easily found in the preceding centuries, across varied societies. So the problem lies with the masses, the commoners who not only sell their sovereignty for cheap, empty baubles but then happily ignore the process, they sold themselves and their families into.
And...the next few generation - because they've been taught to - will sell the same things for even less.
Yes indeed. As a society, we have returned to a pre-Enlightenment mentality in which the ruling class enjoys not only a monopoly on force, but also a monopoly on acceptable discourse and ideology.
Love it. I'm waiting for the article on all forms of taxation that are for our "good". Everyone acknowledges income taxes and sales taxes but all forms of forced "insurance" are also taxes. Beyond being forced to buy house, health, and auto insurances, we're also taxed by countless government middlemen in the economy. Try to purchase alcohol for resale - every state has a different (and costly) middleman for just one example.