A guest article courtesy of STGM.
The idea of subjecting benevolent totalitarianism to a critical eye has caused a stir in Utah. A bill that would allow government facilities to be subject to scrutiny when they interfere with free markets has evoked fear in the hearts of the supporters of tyranny.
Since most people don’t realize they support tyranny when it has a pleasant face, they become puzzled and ask “why?” One person puzzled, “My taxes paid to build it, why should they now sell that to a private company if they are found to be competing unfairly“?
The shortest answer is, “two wrongs don’t make a right.”
This same person assumed that she’d pay more, which was a Bad Thing. It’s easy to encounter this type of language. It’s typical of people who have been trained by the government since their earliest years to accept without thought the equation “Government=Good”.
This tempest in a teapot provides an opportunity to examine the thought process that drive this type of language.
Of particular note, is how people’s words are typically focused on dollars and things at the expense of other people. This is the philosophical underpinnings of socialism and fascism. Things have value. Other people are only a resource to be used in acquiring things for your personal benefit.
We have been taught over generations in government schools to abhor freedom and embrace stealing from each other as long as we are promised a goodie in return. In other words, we value things and use people for our personal gain. We think things and money have power, when in reality they are dust. It’s human life that is the source of value.
This mindset is wholly immoral and completely indefensible but as long as we think that way, we (1) support it daily and (2) vigorously defend it in a knee-jerk fashion when we perceive personal benefit. We support any strongman who promises more goodies, but the goodies can only come through force and deception. We fear anything that challenges our inverted perception of good as bad, bad as good. Though our bodies may have grown to maturity, we desire to remain dependent children.
The opposite philosophy, which is the only defensibly moral system (and which the Founders of the United States based their grand “experiment” on) rests on valuing people, using things, and freely exchanging with others without coercion or deception.
Scarcity and fear drives the first mindset. The second mindset is rooted in abundance and joy. The first mindset fears the second mindset.
But… people largely don’t care. Thinking is too hard. Doing the right thing means work. They only want the illusion of “their” stuff… at your expense.
It brings to mind an obscure song from days gone by. “Who can fight the beast? She’s big, she’s bad, she’s wicked, she’s sad. Who can fight the beast?” (“The Beast”, 666: The Apocalypse of John 13/18, Aphrodite’s Child, 1971).
