Brandon Smith
Infowars.com
There are two types of people in this world; those who worship the ideal of centralized command authority, and those who do not. Those who value freedom regardless of risk or pain, and those who value slavery in a desperate bid to avoid risk and pain. When I consider the ultimate folly of man, in the end I look to the meek and unquestioning masses who strive to avoid risk, because it is they who always end up feeding the machines of war, despair, and tyranny. The power thirsty halls of elitism surely instigate and manipulate the tides of this wretched ocean of quivering souls, but ultimately, the weak-hearted and weak minded make all terrible conquests possible.
They live by the rule of fear, and their fear drives them to seek control; control of their environment, control of others, and by extension they believe, control of the future. They attempt to mitigate their overwhelming fear by containing the world and sterilizing it of everything wild, untamed, and unknown. They dream of a society of pure predictability, and zero responsibility. They are willing to sacrifice almost anything to attain this position of artificial comfort.
The concept of “big government” appeals to such people for many reasons…
Government in most cases is nothing but an abstraction. It is merely a tool that serves the interests of a particular group of people at any given time. Modern politics is an expression of the foolish cat fight between factions of people to decide who gets to wield the weapon of government and impose their ideology on the rest of us. At least, that’s what it almost always devolves into. The great illusion of the system, though, is that ANY group of average people ever actually wields any power. The truth is, big governments are always operated by very small and exclusive clubs of root beneficiaries out of the sight of the population.
The smaller this dominant group becomes, the more corrupt and criminal the government generally is. A government reaches a state of despotism whenever its functions are twisted for the sake of an elite few to the detriment of the common man, and when it ignores the natural inborn rights of the individual for the sake of some fabricated collective . If one were to closely examine the birth of every iron-fisted oligarchy throughout history, they would find a cyclical pattern of centralization; the removal of checks and balances, the removal of legitimate public involvement in the political process, a dependent and infantized citizenry, and the rise of a “bureaucratic class” which regards itself as superior and born to lead. All steps taking place within Western societies today.
Unfortunately, the masses tend to view big government as an inevitability of life; as a natural extension of culture. Rarely if ever do they ask what tangible purpose it serves. Are they really getting what they want out of their government? Or, is the government taking what it wants from them?
I have always found the worshipful attitude that some citizens ascribe to government simultaneously fascinating and disturbing, because these people are not bowing down to a wise and benevolent entity. Rather, they are bowing down to their own delusions of what they believe that entity to be. The most dangerous and insidious of governments present themselves as a kind of social vanity mirror. They allow the citizenry to project their collective desires, biases, shortcomings, and fears, and reflect back an image that entices and placates the majority. The lies and manipulations of big government are designed to satiate our basest fantasies, but what we see as a concrete edifice of political and legal might, in the end, is a mirage mired in the fog of our own naïve expectations.
So, the question again arises; if the structure of big government is built upon deceit and misrepresentation, what tangible purpose does it really serve?
The answer is no purpose…at least, no purpose that elevates and enriches the public at large.
Big government is not a “necessary evil”. It is just evil. Like the ring of Sauron, it lures in the weak with promises of power, but this power is a ruse. Each side of our false left/right paradigm, Democrat and Republican, thinks that if only THEY were the bearers of the ring they would “finally use it for good”. But once in their possession, they are overtaken, overwhelmed, and corrupted by personal temptation.
The Democratic Party, with all of its proclamations of humanism and respect for civil liberties, is a perfect example. How quickly did the rank and file Democrats turn away from their anti-war, anti-torture, anti-banker, anti-surveillance, anti-tyranny stance once Barack Obama, a self proclaimed Democrat, was placed in office? Very quickly!
And what about the common Republican? How many of them utterly abandoned their ideals of limited government, reduced spending, Constitutional rights, and Christian understanding as soon as Bush and the Neo-Con regime was installed? Most of them!
And when all is said and done, who has reaped profits and gained dominance during both disastrous administrations? The corporate high priests and international banking cartels, not the oblivious participants of the fake political theater. Yet, a masochistic cycle of misplaced trust in the system on the part of the masses continues…
If these latest signs of big government corruption aren’t enough to make the public question the validity of the establishment, I’m not sure what will…
The Rape Of Cyprus
Even in the face of unmitigated government theft, I still hear the occasional rationalization of the Cyprus debacle. Defenders of the bailout measures (which the EU demanded) allowing the confiscation of private citizen savings to pay off government mismanaged debt, argue two things:
1) The banks that were targeted contained “Russian blood money” and hidden funds, so confiscation really amounted to a “punishment of rich criminals” rather than the Cyprus public.
2) It is “better” that the citizens go along with the confiscation of a percentage of their accounts, rather than lose everything through collapse.
Just to be clear, any sizable Russian funds being stored in Cyprus were removed before the bailout measures were instituted. Therefore, the assertion that such people were “punished” is a lie and a distraction. The Russian scapegoat was merely being promoted by global financiers and political elites in order to con people around the world (not just those in Cyprus) to accept the concept of government theft of private funds as being “moral” under “certain extraneous circumstances”. When a government wants you to set aside your conscience in support of an immoral action that serves their interests, they will almost always conjure a false villain and engineered consequences for you to direct your fear and anger at. Once they can convince you to abandon your own principles to smite an imaginary enemy or avoid a manufactured threat, even if only one time, it will be much easier for them to convince you again a second time.
Large and corrupt governments love to use the magic of the false choice. For instance, “…it is better to sacrifice some of your money and your principles to the establishment than it is to live through total collapse of the nation…” This false choice process, though, never ends. The offending government will demand more property and more freedom from the citizenry everyday while constantly warning that if we do not submit, the alternative will be “far worse”.
The truth is, Cyprus is not the issue. What the disaster in Cyprus reflects, however, concerns us all. It is a moment of precedence; an action which sets the stage for the final destruction of the idea of private property. It dissolves one of the final barriers to total government control. Governments and elitists have always stolen from the public through misspent taxation and rampant inflation, but with Cyprus, we see a renewed feudalistic paradigm. The EU and the banking hierarchy are sending a message to the Western world: You are now their personal emergency fund, and nothing you own is actually yours anymore.
When an institution confiscates property and capital at will from a subdued and frightened populace without consent, they are essentially exploiting the labor of that populace. In any culture or language, this is called “slavery”.