Written by Michael Dunn
Abraham Lincoln is credited with saying: “You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.”
I believe he was right but that doesn’t stop bad people from trying.
First, they came for the elderly
But I did not speak out
Because I was not elderly
Truly, there is nothing new under the Sun. Only names change.
I was in my local post office to buy greeting cards the other day. Like any good shop, it is a good place to greet and chat casually to (mostly) local people if you are so inclined, and to gain an idea of what folks in the neighbourhood are concerned about. Many shops are like that. And pubs, of course. Some people make throw-away comments followed by an embarrassed giggle and these can be windows into their minds. Comments such as: “I’m buying this for my Aunt’s 91st birthday next month. I might not see her again.” (giggle).
“Oh, why might you not see her again?”
“You know, what with all this coronavirus thing and the elderly not being allowed out. And that.” This, from a law-abiding, middle-aged lady who thirty years ago might well have said: “I’m free, white and over 21, and you can’t tell me what to do.”
Except that, today, we are not free – nor were we thirty years ago. To identify as white is considered a racist remark; and today, being over 18 or even 16 is considered as old enough. Anyone with a badge, uniform and baton definitely CAN tell you what to do and expect your compliance under pain of unwelcome consequences. Some don’t even need the badge, uniform or baton. For many, a desk, a computer, and a job title are all that is needed.
Is it any wonder that we hear and read regular reports (which are not necessarily true) of young people suffering mental disorders? Is it any wonder? Families are destroyed by trying to ‘keep up’ with the neighbours, or some imagined ‘right’, or just hold on to plain greed or desire for illusory gratification. Is it any wonder?
Switch on voyeur-vision at any time of the day or night and we are confronted with mind-numbing, patronizing adverts to buy this or that product. Advertisers know that they won’t obtain sales to each and every viewer. That doesn’t matter.
They know that if a message is repeated and repeated it will cause enough viewers and readers to act upon the message and buy/obey – and that is justification enough. Novelty sells; glamourous images sell; perceptions of public esteem and privilege sell; a supposed opportunity to be raised from your doldrums sell; and FEAR sells. Don’t you think it is sad that so many of us haven’t the sense, will, or understanding of what is going on to switch off or mute the hissing serpent in the corner of our room? Or hanging over us from the wall? Or on our desktop or laptop?
‘Let me entertain you’ croons one singer while his sponsor rubs his hands in anticipation of those new sales and so many in the audience look for a credit card to enable them to spend credit money (otherwise known as ‘debt’) on things they didn’t know they needed or wanted. All this is called ‘conditioning’.
A ‘conditioned’ nation is easy meat for a controlling leadership – sometimes referred to as ‘government’. A conditioned people are often compliant, just like the lady in the post office. And a conditioned people are not free even if they don’t realise it.
Fear and panic allow for control, and those in power understand this truth, and use it to their advantage. Panic is worthless until and unless it leads to the acceptance of authoritative rule. This is the real risk; this is the real danger. If the people allow a takeover of their lives due to this panic, they will not only have lost their liberty and all they own, they will have also lost their sanity.
I conclude my musing with a quotation from Alexis de Tocqueville, a French aristocrat, diplomat, political scientist and historian who was born in 1805 and died just 54 years later.
“Our contemporaries are constantly excited by two conflicting passions; they want to be led, and they wish to remain free: as they cannot destroy either one or the other of these contrary propensities, they strive to satisfy them both at once. They devise a sole, tutelary [a tutelary is a deity or spirit who is a guardian, patron, or protector of a particular place, geographic feature, person, lineage, nation, culture, or occupation – MD] and all-powerful form of government but elected by the people. They combine the principle of centralization and that of popular sovereignty: this gives them a respite: they console themselves for being in tutelage by the reflection that they have chosen their own guardians. Every man allows himself to be put in leading strings, because he sees that it is not a person or a class of persons, but the people at large who hold the end of his chain.
By this system the people shake off their state of dependence just long enough to select their master, and then relapse into it again. A great many persons at the present day are quite contented with this sort of compromise between administrative despotism and the sovereignty of the people; and they think they have done enough for the protection of individual freedom when they have surrendered it to the power of the nation at large. This does not satisfy me: the nature of him I am to obey signifies less to me than the act of extorted obedience” — Alexis .
As I said: There is nothing new under the Sun.
And that is worth thinking about.
Thank you Michael for very good article.
“… I suppose even a global totalitarian state would fall eventually…” (PB) Unfortunately I think this one will probably not fall apart once all the technological control and surveillance apparatus is in place. That is why it is all the more vital that people fight to the death to oppose it. I despair when I look at the dozy muzzled tossers I see everywhere t. I think the fight will be down to about a quarter of us.
Thank you Michael Dunn. It’s true there is nothing new under the sun so I suppose even a global totalitarian state would fall eventually but it’s still very depressing isn’t it.
We must resist.
Well said Michael. There is always someone who has seen it all before and has written to warn those coming after them! Yet history still repeats itself! How lazy and uncaring we have become, that we cannot learn from past examples set out for our information. Or is it that those whose task it should be to educate children to have open and enquiring minds, have instead used their positions to indoctrinate rather than to inspire! So that over time, the instinct to question and investigate for oneself has been bred out of the generations thus making them compliant in their enslavement and unquestioning in their outlook!