The Road to Tyranny:
(Steps to take in order to transition a limited government of the people, by the people and for the people, to a tyrannical government that runs the people.)
1. Wage war on independence and personal responsibility. Play up the victim angle. Everyone is now a victim…a victim of their race, a victim of their social status, a victim of their upbringing, a victim of their parents, a victim of their gender identity, a victim of their schooling, a victim of their poverty, a victim of their drug abuse, a victim of colonialism, a victim of their unplanned pregnancy…Because they are now victims, they are no longer responsible for their actions—its not their fault. Now that they are no longer responsible for themselves, they are not responsible for their spouse, family, children, neighborhood, or community. Because they are victims, someone must care for them. Because they are victims, they are owed something. Because they are victims, they are not expected to accomplish anything.
2. Create new heroes, and demonize those who achieve. Everyone is now a hero, and is now worthy of a trophy or award. Those who are smarter, faster, quicker, or work harder make the rest of the people look “bad”. Hold back those who want to achieve, tell them they must maintain the status quo. Tell those who actually stand out and achieve something great that they did it through nefarious means or because they came from a charmed life—they somehow had opportunities that the rest of us didn’t have. Tell everyone else that the successful people didn’t actually “earn” it. Since they didn’t actually “earn” it, that money must be taken from them and given to the victims. Heros are now those who take money from someone and give it to the victims. Heros are no longer the independent, hard working innovators, or those who sacrifice self to help others.
3. Envision a new religion. The Constitution is no longer written to protect religion from government, but is used to protect government from religion. The profession of belief in God and Christ is something considered silly and outdated. Religion is now antiquated, a crutch for the uneducated. Religion takes a new form in environmentalism, humanism, socialism, and science. Christ as a savior figure is now replaced by our big brother the Government. We no longer need to be saved from our moral sins (we are victims of our sins). Government now “saves” us from our poverty, stupidity, sickness, environmental “sins”, and our social “sins”.
4. Stifle opposition voices with political correctness speech. Intimidate the opposition with threats of hurting their reputation, or name calling. No one will listen to the opposition if you call them “racist”, “bigoted”, “closed minded”, “old fashioned”, “ill-educated”, “religious zealot”, “hater”…Never debate actual points of contrast, instead, say the “debate is over”, and that anyone who thinks otherwise is crazy. If cornered, lie your way out of it, deflect the blame, or change the subject. Never take ownership of things that went wrong, and always take ownership of anything that went right—even if you had nothing to do with it.
5. Cripple the economy. Outspend what we take in, and borrow so much that there is no possible way to pay it off. Create more laws and regulations so those who are independent and actually making money will either be overtaxed or regulated out of business. Now there are more dependent on the government to take care of their needs, and less people able to care for themselves. Even if they want to care for themselves, make if nearly impossible to do so. Either there will be a small number who continue to succeed who will carry the rest of the takers, or the whole economy will collapse and can be re-built in a “fair” way using socialist/communist policies.
6. Take away a means to fight back. Those few who are left, who still believe in freedom, independence, and personal responsibility are willing to fight for those rights. Wage war on guns and defending yourself. Remember, you are a victim. We are victims of gun violence, and must take away all guns. Guns are bad, and only hurt people. Those who want to keep their guns are bad, and want to hurt people. Create laws that make owning a gun illegal—the desire to “save lives” outweighs second amendment rights. Those who want to obey the law give up their guns. Those who want to keep their guns are imprisoned.
The people cheer. Just as in Star Wars, when the emperor turns the Galactic Republic into the Galactic Empire, the Senate cheers at all they have “accomplished” and Padmé Amidala remarks “So this is how liberty dies: With thunderous applause.” It’s now a tyrannical government, in charge of every aspect of your life. Opposing the government is now silly, because they are your caretakers, your protectors, your rulers, YOUR SAVIOR.
A lot of this is either just wrong or so blown out of proportion that it has become too divisive or manipulated to be taken seriously. (I’m sure Tea Partiers will enjoy it, though.) And the only one I want to address is number 3, since it is the only one religious in nature and therefore really has a place being discussed on a blog that is religious in nature.
Amendment 1 of the Bill of Rights reads: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.
The second part, “prohibiting the free exercise thereof” does indeed protect religion from government. It grants us the freedom to worship how, where, and what we may. There is no question about that.
But the first part, “no law respecting the establishment of religion” does, in fact, protect the government from religion. I don’t understand this sentence, “The Constitution is no longer written to protect religion from government, but is used to protect government from religion.” There has been no change in anything. The Constitution has always done both.
And with good reason. We Americans carry around mythology that our country was founded by people who escaped religious persecution in England and came here to worship freely. And that when they arrived on our shores they declared religious freedom for all, and proclaimed religious protection from the government. It is that last part that is not true. They escaped from England and came over here and set up their own hotbeds of persecution. Indeed, 8 of the 13 original colonies had established religion, laws required their citizens to attend church, and pay taxes to help support the clergy of those churches. And when dissenters emerged, they were persecuted and often driven out of the colony. The crafters of the Constitution (most of who were not actually religious) recognized that this was a problem, and built a safe guard against it in the Constitution.
So, yeah. The Constitution protects religion from government AND government from religion. It has always done both and hopefully always will.
Leah for best comment of the week. Preach, Sister.
It’s interesting that your response highlights point #4 when you say the arguments “can’t be taken seriously”. Sounds a bit like, “No one will listen to the opposition if you call them … ill-educated”, “religious zealot”, “hater”…Never debate… say the “debate is over”, and that anyone who thinks otherwise is crazy”
I would also debate that the founding fathers were not religious. A few prominent Founding Fathers were anti-clerical Christians or deists, almost all were associated with a religious organization.
This is some funny satire. Well done.
I won’t get into another pissing match like last time but these type of posts seem very out of place given the last five or six months of content here.
“For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” 2 Tim. 1:7
Geez, I generally consider myself a libertarian but most of these arguments are just not very good.
What bothers me is the general idea from so much of the right that those on the left have some kind of evil agenda. Good people can disagree politically about things. You can have a different opinion about the proper role of government than I do without me demonizing you.
It sucks, because I agree with the right on a lot of things (I also agree with the left on plenty as well), but it seems like too many of them won’t make a rational or reasonable argument. Instead they resort to straw men, appeals to emotion, hyperbole, (imprisoning people who own guns? Really? Where the hell is that happening?) and just really bad logic.
Just as an example, look at #5. Some of the points in there are not terrible, but it’s the implication that those who are making those policies are doing it purposely to cripple the economy, as if that is their actual end goal. It’s thinking straight out of a James Bond movie. The bad guys want nothing more than destruction for it’s own sake. The real world just doesn’t work that way, its much more complicated.