Let us make no mistake: we live in a totalitarianism. The Bill of Rights notwithstanding, no area of your life is safe from the encroachments of the state. Consider the most invasive, the most tyrannical state in the history of the world prior to the 20th century. Insofar as the daily texture and the minutiæ of your life are concerned, the United States claims a wider authority and exercises a wider power than the one you selected. Politically prudential considerations aside, there is no limit to the amount of your property it can take from you by taxation, inflation, prosecution, civil "forfeiture," or eminent domain, provided only that it follows certain procedures — which it may alter in its legislatures, courts, or regulatory agencies. There is no limit to the amount of time it may require you to "serve" your country — whether by military conscription, the proposed civilian conscription called "national service," criminal sentence, or even the "community service" required for graduation from some government schools — except such limits as may be found in the very statutes that created the enslaving legislation in the first place. If your time and property are at the pleasure of the state, there is nothing left to be controlled. To the extent that they are at the pleasure of the state, you are its slave. That some areas of your life are not currently of interest to the regime is the random precipitate of statism's accelerating spin.
Don't forget the "service" as in the dollars it takes away from you to pay for all the garbage that our "taxes" pay for.
ReplyDeleteI make no excuses or rationalizations for the state of the state, or its policies and actions. That said, I would like to take courteous exception to "If your time and property are at the pleasure of the state, there is nothing left to be controlled."
ReplyDeleteDon't forget that most of us still have minds and hearts. ;o)
We are not yet at at Auschwitz. And even then, Primo Levi found freedom in his own heart and mind while he was there.
It's a difficult thing, finding balance and peace between the reality of our time and the truth. Here's to mindfulness in reality, and living in happiness nonetheless. When we give in to despair or gloom, the adversary has won.
Have a wonderful day!