The Tyranny of Security

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley supports the wacky idea of Chicago Alderman Ray Suarez that calls for cameras to be installed in every "licensed" business in Chicago that operates for 12 hours or more a day. The cost will be borne by business, further harming the private sector. The businesses apparently have no say in the matter unless they combine to shout down this idea hatched in the mind of a buffoon. Businesses will probably bend over to the dictates of fools, leaving employees and customers to foot the bill through lost jobs, increased costs, and tax hikes.

Mayor Richard Daley is the latest in the cabal of politicians inciting the herd to its lowest emotion: fear. He told the press of his awe of cameras. Daley said to the Chicago Sun-Times: “Block clubs, community organizations want cameras. … They can’t walk down the street. … Their kids have to go around a corner away from the gang-bangers. You can’t walk to church. You can’t get on the CTA. … Cameras really prevent much crime. Cameras also solve a lot of crime. The terrorist attacks in London were solved by cameras. The whole incident was solved by cameras.” Of course, cameras do not solve anything. Daley doesn't know that. His statement is a jumble of contradiction, obfuscation, and ignorance. He will go far in American politics.

Security is the ideological lynchpin of the American Global Empire and its Total State. It trumps liberty or property. Security is a requisite for tyranny. Fear incites the herd's hunger for security. Fear is provoked by the State that ultimately, and solely, benefits from the desire of the people to be secure, safe, and risk-free. When people are coaxed into a state of continual suspicion and fear, their desire for liberty subsides because freedom is presumed to be more theoretical. Politicians now tell us that we live in different times calling for different measures to protect us. Whenever they say something like that, rest assured that your liberty, property, or money will disappear down the rat-hole of Congress. To the herd, liberty is a vague set of statements issued long ago by strange men in powdered wigs.

Security is real and tangible. It fits the nastiness inherent in democracy by reducing all citizens to a single body in need of protection by civil authorities. We are all equally sullen and shoeless in this environment of government-given security. Usually people hear this sort of nonsense: Freedom is all well and good but when you have people who hate our way of life wanting to destroy us then you have to sacrifice freedom for more security. Again, after those words ooze from a politician's lips, expect to be lighter in money, property, and liberty.

The desire for security provokes anonymous callers to the myriad hotlines of government warning of neighbors who seem not right, not quite American. Security federalizes tens of millions of lack-witted snoops to become patriots prying into others' affairs. The lust for security builds the culture of squealing into a fine art. Government agents refine the art further in secret prisons with the latest advances in gross torture.

Security though is the lie built on contradiction. The government tells us security is working because it exposed and defeated various, vague "threats." Dossiers on thousands of evil-doers percolate through the computers of countless agencies. Armies of sniffers await orders to pry further into the private affairs of innocent men and women. To make an omelet one must break some eggs, for the recipe to the Global Total State requires the breaking of all our liberties.

The Total State grows on the broken shells of our liberty, but for the State enough is never enough. While touting the fabulous secret record of battling illusory terrorists throughout the land, the State preaches caution. The job is not yet done. The obscure threats will last as long as the State enjoys stripping us of liberty, which is forever. That is the contradiction. The State tells us it can protect us and keep us secure, but we are never in this state of security for there is always one more threat, one more bogeyman on the horizon. If he isn't real, the US government will help create him through mirrors and the media. Over time, like the battered child or spouse, the people of America become shell-shocked and weary, making easy pickings for the government stooges in Congress and White House to chip away at what remains of our liberties. We no longer become free men, but creatures like those found in totalitarian nations; men who are fretful, suspicious, anxious… and enslaved. It could well be called the Battered Sheeple Syndrome.

The State is unnecessary to our safety. Free men create their own security when necessary. Knowing that risks cannot be eliminated in full, free men balance security with liberty, knowing that the sorrow or discomfort of one or a group is less important than the preservation of liberty, property, and opportunity for all. The example of David Crockett at this link is instructive. Liberty, property, wealth are not the State's to give, no matter how noble the cause may seem. The result over time is worse than the ill the State attempts to cure. Always, without exception.

Free men have little need for a nanny State promising a safety that compromises liberty. In the long run, the State's concept of security is an electric fence around the herd once known as citizens, in a pen once known as a constitutional republic.

In a constitutional republic, security is addressed by the common defense of armed citizens. In our democratic Total State, security can only be addressed by the expansion of the policing function of the State. The former requires a strong Second Amendment and an armed citizenry. The latter fears the Second Amendment and an armed populace.

The former is exemplified by Patrick Henry, who proclaimed, "Give me liberty or give me death!" The latter is expressed in nearly every politician who infects the body politic. These odious little men and women demand, "Give me your liberty and I'll give you security." Security is the manure of the State. We get security; they take our liberty. In this malodorous cesspool the vines of our slavery grow and strangle us.

Liberty is beyond the scope of government to bestow. It is an inherent gift in the human soul, given by God and irrevocable by the State. This gift is naturally mitigated by prudence and other virtues that prevent liberty from becoming a licentious display of pride, arrogance, and filth. Constitutions can encourage liberty to one degree or another, but they cannot add to or detract from this divinely-given human quality. No matter how vigorously the State suppresses liberty, oppressive governments cannot eliminate it, nor can they expand it. The State can only beat men down until they're afraid of their own shadow and who squeal in fear of any forbidden thought of freedom. Liberty is a given state in the human soul. Use it or it will be taken. It can be suppressed, but never destroyed.

February 2, 2006