Fear Is The Oxygen of Government Power

By Chris Rossini

​Fear is the oxygen of government power. In order for power to increase its scope, the citizens must let their guard down. When they are afraid, the guard comes down. Those who are afraid are easy prey for those who want to expand power.

The most popular fear adopted by governments, since perhaps the very first government to exist, is one that generates war. The fear that someone else is going to come and get you. Americans are very familiar with this one, as entire lifetimes have been spent being afraid one boogeyman followed by another, and then another.

So war is the most popular fear generator for governments. It's also the biggest moneymaker for government-connected corporations. 

However, since the adoption of nuclear weapons, war cannot be total anymore. Everyone knows this. Everyone knows that the world can be destroyed many times over if passions get out of hand. 

That doesn't mean it can't happen. It most certainly can, but manipulators of power are not interested in a destroyed world. They believe themselves to be superior beings, meant to have their fingerprints on everything that transpires. They want to rule a world that exists. Total war is not very attractive if that is the goal.

So, those with nuclear weapons stay out of each others way, and regional wars are kept aflame. Unbelievable amounts of money go to the military-industrial-complex like clockwork. Americans don't pay attention or care. The wealth transfer couldn't be more easily accomplished.

But what about ruling the world and every living human being on it? If total war can't do the trick, what can?

Well, shortly after the proliferation of nuclear weapons, new technologies emerged and surveillance became another tool in government's arsenal. For sure, it didn't take long for power-hungry individuals to start fantasizing about surveilling everyone and everything in the world. That's a totalitarian dream!

Along with the advancement of surveillance technologies came a fresh new fear as well. This was one, that if successful, could be imposed on the whole world. The fear would go by the name of Environmentalism, but this wouldn't be about curbing pollution, which does not require totalitarian government power.

No, this fear would be that the world would turn into an ice cube if extraordinary power was not granted to government. Then it morphed into the world turning into a fireball if power wasn't granted. Then, probably out of desperation, the fear became that the climate would "change."

But the people wouldn't bite.

The fear was ramped up to politicians actually claiming that the world would end in 12 years!!

The people still wouldn't bite.

But then came a fear that stuck, and it stuck globally. Sadly, the people would bite.

With lightning speed, in the name of stopping a virus that has turned out to be no more deadly than the seasonal flu, governments everywhere got away with shutting and ruining their economies. They also placed their people virtually under house arrest. 

This is a bad situation for people (all over the world) to be in. The idea of government being a servant and the people the master has been flipped upside down.

There is only one way out of every government-generated fear --- Liberty.

It doesn't matter what the fear happens to be, Liberty is the answer. It doesn't matter how draconian governments become, Liberty is the answer.

Man is free by nature, and nature cannot be changed. So the totalitarian dream is a loser from the start.

But totalitarians can do tons of damage in the meantime. They may never reach their goal, but they sure will trample everything in their way by trying.

The future isn't written yet.

Liberty is at hand.

It is a present and eternal reality.

Individuals just have to embrace it, and be not afraid.