The Acceptance Of More Government Power After Catastrophe Has To Stop

By Chris Rossini

If it isn't bad enough that innocent people die in terrorist attacks, the events also provide an opportunity for governments to strengthen their power over everyone else. People are very understandably scared, so their "I cherish my freedom" instincts are dealt a severe blow.

Unfortunately, Fear and Power are two sides to the same coin.

Government, which has a monopoly to use violent force in a certain geographic area, is always ready to expand that use of force. They don't want to hear about limits to what they can do, and it should be no surprise that they love to have more power granted to them. It's like getting a promotion if they were to have a private sector and productive job.

It's always a mistake to think that the solution to any problem is to increase  government force, but it's a mistake that gets made over...and over...and over again.

Benjamin Franklin had it right: "Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both."

Isn't that what is happening to the Western World? We're ending up with neither security, nor liberty! As Ron Paul has said countless times: "You never need to sacrifice your liberty for security." 

The nature of man is the same today as it was in Franklin's day. Those who have an insatiable lust for power will take every last liberty that exists, if they can. This is not a new phenomenon. The lust for power is a lust that is never satisfied. 

When America's Founders wrote the Articles of Confederation, and even The U.S. Constitution, their goal was to "chain down" this power lust as best as they could. They obviously failed, as power would ultimately tear the Constitution apart little by little. But it worked fairly well for awhile, at least until around 1898.

We've been heading in the opposite direction ever since. Power is no longer on the run, as it was in early America. Instead, it is liberty that is decreasing by the day.

The result of granting government more power is always the same. It makes the initial problem worse, and it leads to new unanticipated problems that everyone now has to deal with. As government power increases, the crises multiply faster and faster.

But it doesn't seem to matter. The fact that the problems keep snowballing and getting bigger isn't looked at critically.

The go-to response remains: "What will government do?"

This is in addition to what it's already doing. It's always assumed that government have to do more. The assumption is never that it should do much less, or that it has to stop doing just about everything. It's always a desire to keep piling on.

The latest catastrophe was in one of the birthplaces of the ideas of liberty --- England. Sadly, England is today the world's leading surveillance state. Despite surveillance that surpasses the rest of the world, three terror attacks have occurred recently.

The go-to response? You got it!

It doesn't matter that every intrusion of privacy has done nothing (the TSA comes to mind here) the push is for government to do more!

Read the following words from Prime Minister Theresa May from June 6 following the latest attack:

When I stood on the steps of Downing Street after the London attack I said enough is enough and things have got to change…

We should do even more to restrict the freedom and the movements of terrorist suspects when we have enough evidence to know they present a threat, but not enough evidence to prosecute them in full in court.

And if human rights laws get in the way of doing these things, we will change those laws to make sure we can do them.

Talk about an increase of government power...

That's like opening the floodgates.

​The bottom line is that the attitude of every civilian in the Western World has to change. This carte blanche attitude of "Do whatever you have to do" will go on until total serfdom is reached. 

Imagine if you had a lust for power. Wouldn't you like your subjects just handing it all over to you? 

Just as in Ben Franklin's time, rulers who desire total domination are a everywhere. Making matters even more challenging are the scores of people who don't care one way or another if there's a police and surveillance state and if every action occurs under a government microscope.

The ideas of liberty have been shut out from their lives. They surely won't hear them in government's schools, they won't hear them in government's mainstream media, and they won't hear them unless they're looking for them on the Internet.

These individuals need to at least hear the ideas of liberty, whether they agree with them or not.

​Many, sadly, will not.

But, if enough people hear the ideas of liberty, enough will come to agree.