Freedom by Sufferance

Wally Conger wonders whether it is time to consider revolutionary action, whether other avenues for freedom have been exhausted: http://wconger.blogspot.com/2006/03/exhorting-right-of-revolution.html.

We will never be free of the state in this life. The best we can hope for is a state that at least pretends that we have some rights and that its power is, in principle, limited. What we are moving toward inexorably is totalitarianism, a state that recognizes no limits and that suffers us to be free only to the extent that it is convenient for it to do so.

Such a state might well tolerate my seditious statements and leave me alone to rant against it, not because it cannot control my expression but because it has no good reason to do so at the moment. In fact, the illusion of freedom that allowing me to speak out provides may be far more valuable to the state than the satisfaction of silencing me. Indeed, why silence me if my sedition has no noticeable impact on the acquiescence of its subjects to its edicts? If I start to make a difference, the state can silence me then.

To the extent that the state enjoys willing acquiescence in it, the costs and bother of governing are minimized. The subjects practically govern themselves, and the state can focus its efforts on repression only in those instances where the interests of the state are advanced by it. A rationally run totalitarian state will not repress solely for the sake of repression; rather, repression will be selective and predicated on the needs of the state at any given moment to perpetuate itself and efficiently extract labor and resources from its subjects.

Thus, a totalitarian state might well be marked by plenty of day to day “freedoms” which the state, in its gracious mercy, permits to its subjects. But these are subject to extinction at the caprice of the rulers. The state owns all the fruits of my labors but extracts only a part of it and lets me keep the rest. It may decide to take everything if it pleases, and the only obstacle to this is the state’s realization that it will get more out of me if I am allowed to keep enough of my earnings to live on and support myself while I work for the benefit of the state. In fact, our rulers openly discuss what might be the optimum amount to let us keep in order to maximize state revenues.

The state allows me to occupy my home, but it may, when convenient for its purposes, take it for its own use or to give to another subject for his use. The state grants me privacy until it doesn’t. It can break into my home and shoot my dog if it pleases, and there is not a damned thing I can do about it. The state can eavesdrop on my every conversation and read my mail. If it is not doing so at this moment, that does not mean that the state acknowledges any right of privacy on my part. It just hasn’t gotten around to it yet or seen a need for it.

The state can make anything I do unlawful at any moment. My favorite foods can be made into controlled substances tomorrow, and I can be imprisoned or murdered for possessing them. That it has not done so is solely a function of the needs of the state and not any solicitude for my desires or well being.

The state in this country is ostensibly limited to the powers granted in the Constitution, and I am supposed to have certain rights, but the state has assumed far more powers than enumerated and no longer accepts any limitation. Moreover, the state acknowledges only those rights that it is politically convenient to acknowledge. Our rulers have written the 4th amendment out of the Constitution, and other rights are respected only to the extent that it is necessary to secure optimal acquiescence. The state is not thwarted in any of its objects by any scruples about rights.