Re-Education Camps for Statists after the Revolution

Some of my conspecifics at the office are downright toxic with their willful ignorance and complete disregard for traditional American values. I have always been at a loss to explain how people of otherwise seeming good sense and normal intelligence could be such jingoistic idiots when it comes to the actions of the government. I have come to realize that they simply do not share my values at all. They don’t know what the Constitution provides, and they really don’t care. They don’t understand how I can be so passionate about an ancient document and the ideas it contains about civil rights and limited government.

I have come to think of these conspecifics as “collaborators”. They have been completely conditioned to be willing servants of the state and to find criticism of the state repugnant and disturbing. Taxation is the price of admission to society in their view, and they consider themselves as participating in the government. When they speak of the US government, they always say “we” since they think that there is an alignment of their individual interests with that of “their” government. They may find fault with some things the government does or fails to do, but they do not consider that any subject is beyond the government’s legitimate reach.

When the revolution comes, it will, I fear, be necessary to maintain an agency to deal with the collaborators. They cannot be permitted to run free and set up new governments to satisfy their need to be enslaved. My religious scruples require that I resist the temptation to call for mass executions. I would prefer that no executions take place or that executions be limited to individuals who are parasites rather than mere collaborators. I am convinced that the collaborators are hapless dupes and that they can be re-educated to understand that the state is predicated on force and fraud. If they learn this lesson and still persist in statist activities, then they are beyond human redemption and must be dealt with more sternly.

I propose a system of camps in which collaborators would be housed temporarily until they learned to adapt to freedom. Since they like slavery, it would not be too difficult from a moral standpoint to require them to perform the day to work of running the camps. Also, they could be permitted to engage in work for hire and other economic pursuits in order to earn money to fund the camps. They could be permitted to keep a portion of their earnings as an incentive to work more and to use to practice being free.

The logistics of this program will be fairly simple. The agency will order collaborators, as defined more specifically by the agency, to report to the nearest detention center. They will, being sheeplike, comply voluntarily. The most statist among them will in this way self identify by showing up at the camps. Once there, the detainees will be informed of the requirements for release, one of these being attendance at re-education classes in freedom. They will be asked to sign up for duty in various posts at the camp, excepting guard duty or any other duty that might afford an opportunity to engage in coercion.

The agency overseeing the camps will be staffed by volunteers who will serve as instructors, counselors and guards. The guards will protect the detainees from violence and the facility from theft or vandalism, but detainees will be free to come and go as they please. They will not be told that they have this right, and it will serve as a kind of self-executing test of readiness for freedom. Those who leave will be ready, whereas others will continue to imprison themselves indefinitely.

I hereby put my hat in the ring for consideration as the first Commisar of Rehabilitation.