The following is
my answer to a Quora question: “Do you believe that, today, people are willing to give up some of their personal freedoms for feelings of
personal security?”
Yes, and that always been the case. This has been exploited throughout history by
authoritarian regimes, and troubled administrations. Governments have always pointed out external
and internal enemies to seize power. The
classic case of this would be the rise of Nazi Germany, from the wreckage of
the Versailles Treaty. The Nazis never
won more than 35% of the popular vote. What
they did was sell hope and manipulated the fear of the people to gradually
seize power.
They began by unifying them against the
enemies of the German people: communists, socialists and leftists. They used this to discredit legitimate
political opposition, to gradually take over the levers of power. They then promised to restore the glory of
the German “empire” and retake its rightful place amongst the leading nations,
the “Thousand-Year Reich”. They needed
funds, and exploited existing anti-Semitism to demonise Jews, then xenophobia
to persecute the Romani and Slavs, then homosexuals and the mentally unsound. They found enough enemies to keep the people
looking elsewhere while they seized the wealth of citizens and dragged the
nation to war.
Disregarding the outcome, this play book has been used again and again and again. In fact, Donald John Trump is using it to
enrich himself. People are looking at
the Mexicans stealing their jobs, while the Republicans gerrymander, deny
minorities the right to vote, defund education and health programmes, and enact
a massive wealth transfer from the middle class - all the while telling them
that the lower class and “foreigners” are the enemies. Why is Middle America worried about Democrats
taking their guns, when their own elected representatives are stealing the
futures of their children?
It is true that there has to be some
balance between freedom and security. But
that balance is tipped when freedom is sold for a government with no
accountability. Governments that seize
powers from the electorate do not easily give them back.
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