Quora Answer: Do You Believe That People are Willing to Give Up Some of Their personal Freedoms for Personal Security?

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.