If You're a Collectivist, You're Paving the Way to Tyranny

Bear with me again, as I delve into the fourth question and explore my thoughts on the subject.

1. What is the source and nature of human rights,

2. Which takes priority when dealing with rights, the individual or the group?

3. Who bears the responsibility of the individual?

4. What is meant by equality?

5. What is the proper role of government?

The definition of equality has become very convoluted and confused in recent decades.  The question boils down to basically two distinct views; equality before the law or equality by the law.

The Role of Laws in a National Community

Before we dive into explaining the differences between these two perspectives and their tremendous impact both on us as individuals and on our interactions with other individuals within this national community, we need to lay out the actual function that laws play in any communal context.  It is not to establish a morality for everyone to accept. Instead it is an ethical framework that can function as a common shared rule book for human interactions despite our various moral or religious ideologies.

Since we all come to this social interaction - this interactive gathering of other citizens - as individuals, we justifiably want to know what are the rules of this social game we are going to play together.  Just like young children on a playground playing kickball, if we are going to play out this experience together a citizens of this nation, we need to know what are the rules that we all agree to follow.

That is role of law - to document the allowable behaviors for everyone as well as what punishments we agree for those who choose to voluntarily break the accepted rules.  A perfect example of this is the rule - We don't murder each other.  It's a really good rule.  After all, one of the perks of coming together in a community is for self-preservation.  It would be a horrible community if we could not agree that members of the community should not go around randomly killing other members when ever they felt like it.  There would be no trust, no sense of real community and the game would collapse into chaos and bloodshed. 

So having a rule that states we agree that we will not murder each other is a pretty good rule to have in place.  But what is someone breaks that rule?  We need a rule about what kind of response we as a group agree is the proper response to such a rule violation.  We probably also should define what is murder and what is self-defense or defense of another's life.  We might also want to distinguish between intentional and accidental murder while we are at it.  We should also have some rules about mitigating circumstances like psychological issues or long-term abuse, etc.  We would also need to set up a system of rule enforcers as well as penalty enforcers so that everyone gets treated the same. 

In this manner, we have developed a pretty comprehensive system of common law-based jurisprudence that establishes the rules for our Citizen's Game of Life in the American Community.  Underlying all of this is the basic precept of fairness or equality - no one should get special rules of the game just for them.  We all have to play by the same rules or the game again will collapse into chaos and bloodshed.  If two people accused of breaking the same rule are treated differently by the rule enforcers, we should rightly fix that situation as quickly as possible so they game can continue as originally intended. 

Communities are always a heartbeat away from crossing the line from order back into chaos.  It is our rules and our willingness to play the game fairly and honestly that keeps us from plunging back into the darkness and misery of pre-civilization.  After all, that is what civilization actually is - the civil life we all agree to live because we abide by the rules of the game we set.  Destroy the fairness and equality of the game and we burn down civilization in the process.

That brings us back to the two perspectives on legal equality.  We'll start with the concept that everyone playing the Citizen's Game of Life in the American Community should have equal standing before the law.

Equality Before the Law

This is the classic liberal perspective of legal equality.  No one individual should have higher standing before the law than any other individual.  If John wants to start a business and Susan wants to start a business, there should not be two separate processes for these two individuals.  Both should have to play by the same rules.  If John is required to have a certain license and pay a certain fee, Susan should have to do the same.  If Karen is convicted of breaking the rules of the game and Phil is convicted of the same crime under the same circumstances, the punishments each receives should be the same.  If Bernie is a politician and breaks the law, he should face the same penalties that average guy Jack would face in the same situation. 

There should never be preferential treatment for any individual.   This is what we all expect as fair and just.  This is why Lady Justice is always depicted as being blindfolded.  It is not that she cannot see.  It is that she chooses to be blind and let the scales of justice apply equally to all.  It is not supposed to matter what ethnicity, socio-economic status, political affiliation, marital status, religious preference or life philosophy one lives by when it comes to matter of law and justice.

You and I must stand equally before the law.  We bear the responsibility for our actions and our actions alone.  We cannot be punished for the actions of others and we cannot be treated as some type of inferior citizen by the law for our values, beliefs and actions.  Our innocence is presumed and our standing is equal.  That is the equality that we all must demand of the law.  Individualism embraces and promotes equality before the law. 

An Old Poison in a New Bottle

Karl Marx repackaged and reintroduced an old poison back into political thought and the world has suffered and continues to suffer greatly for it. Just when political and cultural enlightenment in the West was finally advancing  the evolution of civilization towards a bright future of self-governance and individualism-based freedom, Marx gave petty tyrants and despotic bureaucrats the perfect vehicle for dragging civilization back into the Dark Ages.

This poison has four main ingredients. First, a sweet delicious helping of victimhood.  Next, a bowl full of crunchy, bitter hopelessness.  Finally, a creamy soft dollop of surrender topped off with a twist of moral outrage.  Combined they make an intoxicating elixir of evil that stupefies and poisons every person who ingests it.  It's an ancient recipe. One that the Roman Catholic church perfected throughout the Dark Ages. 

Think that is an exaggeration?  Try this:

• You were born into a state of loss you could not avoid, your future tainted by actions of those who came before you (Adam/original sin).

• You cannot fix this yourself, it's a entire system designed to keep you enslaved and unable to improve your life (fall of all creation).

• You need a better more enlightened person(s) to lift you up and set you on higher ground (You need a savior who represents you), but everyone must surrender your will and power to the savior(s) who will fix everything for you if you only have enough faith in them (surrender your moral agency to another).

• Oh and by the way (here comes the twist of moral outrage) those people over there are working hand in hand with the evil forces that put you into this position and they deserved to be destroyed!!

It was that last bit that the Roman Catholic church perfected. Karl did not come up with anything new.  He simply redefined the language of the church into economic terms and divided the world between the oppressed (poor wretched sinners in need of a savior) and oppressors (the forces of evil).   Like a snake oil salesman attacking a competitor, he decried religion as being an opiate of the people while peddling his own opiate based on the same exact recipe.

It is the remarkable ability of Marxists of every generation to be able to twist something into a new use while simultaneously decrying the original as some negative force that must be avoided.  They learned it from a true master.  Karl simply repackaged the same evil poisoned thinking that lead to the Inquisitions, witch trials, religious wars, merciless violence and much bloodshed.  Is it any wonder then that where once religion was the main reason people were slaughtering each other around the globe in prior centuries, it has now been replaced with socialism in the last 100 years?

While over time the Renaissance and the Enlightenment were finally destroying the hold that the religionists once held over Western Civilization and an amazing new republic was being founded on Individualism (America) whose light was beginning to shine around the globe, here came Karl ushering back in a new tyrannical faith that would be even bloodier than the original upon which he based it.  It is little wonder that Nietzsche proclaimed in horror that God was dead and man had killed him, because he could see the horrible and bloody future with which collectivism sought to curse humanity.

Why this critique of Karl and his cursed socialism?  Because that same poison still runs throughout Western Civilization now in the new bottled form of social justice - a religious faith promoted by zealots even more rabid and implacable than the worst of the priesthood.  Where Karl used economic terms (oppressed/oppressor) to replace the original religious terms (sinners/devils), the newest packaging of this old poison now comes in social terms; marginalized versus privileged or disenfranchised versus racists/xenophobic, etc. along with the ever so clever 99% versus 1%.  This new socialism seeks revolution by forcing equality through the law.

Equality By the Law

This version of equality is not about everyone playing by the same rules.  It is not about fairness of opportunity or a enforcing a level playing field.  This is all about getting people to surrender to their power and freedom to a select few.  Why do I say it like that?  Because the promises of the collectivists are hollow.  They promise an equality of experience regardless of your personal choices and actions.

It is blatantly false on its face.  Like ancient priests (you have Karl to thank again), they absolve the oppressed or marginalized of any complicity in their current circumstances and place all of the blame squarely in the shoulders of the supposed oppressors or privileged.  You obviously only made poor decisions in your life because of the oppression or privilege manifested by others, so you are not actually responsible for any of your current suffering.   Those people born into the same circumstances as you who are actually improving their lives?  They sold their soul to the dark forces of oppression - they're just as guilty!

Sound familiar?

What the collectivists actually want is your agreement to yield to them your political voice, your willingness to subject yourself to their every whim and dictate, so that they can continue to amass power and influence without ever actually fixing anything because in reality they can't.  There is nothing to their promises because they are based on a colossal over-simplification of life down to two classes of people.  Nothing about life is ever that simple or that narrow.

Everyone's circumstances while possibly similar are unique and individualistic.  You have had different experiences, different environments, different nurturing, different influences, different personalities, different sorrows, different joys, different emotions, different desires, different reactions and on and on.  You cannot simply split the world into such a simplistic, naive and erroneous perspective. 

What's worse is that they know it!  They actually know they are pulling the proverbial wool over your eyes.  Why are collectivist run cities always the worse operated and the ones that never seem to improve despite all of the promises?  Because they have no actual solutions!  So they keep jumping from crisis to crisis, topic to topic, legislation to legislation - always busy, but never accomplishing anything.  With every piece of legislation, every supposed fix, the only thing that changes is that you give up a little more of your freedom, a little more of your rights and a little more of your happiness.  All the while, they sit in their offices and gloat over the power and control they have. 

They are nothing more than the "nobility" of old.  They promise bread and circus to the keep the mob under control while they live self-important lives of extravagance looking down on the little people who are so stupid as to keep them in power.  They don’t want to improve your life.  They want to improve theirs and they will use you to accomplish it.

The saddest part is that they are able write laws that do not apply to them and they can do this with your political power.  They are not held to the same standard and they get away with things that land the ordinary citizen in jail.  In the greatest of ironic twists, by promising you equality by the law, they are able to remove themselves from its grasp.  Equality by the law leads directly to inequality before the law. 

The longer we allow it to continue the closer we draw to tyranny.

Like the deluded priest of the past, they do not see themselves as doing anything wrong.  They are pursuing a higher calling that justifies sacrificing some of the people along the way.  If only the masses would just obey them, they could usher in a new utopia.  They sincerely believe they are the ones who should rule over the less-enlightened and less-gifted subjects because their hearts are filled with good intention. 

The road to tyranny and enslavement is paved with the good intentions of collectivists.

What are your thoughts?  Please leave them in the comments below.

Thank you.