Self Preservation and Irreversible Decline [was: Electronic Freedom Foundation selective in support of freedom]

[Sean Lynch]

On Sun, Jan 10, 2016, 04:50 coderman <coderman at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 1/6/16, Sean Lynch <seanl at literati.org> wrote:
> > ... I've found myself self-censoring quite a lot more
> > since my kids were born.
>
>
> this topic has been on my mind recently,
>
> "You know, It would be a lot easier you just didn't do X"
> "This wouldn't happen if you quit annoying Y"
> "If you accept, Z will pay nicely and protect you."
>
> where X is FOIA requests, security research, PET development, etc.,
>  Y is some powerful entity like FBI, NSA, Verizon, Intel, etc.,
>   and Z is some convenient but forever bound by position requiring a
> clearance and suspension of moral qualms.
>
> when you've got the world to loose (nothing more encompassing than
> your own family!) preservation is near irresistible.  simple fear of
> harm might be compelling enough for the majority to cower compliant,
> even.
>

Indeed. But isn't this also a pro-social trait? If society is meeting most
of your needs, you will be disinclined to try to overthrow it. If that is
because you are happy with what you have, like for example a family who are
safe and have lots of stuff like in my case, is that such a bad thing? Of
course, if that is not true for a large fraction of society, such safety
and wealth can end up being temporary.

when i was young, these questions of "do i do right? or do i stay
> safe?" were abstract and applicable only to foreign backwaters or past
> history. a modern, free liberal democracy need never exercise such
> restraint - we have Blind Justice which always finds in favor of the
> righteous!
>
> over some years i lost this innocent faith in perfect justice, saw
> abuses of power against the less fortunate or less familiar, accrued
> things dear to me like friends and new family, and became comfortable
> in a lifestyle with all needs met.
> .
> .
> .
> now USA in a state of perpetual war, executive power at record levels,
> surveillance staggering in breadth and invasiveness, censorship and
> suppression of speech creeping ever further into the centralized
> systems dominating over our way of life, it's not good...
>  and yet we're not rounding up foreign-born citizens and their
> families for incarceration at detention camps (like Japanese during
> the war).  not to mention that much of the rest of the world would be
> killed or imprisoned leading my kind of  life in another jurisdiction!
>

I used to feel like things were getting worse and worse, but then I
remember the world wars and the alien & sedition acts and Jim Crow. Well,
not directly, but you know what I mean. During WWII it was not permissible
to speak out against the war; you'd be considered to be aiding the enemy. I
think it was worse in Europe than in the US, but still. There was a time
when a majority of American men in a certain age range were veterans. Now
they're a tiny minority. It allows a much greater diversity of thought.

>
> when people are being killed for exposing corruption or injustice, it
> seems ridiculous to complain about annoyances resulting from optional
> activities i have chosen to undertake willingly - not out of dire need
> or coercion.  with all my needs still met.
>

Indeed, though I think one should be wary of relativism. Just because
there's worse doesn't make our own system just.

all of which made me wonder, what did the every day German or Italian
> citizen see before fascism ravaged sanity? what did they see that felt
> disturbing, but not overtly threating and could be ignored? what did
> they see which told them all legitimacy was lost and only resistance
> remained?
>
> the #YallQueda rebellion staged their last stand in my state, with
> land use abuse the straw upon their broken backs. perhaps loss of
> livelihood a better Rubicon?
>

That movement is lasting echos of the closing of the frontier, at least
according to Dan Carlin (and his explanation seems compelling). You can
blame Teddy Roosevelt.

But this is a question I often think about myself. At least in Germany's
case, there was certainly a major trait that was visible from the outside:
crushing debt and economic malaise the country had no way of digging itself
out of. Massive national humiliation. Greece is in a similar situation
today, and Russia seems not far behind. An American political colloquialism
comes to mind: "It's the economy, stupid!"

Which brings us back around to the paragraph you quoted: there was a
revolution because people's needs were not being met. There is no guarantee
that a revolution will wind up with something better than the thing that
caused it. Especially since revolutions are typically driven by a tiny
minority, with the majority being incited by whatever it takes to motivate
them, typically lots of bogus conspiracy theories. Even the American
Revolution was this way, with a large fraction of the populace believing
there was a conspiracy in England to "enslave" the colonies.


> then another "If you quit doing that, it would all be much easier..." was
> said,
> and i wondered if this was the key sign of trouble i was fearing to
> see. when lawful activities performed for the good of the public draw
> unjustified scrutiny and disruption from the state, has the state
> itself become corrupt?
>

I think you will always hear this from authority. It is "blame the victim"
plain and simple. And if you consider the authority legitimate and "just
doing their job," is it not true? The insidious thing about it is that it
presupposes that legitimacy.

how far must this corruption spread before it cannot be stopped
> without destruction of the state, no matter the size and vehemency of
> public protest?
>

Good question. I was just talking about a related topic recently with some
coworkers: revolutions seem to happen when they are closest to being
unnecessary, otherwise they wouldn't be possible. So I think the answer is
that for corruption to spread that far, it must be pervasive throughout
society, not through some separate thing called "the State." Which means if
the State is really that corrupt, revolution may well be impossible, and
the only solution may be war by other states. Instead, revolution will
happen not because the State is extremely corrupt, since that would require
a corrupt society, but because it is weak and the people perceive it as
corrupt.

can the tools of technology and manufactured consent provide the state
> ability to become completely corrupted without detection, nor
> resistance from the public?
>

Hmm. I think the notion that the State and the public are not truly
separate applies here as well. So it's not so much that it wouldn't be
detected as that the corruption would encompass all of society.


> i don't know the answers, and i am curious to hear opinions.
>
> i still live a rich life with needs met and i don't think we're on the
> brink of a fascist nightmare future. maybe hell on earth is closer
> than i think...
>
> thoughts?
>

This is kind of my worst nightmare; that my optimism has been misguided all
this time. I wrote a post on liberty.me about how to deal with an
invincible adversary that may be relevant here:
https://undergroundeconomist.liberty.me/dealing-with-an-invincible-adversary/
.

In the foreward of an obscure book I've started reading, The Omega Seed by
Paolo Soleri, the foreward author talks about how the Christians, instead
of continually trying to fight ineffectual revolts against the Romans as
their Jewish forebears had, instead focused on building communities. I
think we need to focus not only on building communities where we're
connected to one another, but where we're strongly connected to people
around us who may not share our exact beliefs. However you might feel about
cops, for example, if you're friendly with the cops in your community,
they're much less likely to be willing to lock you up and throw away the
key on false pretenses. Even if they know your general beliefs about cops.
Being connected to people makes it much harder for them to believe bullshit
about you. For that reason I doubt I'll be remaining on liberty.me much
longer. I don't want to live in an echo chamber.

>
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