Alexis De Tocqueville warned us of despotism and tyranny arising in democracies - the Administrative State - Granite Grok

Alexis De Tocqueville warned us of despotism and tyranny arising in democracies – the Administrative State

Even though French philosopher Alexis De Tocquville toured the nascent American Democracy back in the mid-1800’s, even as he was in wonderment of the strength of its Civil Society (e.g., non-governmental), he was prescient in diagnosing its probable demise in the rise of those that would control the others under the guise of “we’re here to help and keep you safe” (reformatted, emphasis mine) in his book Democracy America:

I had remarked during my stay in the United States, that a democratic state of society, similar to that of the Americans, might offer singular facilities for the establishment of despotism

I think, then, that the species of oppression by which democratic nations are menaced is unlike anything which ever before existed in the world: our contemporaries will find no prototype of it in their memories. I seek in vain for an expression which will accurately convey the whole of the idea I have formed of it, the old words despotism and tyranny are inappropriate: the thing itself is new, and since I cannot name, I must attempt to define it.

It seems that many refuse to see, or acknowledge, that this can happen “in America” – after all, are we not “the Land of the Free”?  Most, in thinking of tyranny and despotism, think those things can only be accomplished either by an invasion from outside of or by a violent revolution within our borders.  Otherwise, we are as free as ever – or so they think.  They don’t stop to think of how many laws and how many regulations surround them and “guide” their behavior – and if I wasn’t a political blogger, I might be not seeing it either.  We have the surface notion that we can do as we wish, yet if we were to examine all the ways in which Government touches all that we touch, we might (after considering all of the pages on which those “touches” live) begin to think otherwise.  What can our food consist of, how it can be served and sold, what goes into the fabric of our clothes, the size and heights of equipment in locker rooms, almost EVERYTHING concerning how your car is designed, manufactured, sold, and driven, the MOUNTAINS of regs concerning manufacturers in all; you name it and Government has beaten you to the punch in controlling it.  And in doing so, controls you.

And even today, we hear taunts that the last Congress was amongst “the least production” ever – which given the above, is music to my ears.

I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world. The first thing that strikes the observation is an innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike, incessantly endeavoring to procure the petty and paltry pleasures with which they glut their lives. Each of them, living apart, is as a stranger to the fate of all the rest,–his children and his private friends constitute to him the whole of mankind; as for the rest of his fellow-citizens, he is close to them, but he sees them not;–he touches them, but he feels them not; he exists but in himself and for himself alone; and if his kindred still remain to him, he may be said at any rate to have lost his country.

My translation – they want to be left alone to their own lives.  As opposed to the next group – those that believe that they should not but WAIT – this second group will provide Everything for the first group.  All they have to do is one simple thing:  be willing to swap their Freedom for this second group’s promise of “safety, security, and lack of want”.  Who KNEW it would be that simple:

Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications, and to watch over their gate. That power is absolute, minute, regular, provident, and mild. It would be like the authority of a parent, if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but it seeks, on the contrary, to keep them in perpetual childhood: it is well content that the people should rejoice, provided they think of nothing but rejoicing. For their happiness such a government willingly labors, but it chooses to be the sole agent and the only arbiter of that happiness; it provides for their security, foresees and supplies their necessities, facilitates their pleasures, manages their principal concerns, directs their industry, regulates the descent of property, and subdivides their inheritances: what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and all the trouble of living?

Ah yes, what I now “the Progressive siren call to outsource all of your responsibility” and in which they define to be True Freedom.  Yet, upon careful consideration and scrutiny, shows this is but a mere faux freedom – there there is no Freedom at all and the “Safety and Security” turns to be a mirage as the first group has willingly enslaved itself to the second.  And remember this – those in the first group that did not agree to this Faustian bargain will be made to service the rest of their first group’s members as well as the second.

And we see this, in action with a vengeance, today.

This, it every day renders the exercise of the free agency of man less useful and less frequent; it circumscribes the will within a narrower range, and gradually robs a man of all the uses of himself. The principle of equality has prepared men for these things; it has predisposed men to endure them, and oftentimes to look on them as benefits.

The soft, white cocoon of which I have written about in the past – software than a hammock but never forget that it will surround your entire being.  And yes, De Tocquville nails it, for what word, what phrase do we hear over and over again today?  That is correct: equality.  In the hands of Progressives, equality is just a dressed up way to usher in tyranny.  And not by dint of gun and cannot but by paper and pen – The Administrative State:

After having thus successfully taken each member of the community in its powerful grasp, and fashioned him at will, the supreme power then extends its arm over the whole community. It covers the surface of society with a network of small complicated rules, minute and uniform, through which the most original minds and the most energetic characters cannot penetrate, to rise above the crowd. The will of man is not shattered, but softened, bent, and guided; men are seldom forced by it to act, but they are constantly restrained from acting: such a power does not destroy, but it prevents existence; it does not tyrannize, but it compresses, enervates, extinguishes, and stupefies a people, till each nation is reduced to be nothing better than a flock of timid and industrious animals, of which the government is the shepherd.

I have always thought that servitude of the regular, quiet, and gentle kind which I have just described might be combined more easily than is commonly believed with some of the outward forms of freedom, and that it might even establish itself under the wing of the sovereignty of the people….

It must not be forgotten that it is especially dangerous to enslave men in the minor details of life. For my own part, I should be inclined to think freedom less necessary in great things than in little ones, if it were possible to be secure of the one without possessing the other.

Subjection in minor affairs breaks out every day, and is felt by the whole community indiscriminately. It does not drive men to resistance, but it crosses them at every turn, till they are led to surrender the exercise of their own will. Thus their spirit is gradually broken and their character enervated; whereas that obedience which is exacted on a few important but rare occasions, only exhibits servitude at certain intervals, and throws the burden of it upon a small number of men. It is vain to summon a people, who have been rendered so dependent on the central power, to choose from time to time the representatives of that power; this rare and brief exercise of their free choice, however important it may be, will not prevent them from gradually losing the faculties of thinking, feeling, and acting for themselves, and thus gradually falling below the level of humanity.

I add, that they will soon become incapable of exercising the great and only privilege which remains to them….

A constitution which should be republican in its head, and ultra-monarchical in all its other parts, has ever appeared to me to be a short-lived monster. The vices of rulers and the inaptitude of the people would speedily bring about its ruin; and the nation, weary of its representatives and of itself, would create freer institutions, or soon return to stretch itself at the feet of a single master.

(H/T: Big Government)

 

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