The Silence of the Sheeple: The Totalitarian Threat

America : Freedom to Fascism

“When the people fear the government there is tyranny, 
when the government fears the people there is liberty.”
― Thomas Jefferson

“I am a most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is controlled by its system of credit. Our system of credit is concentrated. The growth of the nation, therefore, and all our activities are in the hands of a few men. We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the civilized world - no longer a Government by free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men.”
― Woodrow Wilson (referring to the creation of the Federal Reserve)

If you lived in a land where the State set up an agency to force the people to hand over their property without legal authority and failure to comply meant imprisonment, you might think you were living under a medieval monarchy- in fact, the totalitarian State is America today and the agency is the IRS! Despite the fact that the Income Tax Act of 1913 was never ratified by the requisite 3/4 of all States and a Supreme Court ruling that nullifies it, lower courts continue to enforce the law that never was. People continue to do hard time in prison for failing to comply with an edict that has no basis in law! That same year the power to create money vested by the constitution in the State was handed over to a private bank - the Federal Reserve, which creates all money as debt to itself whilst paying no taxes!

Over the 100 years since these outrageous examples of legislative abuse, things have got no better! The federal government has grown increasingly totalitarian, its tentacles reaching further and further into the last vestiges of what was once considered private domain. Every new threat is capitalized on by leaders seeking to increase the already awesome power of the State - supposedly to make us safe. Today passengers must choose between being irradiated or molested in order to board a public flight, tomorrow they may be directed to a highway off-ramp for screening before using the public roads. Citizens and non-citizens alike can be killed, tortured or detained indefinitely without coming before either a judge or jury based on presidential decree- no questions asked and regardless of actual guilt!

Yet, against the background of a fast growing totalitarian threat, the sheeple remain strangely silent! Blindly trusting that State shepherds (who, after all, they elected) would never lead them into danger, the scared sheeple are quick to attack any daring to question the path down which they are being led. As they rage against sheeple attempting to become more self-reliant and less dependent on the State they become their own worst enemy - eroding a natural ability of the flock to survive major disasters!

Each time there is a crisis the powers of the State are increased, whether or not they may be at fault! As the State becomes more powerful, people are conditioned to blindly follow State edicts rather than trust their own judgment, like any muscle that atrophies through lack of use the spirit of self-reliance over time disappears - causing the natural immune system of society to become fatally compromised. When the next great disaster strikes, the sheeple nervously dial 911 for help - help that never comes!

Men were never meant to be sheeple, but through a combination of fear and the lust to control others - fueled by false religious beliefs, we have created a monster. Ironically, this biblical Wild Beast will soon turn on and destroy the very sheeple who have put misplaced trust in its ability to protect them!

The days of the totalitarian State are numbered- at least in the form in which we know it to be today! Concentrating power in the hands of a few to secure the many has always been a foolhardy venture. In the next phase, men will come together voluntarily to cooperate- not to impose their will on others!

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If I Wanted America To Be A Dictatorship
- America's Growing Police State

The Mass Society, the Leadership Society, and the Totalitarian Threat

by Michael S. Rozeff

Recently by Michael S. Rozeff: Gary S. Gensler's Politically-Motivated Attack on Intrade

The federal government is becoming more and more totalitarian, and it is spreading this down to states and local governments. Collecting information on everyone is a prominent control mechanism of a police state. It's easier for the government to institute this than supposed. It does it in steps, with each step being rationalized by its supposed benefits to security. Each step is done in the name of protecting society, but each step forcibly ends peaceful social relations and erodes their foundation.
It's harder to escape the police state once it's in place than might be supposed. The government controls people through the currency, settlement of transactions, communications, transportation, licensing, drones, informers, and of course guns, among other means. We can’t all run away to fortified farms or live on a big self-sufficient farm on top of a limited access hill.
Alex Jones has been reporting on expanding privacy intrusions since last March and before, as here and here. Add to this the Patriot Act, the excessive claims of power by Presidents, the militarization of police, and the blurring of spy agencies and police and military agencies. Add to this the power to search anyone at almost any time. Add to this the possibility of labeling almost any activity as terrorist or in support of terrorism, and what results? We get totalitarianism.
America has many societies. The great and undistinguished masses of Americans form a society, the mass society. I do not mean this in a pejorative sense. Apart from the mass society is another society. This is the Leadership. It’s also been called the Establishment or the Elite. The Leadership is a society open to whoever enters it by dint of desire, fame, power, money, influence, election, or a leadership position over large numbers of people in the mass society. People in the Leadership are either in the government, supporting the government, or controlling the government. Government and Leadership are fused. They permeate one another. Mass society is there for their control and management.
The theory of American government is based upon one American society. That American society is supposed to be separate from government. It is supposed to control government for the good of this society, keeping government from becoming too powerful. The reality is that the social leaders of America break away from mass society. They form the Leadership. Their loyalty is to themselves and to government as their tool, not mass society. They support government as a means of achieving their own aims, be they wealth, influence, advancement, power or whatever. They take over the governments at all levels and control them for their own ends. They manipulate the mass society and control it. Government does not serve the mass society in this system. Mass society serves the government. Social welfare programs don’t serve mass society. They control it. They enable the Leadership to maintain and extend control. They generate mass support. The masses pay for their own welfare. In the process, they lose a large chunk of the taxes they pay that is siphoned off to the Leadership.
Whatever mass society is able to get for itself or maintain for itself is done by organizing and resisting the Leadership and its governments. Mass society has to protect itself against the Leadership and government constantly.
At present, such measures as the government's legal capacity to designate American citizens as terrorists, its legal capacity to assassinate, its legal capacity to monitor every aspect of its citizens' lives, its legal capacity to search at airports and other transportation checkpoints, and its legal capacity to set up checkpoints and query travelers -- such things are trenching on freedom and privacy simultaneously. The Leadership wants it this way. Most individuals cannot hide out on a fortified farm and escape this. The American Leadership is taking these measures, not to control terrorism or terrorists, but to control Americans in the mass society.
The calls for gun control arising out of the Newtown tragedy are self-serving for those in the Leadership who want it, and equally self-serving for those in the Leadership who do not want it. The Leadership is not monolithic.
The Leadership's actions are all self-serving. Government people and Leadership people, in many cases identifiably one and the same, serve themselves. They do not aim to serve Americans in the mass society. Every vote, every measure, every speech, every show of emotion, every appeal to the flag or patriotism, every appeal to the American spirit, every invocation of freedom, security and American greatness, every recollection of history and distortion of it, in short, every act of anyone in the Leadership and in Government is self-serving.
The Leadership's self-serving actions act against mass society. The Leadership sends Americans to their deaths in needless wars. The Leadership extracts wealth from Americans and wastes it. The Leadership puts in place social programs that wreck families, neighborhoods, districts, and cities. The Leadership subsidizes enterprises that produce poisonous foods. The Leadership makes drugs into crimes and imprisons millions on that basis. If ever the Leadership's actions happen to raise the welfare of mass society, this is because such actions happen to serve the interests of the Leadership at that time.
Those in the Leadership ally with others in the Leadership if it serves their mutual interests. They both cooperate and compete with others in the Leadership. This too is self-serving. They don't ever enact measures with the interests of mass society as their aim, unless it happens also to serve themselves.
People in mass society are also self-serving. If it serves their ends, they aim for and join the Leadership. They turn their backs on mass society. This is one way in which the Leadership reduces resistance in the masses.
The key element in this war between mass society and Leadership society is the presence of the prize, which is government and its powers. Everyone is self-serving. We can live with this and control it if no one of us gains excessive power. What has to be reduced is the capacity of each of us to serve ourselves through invading the rights of others. Government power enhances that capacity. The Leadership exploits it. If government were strictly limited and controlled by the masses, the Leadership could be rendered inoperative or greatly weakened. The masses have failed at this in America. The Leadership has been winning. It has maintained and extended its control. Government power has grown.
Government does not serve mass society. Anyone who supports government of the kind we have in America, thinking that it’s doing some good for some cause, is mistaken. The liberals who think that social welfare programs help the masses are mistaken. The progressives who think that labor laws help workers are mistaken. The populists who think that farm subsidies help small farmers are mistaken. The conservatives who think that military spending protects Americans are mistaken. I realize the enormity of the charge I am making. How can all these people be wrong about government?
One of the Leadership’s tools is propaganda. The Leadership constantly propagandizes in order to legitimize existing government powers and expand them. Schools and universities are part of this system of propaganda. People are taught from an early age to think of government as a necessity and as a beneficial institution. They are inundated with this propaganda. There should be rebellion against the injustice of government. What happens instead is that this is channeled into political strife. People separate themselves into political factions like liberals, conservatives, populists and progressives. They then attempt to work within the system. But they are accepting the system when they do this. The Leadership has a divide and conquer strategy in place via this party system. As long as all discontent is through these contending factions and as long as the players and the masses accept voting as the resolution of the struggles, the Leadership remains intact and in control.
The internet at present is beyond the Leadership’s control. There’s hope there.

December 22, 2012

Michael S. Rozeff [send him mail] is a retired Professor of Finance living in East Amherst, New York. He is the author of the free e-book Essays on American Empire: Liberty vs. Domination and the free e-book The U.S. Constitution and Money: Corruption and Decline.

Copyright © 2012 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit is given.