Alexis de Tocqueville on the features of despotism

I seek to trace the novel features under which despotism may appear in the world.  The first thing that strikes the eye is an innumerable multitude of men, all equal and alike...  Above this race of men stands an immense and tutelary power, which takes upon itself alone to secure their gratifications and watch over their fate.  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 whould rejoice, provided that 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... what remains, but to spare them all the care of thinking and the trouble of living?

~ Alexis de Tocqueville, Democracy in America, Volume 2

Allan Stevo on the loss of freedom through gradualism

Most Americans don’t have a clue how much of their freedom they are throwing away through little acts like wearing a face mask, acceding to the racism and lies that BLM needs believed for its Marxist revolt to succeed, letting their toilets be low-flush, letting their lightbulbs be mercury-filled, government-enforced, migraine-inducing pieces of crap, letting their gasoline canisters be safety versions, letting their cars be safety versions, letting their lives be riskless and bubble wrapped safety versions.

It’s the niggling little strictures of life that make this death by a thousand paper cuts so much more awful than any death caused by taking courageous risk.

~ Allan Stevo, "I Love the Chinese," LewRockwell.com, July 16, 2020

Pink Floyd's 1980 song "Mother" anticipates 2020 nanny state and Covid-19 panic

First chorus:

Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry.
Mama's gonna make all of your nightmares come true.
Mama's gonna put all of her fears into you.
Mama's gonna keep you right here under her wing.
She won't let you fly, but she might let you sing.
Mama's gonna keep baby cozy and warm.
Ooh baby, ooh baby, ooh baby,
Of course mama's gonna help build the wall.

Second chorus:

Hush now baby, baby, don't you cry.
Mama's gonna check out all your girlfriends for you.
Mama's won’t let anyone dirty get through.
Mama's gonna wait up until you come in.
Mama will always find out where you’ve been.
Mama's gonna keep baby healthy and clean.
Ooh babe, ooh babe, ooh babe,
You’ll always be baby to me.

~ Pink Floyd, "Mother," 1980

Kevin Duffy on the government-as-protector narrative

The narrative that really bothers me is that we’re all a bunch of dumbasses and without the government herding us around we’d die by the hundreds of thousands.  I think it’s helpful to consider how we could respond to something like a pandemic without our government masters bossing us around.  Most people are wired to believe chaos would ensue.  Well, when I look at Wall Street in free fall, my Facebook page showing people in long lines in grocery stores, or the local news interviewing small business owners in deep trouble and travelers who were stuck in Europe and had to pay thousands of dollars just to return home due to Trump’s travel ban, it appears that chaos already has ensued.

The evidence is pretty clear that if you’re under 50 or so and don’t have a compromised immune system, your risk to Covid-19 is minimal – probably not much greater than getting on an airplane.  Live your life and forget about it.  There’s probably a ton of spare capacity on cruise ships.  Fill them with young people on an extended spring break!  If you’re at risk, try to limit your exposure to those people who are living their lives without hesitation.  If you’re in the first group and come in contact with the second group, take precautions.  

Everyone’s situation is unique with its own set of tradeoffs.  Let people make those decisions on their own.  And guess what?  By taking responsibility and making those decisions, people will become more critical, independent thinkers better able to handle the next crisis… and not reflexively go crying to the authorities for protection.

~ Kevin Duffy, note to friend, March 13, 2020

Thomas Jefferson on the nanny state

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

~ Thomas Jefferson

H.L. Mencken on liberty, security, and the police state

What the common man longs for in this world, before and above all his other longings, is the simplest and most ignominious sort of peace: the peace of a trusty in a well-managed penitentiary. He is willing to sacrifice everything else to it. He puts it above his dignity and he puts it above his pride. Above all, he puts it above his liberty. The fact, perhaps, explains his veneration for policemen, in all the forms they take--his belief that there is a mysterious sanctity in law, however absurd it may be in fact.

A policeman is a charlatan who offers, in return for obedience, to protect him (a) from his superiors, (b) from his equals, and (c) from himself. This last service, under democracy, is commonly the most esteemed of them all. In the United States, at least theoretically, it is the only thing that keeps ice-wagon drivers, Y.M.C.A. secretaries, insurance collectors and other such human camels from smoking opium, ruining themselves in the night clubs, and going to Palm Beach with Follies girls...Here, though the common man is deceived, he starts from a sound premise: to wit, that liberty is something too hot for his hands---or, as Nietzsche put it, too cold for his spine.

~ H.L. Mencken, Notes on Democracy (1920)