“TYRANNY, LIKE HELL, IS NOT EASILY CONQUERED”
Peering more deeply into the significance of civil disobedience and protest across the United States and the world.
There has been a highly conservative reaction to the protests at American Universities - attributing them to the reactions of spoiled & privileged affluent children - especially setting out to shame the women among them.
However the need for these protests and the reasons why we now see a veritable blooming of civil disobedience and protests - reflects a far deeper cause.
As most of us here - amidst the free speech world of SubStack -understand we are living through a time when a strong resurgence of tyranny and authoritarianism rises across the planet.
I think about now almost all people across the world are having a moment or two regarding the value - or lack of value - or even a suspicion of the outright harm government can do.
As if the history we know of constant war, economic collapses, and political infighting weren’t enough now we discover it was our governments - together with corporations - which led us into harms way with Covid.
These entities who are supposed to share our values and whom we trust to have our best interests at heart are proving instead to be our worst enemy - and not only fail to keep us safe but act against us and betray our better interests.
And worse the people who are most important in the government play us for fools - wheedle about and grandstand to get elected - and then stab us in the back once in power.
The old saying that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely seems in operation here.
Why now of all times does the world seem to be up in arms about government power?
Several things have led into this crisis.
The terrible symbology of the 9/11 event and suspicion about what it really symbolizes are quite obvious.
An event - ostensibly resulting from Middle Eastern terrorism -having caused the terribly tragic event televised to the world from the assumed safety of New York City - and symbolizing the spectacle of terror being brought into our midst.
This was used - through the Patriot Act - not only to engage in more foreign wars but also to justify the treatment of all people everywhere being suspected as terrorists.
Suddenly as as result of 9/11 - all travel, all social interaction - was restrained by all governments.
Airports, public buildings, and more became guarded armed camps where to gain entry or to travel citizens had to submit to being properly identified and searched.
It was every likely that during one of these searches - removing one’s shoes, belts, and the like - that it began to dawn on people that there was more here than met the eye.
The suspicion that maybe our governments were not afraid of some distant enemy but afraid of all of us - we the ordinary people.
There seemed to be an escalation of events which not only insulted our intelligence but pointed to something far more sinister at work.
COVIDIOCY RULES THE WORLD
But the pinnacle of this was reached for most of us as a mysterious virus emerged in late 2019-2020 which so threatened our health and safety that extraordinary measures were required to keep us safe.
Suddenly our days were filled with over solicitation of our well being - involving unprecedented masking, social distancing, isolation and hand washing rituals.
Suddenly all of our nation states required that we be instructed like little children - like wards of the state - to conform to standing in line - masked - and six feet apart.
If the crackdowns after 9/11 felt really weird and invasive - Covid felt as if we were being purposefully smothered by the nanny state.
Suddenly there was no freedom anywhere - it almost seemed that our governments, corporations and even our institutions were gleefully enacting and carrying out the suppression of freedom.
We were forced to stand in line to get medical care - masked, questioned, observed - our temperatures taken.
And if we became ill we were presumed to have a dangerous respiratory virus first - measures to isolate and treat us carried out - before real measures were taken to ensure a real diagnosis.
All of our social engagement became ruled over by both Covid and by the long arms of the nanny state.
All businesses took part - even grocery stores - where measures were put into place to restrict our movement.
Things like little lanes marked through the stores - designed to keep us six feet apart - like well behaved preschool kids.
I’m sure all of us remember how this felt - and people seemed divided into camps of those who felt safer - and of those who felt threatened by - such behavior.
The authorities seemed to gleefully side with the virtue signallers who felt safer in masks and lines - against those who felt smothered and even angered by such treatment.
The result was a people even more divided by their opinions than usual - with the nanny state siding with those who appreciated the restrictions.
Going against the Covid restrictions was enough to get you noticed by the authorities and even arrested if individuals persisted.
Then with great speed and enthusiasm the governments, corporations and institutions managed to develop a vaccine - one everyone was mandated to receive.
There were no allowable exceptions - without agreeing to be vaccinated an individuals freedom was completely denied.
Governments, corporations and institutions dictated what could - and could not be allowed - with the individual having almost no say.
Individuals had to be true intrepid & revolutionary types to avoid the vaccines - only those most highly suspicious of the authorities and restrictions would avoid the mandates.
And here we are - approaching five years later as of January 2025.
THE PATH TO BOTH LOGIC AND FEELING - A SPIRITUAL RESURGENCE
One cannot escape the that the feelings people kept sublimated over these years of increasing government, corporate and institutional control are beginning to surface.
There are protests everywhere - for seemingly unrelated reasons - people’s emotions breaking loose and being expressed - and predictably - being attacked and threatened by the long arms of the nanny states.
Whether the protests are directed against Israel as pro-Palestinian - or the protestors are truckers or farmers protesting government policies - or a whole host of other grievances - all the protests have one thing in common.
The protests - even as infiltrated as they are by authoritarian forces - possess a certain anti-authoritarian flavor.
It is almost as if the feelings which have been bottled up since the post 9/11 crackdowns and the subsequent Covid mandates and restrictions have all at once become fused into one long emotional outburst directed at authoritarianism.
What seems to be the common theme is a heightened awareness of the fact that governments, corporations and institutions may not have the best interests of people at heart.
A snaking suspicion that these entities instead of having our best interests at heart - instead hate and fear our freedom and any personal agency we may possess.
The growing suspicion that these are filled with authoritarians whose main aim is to track us through constant surveillance, to suspect us of the most heinous crimes and to restrict our freedom and agency at every turn.
So the next time we accept mainstream media’s interpretation of a protest we may need to look more deeply to understand precisely what is at hand.
Because the mainstream media - the handmaidens of authoritarianism - and the apologists and propagandists for the most egregious crimes of over reach - are going to continue to frame all arguments for the good of continuing tyranny.
In a surprising move - as government representatives being to wake to the many ways they too have been played by authoritarian forces - they also begin to protest.
But since these individuals depend on their manipulative exploitation of the people to keep their power and authority and wealth - they may expect to come under increasing scrutiny by the increasingly anti-authoritarian feelings of the people.
It may finally be that the real power of those unalienable rights declared by the American Declaration of Independence are becoming understood.
For it is the feelings - the hearts and minds of the people who determine the - course of human events.
Expect more and stronger protests as the events continue to unfold over the coming years.
And we can expect more unrest and more violence as authoritarians duke it out as the people begin to insist on their own unalienable rights to exist - free of authoritarianism.
For the people are putting two and two together and are coming up with the right answer:
Maybe - just maybe - the scaffolding the American founding fathers framed up as workable framework against tyranny - was altogether wiser than we have usually given it credit for.
For the cry of the people still seems to be that of revolutionary Patrick Henry - “GIVE US LIBERTY OR GIVE US DEATH.”
Our feelings - as the people possessing these unalienable rights -side with the Common Sense of Thomas Paine and with the revolutionary perspicacity of our American Founding Fathers.
Against us - as we the people with these unalienable rights - tyranny has no claim or foothold here.
And the full faith and credit of the people with the words written by Thomas Paine - a British immigrant - in his little pamphlets which changed the world:
Often quoted but it really cannot be quoted too often:
“THESE are the times that try men's souls. The summer soldier and the sunshine patriot will, in this crisis, shrink from the service of their country; but he that stands by it now, deserves the love and thanks of man and woman. Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered; yet we have this consolation with us, that the harder the conflict, the more glorious the triumph. What we obtain too cheap, we esteem too lightly: it is dearness only that gives every thing its value. Heaven knows how to put a proper price upon its goods; and it would be strange indeed if so celestial an article as FREEDOM should not be highly rated.”
Thomas Paine, The American Crisis
Across all of Paine’s writings which heavily influenced the revolutionary movements of the 18th century and which have handed down to us in the 21st century the wisdom they gathered.
We can expect more chaos as the world begins together to come to terms with the specter of increasing government, corporate and institutional tyranny.
For none of these entities - in the history of the world - has ever peacefully parted with the power and agency we have allowed them to benefit from.
Nevertheless we as humans stand at at parting of the ways - in a historic break with whatever former patience we may have deployed towards tyranny and authoritarianism.
As we learn to become free to be the change we wish to see in the world the tyranny will lose favor and the wellsprings which keep it intact will dry up and fade away.
Keeping in mind that freedom is not free and that our constant vigilance is required to deny it agency in our midst.
May our creator bless and hold in high esteem all the peacemakers.
Thank you so much for restacking!!
Thank you so much for the restack!