"It is when the State creates laws with impunity that it makes criminals of us all."
Many of us may be engaged in a perpetual war of ideas and concepts, a war against an intangible entity that no matter how great the effort it can never be slayed. It is a war that demands sacrifice and obedience at some level so that we do not give the enemy any more avenues to insert its evil claws so as to harm us and our society at large. Some of us are part of the coalition of the willing in these infinite forever wars, whereby we without question take up whatever arms is needed after being conscripted into the ranks of the ever loyal and willing so that we may march on for as long as it takes before we defeat all of our enemies.
The enemies for all of us, has demanded more and more concessions to be made at home, in the work place and on the streets. These enemies have ranged from 'Terrorists', Drugs, 'Junk Food', Obesity and Information, each threat potentially can destroy the foundations of our society and put us in great harm that we need the secure embrace of the State to defend us from these evil entities. We have been recruited ! But against who...?
Let us now assume that we do live in free societies, nations which were built on the idea of individualism before statism, where the one is respected and granted dignity before the mob. Now that we have assumed this, then how is it possible that a society can win a war against such enemies by carving away at the very liberties and freedoms that define it. How can a state modify its culture to the point that those within it no longer have the natural rights only given at birth to the point that a form of servitude is demanded in order to achieve the end game.
Since the vile attacks that occurred near a decade ago in the United States, many of us in the Western World have maintained a certain degree of vigilance against the terror bogeyman, we have allowed our States to monitor us, search us and slowly increase the police state to such a level so as to check our every move. It has been done in order to protect us, it has been done to stop 'them' from killing 'us'. It has in essence given the 'terrorists' some victory, because it has harmed us long term to the point where we had to modify our 'decadent' lifestyle to the point that we now live in a perpetual state of war. It is with the battle cry, 'for national security' that we can willingly find ourselves sending enlisted men abroad to invade foreign nations without act or declaration of war, where thousands can die in justification for regime change and where on the home front sacrifice is demanded so as to steel the nation against its terrorist enemies.
In an era of many prohibitions we are forever fighting a war on 'drugs' those illegal narcotics that people consensually use for recreation, where a heavy handed state in our name violently pursues those that use and deal in this recreational habit. We live in an era where certain foods are now deemed to bad to consume because people may eat them in excess and thus become over weight or obese. It is a period where the powers that rule feel the need to prohibit from us these indigestible products so us to protect us from our own individual choices. This war must be fought from the street corner to your kitchen bench, it is where some day an armed assault team of Police may storm into a room where a rotund family may dare to enjoy a chocolate mud cake covered in whipped cream defying the States war on 'Obesity'.
The Internet has posed a problem for many Governments when it comes to the filtering and controlling of information, no longer can they edit and read over your shoulder as you flick through the pages of a book or magazine or determine what you watch on your TV and listen to on your radio. Now we have a media stream that can without censorship provide so many sources of information however accurate or perverted into our homes, onto our phones and into our lives whenever we wish to access it. Though we are told that we need filters and firewalls in place to protect not just us, but our children from evil spiders that may lurk in the inter web. It is to protect them from seeing those things that are too bad that it may harm them. So now we are facing a new frontier for us to march off into, that of information.
And with the 'threat' of Global Warming looming high above the atmospheres of our planet it is with great crusading might that the National Governments of the world will go off half cocked and without pure science on its side so as to combat this ever changing enviornment that we live in. It is with taxation and regulations that Government the greatest abuser of enviornment past and present, seeks to tell us how we can do our part to save the planet. It is Government with doomsday predictions, quasi science and with a great amount of belief that Man made Global warming is forced upon us well before many of the worlds scientists have properly peer reviewed one anothers research and data. But the damage has been done, the press has been set and the print has already dried, we must unify as one World beneath the prophetic lessons of Al Gore and become green and sacrifice some more and let Government lead the way in cleaing up 'our' mess.
However Orwellian this all may sound and seem it is in fact the very realities that we face in this modern age of big government. It seems when '1984' was penned by Orwell that it was to be a warning, a dyostopic fiction depicting a state for us to fear its potential realisation, instead it seems that it is now a play book to be used with great pride by those that seek to control and command us. It is no longer a warning of things to come, it is merely a prologue to that which is here already and what is perhaps yet to become realised.
The victim, the casualty and the enemy in these many wars all have something in common. It is you. You are the very one that needs safe guarding, that is at risk from these threats and who is the potential enemy of the state. Should you access the wrong information, or slide into the currents of dissent you become the terrorist, should you possess a small bag of marijuana you are the drug threat, perhaps soon caffeine and sugar will become an illegal 'narcotic' too. It is you that should you view certain web sites, then you are the threat to our children, though even if you simply VIEW them or read from them for whatever reason...it is you that are the evil threat. Put simply the War is on You. How can you survive a perpetual onslaught against your liberty and identity over time at the hands of a benevolent state?
The facts on prohibition remain the same. Whatever is being prohibited by the state. The criminals will ALWAYS get what they need and the law abiding will be the only ones that are prevented from such items. It is easier to get illegal drugs than it is to get legal ones. Its easier for criminals to get firearms illegally, than it is for good citizens to attain them legally. In fact criminals prefer it to have firearms illegal, it makes their life a lot easier and safer. Politicians love to make rules, and command over us like we are helpless sheep and they are the morally superior Sheppard's. But the fate of the sheep is always the same. No matter how compassionate the Sheppard is, how sincere his love for the flock and those within it. We are all doomed to be slaughtered if we stay under the Sheppard's ultimate and aboslute protection.
Though while it is you that is the one whose protection is apparently of the most importance, it is you that risks the most and loses the most in the end. It is you who finds the walls of societies prison slowly closing in. Just because they are made of glass and give the illusion of space does not mean that you do not have walls around you preventing what you can do and where you can go. In the end, these wars are on You. The faceless depiction of a terrorist may as well be a mirror, that evil junkie could be a relative, the one who enjoys 'junk food' could be you and information is the most precious life blood of society. It is when we have vile and putrid information that we can let it rot away on its own and it is when it is contrasted against the sweet perfume of truth that we only truly appreciate the contrast. That Carbon Tax will be on EVERYTHING you purchase and it is with out any founding relevance that it is imposed upon you, except for mere gestures and greater Government theft. It is for us and us alone to govern ourselves on our choices.
Though again we must ask the question does the State have the right to violently enter a persons home on the assumption that they may be smoking a recreational drug? They are inserting violence into a scenario of consensual decadence. They do this in our name, more so abroad in the USA in the war on Drugs, will this soon wash onto our shores of Australia ? Can they violently arrest us for the words we read or write because they may in some way contradict the States views of values and tolerance ? Will they storm through our doors some day soon because we possese too much animal fat and coffee or because we are 'illegally' reading a non approved website that may be deemed a terrorist site? Will you be fined some more for that shower that goes for a bit too long, will you need a reason for driving your car other than 'it was nice driving weather'?
What moral superiority does a Government have when it violently subjects its citizens to such acts for non violent 'crimes' ? Who even gives Government authority, though that is the subject for another article. It is the power to tax that gives one the power to govern and thus we are subjects before them.
Give us liberty and freedom we will remain vigilant against terror and excess and should we not, as individuals we alone will suffer the consequences. It is in punishing violent acts as crimes that we get results, not in clumping criminals together as a collective threat so as to turn them into a faceless and united front. A terrorist is a murderer, among other things. Punish and try them as such. If a junkie steals or assaults try them for that, do not empathise with their addiction simply punish the acts against others liberty. If some one eats themselves to obese wastage, then let them suffer the prison that is their own body. Removing the individual from victim and criminal forces them with into us, it takes away the very essence of the criminal act. Violence above all else must be severely condemned and punished before anything else. It should never be a means used to justified a moral end.
The war of today and tomorrow is going to be waged on YOU. It is for you to combat it with reason and rationale dignity, it is for you to arm yourself with honoured principles of liberty and to feed those arms with the ammunition of words. It is for you to employ the logistics of ETHICAL laws to help you sustain the coming battles. While they have force and violence it is YOU and I that will have the superior dignified privilege of being right in the end. You are the most important entity of society, it is when You disappear and become We then the collective has won and we are all doomed to be safe behind the bars of communal security. And remember just like in '1984' it is by being in a perpetual state of war, that the Government gives it self absolute power.
17 Jan 2011
Kym Robinson
