Subject:
Being Reasonable

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Dear Subscriber,

It seems that when collectivists run out of other excuses for their
anti-freedom agenda, they fall back on calling real limiting of
government "unreasonable" or "impractical." For example, Mona
Charen recently opined that doing away with the IRS (as Ron Paul
suggests) isn't a "serious" proposal. The underlying message is
clear: dramatic change--in fact, any change that is significant at
all--is unreasonable, impractical, and so on, BECAUSE it would be a
dramatic change.

What an odd concept. Suppose your morning ritual consisted of
getting up, taking a shower, getting dressed, having breakfast,
hammering a nail into your foot, and driving to work. And suppose
you had been doing that for all of your working career, until some
radical, wacko extremist suggested that perhaps you would be better
off if you completely removed the sticking-a-nail-in-your-foot part
of your morning routine. "Well, I can't just stop it entirely!
That's impractical! It's unreasonable! Perhaps I could use smaller
nails, or hammer them in not quite as deep, but do away with the
act altogether? Come on, be reasonable!"

Allow me to quote myself (from my book, "How to Be a Successful
Tyrant"):

- -----------< begin quote >----------------

Familiar Chains

Another huge way in which the peasants' lack of objectivity helps
you is their relativistic view of life.  If they grew up in
slavery, they will think that slavery is inevitable and proper.
They will assume that whatever their rulers have always done (as
far back as they can remember), rulers always should do.  They will
choose familiar tyranny over "upsetting the apple cart" every time.


Peasants fear change.  Like animals that have been caged for too
long, a group of peasants that has been enslaved for decades, if
you offer to "let them out" (i.e., give them freedom), will beg to
be let back into the cage.  Peasants crave whatever is predictable
and familiar, even if it happens to be tyranny.  So train them to
become accustomed to tyranny, and most of them won't even want to
be free.

This cannot be overstated: the outlook of "that's just how things
are" is the tyrant's best friend.  If the peasants are accustomed
to giving you a chunk of what they earn, they will think that's how
things should be, and they will literally be afraid of not being
extorted.  If the "government" regulates everything, they will
assume that that is necessary and good.  If they grew up in a
society in which all parents must surrender their children over to
government-controlled indoctrination centers (euphemism: "public
schools"), they will assume that it is how things should be.

Put another way, the peasants decide what things should be like
from the starting point of what things are already like.  They
might want a little bit more of one thing, or a little bit less of
another, but only very rarely will a peasant come to the
realization that your entire regime, and everything it does, is
insane, unnecessary, and destructive to society.  This is because
reaching such a conclusion requires both objective analysis (which
in turn requires independent thought) and intellectual confidence.

- -----------< end quote >----------------

Republican politicians, and 99% of their supporters in the media,
don't have a shred of principle among the bunch of them. You see, a
principle is a position you take because it is what is RIGHT, even
if it's unpopular, or dangerous, or not politically expedient, or
different from what is being done today. What does it mean when
principles are outranked by what is "practical" or "reasonable"? It
means those principles are worthless.

A little over a century ago, doing away with slavery seemed to be a
pretty darn "impractical" and "unreasonable" thing to do. And it
was, but it was also the RIGHT thing to do. For that matter, having
a full-scale revolution against the British Empire was pretty darn
impractical and unreasonable, but in retrospect we applaud it. So
when did this nation become such a bunch of wimps that we won't get
rid of evil, anti-American, tyrannical abominations like the IRS,
because doing so would be "impractical"? When did "give me liberty
or give me death" get changed into "don't make waves; just go with
the flow"? Often one's choices are to make waves, or to drown. This
country is about to do one or the other, by either "making waves"
with Ron Paul, or by sinking with the latest in a long line of
"reasonable," "practical" tyrants at the helm.

Sincerely,


Larken Rose
http://www.larkenrose.com

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