June 2nd, 2009

(This is a different take on what I was talking about last week.)

When was the last time a government shrank?

Governments don't. They grow and grow until they become oppressive regimes and then they crumble from within due to their own massive weight, or they are overthrown by the people or some other revolution (technological or cultural).

Okay, sure, it's strange for a white middle class comfortable managerial-type guy in Canada, one of the most comfortable and complacent countries in the world, to be talking about revolution, but perhaps it's that comfort that gives me the time to contemplate such thoughts. I mean, there's a reason people aren't marching on Ottawa with pitchforks and torches: We Canadians eat to excess and we have no trouble heating our homes. Except for the mostly silent poorest among us, there's just no relatively large enough reason to fend off the Summer mosquitoes or the Winter chill to protest outside. Besides, there's a good show on TV tonight I don't want to miss.

And this very complacency may last our lifetimes or longer (or it could crumble tomorrow), but end sooner or later it must, as our lack of protest continues to further embolden our political system to grow ever more stagnating and intrusive. It's a long way off, but Big Brother will eventually have his hands all over our privates. And then, whenever that happens, we'll be moved to march and chant.

But for now we are being held in cheque—oops, I mean, "check"—by two factors: fear and guilt. I'm sure that no deliberate planning or intelligence went into it, but Western governments have evolved into machines capable of exploiting those two emotions in humans so that we have no choice but to comply or look foolish trying to protest. (Worse, though this is a subject for another rant, businesses have evolved exactly the same exploitation skills to part us with our money.)

Now, this idea of being controlled by our own governments through fear is a common one: A simple Google search yields lots of articles and websites devoted to this topic: http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&&q=control+people+through+fear&btnG=Search&meta=. And yet, with all these fear-based control attempts going on in our lives, how is it that we aren't paralysed into complete inaction? How come the most of us—even us over-sensitive types—don't stay at home and hide under our bed? (Presuming it isn't because we are afraid of spiders!)

Well, I think it's something like what I experienced when I bought my first motorcycle after a few years of not riding. Back in 2006, I hopped onto my shiny new Ninja, the familiar feel of the helmet and gloves, leather jacket, etc. and went out the parking lot of the dealership into the alley. Did I torque up the throttle and go for a long hard spin around town? No way, I practically putt-putted myself home at a ridiculously slow 20 or 30 kilometres an hour. And it seemed fast at the time.

A few days later, after I had ridden around the neighbourhood at 30 kilometres an hour, it didn't seem so fast, so I drove to work. I had to keep up with the traffic on Kingsway which, even in rush hour, was a minimum of 50 km/h. Whew! Back to feeling fast! But my capacity to accept the fear and eventually not experience it came over me and after a few weeks I decided to hit the highway one clear sunny Saturday. Well, I'm sure you get the point: It seemed fast at the time, but eventually I felt no fear at those speeds.

These days I can ride in the rain with cross-winds on the highway around trucks at 120 km/h and barely blink, except to whinge about forgetting my rain pants.

In the same way, the government has to continue to ratchet up the fears it tries to instil in us. We have to be threatened by ever-growing enemies in ever-widening circles. The entire Nation of Islam, fully 1 billion people, are being turned into the Western world's bad guys right now, so that we have a gigantic international enemy to be afraid of. So that we can be controlled better by our government.

I'd like to point out again that this is not necessarily some huge conspiracy theory going on here ... it's just that the evolution of governments includes better and better skills to scare the crap out of its citizens. Over time, those governments better suited to scare people are getting preferential treatment to become elected.

Furthermore, those governments that govern partly or wholly based on fear must continue to grow in order to present larger and more dangerous fears to us. The government of a decade ago would not be able to muster the resources and people necessary to scare us today. Hence, growth in government in order to continue to maintain control over us.

The shouting has to continue to get louder in order for our fear-desensitized ears to continue hearing; and the only way the governments of the world can continue to grow in volume is to ... well, grow in volume.

Read more rants - Comment on this rant - Email me