Ayn Rand on Creeping Tyranny

[jts]

From:

http://ariwatch.com/...pingTyranny.htm

No tyranny in history has ever been established overnight. The method of dictators has always been a slow, gradual, well-calculated series of measures, each one of them seemingly innocent enough, easily alibied and explained by the ruler as embodying the best intentions in the world, and not one of them clear, direct and sufficiently flagrant to make the entire people – every single man on the street – realize that it affects him personally.

Each measure is passed without great trouble or violent public opposition because the average man does not see at the time, how it can possibly affect his own existence ... . Then, one day, he awakens suddenly to realize all his rights and liberties are gone. He cannot say exactly how or when it happened. He sees only the cumulative effect of single measures he did not consider important at the time he accepted them. He may be horrified and he may want to scream in protest. But it is too late to protest.

You might nitpick about the first sentence. But this quote from Ayn Rand accurately describes what is happening in the world right now.

[caroljane]

You are the expert at nitpicking, but the first sentence is ridiculous, as the Bolshevik tyranny was established pretty much overnight, and nobody knew that more personally than Rand. But maybe she thought Kant had been patiently plotting it with Lenin etal via seance.

[dennislmay]

From:

http://ariwatch.com/...pingTyranny.htm

No tyranny in history has ever been established overnight. The method of dictators has always been a slow, gradual, well-calculated series of measures, each one of them seemingly innocent enough, easily alibied and explained by the ruler as embodying the best intentions in the world, and not one of them clear, direct and sufficiently flagrant to make the entire people – every single man on the street – realize that it affects him personally.

Each measure is passed without great trouble or violent public opposition because the average man does not see at the time, how it can possibly affect his own existence ... . Then, one day, he awakens suddenly to realize all his rights and liberties are gone. He cannot say exactly how or when it happened. He sees only the cumulative effect of single measures he did not consider important at the time he accepted them. He may be horrified and he may want to scream in protest. But it is too late to protest.

You might nitpick about the first sentence. But this quote from Ayn Rand accurately describes what is happening in the world right now.

The march to tryanny seems little slowed by the constant stream of evidence indicating that it is happening.

No one wants to be the first to take a real stand - which is why people marched to death camps or marched

to be shot standing next to open trenches.

Dennis

[dennislmay]

You are the expert at nitpicking, but the first sentence is ridiculous, as the Boshevik tyranny was established pretty much overnight, and nobody knew that more personally than Rand. But maybe she thought Kant had been patientlyh plotting it with Lenin etal via seance.

Tyranny replacing authoritarian rule does indeed happen overnight because there is no history of freedom to overcome.

Dennis

[caroljane]

There were ideas of freedom to overcome in Russia, the push for freedom which Nicholas II's authoritarianism was fighting, was taken advantage of by the Bolsheviks.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I just saw the video by Naomi Wolf on the other thread and I believe her analysis of how fast this occurs is more on the mark (despite disagreements I have with her progressivism).

She talked about a tipping point (riffing off Malcolm Gladwell). First there is a creep in the population where outsiders are intimidated by a small group (through legal measures or otherwise), then the people in this group (who are not in the majority) start gradually intimidating regular citizens, especially small fry at first, then the public starts getting used to it as the group's influence grows, then when the takeover happens, it's surprisingly quick. It hits the tipping point and whoosh. It's a done deal.

The dictatorships of last century--the ones I recall off the top of my head--followed this pattern. I lived under one in Brazil that had worked like that when the military took over.

I don't think the guy who wakes up and doesn't know how it all happened is accurate. Usually takeovers are quite noisy and the suppression of dissent is pretty blatant.

I can believe in the guy who supports a takeover, then one day wakes up and finds it is not the heaven he imagined, but hell instead. That is common.

Michael

[dennislmay]

There were ideas of freedom to overcome in Russia, the push for freedom which Nicholas II's authoritarianism was fighting, was taken advantage of by the Bolsheviks.

I agree some interesting things were going on but from what I saw of the BBC history of WWI on the

Military Channel the Czar was impotent and largely isolated within the palace walls.

[caroljane]

There were ideas of freedom to overcome in Russia, the push for freedom which Nicholas II's authoritarianism was fighting, was taken advantage of by the Bolsheviks.

I agree some interesting things were going on but from what I saw of the BBC history of WWI on the

Military Channel the Czar was impotent and largely isolated within the palace walls.

He was certainly isolated but far from impotent, until the revolution had actually been accomplished, Since his father had freed the serfs (and got assassinated for his pains) Nicholas II distrusted and feared the westernising "liberal" ideas that called for political reform and freedom. His ministers warned him that cracking down on protestors, sending writers to Siberia etc, would fuel the opposition but he just increased the secret police and army brutalitya\\. That he was one of the stupidest men ever to ascend a throne did not help either, He believed profoundly that God wanted him to do exactly what he and his wife felt was right.

[Jerry Biggers]

You are the expert at nitpicking, but the first sentence is ridiculous, as the Bolshevik tyranny was established pretty much overnight, and nobody knew that more personally than Rand. But maybe she thought Kant had been patiently plotting it with Lenin etal via seance.

Really?? "The Bolshevik tyranny was established pretty much overnight?"

Not,...exactly. Here's the timeline (adapted from one of the many examples on the net, some being more detailed than others, but all generally agree on the dates, including the Bolsheviks' change in the middle of their revolution to Gregorian calendar).

Note the dates in bold:

1917

• February 23-27 (March 8-12 NS) - The February Revolution begins with strikes, demonstrations, and mutinies in Petrograd (also called the March Revolution if following the Gregorian calendar)
  
• March 2 (March 15 NS) - Czar Nicholas II abdicates and includes his son. The following day, Nicholas' brother, Mikhail announced his refusal to accept the throne. Provisional Government formed
  
• April 3 (April 16 NS) - Lenin returns from exile and arrives in Petrograd via a sealed train
  
• July 3-7 (July 16-20 NS) - The July Days begin in Petrograd with spontaneous protests against the Provisional Government; after the Bolsheviks unsuccessfully try to direct these protests into a coup, Lenin is forced into hiding
  
• July 11 (July 24 NS) - Alexander Kerensky becomes Prime Minister of the Provisional Government
  
• August 22-27 (September 4-9 NS) - The Kornilov Affair, a failed coup by General Lavr Kornilov, commander of the Russian Army
  
• October 25 (November 7 NS) - The October Revolution - the Bolsheviks take over Petrograd (also called the November Revolution if following the Gregorian calendar)
  
• October 26 (November 8 NS) - The Winter Palace, the last holdout of the Provisional Government, is taken by the Bolsheviks; the Council of People's Commissars (abbreviated as Sovnarkom), led by Lenin, is now in control (de facto) of Russia. However, much of the former Russian Empire was not in their control until after they won the civil war against the White Russian forces, almost three years later.
  

1918

• February 1/14 - The new Bolshevik government converts Russia from the Julian to the Gregorian calendar turning February 1 into February 14
  
• March 3 - The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, between Germany and Russia, is signed and takes Russia out of World War I
  
• March 8 - The Bolshevik Party changes its name to the Communist Party
  
• March 11 - The capital of Russia is changed from St. Petersburg to Moscow
  
• June - Russian civil war begins
  
• July 17 - Czar Nicholas II and his family are executed
  
• August 30 - An assassination attempt leaves Lenin seriously wounded
  

1920

• November - Russian civil war ends (total of 2 years, 5 months)
  

1922

• April 3 - Stalin is appointed General Secretary
  
• May 26 - Lenin suffers first stroke
  
• December 15 - Lenin suffers second stroke and retires from politics
  
• December 30 - The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (U.S.S.R.) established
  

"Overnight" is, rather, over 3 months from the actual Bolshevik attempts to takeover, to when the Provisional (Kerensky-Menshevik) Government collapsed..

"De facto" control by the Bolsheviks was established in October 1917, but they did not effectively control much of Russian territory until after the conclusion of the Civil War in 1920. And that is another three years.

:

[Jerry Biggers]

Although the Russian Revolution and the establishment of communist control took much longer than overnight (see above), there have been other occasions, primarily of coup de tats, which were either literally or almost,. overnight. There have been many examples in Africa in the last 70 some years. In most of these cases, one dictator simply replaced the former. Since these were authoritarian or totalitarian states already, Rand's comment is still basically correct, certainly in Europe and North America. In any case, she is referring to once free societies slowly losing their freedoms to expanding government control. And in this case, if we confine the discussion to free societies losing their freedoms (which is clearly what Rand is referring to), examples such as Russia in 1917 do not disprove her point.. After all, Imperial Czarist Russia was hardly a free society.

[caroljane]

Which free societies before America slowly lost their liberties as you describe, and went from freedom to despotism? I can think of at least one.

[Selene]

Cuba...for one quick response

Actually, you did say "free" which would limit the options because there are very few "free" societies which need a revolution.

[caroljane]

But Batista was a dictator...

[Selene]

But Batista was a dictator...

I thought that was the point of my last post babes...

[Jerry Biggers]

It looks like Venezuela may qualify as a democratic society where the people are cheerfully voting themselves into a communist dictatorship under Hugo Chavez (or his successors, if he drops dead from getting his prostate cancer treated in his favorite workers' paradise, Cuba).

Rand would probably refer to the "Social Democracies" of Western Europe as examples of populations slowly giving up their freedoms, making them ready for the next step. I think Russia, (of today, not 1917) where Putin is slowly consolidating his powers and is using the guise of elections to accomplish his aims. It does appear that he wants total control and that a large part of the Russian electorate is willing to give it to thim (i.e., voting away what little freedoms that they currently possess).

I think a case could be established that both Germany and Italy voted themselves into fascism (or at least made it easy for the soon-to-be dictators to take the final step).

We may be seeing a similar transformation occuring right now in Greece, Portugal, Spain, and possibly other countries in Western Europe, where the populations literally have been corrupted by "entitlements" so much so that their states may go into bankruptcy and/or collapse. If that happens, some type of authoritarian/totalitarian government is likely to take their place. Given the large support that communist or proto-communist parties and unions have in these states, some type of socialism will be instituted. And it will not be democratic.

[syrakusos]

From:

http://ariwatch.com/...pingTyranny.htm

No tyranny in history has ever been established overnight. The method of dictators has always been a slow, gradual, well-calculated series of measures, each one of them ...

... without great trouble or violent public opposition because the average man does not see at the time... But it is too late to protest.

You might nitpick about the first sentence. But this quote from Ayn Rand accurately describes what is happening in the world right now.

If you call citiing facts nitpicking, then perhaps so. I believe that the only examples available are the British democracies: UK, US, Canada, Australia, New Zealand. The UK is the model, the US followed. They probably reached their peak of freedom and liberty in the 1830s. Then, in the UK social welfare began to undermine laissez faire. In the USA, racism in the form of Black Laws foreshadowed what was to come. The Interstate Commerce Commission (1887) hallmarked the new regulations demanded by "progressives" to derail the open markets. (Just as an aside, while in Ohio, it is the Public Utilities Commission here in Texas it is the Railroad Commission that regulates natural gas pipelines, etc. Chesapeake Energy is in the news here in Texas for its land grabs that legally seize without having to pay in retaliation against those who will not sell.)

So, the warning is real in that sense. Here we are. However, history lacks any other examples.

Jerry Biggers' citation of the Bolshevik Revolution was flawed because those four short violent years clearly disprove the claim. It was not slow and creeping at all. Neither is Hugo Chavez. Slow and creeping is decades, a lifetime. Except for us, there are no examples.

Also, to continue the nitpicking, tyranny and dictatorship are two different things. We democrats confuse them on essentialist terms, but then why not throw in monarchy and aristocracy and oligarchy? Well, warnings about the imminent dangers brought to our shores by Elizabeth, Beatrix, and Juan Carlos seem tepid. Tyranny and dictatorship sound horrible. In fact, dictatorship was a constitutional role in Rome. Cincinnatus was the paradigm. In archaic Greece, tyrants were self-made men, business men, merchants, who took over their Greek towns and ran them as enterprises. Of course, the conservatives hated that. Tyrants were not nice guys, but neither were democracies much concerned with anything we would recognize as individual rights. Tyrants did however bring an end to monarchy and aristocracy and usher in democracy, also mercantilism, coinage, and philosophy. Tyranny and dictatorship are two different things with variable outcomes.

In our time, in the 20th century, the fascists, national socialists, and communists came to power quickly as a result of crises. Even Hitler's ascent, nominally democratic and constitutional, objectively was neither. Mussolini's "March on Rome" was also a strongarm tactic that overpowered the legitimate government. In Greece, Poland, Spain, Portugal, and Hungary those nations never knew democracy. (It might have been strongest in Spain, oddly enough, perhaps.) And they just fell to thugs wrapped in flags... overnight...

[BaalChatzaf]

Government itself, is creeping tyranny. No matter how moderate and reasonable a government is in its beginning, it will become more intrusive and powerful. Within three or four generations it will host a discernible tyranny.

Here is what Proudhon has to say about government:

To be governed is to be watched over, inspected, spied on, directed, legislated at, regulated, docketed, indoctrinated, preached at, controlled, assessed, weighed, censored, ordered about, by men who have neither the right, nor the knowledge, nor the virtue. ... To be governed is to be at every operation, at every transaction, noted, registered, enrolled, taxed, stamped, measured, numbered, assessed, licensed, authorized, admonished, forbidden, reformed, corrected, punished. It is, under the pretext of public utility, and in the name of the general interest, to be placed under contribution, trained, ransomed, exploited, monopolized, extorted, squeezed, mystified, robbed; then, at the slightest resistance, the first word of complaint, to be repressed, fined, despised, harassed, tracked, abused, clubbed, disarmed, choked, imprisoned, judged, condemned, shot, deported, sacrificed, sold, betrayed; and, to crown all, mocked, ridiculed, outraged, dishonoured. That is government; that is its justice; that is its morality.

Amen!

Ba'al Chatzaf

[anthony]

Very good!

Me, I'm seeing seeping tyranny where I am.

Rand's "robotic government" of civil servants has never looked so good.

"We the people" bring it on ourselves by celebration of politics, the cult

of the individual - derived from our respectful admiration for our system

of governance and Constitution, and so dissipated the same way. The ruling party

is not essentially 'the government', but only its representative.