I've been called insane, but haven't been proven a liar...

Humans' affair with order, authority and discipline

Humans are a strange bunch. They're individual beings, fully autonomous and sovereign by design - and able to act on their own, at least to a degree. At the same time, most of them are highly conformist, collectivist, and authoritarian, preferring to query the Leader first and only then think on their own - that is, if the Leader either doesn't exist or if their directives are uncomfortable enough to look for an alternative solution. (Usually, for that to happen, the degree of "uncomfortable" must be somewhere around "nearly entirely deadly", though.)

And at the same time, nearly all of them host some desire for freedom - although the extent of that desire varies between individuals, sometimes slightly, other time greatly. While some believe only minimal or pre-defined liberties are really needed, though, there are others who believe a person shall be absolutely unrestrained and free to do as they please, (often adding: "as long as they don't hurt anybody") - so there is a constant struggle between those who want more freedom and willpower, and those who want more discipline and order.

With that said, most known humans, save for (maybe) the most dedicated and fanatical freedom-loving persons, exhibit a high preference for order, hierarchy, and/or authority. While the humans typically blame someone else (such as government, society, culture, an opposing socio-political movement etc.) for nearly everything that stands between them and freedom...

Bondage since childhood

Most humans' affair with Order and Discipline begins in their childhood: the first authority they're subjected to comes from their own parents - and very often, this authority is the strongest in their life, far stronger than any government would offer - save for maybe fascist/socialist regimes, which are somewhat on an equal footing with parental control and oversight.

Imagine your government suddenly telling you that you can't listen to heavy metal music anymore, because it "is bad for you". Or that you must be a doctor/soldier/engineer/whatever "because it's best for you". Or that you can't hang out with these people, since they're "bad company"... Sounds authoritarian and oppressive, right? At least this is what people call those governments who've actually tried that shit. However, in many families, this (and more!) is routinely done by parents.

Sure thing, it's all done "with the child's best interests in mind" (just like any authoritarian government doing this kind of shit says). This, however, doesn't disprove the fact that it is still exercise of strong authority - and in some cases, the "child's interests" are actually being hurt by this kind of "benevolent oversight".

Virtually everything the authoritarian governments have done, save for possibly intentionally crippling or killing the child, was already done by parents - often long before governments came up with this BS to try it on entire nations. This is an (incomplete) list of practices commonly performed by parents towards their children:

Sure thing, it's all done "because the children are too stupid" and "because the parents love them". Of course, most parents will say that "their children are too weak/stupid/immature to do shit on their own" and that "they're only doing this shit because they care about their kids and want the best for them" and that "they actually must do all of this or their kids will grow degenerate/depraved/spoiled/elsehow bad". Say what you will, dictatorships don't stop being dictatorships just because they're "benevolent", and so far, every single authoritarian and oppressive government was claiming their oppression was "necessary" and it actually was "for the greater good".

Basically, parents are like a very authoritarian and socialist government: as long as they have power (physical and/or economical) over children, they believe they can do just about anything to their kids and be justified in that. Just so they wouldn't look like complete assholes, they make up bullshit excuses for projecting authority on their kids - and as long as there is an excuse for doing so, they exploit the shit out of it. Sure, they can be merciful or permissive sometimes, but that only depends on their mood.

And in those rare cases when children aren't being broken by the time they free themselves from parental tyranny, and actually hold strong dissympathy towards their parents for what they've done for them, the parents are, like, "Why is my kid like that? We've only done that for their own good!"

Family unit in general

The authoritarian and hierarchical relationships in families do not end just with parents projecting power on the weaker children because they're physically or economically weaker.

At the very least, many traditional families have strict roles and responsibilities for each member. For example, it is common for men to take all the heavy labor, as well as shoulder all of the force-related activities - hunting, fighting, protecting the family etc., while women were more of "support members", tasked with maintaining a clean house, doing laundry, and looking after the children.

Once married, a man (or a woman) is more often than not no longer viewed as an individual; numerous duties are being laid on them by the society, and they're expected to behave in a certain way. Their unique, personal traits and preferences, should they have any, are being repressed; even though in a traditional society, they were already burdened with the "gender roles" bullshit, it becomes only increasingly pronounced once they're married. Both the man and the woman are being assigned "traditional family roles", and viewed as tools; the man as the hunter-gatherer tool and the woman as the caretaker tool. Once married, the desires of both family members get outweighed by duties, pulled right out of the Society's traditional-moral ass.

In addition, it is also expected for younger members of the family to obey and follow the elders (which is also partly explained by the difference in power between older and younger brothers/sisters). Regardless of concept, obedience of younger ones in traditional families is expected to be unconditional and immediate; questioning and arguing orders is grounds for various kinds of punishment.

Law and order as the solution for nearly everything

For starters, let's remember that there are literally laws written to provide the people freedom of expression, and another law saying they can kick their government's ass if it goes tyrannic or oppressive.

In a truly free society, there are no laws which forbid freedom of expression, or declare gun control - but at the same time, there is no need to declare laws which allow unhindered expression and ownership of weapons, as the free society is expected to deal with emergent tyrants as it would be situationally appropriate. (Come to think of it, what would stop a tyrant from wiping their ass with the glorious American Constitution and writing a law which says, "Everyone is The Tyrant's property"? There are many things, but none of them are a piece of paper with scribbles on it.)

Basically, the chief approach to solve nearly any social issue is throwing regulations and bans at it. And establishing various authorities to rule over certain fields. Depending on a country, there are various kinds of those "authorities" and they have a varying degree of power, but the common principle remains the same: you see a field of activity, you create a ministry/bureau/agency/"service" to deal with it. Public health issues? Have a CDC for that one. The Department of Education watches over brainwashing teaching children in the nation. You have the Department of Justice for settling conflicts (and way beyond that), the Department of Homeland Security and the National Security Agency for domestic surveillance and tracking of your citizens dealing with terro... hey, the crossed-out way to say it sounds more appealing, so let's cut the crap and call it what it is - domestic surveillance.

And when a questionable situation or a conflict arises, the majority of people usually look up to the authorities - the courts, or the active law - to settle their issues. And in that rare case where the law doesn't specify a stance one way or another, we're getting all kinds of political activists demanding their government to settle the issue one way or another. Instead of fucking solving it themselves. This is true even for some uncanny and uncommon issues, so as a result, we're having a several-thousand-page-thick compilation of all the laws in the country.

Instead of just solving these issues according to the current state of affairs.

"Freedom-loving people", my ass.

Reputation of the source, not facts of the matter

At least the vast majority of commoners operates external sources and their reputation while trying to figure out the ā€œmost correct statementā€ or the ā€œbest approachā€.

Since times immemorial, the truth was largely defined by a handful of ā€œreputable figuresā€ ā€“ church elites, approved scholars, or even just leaders of various calibers ā€“ and most of the rest just listened to them and repeated their narrative. Youā€™d think that, with the advent of what we know as ā€œThe Illuminatiā€, and the progressive movements following them, this is all in the past, since we have the scientific method now and the progressive approach is pretty much mainstream. Sure thing, we have the scientific method. Doesnā€™t mean the commonfolk uses it.

ā€œHey, those scientists surely know things better than some ordinary Joe. Who are you to question their expertise?ā€

- Shit you commonly hear while trying to debate the point of a ā€œreputable sourceā€

The obsession of people with barely-tested, aggressively pushed, and essentially unknown injections known as ā€œCoVID-19 vaccinesā€ is one hell of an example of that kind of behavior. It doesnā€™t matter whether the narrative is truthy, falsy, or a mix of the two ā€“ after all, how would the commonfolk know that if they never, ever analyze it and think it through?

And to this end, if one wants to ā€œproveā€ something to the people, theyā€™re far more effective with that if they just gain the ā€œreputableā€ status ā€“ which more often than not comes with beings friends with those in power ā€“ than to try to explain the truth to the people.

The people's struggle for... dominance?

If one observes the political "debates" of adepts of various parties and social movements, one can see quite a peculiar phenomenon - particularly, the attempt to hide away the imperfections of one's preferred ideology, as well as manipulative tricks and demagogic passages. Which are more characteristic for those who want to seize the power, not oppose it!

Let me clarify that I'm talking about the ordinary people (or, at least, propagandists who do well to look like the ordinary folk). Socialist supporters of all kinds argue for all kinds of welfare, re-distribution of wealth, and state control over economy - while bringing about some potentially-possible flaws of a capitalist economy, they become either manipulative or distressed each time someone mentions the flaws of socialist experiments. (For example, try telling a socialist that letting the state seize all means of production is essentially the same as creating the dreaded capitalist monopoly while skipping all the anticipated stages of transformation of an ordinary wealthy merchant/enterpreneur into an oppressive monopolist. Or just tell them that egoism and personal gain is, so far, the only real engine of progress.) If you talk to the conservatives instead, they'll argue that order and discipline are necessary for a society to exist - until you tell them that the society is merely a tool to serve individuals' needs, and that their "order" and "discipline" are only good while they do not trample the interest of individuals, yes, those very same interests which create a demand for things order and discipline promises to provide.

Common tactics of dealing with those unpleasant facts include: Trying to shift the topic; Attacking the narrator/opponent, in an attempt to shut them up and make them switch into self-defence instead of exposing ideological weaknesses; Calling their opponent/the narrator "stupid" or claiming they're wrong because they're somehow associated with a "bad company"; Trying to somehow switch the public attention from the unpleasant facts... well, anything except addressing the narrator's claims, analyzing them, and - if they're wrong - disproving them.

It is no exaggeration to say that most of those political debates (both among the commonfolk and the public representatives) are mostly trying to out-manipulate the other groups. And to that end, all sorts of dirty tactics are being used. By commonfolk, just as by the public political figures. Instead of actually addressing actual issues, they try to parasite off those issues by latching onto an emergent issue and pushing a (biased, of course) "solution", attempting to increase their group's popularity. The end goal of those movements is not to solve the issue of abuse, but to triumph over other movements and to suppress them, after gaining power.

The slaves want not to be free...

And when we're talking about the oppressed political minority vs. entrenched & oppressive majority, more often than not those who were formerly oppressed, should they emerge victorious over the oppressive formerly-majority, they themselves becoe the oppressor they've hated so much. One of the most prominent historical examples was USSR under Lenin; in 1917, during the revolution, Lenin was an open critic of the State as a concept, and openly encouraged people to arm themselves - but just a mere year later, after emerging victorious in the struggle after the Russian Imperial authorities, he immediately started disarming civilians and building one of the most authoritarian and oppressive empires of the world.

Basically, most of the known successful uprisings originating from the oppressed (or believing to be oppressed) groups - from socialists/communists, to Islamic religious fanatics such as the Taliban and ISIS, to modern socio-political movements both radical/extremist and moderate - all of them, upon the sense of victory, become increasingly authoritarian, oppressive, and disregarding towards everyone else. Speaking about the modern movements, they don't even wait until they actually win. On one hand, there's the infamous slew of BLM/Antifa terrorists active through summer of 2020, as well as several CHAZ-style "occupation protests", who are known to act more like a barbarian horde than an actual social movement, destroying assets and attacking people without any underlying goal other that the need to satisfy their violent instincts; even if they did have a social position, it surely didn't reach most people as much as their barbarism did. On the other hand, the right wing movements - conservatives, traditionalists, fundamentalists and so on, they do not even wait until they at least regain the favor of the mainstream media before starting to advocate for establishing a strong fundamentalist state, forcing order and discipline on the people, using violence towards children for "education" purposes, banning pleasure sources they can't control (such as pornography, videogames, and recently sweets), and establishing Soviet-style witch-hunts and banning privacy under the guise of "fighting pedophilia".

They say that the slaves want not to be free, but to have their own slaves. And while the political movements of the past were at least patient enough to pretend they're just an oppressed minority until seizing power - or, if they were actually oppressed, soon there was an opportunist who've exploited their agenda in order to transform it from a benevolent liberation movement into an oppressive autocracy - the modern ones have seemingly lost their patience. Now they're already talking of extremely authoritarian policies while being "oppressed".

They don't even hide their true intentions today: to triumph over the society and to force their views on everyone else through violence, censorship, and manipulative tricks.

"But now we've got individual freedoms, equality before the law, personal rights..."

Yeah. Humanity now isn't openly authoritarian. Nearly every nation of the world says it respects individual liberties of their citizens. Even the authoritarian Asian nations claim so, and some (like that peculiar island nation with a snobby attitude) even respect their citizens' liberties roughly to the same degree Northern American nations do.

So they say. And then, most of them are actively hunting for both loopholes in laws, allowing them to enact restraints, or for an opportunity to trash a guarantee of liberty/personal independence and replace it with a tyrannical law. The first successful attempt at undermining civil liberties came with Marxist derivative ideas - the citizens, scared of scary monopolists slowly, gradually seizing power through slow wealth accumulation, as well as crony dealings and shadow manipulations, and eventually becoming the absolute monopolist owning nearly all means of production, have gladly accepted transferring all of the assets to the state which promised to take some responsibilities before the people. Yes, in order to save themselves from a monopoly, they've essentially created a monopoly. While skipping the "slow, gradual accumulation" stages. And so far, all of these state monopolies aka socialist regimes did act like the dreaded capitalist monopolists (which never came around) were expected to act.

From a tyrant's viewpoint, however, this was a perfect success - most of those socialist regimes turned out to last for decades. Enough for most power-hungry tyrants.

Aside from socialists, there are many, many ways the authoritarians are trying to undermine the established civil liberties provided equally to all the citizens. Speaking about the peculiar island nation, while it has mostly clean streets, beautiful cities, happy-looking people, colorful festivals, and a pleasant atmosphere in general, it has a few mostly insignificant for an average citizen laws, which enable their authorities to basically oppress, rob, and practically enslave their citizens should a need for that arise. Gun rights in that country are roughly about as strict as in more authoritarian countries such as Russia, China, or Cuba; there is roughly 1 armed citizen per 200 persons. And if that's not enough, self-defence using lethal force is outlawed there - even if you do have a gun, and a particularly dangerous criminal is about to rob your family treasures, rape your daughter, and crush your legs with a hammer just for fun, you'll be punished with jail time if you try to just shoot the motherfucker in the head. Or do any serious damage. Because, according to what their propagandists say, "a human's life is a treasure, and taking it away is by no means acceptable." Or something like that. (Notice how it puts a criminal's life above your life, since these laws don't prevent the criminals from harming you, there are various methods to stop you from calling the police which is there to protect you, and yep, criminals don't give a fuck about gun bans.)

Though lesser-known, the island nation's regime is far more dangerous than the Marxist trick - the primary reason for that being that the islanders are happy with their country's laws. "Give them bread and circuses, and they shall never revolt." The government allows them to run comparatively freely, own businesses, express themselves fairly freely, and there are plenty of various cheap amenities available - what does an average commoner need? And while there is no need to enact an oppressive regime, they don't. Only that the need may strike at any time. And with their citizens having neither the means nor the mentality necessary to defend themselves...

Many nations (such as the nation where the author of this rant was unlucky enough to be born in) just outright ignore their own constitutional provisions, and oppress their people without any second thought. They basically act on the "might is right" line of thought; they freely oppress their citizens, and when they complain, they just use more violence - a straightforward and brutal way to say "complaints are useless, so shut up and bear with it". They often have generous constitutions, on par with those of European or American countries, but they're useless if the government just ignores them, and the citizens can't and don't want to fix it.

The only nations which do have significant freedoms are those which have a strong-willed populace, ready to defend their interests. (Hail North America!) In these nations, the "just roll 'em with tanks" option doesn't work, and therefore, those who want to subvert and enslave their populace rely on trickery (not just the standard and now-obsolete "give up your guns because if you don't, we'll start school shootings and then blame you uhh, m-muh criminals"). And when technologies powerful enough to enact a real-life Orwellian nightmare appeared, the power-hungry manipulators of all countries in the world are no longer even trying to look like they actually respect your freedoms.

And of course, the most important role in violating civil liberties is played by the complaint, obedient masses - who are often eager to use power and violence to achieve their group's interests. How long would it take for American citizens to break all the surveillance cameras on the streets and torch Cloudflare's office?.. And how capable - or how willing - would the cops be to stop them, given that they do own effective weapons? Hell, even Chinese citizens could destroy their surveillance grid in no time - making the social credit system blind and helpless - and repairing it would've taken a lot more time, provided there would be people willing to do that. And then again, those scary armed soldiers and cops do not have their armor and weapons on them all day, every day.

In fact, if not for the citizens' active support, the powers-that-be would've never succeeded in anything oppressive. However, it's not even that it would take a few weeks of uncomfortable living to get rid of an oppressive regime ruling over them - not even the fact that getting rid of that regime takes a lot more than just sitting on the ass and whining about evil corporate overlords (or the immoral, Godless left wing commies) - it's just that, every regime benefits a certain fraction of people with certain goals.

Remember that Stalin didn't personally go door-to-door looking for "enemies of the people".