The Effects of the Myth on the Masters
The Divine Right of Politicians
In this country, at the top of the gang called “government” are the congressmen, presidents and “judges.” (In other countries the rulers are known by other names, such as “kings,” “emperors,” or “members of parliament”). And, though they are at the top of the authoritarian organization, they are not perceived to be “authority” itself (the way kings used to be). They are still imagined to be acting on behalf of something other than themselves – some abstract entity called “government”.
As a result of the belief in “authority”, they are imagined to have rights to do things in the name of “government” that none of them have the right to do as individuals. The legitimacy of their actions is measured not by what they do, but by how they do it.
In most people’s eyes, the actions that politicians take in their “official capacity”, and the commands they issue by “way” of the accepted political rituals, are judged by a very different standard than are their actions as private individuals.
If a congressman breaks into his neighbor’s home and takes $1,000, he is seen as a criminal. If, on the other hand, together with his fellow politicians, he imposes a “tax” demanding the same $1,000 from the same neighbor, it is seen as legitimate.
What would have been armed robbery would then be viewed by almost everyone as legitimate “taxation”. Not only would the congressman not be viewed as a crook, but any “tax cheats” who resisted his extortionist demands would be considered the “criminals”.
But the belief in “authority” not only changes how “lawmakers” are viewed by the masses; it also changes how “lawmakers” view themselves. It should be obvious that if a person becomes convinced that he has the moral right to rule over others, that belief will have a significant effect upon his behavior.
If he believes that he has the right to demand a portion of everyone’s income, under threat of punishment (provided he does it through accepted “legal” procedures), he will almost certainly do so. If he is convinced that he has the right to coercively control the decisions of his neighbors – that it is moral and legitimate for him to do so – he almost certainly will. And, at least at first, he may even do so with the best of intentions.
A simple mental exercise gives a glimpse into how and why politicians act the way they do. Think about what you would do if you were made king of the world. If you were in charge, how would you improve things? Consider the question carefully before reading on.
When asked what they would do if they were in charge, almost no one answers, “I would just leave people alone”. Instead, most people start imagining the ways in which they could use the ability to control people as a tool for good, for the betterment of mankind.
If one starts with the assumption that such control can be legitimate and righteous, the possibilities are nearly endless. One could make a healthier country by forcing people to eat more nutritious foods and exercise regularly. One could help the poor by forcing the rich to give them money. One could make people safer by forcing them to pay for a strong system of defense. One could make things more equitable, and society more compassionate, by forcing people to behave the way they should.
However, while many positive benefits for society can be imagined, if only “government” power were used for good, the potential for tyranny and oppression – in fact the inevitability of tyranny and oppression – is just as easy to imagine.
Once someone believes himself to have the right to control others, there is little likelihood that he will choose not to use that power. And, whatever noble intentions he may have had to begin with, what he will actually end up doing is using violence, and the threat of violence, to impose his will upon others. Even seemingly benevolent causes like “giving to the poor” first require “government” to forcibly take wealth from another.
Once someone – however virtuous and well-intentioned he may be – has accepted the premise that “legal” aggression is legitimate, and once he has been given the reins of power, and with them the supposed right to rule, the chances of that person choosing not to forcibly control his neighbors is almost none.
The level of coercion and violence he inflicts upon others may vary, but he will become a tyrant, to one degree or another, because once someone truly believes that he has the right to rule (even if only in a “limited” manner), he will not view others, or treat others, as equals. He will view them, and treat them, as subjects.
And that is if the person started with good intentions. Many of those who seek “high office” do it for purely selfish reasons from the start, because they desire wealth and power for themselves, and delight in dominating other people.
Of course, acquiring a position of “authority” is, for such people, a means of achieving an enormous amount of power that they would not otherwise have. The examples, throughout the world and throughout history, of megalomaniacs using the facade of “authority” to commit heinous atrocities are so common and well-known that they hardly require mentioning at all.
Putting evil people into positions of “authority” (e.g., Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Hitler, Mussolini, Pol Pot) has resulted in the robbery, assault, harassment, terrorization, torture and outright murder of a nearly incomprehensible number of human beings. It is so obvious that it is almost silly to even say it: giving power to bad people poses a danger to humanity.
But giving power to good people – people who, at least initially, intend to use their power for good – can be just as dangerous, because for one to believe that he has the right to rule necessarily requires him to believe that he is exempt from basic human morality.
When someone imagines himself to be a legitimate “lawmaker”, he will try to use the force of “law” to control his neighbors, and will feel no guilt while doing so.
Ironically, though “lawmakers” are at the top of the authoritarian hierarchy, even they do not accept personal responsibility for what “government” does. Even they speak as if “the law” is something other than the commands they issue.
For example, it is very unlikely that any politician would feel justified hiring armed thugs to invade his neighbor’s home, and drag his neighbor away and put him in a cage, for the supposed sin of smoking marijuana. Yet many politicians have advocated exactly that, via anti-drug “legislation”.
They seem to feel no shame or guilt regarding the fact that their “legislation” has resulted in millions of non-violent people being forcibly taken from their friends and families and made to live in cages for years on end – sometimes for the rest of their lives.
When they speak of the acts of violence which they are directly responsible for – and “narcotics laws” are only one example – “legislators” use terms such as “the law of the land”, as if they themselves are mere spectators and “the land” or “the country” or “the people” were the ones who made such violence occur.
Indeed, the politicians’ level of psychological detachment from what they have personally and directly caused via their “laws” borders on insanity. They command armies of “tax collectors” to forcibly confiscate the wealth earned by hundreds of millions of people.
They enact one intrusive “law” after another, using threats of violence to control every aspect of the lives of millions of people they have never met and know nothing about.
And after they have been directly responsible for initiating violence, on a regular basis, against nearly everyone living within hundreds or thousands of miles of them, they are genuinely shocked and offended if one of their victims threatens to use violence against them.
They consider it despicable for a mere peasant to even threaten to do what they, the politicians, do to millions of people every day.
At the same time, they do not even seem to notice the millions of people who are imprisoned, whose property is stolen, whose financial lives are ruined, whose freedom and dignity are assaulted, who are harassed, attacked, and sometimes murdered by “government” thugs, as a direct result of the very “laws” those politicians created.
When young men and women are dying by the thousands, in the latest war game waged by politicians, the politicians speak of it as a “sacrifice for freedom”, when it is nothing of the sort. The politicians even use scenes of soldiers in caskets – a consequence directly attributable to what those politicians did – as photo-ops, to show the public how concerned and compassionate they are.
The very people who sent the young folk off to kill or to die, then speak about what happened as if they themselves were mere observers, saying things like “they died for their country” and “there are casualties in every war”, as if the war just happened by itself.
And, of course, the thousands upon thousands of people on “the other side” – the subjects of some other “authority,” the citizens of some other “country” – who are killed in the wars waged by the politicians, are barely even mentioned. They are an occasional statistic reported on the evening news. And never do the politicians accept the smallest shred of responsibility for the widespread, large-scale, prolonged pain and suffering, mental and physical, which their war-mongering has inflicted upon thousands or millions of human beings.
Again, the depth of their denial and complete evasion of personal responsibility can be seen in the fact that, if one of the victims of the politicians’ war games decides to attack the source, by directly targeting the ones who gave the orders to attack, all of the politicians, even hose claiming to be against the war, and all of the talking heads on television express shock and outrage that anyone would do something so despicable.
This is because, in the eyes of “lawmakers” – due to the amazing power of the “authority” myth to completely warp and distort their perception of reality – when they do things which result in the deaths of thousands of innocents, that is “the unfortunate cost of war”, but when one of their victims tries to strike back at the source, it is “terrorism”.
It is bad enough for those who are just obeying orders to deny personal responsibility for their actions (which is addressed below), but for those actually giving the orders, and making up the orders, to deny any responsibility for what their orders directly caused to happen is sheer lunacy. Yet that is exactly what “lawmakers” always do, on every level.
Whether it is the federal government, or some local township or borough council, every time a “legislature” imposes a “tax” on something, or imposes some new “legal” restriction, the politicians are using the threat of violence to control people.
But, due to their undying faith in the myth of “authority”, they cannot see that that is what they are doing, and they never take personal responsibility for having threatened and extorted their neighbors.
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