Acquiescing to Fascism

A YouTube commenter who goes by the name “ExposedTyranny” made this remark earlier today:

Fascists do not impose fascism; there’s not enough of them. Fascism is imposed by the population acquiescing to fascism, and if that stops, it’s over.

The comment was prompted by the following video of a statement by Dan Andrews, the Premier of the Australian state of Victoria, in which he announced a new rule that forbids pub patrons from removing their masks to drink their beer — when they’re outdoors:

Mr. Andrews also announced that most ordinary outdoor activities are now also forbidden (see this Sky News report for details). And, as I understand it, all this in being done into response to a negligible incidence of cases of the Wuhan Coronavirus. I don’t know how many iterations of the PCR test they use in Australia, but their number of “cases” is minuscule.

When discussed in these terms, the issue is Mr. Andrews’ judgment, or that of the health officials who advise him. That is, if the number of cases were greater, or his diktats less draconian, it might be possible to accept his rules as reasonable.

That’s not the real issue, however. The real issue is that the elected premier of an Australian state has arrogated unto himself the authority to make these decisions. And he is only able to do so because the vast majority of the population has acquiesced to his dictatorship.

Victoria has a population of roughly 6.4 million people. What would happen to Mr. Andrews’ Corona regime if, say, 20% of those people — more than a million of them — simply refused to comply? What if they went about their business normally, engaging in their routine activities, without masking or distancing or any of the other absurd fetishes of the Coronamadness?

And what if a mere 5% of the population — half a million people — were to march angrily to Parliament House in Melbourne and bellow their dissatisfaction outside the windows of their elected representatives? Or what if the same crowd were to gather outside the entrance to the premier’s private residence and shake their fists at him while rattling the wrought-iron gate?

Under those circumstances Mr. Andrews might well decide that the threat of the Chinese virus had receded, and suspend all his totalitarian rules.

But that’s not going to happen. Two years ago I would have thought it impossible that such a doughty breed could ever submit meekly to dictatorship, but that’s what seems to be happening in Australia.

Here in rural Central Virginia there was considerable passive disobedience to the ukases of Governor Ralph “Coonman” Northam during his declared state of emergency. A lot of people — probably not a majority, but a lot — simply ignored the rules and carried on as usual. For whatever reason, they weren’t afraid of the dreaded WuFlu, and they did not accept that the governor had the authority to manage the fine details of their private lives.

I don’t know what would have happened if the State Police and the sheriffs’ departments had actually tried to enforce Coonman’s edicts and arrest disobedient citizens. Maybe the vast majority would have acquiesced meekly, and we would have been in the same boat as the Australians. It will be interesting to see what happens this fall when Lockdown Two arrives.

As long as most people accept the idea that the governor, or the premier, or the president, or the prime minister can tell them what to do, then tyranny will flourish. If you consider it normal and right and proper that a political leader can simply tell you what to do, and you obey his orders, then fascism will inevitably arrive.

I don’t know what portion of the population has to reject such assertions for tyranny to be impossible, but I’m pretty sure it’s well under half. A polity becomes ungovernable if a significant percentage of the citizenry does not consider the authority of the state to be legitimate. This is what the late Mike Vanderboegh called “losing the mandate of Heaven”.

Liberty is that condition wherein the affairs of men are unimpeded by the tyrannical dictates of the State.

Freedom is a state of mind which simply refuses to be dictated to by the State. Freedom is saying, “I will not comply.”

Your liberty is removed when government goons haul you off at gunpoint and ship you to the gulag, but not your freedom. Freedom lies behind your eyes and between your ears until you draw your last breath.

I WILL NOT COMPLY.

Hat tips: Vlad Tepes for the video and MissPiggy for the comment.

21 thoughts on “Acquiescing to Fascism

  1. I believe a large part of it is that likely most go along with the ukases because they are more afraid of being the only one to oppose something publicly, in full display of their fellows. If people knew they weren’t alone in their beliefs then it would be much easier to stand up to the Faucists and put them on the defensive.

    The brilliance of the Gilet Jaunes was using the yellow vest that every vehicle is required to be equipped with, as a sign of membership in the movement. This emboldened others to don their vests too since there is strength in numbers. Each locale needs to find its own equivalent to the Yellow Vest and use it to embolden public opposition. Ideally it should be something visible and conspicuous, or audible such as a created app that plays a synchronized theme when those with the app are in close proximity such as a supermarket or in a park. Lots of phones simultaneously playing the same theme would be a signal that everyone can remove masks regardless of rules because there are others there who will back them up.

    • This is actually a brilliant idea!

      It could even tell people how many others are in proximity, BEFORE they “out” themselves. Which, admittedly, can be embarrassing if you’re expecting a crowd of 50 and only 3 show up.

      • I am not gifted enough to design such an app. Ideally, it would be some officially sanctioned app hijacked for such purposes like a contact tracing app. Don’t know which ones exist or how to repurpose them. If an app designer were to create such an app and market as a “friend finder” then it might be able to escape banning from the app store long enough to be downloaded in large enough numbers to be the basis for flash mob protests.

        I recommend “God Bless the U.S.A.” (also known as “Proud to Be an American”) as the theme song used though. It would be a worthless treasonous piece of manure that would still bleat about face diapers or try to lock up or fine patriots singing along to the lyrics.

  2. Andrews is plainly stupid. Besides this is easily sensed by looking at him.
    As a MD (79 yo) I’m tired of seeing so many stupids being commanded by other stupids.
    “Never underestimate the power of human stupidity” wrote Robert Heinlein.
    I’m waiting for a Global War.

    • “I’m waiting for a Global War.”

      Actually, IMO, we’re looking at it – Lies vs truth.Tyranny vs freedom. Chaos vs disorder. – this is it.

      Yes to the rest of what you wrote.

    • “Andrews is plainly stupid”

      Being smart has nothing to do with it. The Masters don’t choose their mouthpieces for their intelligence, other than a low form of political cunning. Obedience is all that is important.

      “And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
      ― Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn , The Gulag Archipelago 1918–1956

      The other side (call it what you will: Deep State, Uniparty, ComIntern, whatever) has been at this game a long time, they have simply globalized it . They know that as long as they give the guy next door an out by denunciation, repudiation, or just pulling up the covers and pretending not to hear what’s going on, aka “minding his own business”, as long as they can keep resistance (criminality to their mind) confined to the individual or small group, while demonstrating their monopoly of violence, and capacity/willingness to escalate/expand it infinitely, they will remain in control. Tiananmen Square 1989, possibly 2,000 dead, 10,000 arrested. There will be no “Rules of Engagement”. They are not strangers, nor have a great aversion, to blood filling the gutters.

      The idea has been floated by the President that nukes are not off the table. For those that view that as hyperbole a thought expressed aloud has completed two-thirds of the mental/moral journey required for action. Heinlein wrote fiction: Stalin and Mao wrote history. It’s just a matter of scaling the threat. In the mean time these will keep things nice and tidy.

      https://www.godreports.com/2020/06/flying-ginsu-ninja-bomb-kills-terrorist-leaders/

  3. In the State of NSW, fines have been increased for ” infractions ” to around $5,000 per person- that is a strong incentive to comply. Our politicians and their apparatchiks talk tough but essentially they are blancmange who due to their innate weakness seek power for cover. Most Australians lack the fortitude for dissent, but there are many of us who see the thin edge of the wedge in all of this.

  4. “such a doughty breed”? Several decades ago I spent a couple of years living and working with Aussies. My experience with them has led me to believe that, although they present themselves and have a self-image of strong, independent people, the majority are in fact, when push comes to shove from authorities, sheep. Without exception they knucked under to commands from above that would have led the average red-state American to resist and resign if necessary. Oh, they would grumble among themselves, but in the end, they would submit. This is not to say that there weren’t exceptions, but they were just that: exceptions.

    • True and the resourcefulness is fading because they spend all their time on social media instead of working on cars or other practical things in their sheds. Also brainwashing in schools is terrible. The teachers are leftists Marxists. the teaching is done with software apps like ABC Reading Eggs and the teachers are just there to indoctrinate as many cannot add up numbers, spell or use grammar. They cannot function with out a device, which also does their thinking. I am Australian.

    • The “doughty breed” that most people think of when they think of Australia is a minority. Thanks to mass immigration, more than half of the population has a recent migrant background. So, instead of the tough ANZAC types, we have the multi-cultural, west hating types from illiberal cultures.

  5. Excellent analysis, Baron.

    I am getting a bit disheartened here in Newfoundland, and by my fellow citizens’ sheep-like behaviour, as much as anything.

    Since the beginning of all this, we’ve been one of the least hard hit political jurisdictions in all of North America : laughably low “case” numbers, and negligible number of deaths, since the outset … very similar to the Australian state of Victoria’s miniscule numbers.

    And yet all the ‘politically correct’ “public health” measures were imposed, and obeyed, by the Newfoundland public, with virtually NO overt ‘enforcement’ by the ‘authorities.’

    Early last week our province-wide ‘mask mandate’ was lifted (very belatedly).

    Last Friday on the suppertime TV news, on our primary local provincial TV network, the “Question of the Week,” to be answered over the weekend, was “With the mask mandate lifted, will you continue to wear the mask voluntarily?

    This evening the TV station gave the result of their poll :
    79 % will continue to wear the mask voluntarily !

    The brainwashing and fear-mongering has been very successful here …

    • This was the insight of Etienne de la Boetie: All rule are in som way based on consent, and all “The People” have to do – if they are unhappy with the rulers – is to withdraw that consent. Without general consent the rulers will be absolutely powerless.

      • But we no longer have ‘informed’ consent, we have manufactured consent.

        And if the people get it wrong, and vote incorrectly, why then we will simply make them vote again, until they get it right. As the EU did with the referenda on ratification of the EU constitution.

        Bertolt Brecht had it right in the early 1950s : if the people lose the confidence of the government, then the government will simply ‘elect a new people.’

        That pretty much describes modern ‘immigration policy’ : a population replacement program.

  6. The only thing that makes me feel better about that atrocities that are happening in the People’s Republic of the New York Gulag is when I read these articles about Australia and NZ.

    In NY City under Kaiser Wilhelm DelAssholio, the Commies have skipped the muzzle mask phase entirely and are now in full fascist mode requiring the Shot for most social activities. I have enclosed an article detailing when papers must be shown to the compliance goons.

    I live about 50 miles away in the slightly rural suburbs and so far we are not experiencing the vax mandates except for health care workers and others that outgoing governor Killer Cuomo stuck us with on his way out the door.

    Judging from what little I’ve heard about the Demonic harridan who will be replacing him, it seems that even the murderous, senecidal maniac Cuomo may be looked upon more fondly in the future.

    Our best hope in NY is the greed, laziness and incompetence of the bureaucrats and political hacks who run this once great state. They are so busy stealing all those billions bestowed upon them by their DC partners in crime that maybe they will leave us little people alone.

    In any event- the pressure is growing on those of us who either cannot or will not get the holy “vaccine”. I can deal with the face diapers again if needed to go buy groceries and supplies but the fake vax is another story entirely.

    I have medical and ethical reasons for not wanting it and I fear that a time will come when the goons will come, hold me down and inject me against my will.

    I have purchased several cans of wasp spray just in case. Much better range than those little mace canisters and more effective.

    https://nypost.com/2021/08/16/nyc-indoor-vaccine-mandate-starts-tuesday-heres-what-to-know/

  7. All the women and unionists in Victoria are Dan Andrews acolytes serving in his temple “Victoria”. I go to work each day and they all vote for him, think he is doing the right thing. I was in the staffroom yesterday and they were talking about it and one said she likes Brett Sutton the Chief medical officer and each time he talks the sound of his voice makes her feel so much better. They don’t think or listen to what is said, they just like the sound of his voice. He could be ordering their deaths but he sounds nice. They are complete morons. I don’t know how much longer I can live here. I think Australia will do an “Afghanistan” after Taiwan. Hard to say how long we have. For a few years I have understood what the Jews felt in the 1930’s. Obviously some of them thought they had more time than they did and missed the chance to leave. How do you work out how much time you have?

    • I know exactly how you feel. Thank God things isn’t that bad here in Norway, but I have finally concluded that people are like sheep. Now I understand why a vulgar moron like Hitler could come to power in Germany. Maybe it’s a terrible thing to say, but I don’t like my own people anymore. Now I have realized that most of them would gladly see me off to torture and death if I, an unvaccinated and “unpure”, posed even a theoretical threath to them. If you scare people enough, they will go along with anything.

  8. To be precise, the Premier of Victoria was announcing his government’s intention to remove a perceived loophole in the legal restrictions under which pubs are allowed to open during Lockdown, which were intended to permit only the purchase of takeaway meals, and to prevent thereby the widespread flouting of State law by publicans who have continued to serve alcohol as if the sale of beverages could also be included as part of a takeaway meal, and who were compounding that infringement by not discouraging their patrons from ‘hanging around’ outside the premises – as Mr Andrews puts it – to drink in the street.

    From Andrews’ point of view, reinforcing the current requirement on everyone in the State of Victoria to wear a mask while in any public space, whether indoors or outdoors, is of course the quickest means for him to crack down on this Lockdown revolt.

    Having said this, the entire scenario is the perfect example of the pettifogging micro-management of human behaviour so beloved of insignificant government apparatchiks in all societies, to whom Covid has now given such boundless opportunities to meddle in the wretched lives of their captive populations. The whole mad overreaction to what is now known to be a generally survivable illness is of course insufferable.

    Among the very worst symptoms of Covid, it appears, is an incurable raving lunacy, which is afflicting greater numbers by the day. A witch-hunt of totalitarian ruthlessness is being conducted in the name of Public Health. This positively mediaeval hysteria will be the cause of misery for millions long after the threat of the Plague has passed.

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