Are you a brute?

Today on the radio show, Will Grigg (http://freedominourtime.blogspot.com/) talked about punitive populists. Lew Rockwell talks about Red State fascists. Both of these labels offended me when I first ran across them. The Red States are the good states. The people of America are the salt of the earth, it is only their wicked government which ruins things. Maybe not.

Michael Rozeff (http://lewrockwell.com/rozeff/rozeff412.html) gives me at least one insight per article, usually more.

It is my belief that evils that we are seeing do not come about unless the public not only tolerates them but wants them. Economists would say that there is a demand for them. Behind these demands is a demand for Law and Order, and behind that demand is the even more basic DEMAND FOR FORCE.

People aren't content with law and order (the protection of property). They want to use aggressive force to bend people to their will, be they neighbors or foreigners. The lust to dominate rules the hearts of middle America. This is the hook that the state uses to trick us into our own slavery -- the lust to make others our slaves.

I am saying politely that the American public is brutish at heart, prone to resort to force, not freedom-loving at heart and not justice-loving at heart. I am not one who blames government for being the sole cause of the evils that we are seeing. I think social-political causation is more complex. It is a two-way street running between public and government; it is a dance with two partners. First one takes the lead, then the other. There is an interaction.

The worship of force is the official religion of the United States. Elected officials are the eye-candy which tricks us into thinking force works to our benefit and we're not really being evil by using it against those we disapprove of (even if our disapproval is justified).

The public largely believes in might makes right. The public has adopted and become used to the idea that all ills can be overcome by government laws and force. A basic misapprehension is at work in this belief. The people leading the government think that FORCE works to alleviate various ills and problems both domestically and overseas. The public shares this belief.

And later in the article Rozeff talks about how the state exacerbates the moral failings of the population.

When the American public worships government’s use of power, it worships the brutishness in itself. The two go hand in hand. To the degree that a people is uncivilized, it will produce an uncivilized society and an uncivilized government. But government, consisting of men and women elected to use force, is not a mere tool of the public. Causation works in both directions. The government actively promotes the use of force, educates and propagandizes on its behalf and extends its use in the lives of the society and overseas. The people and the government people they elect are at one and the same time independent and dependent. What they share is a demand for the use of force, as opposed to a demand for freedom.

I recommend the entire article. I can't do it justice.