Being Ungovernable

Stay Brave, Stay Free

As the powers that be continue increase their grips on power over the peoples of the world, people as a whole need to be, if not ungovernable, at least less governable. I would maintain that the degree of freedom in a country is not only set by the rules emplaced by the powers that be, but also by the governability of the people; let's call it the G factor. Let's look at some of what makes people governable, with an eye towards doing what we can to loosen the chains. Forgive me if this seems like a few obvious platitudes to many of you.

In this discussion we are thinking about the controls of an “ ordinary” government, and the peoples response. This is not to be confused with the situation of a government moving into totalitarianism and how it responds to resistance. I talked about that in an earlier essay titled The Securing of Power, and the link is below:

No one can be truly ungovernable, but there's no reason not to make it harder for the control freaks. So much of the control of the powerful comes from the peoples innate tendency to go along, since who wants the drama? I contend that it would improve our odds of remaining a free people if we all developed ungovernable tendencies, so let's explore what that would entail.

A person with a freedom oriented mindset will be on the lookout for policies that undermine liberty. Many things purported to improve life, and perhaps really do, also decrease freedom, so look for how any program or policy can increase control over the people.

Religious belief helps in many ways, giving the people strength and courage, but also helping those in power to retain a conscience. Believing that this world is all there is is debilitating, as well as inaccurate in my opinion. Courage is extremely important in remaining free, which might explain attempts to undermine religion and the family.

One of Saul Alinsky's rules is that power is not only the power you have, but what your enemy thinks you have. Government would like you to think that they have more power than they do. The East German government had people believing that they had files on everyone in the country, but they only had the capability of doing so for the more prominent. Don't let them bamboozle you.

It is one of life’s ironies that in order to have freedom one must have self discipline. Self discipline is needed in order to learn skills, become educated and for any sort of necessary action. Teaching it is a parent's job anyway; clean your room, do your homework, eat your vegetables, we all know the story. An adult raised to have self discipline will be able to acquire skills, keep up an exercise program and so forth.

I don't think that simply becoming stubborn is enough, and maybe not that useful. The mindset might be that one doesn't mind putting up with the drama and discomfort required. When they yell at you all the time in Basic Training you get used to it, and develop a resistance to being bullied by yellers, so you can learn not to let yourself be controlled by intimidation tactics. It probably comes down to a combination of mindset and skills, as well as not allowing ones mind to be pushed into that of a governable one. If a person desires freedom he will be attracted to things that enhance it, such as a child being attracted to his first bicycle. Being attracted therefore to things that will enhance freedom is probably a critical part of becoming ungovernable. I've never heard of a child who doesn't want his first bicycle, so I think being attracted to things that enhance ones freedom is a universal trait. In an earlier essay, Thoughts on Power versus Freedom, I talked about the freedom versus power dynamic in individuals, and I maintained that a populous leaning toward the freedom over power side would be likely to remain more free than one leaning the other way.

Certainly, one cannot hope to remain truly ungovernable, a slaver driver with a whip while you are in chains is pretty hard to overcome. I think though that if a population as a whole has a distinctly ungovernable mindset they will remain more free than otherwise. It will not only influence who they will vote for, but they will work to keep voting honest (needed now more than ever).

A major tool of control is fear, ideally fear of what may happen if ones crosses the authorities. The more fear the better, so how do they generate that fear? If our present tax structure with the IRS and all of that were replaced with a system where citizens were not directly involved, a marvelous generator of fear would be gone. I am not proposing any particular system, just pointing out how much fear can be induced by forcing people to interact with a faceless bureaucracy. The point is that the leadership and their reactions is forced to always be in the back of ones mind. More and more jobs require licensing, forcing people to fear for their employment, and now we have all of the bureaucrats in the agencies who can fine us over rules we did not know exist. A mindset that refuses to be intimidated or become fearful in the face of things like this diminishes their effect, and a mindset that recognizes their danger to freedom, and desires freedom, will be hostile to their existence.

It's important to do what we can to promote a pro-freedom mindset. Simply being aware that things such as licensing and taxes may be used to suppress freedom helps create a pro-freedom mindset, as does the realization that, as Ben Franklin said, those who give up essential freedoms for security will have neither. Acting so as to lessen fear will not make you safer.

It's important to speak the truth. We have the current phenomenon of political correctness. This is fear inducing and causes people to speak untruths to protect themselves. We need to resist that and speak the things that are true.

The English cultural critic Theodore Dalrymple (Anthony Malcolm Daniels, Dalrymple being a pen name) had this to say about the current infection of political correctness:

“Political correctness is communist propaganda writ small. In my study of communist societies, I came to the conclusion that the purpose of communist propaganda was not to persuade or convince, not to inform, but to humiliate; and therefore, the less it corresponded to reality the better. When people are forced to remain silent when they are being told the most obvious lies, or even worse when they are forced to repeat the lies themselves, they lose once and for all their sense of probity. To assent to obvious lies is in some small way to become evil oneself. One's standing to resist anything is thus eroded, and even destroyed. A society of emasculated liars is easy to control. I think if you examine political correctness, it has the same effect and is intended to.”
― Theodore Dalrymple

For more on Dalrymples quote, my essay Dalrymples's Quote on Political Correctness:

The more skills one has the less dependent one is on others and the generally more free, and belonging to a group of friends with skills works the same way. What types of skills are important? The ones practiced in the prepper and survivalist communities are obvious, and probably people are in those communities because they are so attracted. I think we can take it farther than that, though. As a personal example, a few years ago I developed an interest in knots and have managed to learn a number of them. In my opinion some should be taught in school, perhaps one a month in the fourth and fifth grades would put about 18 knots in their lifelong memories. Of course the teachers would have to learn them, and it might cut into social engineering time, so that's all a plus. My point is that all children so educated would be slightly more free as a result since they be able to accomplish more things with that skill. Schools have often cut back on practical skills since my youth, decreasing availability of shop and industrial arts, probably on the theory that all should go to college.

In his studies on mass governmental killings, R. J. Rummel of the University of Hawaii determined that freedom and democracy are essential for their prevention, so supporting freedom helps to protect against mass governmental killings.

Skills are important as they are what provide options to going along with an agenda. A person who is a skilled soldier with personal weapons will simply look at his options differently than an unarmed and untrained one. Similarly, a CPA will see still other options that the rest of us might not.

An armed populace formed into local militias, armed with their own weapons kept at home, will be considerably less governable than the opposite. (One way to undermine the Second Amendment is to deny the people military training.) In the absence of an organized militia an armed populace is a marvelous deterrence to those who would rule. It's effect is usually not immediately apparent since it acts like a general deterrent to tyranny. My Substack essay Some Second Amendment Thoughts is linked below.

Education is similarly important, as well as being up to date on current events.

During the recent fire that destroyed Lahaina Hawaii many of those who survived were willing to disobey police orders.

The United States was settled by people who left their homes and crossed the oceans to settle here. I think that there is a genetic component wherein those who took that leap have descendants of a more freedom oriented and less fearful nature than those who didn't. Europeans seem to see the USA as a European country located on the North American continent, but that doesn't seem to be quite true. During the founding of the U.S.A. regions of the north east were settled in the old world manner, with the aristocracy owning the land and with a top down structure. There was a sifting process of people since those who were happy in that setup could stay, but it was possible to leave and go where there were no old school type leaders. One wonders if that is why the northeast is a liberal bastion, since modern liberalism seems to be statism; give us your freedom and we will give you security. (How to explain California? California was very free and conservative until recently.)

During the Covid lock-downs vast amounts of wealth were shifted from the small business universe into the large corporation universe. Presently we are facing a resurgence of covid lock-downs and masking. The powerful really enjoyed the power they derived from the first one, and they didn't mind the economic shift away from small businesses to themselves, either. How we all respond to this new assault may determine the future of our children.

Stay brave, stay free