21A042 Villains & Hobgoblins by Jim Davies, 11/2/2021 

Government is totally superfluous; an institution of kleptocratic parasites whose contribution to human happiness and progress is strongly negative. It does nothing useful whatever that a simple system of voluntary exchange (a "market") would not do better, cheaper or both.

To sustain and prolong its miserable existence, therefore, it has to create in the public mind the illusion that out there, an enemy exists that poses an even greater threat, to control which a strong government is urgently needed. Sometimes these villains actually exist (in the form of rapacious foreign governments) but if not, hobgoblins are invented in their place.

A rare exception was the Roman Empire, in its first 400 years or so; instead of fear of a threat, its government played on greed. Let's go conquer, and enjoy the fruits of conquest. And they did; their armies captured the whole rim of the Mediterranean and sent home the rich rewards of victory, including large numbers of slaves to do the menial work.

Then they ran short of lands to conquer, within reach of supply lines; and so the Empire imploded.

The traditional villain has been a nearby country whose government threatens one's own (truly or falsely, it seldom matters) and so war must be waged upon it. That kept Europe, for example, busy wallowing in blood for most of its history. It brings us right up to the 20th Century; after Germany was formed out of its constituent principalities, its people were so industrious as to pose a commercial threat to all its neighbors. Something had to be done. So alliances were formed, trenches dug, manhood slaughtered and treaure wasted. Twice.

After The Bomb was invented and deployed in 1945, the scene changed a bit; for now, all-out war would most probably vaporize not just populations, but their government "leaders" as well; and that would never do, for it would defeat the object of the exercise (their continued enjoyment of power.) So warfare had to be contained - tricky, that - and the great deception has turned more to imaginary threats or hobgoblins.

The AIDS deception was the first, developed under Reagan in the 1980s; the tale was that a deadly disease had appeared which disabled the human immune system and was spread by sexual contact. False, in both respects, but a scary piece of fiction nonetheless and it sufficed to keep the populace fearful until the Century's end. Then came 9/11, with its mysterious and undefinable threat from "terrorists", notably zealots motivated by a religion hard for us to understand. That has proved a most useful trick (for government) because it's so malleable; a wide range of unconventional people can be called "terrorists" at will.

Concurrently - and more durably - has been foisted on us the fiction that the Earth is heating up, with dire consequences for the human race, and that we caused it by keeping comfortably warm and traveling more. That tale has ebbed and flowed, and its terms changed (from "Global Warming" to "Climate Change", because the latter can be used whether it warms or cools, and is harder to deny) but it's probably got another round in it before running clean out of steam.

As the AIDS tale ended the Covid Scam was designed and implemented in 2020 and is still frightening humans worldwide. It too will fizzle out after a decade or so, but will meanwhile create a vast amount of havoc and, alas, leave the world's governments ever more dominant.

That's unless we do something about it.

Government will never be persuaded to vanish, for that would be like asking a shark to eat veggies; it has to be caused to vanish, and since the use of violence would be to become another government in its place, that must be done without force. Tall order. Gandhi came very close with his ideal of passive or peaceful resistance - simply to disobey the rulers' commands - but it's not correct that he caused a British exit from India; that was going to happen anyway for separate reasons. In any case his objective was far too limited; he wanted only to replace white rulers with brown ones.

What, then, will cause government to vanish? - easy: deprive it of employees. That is, persuade everyone not to work for it; cause those now doing so to quit, and everyone else not to take their places. How? Universal education, to show all in society that government is a morally repugnant institution of parasitic thieves and bullies; that to work for it is like working for the Mafia. That's the theme of the QuitGov site, but the in-depth education needed is offered in The On Line Freedom Academy. If you haven't yet taken that free interactive course, why not begin at once?