EGALITARIANISM V. AUTHORITARIANISM

Understanding the Authoritarian Mind

The founders of the United States of America were very wise and honorable. At the same time they were humble and recognized their own fallibility. The Constitution of the United States is based on very simple, logical, reasoning that many, throughout the history of humanity, have either failed to recognize or, due to misguided self-interest and fear, refused to allow others to be fully cognizant of. It is this.

All Humans are Fallible.

All Titles (positions of power) are assumed by Humans.

Therefore all who possess power are fallible.

Egalitarianism

With this they abolished all Titles of Nobility. This was done in Article I of the Constitution. This came before the adoption of the Bill of Rights. It is the basic premise of our egalitarian system of government. It’s purpose and intent was to secure equal rights to all. Egalitarianism is equal social, equal political, and equal economic rights. “Rights” does not mean that all will be equal. It only means that all will be treated equally by their government and, it is hoped, their fellow humans.

With this they founded our Democracy. In a true Democracy all Individuals are sovereign. Many fear such an idea believing it would lead to anarchy. To make the individual sovereign requires trust in other individuals to act responsibly with their sovereign powers. Thus; to establish order that would provide equal protection of all they made the Law Sovereign. The Law, as written, is the sovereign power by which all, regardless of title, must recognize as a limit on their discretion. Recognizing this can only be done through a hierarchy of laws they made the Constitution the Supreme Law of the Land and all are bound by it. The Law secures Rights. All Individuals have rights.

Authoritarianism

This history of governments reveals all were, more or less, authoritarian. Authoritarians do not place their trust in the written word. They place their trust in Titles and the power that Titles possess. The law, as written, was not the sovereign power but, rather, a Title possessed sovereign power. The human who managed to acquire for themselves, by birth or more brutal means, a “Title” had absolute power over others who fell under the jurisdiction of their title.

The person with the best title had absolute power. They were the Supreme Law of the Land. They were the only sovereigns. They then conferred titles on others that gave them absolute power over those who were subject to the authority of their title. It is a paternalistic, pyramidal, hierarchy. The law, as written, is solely for the purpose of securing the rights of the title. Titles have rights. No Individual has Rights.

The Law of Nature

The limit of Authoritarianism

The law of nature confers on each individual the power of discretion. The individual has more discretionary power than they usually recognize and more than they ever choose to exercise. All have the discretion to be a suicide bomber. Few exercise this discretion. Most voluntarily limit their discretion to the confines of the written law out of respect for the equal rights of their fellow humans.

But many people are inclined toward acceptance, or acquiescence, to an authoritarian social order. They do not trust the written word of the law to protect them. They trust only the power of titles to protect them. The problem with this is that those with titles are vying to secure a more powerful title or more power within the title they already possess. They readily sacrifice their honor, and with it the rest of humanity, to do so. Ultimately the sovereign in each nation leads the people under their authority into war against the people of other nations in the hope that, one day, they will be only one absolute sovereign over the entire world. Then peace will reign supreme with all but the absolute sovereign enslaved under the Title of the person who is Emperor of the World. The Emperor will be perfect and benevolent.

It is a fallacy for 2 reasons. First; as has been witnessed throughout history, no human can ever possess the knowledge and wisdom required by such a position. No one human is, or can be, an all perfect, omnipotent, loving God. Secondly; Others will always try to take the Emperor’s position via whatever means available. The Emperor will never be free or safe if a benevolent grant of any freedom is allowed. The Emperor will know they must suppress the rights of all to maintain their position. Therefore slavery of all will be the social order imposed. Those who will sacrifice their own honor and the freedom of their fellow humans will maintain it. The desire to possess a title will increase, as it will be the only means of securing some power that will provide their self with some security against the omnipotent power of the Emperor and others that serve the Emperor the same way they do.

There will be no safety or security for anyone because Titles are ephemeral. Only the law provides security for everyone because the law of nature is fixed and eternal. The only other alternative is to make the Law sovereign, and more powerful, than any human.

The arrogance of power

The authoritarian social order persists for two reasons. There are those that acquiesce to it because of ignorance and there are those that have no honor. Those without honor, or moral compunction, recognized its fallacies. But they have no concern for humanity or their posterity. They will use the system to get all they can for themselves in their lifetime. They are atheists.

Then there are those who are ignorant. They fear those with titles but submit to them believing these atheists have honor, are benevolent, and by submitting to the abuse of those with titles they will be rewarded in the afterlife. They believe in God but refuse to do God’s work in their own lifetime. They believe in the law but will live their lives in a comfortable state of denial of the violation of the law, the self-evident rights, of their fellow humans by those who possess titles.

The atheist will submit to the power of titles while, at the same time, gravitate towards securing a more powerful title for themselves. Because they do not trust other humans, to limit the use of their discretionary power, they do not trust the law as it is written. Power, alone, is the law. So they will use abuse their power unless restrained from doing so by one possessing a more powerful title.

They pretend to believe that titles are not fallible. Therefore; when things go wrong and the ignorant become disturbed it is always because of limits placed on the power of their title. They have, and promote, a very egocentric view of the world. The deceive the world with the assertion the world would be perfect if only they had more power, more discretion, with which to exercise their power over others.

They develop a symbiotic relationship with other atheists with titles. It is an unwritten agreement to the effect that if you will not restrain my discretionary power I will not place restraints on yours. It becomes a mutual dis-respect human rights secured under the protection of the law. But a big problem develops from this.

Those who voluntarily restrain themselves to acting within the law, as written, invariable become subjected to the abuse of those with the power of titles who have freed themselves, and others of their ilk, from any restraint from the written law. Recognizing the law is meaningless, and only power is supreme, they also begin to step outside any boundaries the law may place on them. They, too, begin to abuse their discretionary power. But; like those that abused them, they usually limit their abuse to those who are innocent but in a position of weakness.

This then becomes a never-ending cycle of violence. The weak and innocent who have been abused then look to those with a title for more protection. The authoritarian atheists responds with a request for more discretion with which to exercise more power to abuse the human rights of the individual without a title. With this, they claim, we will be able to protect you. This only leads to more abuse of power, followed by more attacks on the weak and innocent, followed by more calls for protection, with a response for more discretionary power, which leads to more abuse of discretion, etc.

There will always be those that refuse to accept this. They will not strike back by using their discretionary power to abuse the weak and innocent. They will use their discretionary power to attack those that abused the power of their title. Those that possess titles can never be safe from them because these people will, if necessary, use all means available under the law of nature to strike back at the authoritarians. They will, eventually, secure the self-evident right of each individual to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness under the protection of the law, as written, as the only sovereign they will submit to. They are the egalitarians that understand that titles are nothing but a grant of limited authority. If those entrusted with power of a title will not limit the use of their own discretion the egalitarians will find a way to place a limit on them. This is as it must be because, under the law of nature, only Individuals have Rights. They believe in God, care about humanity, and will sacrifice their own interests for their posterity. They refuse to be blinded by ignorance and will not allow themselves to live their life in a state of denial of reality. They are willing to do God’s work during their lifetime.

Discretionary Power

Nature has given every individual a huge amount of discretionary power. Any one of us, on any given day, can choose to exercise this power. Anyone can choose to become a suicide bomber or kill many humans by other means. No grant of power to government can ever completely eliminate this discretionary power of the individual. To attempt to do so would require enslaving all people so tightly the world would become paralyzed and grind to a halt. We have already witnessed this in Soviet Union.

Some ignorantly believe that people can only be restrained from abusing their discretionary power by force and threat of force. A more accurate observation of humans reveals that the vast majority of individuals voluntarily limit their use of their discretionary power out of love and respect for their fellow humans.

I witnessed a recent experiment on TV where a large amount of money was dropped from an Armored Car onto the street in front of someone. There was no one else around but a hidden camera watching to see what they would do. Nine out of 10 turned it in to authorities. All could have easily kept the money and no deterrent force would have ever been imposed on them.