Gradualism In Coercion

     This obscenity has already received a lot of attention, but every reminder helps:

     “I was talking with my UK colleagues who are saying the UK is similar to where we are now, because each of our countries have that independent spirit,” [Dr. Anthony] Fauci said during a panel with other experts in Washington, DC.

     “I can understand that, but now is the time to do what you’re told,” he said, as first reported by CNBC.

     No, “Dr.” Fauci. Now is the time for the largest, loudest scream of Go Fuck Yourself! in the history of Western Civilization. You should be proud: it is you who have blown the bugle for this rebellion.

     And I’m here to tell you why.

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     “First they nudge, then they shove, then they shoot.” – Glenn Beck

     If you haven’t yet read my essays on gradualism, it’s high time to do so. For we are now seeing the manifestation of gradualism that I hadn’t yet addressed. The time for that has come.

     I’ve written about gradualism as a seduction tactic – the wild pigs of the Okefenokee swamp learned about that one – and about gradualism as a technique for successively reducing the freedoms of a subject populace (“salami slicing”). But there’s another, as yet discussed application of the gradualist technique that’s just as important: gradualism in enforcement.

     The original approach to the whole “social distancing” method prescribed by various governments was essentially advisory. We were told that it would be best to do thus-and-such, but there would be no legal penalties for doing otherwise. That was followed in short order by the use of commercial regulatory bodies to impose, through the threat of fines, mask wearing and social distancing measures upon commercial establishments. While there are fewer businesses than there are citizens, we all must do business with them at some time. Businesses long ago gave up the fiction of free enterprise for the pervasive, anti-Constitutional regulatory regime that now oversees their operations and decisions. Regulation, entirely divorced from an fiction of enabling legislation, became a tool of indirect control for all three hundred million of us.

     Now, as any Gentle Reader who pays attention to developments will already know, mayors, county executives, and governors are using the police power in an attempt to compel ordinary Americans to adhere to wholly unConstitutional decrees to wear masks, stay out of churches and stadia, and even to limit how many people we can have at a holiday celebration. It isn’t yet occurring nationwide...but remember the central Principle of Power-Seeking:

Politicians seek power because
The acquisition and retention of power
Is their highest priority.
Indeed, it’s often their only one.

     There are many ironies here, starting with the relative harmlessness of the Wuhan virus toward anyone who’s under seventy, or is unafflicted by some serious ailment, but let that pass for now. The political elite, in collusion with the mainstream media, has succeeded in terrifying the American public. We’ve been soaked – saturated! – with fear of this almost innocuous bug. Fear is the plateau upon which all coercion must be based:

• Fear of the nominal hazard;
• Fear of the enforcers;
• Fear of the uncompliant.

     Those fears have been stoked to a level that has persuaded many in executive positions that they can get away with the exercise of powers never granted to them. The rest follows naturally.

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     In engineering, we have a maxim called the “1-10-100 Rule.” It’s about the difficulty involved in fixing a flaw in a product:

• If caught during design, the difficulty may be only 1X.
• If it’s designed in and gets into implementation, the difficulty rises to 10X.
• If it’s implemented, must be caught in testing, and fixed thereafter, the difficulty rises to 100X.

     Similar rules apply to the repair of social, legal, and political flaws. Had we chosen to resist during the “nudge” or “you should do this” phase, no more would be required of us today. We failed to see the dangers, in part because the mainstream media were on the side of the political elite. Had we chosen to resist when businesses were put under the yoke – the “shove” phase – the degree of courage required would have been much greater, but we would still have been spared having to defy law enforcement. (Regulatory bureaucracies are not law enforcement.) But today, millions of Americans find themselves in the “shoot” phase, such that ignoring the politicians and living normally involves a significant chance of a police raid and incarceration.

     Plainly, rebelling at the right time – i.e., at the earliest phase of an incursion against freedom – is more important than many would imagine.

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     There is no Last Graf – not because I don’t know what the remedy is, but because you already do. But it is now the case that anyone who sees the logic here probably lives among many, many other Americans who don’t, who have been successfully made to fear the Wuhan virus, and who will fear you for daring not to “do as you’re told.” All while law enforcement readies the tools with which to put you under restraint for your attachment to freedom.

     Have a nice day.