"The naked individual against an all-powerful state is the dream of every tyrant and the nightmare of every freedom-loving citizen. That is why there is always the pressing need to have something that stands between the individual and the state."
With the astounding new power-grab being attempted by Dan Andrews in Victoria, making him and the health minister effectively dictator for life while trashing democracy and human rights, we need to once again learn from the past. Philosophers and political theorists from Aristotle on up have spoken about ways in which despotism can be resisted and kept in check.
The need for organisations and groups which offset the power of the ever-increasing state is a major part of this. The naked individual against an all-powerful state is the dream of every tyrant and the nightmare of every freedom-loving citizen. That is why there is always the pressing need to have something that stands between the individual and the state.
These include the family, neighbourhood, churches, labour groups, voluntary associations, local communities, and so on. These have been referred to as mediating structures or intermediary institutions. Political thinkers have long stressed the importance of these.
Alexis de Tocqueville for example spoke about “the spirit of association” which he found throughout North America as he travelled there, and as he wrote about in his two-volume Democracy in America (1835-1840). And Edmund Burke wrote briefly about the “little platoons” in his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790).
More recent writers have run with this theme. They include, to name but a few:
Robert Nisbet, The Quest for Community. OUP, 1953.
Peter L. Berger, To Empower People: The Role of Mediating Structures in Public Policy. AEI Press, 1977.
Michael Novak, ed., Democracy and Mediating Structures. AEI Press, 1980.
Charles Murray, In Pursuit of Happiness and Good Government. Simon and Schuster, 1988.
As mentioned, with Victoria looking to strip all citizens of their basic rights, and effectively bypassing parliament, the need to once again affirm the vital importance of these little platoons is crucial. All power-hungry despots want nothing but them and the naked individual. The masses are so much easier to control this way.
But Dictator Dan is not alone in all this. Consider the Great Reset mob who I have spoken about before. See here for example.
Folks like Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum have been happily using the Covid crisis to further push their nefarious agenda, and are also using ‘climate change’ as another ‘crisis’ to exploit and bring in their dystopian future. And it is all about increasing the power of the state while reducing the power of the individual.
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https://caldronpool.com/the-great-reset-is-real-and-it-is-taking-no-prisoners/