In “Social Norms and Liberty” I list 24 moral precepts that would prevail a polity that could be fairly described as a regime of liberty: a regime of voluntary and mutually beneficial coexistence based on mutual trust, respect, and forbearance.
The list isn’t exhaustive, and some of its elements are far more complex than others, but it will do as a starting point for this exercise, which is to explain conceptually how a polity like the United States goes from liberty (or something far closer to it than is now the case) to tyranny (which impends).
If the general observance of 24 precepts creates the conditions for liberty, what happens when one of them is discarded? There are 23 left, and 23 is almost 24, so something like liberty may still obtain.
But in the real world of slippery slopes (which is the world that I have inhabited for more than 80 years), the discarding of one precept becomes the starting point for the discarding of more. In fact, the precept of self-reliance and — when necessary — reliance on the organs of civil society, to the exclusion of government, had been badly eroded by the New Deal before I was born. The further diminution of self-reliance and reliance on civil society has become almost complete because of the slippery slope that led from Social Security to Medicare, Medicaid, welfare as an entitlement, food stamps, etc., etc. etc.
How many of the 24 precepts remain generally observed? None of them, by my count. How many others that I didn’t list have also fallen by the wayside? Most of them, probably, based on the present state of American morals and mores.
What caused the precepts to fall by the wayside? A combination of these things did it:
Asymmetrical ideological warfare, which favors the opponents of traditional morality and the proponents of big government (statists), and which both parties use to characterize their opponents, ironically, as “nazis” and “fascists” — which is the height of psychological progjection. (See the list of related posts at the bottom of this one.)
The onslaught of permissiveness — as promoted and apprroved by “educators” and pseudo-psychologists — given official status by the government-ordered abandonment of traditional moral codes (e.g., no-fault divorce; filthy speech as free speech; the legalization of abortion, sodomy, and same-sex “marriage”)
Growing reliance on government — whether instigated by government’s “beneficiaries” by “activists”, or by politicians (whether power-hungry or truly compassionate), social engineers (economists, sociologists, etc.), or combinations of these — which fostered the abandonment of some moral codes in the first place and became (ineffective) substitutes for them in the second place (e.g., the practical elimination of the death penalty and its replacement by “life” sentences that aren’t life sentences, accompanied by greater leniency across the board in prosecutions and sentences).
Because the codes of traditional morality are interlocking and mutually reinforcing, they have (or had) a combined power that is (or was) greater than a mere summing of them. For the sake of illustration, the combined power of the 24 precepts could be thought of as the square of 24, which is 576. The removal of one precept therefore reduced the combined power of the remaining precepts to 529, which is less than 23/24. (It is about 22/24). The removal of half (12) of the precepts reduced the combined power the the remaining precepts to 144, which is only one-fourth the power of the original number. (Don’t take them numbers literally; I’m just illustrating the cumulative effect of abandoning precepts.)
So, the abandonment of a civilizing precept not only encourages the abandonment of others (the slippery slope), but the cumulative effect of the resulting lacunae is out-sized. To return to the mathematical analogy, if one precept of 24 were left standing, it would represent 1/576 of the power of the original 24; that is, it would have no practical effect on the behavior of the citizens of the polity.
Somewhere along the way, government — which plays a central role in the abandonment of civilizing precepts — intervenes to avert utter chaos. But government intervention merely exacerbates the unraveling of social comity because it results in greater reliance on government. To compensate for the loss of civilizing norms, which enable a people to coexist peacefully and cooperatively (with minimal government intervention), government must institute draconian rules, ensure (through surveillance) that they are obeyed, and exact punishments if they are not obeyed. But when the governors are not respectful of traditional morality, the rules are ones that further erode it (e.g., requiring all citizens to “respect” behavior that undermines civilizing norms). The enforcement of anti-social rules requires more government intervention, and on and on until “Big Brother” is watching everyone and brooks no deviation from its edicts.
The same governors — in the same spirit of pseudo-omniscient omnipotence — are emboldened to impose one-size-fits all rules about economic relationships (e.g., the substitution of “renewables” for reliable and efficient sources of energy). The result, as with social relationships, is economic degradation to match social degradation.
Government, as is always the case under tyranny, casts a glowing light on the degradation and presents it as progress. Which is like putting lipstick on a pig, but — to change the metaphor — none will dare say with impunity that dictator has no clothes.
Related:
Asymmetrical (Ideological) Warfare (plus an addendum)
Conservatism, Libertarianism, and the “Authoritarian Personality”
The Psychologist Who Played God
Fascism with a “Friendly” Face
Fascism and the Future of America
Don’t Use the “S” Word When the “F” Word Will Do (the “F” word is “fascist”)