Two Approaches to Escaping Tyranny
Ramesh Thakur – of whose recently published book, Our Enemy the Government: How Covid Enabled the Expansion and Abuse of State Power (The Brownstone Institute, 2023) I will shortly have a review – has also argued that woke ideology and its supine acceptance by Western peoples enabled the emergence of Covid Tyranny.
https://brownstone.org/articles/covid-in-the-age-of-woke/
In other words, woke enabled Covid totalitarianism, and Covid totalitarianism has become a test case of, and model for, the permanent subjugation of formerly free people in formerly liberal societies. See under proposed climate change lockdowns and restrictions on travel as one example coming down the pipeline. See also under digital currencies with implied social credit regimes attached, under further restrictions on free speech through dis- and mis-information legislation, and under digital ID legislation like the digital wallet initiative just announced by the European Union.
If any of this is worrying Ramesh, it isn’t obvious. He remains a happy warrior, a self-declared optimist. Against the odds, I would think. He finished his recent dinner speech at The Brownstone Institute conference as follows:
I have traversed a lot of ground on a sobering and dispiriting journey. We meet also a time of increasingly dark storm clouds of war gathering on the global horizon. At heart I am a congenital optimist. For any of you depressed and worried that the world will end tonight, let me remind you: It’s already tomorrow in Australia.
He didn’t really explain the grounds for his optimism. And there are many who are far less optimistic. Indeed, they have decided that the two-headed war is already lost, the war against Ramesh’s twin enemies of wokery and what might be termed “Covid Plus” totalitarianism. We might think of these pessimists, or more accurately, the resigned-to-the-coming-tyranny class, as belonging to one of the two dissident groups in the quadrant of conformity, as per (for example) Paul Graham’s schema:
One of the most revealing ways to classify people is by the degree and aggressiveness of their conformism. Imagine a Cartesian coordinate system whose horizontal axis runs from conventional-minded on the left to independent-minded on the right, and whose vertical axis runs from passive at the bottom to aggressive at the top. The resulting four quadrants define four types of people. Starting in the upper left and going counter-clockwise: aggressively conventional-minded, passively conventional-minded, passively independent-minded, and aggressively independent-minded.
http://www.paulgraham.com/conformism.html
There may be a correlation between the pessimists and the passively independent-minded, and similarly between the optimists and the aggressively independently-minded
The former are both pessimistic (at best) and determined to escape exposure to present, emerging and possible future tyranny. They have seen the writing on the wall, and are already on the move. The latter, who (obviously) find the post-Covid State repugnant, are more likely to stay and fight back. Dissidents with an urge to push back and take back. Interestingly, like Ramesh, Paul Graham is also an optimist of sorts:
But I'm hopeful long term. The independent-minded are good at protecting themselves. If existing institutions are compromised, they'll create new ones. That may require some imagination. But imagination is, after all, their specialty.
So, how might an independent-minded person convinced of the coming nightmare, or perhaps even recognising it to have arrived already, take corrective action? Do you head for the hills or stay engaged and fight? And if you stay and fight – both the tyranny itself and the insouciance of those (many) who simply accept tyranny as their lot – what do you do to undertake either fight?
First, you have to identify and understand the enemy. Then you have to determine whether you want to impact the debates or simply avoid the tyranny. How do you best do the latter? You will need to identify “pain points” and areas of potential exposure to the State. And perform work arounds.
Well, it turns out that a whole lot of people are already taking corrective action. And imagination is, indeed, their specialty. Some people resisted during Covid. They included the Convoy to Canberra movement, non-mask wearers, protesters in the streets, those who organised protests, those who refused to perform contact-trace rituals, who signed in using false names or addresses, those who ignored other Covid State instructions, those who refused the jab, and those who legally represented the above list. Covid heroes, all. Think of the examples of Monica Smit and Clive Palmer (who took the then Western Australian Premier to court, and, infamously, lost). They, decidedly, were in the fourth quadrant. More benign dissidents simply mocked and critiqued the process, often through independent journalism. Think Tott News and John Stapleton of A Sense of Place magazine. Also think the micro freedom political parties and those who walked out of the major parties.
The strategies of the passive resistance class 2.0 might be said to include the following:
· The Benedict option;
· Parallel societies;
· The US redoubters, heading for places like northern Idaho;
· Going local (aka subsidiarity);
· Wendell Berry southern style agrarianism;
· Assemblies of the World (aka parallel governance, styled on the United Kingdom community assemblies). T
Some of these actions involve physical remoteness, while others involve seeking out alternate models of social engagement. There is a bit of literature on these movements. It started with Rod Dreher in the modern context, with his book The Benedict Option. This was all pre-Covid and was about post-Christianity and the survival and flourishing of Christians in a hostile, secular, Nietzschean environment. But it involved physical withdrawal, Amish-like. For St Benedict, the father of monasticism, it was a cave. For the Southern agrarian (American) poet and philosopher, Wendell Berry, it was about pre-industrial society values and virtues. Small scale farming, family, community. Certainly not Bill Gates, BlackRock style “farming”.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/wendell-berry
For the libertarian philosopher, Robert Nozick, Harvard’s anti-John Rawls, writing in the 1970s, it was about the creation of mini-utopias within the overall framework of a benign, minimal state. Not much like today’s far-more-than-minimal state. Some now are heading for Hungary, which is rapidly emerging as a deliberately and strategically created post-secular Christian State.
https://compactmag.com/article/what-conservatives-see-in-hungary
It was also extant in the USA pre-Covid, but the Covid State has accelerated it. It has been termed the American Redoubt. Increasing numbers of Americans rightly conclude that the Western way of life is on a precipice. Northern Idaho is redoubt central.
North Idaho has long been home to those seeking to escape the looming collapse of America. This is a region doused in frontier spirit; a land where people openly carry guns, and where bounty hunters still operate, tracking down fugitives hoping to bolt into Canada. It is here, on rugged fringes stalked by mountain lions, bears and wolves, that the American Redoubt was born.
The Redoubt is both a prophecy and a movement: a pre-emptive response to the anarchy on the horizon. Economic meltdown, nuclear war, the lawlessness that will follow the total defunding of the police — all, its followers warn, could bring an end to American civilisation. And so they have started to prepare. First, by relocating to easily defensible ranches in the wilderness; and second, by stocking up on food, firearms and fuel. While their country teeters on the brink of bedlam, they are building a fortress.
If the Redoubt has a Messiah, it is James Wesley, Rawles. (The comma is an affectation.) A former US Army intelligence officer, Rawles has spent decades preaching about America’s imminent implosion to thousands of Christian conservatives, and the importance of them retreating to the mountains. They first flocked to him in 1998, after his book Patriots, both a survivalist manifesto and a novel about the country’s descent into disorder, became a surprise bestseller. The Daily Beast called it “the most dangerous novel in America”; others claimed it “could one day mean the difference between life and death”. Such hyperbole only widened his appeal.
https://unherd.com/2023/11/inside-the-american-redoubt/
Rawles calls these people “religious separatists”. Perhaps we should be adding “Covid separatists” to the mix of the deserters. And they are not fleeing a virus. At any rate, not a medical virus. More a political one.
What the early adopters have made of contact tracing, digital ID, covid lockdowns, forced vaccinations, bans on travel, climate emergencies, digital currencies and de-platforming, one can only guess. And they are dead right about America being on the cusp of lawlessness. Just look at the drug culture, the out-of-control, legal and illegal immigration, racial violence, rampant homelessness and associated scatological challenges in San Francisco and New York City. Internationally, their (literally) docile president hasn’t seen a potential nuclear war he didn’t want to have. And then there are the inherent risks posed by the globalist “controligarchy”, as a new book by Seamus Bruner points out.
Nationally acclaimed investigative journalist Seamus Bruner reveals how billionaires like Bill Gates, George Soros, Jeff Bezos, and Mark Zuckerberg plan to control every aspect of daily life-from food and energy to reproduction and your personal data.
Imagine a world in which you own nothing and rent everything. Most of the protein in your diet comes from bugs, while lab-grown meats are a rare, expensive delicacy. You are not allowed to have more than one child, and your financial and medical data are instantly transferred to a centralized government database via a subdermal microchip.
Controligarchs warns that this will be our existence if the supranational elites of the World Economic Forum get their way. Bruner, the Director of Research at the Government Accountability Institute led by famed investigator Peter Schweizer, presents a mountain of original research and reveals shocking new evidence that shows their sinister agenda will soon become reality.
It promises to be fascinating and disturbing reading.
So, opting out geographically is one means of escape from the tyranny that is coming. A second, proposed by the Australian businessman and writer Peter Fenwick at a recent GK Chesterton conference, is subsidiarity. This is an old idea of catholic social teaching, which suggests that political decision-making should occur at the lowest (most democratic) level that is still efficient.
James Delingpole argued something similar in a recent interview with Cory Bernardi. Go local, he suggested.
A third opting-out approach is that of “parallel societies”. Brendan Moloney explains what he calls “the twelve parallels” for those seeking a different form of living based on freedom, with a template and an explanation of how his model differs from existing modes of being controlled by the State, corporations and their ideologies:
The Parallel Movement is dedicated to all people searching and striving to make the world a better place. It was set up not so much as a ‘new idea’ – parallel societies have existed for centuries – instead it is a reaction to all the craziness and toxicity happening around the world.
https://www.parallelmovement.org/copy-of-welcome-to-the-parallel-movement
Moloney was a frequent contributor to the Discernable podcast in Victoria during the Andrews nightmare.
https://discernable.io/
An indispensable resource for the troubled freedom-seeker. An example of the parallel approach is the emergence of community assemblies, in the UK and beyond. The founder, John Gilbert, says:
The idea for the Community Assembly of the British Isles initially came from an enlightenment which led to a meeting of three people held in April 2020 who came together to discuss how we could create an alternative to the existing failing system.
Since when we have expanded and refined our approach resulting in a network of Community Assemblies working independently across the British Isles. We are working to offer regional and local support through our growing worldwide network.
https://www.ca-britishisles.com/community-assemblies
All of these approaches constitute the “opt-out team”. Opt-out and start something else. In contrast, the push-back team is more inclined to stay and fight, and to engage with the ghastly polity we all now inhabit. It is exemplified by the Great Resist movement in the United Kingdom, recently de-platformed by the Holiday Inn Hotel in Liverpool and led by Liz Phillips.
They are NOT heading for the hills. Instead, they are building a grass roots movement, a counter-culture in plain sight. No guns, no ammo, no remote ranching. They simply provide good information and fellowship to their supporters.
Both forms of response to the great reset, of course, can be termed “resistance”. Perhaps too much can be made of the distinction between opting out and pushing back.
Rod Dreher’s follow-up book to The Benedict Option, Live Not By Lies: A Manual for Christian Dissidents (2020), talks about “resistance cells” (aka families). It is a collection of case studies in dissidence from Eastern Europe. But he certainly isn’t proposing either armed insurrection or retreat. (Dreher is yet another now camped in Orban’s Kingdom). The oft-imprisoned Ghandi comes to mind as a seasoned resistance strategist, as Ramesh points out in his book.
Dreher also draws out principles from his counter-communist Eastern European case studies. Most of them and others upon which we might draw are common sense. Stay under the radar. The post-Covid, woke State will try to neutralise you, so don’t engage with them. Never, ever seek State funding. That is a direct route to capitulation and being dragged back to the system. Pretend you are behind the Iron Curtain and that our on government is the Soviet Union or the Stasi or the Chinese Communist Party. (In the case of Victoria, it is, indeed, the last). Use cash. Never sign up for anything to do with digital ID. Shop very, very local. Use Signal and not WhatsApp. Telegram, not Facebook. Get off the surveillance treadmill. Use F2F communications. Have a dumb phone for the children. Home school. Teach your children cultural memory. Don’t make the Faustian bargain with Big Tech – convenience for you, surveillance (and endless profit) for them. Avoid normal universities and seek out liberal arts learning institutions. Have underground circles with reading groups, seminars, book reviews and speakers. Zones of privacy, as one of Dreher’s interviewees calls them. Buy from, and work for, small companies.
There is a bit to do. And plenty of sources of information. Like this, the non-compliance toolkit, on legal rights during tyrannical episodes like Covid mandates.
The US presidential candidate Michael Rectenwald, a libertarian, in his book The Great Reset, speaks about “the grand refusal” and has a nine-point plan for stopping the great reset. He echoes many of the points made herein.
The late, great Cardinal Thomas George famously concluded that his generation of prelates would die in their beds, and the following generation would be dying in prison. Such is the speed of the current revolution, a revolution touching every area of life and enforcing radical ideologies on citizens as we speak. It could actually have gone either way with Cardinal George’s great mate, another Cardinal named George. Dreher, Liz Phillips, Rawles of North Idaho, Moloney of Melbourne, Fenwick of Chesterton, Delingpole, all have their answers. It behooves us to pay attention to the questions they all are posing.
Perhaps the best approach and a compromise is to stand outside the current system regularly throwing big rocks at it, and incurring regular defeats for the ruling class, while quietly schooling fellow citizens of the passive dissidence quadrant, in the hope of creating a much larger quadrant of active dissidence, rather than simply retreating, tempting though this approach is. However, if the already wafer-thin paper separating the civilised West from utter anarchy gets any thinner, I, too, might just be packing my bags, fuel, ammo and food.
Paul Collits
22 November 2023
This is the minimum we must try to do;
“Get off the surveillance treadmill.”
How dumbed down is society that they see this monstrous threat looming right over them yet remain so blissfully ignorant. It’s not as if the globalists pushing their ideas haven’t widely published their intentions. I’m a proud refusenik.