In: Life.
Also: politics, government, Fear, Anarchy.

Authority

Authority is a temporary given power (to a person, or a group of people). It is collectively agreed that this power is necessary.

An aspiring ruler can persuade his potential subjects that its in their best interest that it had power, including power over them.
The ruler must convince its subjects that their own subjugation is moral and legitimate.

Most injustice is not the result of individual malice or hatred, but is the result of regular people obeying the commands of some perceived authority.
To justify its existence and distract the people, the authority can create problems and solutions to the problems. It does that by making people afraid of different threats or dangers (real, or imaginary) and claiming that only a powerful authority can protect them. These tactics are successfully used for centuries by authoritarian regimes all over the world.

In the past kings and queens convinced their subjects that God Himself granted them the right to rule everybody else.
Nowadays, the rulers must use more complicated tactics like debate and voting.

Most people are compassionate and have good intentions. As a result, most people deeply struggle to understand that other people, including the ‘leaders’, CAN have malicious or perverse intentions.

Authority is an illusion based on FEAR and VIOLENCE and build on the belief that some people are superior Masters and have the right to issue rules and orders, and other are Slaves who have no choice but to obey the Masters.

When people believe in authority, they also agree with slavery.

Quotes

No one rules if no one obeys.

Individuals have international duties which transcend the national obligations of obedience imposed by the individual State. Therefore individual citizens have the duty to violate domestic laws to prevent crimes against peace and humanity from occurring
– Nuremberg War Crime Tribunal, 1945-1950

All men having power ought to be mistrusted.
– James Madison

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.
– Thomas Jefferson

Those in possession of absolute power can not only prophesy and make their prophecies come true, but they can also lie and make their lies come true.
– Eric Hoffer

It is the first responsibility of every citizen to question authority.
– Benjamin Franklin

Unthinking respect for authority is the greatest enemy of truth.
– Albert Einstein

The people who, in order to enjoy the liberty which suites them, resort to the representative system, must exercise an active and constant surveillance over their representatives, and reserve for themselves… the right to discard them if they betray their trust, and to revoke the powers which them might have abused.
– Benjamin Constant

Power always has to be kept in check; power exercised in secret, especially under the cloak of national security, is doubly dangerous.
– William Proxmire

All tyrannies rule through fraud and force, but once the fraud is exposed, they must rely exclusively on force.
– George Orwell

If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy.
– James Madison

The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any.
– Alice Walker

Sutler: I want this country to realize that we stand on the edge of oblivion. I want every man, woman and child to understand how close we are to chaos. I want everyone to remember why they need us!
– V for Vendetta, 2005

You have a problem with authority, Mr. Anderson. You believe you are special, that somehow the rules do not apply to you. Obviously, you are mistaken.
– Mr. Rhineheart, The Matrix, 1999

Since mankind’s dawn, a handful of oppressors have accepted the responsibility over our lives that we should have accepted for ourselves. By doing so, they took our power.
By doing nothing, we gave it away. We’ve seen where their way leads, through camps and wars, towards the slaughterhouse.
– Alan Moore, V for Vendetta

Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
– Lord Acton

They must find it difficult… those who have taken authority as truth, rather than truth as authority.
– Gerald Massey

Never do anything against conscience even if the state demands it.
– Albert Einstein

Some people represent authority without ever possessing any of their own.
– Banksy, Wall and Piece

Power always thinks it has a great soul and vast views beyond the comprehension of the weak; and that it is doing God’s service when it is violating all His laws.
– John Adams

All sects are different, because they come from men; morality is everywhere the same, because it comes from God.
– Voltaire

The sociologist Richard Sennett wrote in an appraisal of Laing’s work:
“Society makes insanity, (Laing) argued; sanity is a condition in which people are willing to obey social rules, even if the commands are inhumane and irrational. The rebels are labeled insane.”

If we were perverse gods or immoral despoilers, we could not invent a better method to make a group of slaves work peacefully than to make them believe, by means of collective hypnosis, that they are happy and important. We would then have perfect robots who would work untiringly, producing what we desire. In addition, these robots would make and maintain themselves.
– John Baines, The Stellar Man

A tyrant must put on the appearance of uncommon devotion to religion. Subjects are less apprehensive of illegal treatment from a ruler whom they consider god-fearing and pious. On the other hand, they do less easily move against him, believing that he has the gods on his side.
– Aristotle

Whenever a new object of fear arises in society, there is only one response and one defense in our current way of thinking: increased control. The fact that the human being can tolerate only a certain amount of control is completely overlooked. Coercive control leads to fear and fear leads to more coercive control. Just like that, society falls victim to a vicious circle that inevitably leads to totalitarianism, which means to extreme government control, eventually resulting in the radical destruction of both the psychological and physical integrity of human beings.
– Mattias Desmet, The psychology of totalitarism

No man is good enough to govern another man without his consent.
– Abraham Lincoln

In the eyes of empire builders men are not men, but instruments.
– Napoleon Bonaparte: French Emperor (1769-1821)

The State is nothing more nor less than a bandit gang writ large.
– Ludwig Von Mises

Because we fear the responsibility for our actions, we have allowed ourselves to develop the mentality of slaves. Contrary to the stirring sentiments of the Declaration of Independence, we now pledge “our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor” not to one another for our mutual protection, but to the state, whose actions continue to exploit, despoil, and destroy us.
– Butler D. Shaffer

Civil disobedience is not our problem. Our problem is civil obedience. Our problem is that numbers of people all over the world have obeyed the dictates of the leaders of their government and have gone to war, and millions have been killed because of this obedience. Our problem is that people are obedient all over the world in the face of poverty and starvation and stupidity, and war, and cruelty. Our problem is that people are obedient while the jails are full of petty thieves, and all the while the grand thieves are running and robbing the country. That’s our problem.
— Howard Zinn, from ‘Failure to Quit’

Elections are won by men and women chiefly because most people vote against somebody rather than for somebody.
– Franklin P. Adams, US journalist (1881-1960)

God gave the savior to the German people. We have faith, deep and unshakeable faith, that he was sent to us by God to save Germany.
– Hermann Goering, speaking of Hitler

Between the government which does evil and the people who accept it - there is a certain shameful solidarity.
– Victor Hugo

Articles

No one rules if no one obeys. Active non-violence as a protest tactic.

http://whatamagazine.com/en/no-one-rules-if-no-one-obeys

Dependency on the state is the core of the takeover plot of humanity

https://zerohedge.com/geopolitical/dependency-state-core-takeover-plot-humanity
https://lewrockwell.com/2023/08/gary-d-barnett/dependency-on-the-state-is-the-core-of-the-takeover-plot-of-humanity
By Gary D. Barnett, posted August 18 2023

Most of you have entered the final stage of your voluntary acceptance of mass slavery, and that slavery is fully dependent on the concept of fear, compliance to a false ‘authority,’ and total dependence on the very tyrant called government, whose plan is to control the world by controlling the common, ignorant, and apathetic collective crowd called ‘the people.’
The final foundation of all restriction, control of financial and monetary transactions, and control of movement, will hinge on the farcical fraud called man-made ‘Climate-change’.

One obvious example of this fear campaign, is the purposely heightened threat of so-called weather anomalies, especially what are conspicuous (intentionally set) fires burning at ridiculously high temperatures, destroying particular properties, towns, cities, and valuable mineral-laden land holdings. These unnatural fire outbreaks began in earnest in early spring, and have continued incessantly since that time. What began in Canada, has now overtaken the Hawaiian island of Maui, among many other areas around the world, and the devastation is incredible. Only psychopaths could perpetrate such evil as this, but the coverup and blame on bogus ‘climate change,’ has been accepted by most of course, and promulgated by the ruling class, and every State-owned or controlled mainstream media outlet. The attack on all truthtellers claiming these horrendous fires to be intentionally set, was instant, without any legitimate evidence to the contrary to back their plotted refutations, and in fact, this universal response was certainly coordinated.

As to extreme fear-mongering, weather ‘services’ nationwide, have intentionally changed all reporting in order to strike extreme fear in the collective herd called the ‘citizenry’.
All of these events are meant to make the average ‘citizen’ dependent on the State. The more dependency, the easier to control.

It’s not an endlessly expanding list of rights - the ‘right’ to health care, the ‘right’ to food and housing. That’s not freedom, that’s dependency.
Those aren’t rights, those are the rations of slavery - hay and a barn for human cattle.
– P.J. O’Rourke

An illustrated guide to Post-Orwellian censorship

Modern authoritarian regimes don’t attempt total, absolute control. Their censorship is more selective and calibrated - and thus more resilient
Censorship is the power to make 2 + 2 equal 5. Or 3. Or whatever people in power say it is.
fear of punishment works on most bosses of news media outlets and internet platforms. If they slip up and allow the wrong content to reach the public, they may not be sent off to do hard labor in a detention camp, but they could be demoted and their day docked - a big setback in a highly competitive and unequal society where most people are desperate to get ahead.
Opinion leaders like journalists and artists are also subject to fear-inducing threats.
Friction is about making it harder and less convenient to access unapproved material. An army of human censors as well as automated programs trawl the internet for material that crosses the red lines, following directives from the party.
Flooding plays to the government’s strengths. The communist party of China can’t always match the wit of a clever cartoonist, but it can overwhelm him with sheer numbers. The Chinese authorities are able to create and post around 1.2 million social media comments a day, thanks to an army of human trolls amplified by human-impersonating robots or bots.
The spectacle of overt repression serves as a warning to others. Equally powerful, though, are economic carrots and sticks that have been used to discipline the media.
“In the past, even when we disagreed with our editors, they valued us as cartoonists and columnists. They knew people bought the newspaper for our voices. But, with the emergence of digital media, newspapers started losing sales revenues, so they aimed at getting government contracts, rather than readers”
The big new factor is the mob. Erdogan has a large base of followers who can be counted on to go after anyone who’s named as an enemy. Real supporters are augmented by paid troll armies and bots, which swarm critics and intimidate them.
https://thereader.mitpress.mit.edu/an-illustrated-guide-to-post-orwellian-censorship

Things “you’re not supposed to know”

https://wakingtimes.com/10-things-youre-not-supposed-know

Questioning Authority: Education & Science - more misplaced trust

Published March 1st, 2022
https://odysee.com/@dawnofpeace:5/education_and_science_more_misplaced_trust

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