“Americans are so enamored of equality, they would rather be equal in slavery than unequal in freedom.” — Alexis de Tocqueville

WE ARE FAST APPROACHING THE POINT WHERE we may be forced to make the choice described by de Tocqueville: Capitulate to the ever-increasing demands of “progressives,” thus resigning ourselves to tyranny under the guise of benevolence, or stand up for the inherent freedom of the nation as originally envisioned.

If we side with freedom, true benevolence — not charity by force — would be one result. This would not preclude working together, in an honest fashion, toward mutually agreed upon adjustments to the system. Nor are we talking about ending appropriate levels of aid to those in need. The questions are, what is reasonable, what are true needs, and what are acceptable limitations? To date, answers to those questions have not been forthcoming.

What is alarming is how quickly our nation has succumbed to being ruled by executive fiat and a governing philosophy dependent upon subterfuge. It continues to surprise me how too many people miss what is obvious to so many. Perhaps it should not.

Obama adviser Jonathon Gruber, talking about the passage of Obamacare, put it thusly: “Call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever.” His later apologies notwithstanding, Gruber’s words are an insight into the contempt of liberal elitists for the average American.

I for one have more faith in the American voter — after all, look at what happened in the recent election.

As a teenager I was fascinated by Sherlock Holmes and his knack for drawing exactitudes from trivialities. His was a simple application of common sense through deductive reasoning, a process seemingly forgotten in today’s world. Utilization of “Holmesian” observations might lead to the conclusion that ever-increasing government control requires a subversion of the Constitution.

If one chooses to be polite in describing the progressive ideology, perhaps the most complimentary word would be “idealism.” Yet before striving to attain their impossible utopia, one should be able to answer this: What “ideal” world can exist if built through force or subterfuge, while also ignoring the realities of human nature?

The lofty goals of progressives are often contradictory: an equality of outcome as opposed to equality of opportunity; a minimization of economic disparity while ignoring individual contribution (“You didn’t build that”); suppression of individual rights (“It takes a village”) in favor of preferential treatment of select groups. Such goals cannot be achieved easily, nor taken without a fight, as history attests.

Leaving aside the above conundrums, I would like the reader to ponder how a society can achieve this collectivist, nay, statist nirvana. I’d posit there are three primary methods: Force, Fear, and Elections.

Revolutionary Force — Insurrection of the downtrodden against oppression has, with very few exceptions, always resulted in devastating retribution against the opposition. The aftermath of such “revolutions” has left a bloody trail of over 150 million deaths in the past 125 years alone.

Hard-core leftists ignore this while making icons of people such as Che Guevara. More recently, former “domestic revolutionary” William Ayers (“I wish we had done more”) found a home with the elitist intelligentsia at the University of Chicago. Recall as well that Bill Clinton commuted the sentences of 16 Puerto Rican “freedom fighters,” because after all, as British author Gerald Seymour stated, “One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist.”

Rejecting force brings us to:

Fear — An essential element in the use of force, of course, is fear, but to differentiate: Force results in a fear of the immediate, while “fear” represents an aversion to a repetition of what was or could be.

We often see statists pointing to European-style “isms” as a laudable goal; however, the emergence of “Euro-ism” must be viewed from the perspective of fear of the known (war).

Recognize that during a 75-year period (1870 to 1945), Europe was home to three huge wars resulting in over 85 million deaths. After World War II, a devastated continent became, much like Scarlet O’Hara, “dependent upon the kindness of strangers.”

In the U.S., fear of financial ruin during the Depression drove the nation to similar dependency. Hope and change, branded then as the “New Deal,” arose as the government increased its hold on the population. That hold remains too strong today.

That brings us to:

Elections — How do those desiring totalitarian power achieve said power in a nation with free and open elections?

One answer is found in the above description of fear. Roosevelt used fear to win two of his re-elections. This was repeated recently as the “Great Recession” demanded benevolence, now couched as “Hope and Change.” Convincing individuals to fear the opposition resulted in victories at the ballot box. And if you can fool enough into believing they are victims, you can garner not just votes, but full control of their lives.

Fear alone, though, does not assure success — thus the need to stack the deck in varying ways.

Opponents are politically eliminated on trumped-up charges or phony scandals (Tom Delay, Scott Walker), while favored candidates commit far greater sins. Deception, as Gruber confirmed, is an essential element; thus, “You can keep your doctor” or “health care is not a tax.” Similarly, waiting until after an election before implementing unpopular policies or appointments delays potential negative reactions.

Our Constitution defines our nation as a Republic, making deception more difficult to reveal than in a Democracy.

We need to be reminded:

“Democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where 51 percent of the people may take away the rights of the other 49 percent.” — Thomas Jefferson

De Tocqueville put it thusly: “The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public’s money.”

Consider the question posed in the title of this piece as we approach future elections. The sensible have rejected force; others see through fears. The desired goal is control of our lives — “from cradle to grace” was the appropriate malapropism, coined by local political gadfly Bob Livesay.

So what price are statists willing to pay to achieve their ideal?

Reverting back to a Holmesian phrasing: Having eliminated the impossible, force and fear, we are now faced with an improbable truth: We are surrendering our votes to the statist minority that relies on deception while purposefully increasing dependency, encouraging the later and denying the former.

As a result, we face a future of being controlled by believers in the goodness of big government.

Progressives claim the moral high ground on the basis of their magnanimity of others’ resources — yet somehow they have not lost said ground as a result of the unethical behavior of their leadership. Why?

How long is this to be tolerated by the majority, or justified by the minority?

We all desire a more ideal world. To achieve it we must strive to be better, and we must demand legal and ethical behavior from our leaders.

Dennis Lund is a mechanical engineer who lived in Benicia for more than 20 years.