Statists Gonna State: Why Being a Statist is a Huge Character Flaw

“There’s no polite way to suggest to someone that they have devoted their life to a folly.” ~Daniel Dennett

There’s an unresolved debate over whether human beings are inherently good or evil. It’s at the core of the debate between tyranny and freedom, between having rulers and being self-ruled. It’s at the root of the conversation being had about leadership and the ability to lead others. It’s at the heart of the question: can we solve our problems without resorting to violence?

Depending on one’s disposition, ‘lovers gonna love’ and ‘haters gonna hate.’ But there’s a hidden element that muddies everything up. There’s a covert factor. It’s so evident that it’s almost forgotten amidst the civic morass of it all, and it’s this: ‘statists gonna state.’ Which creates a vicious cycle. Indoctrinated statism brainwashes would-be lovers into divisive haters.

I freely admit that my biased opinion is that human beings tend to be good. We are good until an unhealthy environment changes us. The state is that unhealthy environment, and statism is the ugly ideology that arises from its unsustainable and untenable machinery. Unhealthy development in an unhealthy environment leads to unhealthy individuals, no matter how healthy (good or bad) their original state may have been.

At the end of the day, it matters very little if humans are inherently good or not. Such an argument (either way) is ultimately a red herring for what really matters. What really matters is how we act individually. What really matters is the quality of our character. Which leads to the quality of our leadership. It is leadership which ultimately makes or breaks the development of our character.

My argument is that you are less likely to have a robust, courageous and compassionate character if you are a statist. You are less likely to take personal responsibility for your actions, and thus more likely to push your responsibility onto an impersonal authority. In other words: you’re less likely to become an authentic leader. When you are a statist, you are more likely to be an indifferent, corruptible, and violent follower.

So, how do you know if you’re a whiny snowflake statist? Here’s a list. Forewarning: don’t hate the messenger. As Gloria Steinem said, “The truth will set you free. But first, it will piss you off.”

You are a statist if you believe that you need a ruler to rule over you:

“Power is in tearing human minds to pieces and putting them together again in new shapes of your own choosing.” ~George Orwell

If you think the state is necessary because people are bad, then you are a full-blown statist. Worse, your reasoning is atrocious. Or, at least, it’s circular. Think about it. Essentially what you’re claiming is this: People are bad so let’s form a state made up of people are bad so let’s form a state made up of people are bad so let’s form a state made up of people are bad… You get the gist.

If people are so bad, then why in the hell would you want them to govern over you? Why would you want a state (which is made up of “bad” people) to rule over you? It makes no sense unless you flip the tables on your own indoctrination. The only way it (somehow) makes sense in your head, is because of your cultural conditioning. It’s because of a lifetime of living in a state, as a statist, swimming in statist waters. You might as well be a fish questioning the water it breathes.

Your cultural conditioning has programmed you to think that people are bad except for the people who rule over you. Your cultural programming has you believing that the people who make up the state are an exception to the rule of ‘people are bad.’ Let that sink in.

You’ve been tricked by those with power. You’ve been hoodwinked. You’ve been bamboozled. And the only way to enlighten yourself is to question authority. All authority. Question power. Especially entrenched power. Question it from the bottom up, from the top down. Question it inside and outside the box that the state has been trying to pigeonhole you into your entire life.

Question the electoral system. Question bipartisan politics. Question all politics. You are a full-blown, blind-ass statist if you drink the bipartisan electoral Kool Aid without questioning its veracity or effectiveness.

You are a statist if you believe that you require permission to be free:

“It is difficult to free fools from the chains they revere.” ~ Voltaire

Stop it. Just stop it. You do not need permission to be free. Free is what you are in your natural state, living and breathing within the natural limits of universal law. Slavery is whatever you allow to happen to that natural state. It’s whatever fallible layer of outdated human law you allow to lay over it. It’s whatever parochial platitudes you allow to persuade you into thinking you’re not already free.

The belief that in order to protect your freedom the government must take away your freedom by protecting you, is tautological reasoning at best and oppressive at worst. Don’t be tautological. Don’t be oppressive. Be logical and progressive instead.

Get off your knees and declare yourself free. There is only one person on this planet who can declare you free, and that person is you. You must declare yourself free first, and then teach others how to become free in order for freedom to be fully actualized. You free others both to justify your own freedom and in order not to become a tyrant yourself.

This is true leadership. Which is all we need moving forward. Throw out the brainwash, along with the statist bathwater and the indoctrinated propaganda. Toss it all out the window. Authentic leadership is all you need. Self-mastery and self-improvement through authentic leadership will always be superior to a system hell-bent on being your master and ruling over you with an iron fist.

But no. Your cognitive dissonance is going to kick in and make you intellectually lazy, isn’t it? Instead of becoming an authentic leader or creating authentic leaders, you’ll just continue to have blind faith in the inauthentic leadership appointed through an outdated and corrupt electoral system protected by an equally outdated and corrupt justice system.

Look in the mirror. That is the face of a cowardly statist. Stop it! No more cowardice. No more statism. It begins with you. Break the mirror. Pour the Kool Aid down the sink. Deny any authority that claims you need permission to be free. Disobey all inauthentic leadership. Embrace authentic leadership instead. Become a leader who teaches people how to think rather than what to think. Become a leader who creates more authentic leaders rather than more blind followers.

You are a statist if you blindly worship a flag:

“What good fortune for governments that the people do not think.” ~Adolf Hitler

All flag worshipers have the same unhealthy religion: statism. Flag worship is a patriot’s false idol. It doesn’t matter if you’re a Nazi sieg-heiling or a little kid singing the pledge of allegiance. It’s all parochial symbolism digging its outdated tentacles into contemporary ideals. It leads to blind conformity, indoctrinated complacency, and people all too happy to choke on the blue pill of blind obedience.

Flag worship is an outdated psychosocial hang-up. It works because we are social creatures. What began as a symbol for unifying people becomes a symbol for dividing people when people blindly worship it.

In a world of 195 nation states, all with their own flags, it behooves us to use the same reasoning that Aristotle used when he said, “It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it,” and apply it to flags. Better to entertain a flag without accepting its authority. There’s more compassionate flexibility there. There’s more open-mindedness.

But no. Here comes your cognitive dissonance again to jam your head back up the ass of The Powers That Be. You must want people divided. Because that’s what the flag-wagging statist wants. It wants the people of the world divided. Because divided people are easier to control. As Maximilien Robespierre surmised, “The secret of freedom lies in educating people, whereas the secret in tyranny is in keeping them ignorant.”

You are a statist if you believe that violence is the answer to solving problems:

“No snowflake in an avalanche ever feels responsible.” ~Voltaire

If you believe that might makes right, then you are a full-blown status quo statist –hook, line, and sinker.

Most of us are raised in nation states that use violence to keep the culture churning in a diabolical conquer-control-consume-repeat cycle. When the state is jamming violence down our throat as a solution to its problems, are we really that surprised when our solutions to everything tends to be violence? Something’s got to give if we want to break this cycle of violence that’s deeply embedded in our culture.

That’s where character comes in. That’s where life-affirming action comes in. When our rebellion is life-affirming, freedom-affirming, and based on nonviolence, it is healthy (heroic). When our rebellion is life-denying, freedom-denying, and based on violence, it is unhealthy (tyrannical).

The anti-statist hero is free and uses that freedom with the soul intent to free others. The statist (or would be tyrant) is “free” inside the box of statism, but uses that freedom with the intent to rule, or to control, others. We escape tyranny when we seek to free others through our own freedom. Liberty coincides with heroism when we’re able to go from asking, ‘free from what?’ to asking, ‘free for what?’ –Free to leave a healthy nonviolent world for our children. Free to continually free ourselves into further freedom.

Let’s face it, statism is unhealthy, hyperviolent and hopelessly corrupt. We all know it to be true. The problem is we don’t know what to do about it. Opting out is scary as hell, and tantamount to ostracism. Such a path is not for everyone. But there is a way to fight from the inside out: continue to create something new that will eventually replace the destructive state.

Don’t give into the stagnant statist culture. Create a new culture instead. Culture has always been made up of individuals, and it’s the rebellious creative individuals that are busy creating it. If enough heroic individuals can get together and create a healthier sub-culture, then a tipping point can occur, and the outdated culture falls like dominoes into the updated new one.

It’s time to decide upon the only choice that really matters: Free human, or indoctrinated statist; uncomfortable freedom, or comfortable slavery. The choice is yours.

And if the overreaching state should continue to use violence against us, then we plant our heels deep into the ground, we lay our shields low, and we declare to the Powers That Be, as Henry David Thoreau did: “I was not designed to be forced. I will breathe after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest.”

Images: V For Vendetta, Unknown.