The Patriot Post® · The Soft Despotism of Comfortable People

There has been justifiable concern of late about the rise of the so-called “democratic socialists.” However, I find myself struck by something far larger than the fortunes of one political faction. What has caught my attention is the sheer number of formerly free, or at least mostly free, nations across the Western world that have adopted increasingly autocratic policies in pursuit of some socialist, progressive, or utopian vision of society.

The pattern is difficult to ignore.

Governments that once celebrated free speech now regulate it. Governments that once treated citizens as sovereign individuals increasingly treat them as subjects to be managed. Political leaders who once spoke the language of Liberty now speak the language of safety, equity, sustainability, misinformation, public health, or social justice. The terminology changes, but the result is remarkably consistent: more power concentrated in the hands of government and less freedom left in the hands of ordinary people.

The United Kingdom may be the most visible example. It’s the nation that built the foundations of the English-speaking world’s understanding of Liberty. It gave us Magna Carta, common law, parliamentary government, and many of the traditions that shaped the American founding. Yet today it often appears more interested in policing speech than protecting it. Citizens have been questioned by authorities for social media posts. Protest rights have been restricted. Government surveillance continues to expand. The country that once ruled the seas increasingly projects an image of managerial bureaucracy and cultural uncertainty.

It has literally become the IngSoc-dominated Airstrip One of George Orwell’s imagination.

Britain is not unique.

Across Europe, governments increasingly dictate acceptable speech, regulate political dissent, and expand state control over economic and social life. The justification is almost always noble. The goal is always presented as fairness, safety, inclusion, equality, or social harmony. The problem is that nearly every expansion of government power throughout history has been accompanied by a similarly noble justification.

What puzzles me most is not the behavior of governments. Governments have sought more power since the first king discovered that taxes were easier to collect than permission slips. What puzzles me is the apparent willingness of free people to surrender freedoms that previous generations fought, bled, and died to secure.

Why are the people not fighting back?

Perhaps prosperity has made people complacent. Perhaps several generations removed from genuine tyranny have left many unable to recognize it in its early forms. Perhaps modern citizens have become accustomed to viewing government as a provider rather than a servant. If government is responsible for your healthcare, education, retirement, housing, and security, eventually it becomes difficult to tell where citizenship ends and dependency begins.

America remains different, though not immune. Even here, people who promote freedom and independence draw scorn and are treated like heretics and Chicken Littles — but we are none of that. The praise for America gushing from global visitors at the World Cup indicates that they are experiencing a level of freedom here that doesn’t exist in their homelands.

I genuinely believe that if it were not for the desperately clinging remnants of our federalist system, a Supreme Court that still contains some originalist instincts, and the existence of the Second Amendment, we would be traveling down the same road to perdition at roughly the same speed.

Federalism has been weakened, but it still creates barriers to centralized power. The courts still occasionally remind politicians that constitutional limits exist, and the Second Amendment serves as a constant reminder that American citizens were never intended to be passive subjects of the state.

Those protections are imperfect and under near-constant attack. Yet they remain among the last structural obstacles preventing the concentration of power that has become commonplace elsewhere in the West.

The real question is not why governments seek power, because they always will. Just as it is the scorpion’s nature to sting, accumulating power is the nature of government. I guess my increasing disquiet concerns whether free people still possess the will to resist giving it away.