From Humanoid Faults to Manipulated Consensus, 45
It is well known that it is the hand that operates the tool and not the tool that operates itself, but woe betide he who dares to point the finger at the hand craving to escape responsibility, and blessed he who plays along with it by shifting the blame to the innocent tool. Consensus is built by blaming the valuable tools into disuse rather than by calling the hands to face their responsibilities.
A second case in point shows how far the consequences of shifting the blame from the irresponsible hand to the innocent tool can go: weapons. Play along enough with irresponsibility and the result is defenceless citizens at the mercy of their enemies, whether within or outside the law. Thomas Jefferson supposedly said that when the government fears the people you have liberty, and when the people fear the government you have tyranny, and Thomas Paine said that it is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government; I invite you to observe how governments dispossess citizens of sovereignty, and how this takes the form of the monopoly of the use of force. Well, to the degree people is convinced that weapons are something intrinsically bad to stay away from, and that the government is intrinsically entitled to the monopoly of the use of force, to that degree anyone seizing government will be on a clear path to enslave and expropriate us all with the least “disturbance”.
We act like prey chased by predators, and when one runs away one is effect: a getaway can only take the roads not yet barred by chasers, and moment by moment chasers gain ground and the prey loses it, inch by inch the room for manoeuvre shrinks, and we find ourselves more and more trapped in dead end situations and conditions.
And the predators chasing us are all the responsibilities we did not take.
Sure, it can be hard to take responsibility. If it wasn’t, we’d probably take it more often and easily. But if at least it was just a matter of each single responsibility overlooked… alas the best is yet to come.
