Governments don’t grow to protect their people.  They grow to rule them.  The real purpose of power isn’t defense—it’s control.  Social disorder isn’t a crisis for the state but a weapon.  Disorder allows rulers to tighten their grip at home and point to new “enemies” abroad.  Yesterday’s divided nation suddenly becomes “unified,” but only under the whip.  The cost of this unity is paid by the very people being ruled, taxed to fund wars they never asked for.  Ordinary men are sent across oceans to kill strangers who pose no threat, while those at the top fatten themselves on the blood and treasure of others.

The state is force dressed up as law.  Believing it can remain “limited” because of a constitution is the same as believing wolves will stop hunting if you write rules in a book.  Power is never satisfied.  It grows, and if it ever steps back, it’s only to mask its advance.  The march toward totalitarianism isn’t an accident, it’s the nature of power.  Emergencies—real, exaggerated, or fabricated—are the accelerators.  Whenever the rulers shout “crisis,” liberties vanish and chains tighten.

When fear spreads, rational thought disappears.  The public no longer judges, it obeys.  Politicians cloak themselves in patriotism and talk of duty, but, power attracts the corrupt.  The worst rise to the top because cruelty and ambition are the skills required to get there.  Elections aren’t salvation but theater.  They are competitions to see who can best lie, flatter, and deceive.  The winner isn’t the best, but the best at being the worst.

This isn’t just tolerating bad leadership.  It’s marching recklessly toward destruction.  The masses shuffle like sheep into the slaughterhouse, dragging the few dissenters with them.  Once rulers gain office, domination becomes their currency.  Domination fuels more disorder, which in turn justifies more domination.  Your misery isn’t a failure of their system—it’s the system.  Every crisis is good for them.  Every war is profitable for them.  Every restriction strengthens them.

What other animal would choose its predators to lead the pack?  Yet humans do it over and over, blinded by the fantasy of political salvation.  The Nirvana Fallacy tells people that with the right leader or the right law, paradise can be built.  History tells the opposite story.  Utopias have never been created.  What has been created are graveyards, gulags, and ruins.  Liberty must be stripped away before a single “service” can be provided.  By the time the middlemen, bureaucrats, and enforcers are paid, what little is handed back to the people is worth far less than what was stolen.  The deficit isn’t just in money—it’s in freedom, dignity, and life itself.

The lesson is simple: tyranny doesn’t begin with tanks in the streets.  It begins with disorder, fear, and promises.  The end of the road is always the same—chains for the people, power for the rulers, and ruin for all.

Reference

Robert Higgs; Delusions of Power