1) “I’m scared of people who have [GUNS], and some of them do violent things! For the common good, the government needs to limit and control those people! Like, make them register, keep records on them and stuff. Sure, lots of them haven’t done anything–not YET, anyway–but they all have the potential, and we can’t risk what would happen to our society if we just look the other way! This is an emergency! Lives are at stake! The ends justify the means! The government needs to act now!”
2) “I’m scared of people who have [MUSLIM BELIEFS], and some of them do violent things! For the common good, the government needs to limit and control those people! Like, make them register, keep records on them and stuff. Sure, lots of them haven’t done anything–not YET, anyway–but they all have the potential, and we can’t risk what would happen to our society if we just look the other way! This is an emergency! Lives are at stake! The ends justify the means! The government needs to act now!”
~Larken Rose
These two stories highlight the hypocrisy of the left/right false dilemma fallacy, along with any manufactured crisis we are presented with. Both are socially engineered fears meant to prompt solutions that increase safety (safety from a fabricated bogeyman) while limiting personal rights and freedoms. This is also the template being used in the Standing Rock DAPL protests.
If you want to be a despot, here is the process:
- Fabricate a strawman that only exists because you intentionally designed it to exist. This strawman bad guy makes at least half of the people feel unsafe, and is meant to appear superficially and contextually similar to the other half of the people.
- Make sure to design in enough logical inconsistencies so that the side that has a few things in common with the bogeyman can point out that the fearful side is making the guilt by association fallacy.
- Create a reaction to the strawman/bogeyman by the opposite side of the spectrum which calls for the State to save them with stronger laws and regulations against anybody and anything that superficially resembles the strawman/bogeyman.
- Use this process much like tacking is used to sail into the wind with a sailboat, pivoting at 45 degree angles every so often back and forth between each political party and/or each strawman/bogeyman event.
(Sailing in the direction from which the wind is coming is possible through sailing at forty five degree angles to the oncoming wind and alternating the direction of those angles. This is called “tacking.” Although this method requires the boat to physically move farther to reach a given point, it is often the quickest way to move in a given direction overall. ~Wikipedia)
In this way, a despot can sail into the wind of free will and pivot the masses towards a single predetermined destination that enslaves them. In fact, this method allows for the masses to provide the necessary energy to fuel the entire ruse with minimal effort from the ruling class.
FURTHER READING:
Strawman Fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man
False Dilemma Fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_dilemma
Sailing into the Wind: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sailing_into_the_wind
