Safety is Danger
28 Sep 2010

WE ARE SO PREOCCUPIED with safety that the majority of us are willing to give up our freedom in order feel safe. But freedom is not just given up in a vacuum: that power of self-determinance is taken up by those who take away our freedoms, which is invariably the government and the legal systems. So the more freedom we give up, the more power that governments, the legal system, and those who control the military-industrial complex acquire over us. The question is, are we really safer under centralized control? Do we ever ask ourselves whether being a slave is really safer than being a free person?

In order to take away our freedoms, it is in the interest of governments and others in positions of authority to paint as dire and black a picture as possible of the world, so that there is a whole list of dangers that they can protect us from, and in the process of protection take away our freedoms and consolidate their own power. This is why the mass-media is so overwhelmingly negative in its portrayal of the news, and why governments lead their people into war after war. After all, the power of those in authority becomes less and less necessary in times of peace and harmony.

The truth is, the world is in a lot better shape than most people believe, and there are far less dangers out there than are portrayed by the mass media. People from other nations are actually great people on the whole. The pathology is almost invariably with the leaders, not with the common people.

Unfortunately, a fiction has a habit of becoming fact if it is entertained in the public psyche for any length of time, so that the world of tomorrow is being build on the fiction of dangers lurking around every corner, and in the hearts and minds of 'that group of people over there'. Danger of flu; danger of natural health; danger of Al Qaeda; danger of nuclear war; danger of individual sovereignty; danger of local government; danger of global warming; danger of cancer; danger of the left-wing; danger of the right-win; etc. etc.

How long do we have to go on playing this game of fear? — a game that we can only lose. How long are we going to keep allowing our freedom to erode so that we can feel the illusion of safety. And it really is an illusion: for the safety we demand from our "leaders" is the greatest and most real danger that we currently face.

Naturally the common people don't want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.

Herman Goering