The older i've gotten the more pessimistic i've become about state apparatus and it's operations. Conversely in my youth i held a relatively positive view of governments and the faculties which surrounded them, if my opinions now have altered it's through a failure of theirs, i'm well beyond teenage re-actionary, I'm not a joiner inner when it comes to causes and i never have been, usually preferring to rail against the opinions of my peers than those of the state. But i've been eventually pushed to conclude that there is a lot wrong with the way things are done, and if that sounds vague it's only because of the sheer quantity of wrongs and the sheer scale of correcting them.
Without elaborating too much further i'd like to profer a couple of examples which should better illustrate what i'm talking about. Take Howard Zinn, who i mention frequently because he so well understood the issues of modern government, as a college professor at the all-black women's Spellman college, joined four of his students for a civil rights protest. Their total of five was watched by a total of ten police officers. They weren't protesting a radical cause, a different political ideal or extolling a new religion, simply the extension of basic human rights to a portion of their nations population. Zinn attributed it to a fear that this small protest could grow into a large one and so the automatic reaction was to attempt to stamp on it immediately.
Henry Thoreau offers his view upon authoritarian organisations by stating that he would leave his isolated home in the woods for weeks on end and never, home or away, lock his door. People would come and go in that time, many of them complete strangers to him, yet he never suffered a single theft except that of one small book. He goes on to point out that one night he went into to town to see about a pair of shoes the local cobbler was mending and upon his arrival the local constabulary arrested him and put him in a cell for the night for apparent vagrancy. How were they mainting law and order, in a place that apparently needed none? He felt that they simply created villains out of those who did not conform, for want of any real villains to apprehend.
I think the resources expended by modern police forces on controlling or even closing down public congregations or rallies are the perfect testament to the continuation of this attitude. Surely the apparatus of state should exist not to control or oppress it's people but simply to, as the motto goes, 'Serve and Protect' them. Instead of baton charging climate change protesters, who's concern is for the well being of mankind, they should instead spend their time pursuing thieves and murderers. Instead of alienating positive members of society and in turn reducing their willingness to help or care when the state needs their support. All conclusions point to the abuse of the power which has supposedly been 'democratically' handed to them. Even speeding fines, when an individual is clocked going 31mph down a completely empty road in the middle of the night, serve only to alienate again, and the clear profit made by the government from them (each local council has to 'rent' cameras from the government) a clear indicator that they are not put there for our wellbeing. Even if they are they hardly work. Who can say themselves they haven't had at least one instance of the government essentially thrusting two fingers in their face for no kind of crime any of us would consider a real one?
Why western governments still feel the insatiable need to operate under these clandestine conditions against a generally well-meaning, good natured, hard working populace mystifies me. I think more than any other factor, it is the 'state' that has created criminals, and it uses them as an excuse to control the rest of us. They have made it so that socialising in any large group is a crime. Add to it Identity cards, endless CCTV, rafts of new and absurd minor offenses, obscene political correctness and an unhealthy fear of a media under corporate control and it's a wonder they haven't pushed us into complete political cynicism and a loathing of all authoratarian bodies.
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