The State wants to be free not only from foreign powers, but most of all from bondage to its own people. To be free is to enslave its citizens
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Totalitarianism and the Rise of Tyranny
An excellent definition of tyrants is found in Vindiciae Contra Tyrannos: a Defense of Liberty Against Tyrants (1579).
“We have shewed that he is a king who lawfully governs a kingdom, either derived to him by succession, or committed to him by election. It follows, therefore, that he is a reputed tyrant, which either gains a kingdom by violence the second a tyrant of indirect means, or, being invested therewith by lawful election or succession, governs it not according to law and equity, or neglects those contracts and agreements, to the observation of which he was strictly obliged at his reception. All of which may well occur in one and the same person. The first is called a tyrant without title: the second a tyrant by practice.”
The writer makes this memorable remark, “a tyrant the more he is tolerated, the more he becomes intolerable.”
Tyranny can manifest itself through a single individual or collectively through a complete government. Those are genuine rulers who govern a realm either derived to them in some way or by election according to the law. A tyrant is someone who comes to power by violence or subterfuge and some indirect means, but a tyrant may also be lawfully invested by election or succession. He will then turn to govern contrary to the law and the equity to which he obliged himself at the acquisition of power. There are many present-day examples of this around the world.
The tyrant will seek to oppress those over whom he rules by falsehood, blatant dishonesty, slander and fraud, and by using corrupt officers of State. He will often give out false reports of conspiracies against himself as a pretext for his actions against his people. He will gather around him corrupt officials, who act in self-interest but are absolutely the ruler’s creatures. They applaud him and apply themselves to fulfilling his loose and unruly whims. He keeps these co-conspirators in place by allowing them to work to their own benefit as well as his. The tyrant hates, he suspects everyone, and is terrified of wise, honest and virtuous subjects. He sees his own security as being best served in playing the corruption of officers of State.
A tyrannical ruler will nourish and feed factions and dissensions among his own people to gain his own advantage. Divided loyalties are easier to manage. He will ruin one by assisting another so that he can the more easily vanquish the remainder. There is no other sweeter smell than the carcass of a dead enemy. A government of tyranny will disarm the people, remove all means of self-defence lest it be used against the authorities. A tyrant’s strength depends on those with hearts of stone skilled in causing death and destruction. Using public money, a tyrant pays out to spies and slanderous informers dispersed throughout society and the country.
Tyrants gather around them numberless guards and militias by way of protection but also to keep the masses of the people at bay. Nevertheless, the tyrant is not secure from his own doubts, jealousies and mistrust, with continual afflictions that terrify his timorous conscience. Fear is the greatest plague for tyrants, making a prize of their souls, it triumphs in their affliction. A tyrant leaves no stone unturned to fleece his subjects of their substance and turn it to his own benefit. Having continual difficulty in earning a living, his subjects will consequently have little leisure time and small hope of regaining their liberty.
Such a tyrannical ruler extorts unjustly from the many and imposes what he can on all. He extracts what he can from everyone in order pay for his own superfluities and riotous expenses. He builds his own empire on the ruins of the public good. He draws the blood from the veins of their resources and feeds it to the court leeches to carouse. The tyrant represents an artificial, counterfeit, apostate religion and devotion. His countenance is composed to show piety to terrify the people from conspiring against him. The tyrant feigns to be affected greatly by the public good largely for fear for his own safety.
Outwardly the tyrant will appear to be what everyone imagines a good ruler should be. However, he is simply covering his vices with a blanket of virtue. No matter how hard he tries the reality shows through in the end. The fox can always be recognized by his tail.
If a ruler persists in violent or drastic solutions, he makes himself liable to the detested charge of tyranny and whatsoever the law or lawful authority permits against a tyrant can then be invoked. A tyrant subverts the State, he pillages the people, he lays stratagems to entrap their lives and scoffs at sacred obligations of any oath. If thieves and those who commit sacrilege are declared infamous, justly suffer punishment even by death can we find anything less for a tyrant?
D. William Norris
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"Give a weak man freedom and he'll fetter it himself and give it back to you. A foolish heart has no use for freedom."
Fyodor Dostoyevsky
