Government Learned Helplessness

Government is the problem, as I wrote last month. They have involved themselves in areas in which they have no business. The corollary of this problem is that we Australians have lost our culture of freedom. In fact, we are complicit in our loss of freedom.

I doubt very much there will ever be a law which bans the use of cash and coins: there does not need to be. More and more businesses only accept cards, with the necessary surcharge of course. When the majority of customers use cards, increasingly on their phones, and there is no longer any stigma in swiping to pay for small amounts, continuing to accept cash is expensive and inefficient. Business owners also do not need to worry about sticky-fingered employees.

This love of convenience has handed the government an easy victory; they can track, trace, and tax every cent. Paying and accepting government printed legal tender, with the aid of ‘Cash is King’ signs, is now a conscious, rebellious act which falls, mostly, on deaf ears.

The only thing easier than killing people with convenience is seducing them with safety. All new security laws come with the in-built mantra, ‘if you have nothing to hide; you have nothing to fear.’ Most Australians agree with this sentiment. I would say, if you have nothing to hide, you are either the best liar or the most boring person on Earth, but that is an indulgent digression.

One of my biggest annoyances, when government acts in loco parentis, is how they interfere with business. The government determines everything from how much people are paid; the qualifications they need, and when recess is. Now, they can talk to your boss for you if you do not like the number of times your work calls or emails. In a more mature age, ‘the right to disconnect laws’ would have been laughed out of Capitol Hill.

But our working population has been so cowed into believing that being employed is a victimhood category of its own, with the oppressor being their evil, rapaciously greedy fat cat boss, that the government needs to play Mummy and talk to the meanie for you. Adults can and should negotiate appropriate terms with each other; if no agreement is reached, you can suck it up or leave.

This is, strangely, a niche attitude.

If you were trying to convince someone to pay or accept cash; resist privacy violations on security grounds, or let adults decide the terms of their working contracts, it is difficult. They have given up freedom for convenience, perceived security and fairness. It is not even that they see the trade-off as worthwhile; they do not know the trade was made.

And, like the trade, the consequences are invisible to most. The majority of our fellow citizens will go through their entire lives without they themselves, or even anyone they know, having a serious or disturbing encounter with law enforcement or security agencies. When someone ‘gets into trouble’, no matter how ridiculous the alleged infraction, they are presumed to be guilty. When you can criminalise going outside in the name of ‘public health’, which most people supported, you can do anything.

There is a strange disconnect when most view government as benevolent and benign even though they would almost certainly tell you they don’t. Everyone complains about politicians and inconvenient laws, but will baulk at calling such things tyranny. In our eyes, tyranny is what happens in foreign lands when people are censored, imprisoned and beaten for going against the state. Certainly not us, the Internet police (the eSafety Commissioner), fair work commissions, equality and human rights bodies. These are ensuring social cohesion by preventing hurt feelings: we care. It is tyranny when China does it, but civilised when we do it.

The quangos led by our public masters all lead need to fall into redundancy; Australians need to decide to act like adults and take matters into their own hands. As Tom Valcanis wrote, when governments won’t clean up the beaches, the libertarians will.

While it is important to elect freedom-loving politicians, until we revivify the spirit of freedom in the hearts of the citizenry, we will take the comfortable, convenient road to tyranny.