I posted the following in response to a post on "Revolution In America," posted two days ago, however, I would like to get as wide a readership, and continuing discussion, as I can, so I am also posting it separately. The 7500-word limitation did not allow me to post the post to which I am responding. See the original "Revolution In America for that post and for what is already an extensive discussion.

My response:

EWV, implicit within your posts are the reasons I wrote “Revolution In America.” You say that “relevant to this discussion is that Ayn Rand herself discussed the role of general censorship as a criterion for a complete break with the government.” I had no idea that governments on the verge of becoming totalitarian gave you that choice. It will be nice when our discussion group reaches a consensus that the government has finally gone too far and we thus resolve to oppose it any way possible, including open or covert revolt. It’s also fantasy to think things will happen that way.

I incorporated one assumption in my article: on current trend, the government will get larger, more powerful, more rapacious, and more corrupt, and correspondingly, the liberties of its constituents will continue to diminish. Certainly no one appreciates the power of ideas and discussion more than I do, but ask yourself if that trend slowed, much less reversed, after publication of Atlas Shrugged in 1957. I would argue that it accelerated, especially since 9/11. If my central assumption is accepted, (even for argument’s sake, although I am convinced it’s correct), then the question presents itself: what can be done? If one waits until “continue to diminish” is replaced with “vanish,” it will indeed be obvious to all that the government has become totalitarian. It will also be far too late to do anything about it.

When “general censorship” is imposed, if past totalitarian practice is any guide, it will be part of a package of measures that may include: nationalization of important businesses, suspension of habeas corpus, suspension of elections, outlawing political parties, martial law, summary detention of all those known to have anti-government views, seizure of the internet and news media, seizure of private firearms, the mandatory exchange of precious metals for the government’s currency, and bans on people and money leaving the country. My guess is that it would be in response to some egregious “terrorist” incident, possibly a false flag. Under such circumstances, people might make a break, in their minds at least, with the government, but that will be the only kind of break possible.

You say that, “Denouncing most of what government has done in the last 33 years does not justify the violence and chaos of a revolution and does not make it possible in reality, let alone achieving in the aftermath.” Yes, revolutions are almost always bloody, but the blood spilled in all the revolutions in human history is a drop compared to totalitarian governments’ oceans just in the twentieth century (an estimated 100 million deaths). Faced with a choice between “violence and chaos” and abject totalitarian slavery, I’ll choose the former.

One of the things our government has done the last 33 years is to acquire what can only be described as the apparatus for a turnkey police state. As Edwin Snowden and subsequent revelations have made abundantly clear, the government has the ability to monitor virtually everything we do. You worry that my post might “makes us all further susceptible to unjust government surveillance and attack.” I think that statement is dangerously naive. I think anyone on this site should assume they are on a government list somewhere, and have been from the moment they signed up. That’s how governments operate as they descend into totalitarianism. As I stated earlier, I don’t know what incident will prompt the government to turn its key and initiate the police state, but my bedrock assumption is that sooner or later it is going to happen.

That is why I wrote my article, to suggest an offensive strategy while we the people still have some sort of capacity to implement such a strategy. As I said in my concluding paragraph: “It will be difficult, perhaps impossible, to persuade sufficient numbers to take that initiative, but in passivity lies ruin. By the time that ruin is obvious to all, it will be far too late.” Victims of totalitarian regimes are victims, in large measure, because they were unable to project trends and to conceive that those trends’ continuation would result in their imprisonment or death. Ayn Rand was lucky to get out of the USSR; most did not. Many Jews in Germany only realized that the Nazis would kill them when they boarded the cattle cars for the death camps. In America, I believe that it is much later than most people think. Do I believe that Americans will revolt while they have a chance? Probably not, but if nobody raises the possibility and suggests a strategy in a public forum, while we still have public forums of which we can avail ourselves, that small likelihood goes to zero.