Thread by @SpockResists

Thread 🧵

If we agree that governments do not change what is right and wrong when they change the law, and we agree that governments who do wrong are acting outside of their legitimate powers, then we must agree that government power has limits

Legitimate government is limited

There can be no other way.

Any government that has no limits is not legitimate and certainly cannot claim to be representative of “Freedoms of the People.”
We the people however, can indeed limit the power of a government by limiting our obedience to it.

Specifically, to limit our obedience to only the areas where the government is legitimate, and to disobey when and where the government exceeds its legitimate authority.

In fact, if you look at history, all throughout history, the only thing that has ever actually limited

the power of government, is the limits of the people’s obedience. Every other attempt to ‘limit government’ is doomed to fail from the start. We know that because we’ve tried them all.
History is basically the story of people who want to rule others vs people who want to

rule themselves. A quick survey of history shows that democracies and republics fall into dictatorship given enough time. From the Roman Republic to the Weimar Republic (pre-Hitler German) and countless other examples, democracies have a long history of voting themselves out of

their own freedoms, of voting the government out of its limits, and into total control. The ‘separation of powers’, a design of government in which power is distributed into different ‘branches’ of government, typically the legislative (to write the laws), the executive (to

enforce the laws), and the judicial (to judge both the laws and the accused law breakers), looks great on paper.
In practice, you’re asking the government to limit its own power and that tends to work about as well as asking the mafia to limit the drug trade… why would they

when it’s in their self-interest to increase it?
I believe it’s fair to say that every mechanism designed to limit government has failed repeatedly throughout history. Yes, they can ‘work’ for a time… even decades, but ironically any mechanism that succeeds in limiting

government for a time is automatically sowing the seeds of its own destruction. When we apply some limitation - such as a bill of rights - and it works (for a time), then the people become complacent. In becoming complacent, they create the opportunity for that bill of rights

to be breached and not be noticed, or if they do notice, they don’t push back. Why would they? Everything’s fine! The government has been benign and benevolent for their entire lives and the stories told by their grandparents of a time when governments wreaked havoc and caused

suffering are just stories from old people, right?

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. Tragically those who do learn from history are doomed to be mocked for warning that those who don’t are repeating it. If the people were vigilant, outspoken, and

quick to limit their obedience to a government gone bad even in the smallest of ways, they would act at the first sign of a breach of their bill of rights - or constitution. At the first sign of a breakdown in the separation of powers, the people would quickly begin to disobey,

to push back, to limit the government, and force it back into strictly the areas where it is legitimate.

But sadly, that’s just not how human nature works. We comfort ourselves with the lie that we are safe from our own government because ‘we live in a free and democratic

society’, or some other meaningless word-salad. We depend on concepts such as the separation of powers or bills of rights and assure ourselves everything is fine simply because we go to the polls every few years.
The reality is that most of us would never actually notice our

rights being breached, our government getting out of hand, or our freedoms becoming fewer, until years or decades after the fact.

We simply do not pay enough attention.
Those that do notice and speak up are so few that they’re easily written off as kooks and crazies - as

malcontents to be shunned rather than as canaries in the coal mine. The canaries my friends right now are dead. Am I saying we shouldn’t have democratic systems of government? Bills of rights? Separation of powers? Not at all! The existence of such systems is the reason

why we can limit our government through disobedience rather than through outright violent rebellion! For as long as a system exist with at least the pretence of observing bills of rights, limits on power, and service to the people, it should be possible for the people to limit

government power without bloodshed. It is when such things are abolished that even the limits of the people’s obedience may not suffice, and actual rebellion may become necessary. Absolutely necessary. It is for this reason that I hope to awaken people to the need for

being QUICK to engage in civil disobedience… because this is our best defence and hope against ever needing to take more drastic measures. Whilst these systems do indeed still exist. Then civil disobedience will need to be swift and effective.

For as long as these ideals remain, there is hope that widespread disobedience alone will be enough to bring a government to heel. It is only when a government has proved itself hardened, unbending in the face of the people’s widely practiced disobedience, and no longer aspiring

to maintain even a facade of service, that other more direct options should be considered.