The Top-5 Tools of Tyranny
Five Weapons. One Target: Your Freedom.
Washington, Webster, Paine, Madison, and more – they saw every one of them coming and warned us, but “we the people” didn’t listen.
It’s the top tools of tyrants: what they use against us and what’s self-inflicted.
TOTAL TYRANNY
Starting with the end-game, St. George Tucker warned us about the one-two punch – the holy grail of tyranny.
“Wherever standing armies are kept up, and the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction.”
The founders and old revolutionaries knew this first hand from their own history and their experience with the British – especially in the run up to the battles of Lexington and Concord. Noah Webster couldn’t have been more clear.
“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed”
Think about it – combine a militarized power to enforce with removing the tools to fight back, and that sets the stage for what Thomas Paine defined as government not by fixed constitutional rules, but the mere WILL of people in power.
“A despotic government knows no principle but WILL. Whatever the sovereign wills to do, the government admits him the inherent right, and the uncontrouled power of doing. He is restrained by no fixed rule of right and wrong, for he makes the right and wrong himself and as he pleases.”
But as James Otis, Jr. so clearly explained, this doesn’t happen overnight. You don’t get from a “land of the free” to a gun-grabbing, militarized government in one fell swoop.
“A free government never degenerated into tyranny all at once, it is the work of years.”
The founders repeatedly warned us about a massive arsenal – every weapon politicians use to build their tyranny. These are the five most fatal – and i saved the worst for last
1. CONSOLIDATION
The first weapon is consolidation, or centralization of power.
Think of it like this – one man, or even a handful holding all power? They can destroy liberty far easier than power dispersed over millions. Patrick Henry considered it the greatest threat.
“The dangers of a consolidation ought to be guarded against in this country. I shall exert my poor talents to ward them off. Dangers are to be apprehended in whatever manner we proceed; but those of a consolidation are the most destructive.”
Samuel Adams warned us – if you don’t strictly limit power, it will slowly and surely lead to the kind of system they fought a long, bloody war to secede from.
“Without such Distinction there will be Danger of the Constitution issuing imperceptibly, and gradually into a Consolidated Government over all the States.”
He knew – under a consolidated system, tyranny isn’t just likely – it’s absolutely guaranteed. That’s because no one-size-fits-all approach could ever work with such a wide range of viewpoints – political, economic, religious and social.
“The People of the United States being in different Climates—of different Education and Manners, and possest of different Habits & Feelings under one consolidated Governmt. can not long remain free, or indeed under any Kind of Governmt. but Despotism.”
This wasn’t just theory. Thomas Jefferson saw this play out all through history.
“What has destroyed liberty and the rights of man in every government which has ever existed under the sun? the generalising & concentrating all cares and powers into one body.”
2. WAR AND EMPIRE
The next weapon is war, possibly the greatest engine of consolidation. James Madison explained why – because it powers the worst of the worst.
“Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few.”
As Thomas Paine noted, an old-world tyrant normally went to war out of mere pride. But he also saw something far worse – when war becomes a revenue machine, the appetite for it becomes permanent.
“In despotic governments, wars are the effect of pride; but in those governments in which they become the means of taxation, they acquire thereby a more permanent promptitude.”
And John Dickinson gave us the verdict: this “thirst for empire” is fatal.
“This is a vice, that ever has been, and from the nature of things, ever must be, fatal to republican forms of government.”
3. ENCROACHMENT/USURPATION
Whether it’s war, armies, debts, taxes, or anything else – a willingness to go beyond the limits of the constitution, what George Washington called encroachment, builds what Paine warned us about. That is a government of will rather than one that is limited to the fixed rules of the constitution
“The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism.”
Thomas Jefferson warned us – this weapon of encroachment, or usurpation of powers not authorized by the Constitution? Even the smallest violation sets a precedent for more and more of the same. And it will keep going until there are no constitutional limits left.
“To take a single step beyond the boundaries thus specially drawn around the powers of Congress, is to take possession of a boundless field of power, no longer susceptible of any definition.”
John Adams called it what it is – a deadly disease.
“The nature of the encroachment upon the American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour.”
This is the trap Washington warned us about. When you cheer politicians violating the Constitution because you like the policy? That’s the go-to WEAPON to destroy freedom.
“Let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.”
4. FACTIONS
Few things give rise to encroachments and usurpations more than our fourth weapon, political parties. Thomas Gordon explained how a party-first mentality flips literally everything upside down.
“It is with Measures as with Men; they are praised, or condemned, not because they are Right or Wrong, Beneficial or Hurtful, but because they come from this Party, or the other. Evil is turned into Good, and Good into Evil: Truth passes for Falshood; Falshood is dressed up in the Guise of Truth: The best Actions are decried as the worst, if they arise from one Quarter; the worst Actions adored as the best, if from the other.”
Noah Webster called this a “party spirit.” Of all the weapons for tyranny, he saw this mentality as the worst, hands down.
“Nothing is more dangerous to the cause of truth and liberty than a party-spirit.”
Over a decade earlier, John Adams took a similar position. He called the two-party system the greatest evil we face.
“There is nothing I dread So much, as a Division of the Republick into two great Parties, each arranged under its Leader, and concerting Measures in opposition to each other. This, in my humble Apprehension is to be dreaded as the greatest political Evil, under our Constitution.”
5. THE MOST FATAL
Consolidate. Wage war. Encroach.
Those are weapons they use AGAINST us.
Divide us into parties? They certainly push us into it, even frame things in ways to convince us there is no other option. But it’s ultimately a choice.
This last one – the worst one – is 100% on us. I agree with James Otis: tyranny is the work of years. But the number one reason it gets there?
Obedience.
“There is nothing however will in the end more surely work the destruction of liberty, than a prevailing opinion that it is better tamely to submit than nobly assert and vindicate our priviledges.”
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