A week ago I posted a letter opposing the creation of a registry of homeschooling families in Michigan. One of the never-stated goals of such efforts1, I think, is to condition the populace into always believing, automatically thinking, that they must ask permission of the state. For anything. You don’t want a populace out there that is just used to doing whatever it wants to do, not even letting any authority know they are doing it. You want a people mentally trained to think they must first ask permission of their parents… er, sorry, the state I mean.
In an institutional way, this conditioning really begins for children in schools, and somewhat inevitably I’m afraid. I would love to just blame the government schools here, but in truth private schools as well, just from a need to maintain order, inevitably do at least some of the same sort of mental training. (Bigger schools and bigger class sizes likely do it more than smaller schools and smaller class sizes, so that is one distinction that might be drawn.) One of the concerns Ivan Illich articulated against institutional education was that, whatever other goals it might have, it trained people into institutional thinking. I think I’ve mentioned before having formerly homeschooled students and, I can tell, at first they find it just bizarre that they’re expected to ask permission before leaving class to use the restroom or something. Saw this tweet recently:
The present absurdity at the border
This brings me to some briefer comments about the present absurdity at the US-Mexico border where, as you’ve probably heard, the state of Texas is trying to protect itself against a huge surge in illegal immigration and, shockingly (or not), the federal government is actively fighting to stop them and make sure anyone who wants can come right across.
Now I am not a big border hawk, by itself this is not an issue I care much about - but one must notice when the Safety State is super concerned, and when it apparently isn’t concerned at all. And (perhaps because I loathe the TSA), almost immediately I had to note the inconsistency here. So if grandma wants to fly, she gets treated as a probable terrorist because the Safety requires it… but at the same time, we’re going to actively fight to make sure anyone can enter the country unmonitored. And it seems I was not the only one to have this thought. Tweeted by Marie Oakes:
And tweeted by Not the Bee:
Now if the GOP was not, for the most part, some combination of stupid + bought off + controlled opposition, this might be a great chance to reform the TSA! Propose some legislation reigning in their powers. When the Dems cry “danger, unsafe, terrorism!” at the thought of US citizens traveling a little more freely, point to the who-knows-who coming across the US border with no restrictions at all and make them square that circle.
Alas, that is probably not to be. But… and I’m not going to offer you all the answers here, but it does make you think about the real motivations of the Safety State. And perhaps part of the answer here is that the most important thing, by far the most important thing for our present leaders, is to maintain their own power and the power of people like them in the long term2. Any pretended or even somewhat real principle will be sacrificed in a moment for that. If they thought the folks streaming across the border would produce future GOP voters, the military would already be there en masse to keep them out, some excuse acceptable to progressives easily arrived at (just as they oh-so-easily overrode supposed decades-long concerns about bodily autonomy to force vaccination on, they tried, everyone).
And perhaps airport security is also partially intended, now, as training in obedience. Don't get the idea you can just fly on a plane as you'd like. All of life is just a privilege granted by the state, don't ya know. Just look at our badges.
I might add that it is quite common in Leftism for the real goal of a policy to be other than the stated goal. Conservatives (because they are kind, “give them the benefit of the doubt” kind of people, which I understand completely) argue only against the stated goal and so lose.
I will let the reader decide how much also “just pure destruction and chaos is the point”.
Of course the horrible story of the State of Montana taking custody of a child in the name of the Safety State is an incredible amplifier of your thoughts. A anti-trans law, Republican governor and Christian-friendly Lieutenant governor enforce and endorse the kidnapping due to the actions correctly following policy. Like the Montana governor said, he wants all children to be safe and happy. Well, what a swell guy, almost makes me wish he was my governor.
It's bizarre that no one (Democrats especially?) seems to be worried about the prospect of these unauthorized, unscreened migrants spreading covid and other infectious diseases, both in Texas and throughout the country.