by Bill Buppert

“If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law” ― Henry David Thoreau

Imperial conditioning is the means by which a state through subtle and overt means make obedience to government a habit and sole course of action for citizens.  It may not necessarily be a conscious effort on the part of the state but merely the inevitable outcome of the initiation of aggression on a mass scale.  Absent violence, the state cannot exists.

One can read many of my previous essays on cops to see that they are the foundational element that makes governments work.  Absent the armed praetorians to conduct “law enforcement” (one of the more honest labeling enterprises of government), the state has no engine to uphold its legions of edicts and diktats over the unfortunate inhabitants in the tax jurisdictions.

I just went on a trip overseas.  As usual, every stage of travel within the American borders was awash in a sea of uniformed agents of the state directing one to do this or that on the condition that non-compliance would be most unpleasant.  At one point after my return to the vaunted home of the free, I went through the porno-scanner to save time for a connection we were close to missing to return to Arizona.  When directed to put my hands on my head so that they could get a better view I rendered the appropriate one-finger salute east and west to which one of the unemployable TSA drones said “that is unnecessary” to which I replied then that there is no more fitting tribute to an organization for whom the word unnecessary should be part of the slogan for the blue-shirted shamblers. Of course, this resulted in a punitive grope and rifling of my carry-on bag.  No surprise.  Discretion on their part to harass those who object is part of their charter.  One is supposed to grin and bear every infringement on liberty in the name of national (read government) security.  They are, in fact taken aback, nay offended, when one of the cattle resists or says no.  Much like the ritual at the Border Patrol checkpoint 40 miles north of the border south of Tucson in Arizona where all inquiries are answered with a firm no.

One reason these enforcement drones are so incensed when a mere mundane refuses the easy compliance they expect is that so many do comply with bad laws, it is rather unusual for one of the subjects to get uppity.  Sometimes it ends badly and lethally as Mr. Grigg has so expertly and poignantly pointed out to us.

The biggest head-scratcher of all is the notion that violence and theft will never be tolerated in the behavior of mundanes but absent both of these tools, the cops much less the state could not exist. The virtue of zero aggression and embracing the non-initiation of force is a principle embraced by most ethical individualist anarchists and abolitionists.

Most folks have become so inured to the state of nature that they live in that they accept that police practice of terrorism is simply the way of the world for them to retain their freedom and safety.  Quite simply, two pillars must be established to keep these systems afloat:  they must be able to instill fear through the threat of fining, kidnapping, caging, maiming and killing anyone who refuses to comply with the whims of the system.  The second, and arguably more important pillar, is to convince the populace that not only is this the way of the world and the only way but that we must eventually find a way to put a happy face on it.  So we see large public spectacles like the 2012 Grand Old Politburo Convention in Tampa, Florida where thousands of drones not only pay obeisance to the police state but insist on more of the same and the additional burden of paying for their enslavement out of their own earnings.

Read more: http://zerogov.com/?p=2780