How Tyranny Parades as Law
“Law is often but the tyrant’s will and always so when it violates the rights of an individual.”
Thomas Jefferson warned us.
The biggest crimes against liberty do not happen in the shadows. They happen right in front of us. Paraded as law, justice, and the public good. When law itself becomes a weapon, no one is safe.
THE MASK OF LEGALITY
If you want to understand how tyranny operates, you have to see through the disguise. No one openly admits they are out to crush your liberty. Every usurpation, every unconstitutional power grab, every violation of your rights is always dressed up with a stamp of law.
John Dickinson nailed it during the height of the American Revolution.
“All artful rulers who strive to extend their power beyond its just limits endeavor to give their attempts as much semblance of legality as possible.”
This is the tyrant’s playbook. They always hide behind “legality.” They never admit what is really going on.
The Anti-Federalist Federal Farmer sounded the same alarm.
“Men who govern will in doubtful cases construe laws and constitutions most favorably for increasing their own powers.”
Give them any ambiguity, and they will twist it to justify more power for themselves.
THE COMFORT OF APPEARANCES
Here’s the unfortunate truth: most people don’t want reality. They prefer comfort. The word “legal” gives it to them. Machiavelli called out this self-delusion five hundred years ago.
“The great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances as though they were realities and are often even more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are.”
That is exactly how tyranny survives and thrives. It hides under layers of illusion and make-believe, each one more convincing than the last. Two centuries later, John Trenchard made the same case in Cato’s Letters No. 9.
“The most successful deluders and oppressors of mankind have always acted in masquerade. And when the blackest villains are meant, the most opposite spirit is pretended. Vice acts with security and often with reputation under the veil of virtue.”
Delusion, masquerade, virtue signaling. It is all cover for the worst crimes.
MANIPULATING THE MASSES
He doubled down just a few weeks later, spelling out exactly how the scam works.
“Yet even in countries where the highest liberty is allowed and the greatest light shines, you generally find certain men and bodies of men set apart to mislead the multitude.”
That’s how they set the stage. The real con is in how they brand what’s evil as good – and good as evil.
“Whoever who are ever abused with words, ever fond of the worst things recommended by good names, and ever abhore the best things and the most virtuous actions, disfigured by ill names.”
Then he drilled down to the core tactic: control the words, control the people.
“One of the great arts, therefore, of cheating men is to study the application and misapplication of sounds. A few loud words rule the majority. I had almost said the whole world.”
WORDS AS WEAPONS
Algernon Sidney saw it for what it was: a deadly trap.
“All poison must be disguised, and no man can be persuaded to eat arsenic unless it be covered with something that appears to be harmless.”
There’s always a cover. “Public good,” “safety,” “protection.” Never the truth. James Otis Jr. saw right through the mask.
“There is scarce an instance to be found in the English history where tyranny has been bold enough to declare her purposes and not endeavored to cloak herself with the sacred veil of public good.”
THE BRUTAL CONSEQUENCES
And as Thomas Gordon pointed out, the result is always the same.
“Men have been ever deceived by good names into an approbation of ill things, sanctified by these names. Imposture and delusion have been called religion, and thought so; oppression and rapine have been called government, and esteemed government.”
He drove it home with zero mercy.
“Teachers have degenerated into deceivers, submission into slavery, taxation into plundering, protection into destruction, and magistrates into murderers, without changing their names.”
Jean Barbeyrac, paraphrasing Philo of Alexandria, saw what happens when nothing stands in their way.
“When they have the power in their own hands and can assure themselves of impunity, they plunder whole cities and commit the greatest robberies under the specious name of government.”
Call it law, call it order. Behind the curtain, it’s just sanctioned plunder. Cicero’s warning hits as hard today as it did in Rome.
“But of all forms of injustice, none is more heinous than that of the men who, while they practice fraud to the utmost of their ability, do it in such a way that they appear to be good men.”
This is the foundation of tyranny. Fraud, theft, and violence – sold to you as law.
Tags: American Revolution, Founding Principles, Law, tyranny