Totalitarianism: Can It Happen in America? | 5 Minute Video — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:01Here’s the good news:
2. 0:03The secret police are not coming with guns to take  you away to a prison camp in a frozen wasteland
3. 0:09for speaking out against the government.  They did that in Communist countries in the
4. 0:14twentieth century. It’s not going to happen  here in America or in Western Europe.
5. 0:20Here’s the bad news:
6. 0:22The secret police aren’t coming for you because  they don’t have to. There are ways to shut you up
7. 0:27and keep you quiet that don’t involve physical  force. The powers that be—and that now includes
8. 0:34major corporations, the educational establishment,  the media, and the government—can just kick you
9. 0:39off the Internet, put you on a no-fly list,  and bar you from using the banking system.
10. 0:46We can describe scenario number  one as hard totalitarianism
11. 0:51and scenario number two as soft totalitarianism.
12. 0:54There are big differences between them,
13. 0:56but in the end, you arrive at the  same place—submission and silence.
14. 1:01To grasp the threat of totalitarianism—hard
15. 1:04or soft—it’s important to  understand exactly what it means.
16. 1:08According to the famous political scholar  Hannah Arendt, a totalitarian society is one
17. 1:14in which an ideology seeks to displace  all prior traditions and institutions,
18. 1:20with the goal of bringing all aspects of  society under control of that ideology.
19. 1:26The state literally defines and controls reality.  Truth is whatever the rulers decide it is.
20. 1:34These rulers might say something like…
21. 1:37Men can have babies.
22. 1:39Or,
23. 1:40Skin color is more important than character.
24. 1:43Or,
25. 1:44The American Revolution  was fought not for freedom,
26. 1:47but to protect the colonists' slave  interests.
27. 1:50Or,
28. 1:51Those who resist a vaccine  mandate are enemies of the people.
29. 1:55And insist that you not only believe it but affirm it.
30. 1:59If you don’t, you might lose your job,  your business, and your good name.
31. 2:04That dystopian future, of course, is now. And,  we’re only at the beginning of this process.
32. 2:11Where does it lead?
33. 2:13To less freedom—that much we know.
34. 2:16Again, no guns, no violence—we just go
35. 2:19along. Nobody kicks the door down.  We open the door and invite them in.
36. 2:24The more information the government has  about you, and the more the tech sector
37. 2:28can see what you’re doing and saying online,  the easier it is to monitor your behavior.
38. 2:36How long before the government creates  a digital profile of each citizen?
39. 2:41And how would the government use that profile?
40. 2:44It might go like this:
41. 2:46If you do socially positive things—as  defined by the government—nothing
42. 2:50really changes.  You can do whatever you want.  Maybe you’re even rewarded for good behavior—a
43. 2:57faster internet connection, preferred medical  treatment, or even the best seats at a concert.
44. 3:03If you do socially negative things—again as  defined by the government—you lose privileges.
45. 3:10You’re pushed to the margins of  society. You become a non-person.
46. 3:16Sound far-fetched?
47. 3:17It shouldn’t. It’s happening right now in China.
48. 3:21It happened in Russia and Eastern Europe  not that long ago. Talk to anyone who lived
49. 3:27behind the Iron Curtain, and they will tell  you we are headed down a dangerous road.
50. 3:33“No,” you say, “It can’t happen here—in the  land of the free and the home of the brave.”
51. 3:38I wouldn’t be so sure.
52. 3:40Ronald Reagan famously observed that  freedom can be lost in a single generation.
53. 3:47That’s because the human inclination  is not toward liberty, but security.
54. 3:52Freedom is a value, not an instinct.
55. 3:55It entails personal responsibility and risk.
56. 3:59Security requires little risk and little personal  responsibility. So, it comes with little freedom.
57. 4:05That’s why every new generation must be  taught the supreme importance of freedom
58. 4:11and develop the strength of  character to maintain it.
59. 4:15Of course, the people who  want to take away our freedom
60. 4:18say they’re doing it in the name of  compassion—for the many victims of oppression.
61. 4:24Unlike the Bolsheviks of the old Soviet Union,
62. 4:27the left of today’s America gets its way not  by shedding blood, but by shedding tears.
63. 4:33Don’t be fooled. The objective is  always the same—submission and silence.
64. 4:39So, how do we stop the drift  toward soft totalitarianism?
65. 4:43This is not an easy question, but we can  create a base from which we can start to act.
66. 4:49Let it be this:
67. 4:51You may not have the strength to stand up  in public and say what you really believe,
68. 4:55but you can at least refuse to  affirm what you do not believe.
69. 5:00You cannot overthrow this soft  totalitarianism on your own,
70. 5:04but if enough of us find within ourselves, our  families, and our communities the means and
71. 5:10the courage to live in the dignity of truth, no  matter what it costs, we can keep America free.
72. 5:17Otherwise, we will learn how easy it is to  become a totalitarian country—soft or hard.
73. 5:23I’m Rod Dreher, author of Live Not  by Lies, for Prager University.