by Eric Peters EricPetersAutos.com Recently by Eric Peters: It Might Be Time To Stock Up…
I wouldn’t have any issue with Clovers (see here for samples) if they were wiling to live their Cloverish lives as they see fit – and willing to leave the rest of us free to live ours as we see fit. But of course, Clovers – by definition – cannot abide that. The quality – the personality defect – that makes a Clover a Clover is his relentless unwillingness to live – and let live. He – or she – is the sort of person you can’t just walk away from. Because they will follow you.
Everywhere. Relentlessly.
Though you may want nothing more than to go about your business, Clover considers everything you do – anything you might do – his business.
If, say, you have a club and don’t want him as a member, he will try to force his way in (using “the law,” of course). It would never occur to him to start his own club, amenable to himself and those like-minded.
Clover can’t just build his house the way he wants his house to be built. He insists you build yours the way he wants it to be built.
If Clover decides he needs an air bag, then you must have one also. If Clover “buckles up,” then you’d better buckle-up, too.
If Clover wants a 35.5 MPG car – then you will have a 35.5 MPG car.
If Clover doesn’t trust himself to own a gun responsibly, then clearly no one else can be allowed to own a gun – since Clover assumes everyone else is as irresponsible as he is.
The same goes for “speeding” (as he arbitrarily defines it) as well as swimming – without a lifeguard on duty.
If Clover only feels “safe” when random and arbitrary searches are the order of the day, then random and arbitrary searches will become the order of the day.
When Clover decides some “public good” or other deserves to be funded, he will lobby and legislate and vote to make sure others are forced to fund it.
And so it goes. You know the drill.
For Clover, it is never sufficient to do what he wants, purchase what he wishes – and leave it at that. Much less leave others free to do as they wish (and purchase what they wish). Every Clover is a little Stalin at heart. Collectivizing his life brings no joy. He must collectivize the lives of others. Only then is he truly happy. This is the essence of Clover.
How to deal with such a creature?
Within the matrix – that is, society as currently constituted – it is virtually impossible. Because most people have been so effectively conditioned (by having had their cognitive faculties crippled or merely never awakened – mostly via government schools) to accept or at least, never to question Cloverite bromides such as “the public good.” This Clover deftly manipulates to achieve and then enforce his good. Get most people to acquiesce to the idea that there is such a thing as “the public good” – in other than purely metaphorical terms – and you can get them to accept being lorded over in the name of a Clover’s very specific ideas about what constitutes that “good.”
His good.
Make sure that most people never question the idea of “democracy” (and its political synonyms, “society” and “we”) and you have the green light not merely to tyrannize millions of individuals – but to get them to accept being tyrannized, by using morality against them.
People – most people – naturally want to be good and do good. Let Clover define “good” in his terms – in terms of the collective – and he is unbeatable. If it is accepted that good is necessarily a collective thing – and the collective is defined by Clovers – then no individual stands a chance. He is “selfish.” He is unconcerned about “the children” – or “the future.” You name it. Clover has an endless supply of proxy euphemisms for himself.
Clover also has back-up.
The state.
It can be and historically has been overtly authoritarian (less successful, as history has shown us) or subtly and much more cleverly authoritarian, such as the modern “democratic” state – and so far, much more successful. Quite possibly, longer lived, too. Chiefly because the average person labors under the delusion that his freedom remains intact, that he is governed by representatives freely chosen and so with his consent. All of which makes him quiescent – even if he grumbles every now and then about the ever-tightening invisible straight jacket he wears. Even if he is opposed to this or that new law. The person who would never tolerate a king or Duce or Fuhrer will almost always tolerate – even respect – a president. So long as he is permitted every so often to choose a new one, he does not notice that he is never offered the choice to be free of them all. (See here for more on the “democratic” con.)
