Especially those who disagreed with them. Who wanted to live their own lives, who didn't "get with the program."
I originally thought it was a recent phenomenon, but now not so sure.
The Alcohol Prohibitionists - and their were millions of them - hated their Catholic neighbors.
The original Drug Prohibitionists - and there were millions of them - hated the hippies and counter-culture.
And they went to The State to get their way.
The State has been in a perpetual war on some kind of minority.
You could say it's its job to exploit the prejudices of the majority against the minority, and increases its power by earning majority support.
So for many kinds of minorities throughout history, their own national government has been the enemy. They're not at war with it, but it is at war with them.
These thoughts were developing in my mind for quite some time, and Claire Wolfe brought some clarity to the idea:
You don’t spy on millions of people, militarize your police, encourage neighbor to rat out neighbor, define thousands of innocuous activities as “domestic terrorism, conduct checkpoints and VIPR raids, lock people up without trials, kick down doors in the middle of the night, or arbitrarily deny people the freedom to travel if you’re looking for mere criminals.
You do that only if you’re pants-pissing terrified because you fear that those millions — millions! — of peaceable people are enemies of your regime.
The U.S. federal government has (covertly of course, and gradually) declared war on its citizens. That’s the reality. We’re not mere criminal suspects. We’re enemies — and by their choice, not ours.
[...]
But no matter what we think, or how we live, or with what civility and decency we conduct ourselves, in the eye of Mordor-on-the-Potomac, we are all enemies. All despised. And above all — all subject to destruction at the whim of power.
The age old problem. Fear and Greed can motivate irrational behavior. There is no cure, no fix, no amount of persuason. Not even education can change basic human nature. There is only vigilance and self defense.
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