Totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is, in truth, a broad term. On its face, it is simply a system of government that is centralized and dictatorial and requires complete subservience to the state. But if "dictatorial" and "requires complete subservience" are its primary defining characteristics, you'd be hard pressed to pin it down to "the Right" or "the Left" alone. It wouldn't be merely "communism" or "socialism" or "fascism." It could be "nationalism" if nationalism were to be dictatorial and require complete subservience. It could even be a religious totalitarianism, such as Islam in some countries (think "Taliban").

Totalitarianism takes two basic forms. One is "hard" totalitarianism and the other is "soft" totalitarianism. The hard version is your classic centralized government approach. You have a domineering leader like Stalin or Hitler or a domineering government like North Korea's communist government, passed from one overbearing leader to another. The force of law and its accompanying enforcement structures demand subservience to this "hard" totalitarian structure. "Soft" totalitarianism doesn't require this rigid governmental structure. It simply requires a dominant social order. You can see it in the "cancel culture" concept. No governmental agency fired those who transgressed public opinion; it was the culture. It's the tide of public perception that results in public repression. "Soft" totalitarianism can be more insidious because, while "hard" totalitarianism wants your obedience, "soft" totalitarianism demands your mind, will, and emotions.

Often, of course, the two are combined. A totalitarian government can breed a social order that encourages the public to enforce the rules. Schools teach children to inform on wayward parents. Media outlets hire data miners to dig into the history of anyone they target in the hopes of finding some dirt from ages past. Organizations take over critical "facilities" to broadcast their "right-think" and silence anything else. Totalitarian governments create fear of loss of freedom; totalitarian societies create fear of loss of status. Together they form an effective terrorist organization.

Of course, we here in America wouldn't know about that. We celebrate our freedoms. We have rights. We have a Bill of Rights that proclaims and assures that our rights are maintained, starting with the individual, then the State, and finally the Federal government, intentionally last on the list to prevent this totalitarianism thing from occurring here. We've seen it in Nazi Germany. We've seen it in Soviet Russia or Communist China. You can see it brewing right now in Afghanistan with their new "benevolent leaders" -- the Taliban. But not here. Not here. Right? We don't have anyone who is demanding that we think alike over things like, oh, I don't know, pronouns or who has sex with whom, right? No one here is demanding subservience to their views on, say, redefinitions of marriage, racism, sexism, or the like, are they? Our news media is still the pristine, unbiased source of news and information rather than "our slant on it," isn't it? Isn't it? We still strongly and firmly affirm our rights to free speech, free exercise of religion, the right to bear arms and such, don't we? Of course! We still live in the land of the free. Some are just more free than others. Break it up; there's nothing to see here. It's not like it's 1984 or anything.