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Comment by einhverfr | Hacker News Reader

Indeed all states derive their power from the consent of the governed, do they not? What would have happened if even a third of Iraq decided to ignore their government under Saddam? The government couldn't have responded. Governments work because we agree to do what they say. Now things like drones centralize some of the power in ways that could not be done before but only to a point and the complexity overhead counterbalances that.

Complacency is how tyranny works everywhere and in all ages.

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>Complacency is how tyranny works everywhere and in all ages.

I think your point specifically about Iraq is largely likely to be correct, but I have never been able to swallow this argument, which comes up just about every discussion of tyranny I see/hear.

A fundamental component of true tyranny is violence or an immediate threat of violence (as opposed to the somewhat more abstract monopoly on force that democratic governments have). At the risk of sounding trite: it's easy to call people complacent in the face of a tyrannical government when it isn't your family that will be the target of that violence. Resisting a strong and deeply rooted tyrannical government is not for the feint of heart or those with precious things to lose. To say those that don't give up the tenuous stability they have to attempt to foil the will of the government are complacent is dangerously close to shifting the blame on the victims of abuse.

I suppose it would be fair to say that in any tyrannical state that many are, in a way, resigned to their fate. For most people in that situation anything besides begrudging acceptance of the way things are is not far from suicide. In the case of the US I would wholeheartedly agree that apathy is a huge driving force behind our government taking power it should not. Implying that's how it works everywhere and every time seems very unfair.

It's not just that though. Tyranny usually works by doing three things:

1. Threatening violence against those who oppose them.

2. Propaganda purporting to show the exceptional nature of the dictator. North Korea for example portrayed Kim Jung Il as a genius mathematician, philosopher, writer, and much more.

3. Socially isolate resistance and ensure they cannot talk to eachother. This takes many forms, but in Iraq for example, a lot of effort was spent fomenting conflict between various small groups in Iraqi society.

The goal is an environment where nobody can effectively oppose not just because they are afraid, but because the images of the grand dictator are so prevalent and everyone is so preoccupied that organized opposition is just not possible. The result is that as soon as folks stop being complacent because organization becomes feasible, the dictatorship falls.

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