One of the justifications of the Second Amendment is that an armed people deters tyranny, that government will not go too far in depriving the people of liberty because it fears an armed revolt, and, if government does become tyrannical, that an armed people will possess the means of fighting it. This column is the third in a series that is investigating what we can learn about this ‰¥þinsurrection theory‰¥ÿ of the Second Amendment by considering nonviolent alternatives.

This is also third part of my discussion of a 16th Century essay titled ‰¥þThe Discourse of Voluntary Servitude,‰¥ÿ written by Etienne de la Boetie. This is the first work I know of that discusses why nonviolent noncooperation can bring down a government.

Boetie䴜s key insight was that government, resting always in the hands of relatively few, does not have enough manpower or force to compel obedience to its will, and does not really rely on force in order to govern. It was his view that every government, even tyrannies, governed because men voluntarily obeyed and submitted to them. If men would realize this, he thought, and simply refuse to cooperate in their own servitude, their government would crumble without a shot being fired.

What is ‰¥þnoncooperation?‰¥ÿ Among other things, it means not being police, soldiers, judges, prison guards, government employees, not serving on juries, not petitioning government, not voting and, in general, not assisting in the enforcement of a government rule against anyone else.

Means Of Enslavement

In the second part of his essay, Boetie identifies several factors which, he believed, kept men in their servitude. The first, which I discussed in my last column, was custom. ‰¥þThe essential reason why men take orders willingly is they are born serfs and are reared as such.‰¥ÿ In short, it‰¥ús just the way things are and it seems natural to them. But it goes deeper than that ‰¥ä it becomes part of their identity. It‰¥ús who they are, and they take great pride in their fine history and traditions, even though they are essentially the history and traditions of their own servitude.

The second reason men continue in their servitude is servitude degrades their character. ‰¥þPeople easily become cowardly and submissive under tyrants ‰¥Ï liberty once lost, valor also perishes.‰¥ÿ Men‰¥ús hearts become ‰¥þincapable of any great deed.‰¥ÿ Rulers, according to Boetie, are well aware of this, and in order to solidify their power, seek to degrade their subjects further and make their servile attitude instinctive.

Boetie identifies three methods rulers use to achieve this result. You will readily recognize them at work today. They are: (1) ‰¥þeffeminizing‰¥ÿ the populace by ensuring they are preoccupied with entertainment, sporting events, debauchery and spectacles; (2) distributing ‰¥þlargess‰¥ÿ (corporate welfare, social security and other government handouts) and (3) creating a reverential attitude toward officials with mystery, pomp and circumstance ‰¥ä in order to make officials appear to be extraordinary, more than mere mortals.

Like other educated men of his time, Boetie was very familiar with ancient history and finds his examples there. The first method of stultifying subjects, he writes, ‰¥þcannot be more clearly observed than in what Cyrus did with the Lydians after he had taken Sardis, their chief city ‰¥Ï When news was brought to him that the people of Sardis had rebelled, it would have been easy for him to reduce them by force; but being unwilling either to sack such a fine city or to maintain an army there to police it, he thought of an unusual expedient for reducing it. He established in it brothels, taverns, and public games, and issued the proclamation that the inhabitants were to enjoy them. He found this type of garrison so effective that he never again had to draw the sword against the Lydians.‰¥ÿ

Boetie credits the Romans with the invention of a second means of degrading their subjects. ‰¥þTyrants would distribute largess, a bushel of wheat, a gallon of wine and a sesterce: and then everybody would shamelessly cry, ‰¥ùLong live the King!‰¥ú The fools did not realize that they were merely recovering a portion of their own property, and that their ruler could not have given them what they were receiving without having first taken it from them ‰¥Ï The mob has always behaved in this way ‰¥ä eagerly open to bribes that cannot be honorably accepted, and dissolutely callous to degradation and insult that cannot be honorably endured.‰¥ÿ

The third method Boetie cites goes even farther. Tyrants, in order to strengthen their power, ‰¥þhave made every effort to train their people not only in obedience and servility toward themselves, but also in adoration.‰¥ÿ Rulers purposefully envelop themselves in pomp, ceremony and mystery to make themselves seem to be more than mere men, and often borrow ‰¥þa stray bit of divinity to bolster up their evil ways.‰¥ÿ ‰¥þThe earliest kings of Egypt rarely showed themselves without carrying a cat, or sometimes a branch, or appearing with fire on their heads, masking themselves with these objects and parading like workers of magic. By doing this they inspired their subjects with reverence and admiration, whereas with people neither too stupid nor too slavish they would merely have aroused, it seems to me, amusement and laughter.‰¥ÿ

Foundation Of Tyranny

After identifying these factors that entice men into, and keep them in, servitude, Boetie reveals what he believes is ‰¥þthe mainspring and secret of domination, the support and foundation of tyranny.‰¥ÿ It‰¥ús not arms that defend the tyrant, but (as Murray Rothbard describes it) ‰¥þa hierarchy of patronage from the fruits of plunder.‰¥ÿ In other words, the foundation of the ruler‰¥ús power is the fact that men stand ready to pledge themselves to serve the ruler and the ruler‰¥ús subordinates in a descending order of power and privilege in order to personally profit from the use of the power over others.

Boetie puts it this way: ‰¥þ[T]here are only four or five who maintain the dictator, four or five who keep the country in bondage to him ‰¥Ï These ‰¥Ï have six hundred who profit under them, and with the six hundred they do what they have accomplished with their tyrant. The six hundred maintain under them six thousand, whom they promote in rank, upon whom they confer the government of provinces or the direction of finances, in order that they may serve as instruments of avarice and cruelty‰¥Ï . In short, when the point is reached, through big favors or little ones, that large profits or small are obtained under a tyrant, there are found almost as many people to whom tyranny seems advantageous as those to whom liberty would seem desirable.‰¥ÿ

2nd Amendment Lessons

I believe what we learn from Boetie is that the notion an armed people can preserve liberty and deter tyranny is, while flattering to ourselves, simplistic and naÌøve. An armed people is neither sufficient, nor necessary, to either create or maintain liberty. It‰¥ús not necessary, because, as Boetie notes, the people themselves are the very power that maintains the tyranny they endure and no government could sustain itself without their cooperation and their continual service on its behalf. We will see more evidence of this when we examine Gandhi.

It‰¥ús not sufficient because liberty is not the automatic result of killing a tyrant and his minions. Launch an insurrection ‰¥Ï and then what? (Remember, we already tried having a constitution, and here we are.) We learn from Boetie men are easily tricked out of their liberty and voluntarily cooperate in their own servitude. ‰¥þDo not imagine,‰¥ÿ he wrote, ‰¥þthat there is any bird more easily caught by decoy, nor any fish sooner fixed on the hook by wormy bait, than are all these poor fools neatly tricked into servitude by the slightest feather passed, so to speak, before their mouths.‰¥ÿ Boetie‰¥ús arguments imply that most men place very little value on liberty.

Even worse, we learn there are large numbers of people who are always ready to work with rulers and to participate in their schemes in order that they may gain privileges and their own fiefdoms, and profit from their power over others. How, through force of arms, do we create conditions that will maintain liberty in the face of these two conditions?

I do not say these things because I delight in shooting down a cherished ideal, but because I consider our situation to be dire and I believe we need to seriously consider how, realistically, we may reclaim freedom. In the next column I will talk about Thoreau䴜s Civil Disobedience, particularly his comments on the illusion of effecting change by voting.