Canadian Truckers, European Farmers, and Why Most Slave Rebellions Fail

"Let them eat cake" has become "Let them eat bugs"

I must commend the brave truck drivers of Canada, the farmers throughout Europe, and even the millions of protesters in Brazil and elsewhere who struggled against the injustices of their own governments. Unfortunately, their protests have been and are likely to continue to be in vain.

Once it was true that governments actually listened to the grievances of their citizens and sought to improve matters. Current governments, though, see themselves as the ones who know best what is needed, and neither appreciate nor consider the wishes of their citizens. They share the same sense of entitlement that was characteristic of previous generations of aristocrats. "Let them eat cake" has become "Let them eat bugs".

The Canadian truckers and the European farmers have two things in common that are the seeds of failure. They lack a coherent outcome they are determined to achieve, and they lack the resources to persevere until that outcome is obtained. Both problems result from the mistaken notion that governments exist to serve the people rather than that governments exist to serve themselves.

Simply asking for the government to modify some ruling, such as a vaccine mandate or land use restriction is not a sufficient objective. If there is sufficient protest, a government may temporarily relent and relax or remove the cause of the protest. Officials may simply make a strategic retreat.

Attitude of modern governments toward citizens is that of slave owners to slaves

Once the protest has ended, though, and the protesters disperse, the government invariably comes back with something worse in place of that which they were forced to yield. Worse, the dispersed protesters can now be picked off one by one as they no longer have the strength of numbers that is their protection. The military expression is "divide and conquer".

Rather than seeing protests as legitimate expressions of the desires of the citizens it is their duty to serve, modern governments see protests as defiance and disobedience—neither of which can be tolerated. Punishment must be forthcoming. That is why there must be an objective for the protest that ls strong enough to both force the desired change, and which the government will be unable to retaliate against.

That brings us back to slave rebellions. In many ways, the attitude of modern governments toward citizens is that of slave owners to slaves. A slave has no rights. A slave is only allowed what is permitted by the owner, and a slave's only value is what it can produce for an owner. Most governments dismiss the idea of rights. Instead thinking in terms of what they permit. The value of citizens is in the taxes they pay and services they provide.

When one thinks of slave rebellions, one is inclined to think of black slaves in the Americas. We know most about those, however, because they are of recent and well chronicled history. Yet slavery has existed throughout history in nearly every culture. It has been estimated that forty percent of the population of Athens in the time of Socrates was slave. Spartacus, renowned for an almost successful slave revolt against the Roman Empire, is also well recorded in history.

Most slave rebellions failed because the rebels simply wanted freedom FROM slavery

By contrast, in the Islamic expansions from the early 700s until the time of the Renaissance and even later, during which millions of slaves of all colors—white, brown, yellow, black were captured, there are few records. Any slave rebellions in Islamic countries were unlikely to be recorded and would have been dealt with harshly.

It is said that history is written by the victors, so we have little or no record of any early rebellions. It is likely, though, that most slave rebellions failed because the rebels simply wanted freedom FROM slavery and lacked a compelling objective FOR something, a problem shared by truckers and farmers today. Many of them also lacked the resources in terms of numbers and material support necessary to succeed.

Arguably, the French Revolution was a successful slave revolt. The aristocracy of France of the time shared the arrogant sense of entitlement that modern governments exhibit. The coherent objective of the revolting citizen slaves was the removal of the aristocrats from power. Although the measures taken in that removal were somewhat extreme, they were effective in eliminating the opportunity for retaliation.

The lesson for today is that successful protests must take strong measures not only to achieve the modification or removal of the offending law, mandate, or regulation, but must also ensure that the ability of offended rulers to retaliate is eliminated.

Had the truckers demanded the permanent resignation of Trudeau, as well as that of the cabinet officials responsible for the vaccine mandate and its enforcement, and if they had the resources to maintain the siege and resist the government attempts to remove them, Canada might still be a free country today.

Like the J6 protesters in the United States, the Truckers are being hunted down by members of the RCMP

As it was, though, the truckers were too nice and too trusting in the goodness of a government they believed to be their own. The result was ultimate defeat. Like the J6 protesters in the United States, they are being hunted down by members of the RCMP—a once noble institution as was our own FBI—and punished for their temerity.

The farmers of Europe still have a chance. Perhaps their solution is to demand the permanent resignation of a substantial portion of the EU government, or at least of the leadership of certain member states. Such would be an essential act to restore accountability to the governors who see themselves as above such petty considerations as what their citizens might want.

The American Revolution—another successful slave revolt—was in large measure successful because the founders recognized the problems inherent in previous governments across history. They recognized the power of what we today call gangs, and believed the solution was to form their own gang consisting of the citizens of the new nation.

By making all citizens members of the gang , the thinking went, we the people would avoid the errors of the past. We could secure for ourselves and for our posterity the blessings of life and liberty. By institutionalization of revolution by means of periodic elections, we could avoid the formation of an entrenched aristocracy, and ensure accountability of leadership.

That concept of government has formed the model and basis for nearly all forms of Western systems of government. It has taken nearly two hundred years to subvert that idea and enable the establishment, or rather, restoration of an aristocracy.

Administrative state has grown like a weed

The administrative state, also known as the Deep State, has grown in size and power in nearly every year ever since the turn of the last century. Woodrow Wilson made that case that the nation had grown too large and complex for governance by "amateurs", and that a scientifically trained professional governing class was needed.

Since that time, the administrative state has grown like a weed. Elected officials come and go, but the administration abides. There are now third and even fourth generation bureaucrats in various positions, since they tend to hire their own. Our tax dollars support myriads of nameless, faceless bureaucrats whose jobs are to devise new regulations to direct us, and to enforce existing regulations. Do we need to be regulated so finely? Probably not, but if the job of a regulator is to regulate, then regulate they will, despite what the victims of such regulation desire.

As a result, what we have now is a government consisting of a set of elected officials at the mercy of a bureaucracy of unaccountable neoaristocrats supported by a vast army of lower level gang members empowered to rule over anyone not a member of their gang—in other words, most of the rest of us citizens.

Admittedly, it is difficult to hold those in power accountable for misuse of that power. Elections were intended to provide that accountability by providing a means to remove miscreants from those positions of power. The gradual formation of a permanent Deep State, insulated from the check of electoral removal, is the greatest challenge to liberty today. Until that permanent element is addressed effectively, no protest will have more than superficial effect.

Establishing and enforcing accountability for the Deep State is the challenge before us. Failure to do so is to submit to the chains of slavery. The truckers and farmers have led the way. It is up to us to support them and complete the mission.