Public Tyranny And Private Tyranny

[Ilya Shambat]

I have heard horror stories both in Russia and in America. The difference is that while in Russia the biggest perpetrator was the government, in America the biggest perpetrators were private.

I mean men who like to rape their children and beat their wives.

I mean entities such as Jehovah’s Witnesses and Westboro Baptists.

I mean communities that like to protect the perpetrators and do ugly things to their victims.

When I was in university, there was a sign on the door that said “Smash the chains of statism.” There is no statism in America. There was statism in the Soviet Union, but not in the United States. Here was a government that was elected, official, accountable, checked and balanced. And that remained that way through the efforts of people preventing government from becoming corrupt.

Whereas families, religious groups and communities are entities that are unelected, unofficial, unaccountable, unbalanced and unchecked. And that allows them to get away with corruption far exceeding that of the federal government.

I do not expect my daughter to have horror stories to tell at all. Both me and her mother are determined to be good to her, and government in Australia is mild. I am in charge of both how I treat her and where I raise her, and in both cases I believe I have made the right choice.

So it is important to look at who perpetrates what abuse and where. Neither the government nor the private sector has a monopoly on wrongful conduct. Anything capable of choice is capable of wrong choice, and that is as much the case with the Soviet Communists as it is with Jehovah’s Witnesses in the United States.