HOLD ESTABLISHMENTS ACCOUNTABLE

Editor’s Note: The following letter refers to a September 7 column.

In 1951 Hannah Arendt wrote of a new totalitarianism that was emerging in our society. Not a communist or fascist totalitarianism but a technocratic totalitarianism. A kind of totalitarianism that is not led by a “Dear Leader” such as Kim Jong Il, Stalin or Hitler but by dull bureaucrats and technocrats. The Twitter and Mega bosses have already admitted complicity. The Covid19 crisis did not come out of the blue. It was a deliberate contrivance to add to our collective fears of overpopulation, terrorism, global warming, or uncontrolled crime, real or imagined. Whenever a new object of fear arises in society, there is only one response: increased control. Our culture can only tolerate a certain level of arbitrary control. Coercive control leads to fear and fear leads to more coercive control. In this way, society falls victim to a vicious cycle that leads inevitably to totalitarianism and ends in the radical destruction of both the psyche and integrity of individuals. The bureaucratic conceit must be maintained when one's sole contribution to the Gross National Product is more red-tape and confusion. Apparently the conceit needs reinforcement, thus the inspiration for the 87K new armed IRS agents.

I read with rolling eyes last week as a reliable leftist contributor's column acknowledged corruption in the electoral system, but I'm confident he opposes any reform that would eliminate the extended vote-counting period which invites manipulation of the results. Hopefully, saner Texans have prevailed to eliminate the recent widespread late re-configuring of the voting rules by opportunists to deliberately avoid scrutiny. It's a real stretch to brand as hypocrites those who question the 2020 election for uncountable legitimate reasons while still to this day bemoaning the 2016 Hillary loss for no other reason than loathiing of Donald Trump. It will take work and vigilence on the part of citizens to restore confidence in our voting system. The people who care enough are calling for one day voting with results the next day as we once had before “voting machines expedited!” the process. The reduction of opportunities for tampering, strong positive ID, and smaller precincts eliminate the many scams and restore confidence in the system. We must constantly be on guard and not neglect our opportunties to hold the establishments accountable.

John Parker Bandera, Texas