Incrementalism... same way they sold us Social Security

In my presentations I often refer to the term “incrementalism,” so I thought I would take a moment and explain how it applies to your lives insofar as to governmental encroachment, particularly as it pertains to the continuous assault of your liberties.  I also sometimes call this “self-perpetuating bureaucracy” when I refer to how the various governmental agencies expand upon their powers with administrative regulations.

This is a very worrisome doctrine to me, particularly in the fascist/corporatocracy into which the United States government has turned.  The underhanded, dirty-dealing politicians in the Congress just continue to pander to special interests, all while you lose your liberties.

How and where will it end?  Where is your line in the sand?

I offer you some of my thoughts on how to be alert for incrementalism.

Source: www.dictionary.com

Incrementalism is a subset of what is often referred to as “mission creep,” which is, according to Wikipedia:

… the expansion of a project or mission beyond its original goals, often after initial successes. The term often implies a certain disapproval of newly adopted goals by the user of the term.

Mission creep is usually considered undesirable due to the dangerous path of each success breeding more ambitious attempts, only stopping when a final, often catastrophic, failure occurs. The term was originally applied exclusively to military operations, but has recently been applied to many different fields.  The phrase first appeared in articles concerning the UN Peacekeeping mission during the Somali Civil War in the Washington Post on April 15, 1993 and in the New York Times on October 10, 1993.”

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Obama on Mission Creep

Incrementalism is, at least to my sometimes convoluted way of thinking at least, the gradual increase in something— anything— by any entity.  In the government, incrementalism is generally referred to as the gradual usurpation of power or authority by a governmental agency.  For purposes of this rant, I will discuss incrementalism in terms of that aspect. There are several good examples of government incrementalism.  The first, and perhaps the best known, is the enactment of seat belt laws.  Like most statutory law and agency regulation, the Hegelian dielectric, so named after philosopher Georg W.F. Hegel and sometimes called
Hegelianism is used to stimulate the perception by the public that such a statute or regulation is necessary and good.  Briefly stated, the Hegelian dielectric is, again according to Wikipedia:

Hegelian dialectic, usually presented in a threefold manner, was stated by Heinrich Moritz Chalybäus as comprising three dialectical stages of development: a thesis, giving rise to its reaction, an antithesis, which contradicts or negates the thesis, and the tension between the two being resolved by means of a synthesis.  Although this model is often named after Hegel, he himself never used that specific formulation.  Hegel ascribed that terminology to Kant.  Carrying on Kant’s work, Fichte greatly elaborated on the synthesis model, and popularized it.”

Hegel's Dialectic

You may hear others refer to this in the more simplistic terms of “problem; reaction; solution.”   In other words, the government creates or exacerbates a problem, then reacts to it with a great deal of publicity (particularly by electioneering politicians), “Oh, we’ve just got to do something about [insert dilemma here]!”, and the the solution which is to enact yet another onerous piece of regulation. Someone, somewhere decided that seat belts were necessary as life/injury-saving devices when used in automobiles that were in accidents.  I do not believe, as many have suggested, that this was the idea of the auto insurance companies.  This was a well-planned course of events designed to yet insinuate the government further into our private lives, with the willing duplicity of the automobile insurance carriers, who owed a favor to the government for enacting mandatory insurance requirements.  The sixth plank of the Communist Manifesto, again according to Wikipedia is:

6. Centralization of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.”

Seat Belt Incrementalism

This is generally construed to also extend to private means of conveyance, such as the automobile. So, the Federal Government thwarted by lack of jurisdiction themselves, and in the guise of the United States Department of Transportation (DOT), required that states enact mandatory seat belt laws, or risk losing federal highway funding.  This is yet another sick, sick concept that is so disingenuous of our concept of a free society:  The government, by force and coercion, burdens American citizens with confiscatory taxes (with dubious authority to do so), and then dangles the proverbial “carrot” back in our faces, and causes us to do their bidding in order to get those tax dollars back for the purpose for which they were intended.  In the case of the DOT, it is the federal excise taxes on such commodities as fuel and tires.

Once the seat belt laws were in place (with the single exception of the State of New Hampshire, at least as of this writing), they waited until they though that the public felt comfortable with the statutes as they stood and then, by incrementalism, strengthened them.  Don’t get me wrong, I feel that wearing of seat belts is a good thing, but I do not want or need my “nanny” government to force me to do so.  If I want to walk out in front of a train and kill myself, that should be my choice.  And from a purely Libertarian point of view, it should be my choice so long as someone else doesn’t have to clean up the mess afterward, or I have paid someone else in advance to do so, therefore not placing a burden on the government.  Having insurance for such an eventuality would be tantamount to paying someone in advance to clean up the mess.

Newest Seat Belt Law

In most all states, the seat belt laws at first had no “teeth,” that is to say that they lacked any penalties.  Then the incrementalism gradually began.  One of the most used Hegelian “problems” is to state that laws and/or regulations are needed to “save/protect the children.”  Such was the case with the seat belt laws.  First, it became mandatory to restrain all children in seat belts, or onerous fines could be incurred.  But law enforcement could not stop a vehicle solely for failure to do so.  There had to be another, or “primary” reason, such as speeding or other violation.   Then, the same was applied to adults.  Later failure to buckle up a child was changed to be a primary reason for a traffic stop; followed later by adults.  Then children under a certain age were required to be in a child safety seat in the rear of the vehicle, and on and on an on…

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Seat Belt Laws in the United States

Another example would be those bored, “mad mothers.”  I am referring the the Mothers Against Drunk Driving.  There is nothing worse than a bored housewife with a mission, in my view, and  these “mad mothers,” as I euphemistically call them, are nothing but that.  Look, I’m sorry that your loved one was killed by a drunk driver, but passing archaic drunk driving laws was and is not the answer!

Revenue Enhancement Officer

As a means of full disclosure, I do not have a “dog in this fight,” so to speak.  That is to say that I have never had a loved one killed by a drunk driver.  I did have one make a turn in front of me some years ago.  Obviously drunk, but a friend to law enforcement (read: informant), he was let go and never even tested for alcohol!  The cops were more interested in hassling me, of course, even though they would not have even had a police department had I not intervened a few years before.  I also do not drink, so I have never driven even the teeniest bit inebriated.

But these “mad mothers”  kept on and on… Forcing drug alcohol law levels down from .10 to .08 and lower, perhaps not realizing (at least the “kitchen moms”) that they were just doing the bidding of our “nanny state” to get control of our private transportation system!  Not one to carp on something without offering my own solution, the correct avenue would be for education.  And of course there is a whole cottage industry that has grown up around in the drunk driving laws:  The courts make money and become more insidious; the legal profession, both criminal defense and prosecution; and, of course, our friends in the insurance business, notwithstanding the law enforcement/prison industrial complex.  There is absolutely no data to support life-saving benefits of the reduction in blood alcohol levels to .08, even after several years of statistical analysis.  There is data to support a rise in criminal convictions and the subtending rewards to the above-named beneficiaries, particularly the lawyers.  Just follow the money and power!  Cui bono.

And so now what do we have?  So-called “DUI checkpoints” operated by the recently unshackled military?  Where will it end?

U.S. Marines at a so-called "Sobriety Checkpoint" in San Bernadino County, California, circa 2008

In yet another example, my citation and opinion of which may grate on many of you are the so-called sex offender laws.  Look, nothing sickens me than some pervert going out and having his way with a child, and then perhaps committing a murder, but statistics have shown that these acts are generally committed, not by a so-named “registered sex offender,” but by persons heretofore unknown to law enforcement, and are most always a family member or friend.  Thousands of 18 year-olds have been sent off to prison for merely having sex with their sixteen year old girlfriends.  This is a good example of a law gone wrong.  The same aforementioned groups don’t care; it just strengthens their respective industries (and, by the way, the “law profession” is not, I repeat not a profession, it is an industry, pure and simple).  So the poor 18 year-old kid goes off to prison for a term of years and comes out all tatted up, with who knows what kinds of diseases, possibly incurred as a result of a prison rape, and branded for life with the label “sex offender,” the nouveau “Scarlet Letter,” and unable to ever gain meaningful employment.

The Scarlet Letter

And now most states have enacted laws requiring the requiring registration of sex offenders and collection of DNA samples, again at the behest of the federal government.  Some states are now forcing what they call “civil commitments,” in other words, incarcerating a so-called sex offender civilly after their term of imprisonment has expired.

Still another example are the various gun laws.  The government will use any excuse to disarm the citizenry.  First it was the violent felons.  Then it was all felons.  Then it was the violent misdemeanants.

More recently, we have been subjected to yet another spate of incrementalism by the Transportation Safety administration (TSA).  Little by little, the TSA has been increasing its assault on not only our liberty, but on our  dignity as well.  Again, a continual attempt to implement the sixth plank of Communism, as stated above.  And, in a classic example of mission creep, the TSA has started its “grope downs” at malls and hotels.  What on Earth do motels and malls have to do with transportation?  Nothing, of course.  We have unwittingly allowed them to establish a uniformed Federal Police Force!

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United States Government Domain Seizure Notice

Another recent example of your loving federal government at work is the recent “confiscation” of domains by federal law enforcement.  As per usual, they “tested the waters,” so to speak, by confiscating domains purported to be used by child pornographers.  Then the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) confiscated domain names ostensibly related to copyright and intellectual property rights.  Then they went after the gambling sites.  So far so good.  Who will be next?  Websites that may disagree with official government policies?

And no one is bold enough to speak out about this for fear that they are branded “soft on crime,” or other dubious distinction, particularly politicians, for fear of retribution by the “mad mothers” and their ilk. Does no one see the danger in these precedents?  Mark my words, you will see even more and more of this type of incrementalism insert itself between you and  your freedom. I predict that you will see:

• The drunk and impaired driving laws will be strengthened tremendously, and the resultant increase in checkpoints and convictions to the point where one not take cough syrup, pain medication, or antihistamines in any amounts and be able to legally operate a motor vehicle;
• The sex-offender laws will be increased requiring all sex offenders to wear electronic monitoring devices at all times; then
• All felons parole or probation will wear electronic monitoring at all times; then
• All felons parole or probation will submit blood samples for a DNA database; then
• All felons to wear electronic monitoring at all times, regardless of their parole or probationary status, and to register their addresses at all times
• Then the above will be applied to misdemeanants incrementally;
• Gun restrictions will be increased against persons diagnosed with any mental impairment;
• Gun restrictions will be placed on misdemeanants, not just for violent misdemeanors; and,
• A “test case” domain seizure of a website critical to United States’ policies most likely under the guise of “National Security”

Incrementalism.  Beware.  It’s all around you and you many not even realize it!

I reiterate:  How and where will it end?  Where is your line in the sand?