All men are created equal. From this truth, asserted by the Holy Scriptures and validated by both a great many giants of history and the patterns of history itself, may be derived another truth: that no individual or body of individuals may compel any other to perform even the most menial of tasks without consent.
Ten thousand men, strong in body and mind, possessing all the wealth, weapons, and property in the world, can no more force one weak, impoverished man to act against his own will than can that man – with the very same plethora of resources – compel those ten thousand men to act against theirs. There can only be forms of motivation, either through promises of reward or threats of harm. But the body attempting the coercion must obtain the compliance of the body being coerced, and even if they place him under great duress, he alone retains the power of will, which cannot be wrested from him.
Even should he bow to their wishes, he has not surrendered his will and may turn it against them at any time, once more refusing to conform to the mold they seek to force him into, and though they may bring down on his head every vile and monstrous oppression and injustice imaginable, they shall remain entirely incapable of seizing control of either body or soul, and manipulating them as with a machine. That is, to force obedience.
The conclusion, therefore, is that true power is the ability to control the will of others and manipulate it as desired. By this definition, the only being with true power is Almighty God, the designer and builder of will itself.
He holds the souls of Men in His possession. The functions of the body, from the beat of the heart to the firing of neurons to the dreams of sleep, are His to command. It is true that men may reject God and seek their own path, but once again, it is only by His leave that we have the will to perform such foolishness.
All other forms of natural life, that being the flora and fauna, are incapable of disobeying the Being that fashioned them, and the singular reason that God refrains from seizing control of our will is that he is just and merciful, though let us never forget He would be well within His rights to do so, or even to wipe us from existence and fashion new species more subservient to His mind.
With the only true power, then, resting solely and immovably in the hands of Almighty God, all other forms of power, that is, the power of the devil or the power of Men, is an illusion, a non-entity that has been given a name for the convenience of defining something, even if that something is a lack of something.
When a king “wields power,” his hands are devoid of any tangible object. When a government “asserts its authority,” they have called forth the power of the law, which is a mere collection of words on pieces of paper. The singular reason any source of rule, be it an individual or a governing body, is said to have power is because of the mass compliance of the population over which they claim to rule. The illusion of power is therefore directly linked, even dependent on, the number of individuals that consent to it.
The greater the illusion of power, the greater the number of individuals consenting to it. Since these consenting individuals, as has already been stated, never surrender their will and may withdraw their consent at any time, the greatest illusion of power irrevocably rests upon them. While it is still just an illusion - for the people can no more compel a king without his consent than he, them – if the source of rule wishes to maintain the illusion of power, and by extension, the position and prestige that come with it, the consent of the people must be obtained and retained, ensuring the benefits derived from the people’s consent far outweigh the detriments. Both are always present whenever a person or persons consent to obey another.
Naturally, in order to heighten the benefits and reduce the detriments as much as possible, a government must maintain strong lines of communication between itself and the people, so as to be informed of what the people desire of it and how best to keep them satisfied, ere they withdraw their consent of compliance. The stronger the lines of communication, the harder they will be to sever. The greater the proximity of the government to the people, the stronger communication will be.
It is therefore essential that any source of rule which wishes to maintain its illusion of power by consent of the governed be intimately involved with the governed, communicating with them, advancing the goals important to them, and being held accountable by them, by any and all means necessary in order to retain their consent to be governed.
Such methods have not, will not, and never will be self-sustaining, but must be bolstered up and kept under constant vigilance by a small but determined minority. This overlooked but essential task is the small pebble holding open the great gates of freedom, between which flow the people and their government, and is most commonly referred to as grassroots activism.
This article was submitted by Will Zwart from Maryland.
