“An ancient Sage valued himself upon this, that though he could not fiddle, he knew how to make a great City of a little one. The Science that I, a modern Simpleton, am about to communicate is the very reverse. I address myself to all Ministers who have the Management of extensive Dominions, which from their very Greatness are become troublesome to govern, because the Multiplicity of their Affairs leaves no Time for fiddling.”
- Benjamin Franklin
I refer your attention to that work of the above named scholar, "Rules By Which a Great Empire May Be Reduced To A Small One", and here provide a View, a Satire upon a Satire, of the Rules by which our Government's apparent designs may be more swiftly fulfilled.
However peaceably your people have submitted to your Government, shown their Affection to your Interest, and patiently borne their Grievances, you are to suppose them always inclined to terrorism, and treat them accordingly. Quarter police among them, who by their Insolence may provoke the rising of Protesters, and by their Batons and Tasers suppress them. By this Means, like the Husband who uses his Wife ill from Suspicion, you may in Time convert your Suspicions into Realities.
Much of the Strength of Government depends on the Opinion of the People; and much of that Opinion on the Choice of Rulers placed immediately over them. If you send them wise and good Men for positions of Authority, who study the Interest of the People, and advance their Prosperity, they will think their Government wise and good, wishing the Welfare of its Citizens. You are therefore to be careful who you recommend for those Offices. If you can find Rogue Traders who have embezzled their Fortunes, or Career Politicians who have abandoned their former allegiances and beliefs, these may do well as Ministers; for they will probably be rapacious, and provoke the People by their Extortions. Wrangling Spin-Doctors too are not amiss, for they will be forever disputing and obfuscating the plainest truth. If withal they should be ignorant, wrong-headed and insolent, so much the better; all will contribute to impress those ideas of your Government that are proper for a People you would wish to renounce it.
To confirm these Impressions, and strike them deeper, whenever the Injured come to the Capitol with Complaints of Oppression or Injustice, punish such Suitors with harassment, incarceration, enormous expense, and a final Judgment in Favor of the Oppressor. This will have an admirable Effect every Way. The Trouble of future Complaints will be prevented, and Officers and Officials will be encouraged to further Acts of Oppression and Injustice; and thence the People may become more disaffected, and at length desperate.
When such Officials have crammed their Coffers, and made themselves so odious to the People that they can no longer remain among them with Safety to their Persons, surround them with armed men for their protection and reward them with Pensions. You may make them Peers too, if that respectable Order should not think fit to resent it. All will contribute to encourage new Officials in the same Practices, and make the Government detestable.
If when you are engaged in Surveillance, your Citizens should vie in liberal Aids of Information and Money against the common Enemy, giving upon your simple Requisition, reflect, that biometric data taken from them by your Power is more honorable to you than information presented by their inherent Honesty. Despise therefore their voluntary submissions, and resolve to harass them with novel legislation. They will probably complain that they are oppressed by a Body in which they have no Democratic Representative, and that this is contrary to common Right. They will petition for Redress. Let Parliament flout their Claims, reject their Petitions, refuse even to suffer the reading of them, and treat the Protesters with the utmost Contempt. Nothing can have a better Effect, in producing the Alienation proposed; for though many can forgive Injuries, none ever forgave Contempt.
Remember to make your arbitrary surveillance more grievous to your Citizens, by public Declarations importing that your Power over them has no Limits, so that when you pry without their Consent into a moment of their private lives, you have a clear Right to inquire into every hour of every day. This will weaken every Idea of Security in their Privacy and Persons, and convince them that under such a Government they have nothing they can call their own; which can scarce fail of producing the happiest Consequences!
Possibly indeed some Citizens might still comfort themselves, and say, “Though we have no Civil Liberties, we have yet something left that is valuable; we have constitutional Liberty both of Person and of Conscience. This Premier, these Commons and these Lords, who it seems are too remote from us to know us and feel for us, cannot take from us our Habeas Corpus Right, or our Right of Trial by a Jury of our Neighbors. To annihilate this Comfort, begin by Laws to perplex their daily movements with infinite Regulations impossible to be observed; ordain Fines and Punishments for every Failure; take away the Trial of such infractions by Jury, and give it to arbitrary Judges of your own appointing, and of the lowest Characters in the Country, whose Salaries and Emoluments are to arise out of the Fine or Condemnations, and whose Appointments are at the Premier's Pleasure.
