Everyone needs a good grasp of how widespread tyranny truly is.
That’s because it exists far beyond the borders of that obscure country that immediately came to mind. And the weapons it wields extend far beyond firearms and munitions: Substitute your home or workplace for the location, and your words and actions for the weapons, and you might discover tyranny you never knew existed.
Against our loved ones and/or our co-workers—wittingly or unwittingly—you and I are easily capable of unleashing mild forms of the same tyranny that we loathe when unleashed to its fullest, against citizens of some faraway country.
When you often respond to your five-year old’s request for an explanation with the Because-I-said-so trite, are you not exercising some form of tyranny?
When your standards for how early the bed is made and how quickly the dishes are done are significantly higher when everyone is home than when you are baching it, couldn’t that be considered somewhat tyrannical?
When you make too many arbitrary decisions at your workplace, doesn’t that possibly make you a tyrant of sorts?
Here’s the point: We all hate tyranny so much that we want all tyrants exposed and deposed. That hatred is good motivation for introspection to reveal the various forms of tyranny that we are capable of and/or guilty of. As a sibling or as a parent. As a cashier at a store or as supervisor at work. As a person who otherwise really hates tyranny.
Done vigilantly and diligently, that introspection of the tyranny that may reside within will result in the most interesting forms of “regime change.”
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