Truth And The Road To Tyranny

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Bill, a word that has been in the consciousness of a lot of Americans in months is tyranny. I don’t know that all of us, Americans, truly understand what tyranny is. You’ve read a book that talks about this a great deal. It’s called On Tyranny by Timothy Snyder. I would love to hear your thoughts on some of the points the book makes and maybe how we can tie them into what we’re seeing in our country.

I appreciate it, Tom. I’ve enjoyed and also feelings of being sad and disheartened and anxious about some of the signs that are showing up that are demonstrating some of the strategies that are being used that are similar to the strategies that were used when other forms of tyranny got started. The strategies of language, the strategies of what happens in the legal system, what happens to institutions, what happens to professional ethics, all of these things lead us down a path that most Americans can’t see that we’re getting shoved down this road toward tyranny. It’s very unsettling because a lot of times people don’t know when the last meaningful vote is that they took in a country that has been taken over by tyranny. The last meaningful vote in Russia was 1990.

Once all the systems are focused underneath one authoritarian leader, then it becomes hard to get an honest discussion because any kind of dissension is being shut down or any kind of freedom is being taken advantage. It’s always about the good of the state rather than a human right or what is the value for a country to stand for certain ethics and principles. It’s very sad and disheartening when these kinds of principles move forward. It’s hard.

For our readers, a brief definition of tyranny, which is a noun, is cruel and oppressive government rule, or a similar definition is a nation under cruel and oppressive government. Another way it’s referred to is cruel unreasonable or arbitrary use of power or control. I find that last one very interesting.

We are seeing that one right there in Portland, in Chicago. It’s an arbitrary action. In the book, these authoritarians move around and respond to crises. It looks like that they’re managing the crises, but all they’re doing is they’re leveraging the crisis into power. They could take a small crisis and say, “I handled that.” All the followers go, “You handled that.” On a scale of 1 to 10, it was a very small crisis, or it was not very meaningful, the action that they took. There’s not meaningful action being taken in Portland to stop the groups. Otherwise, the people of Oregon and Portland would have asked the federal government to have helped. “Our people are rebelling over here and we need the citizens to be protected.” There was no request that was made of the federal government. There was a request made for PPE, for the protection stuff, but there was not a request for paramilitaries, unmarked law enforcement or federal agents to come in. The federal government is to respond to the state’s requests, not to come in and arbitrarily come in on that. I appreciate your intuition because we’ve got a clear example.

There are lots of examples. Maybe before we get to examples in our society, in our country now, are there a couple of examples from the book you want to share of past examples of tyranny? Is there anything there that would be helpful?



The one that sticks out is that somebody that is in the place of tyranny needs normal people to help them. They need the regular police. They need the regular judges. They need the regular citizens to make a pass on something that’s abhorrent. For example, Tom, if I came down to Orange County and I started putting symbols on certain houses that represented one group, and symbols on another set of houses and stores that represented another group and said, “This group is more valuable and this group is less valuable. This is more valuable. This is less valuable.” If we come down into an area and start the language of division and then start assigning value to one side or another, instead of, “This is what America is standing for and this is what we’re going to do together.” That’s a sign of tyranny.

The president’s speech in Texas was exactly that they’re evil people. They’re sick. Those Democrats are sick. They’re going to carry chaos. They’re going to do that. All of that is right out of the playbook of tyranny. Somebody that’s going to read this might think that, “Bill, you’re picking a side. You’re doing that.” I’m just referring to how language is used. The language of inclusion is not the language of us versus them inside our own country. It makes it easy for one group of people to say, “The president said that this group of people is going to hurt us. Therefore, we get to defend and hurt them first.” That’s not a part of the rule of law. You have a right to protect yourself, but not a proactive right to take somebody’s life on an assumption they might hurt you.

We’re getting into pre-crime of like Minority Report or something there if you do that.

It’s a pre-crime. You thought it, therefore. It’s like there’s a group of people marching down your street, “You might be feeling scared, but they’re just marching down the street, holding signs and making noise.” “I don’t like it. They’re infringing on my rights. They’re working on the First Amendment. They’re doing freedom of speech,” which you have freedom of speech too, but not the freedom to act in a violent way with them physically. You don’t get that one.

What’s slightly related to this that came to mind, I forget what state it was, but there was a peaceful Black Lives Matter protest going on where this couple in their home were not liking the protest. They stood outside their home brandishing firearms and pointing firearms at the people. They didn’t fire any firearms. They didn’t physically hurt anybody but they were brought up on charges because they broke a law by brandishing those firearms and making threatening motions, gestures toward the peaceful protesters. It was very interesting how that happened.

Tom, if there’s a group of college students in the house next to you making noise, tapping on their door with a gun might not be a good idea for you.

It wouldn’t be a productive move.



We can ask the police officers to protect and serve. Ask them to beat the need for consideration between neighbors, “You are making a heck of a lot of noise in here. With that heck of a lot of noise, we would like peace and consideration. Please don’t have us come back here again because we’re going to need to come back here again. We don’t want to do that.” You make that call. The thought that I can take the law into my own hands is also a part of tyranny. It’s that I am empowered to enforce and interpret the laws the way I see that. Regrettably, the internet has reinforced that my viewpoint is more valuable than the truth of my viewpoint.

This is not a good thing. That’s how you get tyranny to move. My viewpoint gets to supersede things, in my opinion. You can put doctors on a video and these doctors are all saying, “This is the thing and this is the use.” What winds up happening is that who’s ever in that group, there is a range of respect, research and experience in that group. Some of them are like, “I have a good piece of information for everybody to consider that can be helpful.” There’s somebody that might come on and says, “I have a piece of information and I’m going to promote my viewpoint. Meanwhile, I’m not speaking fully from a piece of research evidence.” This is very difficult. We can get into a discussion about placebos. We can get a discussion about spontaneous healings. We can get all kinds of interesting side collateral things. Yet, the big systems cannot give a head nod to that as a protective strategy. They can’t do that. They have to say, “This is the evidence the way we see it and the way we have measured it.” That’s what they get to do. Everybody else can have their opinion.

Authoritarians look make it look like they’re managing a crisis when in fact, all they’re doing is leveraging crisis into power.

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Bill, the book covers a lot of different aspects or indicators of tyranny, qualities of tyranny. Are there a few that it would make sense to review and highlight?

The first one I’m thinking about is professional ethics. That one is significant. We’re not at that place, but there is messaging that is coming in this place. One of the things that happened in Nazi Germany is that they started talking negatively about universities and the professors, and we have that. We have it that somehow the places of learning, discovery and research are an institute to cultivate liberal points of view where there is no measured evidence about that. There’s subjective evidence, but there is no measured evidence that if you go to college, you become more liberal or more conservative. That doesn’t match.

Look at all the Republicans that are senators, that all have degrees, for them to call those professors elites because they’ve studied at top universities and that’s their tribe. It’s a little bit bias, disconnected. You can’t have those two things together. You can’t run under the cover for this while they do. They do both. They do say, “A tyranny does not value a rigorous discussion on a fact and research.” You can’t hide on that. It’s too difficult for a person of tyranny to face it. The person that’s in tyranny gets to say the following sentence, “That wasn’t my experience about taking the medicine. My experience was I took it for two weeks and I didn’t get it.”

You’re not a sample. One person is not a sample. We have this research that tested 535 and said, “It didn’t make any damn bit of difference.” That’s a sample. If you would like 1,000 people, we’ll increase the sample. The ones we measured, “This is the numbers we got at it and it didn’t move the needle. It didn’t help him with this.” If there was one thing to go after is to want professional ethics. What the profession stands for is not fought for anymore. That’s how you know the tyranny shows up. Tom, would you hire somebody just because they like you for a position in your company, but they didn’t study or don’t have any skills in that position? Would you hire them just because they were nice?

I wouldn’t hire them because of that. I’m in business to accomplish things, not to have people give me adoration.

With that in mind, if the Senate approves 250 judges and many of those judges or some of those judges don’t have any experience or skill at being a judge. Because the Republican wrote a nice letter or acknowledgment to President Donald Trump, they get to have the job as a judge. They don’t know what they’re doing. That’s a form of tyranny. The other attorneys and judges don’t say anything about it or don’t stand up to it in a significant way because that’s how America is to stand up for itself.

Here’s an example. During the Polish Solidarity Movement where the labor unions fought back. During that time, the reason why that was able to move is because the professors, the attorneys and the common people stood with the workers. The workers wanted to vote on things. The attorneys, the professors, the managers and other businesses say, “We’re going this way.” As soon as that flopped over and the Communist Party made an agreement with it, within a few short years, the Communist Party was not in charge anymore because you need professionals to stand up with professional ethics.



It seems we are solely lacking that action in the United States right now. Especially in the Justice Department, look at Bill Barr and his actions in terms of professional ethics, he’s blurring the lines of that significantly.

He’s legally right. He’s not standing up to professional ethics. He’s not living up to be the top law enforcer. What he’s doing is saying, “How can I find the minimalist way of agreeing to this question and say I’ll follow the law, but what I’m going to do is follow the law while these other people are adjusting the law, and then I’m just going to support them. I’m not going to hold professional ethics?” It’s not like that there haven’t been attorneys, law schools and professionals screaming in his direction. They haven’t all come together in a unified voice enough to rise to the level.

They haven’t said, “My needs as an individual. I’ve got to put a little skin in the game because otherwise, this guy is going to take away more of my needs for freedom, more of my needs for expression. I can’t even hold my head up high in the professional ethical place because I didn’t fight for the professional ethics that I swore in with when I took the bar and when I became an attorney.” It’s same as the doctors. We have these dozen doctors showing up. Their video goes viral, several million views. All of a sudden, their opinion gets to be higher than all the research? How does that work? They’re playing into bias and they’re playing into things.

It’s the opinion that some people want to hear despite the truth.

It’s the same thing with educators that have been diminished like this. Schools have been underfunded for years. We’re not respecting teachers. We take more and more away from them, “We’re going to take your pension away. We’re going to make it harder for you to stay in things. We’re going to suppress your pay rates.” It’s race to the bottom language. It’s like we’re turning into that second world oligarchy experience. All of a sudden, we’ll work our way back to having the monarch, the nobles and these governors actually own their territories. They get to grift off of everybody that lives in the state.

I don’t think Americans would like the idea of that too much.

They’re doing it right now.

No term limits contribute to this. There are all sorts of things to contribute.



They’re voting for their own salary. They get to have healthcare. Other people don’t get to have healthcare. It’s the unequal thing. Language winds up happening and we’ve got to turn this into an optimistic conversation because there have been days and hours that I’ve spent and go like, “How the heck are we going to get out of this?” How are we going to step into re-energizing our voice? We’re starting about the collective good instead of trying to support one or two values that are not in alignment with what the country stands for. Here’s a value that one people promote. Why are you taxing the rich? They earn their money.

That’s not the country they’re living it. They’re living in a country that the system allowed them to make their money, work hard and use that. We’re all in this together. They worked hard enough or who were smart enough to figure out how to make it work for them. I don’t think there’s a lot of earning going on in there. They get to keep their money or they get to keep a higher percentage because they got to the top of the list. This is where it gets unsettling because our language fails us. Our beliefs keep us trapped on the small issue and not focus on the greater vision. It’s hard.

Professional ethics is very interesting. It’s easy to see how professional ethics haven’t been stood up for so much.

If you’re studying for something and you get a degree, why is it that this teacher with the degree and all this stuff, or this dentist or this thing, all of a sudden with the level of debt they have, they’re trapped with that. Meanwhile, somebody that’s working around the margins and things like that from a business place is going like, “I’m not studying that. There’s no revenue there. It’s a lot easier to steal it over here than to work it through it ethically here.” It’s not setting up for people to be a healthy participant in society. If you and I are at a party and somebody comes up to us and says, “I’m a teacher.” The next person that comes up to us and says, “I’m an attorney.” Where does the need for respect go? Meanwhile, who’s the one who’s slugging it out with 120 kids a day?

Teachers don’t get as much respect as other professions, try to being some closure to this professional ethics thing. It’s important is you have this example of Bill Barr, who’s an attorney and they had the Mueller Report came out. Instead of letting it come out, he gets it in advance. He writes this summary to frame it the way he wanted it to be viewed and where he wanted the president to be viewed. That trampled over professional ethics in many ways. That’s a good example, whether you believe the Mueller Report was properly done or not. There’s plenty of evidence actually to say that it was properly done but even so, for him to act like that was way across the line of professional ethics, isn’t it?

It did. The best metaphor that I can have is that it’s like taking a tasty dessert that’s made with a type of a Crème Brûlée or pudding or something, a parfait and saying, “We’re going to keep pouring milk into this thing until we dilute it out so that you can’t see where the flavor or what’s the important agreement because we’re going to level it out with language and summarize it in such a way that it’s going to cause confusion, doubt and skepticism about the validity. You have the belief because I’m the person in charge that I’m not going to lie to you. I’m not lying to you, but I am thinning it out. I am legal, but it’s not fully accurate.”

This is why we have a criminal set of laws and we have an ethical set of standards. You and I have talked about truth regarding this and these two things get collapsed. That’s one of the things that tyranny does is that it says to this attorney or this judge, watch how unsettling this gets, “That because I believe in the leadership or the state, then I get to make what’s criminal to match my narrative.” That’s what the Nazi judges did. They made it justifiable because it fit the state policy and they collapsed ethical standards. The judges would have stood up and said, “We’re not doing it.”

Here’s another one. There’s a rule in the United States that the person that’s getting operated on has to give consent. That’s a professional ethic. You cannot operate on somebody until they sign off on the operation. Nazi Germany, they abolished that. The state says, “No, there are certain people that we get to operate on and they don’t have to give us a consent. We can do this test on them. We can do this thing to them. We can do this thing.” The doctors, because it’s good for the state, it’s now professionally ethical? No, it’s not because they spent time dehumanizing certain groups of people.



The ethical boundaries were crossed when the federal government agencies cleared Lafayette Square so the President could stand in front of the church holding a Bible. There was a hearing about that in the Judiciary Committee of the House. Bill Barr was questioned on that. He kept wiggling his way around saying, “Tear gas wasn’t used,” trying to argue the semantics of what tear gas is. Somehow trying to justify the action that took place there that trampled on individuals’ rights.