Yesterday, we discussed how in the Fifty States, the “consent of the governed” has been withdrawn. And that certain segments of society have demonstrated their contempt for the law – thereby claiming that government and law is illegitimate. They apparently are accomplishing their goal of causing society to collapse, so that they can rebuild it in their own image.

A correspondent pointed out that this attitude is being transmitted to, and accepted by growing numbers of people who have previously supported government and the rule of law. Even if they disagreed with some or much of it.

Say that you are a conservative, or even a libertarian minarchist who has played the game so far. And you decide that just maybe AntiFa and Black Lives Matter and all the other SJW and coneheads are right. This society is rotten to the core and must be taken down. Why?

You have the gall to operate a plant to produce concrete or bricks or asphalt for someone without thousands of dollars and dozens (if not hundreds) of pages of applications and testing and data? You’ll be buried under the lawyers from State and Federal government. Or if you sell the wrong kind of gas-can, try to refill an “expired” or “outdated” 5-gallon propane tank, or sell an old flush toilet that takes 2 gallons (instead of 1) to flush? Be prepared not just to be charged, fined, and publicly condemned, but even lose your business license. Your life is ruined.

Most of us – even lovers of liberty and free-market anarchists, have been conditioned from childhood to obey the law unless there is an incredibly good reason not to. It isn’t just that we fear the consequences, but that we think that is the way society is supposed to work. And of course we often have hostages to fortune: private property (homes and such), family, friends, jobs, and the like. And there is a limit to the risks we want to take. And it is likely that many of us have reached that limit.

But it not just the very-much unpeaceful protesters and rioters and looters that have contempt for government – and therefore deny it has any legitimacy. It is those who facilitate these thugs, who instigate these things and promote them. The government officials – elected and bureaucratic – with their lust for power. The media with their own warped sense of right and wrong, and their lust for power and wealth. And those who exist only for power for themselves and their descendants, and look back with longing and envy at the power of pharaohs and Hellenistic god-kings and European absolute monarchs and Asian warlords. Obviously, if government is not by, for, and of, the elite (as defined by those who are the elite, of course), it is illegitimate and anything that such a government – or society – has done is viewed with contempt. But that attitude of contempt is very infectious.

Especially when many of those instigators are indeed in positions of power in those governments, that economy, and that society, in which law enforcement is subjective and subject to the whim of anyone and everyone? So those who were once law-abiding and tried to treat others as they wanted to be treated become cynical. And develop their own contempt, rejecting government even more than the average libertarian, and even believe they have nothing to lose if society is going to crumble and collapse.

What is the solution? As soon ask what will happen when every statue is toppled while law enforcement does nothing at the behest of politicians? What will happen when business after business – and their owners and employees – is blamed and then vandalized, looted, and burned? Do people who value peace and prosperity, and equal opportunity rather than equal results just let that happen? Or do they decide that enough is enough?

As my correspondent asked, What will the government do when millions of regular American small business owners say: “I’m serving all the booze I want, without a liquor license, and I’ll make it in my basement without a permit. I’m setting off fireworks whenever and wherever, even if I have to make’em myself, and if I want to shoot a Roman candle down the center of Main Street? I’m just “protesting” against my loss of freedom. I’m selling the 3D-printed and machined pistols and rifles, making my own pesticides, ripping all the pollution controls out of my vehicles. Oh, and I’m not paying my taxes or fees, and your health inspector and tax collector and appraiser isn’t allowed in.  I’m now my own Autonomous Zone.”

Will they join their political enemies in tearing down the system? But with a different goal in mind? And will they limit this merely to rejecting the illegitimate government that they now hold in contempt? Or will they do more – go after their political enemies? And after those whom their political enemies have used as an excuse for the actions of destruction?

That way, indeed, leads to chaos.

And then???