Here is my third and final extract from The Gulag Archipelago II, for those who do not know what Anarcho-Tyranny is, it is when there is one rule for one group and another rule for another. There is no equality before the law. This extract is from page 413.
"The thieves - the urki - are not Robin Hoods! When they want they steal from last-leggers. When they want they are not squeamish about - taking the last footcloths off a man freezing to death. Their great slogan is "You today, me tomorrow!".
But perhaps they really are patriots? Why don't they steal from the state? Why don't they plunder the special country villas? Why don't they stop the long black limousines? Is it because they expect to encounter the conqueror of Kolchak there? No, it is because those automobiles and dachas are well defended. And because stores and warehouses are shielded by the law. Because the realist Stalin understood long ago that this was just a big buzz - this re-education of the urki. And he redirected their energy, sicked them on the citizens of his own country.
Here is what our laws were like for thirty years - to 1947; For robbery of the state, embezzlement of state funds, a packing case from a warehouse, for three potatoes from a collective farm - ten years! (After 1947 it was as much as twenty!) But robbery of a free person? Suppose they cleaned out an apartment, carting it off on a truck everything a family had acquired in a lifetime. If it was not accompanied by murder, then the sentence was up to one year, sometimes six months.
The thieves flourished because they were encouraged.
Through it's laws the Stalinist power said to the thieves clearly: Do not steal from me! Steal from the private persons! You see, private property is a belch from the past. (But "personally assigned"VIP property is the sign of the future...)
And the thieves...understood. In their intrepid stories and songs, did they go to steal where it was difficult, dangerous, where they could lose their heads? No. Greedy cowards, they pushed their way in where they were encouraged to push their way in - they stripped the clothes from solitary passers-by and stole from unguarded apartments.
The twenties, the thirties, the forties, the fifties! Who does not remember that eternal threat hovering over the citizen: Don't go where it's dark! Don't come home late! Don't wear your watch! Don't carry money with you! Don't leave the apartment empty! Locks! Shutters! Dogs!
How many who were robbed knew that the police didn't even bother to look for the criminals, didn't even set a case in motion, so as not to spoil their record of completed cases - why should they sweat to catch a thief if he would be given only six months, and then be given three months off for good behavior? And anyway, it wasn't certain that the bandits would even be tried when caught. After all, prosecutors "lowered the crime rate" - something demanded of them at every conference - by the curious method of simply quashing cases, especially if they saw there would be many defendants.
Finally, sentences were bound to be reduced, and of course for habitual criminals especially. Watch out there now, witness in the courtroom! They will all be back soon, and it'll be a knife in the back of anyone who gave testimony!
Therefore, if you see someone crawling through a window, or slitting a pocket, or your neighbors suitcase being ripped open - shut your eyes! Walk by! You didn't see anything!
That's how the thieves have trained us - the thieves and our laws!"
The criminal was made a part of the States power of repression. When the Government refuses to enforce the law to protect the honest citizen it gives criminals the power to repression us. In the Soviet Union self protection was itself so strict that it was effectively illegal. We are not that bad off yet, but at each turn Liberals want us more and more defenceless, just as the Communist did to the peoples of the Soviet Union.
See Also:
The Gulag Archipelago II - A Book Review
Perished Comically - The Gulag Archipelago II
Upon Hope - A Traditional Conservative Future
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