Most Americans have been conditioned to think of their government as a buffer between them and the unscrupulous. The not only patrols the streets for criminals, it polices the marketplace and the workplace for unethical behavior by the powerful. he FDA makes sure the drug makers are poisoning us with bad drugs.The SEC makes sure the rich guys are not ripping off the little guys on Wall Street. The FDA makes sure the drug makers are poisoning us with bad drugs. The government is the cop on every corner.
The custodial state has evolved to infantilize us. What that means is the state treats people like children, so the people become dependent on the state. In other words, it’s not supposed to feel like a prison, but rather a daycare center. The people are not rebelling against the imposed order, because they have come to see the state as the only thing between them and the dangers of the world. The state is more than mother and father to the people. It is the religious order of the civic religion that defines the state.
To put this in perspective, think about the last time a candidate explicitly ran against the government, as happened in the 70’s and 80’s. Reagan won the White House on the argument that the state was the enemy of freedom. He promised to slash government spending. He never did it, but at least he said it. In fact he went on a wild spending spree, but no one today would dare promise to slash the state. The GOP’s core vote is retiring Boomers and the Democrat cater to a swelling anti-white welfare class.
The custodial state is a new development in this world, made possible by the technological revolution. The Nazis and Bolsheviks tried to create such a thing, but merely destroyed themselves trying to make it work. Technology lowers the cost of this type of society and the more docile population helps, but it is hard to see how it can work. The custodial state needs to ruthlessly exploit its charges, but it can only survive in the people fully trust the state to care for them. This is impossible as we see in this story.
Lotteries have been a way for local government to raise money going back to the founding the nation. A popular collector’s item are the lottery tickets sold in the colonial period signed by famous Americans. It was a voluntary way to raise money for a public project like a road or bridge. Modern lotteries are just ways to quietly rob the foolish and unscrupulous. The odds are absurdly long and the money is not spent on what is claimed by the issuing states. It’s the sort of thing gangsters operate.
If a private casino did this sort of thing, the state would close them down. The reason is the people would howl with anger over the greedy casino ripping off the customers. The state does it and the rubes line up to play the longer odds. The trouble is, this sort of thing only works for so long. The cost of supporting the custodial state exceeds the benefit to the people in charge. That means they have to find these ways to rob their charges. The trouble is this reduces the long term benefit of the system to the charges.
In other words, the people at the top of the custodial state are parasites that become more parasitic over time. The initial relationship seems mutually beneficial. At some point though, the oxpecker starts to drill into the head of the beast. The protector becomes the predator. That’s what we are seeing all around us. The state is looking more like the predators than the protectors. This is an unsustainable dynamic. At some point, the charges realize their custodians are just different predators.