- When 'outlaws' have more honor than govt, paradigms come crashing down 

In a previous essay, I broached the topic of popular nullification in the context of rejecting the State's propaganda. Citizens are increasingly seeing through the lies Western governments regularly tell their populations in order to buttress their authority and maintain effective social control. As awful as COVID's lockdowns and other rank authoritarian mandates were, they proved salubrious in educating the public as to how government institutions (including health agencies) fabricate scientific evidence and betray basic medical ethics in pursuit of broader totalitarian agendas. Part of the heightened pushback to expensive "green energy" directives and farming regulations stems from enhanced public awareness that Western governments flood the information space with fake news meant to justify more expansive and intrusive government control. 

For critical thinkers who are cognizant of governments' longstanding use of psychological and sociological "dark arts" to manipulate their own citizens, the public's "awakening" may seem too late, slow, or insignificant. On the contrary, it is accelerating. 

Shattering existing paradigms is like escaping from an intellectual prison. For most people, that prison is all they have ever known. A lot of lone escapees look back at their former cages from a distance and presume that those who remain locked up will never find the strength to break free. The problem, however, is not a lack of strength, but a paralyzing misapprehension that the prison trapping so many minds represents the limits of what is possible. 

Right now the rate of intellectual liberation seems slow because inmates escape one at a time. When enough critical thinkers are able to demolish prison walls with the force of their reason, no government lie will be able to stop those who wish to be free.