People often vote for big government because the alternative terrifies them. Beneath the surface, a prolonged state of psychological childhood persists, offering the comfort of security over the burden of self-reliance. To be dependent on someone seemingly stronger and wiser is far easier than assuming responsibility for life’s uncertainties.
Personal responsibility is a frightening proposition. It means owning your decisions, accepting the risk of failure, and bearing whatever consequences follow. For those trapped in this mindset, this is too much to bear. They crave protection, whatever the cost—even if it means living in a cage.
This is why many are so willing to accept the ever-expanding reach of the state. Big government promises security, structure, and order. But in doing so, it also removes the very basis of individual freedom. The state tells them what they can say, how much of their income they may keep, and what liberties they are permitted to exercise.
Consequently, all citizens alike pay a staggering price—sometimes half or more of their earnings—not for services of equal value, but for the illusion of safety and stability. The “nanny state” becomes a surrogate parent that promises to wipe away the messes of life while shielding its frightened dependents from the harsh realities of freedom.
Crises only deepen this dependence. Whether the threat is a virus, the climate, or the economy, fear becomes fuel for government overreach—lockdowns, digital IDs, surveillance—all justified as necessary “protections.” But every safeguard comes at the cost of one more surrendered freedom. Every liberty hangs by a thread—just one national emergency away from extinction.
This is not a modern phenomenon. In the first century, Flavius Josephus wrote of Nimod, saying he “gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other way of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into constant dependence on his power.” Wannabe tyrants understand that the more the people rely on God, the less power they will cede to the state. Hence, the more Christian a nation, the freer and happier the people.
As a result, the de-Christianization of the West has not come without consequence. The moral framework that once restrained the power of the state has eroded, and in its place, new restraints have been fastened, but this time upon the people. Yet many have been persuaded that these new chains, which limit their freedoms, are the very instruments of their security. As Orwell foresaw, freedom has become slavery, slavery has become freedom.
Too many fail to recognise the water slowly heating around them. The gradual boil of authoritarianism feels, to many, like the comfort of a warm bath. The alternative—self-reliance and personal responsibility—seems far less inviting. It’s just too risky. Yet it is precisely this passive contentment that allows intrusive governance to thrive. When a population becomes compliant, fearful, and dependent, the state is free to extend its reach through surveillance, regulation, and taxation, and of course, all under the banner of “the common good.” Scepticism is scorned; submission is praised.
So, how do we awaken a people who have been lulled to sleep by such false comforts? The truth is, we may not have to. The comforts they enjoy are fleeting. They are illusions. No welfare state, no utopian promise, can indefinitely mask economic reality or moral consequence. Eventually, the system runs out of other people’s money. Naturally, big government always promises more than it can deliver. Sooner or later, the illusion collapses. The comforts dry up. The bed of state dependency becomes too uncomfortable to lie in. In the end, everyone ends up having to give more than they get back. The makers eventually stop making, because the takers won’t stop taking.
The irony, of course, is that the end they feared turns out to be far worse than the alternative they initially rejected. Yet it is often only in the aftermath of collapse that people begin to look beyond their false assurances—and the greater the fall, the more desperate the search for what is real and true. As they say, hard times forge strong men. This is precisely because hard times shatter illusions. Without their comforts, they force people to reckon with the truth without any fear of loss.
It is only through this painful process that many will awaken to the fact that we have been rendering to Caesar that which rightfully belongs to God. Perhaps then, as a collective, we might once again choose the path of personal responsibility under God over the false promises of an ever-expanding nanny state.
