So, if fear is the foundation of statism, how can that be addressed?
How can you make people less afraid of being ungoverned? Less afraid of liberty?
How can you cure someone's irrational fears?
You can't reason most of them out of their fear. They won't listen and can't hear- their fear keeps them sheltered. If they do hear you, they'll assume you are lying. After all, that's what they do to advocate for their side; they project their own flaws on you.
Maybe you can show them. Exposure therapy. Demonstrate that you don't need to be governed. That people can cooperate and coordinate without being forced.
But showing them anything that goes against their biases is hard because statism acts like blinders, and liberty isn't generally in-your-face. And if it is, it scares them.
Neither of those paths address the root fears.
Summing up all their fears, they seem genuinely afraid of liberty and of what others might do with it. They won't understand that there's no such thing as "too much liberty" when even a little liberty in the hands of the other guy scares the pants off them.
Statism is liberphobia, where "-phobia" really does mean "an irrational fear", not just a strong dislike, as so many tend to misuse it today. (A related clinical term is eleutherophobia, but that clumsy word refers to a fear of freedom, and I prefer to talk of liberty.)
How can I fix it? Why fix it? I don't know about you, but I'm tired of them being a threat to my liberty. To your liberty! But is it even possible to fix something someone doesn't want fixed; that they would deny needs fixing?
Statists didn't become statists through thought and reason; thought and reason may not be the way to cure them. But, how to reach their feelings? Can feelings only be reached through irrationality? How would that work? Lowest common denominator media? Habituation?
If I were inclined to use their own unethical methods against them (and pretend they planned a method), I would suggest weaponizing fear to turn the tables and make them more afraid of government than of liberty. No, that wouldn't be right, but it might happen anyway, and if that happens, it will be government doing it.
About the only thing I can see working in the short term, until enough people get smarter, is to live parallel to them, defending yourself and others from them when you have to. And, of course, that will probably only make them more afraid. That is the opposite of my goal.
It's a conundrum.
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