How To Create a Police State

Deep down, everyone wants to be an authoritarian dictator. Leaders like Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Joseph-Desire Mobutu, and Ernesto "Che" Guevara might make it look easy, but it takes dedication and hard work to control a terror-ridden populace with an iron fist.

First, you have to come up with a name. People like irony, so it's a pretty good bet to throw words like "republic" or "democratic" in there. Words like "Union" and "People's" also set you on the fast track to your own fascist kleptocracy. Let's look at some already in action:

People's Republic of China
Democratic Republic of Congo
Union of Myanmar
Lao People's Democratic Republic
Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea)

Getting Into Power: Starting a Culture War

Alright, so now you have a name. Now, you have to rise to power. If you're living in a relatively democratic country, you're going to have to do some major PR. You don't necessarily have to get the people to like you, but they have to trust you or believe in your cause. This means you have to come up with a cause. Take a look around. What are some current problems in your country? Here are some questions you might want to ask yourself before running for office:

Is there a shortage of food?
Is the economy in a recession or depression?
Has crime increased over the last few years?
Has unemployment gone up?
Is your ethnicity in the majority?

If you answered 'yes' to any of the above questions, you might be on your way to fascism. Fascism provides a pretty easy path to success. However, if your rhetoric isn't calculated correctly, you could easily be ostracized from society.

The genius of fascism is two-fold. First, you find an ethnic or political minority. It especially helps if that minority isn't very prevalent in your own country. Past minorities have included Jews, Arabs, Blacks, Jehovah's Witnesses, the Japanese, Communists, Albanians, Terrorists, and Armenians. Keep in mind that this minority has to be prevalent enough to actually affect your country's disarray. But come up with something new. No one wants to hate the same old minority. Be creative. If at a complete loss for a minority, you can always make one up like they did in Rwanda.

Secondly, you have to promise something good. Sure, people like hating other people and blaming them, but no one is stupid enough not to realize that hatred alone doesn't get things solved. You need to promise a solution. You could try to go with theocratic rule, but that's usually hit-or-miss because religion is a touchy topic in any religiously diverse country (even if fractionally so). So, if you can't do the theocratic rule, you could try for communism, but only if the majority of the people have become disillusioned with their faith. The safest bet, however, is just straight-up, old-school fascism/nazism. It's almost guaranteed to work.

Here's how you do it. You promise that the government will pay out pensions for business and provide jobs for everyone. Remember, with fascism, you're going to be killing or expelling a good chunk of that ethnic minority you were ranting about (and if you don't like to expel them directly, you could always try to drive them out with outrageous search and seizure policies). Now, you have made positive promises to the three major groups of any civilian population: the workers, the bosses, and the unemployed.

Getting Into Power: Egalitarian Fascism

But what if you're part of the ethnic minority, and, unlike Hitler, you can't pretend that it doesn't matter? Fear not! Your dreams of being a tyrannical monarch are not yet shot. Now you're playing a different game, but the rewards are just as fruitful. If you are an undeniably ethnic or political minority, you should ask yourself a few questions:

Are my people oppressed?
Are my people typically at the bottom of the class ladder?
Are my people often the butt of benign racial humor?

If you answered 'yes' to the above questions, then you are well on your way to egalitarian nationalism. Even if you answered 'no', you can pretend like the answers were 'yes'. This requires a little bit more eloquence. Remember, no one wants to support someone who's a blatant minority nationalist. That goes against the status quo, and people don't like that. That's how shows like "Cops" and "Hannity and Combs" have made the American Police State possible.

So how do you play this one? I'll admit, it's tricky, but it's your own fault for being born a minority, so suck it up. Egalitarian nationalism requires that you don't alienate anyone. Instead, you must make it appear as though your ethnicity is the recipient of a long history of oppression. Unlike with fascism/nazism, you must first make the populace sympathize with your people. You can't scare the populace as an ethnic minority, because then you're just a terrorist.

However, people won't support a selective group if it isn't in the majority. After all, that's how democracy works, isn't it? So in addition to highlighting how your people are oppressed, find a group which is similarly oppressed. It can't be gays, though. I know it's tempting to pick gays because they have received the brunt of oppression in almost every political history. Unfortunately, there are a bunch of people who think that homosexuality is immoral or a choice, and you'll end up losing a good chunk of your fascist fan base. Also, don't pick religion. As I said before, religion is too touchy.

Now that you've highlighted an issue of inequality and have drawn countless bleeding-hearts to your side, it's time for you to offer a solution. Universal health care is a pretty good perk to offer. It seems pretty benign, but later you can use it as justification to ban things that don't involve working to make the government more wealthy like skydiving, skateboarding, the right of the people to bear arms, etc. Promise everyone a job. Talk about the evils of corporations and the benefits of government regulation in ensuring equal treatment of all people. This will set you up to control all business and set you up for a perfect police state.

Getting Into Power: Violent Overthrow

But what happens if you aren't living in a relatively free representative democracy? What if your country already has a king or dictator? You might think that all is lost, but if anything, this just makes it all the easier. Now, you don't have to search for a group to target or a problem inherent in the system; it's sitting right in front of your face! Instead of blaming a minority or the oppressive class structure, you can blame everything on the current ruler.

There is one catch, though. You must do everything in secret. The only difficult part about organizing for this one is that you don't have the luxury of public televised speeches. The benefit, however, is that you don't necessarily need the majority support. There are bound to be enough people who already hate the current regime and even more who can be easily manipulated into hating the current regime, that organizing a coup shouldn't take much more than two years.

But you need more than people for a violent revolution. You're going to need weapons and lots of them. Analyze what kind of governmental style the current ruler has in place. Then, figure out which countries are currently hosting ideological wars against that style of government. There's bound to be one for every dictatorship, so search the classifieds.

Remember, don't be shy. Just because your planned system of rule doesn't match that of the ideologue's, doesn't mean that they won't support your revolution. Hell, Reagan and Oliver North sold weapons to Iran (our enemy at the time) to fund a revolution to bring Nicaragua back to a Kleptocracy from the first democratically elected government there. All you have to do is promise that your government will aid their government in the long run. Is your country oil-rich? Promise them oil. Does your country have diamond mines? Offer them a couple.

Abusing Your Power

So, in one way or another, you got into power. Unless you're just doing this as a final project for your humanities class, you probably want to keep yourself there. With so much unquestioned power comes unanswered responsibility. Rule number one in commanding a police state is to never let yourself or your government as a whole take responsibility for anything. This can be done in two ways.

First, you must always create some sort of distraction. Wars are always a winner. However, you must make sure that you only physically fight helpless, third-world nations. If you militarily strike a first world nation, you are sure to be beaten, because you will have to take over the planet (which is only possible through things like the UN and the GATT treaty). So start bombing a third-world country or start a missile making contest with a first-world country. Either way, the military tension will be good for industry.

If your country doesn't pose any kind of serious threat to the world (or even if it does), you should give your people those lukewarm benefits you promised them. Does your country have a abundant natural resource? Nationalize it. This means you, as the government, take the resource and sell it for yourself. But what if there are already a bunch of companies and corporations invested in it? Have the government take over those businesses. Keep the business structure the same, but you must be the primary go-between in order to sell that commodity to the rest of the world. Don't forget to skim off the top.

As your government encroaches more and more on private business and has a fairly steady income to make itself self-sufficient. Give the people a tax cut. If you can, eliminate taxes altogether. In eliminating taxes, you can claim that your government has no responsibility to the people. If that makes you feel too guilty, offer them the commodity for free.

Secondly, always have someone else to blame. What if government responsibility can't be avoided? What if it's very evident that your government practices and restrictions, or lack thereof, have percipitated some sort of crisis? Is there poison in your country's food? Execute the official responsible for regulating food health standards like China did this year. Aw, was that your best friend? Too bad. Dictators have no best friends.

Policing the Police State

How strong are your paramilitary forces? You'd better make them a hell of a lot stronger if you want to have a real police state. The number one thing you have to deal with when in a position of unforgiving authority is a popular uprising, and the bigger your paramilitary force, the less likely you'll have to deal with them.

Policing the public is the most important part of having a police state. However, you must make sure that you always portray your paramilitary forces as crusaders for good. No one wants to support a police state if the police say they're killing people to get rich. The police reluctantly do a job that needs to be done, and, just like spanking your child, it hurts you to have to do it more than it hurts them.

Even still, few people like being threatened with violence (though it is kind of kinky). Remember that your police force must maintain the illusion that they're defending law and order, not the profit of the government. Thus, the more you can do to make police brutality less prevalent (or less evident), the better. To that end, install surveillance cameras on every street corner and inside all public buildings (schools, capitol buildings, etc.). If you can, install them in people's houses. Have the police patrol the streets in groups with rifles. Keep a tab on people's daily habits and conversations. Be especially wary of anarchists of any sort. They can relate to everyone.

If you can, try to quench public gatherings. These will get people talking. However, if you do go about ending a public gathering, make sure you kill everyone involved. Any witnesses will percipitate more cause to overthrow the police state you've worked so hard on. To that end, make sure you have a monopoly on all news media. This will not only help you prevent human rights abuses from reaching the public, but will also help you to disseminate propoganda effectively.

I think I've covered most of it. If you follow these guidelines, you will be well on your way to controlling a terror-ridden populace through all sorts of intimidation. Good luck, and happy policing!