“… factors that can give birth to tyranny occur when groups who seek to instill democratic and humane social values do not succeed. When a social system collapses, people will be more open to alternatives, even those that previously seemed unattractive. Moreover, when the collapse of a system wreaks such havoc that a regular and predictable social life becomes impossible, the promise of a rigid and hierarchical order becomes more alluring”[1]. (bold added).

Given exorbitant, unreasonable, and unconscionable legal fees, over 90% of Californians are currently self-represented or will become self-represented before the conclusion of their civil litigation. That means that justice is or will be denied to over 90% of Californians.

As Chief Justice George noted several times in his public speeches, the Supreme Court is backlogged for three years with the death penalty cases. We estimate that the Court of Appeal has less than one forth of the human resources to review all filed cases[2]. Consequently, less than 5% of the filed Petitions for Writ and Petitions for Review are actually reviewed in the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.

Due to exorbitant legal costs, most of the filed Petitions for Writ are statutory petitions and the only way to have certain issues, such as denial of disqualification of a trial judge, reviewed by the Court of Appeal. After a summary denial of a statutory Petition for Writ, the prejudiced trial judge who refused to recuse himself is at liberty to do whatever he or she wants.

When the reviewing courts do not have funds and, therefore, manpower to review all submitted cases, it is a state of anarchy and despotism. Instead of having one tyrant, the State of California has 1,598 trial judges as tyrants. For stability, one tyrant is much better than 1,598. Perhaps, this is exactly what is quietly happening in the State of California: the anarchy is reaching its peak before turning into a tyranny.

If anyone wonders how an ordinary person becomes a violent abuser, the answer is astonishingly simple: violence is an exercise of power, and power acts on humans as the drug cocaine. Researchers define power as “an individual’s relative capacity to modify other’s states by providing or withholding resources or administering punishments”.[3] On the neurobiological level, addiction to power is almost identical to addiction to cocaine. Experience of power is associated with high dopamine levels, irritability, impulsivity, aggression, stereotyped thinking, antisocial behavior, and “awareness that one can act at will without interference or serious social consequences”. [4], [5], [6], [7].

Power is a legalized drug: on the neurobiological level, the exercise of power, even the feeling of power, arouses the pleasure-reward circuitry mediated by dopamine in the brain structures called basal ganglia and specifically nucleus accumbens. The higher the power an individual has, the stronger the addiction. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, unless an individual makes consciousness efforts to steer his or her power towards the benefits of the society.

The typical example of power addiction is the history of French Revolution and Napoleon, who was a soldier when the revolution started and who ended the revolution and the French Republic by becoming the Emperor. “The more power that [Napoleon] Bonoparte gets, the more he wants. And it escalates step by step. Never too much at once, always step by step, gradually, and always with Napoleon looking back and saying, remember I am going to protect the gains of the revolution, they are safe with me”.[8] Shortly before crowning himself as the Emperor in 1804, Napoleon Bonoparte said: “I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up… The Revolution is over. I am the Revolution”[9].

The neurotransmission of emotions of fear and vigilance initiated by stress hormones and neurotransmitters in the brain area called amygdala[10] can overflow and disrupt the reasoning activity in the prefrontal area of the brain. The interplay of signals coming from different pathways and involving multiple neurotransmitters and hormones can explain why the desire for tyranny and brutality can overcome the desire for morality and conscience.

The higher the stress the person is experiencing, the more excited the brain areas of amygdala and the limbic system become, the more stress hormones and neurotransmitters are released in the body, the stronger the electrochemical signals of stress hormones and neurotransmitters become. [11] At a certain point, the brain’s cognition regions, including the prefrontal cortex, become overwhelmed by the stress signaling. The composite signaling becomes analogous to the “white noise” in physics, specifically radio signals transmission, when many signals interfere and make it impossible to distinguish information.

When stress overwhelms a person, cognition gets suppressed, and a person starts behaving like a stressed animal. When consciousness is suppressed, the ordinary people feel increased pleasure and “high” when they commit aggressive or violent acts. That’s why during the anarchy people become extremely violent, during the times of stressful events parents are more likely to abuse their children.[12] After the prolonged extremely stressful events people become depressed and withdrawn and allow all sorts of injustices take place.

There is nothing that feels better for an abused person than getting even: not only the need for fairness gets satisfied on the cognitive level, but also the high of dopamine creates the feeling of extreme pleasure and stress relief. There was nothing that felt better for the bullied children at Columbine High School than shooting their torturers. There is nothing that would feel better for an abused litigant than to get even with his abuser, the trial judge.

The simplicity of turning a dysfunctional democracy into a tyranny is astonishing. In social research experiments, it takes less than 6 days. [13] “The fundamental concept in social science is Power, in the same sense that Energy is the fundamental concept in physics… The laws of social dynamics are laws which can only be stated in terms of power.”[14]  

History is rich with examples of dysfunctional democracies turned into tyrannies: French Republic proclaimed after the French Revolution of 1792 turned into the “Reign of Terror”, which, in combination with the war in Europe, lead to the tyranny of Napoleon, who in 1804 crowned himself as the Emperor of the French. Napoleon frequently stated: “A man like me troubles himself little about the lives of a million men.”[15] .

After the Russian Revolution of February 1917, the failure of the democratic Provisional Government to establish order, in combination with the World War I, led to the seizure of power by Bolsheviks in October 1917[16], tyranny of Lenin and, sequentially, Stalin, and the KGB repressions. In 1929-1933, the chaotic failure of the democratic republic of Weimar led to the election and tyranny of Hitler[17], the rise of Nazism, the repression of the Jewish people, and the World War II. “In each case, the rejection of democracy can be traced back to political strategy that deliberately sought to break down groups and strip them of power.”[18]

At the peak of anarchy and the trial judges’ despotism, the majority of the people of California will likely join the gangs, take their guns, and start shooting the trial judges. Then the Governor will declare martial law, put the troops on the streets, and terminate all civil rights. The State of California will become a tyranny.