Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you

Kurt Cobain once sang "just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you" and the reverse is also true: "just because you're not paranoid doesn't mean they're not after you". 

After all, who would know of the targeting powers of "The Powers That Be"? Can they target millions? Perhaps. They certainly surveillance millions using computers. It also depends on what we mean by "target". 

Clearly the things they put on the nightly news and plant in the newspapers (think "operation mockingbird") and on websites could be said to target whoever they can reach. 

Whether we believe the stories that are planted will depend upon our current world view. Some will believe freely and unquestioningly, while others will not. 

The non-believers or dissenters are encouraged to be targeted by the believers by giving them derogatory names we are all familiar with such as "anti-vaxxer", "conspiracy theorist", "far right", "extremist", "denialist" etc. and saying they are the cause of our troubles. They infer that if only we would all follow the orders issued from the authorities all would be well.

However the dissenters see it in reverse. That is, they think that all would be well (or at least much better) if fewer people took notice of the authorities.

These are the folk who have faith in the individual more than the state.  After all, it is harder to individually corrupt millions than it is to corrupt a small handful of powerful people. 

So these folk encourage the devolution or deconcentration of power, rather than the consolidation of power into the hands of an increasingly smaller number.

Among such dissenting folk are the anarchists and the voluntaryists. They don't recognise external authorities, or at least they don't recognise the right of others to rule over them and force anything on them. They see themselves as being a "sovereign individual".

They can choose to live a low key life, not stirring up trouble or they can take actions that may put them in the spotlight of the social controllers. Think Bill Cooper, for one. He died for his beliefs and sharing them widely, although some would say he was his own worst enemy. But on the night of his death he seemed to believe that if the police took him in alive he may never be free again, or that a staged shooting may happen and so when they lured him from his home under false pretenses once he realised he fled back home. But he never made it inside. A gunfight broke out with local police, ending with him dead. A martyr to some, a paranoid conspiracy theorist to others.