The sanctity of the individual's liberty, the safety of his person and the protection of his property are perhaps the most distinctive features of democratic institutions.
Such rights are safeguarded by the rule of law and its enforcement by the agencies of a freely-elected government, which is itself the subject of an independent press and media.
Authoritarian regimes subordinate such rights to the greater interests of the nation, the state or the party. The sacrifice of the lives, liberty and happiness of individuals is justified by some future benefit to be delivered. In these circumstances, absolute power is often the coalescence of the state, the media and an unchecked bureaucracy.
To suggest that in Northern Ireland the principles of liberal democracy are being replaced by practices of a totalitarian kind will be dismissed by many as fanciful or alarmist, although that is exactly what is happening.
The British citizens of Northern Ireland have been effectively disenfranchised. None of the national political parties aspiring to form the government of the UK actively seeks their vote. Effectively protecting the rights of Northern Ireland's citizens could, after all, be highly prejudicial to the persons and property of the real British citizens on the mainland should the IRA renew its bombing campaign. This threat makes it necessary to state that "Northern Ireland is different and must be governed differently".
Conduct unacceptable in either Britain or the Republic can thus be justified, and levels of violence which would cause governments to tumble elsewhere are tolerated in Northern Ireland.
On this view, the brutal murder of Charles Bennett, the savage beatings and the enforced exiles must be accepted as evils necessary to preserve an illusory ceasefire. The deaths of individuals as part of the IRA's "internal housekeeping" must be politically allowable in the interests of some future greater good.
Nor is only Charles Bennett dispensable. He forms part of a legion of the dead, the mutilated, the exiled and the intimidated who must be sacrificed to appease the exponents of violence. These are the small people, the poor, the disadvantaged; the human clay out of which Sinn Fein and the PUP will mould a new and future world after they have destroyed the old one.
Such unfortunates are seemingly expendable in the interests of their social betters who are insulated by place, money and the social and economic benefits of a ceasefire which does not include the denizens of the ghettos where the rule of law does not run and from which the RUC is largely excluded.
These upper social layers were the targets of Mr Blair's propaganda. In true totalitarian style, the entire emphasis was on the future, especially that of the children. The Northern Ireland press and broadcast media, along with the great and the good, abandoned their democratic role as unbiased commentators and objective reporters to become cheerleaders for an agreement which some have belatedly recognised as flawed and fudged.
The government media machine, with the help of modern technologies, used every totalitarian technique of persuasion to deliver the message. Those who questioned its merits or attempted rational debate were suppressed or, in classic Stalinist style, had their motives questioned.
No answers were given for no response was necessary beyond a declaration that the questioner was an enemy of the peace process. Rational debate was buried under an avalanche of emotional spin, as the medium became the message.
The British government is committed to disengagement. The Irish Government, despite its protests, is pledged to unity. Both, for different reasons, want to appease the IRA and the people of Northern Ireland must accept the erosion of their most basic democratic rights in exchange for a promised peaceful future.
It is against this background that the decision of Dr Mowlam on the IRA ceasefire and the proposed reforms of the RUC must be assessed. Despite the 71 per cent Yes vote in the referendum obtained by media manipulation and unfulfilled pledges, unionists increasingly believe that they have been deceived.
The consequences of deception over early prisoner releases and the possible seating of Sinn Fein in government while the IRA remains fully armed have destroyed trust. But the terms of the Patten report on RUC reforms will prove to be the most politically explosive, if only because none but the most politically gullible will be able to buy it.
The paradox of those inextricably linked with terrorists dictating the terms for the reform of those who have died to protect society from violence will not escape the most naive unionist or nationalist democrat.
Since the RUC is the one organisation which can frustrate the triumph of political terror, it must be removed or demoralised. The IRA's determination to retain its capacity for mainland violence is central to its leverage in pushing the British government in that direction.
To ensure that no obstacle is offered to the achievement of its political objectives, Sinn Fein/IRA has two requirements. First, the retention of its present terrorist capacity either to use or to threaten with, and, second, the demoralising of the RUC and its neutralising as an effective anti-terrorist force.
Tactics used successfully against the RIC between 1918 and 1921 are being replicated. The fact that the RIC was overwhelmingly Catholic did not avert a campaign of murder and vilification. By coercion and terror, the population was intimidated against reporting crimes to the police or giving evidence in court. Total domination of the civilian population was the key to the undermining and demoralisation of the RIC.
To exclude the RUC and supplant it with its own punishment squads is a tactic being repeated by the IRA and its loyalist counterparts in the areas they control. Such violence is as clearly political as the murder of security personnel.
The highly effective propaganda campaign against the RIC in Ireland and the US was calculated to destroy its reputation for integrity and impartiality. The RUC is at risk of suffering the same fate if unionists are foolish enough to accept it.
The Patten commission is in grave danger of priming the detonator for a political explosion by making the situation worse.
No amount of reform relating to symbols, names, balanced recruitment or complaints procedures will alter the attitude of violent republicanism to a police force which retains paramilitary functions for the suppression of political terrorism. Yet government-inspired leaks suggest that this will be the case. There is no prospect of Sinn Fein/IRA acceptance.
On the other hand, the report is likely to contain recommendations which will inflame the unionist community and demoralise the RUC. Second-tier policing purchased in areas already terrorist-dominated and where paramilitary thugs are the only likely suppliers will not make the retention of core anti-terrorist units any more acceptable. It will, however, throw the ghetto dwellers to the wolves and legitimise the destruction of any remaining democratic rights they currently possess.
Banks may launder mafia money but it takes two governments to legitimise the mafias of Northern Ireland.
Robert McCartney is leader of the UK Unionist Party