What has happened is obvious and it's been going on a long, long time. Most every person everywhere is consumed with fear. It doesn't matter how it came about---our upbringing, our religions, our schools, our sources of information, our experiences---it doesn't matter how it was done, what matters is that it was done.
The sources of these fears, and they're serious ones, are an endless din to our minds. The breakdown of the nuclear family, the damage to children, potential war including nuclear, lack of safety in public, unaffordability of food and housing, biological threats...the list goes on forever and only an unconscious person would not be aware of it.
The generalized response is always the same—-power over the situation. This seeking of power can take many forms and a few people seek total isolation as a hermit, but for everyone else it always involves a power over others. Since it's other people who create the situation, it seems power over them is the resolution. So no matter the ethical motives--to allay the fear, altruism, a desire for a peaceful world and a million others--the response is to try and change the behavior of others in order that the cause of the fear is gone. In this manner, or so the thinking goes, the danger will dissipate and we may live the lives we wish.
That is the error, it is the mis-take. No person can ever control another except with physical coercion and most of us don't wish to do that. So we have someone else do it for us, and this is the internal justification for the State. "Since I don't wish to force others, I'll have someone do it for me."
Call it a lie, a scam, a con...call it what you wish, this can't be done. Physical force can change our movements and behavior, but it can never change our values and goals.
The error is believing that power-over-others may change something. As a simple fact, volitional creatures can only change themselves.