In the grand scheme of history, in the great wash of the collective American cosmos, in the midst of the day to day howls and earth rattles of towering financial and political giants, many of us tend to see ourselves as “the little people”. We consider ourselves inconsequential in the wake of epic events that appear to rise and fall like irregular tides and determined by some frenetic force of chance; a great cultural roulette wheel. In fact, we are often encouraged to emulate this belief. Better to roll with the river of difficult times than to fight against the current in a fruitless attempt at changing its direction. Better to let more important and more powerful men blaze the trails that we will later follow, right…?
Human beings have a strange attachment to the concept of the “decision makers vs. the decision followers”, even in the U.S. The Declaration of Independence was meant to herald the birth of a society which dissolved the separation between the rulers and those who are ruled. Our country was built upon the premise that every citizen has a right to participate in the making of his own providence, to play a part in the decisions that directly or indirectly affect his future. Of course, those were the days when average Americans saw themselves as giants, as innovators of history, not as little people.
Among the premises with which the Feds justify their War on Terror are the hordes of bad guys overrunning the planet. The government wants us to believe that millions of terrorists lurk worldwide, scheming to blow us sky-high. They penetrate our airports and spy on our infrastructure. In their spare time, they form sleeper cells that fiendishly and seamlessly blend into our communities. Indeed, one has probably infiltrated your neighborhood.
Protecting us from this threat domestically and internationally requires corresponding millions of bureaucrats, cops, and soldiers as well as trillions of our taxes -- and, of course, the surrender of our freedom, dignity, and privacy to the State.
Intriguingly, the Feds themselves gainsay this foolishness every year in a publication entitled Country Reports on Terrorism. The Department of State issues it — and you won’t be surprised to learn that though “U.S. law requires the Secretary of State to provide [it to] Congress, by April 30 of each year,” the Report for 2009 appeared only earlier this month. Try paying your taxes that late and see what happens.
If you want to know what tyranny is like, look around.
The national government — specifically the executive branch — can do pretty much what it wants. It could bomb Iran tomorrow without a declaration of war from Congress. It can — and does — conduct secret wars and covert operations against countries that have done nothing to us. Of course, they are secret only to the ignorant taxpayers who must finance them and perhaps suffer when the provoked retaliation occurs. It can have men behind PlayStation consoles in Nevada fire Hellfire missiles from aerial drones on people in Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere.
This tyrannical government can send any foreigner picked up anywhere in the world to third countries known for torturing prisoners. It can hold people accused of nothing indefinitely in prisons in Cuba and Afghanistan and torture them into making false confessions. It can conduct a war crimes trial in a military kangaroo court for a man, Omar Khadr, held captive for eight years after he was picked up at the age of 15 during a U.S. assault on villagers near Kabul. His torture-induced “confessions” will be admissible. All this is in violation of commitments under the Optional Protocol on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict not to treat children in war as though they were adults.
It can assassinate even American citizens abroad without a scent of due process.
Freedom for Sale is the best synopsis of the recent collapse of restraints on government power. John Kampfner, the editor of Britain’s New Statesman, traveled the world seeking to answer the question: why have freedoms been so easily traded in return for security or prosperity?
Kampfner begins his tour in Singapore, where he was born. Lee Kuan Yew’s 30-year reign as prime minister begat an authoritarian regime that combined high economic growth with endless petty impingements on personal liberties. Lee’s sense of entitlement to power knew no bounds—he even chose spouses for senior government workers and dictated how many children they should have. With immaculate streets and the world’s highest rate of executions, Singapore earned the nickname “Disneyland with the death penalty.”
Those who support our system of government and complain about the passage of Obamacare need to keep this in mind: The fact that Obamacare passed in spite of the wishes of a majority of Americans is proof that the system works as designed.
Be forewarned: I am not writing to defend the system. I am writing to condemn a system that provides no protection for either person or property – simply, a system that cannot be defended.
PuppetGov admin here: I like how Cheney, when confronted with the fact that “two thirds of Americans say ‘it’s not worth fighting’” his reply was “So?”.
That’s the government for the people, by the people, huh? And don’t say I’m only talking about the Bush regime. The Obama regime is just as bad, maybe even worse.
In aid of all the attention (I would say more like a smear campaign) being lavished by the MSM on the Tea Party (or Tea Bagger, if you’re a leftist) movement, here are a few observations on some of the issues/concerns/planks I’ve seen raised by many of its participants, and some perspective from an anarchist point of view.
Talking about states’ rights while denying the lawfulness of secession is just that … talk. Since secession was declared illegal by the federal government’s conquest of the Confederacy in 1865, talk of states’ rights is just talk. The anti-federalists were right, but the federalists won the political battle back in the late 18th century.
One of the justifications members of Congress offer for earmarking is that the Constitution gives the legislative branch the “power of the purse.” Congressional earmarkers often denigrate the executive branch’s inability to effectively allocate funds. But just because the federal bureaucracy does an abysmal job of spending taxpayer money, it doesn't mean lawmakers would do any better.
The following example out of Florida illustrates why lawmakers are just as likely as bureaucrats to misspend taxpayer money. According to the St. Petersburg Times, a developer who has never had a successful project was able to convince four members of Florida’s congressional delegation into supporting a $500,000 earmark for a Tampa affordable housing project. The developer had already wasted $563,000 in federal and state taxpayer funds on housing projects that now “sit vacant and rotting.”
