The Government is Still the Enemy of Freedom

The Government is Still the Enemy of Freedom.
�Rights aren�t rights if someone can take them away. They�re privileges. That�s
all we�ve ever had in this country, is a bill of temporary privileges. And if you read
the news even badly, you know that every year the list gets shorter and shorter. Sooner
or later, the people in this country are gonna realize the government � doesn�t care
about you, or your children, or your rights, or your welfare or your safety� It�s interested
in its own power. That�s the only thing. Keeping it and expanding it wherever possible.��
George Carlin
My friends, we�re being played for fools.
On paper, we may be technically free.
In reality, however, we are only as free as a government official may allow.
We only think we live in a constitutional republic, governed by just laws created for
our benefit.
Truth be told, we live in a dictatorship disguised as a democracy where all that we own, all
that we earn, all that we say and do�our very lives�depends on the benevolence of
government agents and corporate shareholders for whom profit and power will always trump
principle. And now the government is litigating and legislating its way into a new framework
where the dictates of petty bureaucrats carry greater weight than the inalienable rights
of the citizenry.
We�re in trouble, folks.
Freedom no longer means what it once did.
This holds true whether you�re talking about the right to criticize the government in word
or deed, the right to be free from government surveillance, the right to not have your person
or your property subjected to warrantless searches by government agents, the right to
due process, the right to be safe from soldiers invading your home, the right to be innocent
until proven guilty and every other right that once reinforced the founders� belief
that this would be �a government of the people, by the people and for the people.�
Not only do we no longer have dominion over our bodies, our families, our property and
our lives, but the government continues to chip away at what few rights we still have
to speak freely and think for ourselves.
If the government can control speech, it can control thought and, in turn, it can control
the minds of the citizenry.
The unspoken freedom enshrined in the First Amendment is the right to think freely and
openly debate issues without being muzzled or treated like a criminal.
In other words, if we no longer have the right to tell a Census Worker to get off our property,
if we no longer have the right to tell a police officer to get a search warrant before they
dare to walk through our door, if we no longer have the right to stand in front of the Supreme
Court wearing a protest sign or approach an elected representative to share our views,
if we no longer have the right to protest unjust laws by voicing our opinions in public
or on our clothing or before a legislative body�no matter how misogynistic, hateful,
prejudiced, intolerant, misguided or politically incorrect they might be�then we do not have
free speech.
What we have instead is regulated, controlled speech, and that�s a whole other ballgame.
Protest laws, free speech zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation,
zero tolerance policies, hate crime laws and a host of other legalistic maladies dreamed
up by politicians and prosecutors are conspiring to corrode our core freedoms purportedly for
our own good.
For instance, the protest laws being introduced across the country�in 18 states so far�are
supposedly in the name of �public safety and limiting economic damage.�
Don�t fall for it.
No matter how you package these laws, no matter how well-meaning they may sound, no matter
how much you may disagree with the protesters or sympathize with the objects of the protest,
these proposed laws are aimed at one thing only: discouraging dissent.
In Arizona, police would be permitted to seize the assets of anyone involved in a protest
that at some point becomes violent.
In Minnesota, protesters would be forced to pay for the cost of having police on hand
to �police� demonstrations.
Oregon lawmakers want to �require public community colleges and universities to expel
any student convicted of participating in a violent riot.�
A proposed North Dakota law would give drivers the green light to �accidentally� run
over protesters who are blocking a public roadway. Florida and Tennessee are entertaining
similar laws.
Pushing back against what it refers to as �economic terrorism,� Washington wants
to increase penalties for protesters who block access to highways and railways.
Anticipating protests over the Keystone Pipeline, South Dakota wants to apply the governor�s
emergency response authority to potentially destructive protests, create new trespassing
penalties and make it a crime to obstruct highways.
In Iowa, protesters who block highways with speeds posted above 55 mph could spend five
years in prison, plus a fine of up to $7,500. Obstruct traffic in Mississippi and you could
be facing a $10,000 fine and a five-year prison sentence.
A North Carolina law would make it a crime to heckle state officials. Under this law,
shouting at a former governor would constitute a crime.
Indiana lawmakers wanted to authorize police to use �any means necessary� to breakup
mass gatherings that block traffic. That legislation has since been amended to merely empower police
to issue fines for such behavior.
Georgia is proposing harsh penalties and mandatory sentencing laws for those who obstruct public
passages or throw bodily fluids on �public safety officers.�
Virginia wants to subject protesters who engage in an �unlawful assembly� after �having
been lawfully warned to disperse� with up to a year of jail time and a fine of up to
$2,500.
Missouri wants to make it illegal for anyone participating in an �unlawful assembly�
to intentionally conceal �his or her identity by the means of a robe, mask, or other disguise.�
Colorado wants to lock up protesters for up to 18 months who obstruct or tamper with oil
and gas equipment and charge them with up to $100,000 in fines.
Oklahoma wants to create a sliding scale for protesters whose actions impact or impede
critical infrastructure. The penalties would range from $1,000 and six months in a county
jail to $100,000 and up to 10 years in prison. And if you�re part of an organization, that
fine goes as high as $1,000,000.
Michigan hopes to make it easier for courts to shut down �mass picketing� demonstrations
and fine protesters who block entrances to businesses, private residences or roadways
up to $1,000 a day. That fine jumps to $10,000 a day for unions or other organizing groups.
Ask yourself: if there are already laws on the books in all of the states that address
criminal or illegal behavior such as blocking public roadways or trespassing on private
property�because such laws are already on the books�then why does the government need
to pass laws criminalizing activities that are already outlawed?
What�s really going on here?
No matter what the politicians might say, the government doesn�t care about our rights,
our welfare or our safety.
How many times will we keep falling for the same tricks?
Every despotic measure used to control us and make us cower and fear and comply with
the government�s dictates has been packaged as being for our benefit, while in truth benefiting
only those who stand to profit, financially or otherwise, from the government�s transformation
of the citizenry into a criminal class.
Remember, the Patriot Act didn�t make us safer. It simply turned American citizens
into suspects and, in the process, gave rise to an entire industry�private and governmental�whose
profit depends on its ability to undermine our Fourth Amendment rights.
Placing TSA agents in our nation�s airports didn�t make us safer. It simply subjected
Americans to invasive groping, ogling and bodily searches by government agents. Now
the TSA plans to subject travelers to even more �comprehensive� patdowns.
So, too, these protest laws are not about protecting the economy or private property
or public roads. Rather, they are intended to muzzle discontent and discourage anyone
from challenging government authority.
These laws are the shot across the bow.
They�re intended to send a strong message that in the American police state, you�re
either a patriot who marches in lockstep with the government�s dictates or you�re a
pariah, a suspect, a criminal, a troublemaker, a terrorist, a radical, a revolutionary.
Yet by muzzling the citizenry, by removing the constitutional steam valves that allow
people to speak their minds, air their grievances and contribute to a larger dialogue that hopefully
results in a more just world, the government is deliberately stirring the pot, creating
a climate in which violence becomes inevitable.
When there is no steam valve�when there is no one to hear what the people have to
say, because government representatives have removed themselves so far from their constituents�then
frustration builds, anger grows and people become more volatile and desperate to force
a conversation.
Then again, perhaps that was the government�s plan all along.
As John F. Kennedy warned in March 1962, �Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will
make violent revolution inevitable.�
The government is making violent revolution inevitable.
How do you lock down a nation?
You sow discontent and fear among the populace. You terrorize the people into believing that
radicalized foreigners are preparing to invade. You teach them to be non-thinkers who passively
accept whatever is told them, whether it�s delivered by way of the corporate media or
a government handler. You brainwash them into believing that everything the government does
is for their good and anyone who opposes the government is an enemy. You acclimate them
to a state of martial law, carried out by soldiers disguised as police officers but
bearing the weapons of war. You polarize them so that they can never unite and stand united
against the government. You create a climate in which silence is golden and those who speak
up are shouted down. You spread propaganda and lies. You package the police state in
the rhetoric of politicians.
And then, when and if the people finally wake up to the fact that the government is not
and has never been their friend, when it�s too late for peaceful protests and violence
is all that remains to them as a recourse against tyranny, you use all of the tools
you�ve been so carefully amassing�the criminal databases and surveillance and identification
systems and private prisons and protest laws�and you shut them down for good.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, once a government
assumes power�unconstitutional or not�it does not relinquish it. The militarized police
are not going to stand down. The NSA will continue to collect electronic files on everything
we do. More and more Americans are going to face jail time for offenses that prior generations
did not concern themselves with.
The government�at all levels�could crack down on virtually anyone at any time.
Martin Luther King saw it coming: both the �spontaneous explosion of anger by various
citizen groups� and the ensuing crackdown by the government.
�Police, national guard and other armed bodies are feverously preparing for repression,�
King wrote shortly before he was assassinated. �They can be curbed not by unorganized resort
to force�but only by a massive wave of militant nonviolence�.It also may be the instrument
of our national salvation.�
Militant nonviolent resistance.
�A nationwide nonviolent movement is very important,� King wrote. �We know from
past experience that Congress and the President won�t do anything until you develop a movement
around which people of goodwill can find a way to put pressure on them� This means
making the movement powerful enough, dramatic enough, morally appealing enough, so that
people of goodwill, the churches, laborers, liberals, intellectuals, students, poor people
themselves begin to put pressure on congressmen to the point that they can no longer elude
our demands.
�It must be militant, massive nonviolence,� King emphasized.
In other words, besides marches and protests, there would have to be civil disobedience.
Civil disobedience forces the government to expend energy in many directions, especially
if it is nonviolent, organized and is conducted on a massive scale. This is, as King knew,
the only way to move the beast. It is the way to effect change without resorting to
violence. And it is exactly what these protest laws are attempting to discourage
We are coming to a crossroads. Either we gather together now and attempt to restore freedom
or all will be lost. As King cautioned, �everywhere, �time is winding up,� in the words of
one of our spirituals, corruption in the land, people take your stand; time is
winding up.�

The Government is Still the Enemy of Freedom

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