How Much More Tyranny Can Americans Take from Their Government?

Liberty Upended – Anthony Freda

Scott Lazarowitz

Justin Raimondo at Antiwar.com points out a probable reason for the U.S. Senate’s voting to give the military the power to seize Americans from their homes and detain them indefinitely, without any suspicion or charges brought against them, and based solely on the judgment and whim of U.S. soldiers and other armed agents of government. I addressed this just recently, in my article on martial law and my article on inalienable rights.

The reason we have rules for government officials to follow is to protect innocent civilians from being wrongfully arrested and detained. There needs to be actual suspicion and there need to be actual charges brought against someone — otherwise these agents of the State are obligated by law, and by adherence to the American principles of presumption of innocence and inalienable rights, to leave people alone.

Paul Joseph Watson at Infowars.com writes about Sen. Rand Paul as stating that this bill could cause any American to be sent to Guantanamo prison without charges, without trial. Now, shouldn’t we worry about this in light of DHS Sec. Janet Napolitano’s campaign, “If You See Something, Say Something”? Such a campaign urges Americans to snitch on their neighbors, but based on something that could be entirely innocent, only perceived by the snitchers as something criminal or “terrorist” in nature — and the snitchee will have no chance to defend oneself when being arrested and detained. No evidence, only the word of the ignorant snitcher, and no due process. And with this bill, it is especially worrisome, given the indefinite nature of the detention.

Raimondo points out that, given that the entire economy could crash any day now, the real reason that these people in Washington want to have this martial law power is because they know that when banks run out of your cash and you want to get it, and when food shortages occur, there will be panic, looting, food riots, and violence. All of this is completely preventable, by decentralizing the banking system, and de-monopolizing the production of money away from government. Human beings have a right to choice, competition and freedom in their use of a medium of exchange.

But regarding these latest actions by dangerous imbeciles in Washington, these senators are voting to put soldiers in the streets to suspend our inalienable rights. Such power usurped and seized by these Washington officials is thus criminal in nature.

We have inherent rights as human beings to life and liberty. This includes the “right to be secure in our persons, property and effects.” Those are rights. The right to be free from aggression against oneself by others, including by police, soldiers, U.S. senators, rapists, muggers, etc.

If an agent of the government does not suspect you of something, or even if he just didn’t like something you said against Obama or Bush, he is obligated by moral law, as well as by the Constitution, to leave you alone. When they violate these rules, these State agents, including the senators who vote to give those military personnel that power, are committing crimes against the people. If you are in your home, and on your own property, or even if you are on a public street, you have a God-given right to defend yourself by any means necessary to protect your life from these criminals.

Senators who are voting to impose military aggression against innocent individuals are ipso facto declaring war against the people, using the armed agents of the State to carry out their aggression. War against the people by their own government is an act of treason.

Article III, Section 3 of the U.S. Constitution states that “Treason against the United States, shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort.” In this case with this bill, and other laws already in place, arresting presumably innocent civilians based on the whim of a soldier or other armed agents of the State, without charges and indefinitely detaining them without due process, is not a case of the one who is apprehended “giving aid and comfort” to the enemies (such as “terrorists”); in actuality, it is a case of the ones doing the arresting “levying war against them,” meaning the states that make up the “United States,” specifically the people who inhabit those states. (See here as well.)

These allegedly treasonous senators must be arrested, impeached and put on trial for treason. As I have been saying for quite a while, those government bureaucrats in Washington are a de facto foreign regime occupying our capitol. They are foreigners in that their actions, especially since 9/11, have been thoroughly un-American in nature, endangering our lives, with the Patriot Act surveillance spying intrusions, due-process-free detentions, property seizures, radiation cancer-causing scanners, and other crimes against us.

This is all in addition to the fact that our federal government and its military have been aggressively provoking foreigners abroad with obnoxious, murderous belligerence, especially against Middle-Easterners.

Since well before 9/11, for decades, our government has been provoking foreigners to act against Americans. The real way to end the terrorist threat against us is to stop provoking foreigners. Stop trespassing on their lands. Stop stealing their resources. Cease our government bureaucrats’ constant collusion with other tyrannical governments and dictatorships who oppress their own people.

As Hans-Hermann Hoppe has noted, the idea of “limited government” is impossible, especially with a centralized form of government, like the U.S. government. We can see how it is falling to pieces as the desperadoes try harder and harder to strengthen and expand the federal government’s power over others, expand its reach into more intimate details of our lives and into the lives of foreigners.

We can see how the European Union is also falling to pieces. Twenty years ago the Soviet Union fell to pieces. Centralization of government doesn’t work, and it only leads to tyranny, impoverishment, destruction, violence, societal decay and chaos. Central planning leads to “planned chaos,” as Ludwig von Mises noted.

The only way to protect ourselves, to restore our liberty, our security, and our prosperity, is to totally decentralize America. States must secede in a coordinated effort. If the political Powers That Be who are in control of state governments don’t want to do that and instead desperately cling to that dying, tyrannical, criminal regime in Washington, then it is up to the people themselves to secede, to withdraw support for the occupying federal regime, and to practice their right to protect and preserve their lives and their families’ lives.

Scott Lazarowitz is a libertarian writer and cartoonist. Please visit his website Reason and Jest.