A government of unlimited powers

The concept of government power is a strange and complex cipher. The existence of governments has always been predicated on assumptions of necessity, but few societies have ever truly considered what those necessities might be. What is government actually good for? What do they do that is so important? And, what happens when a government fails in the roles and duties that a culture deems vital? We tend to view government as an inevitability of life, but the fact is, government is NOT a force of nature, it is a creation of man, and it can be dismantled by men just as easily as it can be established.

In America, many people see government as an extension of the Republic, or even the source, and an animal that feeds at the behest of the common citizen. An often heard argument against the idea of drastic change or even rebellion within the establishment system is the assertion that the government “is us”. That it is made of Americans, by Americans, and for Americans. That there is no separation between the public, and the base of power. This is, of course, a childish and fantastical delusion drawn from a complete lack of understanding as to how our system really operates today. How many people out there who make this argument really believe at their very core that they have any legitimate influence over the actions of the state? I wager not many…

At bottom, to cling to the lie that the government as it stands is a construct of the people is an act of pure denial designed to help the lost masses cope with underlying feelings of utter powerlessness.

Unfortunately, the U.S. government has shown clearly through word and action that its concerns are not with the average American, and that its loyalties rest with decidedly smaller and more elite interest groups. When elections once meant to dissuade political abuse become a false paradigm tool for the maximization of tyranny, have we not lost our voice as a society? When any government decides it is no longer concerned with the freedom and prosperity of a nation, no matter how righteous that government claims to be, we MUST, as citizens, ask ourselves whether that government is still useful to us, and what kind of power it should be allowed to wield. It is a dereliction of our duty not just as Americans but as human beings to simply treat government as a realm outside of our control or concern. It is lazy. It is dangerous. It could very well be disastrous. Government should answer to us, now and forever.

As the new millennium stampedes forward, however, it appears that the intended roles of the American dynamic have been reversed. The progression of the past decade has seen a hailstorm of legislation and executive orders that impede personal liberties and erode Constitutional protections in place for centuries. So many trails towards totalitarianism have been blazed recently that it is becoming difficult to track them all, and yet, I do not think many in our country have asked themselves what this means to their future. What kind of rights are you ready to hand over to government? How many aspects of your life should the establishment be able to dictate? How much freedom are you willing to give away?

While pondering these questions, each man and woman should also take into account the powers that those in government THINK they deserve. What have they asked for lately? What have they taken without permission? Here is just a short list of the more detrimental declarations of authority attempted over the past decade along with the pieces of legislation and executives orders used to make them “all legal”…

The Power To Invade Your Privacy


The U.S. government has long held at least a private belief that it should be allowed access to every aspect of a citizens personal life. In the past, the excuse of criminal suspicion was a standard rationalization, but this expanded beyond the targeting of individuals to broader surveillance of the populace as a whole with the advent of the drug war. Financial records especially became subject to government perusal without warrant and generally without any criminal charges filed. 

This trampling of the 4th Amendment over a fabrication of a “war” on substances that by all rights should be legal anyway was just a taste of what was to come. With the explosion of the war on terror (another fabricated conflict), the application of mass surveillance became standardized. The Patriot Acts and the FISA bill, both upheld by so called “Republican” and “Democratic” presidents, have opened the door for centralized electronic spying in the name of “national security”. Never before has the world seen such an unbridled assault on the private lives of common citizens. The big brother grids of the Soviet era are child’s play compared to the data mining of the 21st century, and this tyranny is made possible by the marriage of government and corporate interests, working in tandem to ensure an ever tightening net.

The usual ill conceived debate point for such surveillance is the claim that it is “for the greater good”, for our own safety, and that if we have nothing to hide, we have nothing to fear. It is not uncommon for slaves to embrace the loss of privacy in the name of safety, even if that feeling of safety is an illusion, but, in the end, whether we have something to hide is none of the government’s concern. In a true Republic, innocent until proven guilty is a paramount ideal, and this ideal cannot exist in a country where everyone is treated as a suspect at every moment of every day. No politician, no corporate body, no president, no alphabet agency in existence is exalted enough to play the all seeing all judging eye of god. This kind of power in the hands of an organization whose sole purpose is self preservation and expansion at any cost? Absolutely unacceptable!

The Power To Silence

From the DHS, to the private Federal Reserve, to Google and Facebook, the tides of opinion and social observation are being tracked, catalogued, and flagged for future intervention. With active programs now in place to identify and isolate negative online criticism of these institutions as well as to marginalize freelance web journalists and more mainstream media icons with a strong voice, the general public is finally beginning to see what we in the Liberty Movement have been warning about for years:

http://abcnews.go.com/US/dhs-creates-fake-accounts-monitor-social-networks/story?id=15247533#.T2mCinkkU3E

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/sep/29/business/la-fi-fed-facebook-20110929

The invasion of privacy is merely the first step in the process of silencing dissent. If the citizenry is put in a position in which they know they are constantly being watched, they may decide to censor themselves to avoid possible retribution. In fact, the destruction of free speech has always been accomplished in history first by the target population itself. Terrified of real and imagined consequences, people begin to filter their own views, until a single harmless and homogenized collective voice forms.

The near miss of SOPA legislation has proven as well that the government hopes to one day be able to summarily vaporize internet outlets based on whatever guidelines they see fit to apply. It also showed that the American public is not going to roll over while this occurs. I think it safe to say that the internet is the very last bastion of free speech in the world, free from filtration, bureaucratic meddling, and corporate vampirism. SOPA was a test case. New and more subversive methods will arise, and shutting down the web as we know it will be a number priority for our government for the foreseeable future.

“Free speech zones” aside, protest is becoming far more difficult in this country. Less-than-lethal devices like tasers, rubber bullets, tear gas, sound cannons, microwave guns, etc. have “humanized” the act of government violence against peaceful protest, but the effects of violating the 1st Amendment are the same. Add to this the use of Fusion Centers to coordinate armies of riot cops with the help of the DHS, the FBI, and even the military, and you have a high grade goon machine constructed to undermine the people’s right to redress grievances. It has become obvious that this government not only wants to stifle your ability to affect change through electoral means, but it is also determined to make sure you can’t openly complain about being muscled out of the political process either.

The Power To Financially Destroy

Of course, much of the economic distress that we suffer today was generated by the corrupt activities of the Federal Reserve (a privately controlled banking cartel) and global financing conglomerates like JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs, however, the government’s complicity in these activities cannot be denied. It was the Congressional repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act that gave international banks the ability to derivitize massive numbers of mortgages and create the ongoing implosion of the housing bubble. It was the SEC that turned the other cheek for years while credit fraud flooded markets and ratings agencies gave AAA status to toxic and basically worthless assets. It is the U.S. government to this day that defends the Federal Reserve’s nonstop quantitative easing, the destruction of the dollar, and increased deficit spending driving our nation even deeper into debt. The passage of the bailouts despite an 80% opposition from the public sent a stark message; the government does not care what you think about the economy, and will do what it pleases, even if it means destroying your means of fiscal survival.

The Power To Imprison Without Trial

The NDAA is truly a perfect representation of the kind of power the government would like to have over the people, no questions asked. The Obama Administration’s half hearted promises to not use the provisions of the legislation to detain American citizens indefinitely without trial are little comfort, especially when one considers that the man has not kept a single positive promise since taking office in 2008. Frankly, I would have slightly more respect for the president (which isn't much) if he had the guts to come out and admit what the language of the NDAA clearly states; that American citizens can and will be designated as enemy combatants under the rules of war, and that anyone, regardless of citizenship, can be labeled a “terrorist” for any reason by the executive branch.

I suppose the one good side-effect of the passage of the NDAA is the level of awakening going on in the American public to the direction our country is taking. Not to mention, the scrambling that political representatives now have to do to cover themselves and explain away their support for the draconian measures.

For those who do not grasp the ultimate goal of this kind of legislation, the NDAA seems outlandish, or insane. But, in a certain light, it is perfectly logical. A government that seeks totalitarian control is REQUIRED to remove the protections that a jury trial affords, otherwise, it cannot function in the manner it desires. If a person is given the opportunity of a jury by his peers, this takes the ability to criminalize out of the hands of government and places it in the hands of a third party. Just as in the economy, the globalists who stand at the helm of our country would very much like to centralize law. This means removing all checks and balances from the equation. In the name of national security, Washington D.C. considers all things possible…

The Power To Kill Without Trial

Another program supported by both Republican and Democratic presidents, the ability to assassinate American citizens without trial based on mere accusations from the executive branch is a highly useful tool for tyranny. Over the past couple years the questions have always been; how far do they plan to take this policy, and, will they try to use it against American citizens on American soil? These questions have been indirectly answered by FBI head Robert Mueller when he tried to dodge them in a recent hearing:
 
Mueller’s claim that he is “not sure” if Americans can be assassinated on U.S. soil is the same as an admission that this is at the very least being considered. Given the legaleze wrangling that both Mueller and Eric “Fast and Furious” Holder have tried to implement in rationalizing the use of assassination, I find it hard to fathom that anyone would NOT expect they would use the policy for Americans on home turf. The power to kill or imprison without trial is expressly forbidden by Constitutional law and the Bill of Rights. Such abuses were the primary cause of the Revolutionary War, yet, here we are again, dealing with the same murderous reasoning with a slightly different face.

The Power To Militarize

Federal fusion centers and funding for local law enforcement has irreparably damaged state and county objectivity and opened the door to a steady diet of anti-liberty propaganda for police officials across the nation. Some eat it up, some don’t. However, the issue here is one of intention. Why does the federal government feel the need to arm divisions of local law enforcement with automatic weapons, predator drones, and even tanks? Why is Congress going out of its way to free up FAA regulations to allow police organizations unprecedented access to predator drones, up to 30,000 by 2020, for use in civilian airspace?

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2012/feb/7/coming-to-a-sky-near-you/?page=all

Why does the DHS suddenly need 450 million rounds of .40 cal ammunition from ATK?

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/atk-secures-40-caliber-ammunition-contract-with-department-of-homeland-security-us-immigration-and-customs-enforcement-dhs-ice-2012-03-12?reflink=MW_news_stmp

And why has Obama quickly and quietly signed the Executive Order for National Defense Resources Preparedness? Though many will claim the order only rehashes such continuity of government policies seen in older programs like Rex 84, I find it a bit disconcerting that our government suddenly feels the need to rehash Rex 84 powers at all!

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/03/16/executive-order-national-defense-resources-preparedness

The order is a claim to eminent domain, not just over land, but over every resource imaginable in the face of a “national emergency”. Using military force, all goods, services, and property, can be confiscated in the name of support for military and governmental logistics. In an article written in February titled “The DHS Defends Globalism, Not America”, I warned that Janet Napolitano’s language of supply chain protection and resource allocation could only be supported by the pilfering of goods from one place to feed another:

http://alt-market.com/articles/552-the-dhs-defends-globalism-not-america

Now we see that this was indeed the intention all along. Given that the John Warner Defense Authorization Act allows the president to declare a national emergency and martial law for almost any reason at any time without oversight from Congress for at least 6 months, the possibility of vast programs of resource confiscation becomes much more likely.

The power to militarize a culture at will, and to force that culture to work and produce in the name of the state and the benefit of the state is perhaps the most terrifying power of all. It is, for all intents and purposes, the power to enslave.

What Has Our Government Become?

Really, who needs terrorists when you have a government like ours? If it is the widespread destruction of the principles that founded our society that you fear, then the last enemy you need worry about is the Muslim boogie man. The greatest threat to our way of life is an institution that has always operated right under our noses and acted with impunity sheltered by the very borders it is tasked to defend. It is the only group in existence that has the resources, the military backing, and the proven intent to undermine liberty in America. It is the supreme threat to individual freedom in the world today. And, the worst irony of all is that it commits every one of its crimes in our name.

So, there comes a point when we have to decide what kind of respect this brand of monstrosity deserves? It would appear that the government, or at least root elements of it, see the American people as the enemy. And why not? We are, in the end, the only force on the planet in a position to deconstruct the machine, so it only follows that we find ourselves locked in its crosshairs. We have not been given much choice. The only decision left to make is one within each individual. How much do we really need the system, and how much pain and horror are we willing to endure to satisfy its insatiable hunger? Where will we finally draw the line…?

- Brandon Smith 

alt-market.com

Insurrection: Six easy steps

In modern America, it’s not nice or pleasant or practical to approach political problems with the attitude of a radical. That puts people off. And there’s nothing worse than having people not like you, right? Better to play the game and hope that a better world will simply materialize out of the ether. Don’t rock the boat, especially when you’re in it…

For those of us in the Liberty Movement, this passive approach just doesn’t satiate our ravenous hunger for the bizarre. And by “bizarre”, I mean honest. Our time here is short, and usually ugly, and filled with people and circumstances and disasters and biases and abhorrences and painful moments and sometimes smells that we would much rather not deal with. The least we can ask for is a little truth. If I have to be confronted with crusted wheezing gas-bloated nightmare figures like John McCain or Joseph Lieberman, men who would label me a terrorist if they could, then I should be allowed the satisfaction of a concrete fact or two before I am shipped of to the nearest Halliburton run military sanctioned prison facility for re-education and naked dog-piling (which these men seem to particularly enjoy).

The truth is the first and greatest sin in the dark pestilent pit of any active tyranny. I recommend it highly. Seek the truth, and ye shall be fined…or jailed. This is the first step towards a glorious career as an American extremist, and living such a lifestyle can be fun and exciting, if one follows these simple guidelines:

1) Make A Ruckus
Identify the imperative issues of the day that most people don’t want to be confronted with……..and then talk about them constantly. But don’t just talk about them; talk about them intelligently and with an informative stance. That really drives the willfully ignorant crazy. Make your position and the facts behind it visible in the mainstream, through writing, videos, protest, graffiti, bumper stickers, tatts, whatever…

The establishment’s first line of defense is not necessarily to suppress the truth, but to keep it on the fringe of society, out of sight of the average citizen. Your job is to shove the truth in people’s faces, so that they are forced to at least acknowledge that it exists, even if they don’t want to accept it.

2) Laugh At Petty Authority
Most authority in our modern world is, really, only petty authority. True authority is fostered by a sense of respect that is earned through leadership by example. The greatest authorities are those who teach, not those who command, and political governance is null and void if that governance was attained through subversion and lies.

Of course, this view is a proven fast track to the nearest solitary confinement cell, but hey, living such a rock ‘n roll flavored “extreme” existence is not without risks…

Extremists recognize that a dishonest politician is only a conman in a nice suit, and nothing more. They recognize that a law enforcement official that has no regard for Constitutional liberties, or for human decency, is just a gun toting goon in a badge and costume, and is not due any more respect than a common criminal. They see alphabet agencies as extensions of a system that no longer holds any principles beyond sustaining its own wretched existence, and rightly look down upon those who would sell out to such cancerous bureaucracies for a paycheck and some undeserved prestige. They laugh at such people, because in the grand scheme of things, these “great pillars” of our nation are, in fact, tragically ridiculous.

3) Refuse To Be Pegged With Arbitrary Labels
I once entered into a debate with a long time Democrat over the painfully farcical presidency of Barack Obama. After discovering that I held the same exact views on George W. Bush, he became frustrated and nearly infuriated, because he could not place me into a preconceived political box. He complained that my stance could not be readily categorized, and this interfered with his ability to argue with me.

I replied…. “Good! That’s exactly the way it should be!”

Extremism itself is an arbitrary label, whose definition is shifted by those in power to fit any person or group that happens to get in their way at any particular time. However, to take this label and make it ours, we definitely can’t allow ourselves to be affiliated with hollow and meaningless political parties like the Democrats or the GOP, not to mention all the prefabricated and shallow philosophical platforms they engender. Every problem and situation should be approached as new, and should be dealt with using social and legal methods that WORK, as opposed to those that happen to follow a particular party line. There should be, at bottom, as many political viewpoints as there are individuals, not only two homogenized standards that we are forced to choose from in the hopes that one will be “less destructive” than the other.

4) Prepare For Life Without Window Shopping
A surefire way to become an extremist today is to suggest preparation for any kind of disaster. For the average American, there is no such thing as a tomorrow without Happy Meals and Nikes. To suggest the possibility is akin to dancing naked on the freeway with a Gadsden Flag. Despite the fact that in countries across the planet setting aside goods for survival is as common as mowing the lawn here in the U.S., many in America can’t fathom adopting such habits. This is because many still believe that the system will protect them from harm no matter what happens. The “extremist” thinks differently.

He realizes that there have been too many instances in the past when government was not helpful to those in the midst of catastrophe, and in some cases, was even the cause of greater harm. He seeks to remove his dependence on this system, and procure the insurance necessary to help himself if the need ever arises.

The Federal Government has seen fit to identify the mere act of prepping as a sign of possible extremism, so, let’s get “extreme”, shall we? I would rather be extreme and alive, than a non-threatening and law abiding corpse.

5) Build A Terrifying Gun Collection
If the contents of your house doesn’t scare the living hell out of your yuppie next door neighbor, then you aren’t an extremist yet. Time to pay off the layaway on that 50. Cal!

Firearms ownership is a widespread American pastime, and is growing by the month. However, there seems to be a misconception that this pastime is about our “sportsman’s heritage”, or self defense against local crime. Nope. That’s not why the extremist stockpiles an arsenal (an arsenal is defined as however many guns you happen to have when the ATF shows up at your doorstep). He owns scary guns to defend against rogue governments and the rise of the totalitarian dynamic. Freaky, I know…

Forget all this sportsman nonsense! We own weapons to dissuade oligarchy from getting comfortable on our couches! Our concern is not the wildlife…

6) Question The Accepted Reality Of Everything
You can’t be an extremist if you believe everything you hear from the TV. Actually, you can’t be an extremist if you believe ANYTHING you hear on the TV. An extremist takes absolutely no stock in what the mainstream media says without further investigation, and would rather be caught dead than caught parroting talking points from cable news broadcasts.

Is a certain philosophical or political position suddenly considered “common knowledge”? Be suspicious. Is a particular methodology or debate point appearing in every journalistic outlet at the same exact time with the same exact one sided narrative? Time to pull out the B.S. detector. Is a politician opening his mouth and talking? Have a shovel handy…

The extremist’s job is not necessarily to be contradictory just for the sake of contrariness. It is, though, his job to be critical, discerning, and discriminating against that which doesn’t hold up to the light of candid examination. While there is always room for a certain amount of “interpretation”, ultimately, if a circumstance rings false, it must be exposed. Period.

Even if that exposure is harmful to the state of our country or our culture in the short term, deceit left unchecked in the long term is the single greatest destroyer of entire civilizations, and is absolutely unacceptable, especially to the extremist…

I think it is clear that extremists in an environment of despotism are in most cases people who refuse to abandon that which makes humanity whole. We are, indeed, dangerous, but only to those who would do liberty harm. A life of conformity is a life wasted, and a life of slavery is no life at all. Whatever we may be called today, what we leave behind is ultimately what defines us. Labels are irrelevant.
If I am an “extremist” because I refuse toparticipate in the delusion that is America in the new millennium, then so be it. I am more than happy to join the long list of insurrectionaries who inhabit this nation today and who have been the legitimate makers of the world for generations. Everything in history revolves not around governments, but rule-breakers. They alone decide whether humanity will live tight in the fist of the authoritarian machine, or live free in the wilds of unbridled independence.

“One man with courage is a majority.”
—Thomas Jefferson

Regards,

Brandon SmithAlt-Market.com

Presidential Warnings

“You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And it’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.”

- Barack Hussein Obama/ April 12,2008

"We can't be so fixated on our desire to preserve the rights of ordinary Americans."

- Bill Clinton/ 3-11-93

“Out of these troubled times, our objective—a new world order—can emerge. Today, that new world is struggling to be born, a world quite different from the one we have known.”

- George Herbert Walker Bush/ September 11, 1990

"A government big enough to give you everything you need, is a government big enough to take away everything that you have”

- Gerald R. Ford/ August 12, 1974

 “The high office of the president has been used to foment a plot to destroy America’s freedom, and before I leave office I must inform the citizens of this plight.”

- John F. Kennedy/ November 12, 1963 (10 days before his assassination)

"In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."

- Dwight D. Eisenhower/ 1961

"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government of the U.S. since the days of Andrew Jackson."

- Franklin D. Roosevelt/ Nov. 21, 1933

"Some of the biggest men in the United States, in the field of commerce and manufacture, are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they had better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."

- Woodrow Wilson

“The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. It will often be exercised when wrong but better so than not to be exercised at all. I like a little rebellion now and then. It is like a storm in the atmosphere.”

- Thomas Jefferson

Iran and the Prospect of Domestic Terrorism

I hate to be the one to bring up a very unpleasant subject, but let me begin with a question… Do you recall the reasons that the Sept. 11 terrorists gave for their rampage, the one that killed so many, did so much damage and led the U.S. government to unleash fury on the world and also its own citizens?

They, and Osama bin Laden, cited three factors: U.S. sponsorship of Israeli settlements, U.S. support for the kept regime in Saudi Arabia and the decade of sanctions against Iraq.

Because the U.S. went to war against Iraq following the attacks, hardly anyone thinks of the previous 10 years in which the U.S. punished Iraq with cruel sanctions that led to multitudes of deaths, particularly of children. This was in the name of stopping an Iraqi program to build weapons of mass destruction — except that no evidence that such a program existed ever came to light.

The terrorists saw themselves as retaliating for something that most Americans don’t even begin to understand and hardly even know about at all. This is not an excuse for the attacks but a window into understanding the motives behind them. How can we prevent future such terrorism if we don’t examine the thinking that led to the attacks in the first place?

Yet there is something about war that has the effect of wiping out the memories of all that came before. Especially in the U.S., the perception prevails that it always happens in a vacuum. The short history is always the same: There we were, minding our own business, when suddenly some bad guys from abroad started threatening our way of life, so of course, we had to smash them.

As proof of this, I invite you to examine a remarkable collection of essays published in 1976 in a book called Watershed of Empire, edited by James J. Martin and Leonard P. Liggio, with essays by Murray Rothbard, Justus Doenecke, William Neumann, Lloyd Gardiner, Robert Smith and others. The subject is the lead-up to World War II. Laissez Faire Books has a nice stock of this book that is so truth-telling that it will probably never be reprinted (hope you catch the irony). It turns out that this war didn’t just happen, either; it was preceded by years of saber rattling and a push for dollar imperialism that produced a pushback from Germany and Japan.

I’m now looking at the headlines on Iran. The parallels with the Iraq case are preposterously close. Israel is promising some kind of military action against Iran, not to stop an existing weapons program, but to prevent one from being started. The Obama administration says that it won’t intervene or stop an attack and further pledges continued alliance with Israel, come what may. The U.S. has already imposed sanctions on Iran and is prepared to ramp those up (and we know from experience just how well this part of the world responds to our sanctions!). Plus, U.S. bases in the region are spreading.

Not only are the conditions that led to Sept. 11 in place yet again, but they are also arguably heightened relative to what they were the first time around. Does anyone believe that this is good for peace and domestic tranquility here at home? Has anyone seriously considered what this could bring about on the domestic front? I guess not, since, apparently, we learned absolutely nothing from Sept. 11 except for the need to put all airline security in the hands of government and prevent me from carrying a corkscrew on the plane.

No one really expected Sept. 11. No one expects the current sanctions and war talk about Iran to inspire suicide bombers or some other unthinkable act of violence here at home. The event doesn’t have to be huge. It can be small and local. And if it does happen, I suppose we will once again assure ourselves that “they hate us for our freedom,” and then proceed to tighten the screws further on the domestic front. No amount of security theater will be too much on the fateful day.

Seriously, it is worth considering just what would happen to this country in the wake of another large-scale terrorist attack. Where are the limits of statism? What would our own government be willing or unwilling to do this time? What part of the Bill of Rights will matter under these conditions? These are unthinkable thoughts precisely because any close observer of our existing political moment understands the implications. It will be the end of what freedoms we have remaining.

Already, we all put up with a level of militarization that would have been unthinkable a generation ago. Washington, D.C., is a fortress. Every government building is managed as if the people outside are preparing an attack. Hardly anyone even remembers a time when the local police seemed more like an extension of the civic order, rather than a separate and heavily militarized caste. The truth is that the whole of the “security regime” has been more than ready to spring into further action at a moment’s notice.

For goodness sake, the U.S. attorney general gave a speech at Northwestern University in which he argued for the Obama administration’s position that the government can hunt down and kill American citizens, without any of the legal niceties that are generally considered a sign of civilized governance. Such talk would have been unthinkable a decade ago.

Yes, I know, only “conspiracy theorists” draw attention to these points. The rest of us are just supposed to pretend as if government is a wonderfully benign force in the world, serving us as we ask them to do as part of the great social contract. Surely, there is no plot to grab more power, take more money, shred what’s left of the Constitution or otherwise violate our human rights under the phony pretense of making us more secure or bringing justice to bad guys around the world.

Following Sept. 11, there was a feeling of complete helplessness that swept over the proponents of peace on earth. The state was on the march, and there was nothing to stand in the way. Finally, after few years in which our lives were transformed and freedom faded, things settled down. There is something about the tenor of this drumbeat on Iran that makes me wonder: Has this been the calm before the storm?

Jeffrey Tucker

Eric Holder: “We can kill you whenever we want to.”

We confess to a gross distortion. Those are not Attorney General Eric Holder’s exact words. But we vigorously insist that they were his meaning.

In the wake of the the president’s murder-by-drone of U.S. citizen Anwar al-Awlaki, the Attorney general explains why U.S. citizenship can be no guarantee of the usual due process that U.S. citizens have come to expect before their government imprisons or obliterates them. In a speech at Northwestern University Law School, Holder said:

“Let me be clear: An operation using lethal force in a foreign country, targeted against a U.S. citizen who is a senior operational leader of al Qaeda or associated forces, and who is actively engaged in planning to kill Americans, would be lawful at least in the following circumstances: First, the U.S. government has determined, after a thorough and careful review, that the individual poses an imminent threat of violent attack against the United States; second, capture is not feasible; and third, the operation would be conducted in a manner consistent with applicable law of war principles.

“The evaluation of whether an individual presents an ‘imminent threat’ incorporates considerations of the relevant window of opportunity to act, the possible harm that missing the window would cause to civilians, and the likelihood of heading off future disastrous attacks against the United States.”

“Some have called such operations ‘assassinations.’ They are not, and the use of that loaded term is misplaced. Assassinations are unlawful killings. The U.S. government’s use of lethal force in self defense against a leader of al Qaeda or an associated force who presents an imminent threat of violent attack would not be unlawful — and therefore would not violate the Executive Order banning assassination or criminal statutes.”

“Because the United States is in an armed conflict, we are authorized to take action against enemy belligerents under international law. The Constitution empowers the President to protect the nation from any imminent threat of violent attack. And international law recognizes the inherent right of national self-defense. None of this is changed by the fact that we are not in a conventional war.”

Surely this is only a concern for brown extremists in deserts…isn’t it…?

Gary Gibson