Low-Tech Solutions to High-Tech Tyranny

Imagine, if you will, a fantastic near future in which the United States is facing an unmitigated economic implosion. Not just a mere market crash, or a stint of high unemployment, but a full spectrum collapse driven by unsustainable debt spending and hyperinflationary printing. The American people witness multiple credit downgrades of U.S. Treasury mechanisms, the dollar loses its reserve status, devaluation of the currency runs rampant, and the prices of commodities and imported goods immediately skyrocket.

In the background of this disaster, a group of financial elite with dreams of a new centralized economic and political system use the chaos to encourage a removal of long held civil liberties; displacing Constitutional protections they deem “outdated” and no longer “practical” in the midst of our modern day troubles. This group then institutes draconian policies through the executive orders of a puppet president, including indefinite detention, assassination, and even martial law against citizens. For now, let’s just refer to them as “The Swedes”….

The Swedes have an extraordinary array of technological tools at their disposal. The kind of equipment dictators like Stalin and Hitler would have killed for…literally. This technology is so pervasive and so unprecedented in the history of tyrannical governments that average people shiver at the very thought of resistance. The Swedes seem to be invincible.

Some Americans think about escaping to a foreign country before the zealots totally dominate, but ultimately, running is meaningless. The Swedes want a global control grid, not just an American one. Eventually, the expatriates will have to face the music as well.

Others believe that they can take their families and hide alone in far off mountains to wait out the storm, but they do not consider what will happen to their country and its principles while they curl up in a ball and pray that the catastrophe does not touch them. They forget that survival is hollow if one finds himself and his culture enslaved in the meantime.

And yet others, those who are aware of the consequences of unchecked oligarchy, decide to build communities of liberty minded individuals in preparation for the dangers ahead. They seek local and national solutions, social and political. However, always in the backs of their minds sits the understanding that these situations rarely if ever solve themselves, and rarely if ever end peacefully. Despots only respect one thing – Power. Those who refuse to fight back are, in their eyes, nothing but an easy meal, like a wounded animal in a forest of wolves. This third group of awake Americans comes to realize that one day the Swedes will move with severe aggression, and will have to be physically stopped. But how…?



With modern computer-driven weaponry at their fingertips, any resistance appears futile. Some Americans, though, do their homework, and discover that most successful revolutions against better equipped opponents utilize low tech methods in highly intelligent ways. They study the inherent weaknesses of the enemy weapons platforms using readily available online manuals and scientific journals. They realize that these pieces of equipment costing millions of dollars each can be defeated using methods that cost little more than pocket change. A war of economic attrition ensues, whereby the Swedes find themselves completely dependent on systems that cannot be maintained without substantial financial sacrifice. With each new piece of hardware, comes an even more frustrating strategy of defiance. Here are just a few examples…

CCTV Surveillance Grid

Sam is a Liberty Movement sympathizer caught in the city during the establishment of a high-tech surveillance grid in his hometown. The dastardly Swedes relish the idea of being able to keep tabs on every person everywhere. They even establish a database in the heart of Colorado which collates information in real time, allowing them to build and organize files on millions of citizens. The success of this grid depends greatly on the capacity of their CCTV cameras placed in an ever expanding spider’s web across heavily populated regions. The cameras use biometric data collected and stored by airport body scanners which the “extremists” often refer to as “naked body scanners”. The data allows computers to quickly match specific body signs to identity.

The Swedes told the public that their data would not be saved for future reference, but of course, this was later found to be a lie. It did not take long before the scanners were moved from the airports, to train stations, to bus stations, to federal buildings, to street corners for random shakedowns. Sam knows that if his file is pulled up by one of the cameras, he is in serious trouble, and so makes plans to escape the city limits. With curfews being set earlier and earlier in the evening, he decides to make his move before it is too late.

The night vision and thermal vision capabilities on the latest CCTV cameras makes disguise nearly impossible. Makeup and prosthetics help to hide bone structure, and a knee brace helps to change the gait of Sam’s walk, but Sam also knows that the thermal filters on the cameras are actually able to see the heat of blood flow through facial arteries, which act as a face fingerprint. There is no low-tech way to forge this face fingerprint.

So instead, Sam decides to block the camera system’s ability to use thermal vision at all. He does this with a few dollars and a hat, gluing small Infrared LED lightbulbs into the cap along with a tiny battery source. The IR lights drown out the CCTV ability to make any clear distinctions in his face, thus preventing any positive ID. Sam is clever, and plants similar IR devices on other people without their knowledge, diluting the attention of Swedish law enforcement officials who are left wondering if their cameras are malfunctioning or if their city is swarming with “terrorists”.

Fingerprint Scanners

Angela is a worker in a Swedish detention facility. At first, she believed that all the people quartered in the facility were terrorists who represented a threat to innocent lives. But, over time, she came to realize that the true innocents were being housed in the prison, most of them detained for no more than criticizing Swedish policy or protesting a political injustice. Angela makes plans to steal confidential information on the camp from her boss’ office and hand it over to the resistance. Unfortunately, her boss uses a fingerprint scanner to unlock his door. Luckily, she had done research into fail-test methods for such scanners in scientific and security journals and learned how to make molds using latent fingerprints.

RFID Chips

RFID chipping is all the rage with the Swedes, so of course they were more than keen to introduce the intrusive technology to the U.S. once the control grid was established. The tiny inexpensive chips allowed tracking of nearly everything, from retail habits, to civilian movements, to common monetary transactions. Evan, a computer hobbyist and quiet supporter of the Liberty Movement, found that without certain RFID designations, many goods could not be purchased, at least in bulk. Only Swedish officials had the ability to go anywhere and to buy what they needed.

Evan found a solution, not necessarily “low-tech”, but easy enough to make using common materials and a basic knowledge of electronics and programming. His idea? Build an RFID Emulator/Cloner.

The cloner had the ability to read particular RFID chips, even from a distance, and to then copy their unique signal. Evan was able to clone any chip anywhere and then implant the code on an RFID card or any other item containing a chip, making life easier for him, and information easier to get for others.

GPS Tracking

Evelyn was a political activist and independent journalist before the crash. Her writing had become quite prominent in freedom minded circles, but the dollar had fallen, and with it, the Constitution had been scrapped. Her criticisms of the Swedish controlled government were well known, and she had heard stories of liberty writers “disappearing”. She decided to leave the confines of the city to stay with a friend before the noose was tightened completely.

As she entered her vehicle and made her way outside the city along backroads, away from the highway and possible checkpoints, she noticed that a nondescript car seemed to be shadowing her from a distance. She made a few unplanned turns, and did not see the car again for twenty minutes. Then, it appeared again, at the very edge of her mirror’s field of vision. She realized that she may have a GPS tracking device implanted somewhere in her car, and to find it quickly would be impossible. Thankfully, she had purchased a GPS jamming device months ago, which allowed her to block any GPS transmissions within a small to medium radius. The device was furiously labeled by the FCC as “dangerous” and “illegal to use”, however, they remained very easy to buy until the crash.

Electronic Surveillance In General

Whether it be a CCTV camera, or a body scanner, sometimes the best option is not to evade or disguise, but to pull the plug entirely. At least, that was James’ point of view after the control grid went into overdrive and he couldn’t walk his dog without a blue-shirted Swedish agent fondling him on the sidewalk or forcing him to walk through a body scanner. Finally, he had had enough, and so, decided that if they wanted to track every move of every person, it was going to cost them.

Using commonly available parts, James built a personal EMP device. Its range was dependent on the size of the power supply he tied to it, but when used properly, it would zap anything with a circuit within several feet of him.

The Body Scanners were useless. RFID tags went blank. CCTV cameras shorted. They would eventually be replaced, but the cost would be high, and as long as he didn’t get caught, James could experience, at least for a short time, the America of the past…

Sound Cannon / Silence Gun

Mary had seen her family in poverty, her country in ruins, and her government turn to outright treason. In her mind, the only recourse left was to take to the streets. However, this proved to be almost as useless as participating in the election process. New sound cannon vehicles were deployed in waves along with riot police to quell any and all protests, no matter how peaceful in nature.

Mary learned two things quickly. The first: always bring a gas mask to the party. The second: always think simple when faced with technological tyranny.

The sound cannon blast was terrible, making concentration difficult and causing panic amongst the protestors. Even worse though was the Silence Gun.

Which actually recorded and then projected back a person’s voice only a split second after they began to talk, causing mental confusion and eventually, frustration and silence. The device was popular at political events where activists were likely to interrupt a candidate’s teleprompter speech to expose the public to a few truths. Mary was not a hacker, or a military specialist, or a technician of any kind. So, she wore ear plugs. Problem solved.

Night Vision / Thermal Imaging / Predator Drone

A considerable threat to those who decided to fight back against the Swedes was the widespread usage of night vision and thermal imagers by troops sent to hunt down and capture dissenters (the Swedes called them “enemy combatants). The use of FLIR cameras on aircraft and the feared predator drones were especially terrifying to those who knew very little about how such technology actually functions.

David, an insurgent against Swede governance, was tired of hearing about how the Predator Drones would be the doom of all who defied the establishment. He felt that this outlandish perception came more from the fact that the drones had no human passenger, and so, no potential casualty risk. The concept of facing down a machine that feels no combat apprehension is certainly disturbing, but not insurmountable. At bottom, what the enemy cannot see, the enemy cannot kill. And so, instead of trying in vain to fight the drones and their thermal / night vision on the terms of the oppressive military presence, he decided to make their vision advantage irrelevant by studying IR evasion used in sniper training.

Regular night vision relies, in most cases, on the use of an IR light which bounces off targets within the field of view. This is often referred to as “Active IR”. Thermal Vision reads existing IR at a different wavelength, usually in heat producing or high IR producing bodies, called “Passive IR”.

For evading Active IR night vision, David found that regular camouflaging methods along with smoke worked well. For defeating night vision altogether, he found that bright IR flashlights and floodlights, and even regular bright lights like camera flashes, shined directly at the target wearer of the night vision device, would be blinded for a short period of time, leaving room for escape.

Thermal vision evasion was more difficult. David and his team first studied the IR Emissivity Tables of common everyday materials.

[And how to check emissivity here.]

All objects above the temperature of absolute zero release a certain level of electromagnetic radiation, which thermal imagers pick up and translate into a visual picture. Hiding one’s heat signature is difficult, but not impossible. The key, as David learned through military sniper training manuals and combat analysis, was to match his IR signature with that of his surrounding as much as possible.

He fashioned a hooded cloak using a material that would block much of his initial warmth, then lined the inside of it with emergency space blanket material, which reflects back around 90% body heat. The cloak design worked well because he could easily take down the hood and unwrap himself when not in immediate danger, allowing the material to cool as he walked.

Then David attached local vegetation to the material to help match its IR Emissivity to the surrounding foliage. This combination reduced his thermal signature drastically. Overhead drones could not identify him clearly as a human, if they were able to see him at all. Ground forces were a greater threat, but the element of surprise was still possible for the insurgents with cloaks.

In combat, the tandem dangers of drones overhead and ground forces in pursuit with thermal vision made life difficult. David carefully studied field guides to Predator Drone strengths and weaknesses.

David and his team then utilized a special strategy under these extreme circumstances called “False IR Signature”.

Operating in bad weather gave the freedom fighters an instant advantage. Heavy rain washed away thermal footprints and obscured body heat. Thick cloud cover made image integrity poor. Contrary to popular belief, the drones had many downfalls, and their eyes were limited in numerous ways.

When in the middle of combat, where drone surveillance was most dangerous to low-tech resistance, multiple fake IR signatures were created using whatever was available. David used a combination of IR Chemlights and hot burning road flares thrown all over the field to misdirect drone cameras. With IR hotspots everywhere, the thermal cameras had no idea where to focus, let alone which targets were real, and which were fake. IR strobe light flares flashed intermittently causing even more confusion, and masked to some extent muzzle flash from firearms.

Larger objects could also be faked using pieces of metal heated with fire, or even heated metallic balloons arranged in a sizable pattern to mimic a hot running car or tank. Drones would zero in on false targets and unleash missiles, only to waste the expensive ordinance on party favors and scrap. Through David’s knowledge and efforts, the game had become more level.

Technology Or Force Of Will?

Technological weaponry and surveillance should never be underestimated. Today’s advancements are terrifying, devastating, and were designed after decades of trial and error in peripheral wars and burgeoning dictatorships around the world. A technology cannot be defeated by someone who does not respect its capability. That said, in the end, wars are not won with fancy gadgets alone. All conflicts are decided by a primary driver; force of will.

Who has the strength of spirit to endure the longest? Who has the intelligence to outwit the technology? Who knows exactly what they are fighting for and why? These questions decide victory, not unmanned aircraft and computers.

In the introduction, I joke a little about the state of our Republic, but sadly, the fictional accounts above represent realities that Americans today must consider as practical and possible in the near future. “The Swedes” are not illusion, but a parable of the kind of totalitarianism that arises in the midst of any culture dominated by elitism and collectivism. Whether you believe this is realistic or not in our nation today I suppose is dependent on your level of awareness surrounding current events. My goal in covering the information above is not to convince you one way or the other of the dangers ahead. The point is to redistribute the knowledge so that one day, in the event that the stories portrayed turn out to be more true than you realize, you may have the ability to do something about those troubled times as an effective champion, rather than a helpless victim…

Brandon SmithBe Sociable, Share!

Liberalism

There are two uses of the word liberalism that I find heartbreaking, even disgusting.

The first occurs when a self-described liberal pushes government power as the solution to all our economic and social woes. Government is not liberal! Government is confiscation, coercion, the taser, the jail cell!

Another is when a self-described conservative condemns liberalism as the cancer that is killing society. What? Thomas Jefferson was a liberal. So was John Locke. So was Alexis de Tocqueville. Their ideas built the world we love.

Most of all, there was Ludwig von Mises, who proudly called himself a liberal. He was the 20th century's great defender of capitalism and the free society. He decided to settle the issue about what is liberalism once at for all.

Liberalism is Ludwig von Mises' classic statement in defense of a free society, one of the last statements of the old liberal school and a text from which we can continue to learn. It has been the conscience of a global movement for liberty for 80 years.
Liberalism first appeared in 1927 as a follow-up to both Mises' devastating 1922 book showing that socialism would fail and his 1926 book criticizing interventionism. It was written to address the burning question: If not socialism, and if not fascism or interventionism, what form of social arrangement is most conducive to human flourishing? Mises' answer, summed up in the title, is liberalism.

Even in these times, Mises was aware that the meaning of liberalism had changed from its common use in the 19th century. He had to clarify that his understanding not only included commercial freedom, but was rooted in it. Without economic freedom, no other form of freedom can have material meaning.

But Mises did not accept the idea that the term had been merely stolen from the proponents of free markets. He thought it had never been worked out scientifically, and therefore, the theory of liberalism became vulnerable to political manipulation.

Thus did Mises do more than restate classical liberal doctrine. He gave a thoroughly modern defense of freedom, one that corrected the errors of the old liberal school by rooting the idea of liberty in the institution of private property (the subject on which the classical school was sometimes unclear). That is the grand contribution of this volume:

"The program of liberalism, therefore, if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production... All the other demands of liberalism result from this fundamental demand."

But there are other insights too. He demonstrates that the order inherent in a laissez-faire society stems not from a mystical source, but from the capacity of the price system to provide a means of rational coordination between independent actors. This rational pursuit of individual interest leads to the division of labor, the development of the money economy, the extended order of production and the coordinative signals of interest and profit. He argues that it is within man's rational capacity to understand the reasons for the prosperity and orderliness of freedom.

He further shows that political decentralization and secession are the best means to peace and political liberty. As for religion, he recommends the complete separation of church and state, and a cultural conviction that favors tolerance. On immigration, he favors the freedom of movement. On education, state involvement must end -- completely.

In some ways, this is the most political of Mises' treatises, and also one of the most inspiring books ever written on the idea of liberty. It remains a book that can set the world on fire for freedom, which is probably why it has been translated into more than a dozen languages.

Yet the concluding message here is something that every freedom lover needs to contemplate and return to again and again. Consider his words very seriously: 

"Liberalism is no religion, no worldview, no party of special interests. It is no religion because it demands neither faith nor devotion, because there is nothing mystical about it, and because it has no dogmas. It is no worldview because it does not try to explain the cosmos, and because it says nothing and does not seek to say anything about the meaning and purpose of human existence. It is no party of special interests because it does not provide or seek to provide any special advantage whatsoever to any individual or any group. It is something entirely different. It is an ideology, a doctrine of the mutual relationship among the members of society and, at the same time, the application of this doctrine to the conduct of men in actual society. It promises nothing that exceeds what can be accomplished in society and through society. It seeks to give men only one thing: the peaceful, undisturbed development of material well-being for all, in order thereby to shield the m from the external causes of pain and suffering as far as it lies within the power of social institutions to do so at all. To diminish suffering, to increase happiness: That is its aim."

"No sect and no political party has believed that it could afford to forgo advancing its cause by appealing to men's senses. Rhetorical bombast, music and song resound, banners wave, flowers and colors serve as symbols and the leaders seek to attach their followers to their own person. Liberalism has nothing to do with all this. It has no party flower and no party color, no party song and no party idols, no symbols and no slogans. It has the substance and the arguments. These must lead it to victory."

This is more than a theory; it is a proposed strategy for achieving a dream. It is one that should attract anyone who is truly serious about making a contribution to the cause of freedom.

In the thicket of political argument, in the confusing world of political lies and rhetoric, I find myself returning to this calm and brilliant book. I've probably read it through a dozen times. I always find something new, something inspiring, something that provides me new intellectual guidance.

Jeffrey Tucker
Executive editor
Laissez Faire Books

We're All Branch Davidians Now

Nineteen years ago, just outside Waco, Texas, the FBI demonstrated once again that the state at its core is a killing machine. Monarchy, democracy, or republic – any government as conventionally defined is a legal monopoly on violence. The state is always inclined toward oppression, division, conquest, and bloodshed, because these are its tools of trade.

Matters are no different here. The myth of a free America was always seen with bitter irony by those not blessed by such freedom. In the founding generation, as half a million labored in slavery, many who fought in the Revolution genuinely believed in liberty, but for the ruling elite who chided them on, liberty was hardly more than a slogan. This has always been true of our political leaders.

The Father of the Country was a centralizing slaveowner. Old Hickory talked up freedom as he threatened war on South Carolina and forced the Cherokee to flee from their ancestral land on a barbarously murderous walk of shame. The Great Emancipator turned America into a military dictatorship and abolished the revolutionary right of secession. Wilson's New Freedom was cover for a Prussianized war machine generating revenue for his profiteering buddies on Wall Street. Roosevelt's Four Freedoms failed to include the freedom not to be drafted or interned in a concentration camp. Ronald Reagan threw the word freedom around as he trained Latin American torturers and raped the Bill of Rights in the name of fighting drugs. The United States has never lived up to its rhetoric.

But the events from February 28 through April 19, 1993, still stand out in my mind as a watershed. It was the post-Cold War regime's coming of age, signifying a major event in cultural history.

Everything about Operation Showtime was brazen, and it seemed like an overreach even by some of the government's establishment defenders. Yet today Washington's fixers must look back at these embarrassments as a hiccup at most, as growing pains on the way to establishing a militarized law-and-order apparatus of nearly unlimited power. That this stepping stone was reached on the eve of the Internet era, right before the old media began its decline in influence, was most convenient for the police state and its solidification.

The propaganda against the Branch Davidians was perfectly tuned to appeal to the masses, each adjustment in frequency coming just in time to keep the people listening. Religious fanatics with a meth lab, armed and dangerous, abusing their children – few wanted to stand up for these people during the siege. Even fewer wished to identify the Davidian response to the original raid for what it was: self-defense. The Davidians fired on the ATF so long as the ATF fired upon the Davidians, and when the ATF ran out of ammo, the Davidians held their fire. The government's officials were the aggressors. What followed were fifty-one days of psychological warfare designed to isolate the Davidians – from water, from food, from the press, their lawyers and family – and break them down like any wartime enemy.

So preposterous was the standoff that eventually even the mainstream media began asking questions. A New York Times exposé on March 28 raised all sorts of troubling issues, which only multiplied in the days that followed. Federal agents said that supervisors had known they had lost the element of surprise, but decided to go ahead with the February 28 raid anyway. Agents were reportedly unhappy with their equipment and communication methods. The poor planning and lack of contingency options were exposed. No medical assistance had been prepared for the ATF's raid. Reports emerged that some of the ATF agents had injured or killed one another in friendly fire. There were hints that other agents might have even been captured and let go by the Davidians. The ATF intelligence chief stopped holding press conferences as the heat continued to mount.

On April 19, tired from the boredom and bad publicity of just standing around outside the "compound," the FBI drove a tank through the Davidians' home, pumped it full of CS gas, launched incendiary devices at the building, and watched it go up in flames. As soon as the stakes became higher, as soon as questioning the feds meant implying they had committed mass murder, the media stopped barking defiantly and jumped back to the government's lap.

The Democrats, home of America's center-left, oversaw this exceedingly important event in the development of the police state. Unsurprisingly, every respectable liberal defended the government and believed Clinton's people when they demonized the Davidians. The entire respectable right went along with the bloodletting, too. Why wouldn't they? It was a raid planned by George H.W. Bush's ATF, carried out by the Clintonistas, and ultimately rubberstamped by the Republicans in Congress, and so everyone could get behind it. Some libertarians wavered, including Randians and other proponents of violent national secularism, and much of the radical left went limp too.

The Oklahoma City incident two years later was spun by the media as an example of anti-government extremism somehow being a greater threat than the government itself. It became increasingly un-PC to bring up what had happened in Texas. The election of Dubya and 9/11 washed away the paranoid anti-statist instincts of much of the Clinton-hating right.

Waco, from the raid's planning to the cover-up and show trials, taught the U.S. government what it could get away with – which is to say, practically anything. It can gas innocent children with internationally banned chemicals. It can hoist a federal flag atop a torched American home, claim victory, and see its public image improve. It can throw grenades at people trying to escape a building and claim they are being held hostage. In the name of protecting these "hostages" and children, it can watch as they burn and keep the firefighters away. And the massacre will be tolerated, even applauded.

Dozens of people of color died at the hands of the federal government, and the official Civil Rights movement hardly spoke up. Dozens of people were targeted for their religion, and it hardly bothered many of the very conservatives who allege a war on religion waged by DC. The largest federal-military killing of civilians on U.S. soil in a century has now become one more notch on the progressive left's timeline of major events in anti-government extremism, as opposed to a principal example of government extremism where a tiny minority community was virtually exterminated.

Indeed, in 1993 the Davidians were only the most conspicuous and recent example in America's long history of the demonized Other, the marginalized underclass in the official hierarchy of human worth. Slaves, Indians, Mexicans, Southerners, Catholics, Irish and German-Americans, Chinese immigrants, Japanese-Americans, Mormons, homosexuals, alleged Communists, rightwing extremists, and many others have played the role, often for their imagined association with the wartime enemy, but always for being out of step with the government's accepted definition of legitimate humanity. Many look back at incidents of intolerance with disbelief that Americans could be so blind to oppression. Yet when the topic of Waco comes up, they will think only of those nutcases who, according to the government and media, attacked federal agents and then killed themselves.

In the nineteen years since Waco, we have seen the police state explode in every direction and now we are all ensnared. Some groups are always more threatened than others, but no one is truly safe. The prisons have swollen to the largest detention system since Stalin's gulags. The police conduct three thousand SWAT raids a month. The war on terror has made a total mockery of what remained of the Fourth Amendment. Torture has lost its taboo. So has indefinite detention. The feds irradiate and molest airline passengers by the millions. People are jailed for taking medicine, buying Sudafed, sharing songs, and selling milk.

The Kafkaesque regulatory state threatens people of all economic classes with crushing fines and a fate in a cage. The public schools, always authoritarian institutions, have become explicit adjuncts of the criminal justice system and military recruitment offices. Every major police department has tanks and battle rifles and drones are being used for surveillance and God knows what else. Each federal department has enough firepower to conquer a small third-world country. DHS alone has ordered enough ammo to shoot every American man, woman, and child. The president claims the right to kill American citizens anywhere on the planet on his say-so alone. And he exercises that power.

Why do some of us continue to fixate on Waco? If for no other reason, because April 19, 1993 was a squandered opportunity if ever there was one. The people could have risen up and said, "Enough!"

They could have demanded the military occupation retreat from their own neighborhoods – both the federal presence and its satellite jackboots in the city police. They could have demanded an end to the gun laws, drug war, and federal war on crime, each of which was instrumental in ending the lives of more than twenty children at Waco. They could have turned against the media whose elites stood and applauded the White House as it announced and defended its latest killing spree. They could have seen the federal government for the clear and present danger it obviously poses – the only government that had militarily mass murdered American civilians on American soil since the collateral damage at Pearl Harbor.

They could have turned their backs on the killers in DC, refusing ever to believe in their lies again, saving the lives of uncountable Americans, Serbians, Afghans, Iraqis, Libyans, Yemenis, Palestinians, and so many others who would bear the wrath of an unhampered imperial executive in the nineteen years to come, sparing the priceless liberties we have seen shredded on the altar of state power.

Instead, they looked the other way, they yawned, even cheered. There might still be time to turn things around. But the tanks are closing in. 

Regards,
Anthony Gregory
LewRockwell.com

Government is the real terror

America was founded by men who understood that the threat of domestic tyranny is as great as any threat from abroad. If we want to be worthy of their legacy, we must resist the rush toward ever-increasing state control of our society. Otherwise, our own government will become a greater threat to our freedoms than any foreign terrorist.

A government out of control, unstrained by the constitution, the rule of law or morality. Bickering over petty politics as we descend into chaos. The philosophy that destroys us is not even defined. We have broken from reality a psychotic nation. Ignorance with a pretence of knowledge replacing wisdom...

We are now in the midst of unlimited spending of the people’s money. Exorbitant taxation, deficits of trillions of dollars spent on a failed welfare-warfare system. An epidemic of cronyism. Unlimited supplies of paper money equated with wealth. A central bank that deliberately destroys the value of the currency in secrecy, without restraint, without nary a whimper, yet cheered on by the pseudo-capitalists of Wall Street, the military-industrial complex, and Detroit. We police our world empire with troops on 700 bases and in 130 countries around the world. A dangerous war now spreads throughout the Middle East and Central Asia. Thousands of innocent people being killed as we become known as the torturers of the 21st century. We assume that by keeping the already known torture pictures from the public’s eye, we will be remembered only as a generous and good people. If our enemies want to attack us only because we are free and rich, proof of torture would be irrelevant...

We need to quickly refresh our memories and once again reinvigorate our love, understanding and confidence in liberty... We must escape from the madness of crowds now gathering.

- Ron Paul

Government is not the solution; government is the problem

Political spats and elections come and go, but one thing most voters still agree on is that government is not the solution to their problems. Not surprisingly, the Political Class disagrees.

Ronald Reagan said it in his first inaugural address in January 1981: “Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem,” and a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 60% of Likely U.S. Voters agree with the iconic president. Only 29% disagree with Reagan’s assessment, while 11% are undecided.

Our government is getting out of control, if it isn't someone is doing a great job of making us think it is. Smear campaigns, propaganda, mis and dis information. Who is it for, the American people, our "enemies"?

Some time back there was a saying going around, "Take back ATS" and other nonsence, well what about TAKE BACK AMERICA!... Or even take back the world.

It seems the people have been manipulated by fear, or maybe this quote would say it better;

"If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsel or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands, which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen."

- Samuel Adams, debates of 1776

Or another quote that best describes that people of today, are no different than yesterday. 

"All Experience hath shown, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, when Evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the Forms to which they are accustomed."

--Thomas Jefferson

Are hundreds of millions of Americans, plus billions of other people around the world, willing to accept that government is the problem, not the solution? That the entire foundation of the monetary system they've come to accept is a complete fraud? That the entitlement programs they depend on are insolvent?

If not, then they're just going to vote in another set of idiots who bring them right back where they started... more debts, more regulation, more confiscation, more asset seizures, more forced redistribution, more inflation of the currency, more bailouts, more deficits, etc.

This is always the major risk in 'revolution'; you hope to replace evil with good. It doesn't always happen that way. The French got Robespierre's reign of terror in the 1790s, the Chinese got Mao in 1949, and the Egyptians traded Mubarak for a military dictatorship this year. What will happen in Spain? Greece? The US?

Now... if you're the type of person to let others dictate your fate, then I encourage you to sit around, wait it out, see what happens, and hope for the best.

If you're the type of person to take matters into your own hands, then every single one of these protests, police brutality videos, and government responses should serve as a constant reminder to become more self-reliant. Being dependent on the system is no longer an option for thinking, freedom-loving people.

In the words of Thomas Paine

"O ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose, not only the tyranny, but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia, and Africa, have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive, and prepare in time an asylum for mankind."

We should prepare.

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