Our Liberties Under Attack The economic and moral decay of American society is reflected in the loss of liberties. This problem affects all Americans and not just the poor in the inner city. Gradual erosion of personal and economic liberty has proceeded for a century. The loss of our liberty has sharply accelerated since the 9/11 attacks. We have done to ourselves what no foreign enemy could have possibly accomplished. Government surveillance provides the state with information that enables it to know our every move. The protection of the Fourth Amendment is gone. Many Americans are comfortable with the sacrifice of liberty for safety and accept the notion that government’s key responsibility is to keep us safe. It’s a nice dream but the truth is it can’t do it. One thing for sure: if it tries, it will do so at the expense of liberty. Welfare, for the rich or poor, cannot exist without the sacrifice of the principal of property ownership. Though it always starts small and justified for the “needy,” the principle of wealth transfer incentivizes the special interests and the rich to obtain benefit at the expense of the poor. This occurs in all societies and inevitably grows to a point where the production of wealth is diminished and the system collapses. This is what we are witnessing today. The growth of the state necessitates government surveillance of all our financial transactions to enhance the collection of tax revenues. Because there is never enough money for the “do-gooders,” the tactics of the tax collectors have become more vicious. Violation of our liberties is excused by the majority in order to ensure that all people “pay their fair share.” When conditions deteriorate, capital controls are imposed to prevent moving assets out of the country. Our monstrous tax code reflects the hundred-years development of our income tax system and is one of the greatest invitations for our “caring” government to pursue the impossible goal of the fair distribution of all wealth. The vicious drug war, which dates from the early 1970s, provides another excuse for knowing everything about everybody at all times. Its selling point is to keep people safe from themselves. Pursuing this principle guarantees that liberty will be decimated in the process. It invites the government’s interference in our spiritual and intellectual well-being. What one reads and believes becomes of interest to the manipulators who want to care for us for our own good. And they never rest from seeking this goal. This concession to the state invites controls on everything we put into our bodies: what we eat, drink, or inhale. It takes a lot of bureaucrats, politicians, and money to manage the process. The people, we have been told, are “too stupid” to make their own decisions about their own lives. We are to believe that politicians who invite themselves to rule over us are all-wise and that we should be thankful to sacrifice our liberty for this “service.” Authoritarians actually believe that we should be grateful to them for all the good things that they do for us. We must remember that if the people don’t rebel against a police state it only grows in size and becomes more ruthless. In addition to all these trends — which includes the federal government monopolizing and administering medical care and education — government surveillance becomes the darling of the gurus who love the technology that allows the government to know our every move, every day, without limits. With the disaster of 9/11, an existing acceptance of government monitoring, along with technological advances, helped allow a new age to be ushered in that makes the horrors of George Orwell’s 1984 look less threatening by comparison. Ron Paul
Posted on: Sun, 11 Jan 2015 13:06:39 +0000
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