Re: Believing You're Free Doesn't Make It So

people who live under a government that wields
totalitarian powers cannot honestly be considered a free people
---
who do you think is free?

On May 15, 4:30 pm, "MJ" <micha...@america.net> wrote:
> Tuesday, May 15, 2012
> Believing You're Free Doesn't Make It So
> By Jacob G. Hornberger
>
> The George W. Bush Presidential Center in Washington, D.C., is holding a
> special event today to celebrate "the brave efforts of dissidents and
> activists around the world in their fight to be free."
>
> Wow! How exciting is that!
>
> At least one thing's for sure: these people aren't going to be celebrating
> the brave efforts of libertarians here in the United States in our fight to
> be free. They wish that we libertarians would just go home and keep our
> mouths shut about what the federal government is doing to people not only
> abroad but also here at home.
>
> The big problem is the statist Mindset, the Mindset held by George W. Bush
> and by so many Americans — a Mindset that holds that that the United States
> is still a free country.
>
> I'm willing to bet that at that celebration today, after the Pledge of
> Allegiance is recited, everyone will be singing, "Thank God I'm an American
> because at least I know I'm free." And I have no doubt that most every one
> of them will honestly believe what he is singing. And then they'll thank the
> troops in Afghanistan and other foreign nations for "defending our freedoms
> here at home."
>
> For these people, freedom for Americans is a society in which the president
> wields the power to:
>
> (1) Take anyone, including American citizens, into military or CIA custody
> and torture him, incarcerate him for life without trial, and execute him
> after a kangaroo trial by military tribunal.
>
> (2). Assassinate anyone anywhere in the world whom the state deems a threat
> to the "national security" of the United States, including American citizens
>
> (3) Ignore jury verdicts of acquittal in federal jury trials and let the
> military or the CIA take the acquitted person into custody, incarcerate him
> for life without trial, torture him, or execute him after a kangaroo
> military tribunal.
>
> (4) Attack and invade countries whose governments have not attacked or
> invaded the United States (I.e., wage wars of aggression against other
> nation-states).
>
> (5) Initiate wars against any other nation state without the
> constitutionally required congressional declaration of war.
>
> (6) Establish an empire of military bases all over the world.
>
> (7) Wage the war on drugs all over the world through the military, the CIA,
> and other federal agents and punish Americans with incarceration and fines
> for ingesting harmful substances.
>
> (8) Tax people's income and redistribute the money to other people — that is
>  enforce a massive welfare state on society that keeps people soft and
> dependent.
>
> (9) Maintain a massive military-industrial complex that places an enormous
> tax burden on the American people.
>
> (10) Maintain a strict, detailed regimen of taxation and regulation in
> society, in order to ensure that people behave correctly and remain silent
> about what the government is doing.
>
> (11) Secretly search people's homes, businesses, and banks without warrants,
> on grounds of "national security."
>
> (12) Grant full immunity to the military, the CIA, and other federal
> officials who torture, assassinate, execute, or incarcerate people in the
> name of protecting "national security."
>
> Of course, we libertarians reject all that statist claptrap that goes for
> freedom" in the mind of the statist. We don't live in the statist world of
> delusion and failure to confront reality.
>
> The reality is that these types of powers are antithetical to a free society
> and inherent to totalitarian regimes.
>
> Don't believe me?
>
> Check out Hitler's regime. He and his military and Gestapo wielded all those
> powers.
>
> Check out the military regime of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, whom the
> U.S. Military and the CIA adored and helped install into power. Like Hitler,
> whom he greatly admired, Pinochet wielded all those powers.
>
> Check out the communist regime of Fidel Castro in Cuba. Castro wields all
> those powers.
>
> Check out the military dictatorship in Egypt, which the U.S. Military and
> the CIA have long supported and partnered with, not only with cash,
> armaments, and training, but also with a rendition-torture partnership. It
> wields all those powers.
>
> Check out the military dictatorship in Burma. It wields all those powers.
>
> For us libertarians, it's bad enough that the statists have turned America
> toward the dark side, a side that characterizes totalitarian regimes. But
> the fact that these people promote all this as "American freedom" makes the
> situation that much worse.
>
> It's one thing to know you're not free. It's quite another to believe you're
> free when you're not. Or as the German thinker Johann von Goethe put it,
> None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are
> free."
>
> We libertarians know that people who live under a government that wields
> totalitarian powers cannot honestly be considered a free people. We're
> fighting hard to restore freedom to our land. Needless to say, the George W.
> Bush Presidential Center will not be featuring American libertarians at its
> celebration today.
>
> http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2012-05-15.asp
>
>  butterflies3_hyper+btn.gif
> 42KViewDownload

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