Activist Post: The Republic is No More. We Now Live in a Police State. #news
By
Ron Paul
If Americans were honest with themselves they would acknowledge that the
Republic is no more. We now live in a police state. If we do not
recognize and resist this development, freedom and prosperity for all
Americans will continue to deteriorate.
All liberties in America today are under siege.
It didn’t happen overnight. It took many years of neglect for our
liberties to be given away so casually for a promise of security from
the politicians. The tragic part is that the more security was promised —
physical and economic — the less liberty was protected.
With cradle-to-grave welfare protecting all citizens from any mistakes
and a perpetual global war on terrorism, which a majority of Americans
were convinced was absolutely necessary for our survival, our security
and prosperity has been sacrificed.
It was all based on lies and ignorance. Many came to believe that their
best interests were served by giving up a little freedom now and then to
gain a better life.
The trap was set. At the beginning of a cycle that
systematically undermines liberty with delusions of easy prosperity, the
change may actually seem to be beneficial to a few. But to me that’s
like excusing embezzlement as a road to leisure and wealth — eventually
payment and punishment always come due. One cannot escape the fact that a
society’s wealth cannot be sustained or increased without work and
productive effort. Yes, some criminal elements can benefit for a while,
but reality always sets in.
Reality is now setting in for America and for that matter for most of
the world. The piper will get his due even if “the children” have to
suffer. The deception of promising “success” has lasted for quite a
while. It was accomplished by ever-increasing taxes, deficits,
borrowing, and
printing press money.
In the meantime the policing powers of the federal government were
systematically and significantly expanded. No one cared much, as there
seemed to be enough “gravy” for the rich, the poor, the politicians, and
the bureaucrats.
Warfare/Welfare State Requires Police Control
As the size of government grew and cracks in the system became readily
apparent, a federal police force was needed to regulate our lives and
the economy, as well as to protect us from ourselves and make sure the
redistribution of a shrinking economic pie was “fair” to all. Central
economic planning requires an economic police force to monitor every
transaction of all Americans. Special interests were quick to get
governments to regulate everything we put in our bodies: food,
medications, and even politically correct ideas. IRS employees soon
needed to carry guns to maximize revenue collections.
The global commitment to perpetual war, though present for decades,
exploded in size and scope after 9/11. If there weren’t enough economic
reasons to monitor everything we did, fanatics used the excuse of
national security to condition the American people to accept total
surveillance of all by the NSA, the TSA, FISA courts, the CIA, and the
FBI. The people even became sympathetic to our government’s policy of
torture.
To keep the people obedient to statism that originated at the federal
level of government, control of education was required. It is now
recognized that central control of education has actually ruined
education, while costs have skyrocketed. National control of medical
care has brought a similar result. This has meant more money for
bureaucrats, as well as drug, insurance, and health management
companies, and less money for medical care. Constantly more police are
required to run our lives at greater costs while providing less benefit.
“Nationalizing” both medical care and education has provided a great
incentive to increase the policing powers of the federal government.
The predictable poverty that results from such a terrible system is now
upon us and is a strong motivation for the militarization of local
police as part of the expansion of the national police state. Temporary
and perceived benefits of government overreach and expanded policing
powers end up becoming the real problem. By the time it is understood
that these “benefits” are artificial, government power and special
interests have gained control of a system designed to serve them and not
the people the programs were purported to help. The victims are left
hanging and taught that too much freedom is the source of the problem,
prompting even more support for the policing power of the state.
Today the failure of central economic planning and of the US as world
policeman is everywhere to be found. This is especially noticeable in
the police war on the lawbreakers — real and unreal — in America. The
failures of social and economic policy of the past 50 years have led to a
mounting friction between the local police and the rights of the
people. Local police have been militarized and have become an integral
part of the national police state. A police culture that accepts the
principle of initiating unjustified violence against citizens has become
a serious problem.
The news is constant. If it’s not Ferguson, it’s New York City. If not
New York City, it’s Chicago or Detroit or Cleveland. And I believe the
violence in our cities is only in its early stages. We had a taste of
the conflict in the 1960s, but the fundamental values of equal justice
and economic opportunity have receded further from reality. Failing to
understand why the past 50 years of government expansion to eradicate
poverty has only worsened the conditions of our cities will guarantee
that the violent conflicts we see erupting today will only get worse.
Fight for Equal Protection Distorted by 'War on Poverty'
Fifty years ago, as a result of Martin Luther King Jr.’s leadership in a
plea for equal justice, LBJ declared war on poverty. Poverty was seen
at that time as the major contributing factor in the plight of those
living in the inner city. King’s dream was to make sure all people will
be judged by the “content of their character” and not by “the color of
their skin.” Good advice, but it was never followed. Residual racism
remains, but the excuse for every shortcoming in the failed cities is
said to be due to the color of one’s skin.
The very expensive war on poverty has after 50 years only made matters
worse, compounding the problems of poverty and inflation while hurting
most of the people the “war” was supposed to help. Currently our
government spends over $1 trillion per year on anti-poverty programs.
Over the past 50 years, over $16 trillion was spent, i.e., wasted. And
yet poverty and dire economic conditions remain the major factor in the
violence that persists, which incites or gives the police the excuse to
overreact to maintain order. The plans and expectations for the war on
poverty must have been seriously flawed.
Although the degree of poverty is different for the various races in the
United States, all categories — Asian, white, Hispanic, and black —
have had a steady increase in real median income from 1964 until the
year 2000, when the first of many bubbles started bursting. In all four
race categories incomes are lower since then. With the economy moving
into the next stage of liquidation of bad investment and debt, we should
expect this trend to continue. Economic setbacks and a decrease in real
income are not limited to blacks in the inner city. The setback for the
young has been dramatically worse than for the older generations,
aggravating the problem of violent crime in our cities.
The “progress” of the early years of the war on poverty is
understandable because the payment that always must be paid was delayed.
The deficits and the borrowing and printing of money were
unsustainable. It should not be difficult to understand that the welfare
benefits, the bloated government, the excessive salaries, and the
promised pensions for thousands of nonproductive bureaucrats in Detroit
would lead to bankruptcy. The benefits had to be reduced. If policies
don’t change and the politicians continue to be elected by wild
promises, the disaster will continue. How can the provocateurs blame
racism for the plight of the middle class in Detroit?
We must get people to reject flawed economic policy if we want a real
war on poverty. LBJ’s war on poverty was no more successful than his
Vietnam War — or any war since, for that matter. A national government
that can print money as needed to finance extraordinary extravagance can
function longer than a city, state, or private entity, but it too must
eventually “file for bankruptcy” albeit in a different fashion. As we
are now seeing, the bankruptcy of a nation also involves poverty for
many. This situation will continue to worsen. Since poverty is a major
contributing factor to the violence of excessive police militarization,
some fundamentals must be understood. The economic theories of Paul
Samuelson, Paul Krugman, John Maynard Keynes, and all those who claim to
know how to “regulate” the economy to benefit the poor, must be
challenged and abandoned.
So far reality has not yet set in. The poor grow in numbers as the
middle class shrinks and the privileged class that benefits from
government spending and government control of the monetary system
thrives. The political demagogues and the authoritarians feed the flames
of resentment that develop between the rich and the poor as class
warfare and racial strife take over. They care little and understand
less what liberty is all about — the more chaos there is, the more laws
they seek to pass.
The Victimized Inner Cities
This social disruption has motivated the enthusiastic growth and
militarization of our local police departments. The law and order crowd
thrives on excessive laws and regulations that no US citizen can escape.
The out-of-control war on drugs is the worst part, and it generates the
greatest danger in poverty-ridden areas via out-of-control police. It
is estimated that these conditions have generated up to 80,000 SWAT
raids per year in the United States. Most are in poor neighborhoods and
involve black homes and businesses being hit disproportionately. This
involves a high percentage of no-knock attacks. As can be expected many
totally innocent people are killed in the process. Property damage is
routine and compensation is rare. The routine use of civil forfeiture of
property has become an abomination, totally out of control, which
significantly contributes to the chaos. It should not be a surprise to
see resentment building up against the police under these conditions.
The violent reaction against local merchants in retaliation for police
actions further aggravates the situation —hardly a recipe for a safe
neighborhood.
Though poverty and excessive laws associated with the war on drugs are
significant factors in the conflicts that are routine in the inner-city,
the overreaction by both sides continues to make the situation much
worse. As a result, policing in general is out of control, and anything
suggesting racial confrontation leads to rioting, looting, and property
destruction. Civil liberties are ignored by the police, and the private
property of innocent bystanders is disregarded by those resenting police
violence. When police overreact and unfairly enforce the law, it
elicits a violent reaction from those on the receiving end. This only
escalates the problem. It’s an invitation for outside provocateurs to
rush in and aggravate the racial tensions — all the while never trying
to understand the real reasons behind police militarization and the
cause of poverty.
The military-industrial complex now systematically lobbies to provide to
local police departments the newest and most sophisticated weaponry —
just as they sell weapons to the United States government to fight
undeclared wars overseas. Drug laws are pushed by many corporate
interests as well. Pharmaceutical companies, alcohol companies, and
private prison systems all support of the insane war on drugs. The
victims are the poor who suffer with a messed up economy and have no
easy access to jobs. A natural temptation is to become a drug dealer.
Violent activities arising from the drug war making drug transactions a
criminal undertaking create demand in communities for strict law
enforcement.
Why do the race baiters have so much success in making this type of
conflict a racial problem alone? Unfortunately many of them make a
living off stirring up trouble. If the situation were understood in
terms of police brutality and poverty, the evening news would be
dramatically different. Turning it into strictly a racial conflict
narrows the discussion, and the idea of responsibility for one’s action
no longer needs to be discussed.
The race factor seems to stir up the emotions. Mob-like responses can be
achieved, which further inflames the situation. Out of control police
and an entire segment of our population taught that responsibility for
one’s actions is a negative are a volatile mix.
Justice under the law requires that people cannot be punished or
rewarded because of the color of their skin, but unfortunately King’s
claim that only a person’s character counts is forgotten.
The entitlement mentality is a source of much anger and
misunderstanding. It leads people who see themselves as victims to one
conclusion: they are entitled to be taken care of. They believe that
more government transfer payments are the solution. They claim that they
deserve to be taken care of and that, if they are not, there’s trouble
to be had — which only opens the door to more police overreactions.
There is agreement with my contention that poverty is a big problem and
the source of much trouble. Therefore, it is said, someone must take
care of it. If one trillion dollars per year doesn’t do the job, then
make it $2 trillion. If the war on poverty’s $16 trillion hasn’t worked,
make it $32 trillion. This sentiment reflects the entitlement mentality
that has taught many that some people have a “right” to government
handouts and that the rich must pay. This is an idea that is deeply
flawed, and it stirs up class warfare on top of racial animosities and
police brutality.
The blanket demand that all wealthy individuals owe support to the poor
through government welfare programs is not an example of equal justice
under the law. It is an example of egalitarianism gone awry. Welfare,
which is the use of force to transfer wealth from one group to another,
is based on a moral principle of equality that in fact is not moral and
does not work. The wealthy special interests, such as banks, the
military-industrial complex, the medical industry, the drug industry,
and many other corporatists, quickly gain control of the system. Crumbs
may be thrown to the poor, but the principle of wealth transfer is
hijacked and used for corporate and foreign welfare instead of wealth
transfers to the poor.
Many people do indeed gain wealth unfairly with today’s system, which
adds to the envy shared by many and especially the poor. But this is a
problem that is not solved by indiscriminately placing blame on
successful businesses. The result would be the country and the whole
world becoming poorer while resentment rises. Honest profits of
successful entrepreneurs are quite different than profits of the
corporate elite who gain control of the government and, as a
consequence, accumulate obscene wealth by “robbing” the middle class. To
blame and destroy those who make an honest living by satisfying
consumers without the use of special benefits from the government is
destructive to liberty and wealth.
Reforms that are driven by envy of successful people making an honest
living will not address the problem of poverty. Poverty is actually made
worse by an aggressive sense of victimization.
Many factors are involved in the crisis of our cities, including the following:
- Police brutality, militarization of the police, excessive laws,
courts and law enforcement efforts ignoring the principles of equal
justice,
- Racism that exists to some degree on both sides of the conflict,
- Rampant crime reflecting structural poverty,
- Absence of an understanding of the difference between earned and stolen wealth,
- Race baiting,
- The entitlement mentality, self-reliance not being a goal for many, and the breakdown of the family unit,
- The war on drugs, and
- The lack of economic understanding regarding the Federal Reserve,
taxes, welfare, economic consequences of constant war, deficits, and
excessive government spending.
True satisfaction comes from productive effort and self-reliance and not
from a government transferring wealth in an effort to bring about an
egalitarian society. The absence of an understanding of the
nonaggression principle makes it difficult for positive reforms to
develop. Unfortunately hypocrisy has come to equal “common sense.”
Placing confidence in people who thrive on wielding government power and
who spend a lifetime using it to benefit special interests is not a
wise policy.
The people have too little confidence that most problems can be solved
in a voluntary manner in a society that cherishes civil liberties.
There’s never an admission that government problem-solving doesn’t work.
Government-created problems are a road to poverty and resentment. Too
many people believe that “free stuff” from the government can solve our
problems. They mistakenly believe that deficits don’t matter and that
wealth can come from a printing press.
The recent high profile episodes of racial conflict involving police
killings and the violence in some neighborhoods have been a fertile
environment for the demagogues and those who thrive on racial conflict.
Some have suggested that sensitivity training for all police personnel
should be required, to teach proper ways to deal with the public. Though
there’s a lot of extenuating circumstances that provoke overreaction by
the police, I’m not optimistic that the problem will be helped much by
sensitivity training. Retraining the police won’t touch the complex
problems that pit the police against the victims of complex social
conditions generated by hate, violence and bad economic policies. The
high profile episodes of police violence and overreaction are a
consequence of conditions that in many ways were generated by government
policy.
If social engineering intended to produce economic equality fails, more
of the same cannot possibly be the solution. Seeking and promoting equal
justice has nothing to do with welfare redistribution. On the contrary:
equal justice requires the end of welfare redistribution.
Redistribution is a process that is always destined to help a small
minority, whether in an economy like ours that endorses central economic
planning or in one run by radical fascists or communists. While
advocates claim that it’s the duty of government to pursue economic
equality, all efforts fail to achieve that goal, while gutting the
principle of equal justice.
The Rich Are Getting Richer, But Why?
Under an authoritarian regime, those in power take care of themselves.
This always leads to poverty and discrepancy in wealth distribution.
Eventually the social strife that is predictable leads to an overthrow
of the government. The Soviet communist leaders never suffered from
want, but even they were routed when the people in the Soviet system
decided that they had had enough.
We must realize that we are not exempt from a breakdown of our system.
The strife that we are witnessing is a reflection of a growing number of
people who are recognizing the discrepancy between rich and poor, the
weak and the powerful, Wall Street and Main Street. The courts are
obviously failing at meting out justice fairly and impartially. Money
and race have a lot to do with how arrests, convictions, and
incarcerations are carried out. That provides motivation for some people
to become angry and violently strike out against anyone who appears to
have more than they do.
While the courts fail to follow the rules of equal justice, those who
react violently believe that attacking almost anyone is justifiable in
seeking what they claim is justice. Talk of the 99 percent and one
percent is not just sloganeering. It reveals a problem generated by
government and a situation in which some people believe that they have a
“right” to be taken care of rather than just a right to live in a free
and just society where all persons are treated equally under the law.
Indeed the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. The extreme
current inequality is not a consequence of free markets and true
liberty. Rather it results from the welfare state that, as always,
morphs into a system that provides excesses for the powerful few. Better
management of the welfare system does not help. That only changes the
types of authoritarians in charge. Both political parties are financed
by Wall Street, the big banks, and the military-industrial complex.
Getting rich by being part of the government class is the problem.
Wealth achieved by hard work is quite a bit different. Opening the door
to this opportunity is achievable by following the principle of life,
liberty, and property.
The economic interventionist system under which we live today rewards
those who benefit from government economic planning by the Federal
Reserve, access to government contracts, and targeted special
regulations to help one group over the other. The insiders benefit
during the bubble phase of the business cycle and are the first ones in
line for the bailouts. The poor, for whom welfare is supposedly designed
to help and for whom the politicians justify the spending, end up with
the crumbs while the Wall Street/banking elites thrive in good times and
bad. There are two problems. First is conceding the principle that
government has the moral authority to redistribute wealth. Second is
believing the redistribution will be managed wisely and without
corruption.
All government management ends up being unwise, corrupt, and wasteful.
The money interests inevitably prevail. Belief that “good” bureaucrats
and politicians can be found to manage the economy and achieve equity in
distribution is a dream that always ends up a nightmare. To make even a
modest attempt at this goal requires government to use aggression
against one group for the benefit of another. This authority must be
denied to government. We must limit the government’s role to protecting
equal justice in defense of life, liberty, and property.
Currently the political system in America and in most of the rest of the
world is not motivated to seek this limited goal for government. Thus
the move toward unfair concentration of wealth in the few and a dramatic
increase in the number of people living in poverty as the middle class
shrinks. Since there is little understanding of the economic system that
is a major contributing factor to the economic problems, it can be
expected to exacerbate social and class conflict. The killing of Michael
Brown in Ferguson plus many similar incidents are signs of a serious
economic and political crisis that is not limited to police brutality
and runaway violence.
Police brutality and militarization may well induce a violent event far
beyond what we have seen in Ferguson. It also can serve as an excuse.
But it is not the root cause of turmoil. The real cause is poverty, the
entitlement mentality, and the breakdown of the rule of law. Moral decay
and the national police state are the real culprits.
More police with improved training will not do much to deal with this
growing conflict. Bowing to entitlement demands from the “victims” will
not be helpful in a bankrupt system. We have too many police, too many
laws, and too much exemption of government officials from the crimes
they commit. Both adding police and increasing entitlements involve
expanding the role of government in an effort to solve problems that too
much government has already caused. Government can only be expanded by
diminishing the people’s liberty.
This problem can only be ended by maximizing liberty
and getting people to realize that self-reliance, hard work, and the
absence of coercive force by individuals and government is the only way
to reverse the downward trend from which we are suffering.
The battle will no longer be to get the government to pick sides in a
conflict between rich and poor, black and white, young and old, or the
lawless police versus the lawless demands of entitlement recipients
demanding their “fair share.” There has to be an understanding that
productive effort and self-reliance on the part of everyone is required
for a free society to thrive.
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.
The Federal Government’s War on Us
Tolerance is a favorable trait when it means acting without aggression
toward others, but tolerance of the monster that has evolved in our
government is not good. Instead of adding more government agencies to
spy on the American people, we should be talking about eliminating the
ones we have, at a cost the American taxpayers of over $80 billion per
year.
We have lived with the global war on terrorism for over 13 years now,
and the threat of terrorist attacks against Americans and American
allies is worse than ever. Though a global threat exists, the greatest
dangers for American citizens here at home have been caused by our own
government. Our government’s attacks on our liberties have been
overwhelming and worse than anything any foreign power has ever done.
It’s the federal government that leads the charge in all our domestic
wars, which, in addition to the global war on terrorism, include the war
on drugs, taxpayers, and poverty, all of which contribute to the
constant war on our privacy. Today every American is a suspect. Our
president has established a policy that an American citizen can be
assassinated without even being charged with a crime. The national
police are made up of over 100,000 bureaucrats and police officials who
carry guns to enforce federal law on the American citizens. The Founders
and our Constitution intended that policing powers would be the
responsibility of the individual states. That was forgotten a long time
ago.
Not only do employees of agencies like the CIA, FBI, and BATF carry
guns, employees of OSHA, EPA, Fish and Wildlife, and many other agencies
enforcing regulations do so as well. The notion of total homeland
security being provided by a heavily armed Department of Homeland
Security was foreign to America up until just recently. Today, whether
it’s riots in our cities or chaos after a national disaster like a
hurricane, the Feds are there taking charge over all local officials and
property owners, . It shouldn’t surprise us that our local police
departments have become an arm of a runaway federal police mentality
that mimics an army.
The Founders did not even want a standing army. They wanted only a
militia. Today we endure, at the expense of our liberties, a national
police force armed like an invading military force. We are destined to
see a continued escalation of violence in our cities as the internal
conflicts grow. Instead of the police quelling the violence, they
unfortunately have become part of it.
It’s evident we have a national police force harassing the people and
failing to protect liberty and property. It fails to quell riots while.
Too often it incites them. We are also stuck with a huge “standing”
army, marching around the world and engaged to some degree in over 150
countries, “making the world safe for democracy” and serving as a
private police force for American corporations overseas.
Read the rest of
Ron Paul's analysis and predictions for 2015 here.
