Nationalists to the right of us and progressives to the left of us sneer at the idea that people should be left alone to do their own thing. It can be a little demoralizing. But another year dawns, and with it comes the opportunity for a fresh take on the world in which we live. Yes, New Year’s resolutions are a bit of a cliché, but they can help us break bad habits and reboot our lives. What you do is up to you, of course. But you might resolve to:
Get some perspective.
Too many of your friends and neighbors are tribal idiots, but they’re not the worst tribal idiots in recent memory, by any means. Friedrich Hayek wrote The Road to Serfdom at a time when trendy thinkers agreed that free societies were a passing fad, debated whether they’d be superseded by fascism or socialism, and waged their argument in the streets and on battlefields. Anne Frank wrote her diary while hiding, ultimately unsuccessfully, from psychopathic Nazis who ruled an empire, not a website. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago documented the horrors of the forced-labor camps that were an integral part of life under Communism. And in The Girl With Seven Names, North Korean Lee Hyeon-seo described an entire country turned into a forced-labor camp. By comparison, Americans’ current fascination with brown shirt/red shirt cosplay should be taken as a warning, but it doesn’t yet rise to the heights of historical awfulness.
Work on your self-reliance.
You can’t control the world, but you do have some say over you. Instead of fretting about tough times, make sure you and yours are in the best position possible to weather them. If the economy takes a hit, are you ready to switch gears so you can keep making a living? Are you taking good care of your health so you don’t find yourself at the mercy of others’ goodwill? If you are prepared, are you in a position to help family, friends, and neighbors who might get blindsided by events?
Think about picking up a few skills that contribute to your handiness. Basic plumbing or carpentry, for example, can come in very handy for patching things up or making a few bucks. If nothing else, you’ll save yourself money on home repairs.
Get out.
It’s amazing how worries peel away when you step down a trail and realize how much of the world remains undeveloped and beyond earshot of busybodies, political campaigns, and compulsive rageaholics. But “out” can also mean the pleasant environs of a music club or a museum. We sometimes need to remind ourselves of what people can accomplish when they seek to create instead of to destroy.
Reach out.
To be honest, our relatives were always idiots; current political disagreements just change the context of disputes that were probably going to occur anyway. But they’re our idiots, so we should hold them close—it’s easier to keep an eye on them that way, too. Keep friends and neighbors near, for the same reasons.
As libertarians, we’re in a pretty good position to build bridges that the main political camps would burn if left to their own destructive devices. We’re not (usually) perceived by the big factions as existential threats. And we don’t view politics as the be-all of existence, since our goal is to dramatically reduce the role it plays in our lives. That leaves us better prepared than most to keep our social circles and communities functioning—if we put in the time and effort to nurture them. Stop arguing online and invite some folks over for a barbecue (or a happy hour if that’s more your thing), or go volunteer for a local organization that addresses issues that matter to you.
Stay firm.
Team Blue and Team Red look poised to continue alternating power and implementing terrible ideas for the foreseeable future. You can’t stop that, but you don’t have to obey, and you don’t have to lose your cool.
Resolve to take this new year in stride. You might as well, since it’s coming no matter what. Realize that it could be a lot worse, make sure you’re prepared for a rough ride, enjoy the world around you and the people in it, and stay true to yourself!
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Nationalists to the right of us and progressives to the left of us sneer at the idea that people should be left alone to do their own thing. It can be a little demoralizing. But another year dawns, and with it comes the opportunity for a fresh take on the world in which we live. Yes, New Year’s resolutions are a bit of a cliché, but they can help us break bad habits and reboot our lives. What you do is up to you, of course. But you might resolve to:
Get some perspective.
Too many of your friends and neighbors are tribal idiots, but they’re not the worst tribal idiots in recent memory, by any means. Friedrich Hayek wrote The Road to Serfdom at a time when trendy thinkers agreed that free societies were a passing fad, debated whether they’d be superseded by fascism or socialism, and waged their argument in the streets and on battlefields. Anne Frank wrote her diary while hiding, ultimately unsuccessfully, from psychopathic Nazis who ruled an empire, not a website. Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago documented the horrors of the forced-labor camps that were an integral part of life under Communism. And in The Girl With Seven Names, North Korean Lee Hyeon-seo described an entire country turned into a forced-labor camp. By comparison, Americans’ current fascination with brown shirt/red shirt cosplay should be taken as a warning, but it doesn’t yet rise to the heights of historical awfulness.
Work on your self-reliance.
You can’t control the world, but you do have some say over you. Instead of fretting about tough times, make sure you and yours are in the best position possible to weather them. If the economy takes a hit, are you ready to switch gears so you can keep making a living? Are you taking good care of your health so you don’t find yourself at the mercy of others’ goodwill? If you are prepared, are you in a position to help family, friends, and neighbors who might get blindsided by events?
Think about picking up a few skills that contribute to your handiness. Basic plumbing or carpentry, for example, can come in very handy for patching things up or making a few bucks. If nothing else, you’ll save yourself money on home repairs.
Get out.
It’s amazing how worries peel away when you step down a trail and realize how much of the world remains undeveloped and beyond earshot of busybodies, political campaigns, and compulsive rageaholics. But “out” can also mean the pleasant environs of a music club or a museum. We sometimes need to remind ourselves of what people can accomplish when they seek to create instead of to destroy.
Reach out.
To be honest, our relatives were always idiots; current political disagreements just change the context of disputes that were probably going to occur anyway. But they’re our idiots, so we should hold them close—it’s easier to keep an eye on them that way, too. Keep friends and neighbors near, for the same reasons.
As libertarians, we’re in a pretty good position to build bridges that the main political camps would burn if left to their own destructive devices. We’re not (usually) perceived by the big factions as existential threats. And we don’t view politics as the be-all of existence, since our goal is to dramatically reduce the role it plays in our lives. That leaves us better prepared than most to keep our social circles and communities functioning—if we put in the time and effort to nurture them. Stop arguing online and invite some folks over for a barbecue (or a happy hour if that’s more your thing), or go volunteer for a local organization that addresses issues that matter to you.
Stay firm.
Team Blue and Team Red look poised to continue alternating power and implementing terrible ideas for the foreseeable future. You can’t stop that, but you don’t have to obey, and you don’t have to lose your cool.
Resolve to take this new year in stride. You might as well, since it’s coming no matter what. Realize that it could be a lot worse, make sure you’re prepared for a rough ride, enjoy the world around you and the people in it, and stay true to yourself!
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“In the past, we saw the way the prime minister promised to die in the ditch rather than extend the deadline for Brexit, only for him to do just that,” said the recently appointed EU trade commissioner. “I don’t believe prime minister Johnson will die in the ditch over the timeline for the future relationship either,” Mr Hogan said in an interview with The Irish Times, referring to the need to negotiate the terms of the UK and EU’s future relationship within a transition period.
The former minister described as “very odd” the British government’s decision to include a clause in legislation ruling out an extension of the transition period beyond the end of 2020, suggesting the move was a political “stunt”.
“As things stand the UK wants to leave the single market and customs union. This move still baffles me because the full consequences of that decision are still not understood in the UK. Why trade a Rolls Royce for a second-hand saloon?”
Poke in the Eye
With those comments, Hogan just grabbed a stick and poked into Johnson’s eye.
Johnson made a political statement about a Brexit extension when he was not in position to deliver. It’s long over. There is no need to bring that up as a taunt.
And let’s not equate that with statements he has made since he became Prime Minister in a Blowout Victory and is now in complete control of the UK side.
Who’s the Bigger Liar?
The EU said it would never change the political declaration and it would not change the Withdrawal Agreement. In fact it did both.
So , who’s the bigger liar?
Arrogant Tones
“Why trade a Rolls Royce for a second-hand saloon?” is pure arrogance.
The EU is not a Rolls Royce. It is a mindless customs unions with masses of idiotic regulations.
Moreover, the organization is totally unwieldy, requiring 100% agreement among 27 nations to get anything done.
Deal Still Possible
Irresponsible tones makes a hard WTO fallback more likely.
However, I still expect a deal.
Why?
Because it is in everyone’s best interest to negotiate one.
The EU, especially Germany, will lose more than the UK in the event of no deal.
Straw Man Arguments
One of the things I keep reading is that it is impossible to negotiate a comprehensive agreement in a year.
I agree. But that is a strawman. Nobody pledged to negotiate a comprehensive agreement in that timeframe. The WTO allows for a basic agreement with and long as 10 years to finalize it.
Perhaps there is some small, say 6-month extension to ratify a basic deal. So what?
By the way, the chief negotiator for the EU will once again be Michel Barnier, not Hogan. Thus, it is not Hogan’s place to be running his mouth.
Delivering Brexit
1. If BJ wins, Brexit happens. I expect a basic WTO agreement, revised over time.
2. There may be a 3-6 month extension. So what?
3. The WTO allows for a 10 year “temporary deal”.
4. If BJ does not agree to customs union or give up fishing rights, it will be Brexit.
As long as Johnson does not give up fishing rights or agree to let the European Court of Justice (ECJ), be the arbiter in disputes, Johnson will have delivered Brexit.
I expect that outcome and was one of the few who did all along.
Assuming Johnson does get Brexit done (and it seems he will), this will be the first time ever that a popular vote that went against the EU is actually respected (as opposed to “repeated until the result is to the EU’s liking”). It is actually quite a monumental event for that reason alone. And I think its importance is still underestimated. The EU now loses one of its biggest net payers. The remaining net payers henceforth will have to shoulder a far bigger financial burden to continue subsidizing the have-nots (and French farmers). I cannot imagine that this will be a friction-free affair. Particularly as the UK is bound to unleash the kind of tax and regulatory competition that is anathema to the socialist high tax “harmonizers” and centralizers running the bureaucratic Moloch in Brussels.
Counterproductive Comments
If Johnson takes offense at idiotic eye-poking maneuvers, especially if Barnier starts making similar statements, it increases the odds of not negotiating even a basic agreement.
If Hogan wants a deal, and he should, then he would be advised to shut his big mouth.
A measure that would allow all federal judges to perform marriages in the state of New York passed both chambers of the legislature almost unanimously only to be vetoed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo said he could not in good conscience allow those federal judges to perform marriages because some of them were nominated to the bench by President Donald Trump. New York law allows state judges, legislators, the governor, some federal judges and clergy to perform marriages. “I’m certainly no fan of the judges this president is choosing to appoint—but since any New Yorker can become a minister online for $25 and legally perform weddings, I didn’t consider this to be a major issue,” said state Sen. Liz Krueger, the Democrat who introduced the bill.
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A measure that would allow all federal judges to perform marriages in the state of New York passed both chambers of the legislature almost unanimously only to be vetoed by Gov. Andrew Cuomo. Cuomo said he could not in good conscience allow those federal judges to perform marriages because some of them were nominated to the bench by President Donald Trump. New York law allows state judges, legislators, the governor, some federal judges and clergy to perform marriages. “I’m certainly no fan of the judges this president is choosing to appoint—but since any New Yorker can become a minister online for $25 and legally perform weddings, I didn’t consider this to be a major issue,” said state Sen. Liz Krueger, the Democrat who introduced the bill.
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The Economist Intelligence Unit has published its annual Safe Cities index, and this year’s edition includes two notable changes: Hong Kong has fallen dramatically thanks to the violent pro-democracy protest movement that has upended life in the city over the past six months. This year, HK’s rank dropped to No. 20 from No. 9 last year.
Finally, Washington DC made a dramatic leap into the top ten from the mid-20s last year.
On a region-by-region breakdown, the Asia-Pacific region continued to dominate the list, with Sydney, Seoul and Melbourne joining Tokyo, Osaka and Singapore in the top 10.
Amsterdam, Copenhagen and Toronto rounded out the top of the list, while London and New York each improved six spots to take 14th and 15th place.
The index ranks 60 cities on five continents based on several safety-related factors like digital, health, infrastructure and personal security. Rankings are based on crime rates alone, but on preparedness: do these cities have dedicated cybersecurity teams? Do they have a disaster contingency plan? Have they adopted a community-policing-based model?
“Overall, while wealth is among the most important determinants of safety, the levels of transparency – and governance – correlate as closely as income with index scores,” said Naka Kondo, the editor of the latest Safe Cities report. “The research also highlights how different types of safety are thoroughly intertwined – that it is rare to find a city with very good results in one safety pillar and lagging in others.”
It’s worth noting that Washington DC’s catapult into the top 10 is attributed mostly to changes in the Economists’ methodology.
Many of the world’s safest cities are in the Asia-Pacific region (Tokyo, Singapore etc.), but the region is also home to some of the lowest-scoring cities on the index: Yangon (Myanmar) came in at no. 58, while Karachi (Pakistan) came in at 57. Dhaka, Bangladesh, filled spot No. 56, while the Indian capital of New Delhi came in at No. 53.
Digital security was a particularly weak spot for the industry.
“APAC cities perform well across the categories of health security, infrastructure security and personal security, but their North American counterparts generally fare better in digital security, accounting for seven of the top ten cities in this category,” Safe Cities editor Kondo said.
Of course, numbers alone rarely tell the full story. Reckless behavior could leave unsuspecting tourists at risk in any of the cities listed above.
There’s a new official epidemic in England and it can’t be tackled with increased hand washing or a new vaccine. In the past year, nearly 19,000 children have been sexually groomed, according to official numbers. But some say the real figure is much higher.
Five years ago, 3,300 suspected victims of child sexual exploitation were identified by authorities. That number rose to a shocking 18,700 in 2018-2019.
Grooming was not officially recorded as an assessment factor during referral to social care until 2013.
Sarah Champion, the Labour MP for Rotherham, told the Independent that the grooming of children “remains one of the largest forms of child abuse in the country.”
“Too many times, government has said it will ‘learn lessons’, yet 19,000 children are still at risk of sexual exploitation.
The government has singularly failed to tackle this issue head on. Its approach has been piecemeal and underfunded.”
According to the Independent, the Home Office has begun an analysis of data regarding the cases and will use the results to inform new policy and prevention strategies, but the Queen’s Speech did not mention anything about a public review.
The Independent also reports that investigations into grooming gangs are ongoing throughout the country. In fact, abusers in Huddersfield have already been jailed.
Sammy Woodhouse, a victim from Rotherham, told the Independent:
“You hear this bullshit line, ‘lessons have been learned’, but they haven’t learned anything.”
Woodhouse, who isn’t surprised by the newly released numbers, helped expose a sandal in 2012 that involved the abuse of an estimated 1,500 victims.
“I still hear a lot about the authorities aren’t doing things as they should. It’s not very often I hear something good and for all different reasons—if the police won’t act on reports, people feel they’re not being listened to or supported properly, or information not being shared,” Woodhouse explained.
“I’ve said for years that this country’s in epidemic when it comes to abuse and exploitation. Authorities claim it’s under control but it’s not.”
Woodhouse also noted the likelihood that many victims won’t report what is or has happened to them.
Simon Bailey, the National Police Chiefs’ Council lead for child protection, says officers are “doing all we can to pursue and prosecute criminals who exploit and abuse young people” but that “more must be done to stop abuse happening in the first place.” Bailey suggests “honest conversations, education, and appropriate safeguarding.”
A spokesperson for the Home Office said:
“The Home Office is committed to tackling child sexual abuse and will leave no stone unturned in tackling this abhorrent behavior.
This is why we launched the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse to get to the truth, expose what has gone wrong and learn lessons for the future. The inquiry operates independently of government and, within its terms of reference, decides for itself what it investigates.
The inquiry is investigating institutional responses to child sexual exploitation by organized criminal networks with public hearings set for the spring of 2020.”
“We cannot allow grooming to fall out of the spotlight, because sexual exploitation always flourishes in the shadows,” Champion contends.
German Arms Exports Surge To Record High, Hungary Biggest Buyer
After three years of declines, German arms exports exploded higher in 2019 as critics suggest this proves controls on weapons deliveries are not working.
Following requests for the data from the socialist Left Party and the Greens, DW.com reports that, according to documents they have seen from the Economy Ministry, German arms exports rose 65% from January to mid-December 2019 compared to 2018 and hit a record of €7.95 billion ($8.8 billion).
The largest number of German weapons deliveries in 2019 went to Hungary, where exports reached €1.77 billion.
Exports to Budapest made up almost a quarter of the total value of all approvals. Prime Minister Viktor Orban’s right-wing, nationalist government is currently engaged in a massive military upgrade.
However, in spite of government assurances that Germany would no longer arm countries involved in the Yemen conflict as part of the coalition deal reached in 2018, DW reports that the documents showed that two of Germany’s top 10 arms export customers, Egypt at number two and the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at number nine, were also active participants in the war in Yemen.
“The most important thing is to ask is where the war weapons go, and to which countries,” Katja Keul, Green party parliamentarian and arms policy spokeswoman, told DW.
“And the number of war weapons exports have doubled since last year.”
The most controversial exports are those to so-called third countries: defined as neither European Union or NATO members (or “NATO-equivalent,” such as Australia).
“That is certainly striking, because the government has said it is being more restrictive,” said Keul.
“If you export weapons of war into crisis regions to countries that are not bound to us by any kind of alliance, you are of course destabilizing the region.”
Economy Minister Peter Altmaier blamed the huge increase on a backlog caused by the monthslong wrangling to form a coalition following Germany’s 2017 election.
“More important is the type of goods and their purpose,” he wrote. “The government pursues a restrictive and responsible arms export control policy.”
However, Left party Bundestag member Sevim Dagdelen, who filed one of the information requests, said in a statement:
“These sizable figures show that the entire export control system is simply not working. We need clear legal bans on arms exports.”
Turkey, since 2011, has been waging a pro-Sunni proxy war in Syria, in the hope of one day establishing in Damascus a pro-Turkey, Islamist regime. This ambition has failed, costing President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Turkey violent political turmoil on both sides of Turkey’s 911-km border with Syria and billions of dollars spent on more than 4 million Syrian refugees scattered across the Turkish soil.
In Egypt, in 2011-2012, Erdoğan aggressively supported the failed Muslim Brotherhood government and deeply antagonized the incumbent — then-general but now president — Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. Since Erdoğan’s efforts in Syria and Egypt failed, his Sunni Islamist ambitions have found a new proxy-war theater: Libya.
On December 10, Erdoğan said he could deploy troops in Libya if the UN-backed Government of National Accord (GNA) in Tripoli (which Turkey supports) requested it. Erdoğan’s talks with GNA’s head, Fayez al-Sarraj, who is fighting a war against the Libyan National Army (LNA) of General Khalifa Haftar, produced two ostensibly strategic agreements: a memorandum of understanding on providing the GNA with arms, military training and personnel; and a maritime agreement delineating exclusive economic zones in the Mediterranean waters.
Greece and Egypt protested immediately while the European Council unequivocally condemned the controversial accords. Meanwhile, the deals apparently escalated a proxy competition between Turkey’s old (Greece) and new (Egypt and the United Arab Emirates) rivals.
With the al-Sarraj handshake, Erdoğan is apparently aiming to:
minimize Turkey’s isolation in the Mediterranean, one which has gradually worsened since 2010, following one diplomatic crisis after another with Israel;
counter strategic cooperation between Cyprus, Greece, Egypt and Israel, including joint diplomatic, energy and military initiatives;
cut into the emerging Cypriot-Greek-Egyptian-Israeli maritime bloc;
push back against Arab (Egyptian and UAE) pressure on al-Sarraj;
fill the European vacuum in Libya; and
emerge as a deal-breaker in the Mediterranean rather than a deal-maker.
All that ambition requires military hardware as well as diplomatic software. Since 2011, a year after the Mavi Marmara incident ruptured relations with Israel, Turkey has been investing billions of dollars in naval technologies, in an apparent effort to build up the hardware it would one day require.
In the eight years since then, Turkey has built four Ada-class corvettes; two Landing Ship Tank (LST) vessels; eight fast Landing Craft Tank (LCT) vessels; 16 military patrol ships; two deep-sea rescue ships; one submarine rescue ship; and four assault boats.
The jewel in the naval treasury box is a $1 billion Landing Platform Dock (LPD), now being built under license from Spain’s Navantia shipyards, to be operational in 2021. The TCG Anadolu, Turkey’s first amphibious assault ship, will carry a battalion-sized unit of 1,200 troops and personnel, eight utility helicopters and three unmanned aerial vehicles; it also will transport 150 vehicles, including battle tanks. It also may be able to deploy short takeoff and vertical landing STOVL F-35 fighter jets. Turkey will be the third operator in the world of this ship type, after Spain and Australia.
Erdoğan’s naval ambitions, however, are not limited just to an emerging fleet of conventional vessels. In 2016, he said that the LPD program would hopefully be the first step toward producing a “most elite” aircraft carrier. He also said he “sees it as a major deficiency that we still do not have a nuclear vessel.”
On December 22, Turkey’s first Type 214 class submarine, the TCG Piri Reis, hit the seas with a ceremony attended by Erdoğan. “Today,” he said, “we gathered here for the docking of Piri Reis. As of 2020, a submarine will go into service each year. By 2027, all six of our submarines will be at our seas for service.”
Unsurprisingly the docking ceremony reminded Erdoğan of his Libyan gambit: “We will evaluate every opportunity in land, sea and air. If needed, we will increase military support in Libya.”
Erdoğan seems to think that his best defense in the Mediterranean power game is an offense. On December 15, Turkish Naval Forces intercepted an Israeli research ship, the Bat Galim, in Cypriot waters and escorted it away, as tension over natural resource exploration continued to rise in the region.
On December 16, Turkey dispatched a surveillance and reconnaissance drone to the Turkish-controlled north of the divided island of Cyprus. A week before the drone deployment, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu said that Ankara could use its military forces to halt gas drilling in waters off Cyprus that it claims as its own.
Libya is another risky proxy war theater for Turkey. Its deals with the al-Sarraj government over troop deployment and maritime borders will become null and void if the Libyan civil war, begun in 2014, ends with Gen. Haftar’s victory. The chief of staff of the LNA, Farag Al-Mahdawi, announced that his forces would sink any Turkish ship approaching the Libyan coast. “I have an order; as soon as the Turkish research vessels arrive, I will have a solution. I will sink them myself,” Al-Mahdawi warned, noting that the order was coming from Haftar. On December 21, Haftar’s forces seized a Grenada-flagged ship with Turkish crew aboard, on the suspicion that it was carrying arms. The ship was later released.
The European Union is another factor why Erdoğan, once again, is probably betting on the wrong horse. Technically speaking, Turkey is a candidate for full EU membership, but it is an open secret that accession talks have not moved an inch during the past several years, and with no prospects of progress in sight. Making membership prospects even gloomier, EU foreign ministers in November agreed on economic sanctions for Ankara for violating Cyprus’ maritime economic zone by drilling off the island.
The Mediterranean chess game leaves Turkey in alliance with the breakaway Turkish Cypriot statelet and one of the warring factions in Libya, versus a strategic grouping of Greece, Cyprus, Egypt (and the UAE), Israel, and the other warring Libyan group.
One emerging power in Libya, however, is not a Western state actor. After controlling Syria in favor of President Bashar al-Assad and establishing permanent military bases inside and off the coast of the country, Russia has the potential to step into the Libyan theater with a bigger proxy and direct force, to establish its second permanent Mediterranean military presence. As in Syria, where divergent interests did not stop Turkey from becoming a remote-controlled Russian player, Moscow can once again make use of the Turkish card to undermine Western interests in Libya.
Also as in Syria, Turkey’s Islamist agenda will probably fail in Libya, but by the time Erdoğan understands that, it might be too late to get out of Moscow’s orbit.
“The people have the power, all we have to do is awaken that power in the people. The people are unaware. They’re not educated to realize that they have power. The system is so geared that everyone believes the government will fix everything. We are the government.” – John Lennon
Twenty years into the 21st century, and what do we have to show for it?
Government corruption, tyranny and abuse have propelled us at warp speed towards a full-blown police state in which egregious surveillance, roadside strip searches, police shootings of unarmed citizens, censorship, retaliatory arrests, the criminalization of lawful activities, warmongering, indefinite detentions, SWAT team raids, asset forfeiture, police brutality, profit-driven prisons, and pay-to-play politicians have become the new normal.
Here’s just a small sampling of the laundry list of abuses—cruel, brutal, immoral, unconstitutional and unacceptable—that have been heaped upon us by the government over the past two decades.
The government failed to protect our lives, liberty and happiness. The predators of the police state wreaked havoc on our freedoms, our communities, and our lives. The government didn’t listen to the citizenry, refused to abide by the Constitution, and treated the citizenry as a source of funding and little else. Police officers shot unarmed citizens and their household pets. Government agents—including local police—were armed to the teeth and encouraged to act like soldiers on a battlefield. Bloated government agencies were allowed to fleece taxpayers. Government technicians spied on our emails and phone calls. And government contractors made a killing by waging endless wars abroad.
The American President became more imperial. Although the Constitution invests the President with very specific, limited powers, in recent years, American presidents (Trump, Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc.) claimed the power to completely and almost unilaterally alter the landscape of this country for good or for ill. The powers that have been amassed by each successive president through the negligence of Congress and the courts—powers which add up to a toolbox of terror for an imperial ruler—empower whomever occupies the Oval Office to act as a dictator, above the law and beyond any real accountability. The presidency itself has become an imperial one with permanent powers.
Militarized police became a power unto themselves, 911 calls turned deadly, and traffic stops took a turn for the worse. Lacking in transparency and accountability, protected by the courts and legislators, and rife with misconduct, America’s police forces became a growing menace to the citizenry and the rule of law. Despite concerns about the government’s steady transformation of local police into a standing military army, local police agencies acquired even more weaponry, training and equipment suited for the battlefield. Police officers were also given free range to pull anyone over for a variety of reasons and subject them to forced cavity searches, forced colonoscopies, forced blood draws, forced breath-alcohol tests, forced DNA extractions, forced eye scans, forced inclusion in biometric databases.
The courts failed to uphold justice. With every ruling handed down, it becomes more apparent that we live in an age of hollow justice, with government courts more concerned with protecting government agents than upholding the rights of “we the people.” This is true at all levels of the judiciary, but especially so in the highest court of the land, the U.S. Supreme Court, which is seemingly more concerned with establishing order and protecting government agents than with upholding the rights enshrined in the Constitution. A review of critical court rulings over the past two decades, including some ominous ones by the U.S. Supreme Court, reveals a startling and steady trend towards pro-police state rulings by an institution concerned more with establishing order and protecting the ruling class and government agents than with upholding the rights enshrined in the Constitution.
The Surveillance State rendered Americans vulnerable to threats from government spies, police, hackers and power failures. Thanks to the government’s ongoing efforts to build massive databases using emerging surveillance, DNA and biometrics technologies, Americans have become sitting ducks for hackers and government spies alike. Billions of people have been affected by data breaches and cyberattacks. On a daily basis, Americans have been made to relinquish the most intimate details of who we are—our biological makeup, our genetic blueprints, and our biometrics (facial characteristics and structure, fingerprints, iris scans, etc.)—in order to navigate an increasingly technologically-enabled world.
Mass shootings claimed more lives. Mass shootings have taken place in virtually every venue, including at churches, in nightclubs, on college campuses, on military bases, in elementary schools, in government offices, and at concerts. However, studies make clear that the government’s gun violence—inflicted on unarmed individuals by battlefield-trained SWAT teams, militarized police, and bureaucratic government agents trained to shoot first and ask questions later—poses a greater threat to the safety and security of the nation than any mass shooter.
Debtors’ prisons made a comeback. Not content to expand the police state’s power to search, strip, seize, raid, steal from, arrest and jail Americans for any infraction, no matter how insignificant, state courts were given the green light to resume their practice of jailing individuals who are unable to pay the hefty fines imposed by the American police state. These debtors’ prisons play right into the hands of the corporations that make a profit by jailing Americans. This is no longer a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.” It has become a government “of the rich, by the elite, for the corporations,” and its rise to power has been predicated on shackling the American taxpayer to a debtors’ prison guarded by a phalanx of politicians, bureaucrats and militarized police with no hope of parole and no chance for escape.
The cost of endless wars drove the nation deeper into debt.America’s war spending has already bankrupted the nation to the tune of more than $20 trillion dollars. Policing the globe and waging endless wars abroad hasn’t made America—or the rest of the world—any safer, but it has made the military industrial complex rich at taxpayer expense. Approximately 200,000 US troops are stationed in 177 countries throughout the world, including Africa, where troops reportedly carry out an average of 10 military exercises and engagements daily. Meanwhile, America’s infrastructure is falling apart. The interest on the money America has borrowed to wage its wars will cost an estimated $8 trillion.
“Show your papers” incidents skyrocketed. We are not supposed to be living in a “show me your papers” society. Despite this, the U.S. government has introduced measures allowing police and other law enforcement officials to stop individuals (citizens and noncitizens alike), demand they identify themselves, and subject them to patdowns, warrantless searches, and interrogations. These actions fly in the face of longstanding constitutional safeguards forbidding such police state tactics.
The government waged war on military veterans. The government has done a pitiful job of respecting the freedoms of military veterans and caring for their needs once out of uniform. Despite the fact that the U.S. boasts more than 20 million veterans who have served in World War II through the present day, the plight of veterans today is America’s badge of shame, with large numbers of veterans impoverished, unemployed, traumatized mentally and physically, struggling with depression, suicide, and marital stress, homeless, subjected to sub-par treatment at clinics and hospitals, left to molder while their paperwork piles up within Veterans Administration offices, and increasingly treated like criminals—targeted for surveillance, censorship, threatened with incarceration or involuntary commitment, labeled as extremists and/or mentally ill, and stripped of their Second Amendment rights—for daring to speak out against government misconduct.
Free speech was dealt one knock-out punch after another.Protest laws, free speech zones, bubble zones, trespass zones, anti-bullying legislation, zero tolerance policies, hate crime laws, shadow banning on the Internet, and a host of other legalistic maladies dreamed up by politicians and prosecutors (and championed by those who want to suppress speech with which they might disagree) conspired to corrode our core freedoms, purportedly for our own good. On paper—at least according to the U.S. Constitution—we are technically free to speak. In reality, however, we are only as free to speak as a government official—or corporate entities such as Facebook, Google or YouTube—may allow. The reasons for such censorship varied widely from political correctness, so-called safety concerns and bullying to national security and hate crimes but the end result remained the same: the complete eradication of free speech.
The government waged a renewed war on private property. The battle to protect our private property has become the final constitutional frontier, the last holdout against our freedoms being usurped. We no longer have any real property rights. That house you live in, the car you drive, the small (or not so small) acreage of land that has been passed down through your family or that you scrimped and saved to acquire, whatever money you manage to keep in your bank account after the government and its cronies have taken their first and second and third cut…none of it is safe from the government’s greedy grasp. At no point do you ever have any real ownership in anything other than the clothes on your back. Everything else can be seized by the government under one pretext or another (civil asset forfeiture, unpaid taxes, eminent domain, public interest, etc.).
Schools became even more like prisons. So-called school “safety” policies—which run the gamut from zero tolerance policies that punish all infractions harshly to surveillance cameras, metal detectors, random searches, drug-sniffing dogs, school-wide lockdowns, active-shooter drills and militarized police officers—have turned schools into prisons and young people into prisoners. From the moment a child enters one of the nation’s 98,000 public schools to the moment she graduates, she will be exposed to a steady diet of draconian zero tolerance policies that criminalize childish behavior, overreaching anti-bullying statutes that criminalize speech, school resource officers (police) tasked with disciplining and/or arresting so-called “disorderly” students, standardized testing that emphasizes rote answers over critical thinking, politically correct mindsets that teach young people to censor themselves and those around them, and extensive biometric and surveillance systems that, coupled with the rest, acclimate young people to a world in which they have no freedom of thought, speech or movement.
The Deep State took over. The American system of representative government was overthrown by the Deep State—a.k.a. the police state a.k.a. the military/corporate industrial complex—a profit-driven, militaristic corporate state bent on total control and global domination through the imposition of martial law here at home and by fomenting wars abroad. The “government of the people, by the people, for the people” has perished. In its place is a shadow government, a corporatized, militarized, entrenched bureaucracy that is fully operational and staffed by unelected officials who are, in essence, running the country and calling the shots in Washington DC, no matter who sits in the White House. Mind you, by “government,” I’m not referring to the highly partisan, two-party bureaucracy of the Republicans and Democrats. Rather, I’m referring to “government” with a capital “G,” the entrenched Deep State that is unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and has set itself beyond the reach of the law. This is the hidden face of a government that has no respect for the freedom of its citizenry. This shadow government, which “operates according to its own compass heading regardless of who is formally in power,” makes a mockery of elections and the entire concept of a representative government.
The takeaway: Everything the founders of this country feared has come to dominate in modern America. “We the people” have been saddled with a government that is no longer friendly to freedom and is working overtime to trample the Constitution underfoot and render the citizenry powerless in the face of the government’s power grabs, corruption and abusive tactics.
So how do you balance the scales of justice at a time when Americans are being tasered, tear-gassed, pepper-sprayed, hit with batons, shot with rubber bullets and real bullets, blasted with sound cannons, detained in cages and kennels, sicced by police dogs, arrested and jailed for challenging the government’s excesses, abuses and power-grabs?
No matter who sits in the White House, politics won’t fix a system that is broken beyond repair.
For that matter, protests and populist movements also haven’t done much to push back against an authoritarian regime that is deaf to our cries, dumb to our troubles, blind to our needs, and accountable to no one.
So how do you not only push back against the police state’s bureaucracy, corruption and cruelty but also launch a counterrevolution aimed at reclaiming control over the government using nonviolent means?
You start by changing the rules and engaging in some (nonviolent) guerilla tactics.
Take part in grassroots activism, which takes a trickle-up approach to governmental reform by implementing change at the local level (in other words, think nationally, but act locally).
And then, nullify everything the government does that flies in the face of the principles on which this nation was founded.
If there is any means left to us for thwarting the government in its relentless march towards outright dictatorship, it may rest with the power of juries and local governments to invalidate governmental laws, tactics and policies that are illegitimate, egregious or blatantly unconstitutional.
In an age in which government officials accused of wrongdoing—police officers, elected officials, etc.—are treated with general leniency, while the average citizen is prosecuted to the full extent of the law, nullification is a powerful reminder that, as the Constitution tells us, “we the people” are the government.
For too long we’ve allowed our so-called “representatives” to call the shots. Now it’s time to restore the citizenry to their rightful place in the republic: as the masters, not the servants.
Nullification is one way of doing so.
Various cities and states have been using this historic doctrine with mixed results on issues as wide ranging as gun control and healthcare to “claim freedom from federal laws they find onerous or wrongheaded.” Most recently, a growing number of communities—including more than a 100 counties, cities and towns in Virginia—have declared themselves to be Second Amendment sanctuaries and adopted resolutions opposing any “unconstitutional restrictions” on the right to keep and bear arms. It is mass movements such as these that the government fears most.
Indeed, any hope of freeing ourselves rests—as it always has—at the local level, with “we the people.” One of the most important contributions an individual citizen can make is to become actively involved in local community affairs, politics and legal battles. As the adage goes, “Think globally, act locally.”
America was meant to be primarily a system of local governments, which is a far cry from the colossal federal bureaucracy we have today. Yet if our freedoms are to be restored, understanding what is transpiring practically in your own backyard—in one’s home, neighborhood, school district, town council—and taking action at that local level must be the starting point.
Responding to unmet local needs and reacting to injustices is what grassroots activism is all about. Attend local city council meetings, speak up at town hall meetings, organize protests and letter-writing campaigns, employ “militant nonviolent resistance” and civil disobedience, which Martin Luther King Jr. used to great effect through the use of sit-ins, boycotts and marches.
Let’s not take the mistakes, carnage, toxicity and abuse of this past decade into 2020.
As long as we continue to allow callousness, cruelty, meanness, immorality, ignorance, hatred, intolerance, racism, militarism, materialism, meanness and injustice—magnified by an echo chamber of nasty tweets and government-sanctioned brutality—to trump justice, fairness and equality, there can be no hope of prevailing against the police state.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, we could transform this nation if only Americans would work together to harness the power of their discontent and push back against the government’s overreach, excesses and abuse.
