Posted on 05/25/2011 7:43:26 PM PDT by danielmryan
Does America now qualify as a police state? And, if so, where do you — or will you — personally draw a hard line and say, "No! That is a law or a police order I refuse to obey"?
As an anarchist, I view all states as police states, because every law is ultimately backed by police force against the body or property of a scofflaw, however peaceful he may be. I see only a difference of degree, not of kind. But even small differences in the degree of repression can be matters of life or death, and so they should not be trivialized.
A police state is more commonly described as a totalitarian government that exerts extreme social, political, and economic control. It maintains this control by a pervasive surveillance of its own citizenry, by draconian law enforcement, and by granting or withholding "privileges" such the ability to travel. Typically, there is a special police force, such as a Stasi, that operates with no transparency and few restraints. Unlike traditional policemen, who respond to crime, the purpose of such state police is to monitor and control society.
Let me restate my opening question: does America now embody this common description of a police state?
Clearly it does. The American government exerts extreme control over society, down to dictating which foods you may eat. Its economic control borders on the absolute. It politicizes and presides over even the traditional bastion of privacy — the family. Camera and other surveillance of daily life has soared, with the Supreme Court recently expanding the "right" of police to perform warrantless searches. Enforcement is so draconian that the United States has more prisoners per capita than any other nation; and over the last few years, the police have been self-consciously militarizing their procedures and attitudes. Travel, formerly a right, is now a privilege granted by government agents at their whim. Several huge and tyrannical law-enforcement agencies monitor peaceful behavior rather than respond to crime. These agencies operate largely outside the restrictions of the Constitution; for example, the TSA conducts arbitrary searches in violation of Fourth Amendment guarantees.
The Internet would run out of electrons before I could complete a list of the specifics that constitute an emerging Police America. The extent to which you are personally oppressed by the state, however, can be estimated by answering several more abstract questions:
How many peaceful activities would make you a criminal if you chose to do them?
How much of your life is spent working to pay taxes and other government fees?
How freely can you relocate your assets and person outside state jurisdiction?
How freely can you use your assets and person within state jurisdiction?
Few people aside from the state apparatchiks can answer in a way that makes them feel anything but economically enslaved and physically trapped.
No one should have to chose between family and the state, nor their wealth and the law. When confronted by such choices, there is no easy or correct answer. An increasing number of Americans are becoming expatriates for their own safety and that of their families. But the great majority of people are rooted in place by extended family, friends, work, inertia, emotional attachments, or other compelling reasons.
Those who recognize the emergence of Police America and yet feel a need to stay should ask themselves a question: where is the limit at which you withdraw your cooperation and say "no!" to a state law or a state agent's order? Would you inform on a neighbor, as the authorities already urge you to do? Would you assist a friend or family member even if it made you criminally an accessory; if so, whom? Would you steal from or harm an innocent person on command? If ordered, would you assist a police officer to do so, or would you interfere and, so, become vulnerable to a charge of "obstructing justice"?
There are several reasons for asking yourself such questions now. They include:
The consequences of your act may depend not merely on where you draw a line but also on how you do so. Planning can help you draw your line in a prudent way.
You may be reluctant to draw the lines you wish because you fear endangering your loved ones, your wealth, or something else valuable to you. If possible, secure these in advance. Prepare.
If you don't know where the lines are, then you are far more likely to act against your own principles or interests when suddenly confronted by a distressing, demanding situation like an officer barking commands.
Knowing where your limits are makes it more possible to avoid situations that trigger them.
Harry Browne advised people to pay a price as soon as possible because it costs less overall; this applies to psychological prices as well as to financial ones. It will never be easier for you to consider this question than right now, in privacy and comfort.
There are no correct answers. The purpose of the exercise is merely to become more aware of how you, personally, could live under a police state while retaining your safety and your self-respect.
Her referring to herself as an anarchist did throw me off, reading the linked sites does make her positions clearer.
If we studied anarchy outside the spoonfed definitions and education we’ve rec’d on it, we’d find quite a different picture. It isn’t the big bad wolf we’ve been taught to believe. There’s more to it than that.
There are “bomb throwing chaos” anarchists, and there are “government does everything worse than a private solution would (either worse, or more expensively, or using force when none is needed)” anarchists. She is the latter.
Admittedly, it's the only LOL I've ever gotten.
I'm with you Johnny. Reminds me a lot of one of my favorite books:
"I will accept any rules that you feel necessary to your freedom. I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do."
Professor Bernardo de la Paz In Robert A. Heinlein's The Moon is a Harsh Mistress
Consider that quote stolen.
I’m with y’all.
Another good read is Voyage From Yesteryear by James P. Hogan.
All have interesting political undertones.
My parents didn't have a clue, and I didn't clue them in.
Heinlein, via his writing, was my mentor, from ages 7-10. Quite an impressionable age.
/johnny
What do you do now? The owner is the government. You pay a fee for a license to drive. You pay a fee for an agent of the government to inspect your car, and to register your car. You pay taxes on your gasoline to pay for the upkeep of the owner's roads.
You cannot travel on a road without paying a fee (or dozen) to the owner. In your case, the owner is the government.
Why is the government a better owner than a private party?
/johnny
Everything about paying the government "owner" is right; nobody gets a free ride.
I was just saying that an anarcho-capitalist believes there is no need for a government because everything can be done as well or better by the private sector.
I wouldn't personally go as quite far as an outright AC with the total elimination of government, but most things would be better provided by private hands. The reason being that it would provide a truer cost and benefit without the usual government subsidies, breaks, and regulation that distorts the market.
There is also the well known commons problem where if everyone owns something, then no one owns it or cares about it. Owners of private property will protect it in their own interest.
By the way, I've always thought the best way to save an endangered species like tigers for instance, would be to sell them to someone so that they have a financial interest in breeding them and of course selling body parts to the Chinese for whatever they do with them.
Government has grown stupid large since then. I propose we scale federal government back to what the Constitution permits, and deny them any power outside of those clearly defined limits.
Call me crazy, but I think it would work.
/johnny
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