Liberty and Democracy
"When the people fear the government you have tyranny;
when the government fears the people you have liberty."
— Thomas Jefferson... unless the government fears and despises the people and is ruthless enough to attempt to suppress the people by force and deceit and the use of modern technology — then tyranny might linger on some ...
The United States of America is sometimes described as "the epitome of a free society". But when you can be jailed for years for smoking a joint (or snorting a line of coke) in the privacy of your own home, when your house can be stolen from you by the government because your son stashed a baggie in the attic, when the mere possession of a "controlled substance" (whether or not planted on you by crooked police) is enough to ruin your life and the lives of your family, then it is ridiculous to claim that the U.S. is a free society. It is more accurately described as a crypto-fascist state — meaning that it's a fascist state but that this is carefully hidden from most people (more easily done if most people do not want to know); no jackbooted torchlight parades, just the complete dominance of state power over civil liberties and the natural rights of citizens. In the U.S., despite the rhetoric and propaganda, a ruthless and authoritarian federal government has come to trample on the natural rights of the people, and many citizens, especially those that do not belong to the racial majority or do not fit in to the corporate-capitalist model of society, are imprisoned for victimless "crimes" and lose both liberty and property. Far from being a model for the world of a government of a free people the government of the U.S. as it existed in mid-2001 seemed to be revealing its true nature as an incipient fascist dictatorship, such as the world has not seen openly since the 1930s.
On the eve of the U.S. presidential election 2000 one had to wonder: When are the majority of the citizens of the U.S. going to wake up to the fact that their government has been hijacked by the military and by organized criminal syndicates (principally the CIA and the Mafia) and that their "democracy" is just a sham? A minority (soon to be a majority?) already know this, and don't bother to vote at all.
A Coup d'Etat in a Pitiful Third-World Country
Excerpts from the U.S. Supreme Court Decision
So now, after a genocidal mass murderer (Eisenhower, Germany, 1945-49), a used-car salesman and warmonger (Nixon, Vietnam and Cambodia), a dumb B-grade movie actor who became senile (with Alzheimer's) while still in office (Reagan) and a CIA spy chief who showed only contempt for the American people and for the U.S. Constitution (George H. Bush) we finally have as President of the United States someone who is a non-entity, who has in his entire life achieved nothing by his own efforts (it was all handed to him by his daddy and his daddy's friends in high places) and whose only distinction is that he managed to become a state governor, presiding over 152 executions including the execution of the mentally handicapped, despite himself having a mental condition which prevents him from absorbing information efficiently in real time — George W. Bush, ready and willing to do whatever he is told to do by his daddy's friends in Big Oil, the CIA and the Pentagon.The United States will now be led by a "born-again Christian" whose main interest is baseball, whose mental shallowness is breathtaking, who is oblivious to the important issues of our time, George W. Bush; and by former Pentagon head and Big Oil man Dick Cheney, upon whose knee the puppet George W. Bush sits and who actually mouths the words that Bush appears to utter, though occasionally Bush manages to come out with something of his own, as in:
"If this were a dictatorship it would be a heck of a lot easier; just so long as I was the dictator." — George W. Bush, Washington DC, 2000-12-18, letting the cat out of the bag and revealing the utter disrespect for the American Republic and the U.S. Constitution that he learnt from his daddy.
The corruption of the government of the United States is now nearing its dismal completion.
"And so one of Secretary [of Defense] Rumsfeld's first tasks will be ... to develop a strategy necessary to have a force equipped for warfare of the 21st century." — George W. Bush, Washington DC, 2000-12-28, revealing the Bush government's intention to wage war in the not-too-distant future, even if they're still "not so sure who the they are".
- Hugo Young: A Surreal Sleepwalker with Little Right to Wield Power
- Author links Bush family to Nazis
- The Bush-Cheney Drug Empire
Columbian "narco-guerillas" perhaps? But Columbia requires a bit of preparation. Iraq is right at hand. Dubya ordered his first military action within four weeks of taking office (ya just couldn't wait to play soldiers, couldya George?). Carrying on Daddy's unfinished business from 1990. Of course, like the so-called Gulf War, it's all about oil (a subject of great interest to the Bush family). The long-term U.S. goal is obviously to control Iraq's oil. The only question is how they plan to get it. The destruction of Iraqi society (otherwise known as genocide) through the use of sanctions is what the U.S. has been attempting so far. But apparently that is too slow for the Bush camp; it inclines more to the use of violence.
Now, after September 11, 2001, we have been informed that "they" are "international terrorists", and Bush's "21st century warfare" has now been brought to us as the War on Terrorism.
Steps toward restoring political power to the people (although as long as the present political regime remains in power there is almost no chance that these reforms could be implemented):
- On each ballot paper have the option of None of the above, with the result of the vote being valid only if at least 50% of the voters do not select this option. If more than 50% of the voters reject all the candidates then the office remains empty until the next election. (This would certainly get the voters out!)
- All legislation to expire automatically after six years (including legislation enacted in the past) unless renewed (after evaluation and debate about its effects).
- No legislation to be signed into law by the President which is inconsistent with libertarian principles (the foremost being that society has no right to interfere with the actions of any person except to prevent that person causing harm to others).
The Libertarian Party is committed to America's
heritage of freedom:Vote Harry Browne for President in 2000
- individual liberty and personal responsibility
- a free-market economy of abundance and prosperity
- a foreign policy of non-intervention, peace, and free trade.
Ambrogio Lorenzetti's Allegories of the Good and Bad Government, commissioned six and a half centuries ago, in 1338, to remind the city fathers of Sienna of their duties, is still to be seen today. Good Government is dominated by a throned figure representing the commune, flanked by the Virtues. Bad Government is ruled by Fear, whose scroll reads: "Because he looks for his own good in the world, he places justice beneath tyranny. So nobody walks this road without Fear: Robbery thrives inside and outside the city gates." "It is utterly ridiculous to see any connection between the high capitalism of today — as it is now being imported into Russia and as it exists in America — with democracy or with freedom in any sense of these words. Yet this capitalism is an unavoidable result of our economic development. The question is: how are freedom and democracy in the long run at all possible under the domination of highly developed capitalism? Freedom and democracy are only possible where the resolute will of a nation not to allow itself to be ruled like sheep is permanently alive." — Max Weber, quoted in From Max Weber (ed. H. H. Gerth & C. Wright Mills)
