Its open cynicism and contempt of the rule of law and its daily torrent of lies demonstrate clearly that “national security” and “fighting terrorism” are just a pretext for this Administration to grasp unlimited power. As the President and his Administration violate the Constitution and even scrap hallowed principles like habeas corpus and the Geneva Conventions, his lawless acts go unrestrained by Congress or the other institutions that are supposed to safeguard our liberty.

See, in my line of work you got to keep repeating things over and over and over again for the truth to sink in, to kind of catapult the propaganda.

– President George W. Bush,
Greece, N.Y., May 24, 2005

Bush and his myrmidons – and to be fair, his predecessor Bill Clinton – were guilty of criminal negligence that led to the 9/11 terror attacks. That led to the criminal folly of the war on Iraq. The war has been executed with criminal incompetence, as has the war in Afghanistan. And now the nonfeasance, malfeasance, and misfeasance of the Administration are supposed to justify the trampling of our ancient liberties and making a virtual monarch of the President, who sets himself above the law simply because we are at war.

Sadly, like the rest of America, the South has sold its collective soul to the Regime, including our liberty, our culture, and identity in exchange for the Government’s promise to provide total security, economic and physical. Yet the Government can’t protect us from terrorists, both external and internal. It can’t protect our vital personal information stored in government computers from hackers and ID thieves. It can’t protect us from the rising tide of violent crime. It can’t protect us from natural disasters. Indeed, as Hurricane Katrina proved, its bungling makes their effects even worse. It can’t protect us from mad cow disease or bird flu, from tainted food or polluted water. It especially can’t – or more precisely, won’t – protect our borders from an invasion from Mexico and the Third World, including green cards for 100,000 Muslims in 2005, that is destroying our country.

Now, we’re not suggesting that the government should protect us from all the ills catalogued above. We believe that, within the bounds of reason and common sense, people should be responsible for themselves. We only cite this list to show that while the Federal Government demands we give up our liberty in exchange for security, it can’t protect us, nor frankly, even cares to. In other words, we subjects of the Empire have made a fool’s bargain. Suffice it to say here that the more the central state fails in its self-proclaimed godlike mission to eliminate all risks and dangers and to provide total security, the more intrusive power it seeks, at the expense of our freedom and already tattered prosperity. Worse examples are coming. Before too long, thanks to the White House and a supine, cowardly Congress, we’ll have for the first time in this country a national ID (REAL ID). How soon afterward can we expect the American equivalent of “Halt! Ihre Papieren, bitte!”?

Even more insulting is the pending implementation of the NAIS, the National Animal Identification System, by which the Feds will implant an RFID (radio frequency ID) chip in every farm animal – yes, you read it right; that’s the entire livestock population of the country! – for alleged purposes of identification and tracking. Limited space and our collective blood pressure do not permit a detailed discussion here of the intrusive record-keeping and the enormous cost to farmers and stockmen of this monstrous insanity; and for no good reason, since there is no national livestock crisis. There is no good reason, that is, except to drive the small stock grower out of business for the benefit of big, corporate agriculture, whose lobbyists bought and paid for this boondoggle from a Congress selling itself to the highest bidder.

All these cases are not accidents or examples of mere incompetence. They are matters of criminal negligence and deliberate betrayal. The agents of the Regime may be fools, but they’re not stupid. The Insiders, at least, know what they’re doing

In summary, lawless, arbitrary, and increasingly oppressive government has replaced government by law. The traditional checks and balances that restrain the concentration of power have faded from our vaunted political system. In the prophetic words of General Lee to England’s Lord Acton in 1868, America has become an empire, “aggressive abroad and despotic at home.”

When government fears the people, there is liberty. When people fear the government, there is tyranny.

-- Thomas Jefferson

“Guard Us From Our Guardians, O Lord.”
(An SNC prayer).

To be fair to the facts, we acknowledge that Americans still retain a degree of freedom, especially compared to the rest of the world. We witness a growing list of outrages like Ruby Ridge and Waco, Texas and so-called PATRIOT Acts I and II, and the execrable Military Commissions Act. Still, for the time being, Americans are more or less secure in their homes against dead-of-night invasions and arbitrary arrest by the authorities, although this is happening with increasing frequency. Abuse of office by prosecutors, especially Federal prosecutors, makes a fair trial more and more problematic. Americans still have the freedom to move to another location and take a different job; and generally speaking, to buy and sell and trade to some extent without government permission. We can still own a firearm, although that once inviolate Constitutional right is hedged about with so many restrictions that you’d better be careful what kind of firearm you own and where you own it, or you’ll find yourself facing major jail time.

But to focus on the rights we still have (and we should be grateful for them), and to compare ourselves to the rest of the world, is to miss the point that our liberties are being steadily and deliberately eroded by the Regime, by the very people who are supposed to safeguard our liberties. Instead of comparing what we have left against the rest of the world and on a sliding scale, we ought to be comparing what we have left against all that we’ve lost. We ought to evaluate what has been lost against what our Constitution and our laws guarantee us.

Cuis custodiet ipsos custodes? “Who will guard us from the guardians?”

-- old Roman proverb