Give Us Liberty or Give Us Big Brother
Shackles of the nanny state.
I have come to the conclusion that most of my fellow Americans just don’t like liberty. They don’t recognize or regret how much personal liberty we’ve lost over the last 50 years or so. They opt for rules and regulations over unfettered freedom. It’s all for our own good, of course. We’re just trying to protect you. Don’t you want us to be safe?
I started brooding about this subject- I tend to brood about a lot of subjects- yesterday, when I read some of the proposals from our beloved new Virginia Governor Abigail Spanberger. Included among her flood of executive orders was one rescinding former Governor Glenn Youngkin’s decree requiring state and local law enforcement to assist ICE in apprehending illegal immigrants, and another reducing H-1B visas fees on employers hiring foreign workers over U.S. citizens. The emboldened Democrats in my state went on to propose legislation to end mandatory minimum sentencing for rape and other violent felonies. But they also proposed more Orwellian cameras at traffic lights, to nab dangerous speeders. I get it; in America 2.0, the average speeding motorist is considered more dangerous than the average rapist. Especially migrant rapists who are experiencing “sexual emergencies.” If you’ve never experienced a migrant-style “sexual emergency,” don’t judge.
As I venture out into my community, I have to deal with the fact that my smiling, seemingly harmless fellow Virginia residents voted for Spanberger. Well, how could they not? She’s a former cop that “backs the blue,” and has a CIA background as well. Plus, she’s really and truly “Woke.” It wouldn’t surprise me if she decided to “transition” herself while in office. Northern Virginia is becoming California-lite, without the beaches. Minnesota-lite, without the Somalians. I used to watch the skies for UFOs. Now I’ll be watching the crowds for an influx of Somalis. Or perhaps Haitians. They’d have a field day in my neighborhood, where almost everyone has a very spoiled, well fed dog. Combine that with all the government workers, including the oldsters that have double or even triple dipped, and you have my world. No wonder I don’t hear from too many people in my area who’ve read my work.
The corruption we see in America today is unlike any corruption before it. It’s at every level. I see it whenever I traverse one of our crumbling, pothole filled roads. In recent years, they have stopped allowing motorists to turn left on a “leading” green, which was the case for the first four decades or more of my career behind the wheel. No one even talks about it, and it was never debated. There would be no debate, anyhow, because no one in public life is going to say, “This is really stupid. It’s just going to create more traffic backups. If you’re too stupid or reckless to turn left when it’s not safe to do so, then you shouldn’t be on the road.” The bottom line is, our leaders don’t trust the people to be able to do something as mundane as wait until no traffic is coming to execute a left-hand turn. At the same time, more and more traffic lights display a sign proclaiming “No right turn on red.” Again, those who misrule us have taken away the decision making power from the people on even that level.
Staying on the topic of traffic; just who supports those traffic cameras, which catch dangerous motorists going through a red light a split second late, or going 10 miles over an already artificially low speed limit, or daring to turn right at a light that has a sign that forbids it? If we’re willing to allow this kind of tyranny at the lowest level, which we nevertheless must deal with everyday, is it any wonder that the more extensive corruption at the national level continues unabated, generation after generation? If you’re not willing to protest the mindless implementation of “No right turn on red” signs, are you ever going to demand term limits for your elected “representatives?” Or protest the latest undeclared and senseless war? There is now a push on to mandate “age verification” for internet usage. Already, readers in Australia have told me that they have been subject to this on Substack. Does it really take much insight to realize what a slippery slope that is?
Again, at the local level, in counties across the country, a few years ago we saw some signs of healthy unrest on the part of parents at school board meetings, They rightfully objected to the devious transgender and Critical Race Theory agendas, which have become part of the curriculum in so many schools. In every case, it was one bold and lonely protester, who dared to confront what are visibly tyrannical members of these school boards. In too many cases, a petty school board tyrant ordered the brainless officer stationed there to subdue and eject the angry parent from the premises. In every case, the other parents sat there passively, playing with their phones, eyes averted. No one defended these souls who were brave enough to speak up for all of them. Why do you have to get mad at these people- they’re just doing their jobs! They’re just trying to keep us safe! Transgender Story Hour, no right turn on red- find something else to occupy your mind. Meditate. Think positive.
When you have a populace as dumbed down and submissive as ours, you’re going to see more corruption on the part of those in charge. The COVD psyop demonstrated this very clearly. They managed to get the overwhelming majority of the people, not just here but all over the world, to follow ridiculous “mandates” that had no basis in law, and in fact were not laws. They turned us into a masked mockery, and caused loved ones to stop hugging and kissing each other. They got us to put on a mask to walk into a restaurant, but safely take it off when we got to our table. And still almost no one questioned it. I was reminded of a character in the Illuminatus trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson, which was deeply influential on my own writing, who surreptitiously kept putting up nonsensical signs in public, and watched people blindly obey them. Human beings are certainly an obedient lot.
Younger people couldn’t comprehend the world I grew up in. Now, I didn’t think there was nearly enough personal freedom then, but in retrospect I understand all that we’ve lost. Blue collar shift workers like me, in the 1970s and into the 1980s, were not tied to a timecard. I didn’t even fill out a timecard during my first several years on the job. When the next shift arrived, you left. Sometimes, the boss let you leave early. This could be hours early. And you still were paid for your entire shift. Now, you’re tied to a digital timeclock, and no one leaves early. Eight hours work for eight hours pay, to quote those in management, who were known to play golf during their work day, and were paid for doing so. Cigarette smokers could smoke anywhere. Stores, banks, even elevators until the late 1980s. Kids rode in the back of open pickup trucks and delighted in being bounced around. Nowadays, that would get the driver locked up. But I guess it wasn’t as “safe,” and that’s all that counts.
A lot of Americans have never really liked this liberty thing. The Statue of Liberty makes a mockery of the word, with its flowery verse extolling the virtues of “wretched refuse” from some foreign “teeming shore.” In reality, it symbolizes the version of the United States singular, created after a million pointless deaths in Abe Lincoln’s bloody war. We see the “melting pot,” and the “joys of diversity” in it, not the Bill of Rights or the right of the people to consent to those who govern them. We are far closer to the “liberty, fraternity, and equality” of the Freemasonic driven French Revolution, than to the Sons of Liberty which gathered in dark corners of colonial taverns to map out the movement for independence. We now enjoy a “freedom” that has countless asterisks attached to it. Try saying something “unwanted” at a school board meeting or a town hall. The reality of your “liberty” will be explained to you by a kindly officer with a badge, perhaps at gunpoint.
The foundation of liberty is the right to express yourself. Freedom of speech. If you don’t have that, you aren’t really free. It’s pretty obvious that present-day Americans don’t have that. There are so many exceptions to this ironclad right, which comes from God. First and foremost, if you criticize Israel, or mention the disproportionate power of Jews, you will be “cancelled” from whatever job you have. And if they eventually implement that dreaded Antisemitism Awareness Act, you might be prosecuted. Criticizing other “protected” groups, like Blacks or the LBGTQ+ community, won’t win you any prizes, either. As the anti-free speech crowd likes to say, speech has consequences. Well, that’s surely true. I mean, if you say something really nasty about someone, that will probably end whatever friendship you have. But what “consequences” should result from having politically incorrect views? The term “politically incorrect” was unknown until the 1990s.
When I was a card carrying member of the ACLU, in the late 1970s, it would have been impossible to imagine the promotion of something so outrageous as “political correctness.” If there is a universally recognized “politically correct” position, then that makes dissenting opinions “politically incorrect,” and in fact destroys political dialogue. This fits right in with “hate speech,” and other authoritarian ideology that is now so dear to the hearts of leftists everywhere. And yes, Donald Trump’s militarization of ICE officers, to the point of them patrolling the streets of Minneapolis, not exactly a hotbed of illegal immigrants, is inconsistent with any notion of liberty. The militarization of all police forces, propelled by the insidious asset forfeiture and other policing for profit policies, alone has severely impacted the liberty of the average citizen. But the only protests against police misbehavior are leftist-inspired violent rallies that attribute all wrongs to “racism.”
Today, our leaders appear to see “freedom” as something to be bestowed upon smaller, sovereign nations with drones and missiles. The credo now is “they hate us for our freedom,” not “governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” Did Venezuela consent to us kidnapping their president? In the recent past, did Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Yemen, Iran, and now perhaps Greenland, consent to our intervention? Our indiscriminate killing of civilians? Well, I suppose you can’t expect those who have no respect for the liberty our Founders fought for, to respect the liberty of people in other countries. And, despite all the infringements of our rights in recent decades, America remains the freest country in the world. I think. Considering how “free” we are, that’s a dubious honor. But at least we don’t have police knocking on doors yet about someone’s social media posts, as has happened in supposedly “free” England and Australia.
As Thomas Jefferson said, “When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.” No one can say with a straight face that any government official anywhere in this collapsing land fears the people. The people, on the other hand, have a very reasonable fear of the government. You feel the taxes stolen from you, for which you receive zero services in return, are unjust? You want to refuse to pay them? See what happens. The IRS- you know, the outfit that Trumpenstein talked about abolishing- will audit you faster than your congressional “representative” will approve the next increase in the defense budget. Only millions refusing to file their taxes, would have any impact. That old using our huge advantage in numbers, which I probably talk about a bit too often. Without numbers, though, resistance truly is futile. We might as well be subjects of the crown. Our Bill of Rights is on life support, and it’s our clearest manifestation of liberty.
Benjamin Franklin reminded us, “Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” It seems to me that Americans have given us a whole lot of essential liberty over the course of my lifetime. But by sacrificing this liberty, we are certainly no safer than before, just as Franklin predicted. The foreign hobgoblins are still out there. We permitted “free speech zones,” mandatory seatbelt laws, random roadblocks, SWAT team raids, and the Orwellian term “Hate Speech,” which is actually Thought Crime. Most of us find “family friendly” drag stripping to be about as decadent as it gets, but the police forces that all conservatives continue to worship, are paid to defend the crossdressers, not the protesters. There aren’t even any pro-life marches any more. Years ago, my priest would regularly participate in them. Evangelical pastors didn’t utter a contrary word during the COVID shutdown. Maybe they’ll act if aid to Israel is cut.
The libertarians seemingly are for liberty. I mean, it’s in their name. Their insincerity goes back at least to weak presidential candidate Gary Johnson, who said they were “fiscally conservative, socially accepting, tolerant.” Okay, so that means they are socially accepting of the transgender youth playing women’s sports, but not tolerant of the biological women who object? To be truly for liberty means to be against what we used to call “victimless crimes.” To advocate for fewer laws and regulations, not more. It seems to me that fiscal conservatism starts with a desire to expose fraud, and nothing is more fraudulent than our counterfeit banking system. Repudiate the debt. Set budgetary priorities straight. No more foreign aid. Period. End property taxes. End the IRS. Let people do as they please, as long as they aren’t harming you. But don’t necessarily celebrate perversion. We need fewer poor prisoners, and more Deep State officials held accountable under the law. Liberty and justice for all.
https://donaldjeffries.substack.com/p/give-us-liberty-or-give-us-big-brother