1000 x 90

LETTERS / “It’s not who votes that counts; it’s who counts the votes.” Stalin

Dear Editor,

“The Fourth Amendment says nothing about national security. “National security” is a military concept, of recent origin. Where there are exceptions and trade-offs there’s no security. Thomas Paine said, people don’t form governments to be less secure. The right to personal security has been violated if the information is never used at all. The breach is at the point of collection, not its use or misuse. We don’t excuse homicide if the corpse was properly handled.” Ole Remus

It’s easy to forget why we need to become a police state, for “our own safety”. The national-security state isn’t operated for your benefit but for the obsessions of those who run it, and we pay for it several ways. If you’re part of America’s Gestapo and torture someone to death interrogating them, several presidents have forgiven your crime in advance. If you reveal information about unauthorized, illegal, and possibly unconstitutional, government activities you will find no mercy.

We arm Mexican drug cartels and excuse torturers for crimes under American and international law. America is a masquerade.

Americans are taught the enormous military empire/CIA and NSA are necessary, permanent, that freedom and happiness depend on the existence of these agencies. You’re silent when these agencies are glorified for “defending our freedoms,” “keeping us safe,” and protecting “national security” as they destroy small countries.

Now America requires “consumers/serfs” surrender to every intrusion, especially when they travel by airplane or highway, talk on the phone, send an email, get health care, or pay taxes. Instead of protecting the rights of the people, security agencies attack them. It’s curious that people who brag about “our freedom” support America’s growing tyranny.

Our ancestors lived free for years after rebelling against what “our government” has become. They understood that enormous, permanent military establishments and secret agencies aren’t part of free societies, and are serious threats to freedom and well-being.

First thing, after “our” military/CIA invades a country to remove an independent/disobedient regime, they establish an all-powerful military/intelligence/police government, just like “our” national-security state imposed on us in 1947. Abusing many, looking for a few, our police state, violates the Constitution, perpetrators/conspirators in these schemes have sworn to protect.

Jesus was killed for opposing the authorities.

The ruling class knows its policies at home and abroad are unpopular. It fears a popular revolt, so it’s creating a future where the Bill of Rights doesn’t apply; cities can be locked down by executive order, and dissenters, labeled “terrorists”, may be seized from their homes, thrown into prison, tortured or assassinated. Judges don’t oppose executive and military powers, when “national security” is alleged to be involved.

We’re so free that we pay half of our income to government so they won’t put us in a cage and steal our property. The mafia calls that paying protection. Our country is being destroyed by criminals. When a government boot is on your neck it doesn’t matter if it’s the right or left boot.

Do you want to live in a free society accepting the risks that come with freedom or do you prefer a police state that can never keep you safe, including from government? President Eisenhower said if you wanted real safety, go to prison. You get food, health care and a bunk. The only thing missing is freedom.

Slavery is aggressive, coercive, control of one person or group, by another person or group.  This is done with threats, and/or physical force. Eisenhower warned that “an immense military establishment and a large arms industry” had emerged as a hidden force in American politics and that Americans “must not fail to comprehend its grave implications”. Fifty some years later, America failed.

We have lobbyists who work for large organizations. When the lobbyist has sufficiently bribed enough elected officials, a bill is written to benefit the lobbyist’s sponsor, votes are purchased, and the bill becomes law.

American military/CIA actions brought us the terrorism they say they protect us from. That’s considered irrelevant. What matters is that terrorists, like the communists, are coming to get us and that the only way to prevent it is for government to investigate you. End foreign interventionism/empire and the terrorist threat against America crumbles, along with the justification that the national-security state uses to remove liberties and privacy.

We’re taught from birth that Government officials supervise your activities in oppressive countries. We can argue with the tide, but we need to recognize that it is coming in.

Some believe “our government” should have the unregulated authority to do anything to keep us “safe” and protect “national security”. They believe that “our government” is as fresh as the driven snow and people around the world just hate America for its “freedom and values”. Illusion is their favorite drug.

Now Americans can be accused of any crime without knowing the charges, taken in the middle of the night by Swat police, or be unable to travel for reasons undisclosed based on a secret order from a secret court, with no remedy to discover why you’re targeted.

“Our government” creates protests and riots against countries they oppose and demands the target government fold. When Americans peacefully protested criminal Wall Street bankers and their corrupt government cronies, “our government” responded by beating, macing, and imprisoning the protestors.

Is America’s army in Afghanistan fighting for our freedom? Our freedom might actually be there as it’s disappearing here. They fight for things like choosing to send America’s military wherever “our government” wants, and an economic system that clearly benefit the wealthy at the expense of the majority, who aren’t. Imagining otherwise, with America’s doublespeak definition of freedom, is choosing intentional self-deception.

We believe “our government” is benevolent so we fail to notice that our only participation is “voting” for arrogant, lying sociopaths and paying for whatever they demand. Generations of sociopathic “representatives” have created a security monster that’s not answerable to them, let alone you. “Its not who votes that counts; it’s who counts the votes.” Stalin

Craig Dudley