A truly frightening story.

There is no doubt to me that the US is becoming a "police state." By that I mean a nation where the police have ceased to protect individuals but become agents of the state. Instead of keeping the peace, remember they were once called peace officers, they have become law enforcement officers. Their function is more and more that of enforcing state policy and protecting the government.

When I was a youngster the very idea of police officers breaking into homes in the middle of the night, armed to the teeth, guns drawn, and screaming at terrified citizens, was unthinkable. Now these armed thugs do it routinely, over the most trivial of offenses. Even the smallest of town, for no conceivable reason, has SWAT teams. We have police forces using tanks as if they are in the center of some war. As horrifying as the militarization of our police has become, what the Explorer Scouts are doing is truly disgusting.

Across the United States we are witnessing the Scouts training young people to be armed government agents. This is directly related to the escalation of violence which the police are using routinely in the United States. Thirty years ago dogs weren't routinely killed by cops. Today it happens over and over. And I can assure you, that in the last thirty years, it wasn't the dogs that got more violent and deadly. It was the police. As I've said before, having anything to do with law enforcement today, is potentially deadly to you. Now we have the Scouts training youth to act like violent cops.

Here is what the New York Times reported on this trend:

“United States Border Patrol! Put your hands up!” screams one in a voice cracking with adolescent determination as the suspect is subdued.

It is all quite a step up from the square knot.

The Explorers program, a coeducational affiliate of the Boy Scouts of America that began 60 years ago, is training thousands of young people in skills used to confront terrorism, illegal immigration and escalating border violence — an intense ratcheting up of one of the group’s longtime missions to prepare youths for more traditional jobs as police officers and firefighters.

“This is about being a true-blooded American guy and girl,” said A. J. Lowenthal, a sheriff’s deputy here in Imperial County, whose life clock, he says, is set around the Explorers events he helps run. “It fits right in with the honor and bravery of the Boy Scouts.”

The training, which leaders say is not intended to be applied outside the simulated Explorer setting, can involve chasing down illegal border crossers as well as more dangerous situations that include facing down terrorists and taking out “active shooters,” like those who bring gunfire and death to college campuses. In a simulation here of a raid on a marijuana field, several Explorers were instructed on how to quiet an obstreperous lookout.

“Put him on his face and put a knee in his back,” a Border Patrol agent explained. “I guarantee that he’ll shut up.”

What the fuck is happening to this country? This is what we are teaching teenagers! I cringe to think how far down the fascistic road this country will go before things change for the better.

The Explorer Scouts say no one has criticized the program. Apparently the only problem they have is police officers who work with them molesting the youth they are training. Now they require them to have "sexual misconduct training" to try and prevent the problem.

It should be no surprise that Homeland Security, the American Gestapo, is heavily involved in these programs. One Border Patrol agent for Homeland Security said the reason for the training is "to create more agents." Worse yet: "Explorer posts are attached to various agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation... that sponsor them much the way churches sponsor Boy Scout troops." One government agent said the program's emphasis "is on terrorism, illegal entry, drugs and human smuggling."

Anyone who is supporting the Scouts at any level really needs to reconsider. I won't even buy Girl Scout cookies anymore.

Opposing death penalty gets people listed as terrorists.

The police in Maryland thought they were playing James Bond. They admit setting up and operating a covert, domestic spying campaign against individuals who are guilty of nothing more than opposing US government policy -- a criteria that includes all decent people.

According to the Washington Post, Police Superintendent Terrence Sheridan admitted that the State Police “classified 52 nonviolent activists as terrorists and entered their names and personal information into state and federal databases that track terrorism suspects...”

What made these people terrorists? They were against the war in Iraq and the death penalty --- I think I better stay out of Maryland. This spying campaign went on for 14 months until 2006. A letter, from Sheridan, acknowledging that these people were classified as terrorist says that there is “no evidence whatsoever of any involvement in violent crime.” Apparently want to stop killing makes one a terrorist in the eyes of the police -- which I guess explains why so many of them are so violent. This is Orwellian to the max: peace is violence and violence is peace. To oppose violence makes one a terrorist, to engage in violence makes one a peace officer.

The police superintendent who authorized the surveillance was Thomas Hutchins who apparently holds himself out as something of an expert on the Constitution since he opined: “I don’t believe the First Amendment is any guarantee to those who wish to disrupt the government.”

Please note the pure dishonesty of that statement. Hutchins has offered no evidence that anyone was disrupting anything merely opposing it. Apparently peaceful opinions now qualify as “disrupting government” -- if only it were that simple. When government acts in this manner it cries out for disruption.

What does a police state look like?

What does a police state look like? That is a good question. Maybe it looks something like this. Here is a photo of a small group of people trying to hold a demonstration in Denver at the Democratic Party convention. Notice the police overkill.


But at least there is still freedom of the press! Right? Apparently not. Here is how the donutmunchers dealt with ABC news producer Asa Eslocker. Mr. Eslocker was standing on a public sidewalk with a camera crew when Democratic Party officials were exiting a hotel. He was doing a story on major donors to the Democratic efforts and some of those major donors were coming out of the hotel. Police decided that he had no right to do that story and began by manhandling him and pushing him off the sidewalk into traffic. ABC News reports that the donutmuncher told Eslocker: "You're lucky I didn't knock the fuck out of you." Here is some video of the incident. Welcome to America, land of the free. And, if you believe that, I have some swamp land in Florida for sale.



In this next video things are a bit sketchy but USA Today and Rocky Mountain News reported on the incident leading up to it. Alicia Forrest, 24, was watching a protest when a police officer yelled, "Back it up, bitch." He then struck her with his baton causing her to fall to the ground in pain. After she got up she was being interviewed peacefully by reporters about the incident. Apparently those interviews were enough. The police are seen then rushing in and grabbing her and taking her away. That is one way to put an end to interview.

MP resigns for the right reasons.

A Conservative member of the British parliament has stepped down in protest over the rising police state in the United Kingdom. Here is his resignation statement.

Woman put on trial for having kitchen knife.

You can’t have a successful police state without disarming the public. And that includes disarming them in every way possible. Sad, pathetic England is well on the way toward that scenario. The general public, except for the violent criminals, are disarmed. And the police focus much of their activity toward the general public not the real criminals. It is both much safer for the officers and general more lucrative for the fines they collect for a plethora of petty offenses used to regulate the average person into submission.

A recent example of this four month prosecution of 29-year-old Jane Bellas. Bellas had a small sausage stand at a local fair. She would serve hot sausages on rolls to willing customers. One day she is on her way home when the police contend she committed a revenue raising traffic infraction. That really makes the day of the British cops.

She is pulled over when the police notice a dangerous and apparently illegal weapon in her car — a kitchen knife. In England it is illegal to have a knife in a public place without “good” reason. And “good” is entirely subjective and up to the interpretation of the local police. Clearly the young woman was no threat and that tells the police it is safe to arrest her. Bonus time -- they can not only get her for a traffic fine but fine her for carrying a kitchen knife in her car. She also faced the potential of four years in jail -- all for having a kitchen knife in her car.

And since Bellas was employed and not part of the welfare/criminal class they knew she would like pay up if convicted. For this reason alone the police pursue the working class/middle class citizens while ignoring the criminal case who live off the state and what they steal in other ways. The British system seems to be a system by which the criminal/parasitical class votes in politicians (they have so much in common) who then wage war on the working people in order to fund the programs that benefit the parasitical classes and benefit the politicians.

The police are the front arm of that war and the politicians hand them enough rules and regulations that they could get virtually anyone they set their eyes upon if they felt so inclined. And they set their eyes upon Jane Bellas and that kitchen knife gave them the excuse they needed. Ca-ching!

Bellas argued that she ran a sausage stand and had to cut bread rolls with the knife for the customers. The police said they didn’t believe her and continued with the case. They basically assume that most people won’t fight it due to the cost. Bellas fought it.

The only thing that saved here was that other bureaucrats had previously attacked her. At her trial it turned out that the prosecutors found evidence that inspectors had supposedly been tinkering with a generator while holding a sausage -- an offfense that the bureaucrats took “very seriously”. The judge found that this proved that Bellas did actually work the sausage stand and thus she was shown to have a “good” reason for having a kitchen knife in her car.

She was then found not guilty and given $20 to cover her costs. The Daily Mail reports that the cost of the case was around $4,000 but they were unclear as to whether these costs were for Bellas or for the “justice” system itself. Either way England is a pathetic excuse for a nation when this sort of thing can happen to a woman merely for driving with a kitchen knife in her car.

By the way, if you want an idea of how far this victim disarmament campaign can go, when give the political muscle consider an editorial from the British Medical Journal.

Not long ago England banned guns to put an end to violent crime. Violent crime increased. As the BMJ admitted: “Violent crime in the United Kingdom is increasing.... and one easily accessible weapon used in many incidents is the kitchen knife.” Because people use knives to kill other people the BMJ wrote: “We suggest that banning the sale of long pointed knives is a sensible and practical measure....”

Are they on to something? I’ve notice that politicians around the world are responsible for a lot of deaths themselves. Government certainly was the leading cause of death over the last century. Make the world safe! Ban government.

Why you should NEVER talk to the "Death Dealers".

Radley Balko, should be credited for keeping an eye on the police. He has an entry concerning a web site run by a police officer selling clothes to police officers. Please note the t-shirt that cops apparently are buying. Note it has the name of the t-shirt company “Bullet 50” and the slogan “Death Dealer”.

Make no mistake they are marketing exclusively to “law enforcement” thugs “who desire concealment clothing for UC [undercover] or off duty use. The number one complaint by plain-clothes operators/officers is the lack of functional clothing for law enforcement use.” They say the company was “created for officers who normally carry handgun and other law enforcement gear in their regular attire.” This company is run by cops for cops.

It is no secret that the police in the U.S. are out of control. We’ve made that point with videos and news articles time after time. And now we get a glimpse of how police officers see themselves with their “Death Dealers” t-shirt.” Disgusting.

Wendy McElroy warns her readers to NEVER speak to the police. Avoid them whenever possible. She has pointed to this video by law professor James Duane giving a lecture as to why you should, never, never speak to the police. Watch it and learn.

British bureacrats routinely put citizens under surveillance.

England was once a free country. Of course that ended long ago and it is now has one of the most extensive surveillance systems in the world -- and the targets of that surveillance are not criminals or terrorists but average people going about their average lives.

The Regulation of Investigatoryh Powers Act was passed to give government agencies spying powers in order to go after criminals and terrorists. Well, that was the excuse anyway. Originally these spying powers were bestowed on nine government agencies. Of course, since the damn camel got its nose in the tent matters have escalated. Now 792 government agencies have the right to spy on people and they are doing so!

One family in Dorset discovered that local officials used the law to put them under surveillance for weeks. Their alleged crime was to apply to have their youngest child attend a school where the council said they were not allowed to apply. In reality two of their other children had been attending the school for years. Government bureaucrats followed the family aroundl and kept record of where they slept at night. The school itself had told the parents that admission was legitimate. But for weeks detailed notes of the family were kept by the local council. (See the attached sheet of notes as an example.)

Tim Joyce and his partner, Jenny Paton, and their children were the targets of the investigation in Dorsey. Mr. Joyce said: “It used to be that the Home Secretary had to talk to a judge to get surveillance through the police. Now it seems the world and his wife can carry out surveillance whenever they feel like it.”

Last year government departments, unrelated to policing, engaged in 12,484 cases of surveillance on citizens. That is one citizen being targeted for regular surveillance every 42 minutes, 24 hours per day, 365 days per year. The London Telegraph reports that this is a doubling from the previous year’s level of domestic surveillance.

In Gosport the local council has put dog owners under surveillance to see if they pick up the dog’s crap. Chris Davis, the would be “intelligence officer” for this sad little bureaucracy says: “We have strategically placed members of our enforcement team to blend in with the natural environment and observe people walking dogs. They are using digital cameras to get hard evidence.” In Stoke-on-Trent bureaucrats are using domestic spying to check on “illegal building work” and to see if people are dumping trash in violation to council rules.

British cops want to target children as "future" criminals.

One thing I have long thought is that when it comes to burgeoning police state that the British are slightly ahead of the United States. Both are headed down the road to serfdom and both are moving at a rapid pace. But the Labour government of England has actually had more contempt for human liberty than the Bush regime -- as hard as that is to believe.

I have mentioned three issues which I think make England a dangerous place to live if you value freedom. Those are the fact that the government has disarmed the law abiding populace -- criminals are still armed of course. History is filled with instance where governments become so intolerable that the people rise up and depose them. The English will never have that option.

Second, the government has people under constant surveillance. And I mean quite literally under surveillance. The government runs thousands of surveillance cameras which film the public throughout the day. Add to that the odious monitoring of people’s financial records, something that is rampant in the United States and the British people are thoroughly monitored by the State throughout their daily activities. Of similar vein is that the British, like the Republicans in the United States, have pushed through a national ID, which amounts to a government issued travel permit to move about in one’s own country.

The third trend in England that should scare the hell out of anyone with an ounce of brains is the drive to set up a DNA data base that will eventually trace every person in the country.

Now a top police official in England is floating the idea to begin collecting DNA samples from children. Gary Pugh of Scotland Yard is the new DNA spokesman for the Association of Chief Police Officers. He is also a disgusting man with utter contempt for human liberty -- just in case you didn’t know what I thought of this man. When police start acting in this manner they are violating the rights of people, individuals who violate the rights of others are criminals. The reality is the the police have become another criminal gang just more pervasive and deadly.

This police official says that children should be monitored and if they exhibit any behavior that is consider worrisome their DNA should be taken from them and stored for use later. He says this is a way “of identifying people before they offend”. Notice he is not even arguing that the State should collect DNA after they commit a crime but before hand. How young should this be done? Pugh says. “You could argue the younger the better.” His justification: “We have to find who are possibly going to be the biggest threat to society.”

Please note again the future tense. Pugh is arguing that the police should take evidence involuntarily from individuals who have NOT committed a crime but who are merely thought to be possible, future criminals. Who will be fingering these children for apprehension at such a young age? Why state schools, of course. I quote the Guardian:

Pugh admitted that the deeply controversial suggestion raised issues of parental consent, potential stigmatisation and the role of teachers in identifying future offenders, but said society needed an open, mature discussion on how best to tackle crime before it took place. There are currently 4.5 million genetic samples on the UK database - the largest in Europe - but police believe more are required to reduce crime further.

The Guardian says that government “criminologists are understood to be confident that techniques are able to identify future offenders.” Sure! Government never screws up. What a minute? Wasn’t it the British police who followed the wrong man, thought he was a terrorist, and then executed him in his seat on the Underground in front of a train full of people?

Jean Charles de Menezes was a 27-year-old young man from Brazil who didn’t realize he was being followed by armed police officers in plainclothes. The officers said they got him confused with someone else. They followed him onto a bus and then into the London Underground. He boarded a train and sat down to read a newspaper when the police officers rushed the train. The officers tackled the seated man and then shot him to death. Police then lied to the public repeatedly to justify their execution. They claimed Menezes had vaulted over the ticket barrier and ran into the train. Video footage proved that he used his ticket like everyone else and walked calmly. Police claimed he was wearing bulky clothes which they suspect had bombs underneath. He was wearing jeans, a t-shirt and a relatively tight short jacket. They claimed that when they boarded the train that the victim went after them. Eyewitnesses on the train say that never happened.

In the end the police just said it was a “tragic” mistake. It wasn’t tragic for them. No wonder they want to disarm the public. Any decent person witnessing what the police were doing to this man, who was armed, would have pulled some shots off at the criminals executing an entirely innocent man. And investigations show that he was being held in his seat when he was murdered. This man was shot eight time, seven of them in the head.

Yet the police in England are demanding that the public trust them and allow the collection of the DNA of schoolchildren based entirely on the suspicion that the child might, years in the future, commit a crime.

Police are already routinely collecting DNA from people in England at every turn they can. If you witness a crime they may take DNA. If you are a “suspect” they can take DNA and they keep it even if it turns out you are entirely innocent. The Brown government wants to take DNA samples from every visitor to the country, even those just changing planes -- showing they are going even farther than the traitorous Bush Administration that forces all visitors to submit fingerprinting and mug shots.

What we are facing is two governments, one in England and one in the United States, that have come to the conclusion that citizens must be treated like criminals. Both are stripping people of their privacy and subjecting them to constant monitoring as quickly as they can.

The reality is that the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom are now threats to the life, liberty and property of every decent person. The police no longer act to protect you from criminals. You are the criminal and they are protecting their real clients, the political class, from you. You are their enemy. You are their target. They have little interest in criminals. They have a great deal of interest in you.

They want to know about every cent you earn. They wish to be able to tap your phone anytime they wish, with the necessity of a warrant. They want to monitor your e-mails, you mail, your computer usage. They have turned your bank into police agents who report on how you spend money so that they can investigate anything they deem “suspicious”. They want to force you to get a state permit to travel on any road, any plane, any public bus. The police can demand that you show them ID even if you are just walking on the sidewalk. You can no longer move about the “land of the free” without a state issued permission slip. And to make it worse they are raping you pocketbook in order to pay for this assault on you.

Any interaction with any government employee, from the local school teacher, social worker or beat cop to the highest office in the land is potentially a threat to you. Even the most innocent looking bureaucrat can start a process that will destroy your life. And if someone mistakenly thinks some oregano that you have in the kitchen is marijuana you can suddenly find armed men breaking down your doors in the middle of the night. If you are lucky they won’t kill you -- but don’t count on it. That sort of mistake happens all the time.

It didn’t used to be this way. But today more and more people are suffering death by government. If you want to trust the State go right ahead. I’m sure Mr. Menezes didn’t think he had anything to worry about either. In fact they executed him so quickly that he probably never knew what was going on.

I could easily list hundreds of people who have been subjected to incredible injustices. Hundreds have died at the hands of police agents. Every single day millions of air travelers are barked at, ordered about and frisked like common criminals. These days they mostly stare at the ground quietly enduring the humiliation afraid to say anything. If you say something you can be hurt, you might be killed.

Exactly how much of this will people put up with before they throw the bastards out.

British Police State is alive and well.

The police state that Tony Blair gave England is alive and well. Just ask Darren Nixon of Stoke-on-Trent. Mr. Nixon works as a mechanic. And he appears to be a rather law abiding gentleman who never had a run in with the police until recently. But recently when he got off the bus he took home he found himself surrounded by armed officers barking orders at him.

Mr. Nixon had trouble hearing them because he was listening to his MP3 player at the time so he had to take the earphones out. Nixon was quickly apprehended. He had his mug shot taken and the police added his DNA to the national data base along with taking his fingerprints.

What crime did Mr. Nixon commit? None. Nothing. He did absolutely nothing wrong. Not even the police say he is guilty of a crime. Some half-blind, deluded woman convinced herself that the MP3 might be a handgun and called the police. In England it is entirely illegal to own firearms by the way. In fact, recently a drama group was even told they had to register plastic swords with the police as well as keep them under lock and key when not being used in a stage production. It should be duly noted that the gun ban in England was immediately followed by a massive crime wave as criminals realized they were still armed and that only their victims had been disarmed by the law.

Now consider those DNA samples that were extracted from Mr. Nixon. Under the policies of the English state those samples stay in the files permanently -- even though Mr. Nixon had done nothing wrong and was apprehended by the police on bogus charges. Mr. Nixon shouldn’t feel too bad, some 100,000 children, including a seven-month-old child have been added to the criminal data base because found ways to take their DNA samples as well.

People can have their DNA taken merely because they witnessed a crime and then the government creates a file on them, with that DNA and place it in the criminal data file. The British government says individuals can ask the police to remove the files. And that is true, but the police routinely refuse to do it. But a spokesman for the Home Office claims that there is “clear evidence showing the substantial public benefit in relation to the detection of serious crime” by keeping the DNA of innocent people. From just 2006 to 2007 the number of children, innocent of any crime, who have their DNA kept by the government shot up from 24,000 to 105,000.

It is estimated that over 1 million Britons, never charged with any crime, are on the system and that innocent people comprise one out of four samples. The government pooh-poohs concerns saying: “Those who are innocent have nothing to fear from providing a sample and retaining this evidence is no different to recording other forms of information such as photographs and witness statements.” Do note that while the people are called innocent this Home Office spokesman called the DNA samples “evidence”.

And if you want some idea of how twisted British thinking can be Lord Justice Sedley recently called for mandatory filing of DNA samples of all residents and anyone visiting the country. He said that the police currently take samples from blacks more than from whites. To combat this “discrimination” this “Justice” wants to force everyone to supply their DNA in the name of fairness. Apparently the fact that black women are more likely to be raped is a good reason for the government to rape all women in the name of fairness.

Currently the British police are adding about 1,000 people per day to the DNA data base. Under Blair, and in the U.S. under Bush, western concepts of freedom and human rights were severely damaged. So far in England the opposition Conservative Party is promising to undo many of the worst aspect of the police state. In the United States the Democrats have made no such pledge.

Photo: Mr. Nixon with his deadly MP3 player. No doubt the police feel justified as someone claims he was playing Guns and Roses.

Real ID are "travel documents". Internal passports in disguise.

I have argued that the Bush regime is intent on forcing internal passports to control the movement of the American people, or to make it easier to monitor them. Bush, like his former protégée Tony Blair, is anti-liberty at the core. He wishes to expand state power in order to impose control on private citizens.

I have received no small amount of criticism, especially from big government conservatives, who believe this was an exaggerated fear. They say there is no attempt to force internal passports, as the socialists in Russia used, on the American people. Oh, really?

First, the Bushites pushed through the Real ID law, it basically established a form of national identification which would be administered by the states. But under the federalist system, or what is left of it, the states can opt out. But what happens if a state opts out? Then Big Brother pulls out his big stick and starts hitting people over the head.

Homeland Security brownshirts are getting nasty. The creepy looking Michael Chertoff, who himself ought to be tried for conspiracy to undermine the Constitution, has threatened the states that are opting out. He is basically saying that he will get nasty to all citizens of these states unless their legislatures fall into line and obey the Fuhrer. Chertoff warned a meeting of the National Conference of State Legislatures that unless they follow his orders their citizens will be required to show passports for “federal purposes”.

What is a “federal purpose”? One, you won’t be able to board a US plane without producing a US passport even if you are flying within the US. Federal buildings will be off limit to you. If you want to file a suit in federal court you won’t be able to exercise your right to do so without first producing a passport to gain entry. Don’t bother visiting Yellowstone, its a federal park. Considering the states saying no to this measure the Bush Administration is basically taking 19 million Americans hostage in order to FORCE compliance, in violation of the Constitution.

It is important to realize that "federal purpose" is in fact an undefined and limitless term. It can be used anyway the Department of Homeland Security wants. It has no precise definition. This is not defined by the law but gives unelected bureaucrats at DHS the power to expand the definition as they choose. They say: "DHS may consider expanding these official purposes through future rulemakings to maximize the security benefits of REAL ID." Congress is not involved. New rules expanding the purpose of the ID can be established anytime DHS feels like doing so.

Every US citizen will be required by law to register with the government. You will be mandated to go to the local DMV office (how lovely in itself) and secure a federally approved ID which then allows you to travel. Without it, no driving. Without it no airplane trips. And no doubt they will be able to demand it without notice anywhere, anytime.

Seven states have passed laws against Real ID. Another six have passed resolutions against the program. Another 15 are considering such legislation. That won’t stop these individuals.

The conservative Heritage Foundation, a sham organization pretending to support limited government, has a spokeswhore out pimping for the Bush administration. Bill Walsh, from Heritage, has sold out loyalty to the Constitution and federalist principles, to further the security state of Bush. Shame on Walsh and I hope funders of Heritage start withdrawing their funds to these political whores.

While Chertoff sounds like some Reichmarshall for 1930s Germany he looks frighteningly like Riff Raff from the Rocky Horror Show. But Riff Raff wasn’t as creepy or dangerous.

Chertoff has given the whole game away with a comment he made trying to scare legislators into supporting these new draconian ID regulations. He said: “For terrorists, travel documents are like weapons. We do have a right and an obligation to see that those licenses reflect the identity of the person who’s presenting it.” Read that one more time just to be sure you have what he said.

These licenses are “travel documents”. There was a time you had a driver’s license only to show you could supposedly drive NOT to allow you to travel per se. But Chertoff sees Real ID as much more than that. It is a travel document -- something which you must present in order to travel. These are permits to travel. They are internal passports. And without the travel documents that Chertoff is imposing on you then your ability to travel as a free citizen within the borders of your own country will be severely restricted. This is a dramatic reversal of a basic freedom. Free nations has assumed citizens have the right to travel and that right can only be infringed if the individual in question has committed a crime. The presumption has been freedom to travel. This law presumes you have no right to travel unless you hold a government travel document. It is a measure meant, not to control terrorists -- the catch-all excuse for every exercise in tyranny engaged in by this pathetic, dangerous and traitorous administration--it is a measure meant to control you.

Please note that little has been done to actually try and capture bin Laden. He is out there free while you are being penned in bit by bit. Bin Laden is not the target. You are.

DHS pretends this is not national ID because the federal government "is not issuing the licenses". If it is not federal than why are they coercing the states to comply? Chertoff wants it both ways. He wants to force states to implement this federal regulation while pretending the federal government isn't doing it. He says they are not creating a federal data base just having the states create such collections. Yet once established it is a simple step to link the data centers into one national network.

Riff Raff has been very clear that you won’t be permitted to fly without a federal passport or Real ID. You won’t be able to enter federal property without it. That would include federal buildings and parks. And it may well include federal highways as well. To show the stupidity of this administration please note that Comrade Chertoff says you must have a passport to enter a federal building (which would include post offices) but to get a passport you must enter a federal building! It's hard to figure out if Chertoff is as stupid as his boss or even dumber. How can one apply for a passport to enter a federal building if one must first have the passport to enter the federal building?

Chertoff is using the nasty tactics of the Bush regime to try to force states into issuing what amounts to a national ID card that doubles as an internal passport. He knows that if every citizen in a state is banned from flying without going through passport control that the states will eventually cave in. And given the impossibility of obtaining a passport under the Catch-22 by the Moron Administration the only way out is Real ID.

The good news is that the Republicans are going into the dung heap with this election. The bad news is that not one of the leading Democrats appears willing to unravel the fascistic intertwining laws that are making a mocker of American freedom. Every Democrat ought to be demanding a few concessions from their candidates.

1. Repeal the Patriot Act.
2. Abolish the Department of Homeland Security.
3. Repeal Real ID.
4. Pull out of Iraq.

But don’t expect Hillary to do any this. Or Obama for that matter. That’s the bad news. Just as the Bush Party stabbed the principles of small government conservatism in the back the Democratic contended are intending to do the same thing to their followers. Unfortunately by the time you figure that out it will be too late. Here is what you can do.

Join the Privacy Coalition now. Put pressure on the local politicians to pass resolutions (at the city and county levels) against these measures. And lobby the state legislature to pass laws forbidding state compliance with this law. Lobby the candidates of the party you support to oppose these measures and make them pledge to the four part program to restore basic liberties in America. Finally, don't delay. Do it today.

How the anti-Immigration Right is helping impose a Police State.

Throughout history politicians have used every “crisis” they could find or manufacture to further the power of the State. If enough Americans could be herded into a collective whining about a perceived problem the State rushed in, fleeced their wallets, stripped away their liberties, and assumed massive new powers. And the herd would breathe a sigh of relief and say; “Thank you, master, now the nasty wolf won’t get us, baaa, baaa.”

Shortly later some politician would take something innocuous, perhaps a rock or a bush, and fling some wolf skin over it. He would run around furiously pointing at it and shouting, “Wolf! Wolf!” And the poor little sheeple would panic and rush to him begging for new protections. And he would smile, fleece their pockets once again, strip away more of their freedom and become even more tyrannical himself.

Then he’d tell the sheeple how dangerous things were and how, without his protection, they would be dinner to the terrible wolves that roamed the woods. But being the master of so many sheep is hard work and one gets so very hungry. Wouldn’t a little mutton now and then allow him to protect the herd so much more effectively. “And we all know the good of the many outweighs the good of the one.”

The sheeple didn’t bat an eye but instead started debating among themselves as to which one of them would be tastiest. Soon they noticed the master building fences around the lovely green pasture where they roamed. The nooks and crannies that they used to explore so freely were walled off. “It’s for your protection,” announced the master. “We must keep the wolves out, you know.” The sheeple nodded in acquiescence. A few went to the master and thanked him ever so profusely. He patted them on the head and thought to himself how tender they felt.

In the distance they could see pens being built. They didn’t worry. Master told them it was to hold the wild animals that threatened them. And the sheeple felt much better. A building next to pens was erected and someone hung the sign up saying “butchery”. A few sheeple felt nervous. “It is just so that we can eradicate the threat to you more effectively,” said the master.

A few sheep looked about nervously. A couple started to complain. The master suddenly pointed into the distance and shouted, “Wolf!, Wolf” The sheeple all ran for cover and chastised the few who complained for putting the herd at risk.

Master had some nice new wool sweaters he wore. And he brought in dogs to help “protect” the sheep. The dogs, he assured them, were there to guard them from the wolves. And the sheeple slept much better feeling well protected right up until master started herding some of them into the pens he built. The sheeple panicked and ran to escape. But the fences he erected to protect them wouldn’t let them out. And the dogs who were there to stop the wolf started barking and nipping at the sheep forcing them to run into the pens themselves. And the pen doors shut.

The sheep still in the enclosed and secure pasture said to each other: “Well, it had to be done you know. Master needs to eat and someone has to pay for all the protection we need.” They felt so much better. “It’s only temporary,” one of them said. “And it’s not like master took all of us.” The sheeple nodded in agreement. And went back to grazing and getting fat.

It’s not just a fairy tale. And a fence that keeps wolves out is just as effective at keeping sheep in. Never has there been a wide spread panic about some perceived threat that hasn’t been used to plunder the American people of their rights and their wealth. So why anyone thought the new found panic about “immigration” would be different I don’t know.

Politicians, especially Republicans like the vile Tom Tancredo, are screaming about the “alien” menace and “protecting our culture” from people who want to find work and raise their families as best they can -- and other such threatening, alien “un-American” things. Every politician who has mouthed the slogan “secure our borders” has played a role in creating the panic necessary to build up the Leviathan State.

Even some of these new, disgusting, “culturally conservative, libertarians” have joined the panic brigade. Some of the more mentally-challenged (or just dishonest) among them even pretend they are actually anarchists but that the State has to act as private property owners would and “secure the borders”. Anyway, we all know sheep of the same color prefer to flock together so keeping out those “alien” sheep is just “freedom of association.” The new breed of anti-immigration “libertarians” are complicate in the drive to strip Americans of freedom.

Everyone knows what sort of man sits in the White House and what his Imperial ambitions are. Every “libertarian” knows the nature of the State. Most know enough history to know that panics are always used to further State power at the expense of individual liberty. So exactly what excuse do they have for joining the anti-immigration campaign? Did they really think that things would be different this time? Did they believe King George has learned his lesson?

And a press release from Wolf’s Lair, I mean the White House, has discussed some of the measures that this administration will take to eradicate the threat of dishwashers, gardeners and fruit pickers. Within the next year Bush will massively expand the power and scope of the State and the anti-immigration “libertarians” deserve a lot of the credit.

An additional 1,700 border brown shirts will be added. Remember they have the power to search vehicles inside the US as well, without probable cause or a search warrant. When they demand “Papers please” you are required to obey or you could be arrested as an “immigrant” which apparently is one step away from “terrorists”. If you were of those you go to secret base, get tortured and have no rights. So remember, if a federal agent starts snooping speak Spanish!

The White House says they will increase “funding” so that more detention centers are built. Increased funding requires increased taxes so any fake libertarian who says we must “secure the border” is deluding you if they also claim they never voted for new taxes.

We also learn, “The Department of Homeland Security will continue to explore effective and cost-efficient means of establishing biometric exit requirements at land border crossings.” Got that! If you want to leave the US they plan to gather your biometric data and track you! What? Did you think this was just for the wolves? I mean the “aliens”.

“Starting January 31, 2008, DHS will phase in a requirement for passports or other secure documents for sea and land ports of entry.” That National ID issue will be sold on stopping aliens but it will be imposed on citizens. So, when you are put into the system of internal travel passes called National ID, make sure you thank those nice “conservative libertarians” who promised you they would “secure the borders”.

“The Administration is training hundreds of state and local law enforcement officers to address illegal immigration in their communities.” Any one think this won’t eventually lead to more federal control over the local police forces?

And then we have something called alien removal teams who work for Immigration and Customs. “There were 15 seven-member Fugitive Operation Teams in 2005. As of this week there are 68; there will be 75 by the end of September.” Sure, we could secure the borders without expanding state power.

And don’t forget the anti-immigration Nazis (sorry, I get confused, I mean libertarians) know we can’t forget private business. The State must control private businesses in order to prevent wolves from getting jobs.

First, the government will be sending “No-Match” letters to businesses if an employee’s social security number doesn’t match. I remember when real libertarians wouldn’t even take a social security number. Now they want it used to track everyone in the country. We have to secure the borders, you know. After the letter arrives the employer is required to act as an unpaid agent of the Immigration department and must “take specified steps within 90 days”. Which steps are not specified here and what will happen to the employer is not mentioned.

Employers must establish that employees have state permission to work and don’t fall into categories of human beings who are forbidden to work. That’s a real libertarian concept isn’t it! King George complains that there are 29 “categories of documents” which can currently “be used to establish identity and work eligibility.” The new regulations “will reduce the number of documents that employers must accept to confirm the identity and work eligibility of their employees.” Notice the MUST. Notice that by weeding out more and more legal documents Mr. Bush and crew continue to move toward National ID. Another measure we can thank these “new libertarians” for. Without their help this would have been much harder.

The Department of Homeland Security will also have the power to raise fines they impose on private businesses for not acting as unpaid Immigration officials. Involuntary servitude is mandatory or your property will be stolen. Right now, Bush complains, the “fines are so modest”. Keep up the border hysteria and maybe we can get asset forfeiture passed on this as well.

Wolf’s Lair brags that they have increased the number of Americans arrested as criminals for failing to act as Immigration agents. In 1999 they arrested just 24 but in 2006 they arrested 2006, and this year they arrested 742 so far. These are Americans who are being arrested, people! “And it’s not like master took all of us,” said the relieved sheep who felt so much safer.

There will be expanded use of E-Verify, an electronic database that keeps track of who is, or isn’t allowed to have jobs. Of course once in place and with all private companies properly acclimated to asking the state permission to hire people, it will also be much easier to keep track of dissidents, tax protesters, and others. Imagine an electronic system that has to be checked before any American is allowed to freely trade their labor with another American. All this bought, sealed, and wrapped up and put under the Christmas tree courtesy of the anti-immigration, secure-the-border, “libertarians” and their allies.

E-Verify will be expanded to include “new sources of data”. A national data base on Americans. Hey, isn’t that a wolf, over there!

And the Feds will “seek voluntary (for now) state partners willing to share their Department of Motor Vehicles photos and records with E-Verify.” And that’s just the beginning: “Such agreements will also lay the groundwork for further expansion of the electronic employment eligibility verification system.” Of course this would happen. It was obvious this would happen. And any “libertarian” or “conservative” who pretended otherwise, and supported the “secure the border” initiatives was either: 1) incredibly stupid, or 2) lying about their libertarianism, or 3) both.

And for the few who are allowed state permission to enter the US to work, there will be new tests that “will inculcate the base values we share as Americans, and encourage civic knowledge and patriotism among prospective citizens.” In other words, if we let them in, we have to teach them how to be good sheeple and what to believe and how to obey the State.

And the Department of Education will even get involved to create courses to teach immigrants English. Anyone check the quality of English in American schools lately? I would think they’d first get it right here.

Let me be clear. If someone is a libertarian, a real libertarian, everyone of these measures is an egregious attack on freedom to him. Notice how many of these attacks are directed against Americans. The “secure the border” libertarians are NOT libertarians. They are pushing the biggest con job ever put forward by the State to expand its power. They are willing accomplices to tyranny. The Libertarian Party needs to purge it’s membership. It is bad enough that we have Republicans pretending to be libertarians. It is unacceptable that we have “Libertarians” who are just pretending to be “libertarians” as well.

Real libertarians should not fund these groups or their institutes or their candidates. They should not work with them or co-operate in any way with them. These fools might have thought they could limit the State to just attacking those “foreigners” that they dislike. But I don’t see how they could be that stupid. Either way the campaign they are fueling and feeding is one that is stripping you or your liberty. “Secure-the-border” libertarians are not your friends. They are not your allies and, considering the inevitable results of their fear-mongering, they are NOT libertarians. They may be conservatives, they may be paleo-conservatives. Some may be good on some issues like the war. But they are undermining freedom.

Destroying freedom one piece at a time.

The media today has two stories that illustrate the assault on American freedom conducted by the corrupt, incompetent, and morally questionable Bush government.

The first story concerns a list of 39 people which various human rights groups, such as Amnesty International, contend are being held in secret custody by the Bush administration. These are individeuals who have not had charges filed against them, who are not allowed their day in court, do not have access to an attorney. In fact no one in the government will even acknowledge they are in custody. They officially have been flushed down the memory hole.

Secret prisoners being held in secret prisons is not an institution of a free society. The terrorists who are doing the most damage to the United States are in government.

The second story involves the systematic stripping of Americans of their freedom to travel without state permission. Certain neighboring, friendly nations have routinely been open to Americans for visits without the need of federal travel documents known as passports. Canada, Mexico and some Caribbean nations have always welcomed Americans provided they have some form of ID. They still do.

It is the United States government that is restricting the ability of US citizens to travel without being screened by the federal government first. This is entirely a roadblock imposed by DC and not by foreign governments.

One of the hallmarks of the Bush administration has been utter incompetency at any task it has set out to do. They knew for months that these new restrictions on travel freedom were being imposed. And yet they were unprepared for it.

Thousands and thousands of citizens who had travel plans are finding the US government is screwing them up. Thanks George.

Passport appliations that were filed months ago are still being processed and people are missing their planes. The State Department blames the long delays on “unprecendented demand.” Bullshit. These people are not flocking for the documents because they are a new fad. They are there because George Bush is forcing them to be there. No one is clamouring for federal approval for their vacation plans.

Applicants are being told that a wait of four weeks can now be assumed to be 10 weeks instead. The “expedited service” which costs considerably more than normal passport service is no longer expedited and can take three weeks, almost the time it normally took for non-expedited service. Each passport issued costs travelers about $100 minimum. Then there is the cost of $60 additional for “expedited” service. No one counts the hours and hours and hours that thousands of people spend in line every day as a cost except economists. And Bush stopped listening to economists long ago. Actually he stopped listening to anyone long ago except that little voice he hears which he thinks is God.

According to the New York Times the feds are gleefully reporting that they expect to issue 14 million travel documents this year, compared to 7 million normally issued. If no one took the expdited service that would amont to revenue of $700 million. These really are mobility taxes. If you could travel to Canada without paying the US governtment last year but have to pay them $97 to do so this year that is a tax increase.

The no new taxes claims of the Bushians is a lie. This one change in regulations imposes a minimum of $700 million in new taxes. That is without anyone paying the expedited fees. And that doesn’t count the billions of dollars worth of lost time spent by citizens in endless lines begging uncaring bureaucrats for their documents.

The Times reports:

Much of the spike in applications is attributed to the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative, which went into effect Jan. 23 and requires passports, merchant mariner documents or frequent-traveler Nexus cards for air travelers returning from Canada, Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean and Bermuda. Next January, the requirement is likely to be extended to ship, rail and road travelers.

But somehow, the government seemed caught by surprise when crowds began besieging passport offices this spring.

Even now, callers to the automated national passport line (1-877-487-2778) are told that because of “unprecedented” volume, appointments can be given only to travelers departing in the next two weeks.

Callers who are leaving within two weeks are then transferred to a 24-hour automated line that often says they cannot be connected because of the volume of calls and urges them to call back during nighttime hours. The line then goes dead.

By the way, if anyone thinks the Democrats intended to undo these policies, well, all I can say is I own a bridge in Brooklyn which I’m willing to sell at a reasonable price. My advice is get those damn papers and go. I think Americans should travel. I’m just not sure you ought to go back.

It also shouldn't be forgotten how the government is using the anti-immigration lies of the bigoted Right to undermine the freedoms of Americans. In the name of "securing borders" the newest immigration legislation includes requirements for "employment verification." The Know-Nothings have been demanding just this sort of restriction on employment. It means that every time you seek a job you must prove to them that you have the right to do so with a form of ID that complies with the REAL ID system the Bushites are tring to put into place. Every time some special interest group whips up hysteria about something the Feds use it to strip Americans of more freedom. And this hysteria need not be just on the Left but can be on the Right as well. That the anti-immigration crowd, many of whom are just open racists, scream about immigrants is used to track the employment of every American.

At this time there are three campaigns that are being used to erode liberty. One is the "war on terror", the second is the campaign to "stop global warming" and the third is hysteria over "illegal immigration." And the one that is the least troublesome, though not welcome, is the hysteria on warming. I find it odd that people who hate Al Gore because of his warming hysteria are rushing out to support a candidate who beats the immigration drum which leads to legislation like this one. I've even seen fake libertarians who support these requirements of recording federal identification for every employee. It is very alarming for liberty when even some "libertarians" embrace such measures.

How do you destroy freedom? The same way you eat an elephant -- one piece at a time.

Who needs stinking civil liberties?

It won’t be long now before England’s worst prime minister ever drops into the dustbin of history (unless Bush rescues him and gives him a cushy job -- which has been hinted at).

As he did in his term of office Mr. Blair is doing in the last days of his odious rule -- he is doing his level best to strip Englishmen of more of their civil liberties. Blair has made it clear that civil liberties hinder government, which is precisely what they are meant to do mein Führer said some as they were blackbagged and carted off. (Of course Cheney said much the same thing recently to the cadets at West Point, basically urging them to ignore Constitutional protections when it comes to those deemed “terrorists”.)

Throughout his carrier Blair has introduced measure after measure expanding the police powers of the state. One could argue he has committed treason agains the English tradition of freedom. And as he is being shown the door he’s still working to expand police powers. Peter Hain, Blair’s own Northern Ireland Seccretary attacked the measures as the “domestic equivalent fof Guantanamo Bay.” Perhaps a bit of hyperbole but where his degree of worry is wrong his direction is not.

The idea is to give police the right to stop and question anyone they wish, anytime they wish, for any reason they wish. Failure to answer them could result in a fine of up to $10,000.

The previous Blair measure in this area is the Terrorism Act 2000, an act that truly is terrorism. It gives the government the right stop and search anyone traveling in public whether there is a reason to suspect them of anything or not. Except it is limited to areas designated by a chief constable. Still pretty lose when it comes to reigning in that terrorist organization known as government.

In that law not only did a chief constable have to delineate the area covered he had to set a time limit. Police could arrest people merely on suspicion but if the person didn’t cooperate by answering their questions there was no additional penalty. Blair finds that too restrictive. No doubt Cheney is whispering to Blair and suggesting that perhaps he should consider torture as well.

Under the new legislation individual police officers could interrogate people randomly without any restrictions as to the area or with time limits imposed. It removes the slight restriction of having the area designated by a chief constable. Now any would be “Terrorist Buster” on the force could begin questioning anyone found in public. And if someone found it a violation of their rights and refused to answer they could be fined heavily.

Blair, in perhaps his most disgusting comment in public life, defended these new police powers saying that society is wrong to protect civil liberties. “We have choosen as a society to put the civil liberties of the suspect, even if a foreign national, first. I happen to believe this misguided and wrong.”

Of course the police state/surveillance state that Blair has created doesn’t come cheaply. The most recent analysis of the tax burden on individuals alone, not on business, shows the every single taxpayers pays about $13 in taxes for every hour they work. Just last year alone the tax burden on individuals increased by $50 billion. And these figures don’t include local taxes. Under Blair’s police state taxation has doubled since 1997.

A police state isn’t cheap. The wives of Henry VIII got better treatment than Blair deserves.
Ron Paul

Total control of guns is total control of people.

Our discussion of the issues revolving around the horrific events at Virginia Tech has literally brought in tens of thousands of new readers. And in that mixture are a few who have advocated, as one of them put it, “total control” of guns. Their positions is that all weapons must be confiscated and severe penalties imposed on people who own firearms for self-defense.

There is a certain naive simplicity to that which is frightening. What they advocate is a zero tolerance policy akin to the War on Drugs, which itself was just a reincarnation of the previous total war on an evil commodity: alcohol. Obviously since both of those were such smashing successes they want to repeat the exercise.

England followed the same logic. In 1988 it first banned semiautomatic and pump-action rifles, short shotguns and a few others firearms. Law abiding citizens turned in their weapons. Criminals did not. With criminals feeling safer the number of crimes committed with guns escalated. Then the totalitarian idea of absolute control took hold. So for all practical purpose it is now virtually impossible to own a handgun in the UK. Following that ban the number of crimes committed by armed criminals jumped again.

Street gangs in various sections of the UK have no problem obtaining firearms even though they are entirely illegal. The Southwark neighborhood of London had 266 crimes committed with firearms that were reported in 2006. The Lambeth neighborhood had 239, Lewisham had 185. Apparently someone forgot to tell criminals they weren’t supposed to own firearms.

Det. Supt. Kevin Davis heads the Trident program to tackle youth/gang related crime in London. he says that more “teens are resorting to carrying or using guns.” Claudia Webber, an advisor to Trident says that in the gang culture guns are “an everyday accessory, a fashionable accessory, that young people want to be seen with.” This with what amounts to be an almost total ban. The very few loopholes that are left are not the source of firearms for gangs. Criminals almost never purchase guns legally.

Not long ago the British government conceded that one in three young criminals own or have use of a firearm. When guns were confiscated 162,000 weapons were turned in by law-abiding citizens. Apparently criminals didn’t join the queue. At the time police estimated there were 250,000 illegal guns in the UK. They now believe there are 3 million illegal firearms in the country and said “criminals are more willing than ever to use them.”

One result is that criminals in the UK are more brazen. In England 53 per cent of burglaries on homes take place while the residents are home, only 13 per cent in America take place under similar circumstance. British criminals don’t mind breaking in while people are home since they know that the residents have been disarmed. Criminals in the US are worried the homeower is armed. One result is that numerous elderly people in the UK get battered around by young thugs. A proud moment for the “total control” advocates. Yet the victim disarmament Gun Control Network calls the UK policies “the gold standard” of gun control.

The British Home Office has conceded: “We recognise there is a continuing problem with the use of guns by criminals and that it has increased over recent years.” Gold standard indeed.

The London Telegraph wrote that following the imposition of gun control “the total number of recorded crimes went up by almost 800,000 at a time when numbers in France and Germany were virtually stable and in America were falling dramatically.”

The ban on guns has meant that black market weapons smuggled into the country are plentiful. The left-leaning Guardian says that sawed-off shotguns “can now be bought illegally for between £50 and £200 according to Home Office research. A purpose-built 9mm handgun, which is easier to conceal than a shotgun, is available for £1000-£1,400 on the back streets of Britain while those wanting “a gangster image” can buy a machine gun for £800.” The paper also said “increasingly firearms had become a normal part of the systematic violence found in the street-level criminal economy. They had assumed a symbolic significance as they became associated with criminal affluence and were conflated with status and the potential for violence.” The gold standard, indeed.
British citizens are now routinely monitored by closed circuit cameras throughout their daily life. And gun crime is up, illegal weapons have increased, more people are being killed than before. If this sort of constant surveillance is not working then what sort of police state measures will be necessary to make a total ban on guns workable? Apparently the rise in crime following gun control brought about new control measures to undo the damage of gun control. The result is a society that is rapidly turning into a police state.

Let us consider a community where there is total control and see if prohibition works. In prison one has extremely limited Constitutional rights. You can be searched at any time of the day. Armed guards can ransack your living quarters at will. You are constantly being monitored by agents of the government. You eat when they tell you to eat. You are allowed to have friends visit only under the most stringent of circumstances. Your every mover is under government control. You quite literally can’t sit on the toilet and expect privacy. Yet prisoners still use illegal drugs.

Billions and billions of dollars have been spent to impose total control on illegal drugs. Across American heavily armed SWAT teams routinely carry out raids on homes of suspected “drug dealers”. They shoot to kill. Every year innocent people who were wrongly targeted are killed. But it’s “war” and they are collateral damage. Penalties for drug possession in the US are bizarrely severe. Children are encouraged in state schools to spy on their parents and turn them in to the police. There is a constant barrage of propaganda. And drug use today remains almost the same as it was when the “War on Drugs” was started.

So precisely how much more severe will police monitoring have to become to impose “total control” on guns? How much of the Bill of Rights, beyond just the 2nd Amendment, will have to be shredded in order to obtain this control? And does total control mean stripping police of firearms?

Crime will escalate under total control. First, a nation that can’t prevent tons of cocaine from entering the country can’t prevent firearms from entering. The reality is that the most violent, anti-social criminals will have guns. Only their victims will be disarmed. Perhaps even the police will be disarmed. Crime will escalate. As in the UK criminals will become more brazen and more homeowners will be hurt or killed by thugs with superior strength or firearms. Certainly the weaker members of society,those least able to fight off a hulking criminal, will become prime targets.

And there is still the annoying issue of an unarmed population and an armed government. Governments have a tendency to become oppressive. Throughout history they have slaughtered hundreds of millions of people. More people have been killed by governments in the 20th century, or by agents of the state, than by run of the mill criminals.

Disarming a population only means that if a totalitarian state arises the people are defenseless and unable to prevent their own oppression. What is worse is that the “total control” measures that will be necessary to wipe out private firearms will go a long way toward establishing that very kind of society.

And this leads, not to a slippery slope, but a free fall. How do we prevent firearms from outside a country from entering the country? Ah, the “total control” advocates will tell you that we need international controls. So the dictatorial regime necessary to wipe out private firearms will have to be a global regime. It would require authority over all nation states. The powers necessary to impose “total control” mean that they increase in scope constantly and are centralized. The end result is a massive global government that is forced by the doctrine of “total control” to monitor and regulate people in ways never before seen on this planet.

The tendency is toward dictatorship. And with the people disarmed and the massive State having vast, monopoly powers you can kiss what few remaining freedoms you have good bye. And who do our Left-wing “total control” friends think will run this state? Some kindly, benevolent, gentle soul, a reincarnation of Ghandi perhaps? Or maybe the reborn Mother Theresa? History shows that the men who rise to the top of those kind of political systems are more similar to Alberto Gonzales and George Bush than to a Ghandi. It requires a world run by the Bushs of the world with legislation that makes the Patriot Act look like child’s play.

Of course the reality is that the police won’t be disarmed at all. They will become more and more militarized in order to deal with the millions of new criminals created by a total ban on guns. And they will become more and more likely to use excessive force. So expect more and more out of control police departments. Or do we centralize their authority as well? No doubt we will with only worse results.

Now the one time in my life that a criminal, with an illegal weapon, shot at me he was using a weapon that was not exactly a Smith & Wesson. He used a weapon that was literally home made. There is no shortage of instructions on how to make your own gun at home. And now we get the mission creep inherent in all state programs.

Under the war on drugs the government has increasingly made life more and more difficult for the vast majority of Americans who don’t use illegal drugs. Grow lights help grow plants including marijuana. So people with grow lights have had their homes raided even when the plants are tomatoes. One might take certain ingredients from cold medicines and use them in producing illegal drugs. So your ability to treat your cold is severely restricted. To prevent “drug abuse” hypodermic syringes were tightly regulated. Addicts didn’t disappear, they shared needles and they, and their sexual partners, the sexual partner of their partners, became a hot house environment spreading HIV.

“Informers” who don’t exist give cops, who do exist, the names of drug dealers and innocent elderly women are murdered by armed cops. All these things take place because the state finds it must do more and more to control drugs. It must control many aspects of human life which are only tangentially related to drugs.

So now we need a government that doesn’t just regulate firearms but also regulates the tools and the materials that can be used to produce firearms. Total control would have to mean censorship to stop people from learning how to produce home-made weapons. It would mean regulating lathes which can be used, piping which can be used and so on. Just as grow lights, bongs, and rolling papers are under increasing state control a war on guns would require censorship and state control of the materials and tools that can potentially be used to produce firearms.

When antigun activists talk about “total control” to stop guns that is precisely what they mean. They want the same kind of police state mentality created by the War on Drugs but bigger, better, more powerful, more deadly. They want a police state but a police state on steroids. Perhaps some don’t want that. I doubt when the War on Drugs started the supporters in the 1960s envisioned an America riddled with prisons, violent gangs with drug monopolies in the inner cities and innocent people being gunned down by paramilitary police squads. But that is the path they chose to follow. And if you get on a road that points to a police state then don’t be shocked when you wake up in a police state. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

The failure of the state and national tragedies.

The carnage witnessed at Virginia Tech induces pain in all rational people, it causes us to reflect and rethink. We ask for explanations. Long ago it was suggested that the most likely explanation is the simplest. This horror was caused because a mentally unbalanced individual was able to find a large body of defenseless people and shoot them while all the governmental bodies established to protect those people failed miserably.

“No gun zones” have acted like magnets to crazed killers. And I certainly understand the motivation and logic behind the idea. But good intentions are not enough and the logic is flawed. The only people who obey the rule are the vast majority of law abiding gun owners not insane individuals intent on making a name for themselves through mass slaughter. These zones leave people within them helpless and reliant upon the various agencies of government to respond in a timely manner.

There are two problems. One is that government often does not respond in a timely manner. Two, even when it does respond quickly a few minutes is all it takes to snuff out the lives of dozens of people. If we are to have a government that can respond as quickly as armed citizens could then we must have one where the policing agents are as pervasive as honest gun owners. And that, quite simply, would mean a police state.

Left-wing gadfly Alexander Cockburn is often right on issues, hence the term gadfly. I think his record is less than perfect but it’s good enough to warrant considering what he has to say on issues. He tells his fellow progressives that they better rethink how they have dealt with crime. There is much justified outrage on the Left (and some on the Right as well) about the role of SWAT teams. The American police force has become militarized. And with their tanks and automatic weapons and body armour they have become a threat to the life, liberty and property of every citizen.

This blog, and others, has regularly reported how these paramilitary forces have acted as if they were in a war. No surprise, that is how they are trained. The net result is that they destroy and kill and far, far too often the people they destroy and kill are innocent people. One of the most absurd claims of the victim disarmament lobby has been the cry that if citizens are allowed to defend themselves they will make mistakes and we ought to trust the police.

The same people, when they calm down, breath deeply for a while and then are asked to talk about the police launch into similar tirades about the treat of paramilitary police forces. Trust the police when we disarm you and once you are disarmed you aren’t supposed to the trust the police. Okay, that makes sense! Not.

Cockburn suggests the Left consider how these two issues are related.

“The left complains about SWAT teams, but doesn’t see that the progressives bear a lot of responsibility for their rise. If you confer the task of social invigilation and protection to professional janissaries -- cops--and deny the right of self and social protection to ordinary citizens, you end up with crews of over-armed thugs running amok under official license, terrorizing the disarmed citizens. In the end you have the whole place run by the Army or the federalized National Guard, as is increasingly evident now with the overturning of the Posse Comitatus laws forbidding any role for the military in domestic law enforcement.”

Every time a crime of the magnitude of a Virginia Tech or Columbine takes place police agencies and government bureaucrats make a raw grab for expanding their power. America is evolving into a police state at a frightening pace. And these expanded powers will not be restricted to only the cases that warrant them. They will creep into more and more aspects of daily living. When SWAT teams were organized we were told it was for situations precisely like the one we just witnessed. In the 1980s they were called out about 3,000 times per year. Even then you can see their use was not that widely warranted. Now they turn up about 40,000 per year. As Radley Balko notes: “Most ‘call-outs’ were to serve warrants on nonviolent drug offenders.”

From an “elite” groups of cops on call for the unusual we are instead seeing these teams used for routine policing. Balko notes: “Armed with free surplus military gear from the Pentagon, SWAT teams have multiplied at a furious pace. Tactics once reserved for rare, volatile situations such as hostage takings, bank robberies and terrorist incidents increasingly are being used for routine police work.”

One of the most openly fascistic police officials in the US is Joe Arpaio, who likes to call himself the “toughest sheriff in America”. He sent out his SWAT team, in their tank, to raid a Phoenix home. They first fired tear gas into the home. Then they managed to set the house afire somehow. A puppy inside the house tried to escape the flames and the police officers chased it back inside where it perished. And the reason for the raid: they were were arresting someone for traffic tickets. Meanwhile while burning down houses and killing dogs the tank they had parked in front of the house was rolling down the hill. The Einsteins had forgot to set the brake.

It rolled directly into a car where a mother and her young child had been sitting. She saw the tank rolling toward them and grabbed the child and escaped with seconds to spare. Don’t believe me? Here’s the photo of the incident.

I am not a person of faith, that is I am not the least bit religious. So I honestly don’t understand the religious mentality of some fundamentalist types in the political Left who have an undying, unalterable faith in big government.

When you strip people of the right to defend themselves the only protection they have left is government. But what happens when it is government from whom people need protection? Today the people of Zimbabwe need protection from the government, ditto the people of North Korea, Cuba, and still, China. Ditto for the people of Russia, most Islamic states and much of Africa. And, increasingly this applies to people in the US and England as well. Governments run amok, they do it all the time.

But let us pretend that never happens. Let us fantasize a world of benevolent, happy police agents on every corner. Still they fail to protect people well. In dangerous situations these SWAT teams set up a perimeter and tend to sit there and wait. Cockburn wrote:

When the mass murder session began in the engineering building the police cowered behind their cruisers till Cho Seung-Hui finished off the last batch of his 32 victims, then killed himself. Then the police bravely rushed in, started sticking their guns in the faces of the traumatized students, screaming at them to freeze or be shot. Similar timidity was on display in Columbine, where Harris and Klebold killed students in the library over a period of 15 minutes and then committed suicide. The police finally mustered up the nerve to enter the library over two hours late

Government is very good a waiting when situations are dangerous. I lived in San Francisco during the “big one” (1989 not 1906). When the Cypress viaduct of Interstate Highway 880 pancaked, trapping dozens of people and killing many, the government set up a perimeter and sat there debating what to do. People were dying and bureaucrats were discussing the costs and benefits of saving them. Private citizens were rescuing people, bureaucrats were having donuts and coffee and debating the issue.

The residents of the impoverished neighborhood surrounding the viaduct improvised ladders and climbed up to the trapped people. One by one they saved lives. The professionals turned up and halted this sort of “vigilante” rescues. They ordered the people to go home and let them “do their job” and then they did nothing! Angry residents sneaked around to the other side of the highway and continued their rescues surreptitiously.

Over and over, at times of national crisis we see the inertia of bureaucracy drag whatever good intentions exist down in a stagnancy that is deadly. The paranoid delusions of conspiracists aside the reading of the 9/11 Commission Report is a long discourse on ineptness and bureaucratic bungling. From the investigation of the terrorists, from security at the airports, to the response of the government during the hijackings we witnessed a lumbering dinosaur trying to respond to quick moving events. It couldn’t cope.

Who did respond? Who learned the lessons of that day quickly? The passengers of United Airlines Flight 93. They were the only ones who successfully stopped a hijacked plane from reaching its target.

Katrina was a perfect opportunity for government to prove it could efficiently and effectively save lives during a disaster. Few other disasters come with such advanced warning. Tracking a hurricane begins days, sometimes weeks before it hits land. And everyone knew Katrina was coming. And government failed miserably. Bureaucrats couldn’t offer protection to people left behind but ran around disarming law abiding people. Government couldn’t get aid and supplies to the victims but it made sure that no one else helped them either. It closed down and stifled every private relief effort it could find.

Government always wants to monopolize response to itself. And it always does a shitty job of responding.

The Virginia Tech massacre was a textbook example of the failure of government. The killer was a deranged individual. People who dealt with him were terrified of him. He was reported to campus police several times. Professors reported him, students reported him, and the government bureaucrats who run the school said there was nothing they could do. They were stifled by regulations and rules at every turn.

They couldn’t tell the parents of the killer, that would violate regulations on privacy. They basically couldn’t do very much. The killer was sent to a mental institution by a judge. But the school had to let him back on campus, regulations you know. Regulations did exist to forbid firearms on campus. That disarmed the victims not the killer. Lot of good that did.

Government regulations clearly say that someone who has been hospitalized for mental instability is not qualified to buy a weapon. And they have bureaucrats to make sure that doesn’t happen. If you pass a background check then you can buy a weapon. If it is shown you did time in the loony bin you don’t get the gun. The killer got his gun. Why? Well, it seems that the one bureaucracy that incarcerated the killer didn’t bother to tell the other bureaucracy, that does the background checks, that this man had mental problems.

We had government police who knew for several hours in advance that a killer was on the campus of Virginia Tech. They supposed he had left. They had no evidence he left, they just supposed it. Thirty of the victims died that day after the police arrived on campus. We had a university bureaucracy which took hours to send out an e-mail warning to the student body.

Over and over government failed to protect the people it had disarmed. And yet the faithful, with their hymns of praise, light their candles before the shrine of the state and call the supplicants to prayer. “Oh, mighty State, ye who we worship and adore, we beseech thee to bless thy servants and bestow thy hand of protection upon us.” And as so often is the case with this deity, it is deaf to their pleas.

There may well be some things that government can do, and do fairly well. Quick response is not one of them. What we have seen is that the agents created for quick response are poor at responding to those situations but good at killing unarmed, non-violent individuals. And what does the victim disarmament lobby want: more of the same!