To force another to consent is terrorism by definition. PART 2 THE VIOLATIONS

To force another to consent is terrorism by definition. 

Our vehicle was illegally impounded.

Your automobile is your private property, it's your right to travel in it.  Private property cannot be regulated lawfully by a third party.  Right are not privilege.  Traveling is not right if there is a license fee..  The corporation that made the car can be regulated.. it's a corporation. The road is paid for by gas usage for being on them, it's public property like a park  I don't need a license to travel freely or be in a park. You do not control equal and free rights they are already inherent.. no human being has power over another. No corporation has power over a human being.. no government has power of a private individual beings.  This is the meaning of liberty and freedom. You either support liberty or you don't.  

The license is a FEE I do not consent to pay and you have to honor that RIGHT of consent.. it has nothing to do with my competence as a person or most of you wouldn't haven't been given that privilege.  This human rights issue has to do with commercial code and the codification of human rights, not a license or the fee.  This is not a petty argument and it's not going away anytime soon.  Are you going to honor my rights as I honor yours?   You have a right to travel in your private automobile on public roads to public park.  Anyone countering this fact is standing against RIGHTS deserves none.  WE have many rights that are not listed on a piece of paper.  The basic outline called Bill of Rights are not the only rights we get.  These rights are inherent and inalienable.. they precede the government and will be there long after it's gone.  Rights are FREEDOM... the freedom to choose voluntarily to consent with community or decline without penalty.  

To force another to consent is terrorism by definition. 

 https://josephfreedomoranarchy.blogspot.com/2019/05/to-force-another-to-consent-is.html

"Justice is not blind, idealism is blind, and ideas are crafted and called legal code".

I bought the vehicle one day prior to the officer pulling me over I was exercising my right of freedom of movement traveling as a lawful traveler. 

My wife had bought a one way slip which was posted on my back window as we were moving to Florida on the day I was pulled over. It cost her 45 dollars. The officer said he didn't care about my rights,as I was also recording the incident. Once the officer knew I was recording he grabbed my phone and kept it until his business was over. He did give me back my phone but all was deleted. He gave me a ticket for non reg., No license., And no insurance. I did and do have insurance. (The reg. Was the temp one way slip. ) The oceanside police dept will  not except this lawfull temp registration another violation of my rights to freedom of movement and free travel,
Can we not drive the car to different state without paying CA 

taxes lease/financeYes you can buy a car in California without paying CA sales tax and drive it ONE WAY to any state on what is call a CA DMV One Way Trip Permit.

I have bought (leased) cars in SoCal from Honda, Mercedes, BMW to name a few that gave me that tag to drive back east with.

It looks like this:

I have also provided and addition travel permit 

Vehicle Registration Permits (FFVR 36)

• Vehicle Moving Permit
• Temporary Operating Permit (TOP)
• One Trip Permit
• Nonresident Commercial Trip Permit

One Trip Permit(CVC §4003)

A one trip permit may be issued for a fee, in lieu of California registration, to move a vehicle required to be registered:

• When unladen, for one continuous trip from a place within California to a place in or outside California or from outside California to a place in California (by the most directroute).
• For participation as a vehicular float or display in a lawful parade or exhibition for one round trip from one place to another. The total round trip cannot exceed 100 miles and must be completed within 60 days.

A one trip permit is valid for a nonresident:

• To move a newly purchased trailer coach into California.
• Member of the armed forces to move an unregistered trailer coach they own into, out of, or within California.

Important: A one trip permit cannot be used to move a crane or trailer coach owned by a California resident.

Blank one trip permits may be purchased in volume from any DMV office.

Issuing a one trip permit does not affect California tax requirements. For sales and use tax information, contact the Board of Equalization (BOE) at www.boe.ca.gov or 1–800–400–7115.

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/dmv/detail/pubs/brochures/fast_facts/ffvr36#otp

The officer was informed I was a savergn,his first action was to step back and put his hand on his weapon. He said, " we're going to go with this crap now right?"
He escalated the situation by telling me to give him the keys and get out of the vehicle I was being detained.
I asked why I was being detained, he said, " I don't need a reason to detain you."
My window was only partially down he told me he was going to break my window and pull me out if I didn't comply.
So I exited my vehicle because he was giving me the lawful order, under der-rest.
I still as of yet , don't know why I was being detained. I was hand cuffed , my vehicle was illegally searched, and he continued thru the process of having my vehicle impounded.
This officer made my ill wife and I homeless and on the streets both of us veterans, since all our cloths and other belongings we're in the vehicle as I stated before, we were on our way out of Oceanside moving back to Florida. leaving my ill wife and I without our belongings and away from anyone we know for 1000s of miles away.
All my tools to work with we're placed on the street along with a small tool trailer I had just purchased, they were just paving the streets when I asked the officer if he would assist me in moving my trailer off the street and around the corner where they were not paving so the paving company would not have it towed.
The officer just laughed at me and said it was my problem. Since the 10th of April my 2001 chev. Yukon, at 45 dollars a day plus 200 hundred tow fee a 145 dollar release fee from the police Dept. Has been sitting in the tow yard . They want me to reg. My vehicle here in ca. Before I get my vehicle out of impound. ( Roadone towing) 8584925252.)
I spent money on a one-way for our move to Florida and thus will be registering it there. I have 10 days or so to do this after I bought the vehicle. According to the DMV of CA.
I informed him I had all my paperwork, bill of sale, the title around the corner with my wife at a motel, but he would not afford me the time to get the paperwork, I tried to call my wife but unfortunately she did not hear the phone as she is almost deaf without her hearing aids.
This has created an undue burden on my wife and i ,  since this has happened. The officer said, that my rights as a savergn don't apply here in California. Once my vehicle was towed, he handed me a ticket and my phone and left laughing at me.

I need my vehicle out of impound without fees due to anyone, as like I said my vehicle was towed illeagaly, and given a ticket under the color of authority ,
I am out of money now as I've had to spend my travel and gas money mostly on motels ..we are literally on the street now.
Im requesting assistance from legal aid in this matter altho I could be my own councel . I do believe it would apeas the court if I had a license. Lawyer to represent me.
To let you know a little about me I am a syndicated author, freelance writer and blogger with a world wide following of 5 million people. This can be verified by googling my name. Joseph F Barber.

Update: yesterday I went and seen a lieutenant Lopez and Oceanside Police department it took most of my afternoon to try to speak with him and requested that I go to the DMV and get paperwork stating that I can use the one-day pass in a right to travel that might vehicle I'd gotten the Yukon GMC Yukon 2001 it work as my temporary registration to transport to my home state just before he has to get off around 5 p.m. I guess 4:30 we had spoken and he refused to release the vehicle to me again telling me that the DMV said that that vehicle in this travel from it is only within the state of California which is that true and I've got proof of that and will be pushing it along with the rest of the information that I have online now this is at becoming outreach they openly violate the constitutional rights. Only the constitutional rights of the United States constitution rights in the state of California of its citizens and people coming here

 I found, very little help that can be provided to any citizen against law enforcement in the state of California it seems that they are immune in this police state,  martial law has already been taken in being shown openly  there are a few select officers that I have met here and they seem to be very good men but if it's any recourse to the leadership  I experienced, this far by  lieutenant Lopez and the seemingly corrupt institution of so called law enforcement in oceanside Ca the complaints from multiple individuals speaks for its self  As for  lieutenant Lopez he speaks of following the leader of the law yet directly violates the law and the constitution not only of his state but that of the united states and those rights garrented to thje people the man has no dignity and tries to tell me he's going by the letter of the law instead of the spirit of the law oh by the letter as long the affidavits that I presented to him in the supreme Court rulings show that he is wrong but he fails to acknowledge that and since he doesn't go by that or the rules in supreme Court but by his own judgment hence my rights are being violated and my property stolen from me I'm being extorted and threatened by the local police am I on the safety and welfare how long will my wife we're both veterans the taxpaying citizens hard workers non-drinkers non drug use who now been placed on the street by the ones we expect to protect us or local police

I Have  submitted along with this blog on a separate page or at the bottom of this the proof that I presented to the lieutenant lopez what' my rights our under the united states supreme courts rulings as  to be presented to their attorneys, I'm not sure that they'll even acknowledge it from what I understand he basically probably threw it in the trash as it was being no good when is actual case law and is it true about David that will be submitted to the court unfortunately for them and for me it's escalated into for more financial expense on myself which hints is the key to asset forfeiture they use that simple fact that something most people cannot afford to pay the extreme cost after 3 days I've already got a lien against my property in this equals out to $1,126 within 10 days that every actions and ways to try and take your property in any way they want they can say anything they want do anything you want within this is outrageous that such officers walk the streets today

Law Advocate

Your automobile is your private property, it's your right to travel in it.  Private property cannot be regulated lawfully by a third party.  Right are not privilege.  Traveling is not right if there is a license fee..  The corporation that made the car can be regulated.. it's a corporation. The road is paid for by gas usage for being on them, it's public property like a park  I don't need a license to travel freely or be in a park. You do not control equal and free rights they are already inherent.. no human being has power over another. No corporation has power over a human being.. no government has power of a private individual beings.  This is the meaning of liberty and freedom. You either support liberty or you don't.   The license is a FEE I do not consent to pay and you have to honor that RIGHT of consent.. it has nothing to do with my competence as a person or most of you wouldn't haven't been given that privilege.  This human rights issue has to do with commercial code and the codification of human rights, not a license or the fee.  This is not a petty argument and it's not going away anytime soon.  Are you going to honor my rights as I honor yours?   You have a right to travel in your private automobile on public roads to public park.  Anyone countering this fact is standing against RIGHTS deserves none.  WE have many rights that are not listed on a piece of paper.  The basic outline called Bill of Rights are not the only rights we get.  These rights are inherent and inalienable.. they precede the government and will be there long after it's gone.  Rights are FREEDOM... the freedom to choose voluntarily to consent with community or decline without penalty.  

To force another to consent is terrorism by definition.  https://josephfreedomoranarchy.blogspot.com/2019/05/to-force-another-to-consent-is.html "Justice is not blind, idealism is blind, and ideas are crafted and called legal code".

When Police Violate the Miranda Rule

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• Police Questioning After the Suspect Claims Miranda

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Questions About Miranda Violations

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Millions of Migrants and Paramilitary Troops Will Soon Be Here-Red Dawn Is Taking Shape

Red Dawn

Part one of this series established the unfolding revolution in Honduras. We discussed how and why Honduras is entering a state of civil war and this is in a country whose cities are already the most deadly in the world. Many hard-liners are not going to like this statement: If the American laws related to asylum were literally applied to Honduras, about 80% of the country would qualify for admission to our country. And as if this was not bad enough, the CIA, the UN and other covert “for-hire” mercenaries are in the country exacerbating an already volatile situation.

Like El Salvador, Honduras is home to several paramilitary training bases in which Middle East terrorists groups are trained along side of cartel members. As the CSS revealed over 5 years ago, the training consists of learning the use of automatic weapons, rpgs and a variety of light infantry equipment. As an aside, it was interesting to note that while “the wall” was still a possibility, a DHS contact told me about 4 months ago, that the wall changing designs. It was moving away from the 30 foot high structure to a wall capable of repulsing a light infantry invasion. This was before things got so out of hand at the border. In other words, Trump is expecting a “Red Dawn” action on our southern borders from soldiers trained in South American including in places like El Salvador and Honduras. All of sudden, the possibility of an invasion of the United States becomes very real. More on this will be covered at the end of this article.

Dividing Up Sides In Honduras
 As we know from covert intelligence community history related to “Air America” that the CIA created street gang trafficking in LA to sell cocaine. These CIA “Pablo Escobars’” took their cut and used the money to buy arms from Iran (illegal) and gave the arms to the Contras and their fight against the communist inspired Sandanistas. We also know the Clintons’ drug operation in Arkansas got their big state in this conflict. IF one knows their Central American 1980’s, Iran-Contra Affair history, they will recognize the same plot unfolding in Honduras.

Using weapons procured from the Obama administration Fast and Furious, the CIA has managed to create several gang-style divisions in Honduras. Two of the more prominent are MS-13 (which must now be considered to be an international CIA asset) and the 18th Street Gang.

Both sides use the same strategy that we have also seen in warlords in Africa. Both gangs are using a strategy that consists of distinct elements:

They impose a “war tax” on families within “their” territory. They claim that each house, and individual in it, must pay a “war tax” in order to protect them from the other side.  This is classic protection racket strategy used by every Mafia that has ever existed. But these multiple mafias are the worst of the worst and will soon pose a serious national security concerns for the United States. If a family gets behind in payments (eg someone gets sick, they lose a job), there are no acceptable excuses. Gangs, usually consisting of 5 members, show up at the house and give the family 15 minutes to make good on the payment. When they don’t protocol number two goes into effect.
When the debt collectors show up, and if there are any boys ages 6 and up, 14 is considered prime age, they are “conscripted’ to fight against the other side. This is classic 1980’s Bloods and Crips strategy. Most of these kids have a very short life span. The fathers are instantly murdered and all the women in the house are conscripted into sex trafficking and working as drug mules. The house is confiscated and used to pay the bribes to local and federal authorities in order for the gangs to be left along for the police. Everyone pays protection money.
,

The Consequences
Entire villages in Honduras have had enough and are leaving. This was exposed by the MSM in a PBS report in which the objective of the piece was to highlight individual family struggles against these criminal forces by the average person and why these people deserve asylum when they get to our southern border. I was demonetized for two videos including the radio interview with Kathy Rubio on this same topic. But when MSM came out with their propaganda related to the crisis in Honduras, PBS got a free pass from Youtube. This tells me I am over the target and their AI censors have clear instruction to obscure the American people from the truth that I am bringing forth.

The net effect of this calamity is that it will destabilize all of the region. This will result in massive migration to the United States. This strategy being employed in Honduras is showing up in Guatemala, Cost Rica, Panama, Columbia, Ecuador, Bolivia, Brazil and Mexico.  Peru is the driver of this strategy and the UN, Catholic services, the CIA and George Soros front groups are using Peru as a coordinator to facilitate this plot. My long-term readers have read about this plot. Two DEA agents, an ARSOF retired general and an FBI agent have told me of the existence of the Sanchez Paredes Drug Cartel. They are the Peruvian Army and Executive Branch of their government. International terrorist funds are laundered into the Peruvian nation bank. They in turn, taking their middle man cut, are funding these terrorist organizations in Central and South America. If long-time readers recall, this is the group that brought together the cartels and terrorists and formed the training bases in Central America to train them.  How long has this been going on? I found reference to these unholy alliances dating back to 2006 in an article in the Tucson Daily Star.

Connecting the Dots
I cannot let this article conclude with mentioning the ultra liberal Beto and his doomed Presidential run. In an AOL.com article, on June 24, 2019, Beto said he wanted to impose a war tax on certain American families in order to support healthcare for Veterans. It is a classic wealth redistribution scheme, but that is not the point. Until June 24th, I have never heard of a “war tax”. It is a primary means of exploitation in Honduras used towards building a paramilitary army. Now, one day late Beto is using the same rare term. What business is he in? This reminds me of Obama “we have to build an army that is just as strong, just as powerful as our military…”  Watch out America, my gut tells me this is something worth paying attention to. The investigation into this commences today.

There is another development on our southern border that I am very concerned about and that is the fact that the Mexicans put 15,000 newly formed “National Guard” troops on southern border. Americans have such a short memory. These troops, as described in a Washington Post article published on April 9, 2019, stated that the UNITED NATIONS was training the force which was designed to replace the Federales. The stated purpose of the training was for “humanitarian” purposes. And I will one caveat for the possible humanitarian reasons behind the training. The Oroville Dam nearly failed yesterday as they lost one of the gates and massive amounts of water is escaping. The DWS is working through through the night to try and repair. This earthen dam is 4 feet away from overtopping.

This is what bothers me about the 15,000 troops on the southern border. There are only 6,000 Mexican troops on their border with Guatemala. Shouldn’t we have the numbers reversed? Isn’t the need greater from OTM’s coming from Central America? Let’s further connect some dots here as look at the following facts:

Millions of immigrants are coming north from soon-to-be war torn areas in Central and South America using the “gangster” approach.
Embedded within these migrants are the paramilitary troops that will be coming along side. This is an invasion force and every source I speak with is concerned about this.
In this scenario, the ultimate purpose of the Mexican troops is not catch illegal immigrants, it is to facilitate a Red Dawn invasion breakthrough. And if people think this is far-fetched, haven’t we already seen the Mexican military cross our border and take two American military personnel hostage before releasing them (dress rehearsal related to probing our defenses)?


Conclusion
Will there be a Part 3? Probably. However, until then, please use this as a motivation to get prepped. Homeland defense, given the terror attacks that will precede a Red Dawn invasion are coming soon. You must be ready to guard your yard. You will need food, water, guns, ammo, water, gold (to come out the other side intact), medicine (natural can be stockpiled), tools, allies and the Bible. I have been writing about this for 5 years and it is shocking to me, personally, that we finally sit upon that cliff that I said was coming.

If you want to understand more about what is going on, you will want to listen to the following interview.

Interview with Kathy Rubio who lived in both El Salvador and Honduras. She Worked in the Honduras prisons system as well




 Dave Hodges

How Evil Wins: The Hypocritical Double Standards of Political Outrage

How Evil Wins: The Hypocritical Double Standards of Political Outrage

“She was asked what she had learned from the Holocaust, and she said that 10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and that 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and that the remaining 80 percent could be moved in either direction.”—Kurt Vonnegut

Please spare me the media hysterics and the outrage and the hypocritical double standards of those whose moral conscience appears to be largely dictated by their political loyalties.

Anyone who believes that the injustices, cruelties and vicious callousness of the U.S. government are unique to the Trump Administration has not been paying attention.

No matter what the team colors might be at any given moment, the playbook remains the same. The leopard has not changed its spots. Scrape off the surface layers and you will find that the American police state that is continuing to wreak havoc on the rights of the people under the Trump Administration is the same police state that wreaked havoc on the rights of the people under every previous administration.

Brace yourselves.

While we squabble over which side is winning this losing battle, a tsunami approaches.

Case in point: in Charlottesville, Va.—home of Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, champion of the Bill of Rights, and the nation’s third president—city councilors in a quest for so-called “equity” have proposed eliminating Jefferson’s birthday as a city holiday (which has been on the books since 1945) and replacing it with a day that commemorates the liberation of area slaves following the arrival of Union troops under Gen. Philip Sheridan.

In this way, while the populace wages war over past injustices, injustice in the here and now continues to trample innocent lives underfoot. In Charlottesville, as in the rest of the country, little is being done to stem the tide of the institutional racism that has resulted in disproportionate numbers of black Americans being stopped, frisked, shot at, arrested and jailed.

Just recently, in fact, Phoenix police drew their guns, shouted profanities, assaulted and threatened to shoot a black couple whose 4-year-old daughter allegedly stole a doll from a dollar store. The footage of the incident—in which the cops threaten to shoot the pregnant, young mother in the head in the presence of the couple’s 1- and 4-year-old daughters—is horrifying in every way.

Tell me again why it’s more important to spend valuable political capital debating the birthdays of dead presidents rather than proactively working to put a stop to a government mindset that teaches cops it’s okay to treat citizens of any color with brutality and a blatant disregard for their rights?

It doesn’t matter that Phoenix and Charlottesville are 2100 miles apart. The lethal practices of the American police state are the same all over.

No amount of dissembling can shield us from the harsh reality that the danger in our midst is posed by an entrenched government bureaucracy that has no regard for the Constitution, Congress, the courts or the citizenry.

We’ve got to get our priorities straight if we are to ever have any hope of maintaining any sense of freedom in America. As long as we allow ourselves to be distracted, diverted, occasionally outraged, always polarized and content to view each other—rather than the government—as the enemy, we’ll never manage to present a unified front against tyranny (or government corruption and ineptitude) in any form.

Mind you, by “government,” I’m not referring to the highly partisan, two-party bureaucracy of the Republicans and Democrats. Rather, I’m referring to “government” with a capital “G,” the entrenched Deep State that is unaffected by elections, unaltered by populist movements, and has set itself beyond the reach of the law.

This is the hidden face of a government that has no respect for the freedoms of its citizenry.

So stop with all of the excuses and the hedging and the finger-pointing and the pissing contests to see which side can out-shout, out-blame and out-spew the other. Enough already with the short- and long-term amnesia that allows political sycophants to conveniently forget the duplicity, complicity and mendacity of their own party while casting blame on everyone else.

This is how evil wins.

This is how freedom falls and tyranny rises.

This is how good, generally decent people—having allowed themselves to be distracted with manufactured crises, polarizing politics, and fighting that divides the populace into warring us vs. them camps—fail to take note of the looming danger that threatens to wipe freedom from the map and place us all in chains.

Anytime you have an entire nation so mesmerized by the antics of the political ruling class that they are oblivious to all else, you’d better beware. Anytime you have a government that operates in the shadows, speaks in a language of force, and rules by fiat, you’d better beware. And anytime you have a government so far removed from its people as to ensure that they are never seen, heard or heeded by those elected to represent them, you’d better beware.

The world has been down this road before.

As historian Milton Mayer recounts in his seminal book on Hitler’s rise to power, They Thought They Were Free:

Most of us did not want to think about fundamental things and never had. There was no need to. Nazism gave us some dreadful, fundamental things to think about—we were decent people‑—and kept us so busy with continuous changes and 'crises' and so fascinated, yes, fascinated, by the machinations of the 'national enemies', without and within, that we had no time to think about these dreadful things that were growing, little by little, all around us.

We are no longer living the American Dream. We’re living the American Lie.

Indeed, Americans have been lied to so sincerely, so incessantly, and for so long by politicians of all stripes—who lie compulsively and without any seeming remorse—that they’ve almost come to prefer the lies trotted out by those in government over less-palatable truths.

The American people have become compulsive believers: left-leaning Americans are determined to believe that the world has become a far more dangerous place under Trump, while right-leaning Americans are equally convinced that Trump has set us on a path to prosperity and security.

Nothing has changed.

The police state is still winning. We the people are still losing.

In fact, the American police state has continued to advance at the same costly, intrusive, privacy-sapping, Constitution-defying, heartbreaking, soul-scorching, relentless pace under the current Tyrant-in-Chief as it did under those who occupied the White House before him (Obama, Bush, Clinton, etc.).

Police haven’t stopped disregarding the rights of citizens. Having been given the green light to probe, poke, pinch, taser, search, seize, strip, shoot and generally manhandle anyone they see fit in almost any circumstance, all with the general blessing of the courts, America’s law enforcement officials are no longer mere servants of the people entrusted with keeping the peace. Indeed, they continue to keep the masses corralled, under control, and treated like suspects and enemies and slaves rather than citizens.

SWAT teams haven’t stopped crashing through doors and terrorizing families. Nationwide, SWAT teams continue to be employed to address an astonishingly trivial array of criminal activities or mere community nuisances including angry dogs, domestic disputes, improper paperwork filed by an orchid farmer, and misdemeanor marijuana possession. With more than 80,000 SWAT team raids carried out every year on unsuspecting Americans for relatively routine police matters and federal agencies laying claim to their own heavily armed law enforcement divisions, the incidence of botched raidsand related casualties continue to rise.

The Pentagon and the Department of Homeland Security haven’t stopped militarizing and federalizing local police. Police forces continue to be transformed into heavily armed extensions of the military, complete with jackboots, helmets, shields, batons, pepper-spray, stun guns, assault rifles, body armor, miniature tanks and weaponized drones. In training police to look and act like the military and use the weapons and tactics of war against American citizens, the government continues to turn the United States into a battlefield and “we the people” into enemy combatants.

Schools haven’t stopped treating young people like hard-core prisoners. School districts continue to team up with law enforcement to create a “schoolhouse to jailhouse track” by imposing a “double dose” of punishment for childish infractions: suspension or expulsion from school, accompanied by an arrest by the police and a trip to juvenile court. In this way, the paradigm of abject compliance to the state continues to be taught by example in the schools, through school lockdowns where police and drug-sniffing dogs enter the classroom, and zero tolerance policies that punish all offenses equally and result in young people being expelled for childish behavior.

For-profit private prisons haven’t stopped locking up Americans and immigrants alike at taxpayer expense. States continue to outsource prison management to private corporations out to make a profit at taxpayer expense. And how do you make a profit in the prison industry? Have the legislatures pass laws that impose harsh penalties for the slightest noncompliance in order keep the prison cells full and corporate investors happy.

Censorship hasn’t stopped. First Amendment activities continue to be pummeled, punched, kicked, choked, chained and generally gagged all across the country. The reasons for such censorship vary widely from political correctness, safety concerns and bullying to national security and hate crimes but the end result remained the same: the complete eradication of what Benjamin Franklin referred to as the “principal pillar of a free government.”

The courts haven’t stopped marching in lockstep with the police state.The courts continue to be dominated by technicians and statists who are deferential to authority, whether government or business. Indeed, the Supreme Court’s decisions in recent years have most often been characterized by an abject deference to government authority, military and corporate interests.

Government bureaucrats haven’t stopped turning American citizens into criminals. The average American now unknowingly commits three felonies a day, thanks to an overabundance of vague laws that render otherwise innocent activity illegal, while reinforcing the power of the police state and its corporate allies.

The surveillance state hasn’t stopped spying on Americans’ communications, transactions or movements. On any given day, whether you’re walking through a store, driving your car, checking email, or talking to friends and family on the phone, you can be sure that some government agency, whether it’s your local police, a fusion center, the National Security Agency or one of the government’s many corporate partners, is still monitoring and tracking your every move.

The TSA hasn’t stopped groping or ogling travelers. Under the pretext of protecting the nation’s infrastructure (roads, mass transit systems, water and power supplies, telecommunications systems and so on) against criminal or terrorist attacks, TSA task forces (comprised of federal air marshals, surface transportation security inspectors, transportation security officers, behavior detection officers and explosive detection canine teams) continue to do random security sweeps of nexuses of transportation, including ports, railway and bus stations, airports, ferries and subways, as well as political conventions, baseball games and music concerts. Sweep tactics include the use of x-ray technology, pat-downs and drug-sniffing dogs, among other things.

Congress hasn’t stopped enacting draconian laws such as the USA Patriot Act and the NDAA. These laws—which completely circumvent the rule of law and the constitutional rights of American citizens, continue to re-orient our legal landscape in such a way as to ensure that martial law, rather than the rule of law, our U.S. Constitution, becomes the map by which we navigate life in the United States.

The Department of Homeland Security hasn’t stopped being a “wasteful, growing, fear-mongering beast.” Indeed, this is the agency that is notorious for militarizing the police and SWAT teams; spying on activists, dissidents and veterans; stockpiling ammunition; distributing license plate readers; contracting to build detention camps; tracking cell-phones with Stingray devices; carrying out military drills and lockdowns in American cities; using the TSA as an advance guard; conducting virtual strip searches with full-body scanners; carrying out soft target checkpoints; directing government workers to spy on Americans; conducting widespread spying networks using fusion centers; carrying out Constitution-free border control searches; funding city-wide surveillance cameras; and utilizing drones and other spybots.

The military industrial complex hasn’t stopped profiting from endless wars abroad. America’s expanding military empire continues to bleed the country dry at a rate of more than $15 billion a month (or $20 million an hour). The Pentagon spends more on war than all 50 states combined spend on health, education, welfare, and safety. Yet what most Americans fail to recognize is that these ongoing wars have little to do with keeping the country safe and everything to do with enriching the military industrial complex at taxpayer expense.

The Deep State’s shadow government hasn’t stopped calling the shots behind the scenes. Comprised of unelected government bureaucrats, corporations, contractors, paper-pushers, and button-pushers who are actually calling the shots behind the scenes, this government within a government continues to be the real reason “we the people” have no real control over our so-called representatives. It’s every facet of a government that is no longer friendly to freedom and is working overtime to trample the Constitution underfoot and render the citizenry powerless in the face of the government’s power grabs, corruption and abusive tactics.

And the American people haven’t stopped acting like gullible sheep. In fact, many Americans have been so carried away by their blind rank-and-file partisan devotion to their respective political gods that they have lost sight of the one thing that has remained constant in recent years: our freedoms are steadily declining. And it doesn’t really matter whether it’s a Democrat or a Republican at the helm, because the bureaucratic mindset on both sides of the aisle now seems to embody the same philosophy of authoritarian government.

So you can try to persuade yourself that you are free, that you still live in a country that values freedom, and that it is not too late to make America great again, but to anyone who has been paying attention to America’s decline over the past 50 years, it will be just another lie.

The German people chose to ignore the truth and believe the lie.

They were not oblivious to the horrors taking place around them. As historian Robert Gellately points out, “[A]nyone in Nazi Germany who wanted to find out about the Gestapo, the concentration camps, and the campaigns of discrimination and persecutions need only read the newspapers.”

The warning signs were definitely there, blinking incessantly like large neon signs.

“Still,” Gellately writes, “the vast majority voted in favor of Nazism, and in spite of what they could read in the press and hear by word of mouth about the secret police, the concentration camps, official anti-Semitism, and so on. . . . [T]here is no getting away from the fact that at that moment, ‘the vast majority of the German people backed him.’”

Half a century later, the wife of a prominent German historian, neither of whom were members of the Nazi party, opined: “[O]n the whole, everyone felt well. . . . And there were certainly eighty percent who lived productively and positively throughout the time. . . . We also had good years. We had wonderful years.”

In other words, as long as their creature comforts remained undiminished, as long as their bank accounts remained flush, as long as they weren’t being discriminated against, persecuted, starved, beaten, shot, stripped, jailed and turned into slave labor, life was good.

Life is good in America, too.

Life is good in America as long as you’re not one of the hundreds of migrant children (including infants, toddlers, preschoolers) being detained in unsanitary conditions by U.S. Border Patrol without proper access to food and water, made to sleep on concrete floors, go without a shower for weeks on end, and only allowed to brush your teeth once every 10 days.

Life is good in America as long as you don’t have to come face to face with a trigger-happy cop hyped up on the power of the badge, trained to shoot first and ask questions later, and disposed to view people of color as a suspect class.

Life is good in America as long as you’re able to keep sleep-walking through life, cocooning yourself in political fantasies that depict a world in which your party is always right and everyone else is wrong, and distracting yourself with bread-and-circus entertainment that bears no resemblance to reality.

Life is good in America as long as you’ve got enough money to spare that you don’t mind being made to pay through the nose for the government’s endless wars, subsidization of foreign nations, military empire, welfare state, roads to nowhere, bloated workforce, secret agencies, fusion centers, private prisons, biometric databases, invasive technologies, arsenal of weapons, and every other budgetary line item that is contributing to the fast-growing wealth of the corporate elite at the expense of those who are barely making ends meet—that is, we the 99%. 

Life is good in America for the privileged few, but as It make clear in the book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, it’s getting worse by the day for the rest of us.

 John W. Whitehead