Will a
Police State Protect Your Liberty?
by
Butler Shaffer
Whenever
George Bush gives us that Alfred E. Neuman smirk and begins prattling
about "freedom," I know that some member of his administration is about to
announce the formation of another link in our chain of subjugation to the
state. Like the heads of warring states who fill the media with words of
their dedication to "peace" – all the while looking for bigger clubs with
which to smash their enemies – "freedom," in the mouths of politicians,
has a reverse meaning from the normal import of the word. Just as any
piece of legislation that bears the word "fair" in its title conveys
notice of an expanded governmental power over our lives, the meaning of
freedom is always corrupted when uttered by politicians. Like the
cynically cruel words "work shall make you free" over the gates at Nazi
concentration camps, we must be ever vigilant in how government officials
use language.
Americans are slowly beginning to discover the nature of the police state
that the political establishment has been putting together in recent
decades. In case you are foolish enough to believe that the "Department of
Homeland Security" was but a response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11, be
advised that proposals for such an agency had been considered long before
last September; that legislation for such a body was introduced at least
as early as March 2001, and was being discussed at various symposia and
"think tanks" at the time. You should also make yourself aware of the fact
that the US government had plans in place, prior to 9/11, for an invasion
of Afghanistan – to begin in October 2001 – reportedly for the purpose of
removing from power Afghan officials who were not being cooperative in the
creation of an oil pipeline across their landscape.
Since
9/11, we have witnessed such wholesale intrusions into our lives as the
"Patriot Act," as well as the current holding of so-called combatants in
isolated military camps pending secretly conducted military trials (if,
indeed, the government should ever decide to hold such trials). More
recently, we have heard proposals to have the US military begin policing
American citizens, as well as a warning – from a member of the US Civil
Rights Commission – that Arab-American citizens might be rounded up and
sent to concentration camps in the event of future terrorist attacks. I
suspect that most Americans – even many who, in prior years, posed as
defenders of liberty – will rationalize such proposals as "practical
necessities" in these days of international terrorism. It will likely
discomfort such minds to be told that those constructing the current
police state are only following blueprints designed by statist architects
from the past.
I
recall a bumper-sticker from twenty years ago that read: "There will never
be concentration camps in America: they’ll be called something else!"
Those of us who warned of the truth of this proposition were scorned for
our "conspiracy theories" and "paranoid delusions." Such disparaging
remarks are usually made by those wishing to discourage factual inquiry
into their political schemes. In this context at least, we can
define as "paranoid" one who understands the nature of political systems.
"The Evil Doers hate us for our clean water."--Dick
Cheney.
Model 77--"The
World's Greatest $77 Water Filter." |
It
requires no great genius or years of scholarly study to understand how the
future is implicit in the present. In July, 1987, the Miami Herald,
along with some other newspapers, ran news stories about secret plans, in
the Reagan White House, to suspend the Constitution, establish martial
law, turn over the functioning of the US government to the Federal
Emergency Management Agency, and have military commanders running state
and local governments, in the event of a national crisis. One of the
architects of this plan was the conservative godling, Lt. Col. Oliver
North. There were even rumors, in some circles, that government
concentration camps were being readied for such a possibility.
While
news of such a plan failed to arouse the attention of most legislators,
there was one – Congressman Jack Brooks of Texas – who, during the
Iran-Contra hearings then being conducted, sought to question North about
such reports. Brooks was quickly cut off by the Committee chairman, Hawaii
Senator Daniel Inouye. In the New York Times report of July 14,
1987, Inouye told Brooks: "that question touches upon a highly sensitive
and classified area," to which Brooks responded: "I read in Miami papers
and several others that there had been a plan developed, by that same
agency [NSC], a contingency plan in the event of emergency, that would
suspend the American Constitution." Inouye concluded: "May I most
respectfully request that that matter not be touched upon, at this stage.
If we wish to get into this, I’m certain arrangements can be made for an
executive session." In other words, Sen. Inouye was determined to live up
to the pronunciation of his name: "in no way" are we going to let the
public know what we have planned for them!
Those
who denounce these actions have already been warned by the likes of White
House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer to "watch what they say," while
Attorney General Ashcroft criticized those "who scare peace-loving people
with phantoms of lost liberty." For added measure, Ashcroft offered up the
scarecrow that such critics "only aid terrorists." When one couples this
remark with President Bush’s earlier statement that "if you’re not with us
you’re against us," the fear that dissenters might be treated as
"terrorist supporters" becomes realistic.
I have
neither heard nor read any significant questioning of the suggestion that
internment camps might once again be established in America – as they were
for Japanese-Americans during World War II – or that the US military might
have the kind of presence in our daily lives that one sees in the
banana-republics to the south. We like to pretend that we have learned
much from history that can help us avoid problems experienced by our
ancestors. I am more inclined to the view that our social systems, like
the business cycle, have recurrent themes. How else do we explain the fact
that civilizations seem to follow the same general patterns of growth and
decline, with widespread militarism a common feature preceding the
ultimate collapse?
Perhaps most of us have grown weary of the burden of constant awareness
and responsibility that attend a condition of liberty, and are content to
allow the state to do as it will with us. The "inquiring minds" of modern
America seem more intent on exploring the scandals and sexual peccadilloes
of celebrities than paying attention to the lessons that history, alone,
can provide. As the 19th century historian, Jacob Burckhardt
put it: "The barbarian and the creature of exclusively modern civilization
both live without history."
In the
television mini-series, Holocaust, there was a telling scene in
which two elderly men – who had been among the main characters in the
series – were being taken to the gas chambers. One asked the other: "they
are marching us off to kill us, and we still obey them. Why?" My
immediate response was: "because if we don’t obey them, we will be in
serious trouble!" Have we become so pathetic, that brutish louts can
threaten our lives and liberties to degrees limited only by the range of
their imaginations? Did we learn nothing from Pastor Niemoller about the
need to come to one another’s defense if such values are threatened?
One of
the posthumous victories realized by Adolf Hitler after the Nuremburg
trials was that most Americans came to think of police-state brutalities
and other tyrannical practices solely in terms of oppression against
minority groups. If white police officers brutalize a black suspect, the
defenders of liberty are rightfully mobilized for weeks of protest. But if
white police officers beat up a white suspect, only token criticisms are
heard. A white regime in South Africa that tyrannized blacks was
vigorously condemned, while black-run tyrannies in many parts of Africa
receive little attention. If race, ethnicity, or other minority group
classifications are not implicated in abusive state action, most of us
fail to object. Should concentration camps come into being in America, the
only hurdle that such a system would likely face in the minds of most
Americans would be to make certain that such abusive confinements were not
based upon race, religion, ethnicity, or gender.
We
have thus left to our children the sorry spectacle of a view of history
that condemns a Hitler for his vicious wrongs against Jews, gypsies,
homosexuals, and communists, but leaves, relatively unscathed, the far
more butcherous records of Joseph Stalin, Mao Tse Tung, Pol Pot, and
others. I would not even hazard a guess as to the number of books, motion
pictures, and television programs depicting the horrors of Nazism. I am
equally hard-pressed to identify more than a handful of such creations
describing communist tyrannies. Hitler seems to have come in for greater
criticism than Stalin because he tyrannized minority groups. Stalin,
because he was an equal-opportunity tyrant who brutalized all without
distinction, escapes the condemnation of most.
I have
long held to the view that the institutionalized power of the state is
incompatible with a condition of liberty, and must be opposed no matter
who any given target might be. In what surely must seem a heresy in our
modern Panglossian world, I regard neither Jews nor Palestinians, World
Trade Center workers nor Afghan civilians, as having any superior claim to
the inviolability of their respective lives or property. Liberty,
if it is to exist at all, must be indivisible. It is grounded in a
mutual respect for one another’s claim to immunity from state coercion.
To
subdivide liberty – wherein some are rounded up by the state while
others enjoy immunity – is to destroy it, and to erect in its place
a system grounded in state-defined privilege. This was the weakness
of early America, in which "liberty" was extolled at the same time the
federal government was eagerly protecting slavery and despoiling and
slaughtering Indian tribes. Such contradictions created an entropy that
has never fully worked its way out of the system.
Political systems flourish by separating us from one another; by creating
inter-group conflicts they tell us they, alone, can resolve. Only you and
I can end such divisions by becoming aware that, though we are varied in
our attributes and interests, what we have in common is a need to come to
the defense of one another’s individual liberties. We need to understand –
as we slowly sink into the quicksand of the Bush/Ashcroft despotism – that
if the state can round up Arab-Americans and send them to concentration
camps, they can round up any of us; if the US Army can be
positioned to fire at Afghan and Iraqi civilians, its deployment in
American cities can be just as deadly.
The
extent of your liberty and mine can never rise any higher than what you
and I insist upon for those we regard as the least among us. If you do not
already understand this essential truth, our liberties have already been
lost, and we have become little more than tin-cup beggars for special
indulgences.
July
27, 2002
Butler Shaffer teaches at the
Southwestern University School of Law.
Copyright © 2002 LewRockwell.com
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