No Freedom Left Unharmed: The Terror State in America by Bill Buppert

“We’re after power and we mean it. You fellows were pikers, but we know the real trick, and you’d better get wise to it. There’s no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals.

Well, when there aren’t enough criminals, one makes them…you create a nation of lawbreakers – and then you cash in on guilt. Now that’s the system, Mr. Rearden.”

– Alisa Zinov’yevna Rosenbaum (also known as Ayn Rand) Atlas Shrugged

The modern state and government have one primary goal in mind: the maintenance and expansion of political power to horizontally and vertically regulate and tax every transaction of human behavior within its jurisdiction, individuals and firms alike. For America, that means the unfortunates living in the confines of the common geographical boundaries recognized as the US and it possessions and according to the IRS, any place on Earth an American holding current citizenship resides. The US has been a military garrison state since 1860 with short interregnums of less war-like times. With the end of the Civil War and the tyrannical consolidation of the Lincolnian imperial project, the American military apparatus was focused on continuing its campaign to eradicate or threaten into docility the aboriginals who had originally peopled the continent. By the 1890s, the aboriginal extinction/resettlement plan had everything but a bow tied on it. The politicians in Washington started to get restless and set their sights on the exclusive colonial empire club and wanted to carve out some extraterritorial gains while the going was good thus the annexation of Hawaii in 1893 and the wholesale expropriation of the Spanish possessions in the Caribbean and the Philippines by 1898. The empire has barely stopped for breath ever since.

My frequent readers will recall that terrorism is the threat or use of political violence against non-combatants and innocents. You will note that absence the use of this method, no government on earth could exist. The existing government merely cherry-pick the non-state actors for not implementing terrorism under the more reputable banner of government. The FBI definition is somewhat more obtuse and circumspect but they need to keep their masters out of hot water: The unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a Government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives. You’ll notice the rulers are careful to couch the word unlawful in front of violence as opposed to the lawful violence dealt out by American political authority at home and abroad..

Despite the perilously close grasp of a totalitarian state by the US government in the first half of the twentieth century, it never quite took but the last half-century provided the means and the apparatus to finally make it work. The attack on the Twin Towers in New York provided an overwhelming justification for both secret and not so clandestine measures to turn America into the Orwellian wet dream it is proud to be today. The twenty first century provided the American state with the collectivist accelerant it needed, a reason to pry ionto the most private affairs fo its millions of subjects at will.

Many others have chronicled the rise of the police state, the new charter for an omniscient NSA and security apparatus and the various notions that inaugurated the nod and the wink towards torture. All of these things have integrated a tapestry of both real and potential oppression that may not have even existed in the now extant Soviet empire under new management. The US government stands as the premier existential threat to human liberty everywhere it casts its evil eye.

The crux of the notion is that a government-sponsored war on terror knows absolutely no legal or statutory limits. Whether the White House Office of Legal Council (OLC) approved use of torture, the massive campaign by the spy agencies to vacuum up every human transaction by Americans at home and abroad to include every other human they can place under surveillance or the burgeoning epidemic of police violence against taxpayers, the game is afoot. On the approved American political stage where the stumbling players act out an unconvincing kabuki dance of differing philosophies, all the key officials and their sycophantic executive agency apparatchiks dance to the same tune: to clamp an iron fist over every possible blush and activity of human existence trying to wring out reasons to watch them, tax them, fine them or jail them. Or worse.

As I mentioned earlier, plenty of other writers have detailed the shrinking individual freedoms that Americans enjoy from illegal vegetation to include both marijuana and raw milk to the hyper-violent statist police culture that puts everyone in constant danger of being maimed or killed in the name of officer safety.

The stark realization must be that America is no longer free and no longer a nation of individuals capable of remaining free if they run afoul of the government’s innumerable laws, regulations and diktats. The War on Terror (whatever its name may change to over time) is not only a war on the world but a war first and foremost on the hundreds of millions of unfortunates with American birth certificates and passports living in the US tax jurisdiction.

There is quite literally no brake whatsoever on the slide to despotism and tyranny that is modern Americas because the courts and executive agencies agree on one thing: their power cannot be diminished and it will not stop expanding. If you don’t believe me, try some of the following:

  • Don’t stop for the flashing lights on the road pirate vehicle behind you.
  • Build without a permit.
  • Stop paying your taxes.
  • File a complaint at the police department on cop misbehavior.

The twentieth century totalitarians could only dream of such power built on the slimmest of evidence and shabbiest of excuses to forcibly detain or cage (or maim or kill depending on your level of resistance) you.

It gets worse, look at the fifteen things on this list. The fact of the matter is there is so much law and regulation, any one of us could be picked up in the middle of the night and carted off to be interrogated or mauled by whatever uniformed thugs are sent to fetch you.

No one is safe anymore, it almost seems as if one is living on borrowed time outside a cage in America before the myriad malum prohibitum laws you have broken on a daily basis get you ensnared in the legal system or worse.

Everyone talks about the tipping point or asks when is the complete usurpation of the Constitution going to take place. The answer to the former is soon if not now and the answer to the latter is 1791.

I have said before, if you look at your children and grandchildren and think of how hard their life is going to be because of the failures, missteps, malpractice and sheer brutality that is the American government and its remora states, go look in the mirror and hold yourself at fault. The respective states in the union or merely vassal alliances with the central government. Hell, our grandparents and their forebears are just as responsible as they sat back and watched their neighbors and friends be molested and destroyed by government power.

Ask Ben Franklin’s grandson, young Benjamin Franklin Bache and William Duane at the Anti-Federalist American Aurora in 1798, the tens of millions of indentured servants and chattel slaves in 19th century America to the curious but prescient American Protective League under Wilson which provided an early glimpse at the “snitch culture” the government has been prattling about and encouraging since the end of WWII.

Much like the Stasi-inspired informant system (on millions of government supplied 3×5 cards, don’t you know) and the Cuban analogs in block watch committees, the US Federal government has an almost insuperable appetite to find out everything you know and think. The FBI and DHS is even asking EMS responders to be snitches.

Those who think this won’t end badly for individual freedom and liberty are either terribly naïve or have finally relented that a carbon-based Borg nation may be the better way to advance humanity. Good luck with that.

The totality of Federal government intrusion is on an unprecedented scale especially for a nation that has not yet admitted it is essentially bankrupt by all available metrics. Not only does it continue to spend money it does not have to sustain a system that is the mortal enemy of liberty and decency, it seems hell-bent on taking the entire planet with it.

The War on Terror gives every excuse it needs to establish Binney’s “turnkey totalitarianism”; America’s foreign enemies “don’t hate us for our freedom”, its domestic enemies do and they occupy the corridors of power in Mordor on the Potomac.

The modern Terror state in America is nothing less than a fulfillment of Orwell’s and Huxley’s worst premonitions about just how bad government can be and just how evil the minds at the levers of power can become.

“Experience hath shewn, that even under the best forms of government those entrusted with power have, in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”

-Thomas Jefferson

24 thoughts on “No Freedom Left Unharmed: The Terror State in America by Bill Buppert”

  1. It seems strange to publish Ayn Rand’s full name. Would you do the same with Mark Twain? Both are authors who changed their names early in life, for whatever reason and went on to have huge fame under their new names. It smells a bit of the old fashioned parlor game “naming the Jew”. Was that your intention?

    1. Jackson,

      Samuel Clements, indeed.

      How interesting, I think birth names are important. No intention of playing name the Jew but I can name a number of Jews who had a significant impact on my thinking and changed my life for the better to include Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard, David Friedman, Patri Friedman and Friedrich Hayek among others. Rand was a great entry drug but her atheistic cultism and exclusionary rule on dissent turned me off Objectivism long ago.

      Would the same objection be levied if I referred to the occupant of the Offal Office as Barry Soetoro (or Barack Soetoro, Barry Obama, Barack Obama) when his birth name was the same as his present nom de plume? Is there a secret prohibition on revealing birth names I am not aware of? Is there an unwritten rule that public domain names of luminaries must remain concealed in plain view?

      I happen to think the most interesting part of her name is the obvious Russian pedigree that would speak to her genuine distrust of collectivism and Bolshevism.

      Bill

      1. “Rand was a great entry drug but her atheistic cultism and exclusionary rule on dissent turned me off Objectivism long ago.”

        That’s not entirely false, but it is entirely misleading for two reasons. First, it’s irrelevant with regard to the philosophy itself. Mainly, it’s “picking and choosing” facts, particularly from a bit of her life that was heavily influenced by others. Goes to show what being heavily influenced by others will get you.

        IOW the charge requires an extremely narrow context to be true. Granted that she had a knack for using false founding premises, and her approach to the necessity of the modern State was a classic example. “Moral imperative”…really? Sounds more like Kant than Rand.

        Her social skills were less than ideal and her judgments in romance were far from self-serving. “Do as I say and not as I do.” And yes, it was her hypocrisy and various errors that became enshrined as “Big-O Objectivism” when her estate was turned into a Church. But that’s a comment on those players and not her, and it’s not even a tiny comment on her philosophy.

        1. Jim,

          I always value your counsel but in this you are mistaken. I am not only influenced by the execrable behavior of Rand but the minarchist philosophy she created. I don’t want less government because I don’t desire just a little death or rape or pillage, it is all wrong in its totality.

          The Objectivist construct since her death has passed on to the awful and tyrannical Peikoff who I think is a worthy successor to her totalitarian temptation in the strident militarism and adherence to idiotic minarchist principles.

          A Peikoff gem:

          Question: “When if ever is it moral for a government to torture its enemies?”

          Mr. Peikoff’s answer: It is moral for a “proper government” to use torture against “real enemies violating rights.” Thus one might truly apply the adjective “proper” to a government that tortures. According to Mr. Peikoff torture is sometimes necessary in order to “advance the war for freedom.” He does not say what war that is or ever was, indeed he gives no historical examples of (what we might call) “proper torture” at all. Regarding “real enemies” he assumes as part of “proper” that the (proper) government will use a valid procedure to determine that the man to be tortured is a real enemy.

          This is the value of the state to Rand and Peikoff:

          All the key features of the capitalist state—its validation, its powers and limits, the prerogatives and interrelationships of its citizens—are unified, because all are derived from a single principle: the worldly self-preservation of the individual. In this view, the state is a form of connection among the Many—a connection made by the Many, and real only through their agreement. Here we see not a One transcending the Many, but a One in the Many. Or, putting Thales into Latin, e pluribus unum—the I formula.

          Childs’ letter to Rand ultimately answered everything I needed to know about Objectivism: https://www.lewrockwell.com/1970/01/roy-a-childs-jr/objectivism-and-the-state-an-open-letter-to-ayn-rand/

          Thanks, Jim.

          1. “This is the value of the state to Rand and Peikoff.”

            I can’t let that go, because it’s close to my point. I readily agree that Rand completely messed up the practical implications of her government ideas. That’s what happens when you begin with a false foundational premise…eventually the errors show.

            But as with all facts, none of that says a single word about the truth of various identifications and conclusions along the way, and in that she was almost entirely correct. That’s why the influence of her IDEAS are weighing so heavily currently. It’s the stuff she got right that’s doing that, not the stuff she got wrong.

            The reason your position about her appears so sensible, is precisely BECAUSE of what happened in her later years and especially after her death. I think I’ve read the Child’s thing, but I’ll take a closer look as soon as I can. You should be aware that my own philosophy hasn’t changed hardly a whit since I was very young, and I knew nothing about Rand until well into my 20s. IOW, philosophically speaking, I’m not any sort of convert and probably with regard to modern Objectivism, you’ve been overwhelmingly exposed to converts.

            Lastly, I’ve intentionally kept myself nowhere nearly as well-read as you, in order that I may appeal to the facts and not to what people say about them. I care only about the ideas and their correspondence (or not) with reality. I’ll take a look at Childs…how would you like my reply?

            1. Jim,

              With respect, I tend to think we agree more than disagree and as I have gotten older, I have taken it as a moral absolute that the ownership of other human beings through any means lacking consent and slavery in all its stripes is unacceptable. Therefore, all minarchists, even the poseurs in Randian Objectivism, tend to embrace limited government which is simply an entry drug to large scale statism or anarchy, whatever path they choose, most choose the former.

              Your reply to Childs will be published as a blog posting if you don’t mind.

              To me, Childs is the nail in the coffin for Objectivism and its internal intellectual contradictions.

              Bill

          2. And—what in the world is wrong with that quote, especially this…

            “and real only through their agreement.”

            Am I mistaken that this is precisely what you believe as well? That’s how everything got turned upside-down in Objectivism (I call ARIanism the “Perfect Inversion” of Objectivism). Philosophically, that phrase should be taken literally.

          3. Thanks, Bill. I must not be following since I’m sure you agree that self-owned individuals can make whatever agreements they wish. To me, that’s what makes any agreement real, just as cited in the quote.

            We both know there are inherent contradictions in minarchy. That’s why the only sensible defense comes from phaed, who just redefines what it means. Obviously if it’s wholly consensual, it’s not minarchy in any usual sense.

            I’ll see what Childs has to say. I hope it’s not only politics since I already know she was in large part wrong, and also because philosophically, it’s derivative of epistemology and ethics, at least.

    2. For the trivia buffs:

      Ben Kingsley, oddly enough, like Obama or Soetoro, had a white mother and Kenyan father. Kingsley was also born as an Indian Muslim.

      1. Katy Perry
      Real Name: Katy Hudson
      2. Demi Moore
      Real Name: Demetria Guynes
      3. Albert Brooks
      Real Name: Albert Einstein
      4. Meg Ryan
      Real Name: Margaret Mary Emily Anne Hyra
      5. Natalie Wood
      Real Name: Natalia Nikolaevna Zakharenko
      6. Woody Allen
      Real Name: Allen Konigsberg
      7. Louis C.K.
      Real Name: Louis Szekely
      8. Joaquin Phoenix
      Real Name: Joaquin Rafael Bottom
      9. Garrison Keillor
      Real Name: Gary Edward Keillor
      10. Chevy Chase
      Real Name: Cornelius Crane Chase
      11. Tina Fey
      Real Name: Elizabeth Stamatina Fey
      12. Ben Kingsley
      Real Name: Krishna Pandit Bhanji
      13. Olivia Wilde
      Real Name: Olivia Jane Cockburn
      14. Alan Alda
      Real Name: Alphonso d’Abruzzo
      15. Portia De Rossi
      Real Name: Amanda Lee Rogers
      16. Diane Keaton
      Real name: Diane Hall
      17. Michael Caine
      Real Name: Maurice Micklewhite
      18. Larry King
      Real Name: Lawrence Harvey Zeigler
      19. George Michael
      Real Name: Georgios Panayiotou
      20. Whoopi Goldberg
      Real Name: Caryn Johnson
      21. Hulk Hogan
      Real Name: Terry Jean Bollette
      22. Bea Arthur
      Real Name: Bernice Frankel
      23. Rock Hudson
      Real Name: Leroy Harold Scherer, Jr.
      24. Miranda July
      Real Name: Miranda Jennifer Grossinger
      25. Elvis Costello
      Real Name: Declan Patrick McManus
      26. Joan Crawford
      Real Name: Lucille LeSueur
      27. Kirk Douglas
      Real Name: Issur Danielovitch Demsky
      28. Carmen Electra
      Real Name: Tara Patrick
      29. Audrey Hepburn
      Real Name: Edda Kathleen van Heemstra Hepburn-Ruston
      30. Judy Garland
      Real Name: Frances Gumm
      31. Truman Capote
      Real Name: Truman Streckfus Persons
      32. Julia Child
      Real Name: Julia Carolyn McWilliams
      33. Dido
      Real Name: Florian Cloud de Bounevialle Armstrong
      34. Elvira
      Real Name: Cassandra Peterson
      35. Martin Sheen
      Real Name: Ramon Antonio Gerard Estevez
      36. Courtney Love
      Real Name: Love Michelle Harrison
      37. Fred Astaire
      Real Name: Frederick Austerlitz
      38. Tea Leoni
      Real Name: Elizabeth Tea Pantaleoni
      39. Bruno Mars
      Real Name: Peter Gene Hernandez
      40. Gene Simmons
      Real Name: Chaim Witz
      41. Helen Mirren
      Real Name: Ilyena Lydia Vasilievna Mironov
      42. Shania Twain
      Real Name: Eileen Regina Edwards
      43. Anne Rice
      Real Name: Howard Allen O’Brien
      44. Julianne Moore
      Real Name: Julie Smith
      45. Kim Cattrall
      Real Name: Clare Woodgate
      46. Stevie Wonder
      Real Name: Steveland Judkins
      47. Abigail Van Buren (aka Dear Abby)
      Real Name: Pauline Ester Friedman
      48. Desi Arnas
      Real Name: Desiderio Albert Arnaz y De Acha III
      49. Cary Grant
      Real Name: Archibald Alexander Leach
      50. Marilyn Monroe
      Real Name: Norma Jean Mortensen
      51. Dusty Springfield
      Real Name: Mary Isobel Catherine O’Brien
      52. Michael Keaton
      Real Name: Michael Douglas
      53. Spike Lee
      Real Name: Shelton Lee
      54. Natalie Portman
      Real Name: Natalie Herschlag
      55. Harry Houdini
      Real name: Ehrich Weiss

  2. Nice list. What’s in a name, eh?

    I’m a Jew. I didn’t know Ayn Rand was of Jewish heritage, nor do I particularly care one way or the other, but it’s interesting to know, for knowledge’s sake.

    1. Harry,

      Names are simply identifiers to differentiate and some think the significance is deeper than that. Thanks for visiting.

      Bill

    1. And:

      Spiro Agnew Spiro Theodore Anagnostopoulos

      David Ben-Gurion David Green

      Napoleon Bonaparte Napoleann Buonaparte

      Willy Brandt Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm

      Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter

      Chiang Kai-shek Chaing Chung-cheng

      Ho Chi Minh Nguyen Sinh Cung

      Bill Clinton William Jefferson Blythe

      Amor de Cosmos Emperor Haile Sellassie Ras Taf(f)ari Makonnen

      Gerald Ford Leslie Lynch King Jr

      Che Guevara Ernesto Guevara

      Ulysses S Grant Hiram Ulysses Grant

      Tenzin Gyatso
      (The Dalai Lama) Lhama Thondup or Llama Dhondrub

      Gary Hart Gary Hartpence

      Vladimir Ilich Lenin Vladimir Ilich Ulyanov

      Malcolm X Malcolm Little

      Nelson Mandela Rolihlahla Mandela

      Golda Meir Golda Mabovitz

      Edward R. Murrow Egbert Roscoe Murrow

      Nicholas II Nikolai Aleksandrovich

      Shimon Peres Shimon Persky

      Yizhak Shamir Yizhak Jazernicki

      Joseph Stalin Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvilli

      Leon Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronshtein

      Isoroku Yamamoto Isoroku Sadayoshi

    1. Curtis,

      I suspect that Paul Krugman has a portrait of him in his office. White or Weiss was more collectivist scum gathered around RedDR.

      From Wikipedia thanks to the Venona transcripts:

      Harry Dexter White (October 9, 1892 – August 16, 1948) was an American economist, senior U.S. Treasury department official. He passed numerous secrets to the Soviet Union, especially during the wartime period when it was an ally of the U.S. He was the senior American official at the 1944 Bretton Woods conference. He dominated the conference and imposed his vision of post-war financial institutions over the objections of John Maynard Keynes, the British representative. After the war, White was a major architect of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank.

      White was accused in 1948 of spying for the Soviet Union. In August 1948, White testified and defended his record to the House Un-American Activities Committee. Three days after testifying he died of a heart attack. Newly opened Soviet records show that he did in fact pass secret state information to the Soviets during World War II. White’s biographer Benn Steil says White acted out of idealism, not as a member of the Communist Party, “not simply because he believed that the Soviet Union was a vital U.S. ally but because he also believed passionately in the success of the bold Soviet experiment with socialism.” Steil says White was not a Communist party member because, “White would not take orders from Moscow. He worked on his own terms. He joined no underground movements.”

  3. Mr. Bill,
    Just found your website. What a magnificent quote from Ayn Rand you have posted!! Unfortunately, her writings have been co-opted and redefined by the same necons (pay-triots, et al) and in the same vein that William F. Buckley co-opted and reinvented “conservatism,” specifically to propel that Rockefeller/Rothschild/elitist agenda to create the “New World Order” of total enslavement to them.

    1. Jeff,

      Thanks for the kind words and please stick around and peruse the site for other material, lots to read and think about.

      Bill

  4. When the MRAPS show up with a .50 cal mounted on the roof and shooting at anything moving, AMERICA will fall without a fight, you are all so deceived it is sad, MOST of you have no clue what’s coming and the worst part of it is you don’t care…

  5. Of course I wasn’t aiming my comment at you BILL, you’ve done a better job at laying out the problems then most I’ve seen, WE spent years digging through their records, WE’RE GOING TO BE DEALING WITH SCUM FROM HELL and it’s going to get really crazy out there, WHEN the big asteroid hits, GET OUT OF DODGE right then,don’t wait to see whats going to happen,YOU wouldn’t like it anyway..and IF you live on any coast, MOVE NOW, it’s coming………..

  6. Okay, Bill, I read the Childs piece. There’s no need for me to post a reply since in large part I agree with him. And for any principle with which I might disagree, Rand suffers the same (what I would call) error. Chief among them, as you probably know, is the ethical error of the “moral imperative” of retaliation, being an instance of the Fallacy of Tu Quoque, and the likewise misidentification of fraud as an instance of force, which was discussed recently on the forum.

    On the particular debate at hand, I completely agree with Childs and not with Rand. While I don’t classify myself as an anarcho-capitalist on the basis that the purchase of an immoral action is no better than the vote for it, even I agree that Rand’s counter to it was infantile at best. So on the matter of which of the two has the more rational approach to government, Childs wins hands down.

    I’d still ask you to consider that this issue is hardly the thrust of her philosophy. It’s both highly derivative and in her case, just plain erroneous. Indeed, it’s her philosophy that can shine the light on why she’s so wrong. Simply put, it’s the factual identification that humans are volitional animals combined with the subsequent identification that the good consists of furthering one’s own values. That, plus the trivially obvious recognition that we are all the same in this respect.

    “To a hammer…” Naturally you’re mostly concerned with politics and governments, and on that derivative topic I concede Rand doesn’t even come close. This is not some new revelation on my part. I’d nonetheless claim, and will, that her contributions to both ethics and especially epistemology were unmatched in the 20th Century. I think you’ll find, and most likely already have, that the reason Liberty and Abolition haven’t swept the masses is because of a failure of hierarchically superior principles to be rationally founded. I’d strongly defend the argument that those principles, by and large, can be found throughout Rand’s writings. This would explain why so many voluntarists find deep philosophical kinship in many of her ethical writings.

    It also explains why I believe that Leonard Peikoff being entrusted with her estate, set the world back about half a century. In a nutshell, her few errors such as this one were raised to the level of unchallengeable dogma, which in turn is the highest error a genuine Objectivist could make—accepting conclusions on faith rather than through rational identification. Hence the charge, “Perfect Inversion.”

    Thanks for the challenge, Bill…onward and forward.

  7. I’ve continued to practice two out of those four challenges and SO FAR SO GOOD! Screw the satanic & corrupt “man.”

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