The Federal Government Has Become an Occupying Army

Government is always an irritant.  Being told what to do and how to do it is irksome.  No one enjoys paying their taxes or obeying traffic regulations or filling out confusing and sometimes meaningless forms.  But we do it because the overall value of living in an ordered society outweighs the frustration of these petty irritants.  After all, without the law we would have much bigger problems than a traffic cop writing us a ticket for speeding.  We’d be fighting for our lives against some maniac who took offense at how we didn’t go fast enough on a highway.

But in the last year we have reached that threshold where the government we live under is actually a greater harm than the good it provides.  I don’t mean this in the sense that it would be better if tomorrow we lived in the state of nature.  If the post office and the police and the highway department and the local Walmart shut down operation and their former employees became gangs or roving marauders pillaging the town square, I think things would be even worse.  But what has happened is that organs of the state have stopped performing their agreed upon functions.  The police now let mobs attack US citizens at will on US soil and have no intention of stopping them.  The government no longer interferes when corporate entities discriminate against citizens based on things like their political beliefs or even the color of their skin.  The government health agencies have stopped providing accurate information about something as frightening as a biological weapon that a foreign power has unleashed against us.  Worse, they are mandating policies that disrupt almost every facet of our public and private lives and are doing so in an almost vindictive way that provides no health benefit.  The government intelligence agencies now regularly spy on US citizens and then collude with tech companies and the supposedly neutral press to target their political opponents.

Even the citizens who align with the party now in power, the Democrats, are finding it harder to justify the crazier and crazier outrages that have been going on.  Avowed progressives like Matt Taibbi and Glenn Greenwald find themselves forced to make common cause with their cultural enemies at Fox News because they still value the concept of honest journalism, government accountability and the Bill of Rights.

The federal government has decided they don’t need us anymore.  They believe they have crossed some threshold beyond which we no longer have any say over what they do.  And it is becoming clear that they will try to make that a permanent situation.

Needless to say, this doesn’t sit well with millions of people.  What isn’t clear is how to remedy the situation.  The federal law enforcement and military have been making very clear statements that they are watching us carefully and will drag any dissenters away to prison if they think any organization is threatening their control over the population.  It will take leaders of the states to stand up to that kind of physical coercion.  And even that isn’t a sure thing.  It’s amazing how quickly the FBI has come to resemble the KGB or the Stasi.

So, what’s the point of this essay?  It’s to help some people reset their thinking.  The federal government is no longer the legitimate representative of the people of the United States.  It’s a criminal gang that has taken control of the territory where you live.  It is very powerful and well organized and dangerous.  But you have no moral obligation to honor it.  You may obey it out of fear or because you see an advantage to do so but don’t mistake that for patriotism.  You are in the same position that the French people were under the Nazi occupation.  Vichy could pretend to rule “Free France” but everyone knew he was just a cowardly collaborator.  You may have to obey but it is without consent.

And if the day comes when we regain our freedom there may be very dire consequences for the men who did this to us.  Remember who they are.