America’s Last Chance

by Paul Craig Roberts

January 17, 2012

The ACLU might think that although the federal executive branch has successfully elevated itself above the law, state and local police forces are still accountable. We must hope that they are, but I doubt it.

The militarization of local police has received some attention. What has not received attention is that state and local police are also being federalized. It is not only military armaments and spy technology that local police are receiving from Washington, but also an attitude toward the public along with federal oversight and the collaboration that goes with it. When Homeland Security, a federal police force, comes into states, as I know has occurred in Georgia and Tennessee, and doubtless other states, and together with the state police stop cars and trucks on Interstate highways and subject them to warrantless searches, what is happening is the de facto deputizing of the state police by Homeland Security. This is the way that Goering and Himmler federalized into the Gestapo the independent police forces of German provinces such as Prussia and Bavaria.

Homeland Security has expanded its warrantless searches far beyond “airline security.”

The budding gestapo agency now conducts warrantless searches on the nation’s highways, on bus and train passengers, and at Social Security offices. On Tuesday January 3, 2012, the Social Security office in Leesburg, Florida, apparently a terrorist hotspot, became a Homeland Security checkpoint. The DHS Gestapo armed with automatic weapons and sniffer dogs demanded IDs from local residents visiting their local Social Security office.

Thomas Milligan, district manager for the Social Security Administration office, said staff were not informed their offices were about to be stormed by armed federal police officers. DHS officials refused to answer questions asked by local media and left with no explanation at noon, reports Infowars.com.

The DHS gestapo justified its takeover of a Leesburg Florida Social Security office as being an integral part of “Operational Shield,” conducted by the Federal Protective Service to detect “the presence of unauthorized persons and potentially disruptive or dangerous activities.”

One wonders if even brainwashed flag-waving “superpatriots” can miss the message. The Social Security office of Leesburg, Florida, population 19,086 in central Florida is not a place where terrorists devoid of proper ID might be visiting. To protect America from the scant possibility that terrorists might be congregating at the Leesburg Social Security office, the tyrants in Washington sent the Federal Protective Service at who knows what cost to demand ID from locals visiting their Social Security office.

What is this all about, except to establish the precedent that federal police, a new entity in American life, the Federal Protective Service, has authority over state and local police offices and can appear out of the blue to interrogate local citizens.

Why the ACLU thinks it is going to get any action out of a Congress that has accommodated the executive branch’s destruction of habeas corpus, due process, and the constitutional and legal prohibitions against torture is beyond me. But at least the issue is raised. But don’t expect to hear about it from the “mainstream media.”

Americans in 2012, although only a few are aware, live in a concentration camp that is far better controlled than the one portrayed by George Orwell in 1984. Orwell, writing in the late 1940s could not imagine the technology that makes control of populations so thorough as it is today. Orwell’s protagonist could at least have hope. In 2012, with the erasure of privacy by the US government, protagonists can be eliminated by hummingbird-sized drones before they can initiate a protest, much less a rebellion.

Never in human history has a people been so easily and willingly controlled by a hostile government as Americans, who are the least free people on earth. And a large percentage of Americans still wave the flag and chant USA! USA! USA!

The Bush regime operated as if the Constitution did not exist. Any semblance of constitutional government that remained after the Bush years was terminated when Congress passed and President Obama signed the National Defense Authorization Act. One wonders how the National Rifle Association, the defender of the Second Amendment, will now fare. If there is no Constitution, how can there be a Second Amendment? If the President, at his discretion, can set aside habeas corpus and due process and murder citizens based on unproven suspicions, why can’t he set aside the Second Amendment?

Indeed, it is folly to expect a police state to tolerate an armed population.

The NRA is very supportive of the police and military. Now that these armed organizations are being turned against the public, how will the NRA adjust its posture?

Many NRA members, pointing to the “Oath Keepers,” former members of the military who pledge to defend the Constitution, and to police chiefs who support the Second Amendment, believe that the police and military will disobey orders to attack citizens.

But we already witness constantly the gratuitous brutality of “our” police against peaceful protesters. We witness military troops all over the world murder citizens who protest government abuses. Why can’t it happen here?

If you don’t want it to happen here, you had better figure out some way to get Ron Paul into the Presidency and to get him a cabinet and subcabinet that will support him.

Meanwhile, the police state grows. On January 4, 2012, the Obama regime announced by decree, not by legislation, the creation of the Bureau of Counterterrorism which will among other tasks “seek to strengthen homeland security, countering violent extremism.”

Take a moment to think. Do you know of any “violent extremism” happening in the US?

The regime is telling you that it needs a new police bureau with unaccountable powers to “strengthen homeland security” against a nonexistent bogeyman.

So who will be the violent extremists who require countering by the Bureau of Counterterrorism? It will be peace activists, the Occupy Wall Street protesters, the unemployed and foreclosed homeless. It will be whoever the police state says. And there is no due process or recourse to law.

Given the facts before you, you are out of your mind if you think Ron Paul’s rhetoric against the welfare state is more important than his defense of liberty.

This article was originally published at PaulCraigRoberts.org and has been used here with permission.

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11 Responses to America’s Last Chance

Jon

January 17, 2012 at 2:38 am

All you hear is Ron Paul is a racist, Ron Paul will isolate us from the rest of the world and we’ll be wiped out by the terrorists, Ron Paul flies 1st class, Ron Paul is a nut job, I like everything but his foreign policy because that what’s I heard in the news so I’m voting for Mitt Romney even though his top donors are the big banks that got bailed out and I don’t understand what his foreign policy is (isn’t he an isolationist?), Ron Paul is old, and, my all time favorite, Ron Paul is unelectable (even though he’s been ELECTED to congress multiple times and has been there for over 30 years…so I’m going to vote for a governor with little to no experience. And then we wonder why most of the world thinks Americans are just a bunch of fat, lazy stupid people. Goodbye Constitution, it was great while it lasted.
womanforpaul

January 17, 2012 at 4:45 am

Ron Paul, a patriot, who has honorably served his country, defends both the constitution and civil liberties, and is for peace and prosperity. Dr. Paul has the wisdom, foresight, honesty and integrity to be president.

Dr. Paul believes spending and deficits are destroying this country. Dr. Paul’s budget plan would save $1 trillion in the first year. Besides the spending cuts, there are other issues of importance to voters. For conservatives, Dr. Paul scores an A+ on all of them: Second Amendment protection, pro-life record, right-to-work, pro-business, anti-tax, states’ rights, you name it.

Dr. Paul also believes America should have the strongest national defense on earth — which he believes begins with not trying to constantly police the earth. Right now, our government puts our best and bravest in harm’s way on a regular basis for questionable reasons and with no discernible notion of victory. This is not supporting the troops. It’s abusing them. Dr. Paul wants an end to this absurd, costly policy.

The voters have declared Dr. Paul the alternative to the liberal, flip flopping Mitt Romney. The other candidates are simply irrelevant. In the New Hampshire Primary, Dr. Paul received more votes than all the supposed Anti-Romney (Santorum, Gingrich, and Perry) candidates combined.

The question for Republican voters is not whether they can afford to vote for Dr. Paul – it’s whether they can afford not to.

America Needs Ron Paul.
Slobodan Stamenic

January 17, 2012 at 9:02 am

It is better for this grandpa to not become US president.
Because they will kill him as a rabbit.
Edward

January 17, 2012 at 10:08 am

Obama was the great hope in the last election. Ron Paul is the great hope in this election. But the rich and powerful do not spend almost two years before each election making sure that the electorate “know” who to elect. And the rights of the electorate deminish with each election.
So I would hope that, instead of concentrating on personalities, the efforts of those who want a decent society would be directed at promoting basic individual human rights which for the last 60-70 years have been coroded by so-called rights to purely selfish interests.
chinese god

January 17, 2012 at 2:13 pm

The US has become a country with a straight jacket round its head. Obama is a war monger(in spite of being given a peace prize – what a no brainer). US is getting into more wars then before. When will all this end? US needs to kicked in it’s ass and people die on US soil before it’s citizens realise what the government is leading them into.
M Khan

January 19, 2012 at 5:50 pm

Ron Paul is Americas last chance. Romney will win the nomination and lead America to war with Iran. Results will be devastating for USA as well as the world. Economy will collapse. Oil prices will double. However the rich and the owners of federal reserve bank will become even more richer. That is the real aim. Americans however are mostly oblivious to all this. Most do not know that Fed is a private bank. The Americans like to kick ass and the day is not far when they will be kicking their own.
Quetzal Qoatl

January 21, 2012 at 2:17 pm

The current administration is insuring its second term by rushing into another prolonged war with Iran and Syria, at the behest of its master Israel, and the ‘election’, as in 2004, will be ‘made’ to keep the power structure intact for another 4 years…just the way it works now…and there probably won’t be another ‘election’ in 2016, because America cannot sustain its current foriegn pollicy and economic trajectory without meeting with certain disaster. Have a nice day.
debwitter

January 25, 2012 at 9:02 pm

Dear Mr. Roberts,

There is one correction needed in your wonderful article. You state that all the other candidates are owned by “military-security complex, Wall Street, and the Israel Lobby.” The most important one was left out of this picture. The true puppeteers are the Central Banks who are actually calling the shots. These shots are traveling around the world at this time.

Everything else you say I agree with wholeheartedly. Hopefully the masses are waking up to propaganda directing them how to think and feel on many subjects, including how to vote, agree with senseless wars and every other insanity we are now seeing on a daily basis.

Thank you for the article. Hopefully many will read it.
Susie Van Dyke

January 25, 2012 at 10:38 pm

The central bankers and the Federal Reserve seem to have a revolving door policy with Goldman Sachs and the Treasury department.

In my lifetime the Fed heads have been Benjamin Shalom Bernanke, Alan Greenspan, and Paul Volker, all Jews,loyal more to Israel than to America.

The Treasury has been led by Paulson and Rubin, more of the same.

The USA is a colony of Israel.

They own our media,entertainment,our congress,our state department and our banking system.

Think not ?

Dare to criticize Israel or Jews publicly and watch the response.
angela Hoffman

January 27, 2012 at 3:12 am

Earl Ofari Hutchinson will be asking the question on his show. Why do so many people like Ron Paul? Saturday, January 28, 2012 90.7 KPFK 12-1p PST
Victor

February 9, 2012 at 12:09 am

Excellent piece Dr Roberts. The message is. Don’t be a drone, Vote ageist the machine.