17 January 2017
By Jacob G. Hornberger
The biggest mistake the American people ever made was the conversion of the
federal government from a constitutionally limited republic to a
national-security state, a type of governmental apparatus that characterizes
totalitarian regimes. A national-security state consists of a large, permanent
military establishment and a secretive ''intelligence'' agency with omnipotent
powers and whose purported mission is to gather ''intelligence'' about
supposed threats to the country.
That fateful decision ended up costing the American people their founding
governmental structure of a republic. Even worse, it stultified the
consciences of the American people, leading them to defer blindly to the
Pentagon, the CIA, and the NSA as those three components of the
national-security establishment led the country increasingly toward the dark
side that characterizes totalitarian regimes.
A few days ago, the Washington Post reported on the travails of Li Chunfu, a
Chinese lawyer who was recently released after 500 days in secret detention by
the communist regime that rules China. Described by the Post as a ''lively and
tough human rights lawyer'' before he was incarcerated, he came out of jail as
a ''thin, pale and sick man, a fearful and paranoid person who seemed to have
been broken by the system.''
He wasn't the only one. According to the Post, there were 300 other lawyers
who were rounded up in July 2015 as part of a nationwide crackdown on
independent-minded lawyers who favor a judiciary that is independent of the
executive part of the government.
No judicially issued arrest warrants. No formal criminal charges. No due
process of law. No grand jury indictment. No habeas corpus. No trial by jury.
No civil lawsuits for kidnapping or unlawful detention.
Just raw governmental power, the type of omnipotent power that characterizes
communist and other totalitarian regimes.
That wasn't all. The Post writes: ''In statements to the China Change website,
relatives and fellow lawyers said Li had been severely tortured and drugged
during detention.''
There is something important to note: Like the United States, China is a
national-security state. Like the United States, it has a large, permanent
military establishment and a secretive national intelligence force with
omnipotent powers.
The thing is this: China's treatment of Li and those other innocent Chinese
lawyers should not surprise us. After all, this is a communist regime we are
talking about. That's the type of things that communist and other totalitarian
regimes are known for.
What should shock the consciences of the American people is the fact that
their government — the U.S. government — does the same things as the
communists in China.
Torture? It has been part and parcel of the U.S. military and CIA since the
Vietnam War and even before.
Assassination, which is really nothing more than legalized murder, has also
been part and parcel of the U.S. national-security state since at least 1953,
when the CIA established a secret kill list of Guatemalan officials to be
assassinated during a regime change operation that destroyed the country's
democratic system.
MKULTRA, the CIA's medical experimentation program that would have made any
communist and, for that matter, any Nazi, ache with envy. After the program
came to light, the CIA ordered the destruction of all MKULTRA records so that
Americans would never learn the full extent of what CIA officials had done and
to whom they had done it. Needless to say, no one got punished for that
intentional destruction.
Secret surveillance, especially by the NSA, so thorough and complete that the
surveillance conducted by the Gestapo and the KGB pales to insignificance in
comparison.
Look at the Pentagon-CIA torture center and prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. It
is a mirror image of how the Chinese communist regime has treated Li Chunfu.
Indefinite detention, in some cases far exceeding the 500 days that Li was
incarcerated. Torture. Kangaroo legal proceedings. Denial of speedy trial.
Denial of due process of law. The use of evidence acquired by torture. The use
of hearsay. Denial of trial by jury. Judgements and orders brought about by
political pressure. Extra-judicial executions.
And now, reflecting the ever-increasing militarization of America and the
glorification of the national-security state that the federal government has
become, Americans will soon be beholding the spectacle of military parades all
across America, enabling them to ogle all the the weaponry and express
gratitude for all the torture, assassinations, and destruction of civil
liberties that have come with a national-security state.
Now is the time for some serious soul-searching and exercise of conscience on
the part of the American people. Americans need to be asking themselves some
critically important questions.
Should the U.S. government be torturing people and keeping them incarcerated
indefinitely without benefit of of due process of law and trial by jury, as
the Chinese communist regime has done to Li Chunfu?
Should the U.S. government be assassinating people and engaging in
extra-judicial executions?
Should the U.S. government be spying on the American people?
Should the U.S. government be effecting regime-change operations and otherwise
interfering with the political processes of other countries?
Should the U.S. government be supporting brutal dictatorships with U.S.
taxpayer money and U.S.-taxpayer provided weaponry?
Indeed, is it time for the American people to recapture their founding
principles and convert the federal government from a Cold War-era
national-security state back to the constitutional republic that was
bequeathed to us by America's Founding Fathers?
Jacob G. Hornberger is founder and president of The Future of Freedom
Foundation. He was born and raised in Laredo, Texas, and received his B.A. in
economics from Virginia Military Institute and his law degree from the
University of Texas. He was a trial attorney for twelve years in Texas. He
also was an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas, where he taught
law and economics. In 1987, Mr. Hornberger left the practice of law to become
director of programs at the Foundation for Economic Education. He has
advanced freedom and free markets on talk-radio stations all across the
country as well as on Fox News' Neil Cavuto and Greta van Susteren shows and
he appeared as a regular commentator on Judge Andrew Napolitano's show
Freedom Watch. View these interviews at LewRockwell.com and from Full
Context.
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