The US Government Has Declared War On Us

In a recent article on the protests and riots breaking out across the United States, I pointed out how the government would use the violence of the riots to justify increasing its own violent powers. Events of only the last few days have proven me correct as the government has used its spying, policing, and military powers against the citizens of the United States in an ever increasing rush towards instituting a pure police state. Here I will review those events, what they tell us about the true purposes of the government’s actions, and what we can do from here.

Everyone Is A Criminal

Multiple cities across the nation have instituted curfews. This means that it is illegal for peaceful people to leave their homes and if they do so then the police will target them for harassment, violence, and imprisonment. Either be locked up in your home or be locked up in a cage. In other words, innocent people are being treated as criminals and being placed under house arrest. If you violate this in any way, even if it is to hand out water to people in need, the police will open fire on you and try to kill you. To further their ability to enforce this imprisonment, states are using technology supposedly created to keep us healthy as a tool of spying and oppression, as is happening in Minnesota where they are using contact tracing information and technology to monitor and spy on civilian movements.

All of this a violation of basic human liberties and therefore a violation of basic humanity. State mandated curfews are a total inversion of how the laws are supposed to work. The laws are supposed to create justice by protecting the ability of every person to the full operation of their human rights. To use the law to force innocent people to either be in a prison cell or be under house arrest is a corruption of justice into oppression and exposes two fundamental truths about how the US government -and all modern states- function.

1. The rule of law is a complete myth.
2. The purpose of the law is NOT to establish justice by ensuring all people have the fullest range of their human liberty. Rather, the purpose of the law is to secure the power of the ruling elites in their quest to control us.

Waging War Against Civilians

In addition to multiple cities attacking and imprisoning innocent people, multiple cities across the US have declared a state of disaster/emergency for their cities. The governors of Arizona, Virginia, Texas, California, Minnesota, and Arkansas (as well as a few others I’m sure I’ve missed) have declared the same either in the entire state or in portions of each state. What does that mean, exactly? To understand that you have to look at the list of powers the state gives itself when those in power decide to issue such declarations:

• In some cases, conscript citizens to help with efforts to manage the emergency
• In others, to authorize qualified citizens to assist in emergency management efforts
• Confiscate equipment and property that will assist in emergency management
• Make goods and resources available for distribution to those areas impacted
• Fix prices of goods and services, to avoid incidences of “price gouging”
• Impose a curfew on residents of the affected areas
• Prohibit, or at least limit, travel to, from or within the areas impacted by the emergency
• Establish emergency shelters
• Enter any building without a warrant
• Order residents to evacuate the affected areas

Read that carefully. When a mayor or governor declares a state of emergency/disaster, they are saying they have the power to force you to obey and serve the state and do whatever task it decides you should do, seize all your property -monetary and otherwise- for the good of the state, prevent you from entering or leaving whatever places it decides you should or shouldn’t be going to, imprison you in your own home like a criminal under house arrest, and break into your home whenever they want. This is not the power of a limited government exercised for the good of the people. That is totalitarian power being used by a dictator to do as he or she pleases.

If at any time you resist any of these utter violations of your safety and humanity you are deemed a threat to the state itself and can be imprisoned or killed. And if you think what I just said was extreme, go read about the case of Breonna Taylor. Breonna, was a beautiful, intelligent, young woman poised to help transform the world as a nurse who was murdered in her home by invading police forces. The government has empowered itself to violate the rights of its people and will murder them if they try to assert those rights. And it isn’t just the police who will do it.

In California, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Kentucky, Minnesota, Utah, Ohio, South Dakota, Washington, Tennessee, Texas, Wisconsin, and Washington D.C. the National Guard has been called in to “assist law enforcement authorities with protecting lives and property of citizens in their state,” which is a really lovely way of saying soldiers have been called in to use military force against the civilian population. And make no mistake, the National Guard are trained military forces. As they like to boast:

National Guard soldiers have fought in and continue to fight in some of the longest, dirtiest, most brutal wars in American history. Calling them in to be used against civilians is tantamount to an open declaration of war against the civilian populations of these cities and states. This is something that, at least in Minnesota, the government has readily acknowledged:

“Urban warfare.” Urban, as in cities, Warfare, as in waging war. In other words, the Minnesota Department of Public Safety has openly declared that Minnesota has brought in the National Guard to wage a war within the cities of Minnesota with the people of Minnesota. Just as that is true in Minnesota, it is true in every city and state where the mayors and governors have declared they have the power to take whatever they want, beat, go wherever they way, imprison the entire citizenry under house arrest, to rob, raid, steal, cage, and kill. It is, in essence, a declaration of war against their own people and thousands have already fallen victim.

Declaring War Against The Entire Country

Then, of course, there is the President.

When running for President, Donald Trump proudly declared, “I’m the most militaristic man in the room!” While that seemed like a stretch at the time, given how much of an unrelenting warmonger Barack Obama was, it has certainly been true that Trump has shown little actual hesitation to continue the Global War of Terror. In the last few days though he has been open about his willingness to wage that same war here against American civilians:

These are not acts of peaceful protest, these are acts of domestic terror. 

…I am mobilizing all available, federal resources, civilian and military, to stop the rioting and looting to end the destruction and arson and to protect the rights of law abiding Americans, including your second amendment rights. Therefore, the following measures are going into effect immediately.

First, we are ending the riots and lawlessness that has spread throughout our country. We will end it now. Today I have strongly recommended to every governor to deploy the national guard in sufficient numbers that we dominate the streets, mayors and governors must establish an overwhelming law enforcement presence until the violence has been quelled.

…If a city or state refuses to take the actions that are necessary to defend the life and property of their residents, then I will deploy the United States military and quickly solve the problem for them. I am also taking swift and decisive action to protect our great Capitol Washington DC. What happened in this city last night was a total disgrace. As we speak, I am dispatching thousands and thousands of heavily armed soldiers, military personnel, and law enforcement offices to stop the rioting, looting, vandalism assaults and the wanton destruction of property. We are putting everybody on warning our seven o’clock curfew will be strictly enforced. 

Notice the complete lack of the concept of “crime” here. The violence that has happened is not crime according to the President. It is domestic terrorism. This is a phrase that should terrify every person listening to him. Terrorists have no rights according to the American “justice” system. Their assets -all their property- can be seized by the US government. Not just any property that is evidence in an ongoing criminal trial- everything. Without a warrant the can seize control of all your personal information -race, sex, ethnicity, biological information, medical history, location, education, etc. For things the government still technically needs a warrant for they can get one issued from any judge in the nation, whereas before only a judge in the area the supposed crime has occurred could issue an applicable warrant. This means the government agents can effectively write their own warrants to go and take whatever they want, from whoever they want, whenever they want, merely on their word that the targeted person or persons is or might be a terrorist. According to Harvey Gee, writing for The John Marshall Law Review, not only can accused terrorists be locked up, without trail, forever, but”anyone person who gives to a charity or expresses opinions about terrorism in writing or in song may be prosecuted.”

All these powers, and more, are what the President is asserting when he labels people engaging in criminal activity in America as “domestic terrorists.” It is clear from his further comments that he knows he is asserting that they have no rights because his further comments indicate clearly that he is going to do whatever he wants to protesters who refuse to comply with city and state orders to remain imprisoned in their homes. In the second and third sections he openly states his plans to use the US military itself against protesters until the soldiers dominate the streets with an overwhelming law enforcement presence. In plain English, he plans to send in the military to terrify the populace with violence and by killing the disobedient. This is, after all, the point in sending in the military -trained and battle hardened killers- as opposed to, say, the Boy Scouts.

His example for this is, of course, what they’re doing in D.C. He is proud that they are sending heavily armed military soldiers into the streets to beat, cage, or kill anyone who isn’t back in their homes by 7 PM. Washington D.C. is a city under direct military occupation and martial law and the President wants to expand that power nationwide. To emphasize, this is a declaration of war against the American people in the name of assuring state power and autocracy, the President has even increased the American threat levels to “near wartime” levels.

All this talk of the military invading and occupying American cities should especially worry everyone in light of the President’s vast “emergency powers” and the Bush Era “National Security Presidential Directive 51.” This order is supposedly about the President ensuring the continuity of “constitutional government” in the case of a national disaster of some sort. But it contains language that suggests that in a large enough “disaster” the President could essentially assert control of the functions of the US government until the “disaster” is over. Journalist Ron Rosenbaum wrote this about Directive 51:

“‘Enduring Constitutional Government,’ or ‘ECG,’ means a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government, coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches…”

Do you see those five weasel words “as a matter of comity”? Just what elements of the legislative and judicial branches will be allowed to participate in “executing constitutional responsibilities” and “providing for orderly succession [and] appropriate transfer of leadership”?

In other words, who gets to call the shots? What does comity mean in this context? Informally, it means good-natured, good-faith camaraderie. In its jurisprudential sense, the American Heritage Dictionary defines it as “the principle by which the courts of one jurisdiction may accede or give effect to the laws or decisions of another.” In other words, in the weasel-speak of NSPD-51, it implies that one or more branches of the government will have to cede power to another. And since everything is to be “coordinated by the president,” I’m guessing that the members of the Supreme Court left alive and some congressional leaders left alive (How chosen? What party balance?) will in effect have to sit around a big conference table and do a lot of “ceding” to the executive.

And given the current state of relations between Congress and the executive, such comity will not necessarily translate into camaraderie. If it comes down to whether to pull the nuclear trigger, who will get to vote, and how large a majority will be required to launch? Comity—that innocent-sounding word—could well turn out to be the excuse for junking those pesky checks and balances the Founding Fathers seemed so obsessed with. For an indeterminate period of time.

Rosenbaum, wrote that in 2007. And he made the point then that despite these possibilities nothing in the order made it look like it could go into effect because of a natural disaster like a forest fire. Sure, that makes sense. But what about in the midst of a global pandemic, during a period of mass civil unrest and violent protests that are rocking every major city in the nation, when the capital of the country itself is under military occupation and de facto military rule, and the President is threatening (or has) sent the military to occupying the other major cities in the country? Suddenly the possibility of Directive 51 ‘s worst outcomes doesn’t seem so crazy, does it?

What Can Be Done?

The eminent political theorist John Locke, the man whose ideas America was literally founded upon, wrote this about the rights of the people when faced with such overwhelming violations of their rights:

The reason why men enter into society, is the preservation of their property; and the end why they chuse and authorize a legislative, is, that there may be laws made, and rules set, as guards and fences to the properties of all the members of the society, to limit the power, and moderate the dominion, of every part and member of the society:for since it can never be supposed to be the will of the society, that the legislative should have a power to destroy that which every one designs to secure, by entering into society, and for which the people submitted themselves to legislators of their own making; whenever the legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence.

…What I have said here, concerning the legislative in general, holds true also concerning the supreme executor, who having a double trust put in
him, both to have a part in the legislative, and the supreme execution of the law, acts against both, when he goes about to set up his own arbitrary will as the law of the society.

So, according to Locke, the whole purpose of a government is for people to secure these rights. Therefore, when a government violates the rights of the people the government places itself into a literal state of war with the people and all responsibility of the people to obey that government is totally dissolved. Locke further makes sure you understand this is true whether it is the action of either the legislative or executive branches. When the government violates your rights it is acting in the manner exactly opposite of its purpose and therefore all duty of the people to honor it, follow it, or obey it, is totally dissolved.

This means that even by the standards of the state the actions of American mayors, governors, and the President himself, have placed themselves in a state of war against the people they supposedly represent and that the duty of the people to follow them is totally dissolved. This is the thing those in power fear most of all. Their whole purpose behind these actions are not to protect the people. Those in power want to protect their power. And a rising tide of anger and violence threatens, if not the state itself, at least the position of those currently operating the machinery of oppression. But their efforts to grip even more tightly to power and hold onto it no matter what they have to do only end up justifying not just their removal from all positions, but the very dissolving of the government itself.

As Thomas Jefferson, himself an ardent disciple of Locke’s, said in the second paragraph of the Declaration of Independence:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. 

By the state’s own rules, according to the founding document of America, the American government should be abolished.

Those of us who recognize the threat of the state though, and the ultimate fallacy of using violence to create violence, which results in merely replacing one oppressor with another, do not need even this thin veil of justification for dissolving the oppressive statist (“state-ist”) apparatus of control. Those readers who are Latter-day Saints understand the sublime truth that all men and women, no matter where they are from or the color of their skin, are all literal children of God and spiritual brothers and sisters. The oppression and brutality of any child of God by any government is completely evil and we should never compromise, comply with, or empower evil organizations, people, or actions. Those readers who are not LDS, you still recognize that the supreme creation, either of God or Nature, is Humanity, and therefore all men and women from all places are universally equal and deserve equal expression and protection. The worth of any individual man is greater than all states, nations, or governments combined.

As William Lloyd Garrison brilliantly put it:

Such is man, in every clime—above all compacts, greater than all institutions, sacred against every outrage, priceless, immortal! By this sure test, every institution, every party, every form of government, every kind of religion, is to be tried. God never made a human being either for destruction or degradation. It is plain, therefore, that whatever cannot flourish except at the sacrifice of that being, ought not to exist. Show me the party that can obtain supremacy only by trampling upon human individuality and personal sovereignty, and you will thereby pronounce sentence of death upon it. Show me the government which can be maintained only by destroying the rights of a portion of the people, and you will indicate the duty of openly revolting against it. …No man is to be injured in his person, mind, or estate. He cannot be, with benefit to any other man, or to any state of society. Whoever would sacrifice him for any purpose is both morally and politically insane. 

So this is what can be done. Anything less than a social, political, and spiritual revolution against such obvious tyranny is both insane and evil. Revolution, while a scary sounding word, does not have to be violent and bloody. In fact, such revolutions never succeed in their true purposes. They always ultimately replace one violent ruling force with another violent ruling force and the oppression continues, if only shifted onto another group. If you truly want to create something better -greater equality, greater liberty, greater prosperity for all people- the only path forward is nonviolence and civil disobedience. As Dr. Erica Chenoweth proved with her research, nonviolent revolutions based on civil disobedience are not only twice as likely to succeed as violent ones with a lower percentage of the population (about 3%), but once completed they were far more likely to result in more peaceful outcomes for government and society.

The beginning is easy and everyone can do it. Simply refuse to comply. There are hundreds of millions of people in the USA. If the amount of people involved in or sympathetic to the causes of the protests simply refused to comply with their local, state, and national rulers then the power of those autocrats would be broken immediately, permanently, and eternally. Russell M. Nelson, the current prophet of God, explained this simply and powerfully:

Through love of God, the pain caused by the fiery canker of contention will be extinguished from the soul. This healing begins with a personal vow: “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.” This commitment will then spread to family and friends and will bring peace to neighborhoods and nations.

Let peace on Earth begin with you. Stay true, do not look back, do not give in to the idolatry of the Union, do not let them manipulate the mental conditioning you’ve been subjected to your entire life that has tried to brainwash you into loving your “country” and its rulers more than you do justice, mercy, love, and your fellowmen. If you hold true, your commitment to justice will inspire in others the same dedication. Their commitment to abandoning the ways of the State will spread to others and so on. As this occurs the state will not need to be overthrown. It will simply dissolve and you and I will win. We will have created a society where people will be free to create greater liberty, prosperity, and equality than ever before, for more people than ever before. And not by furthering the cycle of anger, hatred, and violence, but by embracing peace as the path to the beloved community.

This is the way forward. We cannot get something new by imbibing the same old poison. We cannot have a better tomorrow for all people while continuing to repeat the same errors of the past by shuffling and re-shuffling the forms of the State. We must be bold, faithful, and fearless enough to discard the State as the error of a bygone, Stone Age past and embrace our future as a free and voluntaryist society. Nothing less, nothing else, will work.