Bang! Welcome to America!
As many people prepare to celebrate America’s Independence Day, marking the beginning of a revolution that was to transform America into a land of relative freedom to which people would flock in vast numbers, one of our most recent new additions was welcomed by a bullet to the stomach from a government agent.
The man’s crime? He was suspected of having crossed an imaginary line on the ground drawn by politicians (who themselves subsist criminally by violently appropriating other people’s money) without following the politicians’ rules and procedures for such movement. Yes, a truly heinous crime.
Kind of makes me wonder what we’re actually celebrating on Independence Day. We remember that intrepid generation of Americans who gained their independence from one ruler but forget that another ruler immediately took its place and has grown progressively more oppressive ever since, to the point where something as simple and beneficial as immigration can be deemed illegal by the rulers.
If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!
Comments
Comment from Darren
Time: July 4, 2009, 10:39 am
Well, yeah–America wasn’t massively authoritarian to begin with, but there were elements of the Constitution (the general welfare clause, the commerce clause, the power to coin money and regulate its value, etc.) that allowed for a smothering growth of government. As for the precipitous drop toward gross statism, I think I’d place it in 1913 with the enactment of the income tax and the Federal Reserve Act.
Comment from Jimmy
Time: July 3, 2009, 1:26 pm
I don’t think the inexorable downward slide into the coercive quicksand accelerated until 1933. The Depression and FDR really changed public attitudes immensely. We’ve never really recovered from it.