The Police State is Unrecognized Because it has Incrementally and Surreptitiously Developed

Recently, I recounted my experiences with a traffic stop in Randleman, North Carolina ("We are at the Threshold of a Police State") and a visit to the Guilford County Courthouse in Greensboro, North Carolina ("When the Courthouse Becomes a Palace") and I found both to evince the emergence of a police state. Lest anyone think my remarks dramatically borne of anger or simplistic, anti-establishment sentiment, I feel compelled to expound my position. As one who believes in the liberty provided by our Founding Fathers, I feel that any governmental intrusion into the personal lives of citizens represents a tangible hazard to freedom and that the elevation of politicians and bureaucrats, via legislation and policy, establishes an untouchable aristocracy that turns citizenship into subjugation.

We live in an era when even our most advanced elders cannot remember a time without big government influencing and intruding upon the lives of citizens and we have continued to build upon decades of such interference because it is all that we know. Consequently, the citizens of the United States no longer have the independence and the character of those who launched the Revolution. Rather, they seek constant guidance and the perceived protection of tomes of legislation and regulation administered and enforced by an army of tax and fee collecting bureaucrats that are aloof from the masses.

These publicans, via policy and legislation, become elevated above citizens when they ensure a greater level of security for themselves than that which is enjoyed by the public at large. Thus, with status as a protected class, they hide behind metal detectors and bullet proof glass, under the protection of armed security or law enforcement officers, becoming untouchables who are free to tax, intimidate, and oppress with impunity while disregarding the fact that they are public servants, answerable to a sovereign people. Law enforcement is also an elevated, protected class that serves the caprice of publicans; as a matter of fact, the primary differences between the police and publicans is that they are mobile, even more intrusive, and wield weapons that are unavailable to many while enjoying the protection of body armor provided at public expense.

Of course, many citizens do not view their lords and masters or their armed representatives in this light. For one thing, a lifetime of control, intrusion, and interference in every aspect of human life has numbed their sense of liberty. As if governmental influence is not enough, every venue of human interaction from work, to commerce, to recreation is inundated by onerous policies and regulations. Thus, the people have become so accustomed to being controlled and directed, they are incapable of being responsible for themselves. This is realized by power brokers who convince them that their safety, security, health, and prosperity can only be provided and preserved if they cede just a bit more freedom to their benevolent overseers.

Being so accustomed to compromising liberty for security, the people have acquiesced and given up more and more self determination with each passing generation. Genuine liberty has now become a distant and fuzzy memory, redefined by Newspeak and eclipsed by status quo. Unable to fathom that liberty provided within parameters by virtue of permission is not freedom at all but rather the reward of well behaved slaves, the people have retreated to the comfortable certainty of their caves and eschewed truth and individual responsibility. Thus, under our very noses, a tyrannical police state has emerged, but it is largely unrecognized because it has incrementally and surreptitiously developed rather than suddenly appearing as a villainous, invading usurper.