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It Can't Happen Here

Ron Paul | December 20, 2004

In 2002 I asked my House colleagues a rhetorical question with regard
to the onslaught of government growth in the post-September 11th era:
Is America becoming a police state?

The question is no longer rhetorical. We are not yet living in a
total police state, but it is fast approaching. The seeds of future
tyranny have been sown, and many of our basic protections against
government have been undermined. The atmosphere since 2001 has
permitted Congress to create whole new departments and agencies that
purport to make us safer- always at the expense of our liberty. But
security and liberty go hand-in-hand. Members of Congress, like too
many Americans, don’t understand that a society with no constraints on
its government cannot be secure. History proves that societies
crumble when their governments become more powerful than the people
and private institutions.

Unfortunately, the new intelligence bill passed by Congress two weeks
ago moves us closer to an encroaching police state by imposing the
precursor to a full-fledged national ID card. Within two years, every
American will need a “conforming� ID to deal with any federal agency--
including TSA at the airport.

Undoubtedly many Americans and members of Congress don’t believe
America is becoming a police state, which is reasonable enough. They
associate the phrase with highly visible symbols of authoritarianism
like military patrols, martial law, and summary executions. But we
ought to be concerned that we have laid the foundation for tyranny by
making the public more docile, more accustomed to government bullying,
and more accepting of arbitrary authority- all in the name of
security. Our love for liberty above all has been so diminished that
we tolerate intrusions into our privacy that would have been abhorred
just a few years ago. We tolerate inconveniences and infringements
upon our liberties in a manner that reflects poorly on our great
national character of rugged individualism. American history, at
least in part, is a history of people who don’t like being told what
to do. Yet we are increasingly empowering the federal government and
its agents to run our lives.

Terror, fear, and crises like 9-11 are used to achieve complacency and
obedience, especially when citizens are deluded into believing they
are still a free people. The loss of liberty, we are assured, will be
minimal, short-lived, and necessary. Many citizens believe that once
the war on terror is over, restrictions on their liberties will be
reversed. But this war is undeclared and open-ended, with no precise
enemy and no expressly stated final goal. Terrorism will never be
eradicated completely; does this mean future presidents will assert
extraordinary war powers indefinitely?

Washington DC provides a vivid illustration of what our future might
look like. Visitors to Capitol Hill encounter police barricades,
metal detectors, paramilitary officers carrying fully automatic
rifles, police dogs, ID checks, and vehicle stops. The people are
totally disarmed; only the police and criminals have guns.
Surveillance cameras are everywhere, monitoring street activity,
subway travel, parks, and federal buildings. There's not much
evidence of an open society in Washington, DC, yet most folks do not
complain-- anything goes if it's for government-provided safety and
security.

After all, proponents argue, the government is doing all this to catch
the bad guys. If you don’t have anything to hide, they ask, what are
you so afraid of? The answer is that I’m afraid of losing the last
vestiges of privacy that a free society should hold dear. I’m afraid
of creating a society where the burden is on citizens to prove their
innocence, rather than on government to prove wrongdoing. Most of
all, I’m afraid of living in a society where a subservient populace
surrenders its liberties to an all-powerful government.

It may be true that average Americans do not feel intimidated by the
encroachment of the police state. Americans remain tolerant of what
they see as mere nuisances because they have been deluded into
believing total government supervision is necessary and helpful, and
because they still enjoy a high level of material comfort. That
tolerance may wane, however, as our standard of living falls due to
spiraling debt, endless deficit spending at home and abroad, a
declining fiat dollar, inflation, higher interest rates, and failing
entitlement programs. At that point attitudes toward omnipotent
government may change, but the trend toward authoritarianism will be
difficult to reverse.

Those who believe a police state can't happen here are poor students
of history. Every government, democratic or not, is capable of
tyranny. We must understand this if we hope to remain a free people.