Lies the government told you by Andrew Napolitano (best e reader for epub TXT) 📗

any of its inadequacies on lack of power, the argument is a lie. There is only one reason that the government takes away freedoms: Freedom is an obstacle to dominance, and almost everyone in government possesses what St. Augustine called libido dominandi, the lust to dominate.

The ruse that most persons fall for is that this is done for our safety. People want to feel secure, and their belief that the government can provide us with such security ensures that many are willing to sacrifice their safety. Yet, there is a reason that the Constitution exists in this country. As Congressman Ron Paul has stated, “These are not the most dangerous times in American history, despite the self-flattery of our politicians and media.”24

Rather, as he so aptly noted, America has survived the burning down of the White House, a Civil War, involvement in two World Wars, and has won a forty-year Cold War with the Soviet Union, a time where spying was rampant through the federal agencies and where citizens drawn by the rhetoric of Communism defected to the Soviet Union, and most notably, fingers were poised to press the nuclear launch button. Yet, somehow, America not only survived but flourished without the Patriot Act. It is in periods of crisis that we should strive to protect our liberties, not sacrifice them on the altar of a false sense of security.

During the reauthorization of the Patriot Act and an extension of its sunset provisions in 2005, many proponents made mention of the then-recent subway bombings in London as an argument in favor of the Patriot Act. They argued that government spying on Americans without judicially issued search warrants could prevent such actions here. But as Congressman Paul points out, London is “the most heavily monitored city in the world” and the British are “not hampered by our 4th Amendment or our due process requirements,” yet they were unable to protect themselves, proving that “even a wholesale surveillance society cannot be made completely safe against determined terrorists.”25 If the freedomless British cannot protect their cities from attack, why do politicians attempt to argue that stripping us of our liberties will work here at home?

There is no reason to believe that any of the actions taken under the Patriot Act can make us safer. All the justifications and endless explanations for the need of a Patriot Act have no support in reality and are just lies created by the government to lull us into acquiescence, to enhance the government’s power over us, and to make it appear to fearful or gullible Americans that because the government is curtailing our freedoms it must be making us safer by doing so. Be ashamed for accepting such arrant nonsense.

It is no surprise, considering the unconstitutional atrocities permitted by the Patriot Act, that seven states have passed resolutions condemning the Act. Each day, more fight to force President Obama to repeal it. But once it has managed to deceive us into granting it more power, the federal government is loath to return it. Unremarkably, therefore, even President Obama, who ran for office as a defender of civil liberties, now supports maintaining the existing law.

This Is America

The cynically named Patriot Act is a revolting and unconstitutional example of the federal government taking advantage of people during times of crisis. To pass the Act in the wake of September 11th 2001, was one thing; to reauthorize it after it has proven to be wildly unconstitutional and phenomenally ineffective is quite another. How do we expect to be the example of democracy in the Middle East and around the world when our government doesn’t even trust us, and goes out of its way to lie to us in order to strip us of our freedoms? As a result of the tragedy that was September 11th 2001, it is important to take terrorist threats seriously, but under no circumstances should we have to fear what we say, write, or type. This is America, isn’t it?

Lie #17

“America Has a Free Market”

As hue and cry abound around the current economic crisis, and blame is passed from Wall Street to Main Street and back again, it is strange to note that we hear so little about the blame that should rest in Washington, D.C. And the blame that does come to rest on the shoulders of the government seems largely focused on “too little government intervention,” which permitted “too much capitalism.”1 Apparently, all those acronyms that the government is so famous for producing and the regulations it enforces are not considered intervention.

The government has managed to convince most Americans not only that they are living in a country whose economy is based on laissez-faire capitalism but also that the free market is to blame for all our problems. And until those myths are rebutted and the truth of the matter is revealed, we will continue on the path forged by the Great Depression, and ending with central economic planning in Washington, privately owned entities under government control, and nationalization of businesses that are “too big to fail.”

The Unaffordable Cost of “Affordable Housing”2

Ever since FDR and his New Deal policies in the 1930s, the federal government has inserted itself into housing policy in order to ensure—it contends—that everyone has access to affordable housing. Beginning with rent control, the trend continued with encouraging homeownership, with the establishment of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac to the Community Reinvestment Act of 1977 (CRA), forcing banks to make loans to those they would normally reject as dangerous credit risks. Somehow, the Reinvestment Act claimed that is was unfair for banks to reject certain parts of the community based on credit, because everyone deserved to own a house, whether he or she could actually afford it or not. Basically, Fannie and Freddie, capitalized with taxpayer dollars, took the under-performing mortgages, that the CRA forced the banks to make, off the banks’ balance sheets. So, credit-risky owners got homes they couldn’t afford, banks got fees for