By Doug Newman
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“I freed a thousand slaves. I could have freed a thousand more if they only knew they were slaves.”
— Harriet Tubman

This July 4 we celebrate the 237th anniversary of our independence from Britain and our birth as a free nation. We will watch fireworks, go to barbecues, go camping (at tax-funded state and national parks), go to baseball games (in tax-funded stadiums) and hear endless talk about how dadgum wonderful it is that we live in a free country.

Or do we live in a free country?

In a free country, taxation would be well-nigh non-existent. You could keep what you earned and you could spend, save, invest and donate as you saw fit. You would have far more money with which to solve your own problems. Layabouts and sluggards would have to go to work and there would be much more compassion for the truly needy.

In a free country, the few legitimate functions of government would be funded by low, uniform, revenue tariffs – not, protective tariffs, mind you. There would be no direct federal taxation of the people. 

In a free country, the national debt would be zero.

In a free country, there would not be 20,000-plus laws on the books infringing on the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Crime would plummet as criminals – in both the private and public sectors – would never know who was armed.

In a free country, “homeland security” would be provided by a “well-regulated militia”, i.e. a populace that was well armed and highly skilled in marksmanship as well as teamwork in the field.

In a free country, on the morning of September 11, 2001, airline passengers could have packed heat legally. Any idiot knows that you don’t bring a knife to a gun fight. Air passengers would not have been such easy pickings. 9/11 would have been just another day.

In a free country, police brutality would be almost non-existent. The cops would be subject to the same penalties as the rest of us underlings when they violated the rights of others. They would not resemble an occupying army. Federal police agencies – IRS, FBI, DHS, TSA, DEA, CPS, BATF, NSA, yadda, yadda, yadda, yadda – would cease to exist altogether. There would be no federal funding for local police agencies, which would be under control of locally elected sheriffs rather than Uncle Sam.

In a free country, cops would not shoot harmless dogs.

June 2, 2012 … three miles from my house.

In a free country, police would not have the power to “search, seize, strip, scan, spy on, probe, pat down, taser, and arrest any individual at any time and for the slightest provocation.” Nor could they take your DNA without a warrant.

In a free country, guilt would be determined in court, subject to the requirements of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments, rather than by police manhunts and media witch hunts.

In a free country, jurors could judge not only the facts pertaining to a given case, but also the law relevant to that case. If Juror Smith thought Defendant Jones was being unjustly tried for any reason, Juror Smith could vote to acquit on that basis and that basis alone and Defendant Jones would walk.

In a free country, you could educate your children as you saw fit without asking anyone’s permission. You could home school you kids if you wanted. Catholics could send their kids to the Our Lady of Mercy School; Baptists could send their kids to the Obadiah Baptist School; Mormons could send their kids to the Joseph Smith school; Muslims could send their kids to the Allah Akbar School; believers in Mungabunga could send their kids to Mungabunga school. If you are not spiritual, you could send your kids to the Whitney Houston School — “Where the children are the future” – or to the Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young School – “Where we teach your children well”. Prayer, declining academic standards, evolution, creation, condoms, busing, standardized testing, bullying, discipline, dress codes and all the other debates surrounding education today would cease to be social issues.

Mungabunga

In a free country, businesses would not be crushed in a regulatory vise grip. There would not be an 81,000-page Federal Register. Millions of jobs would stay here in America rather than going to Honduras, Bangladesh and Red China.

In a free country, the military would be used strictly for national defense. Our foreign policy would be one of armed neutrality. We would not have troops in 135 countries. We would heed the Founders’ advice and steer clear of foreign alliances which have been nothing but trouble. Were we not throwing our weight around so recklessly “over there”, hatred and resentment toward the United States would be far, far less. Terrorism would cease to be a concern.

In a free country, war would only be fought for purely defensive purposes and then only with a formal congressional declaration of war. We would also realize that war for any other reason is a big government program. Not only is it ruinously expensive, but it brings with it, among other violations on liberty: taxes, debt, spying, censorship, commodities rationing, drafts and internment camps.

In a free country, there would not be a massive national security apparatus. There would be no Patriot Act. The authorities would have to obtain a judge’s warrant that met the standards spelled out in the Fourth Amendment in order to conduct a search of any kind for any reason. Americans would not be the “most spied upon people in world history.”

In a free country, we would not have the world’s highest incarceration rate. We would not have more people under “correctional supervision” – jail, prison, parole and probation – than Stalin had in the Gulag.

In a free country, the value of money would be tied to gold and/or silver. The Federal Reserve Bank would be shut down. We would not see our savings and our futures eroded by inflation. And we would not owe bazillions of dollars to folks who already have bazillions of dollars.

In a free country, it would take neither a village nor a police state to raise a child. Government would not act in loco parentis for an absentee Mommy and Daddy. Parents would again be responsible for raising their own children. Most of the problems we have with kids today – sex, drugs, violence, suicide – would be greatly minimized.

In a free country there would be no war on drugs. Drug profits and street crime would plummet. It would not be the government’s job to keep people off of drugs. It would be the job of parents, churches, Mungabunga temples, etc. In 1900, when there were no drug laws, there was almost no “drug problem” at all. (If Mungabunga people smoke that hooch in their rituals, they would be free to do so without fear of SWAT raids.)

In a free country, we would not constantly be relinquishing our freedom in exchange for security. People would know that the greatest threat to their security comes from their own government.

In a free country, if a state decided it had had enough of rule by Washington it could secede from the union without fear of reprisal. Likewise for sections of a state.

Medicine in a free country.

In a free country, there would be no laws forbidding what you could ingest into your body. If you were sick or in pain, and if a certain remedy worked, you could take it without fear of punishment. There would be no FDA, and hence no need for federal approval.

In a free country, Uncle Sam would not interfere in medicine at all.

In a free country, there would be no forced drugging or medication of people.

In a free country, there would be no welfare state, education state or medical state. There would not be a permanent underclass, the quality of education would be vastly improved, and healthcare would be far less expensive. Deadbeats would not come here looking for a handout. Immigrants could come here freely and would, out of social and economic necessity, learn English. Most of the “immigration problem” would take care of itself.

In a free country, there would be no Federal Departments of Energy, Commerce or HUD.

In a free country, there would be no minimum wage. Millions of jobs would be created overnight in the inner cities, Appalachia and the Rio Grande Valley. Congressmen, senators and other elected things could legally be paid what they are worth.

In a free country, there would be no draft registration. Young men would not be so many slabs of meat for the military grinder. There would be no “national service” or any other form of involuntary servitude.

In a free country, there would be no surrender of sovereignty to entities like the UN, where we can be outvoted 2-1 by such paragons of freedom as Saudi Arabia and North Korea. Our troops would not be involved in UN sponsored wars. NATO and the International Criminal Court would have no relevance. Our foreign policy would be based on, as Jefferson put it, “peace, commerce and honest friendship with all and entangling alliances with none.” “All” would include North Korea and “none” would include Israel.

In a free country, people could trade freely with whomever they wanted. There would be no protective tariffs, sanctions or embargoes.

In a free country, any law or treaty which ran contrary to the Bill of Rights would be null and void.

In a free country, there would be no aid to any foreign government.

In a free country, there would be no “promise” of Social Security at age 62 or 65 or 67 or … how far back will they have moved it when you reach your golden years? You could take that same money and put it in the most profitable private sector investments you could find. Furthermore, you would not be constantly tracked by means of your Social Security Number.

In a free country, a biometric National ID card would be unthinkable.

In a free country, children could open lemonade stands without fear of arrest.

In a free country, you would only be punished if you inflicted actual harm on another person or their property. Non-violent drug offenders would not waste away in cages, while convicted rapists and murderers went free.

In a free country, churches would truly be exempt from taxation, which would be minimal to begin with. Pastors would not be chilled into silence about the welfare/warfare/police state by 501c3 regulations.

In a free country, there would be no government bailouts for automobile makers, Wall Street or any other private sector entity.

In a free country, you could grow whatever plants you wanted without fear of punishment or any other interference. Hemp could be used – legally – for fuel, food, fiber, concrete, paper, textiles, health care and numerous other purposes. The environmental benefits would be huge.

In a free country, you could produce, sell, or consume raw milk freely.

In a free country, you could gamble online freely.

In a free country, there would be no national drinking age.

In a free country, a lockdown, a “shelter-in-place” order or any other such clampdown for a city or group of cities would be unthinkable.

In a free country, no political party would have any government granted privilege. Ballot access would not be an issue for non-privileged parties and candidates. Candidates would not receive “matching funds” or any other government assistance.

In a free country, every place from Maine to Hawaii and from Key West to the Aleutian Islands would be a free speech zone.

In a free country, ignorance of the law would be a valid defense.

In a free country, the internet would be free from government interference.

In a free country, your right to resist arrest would be secure. So would your right to record police misdeeds.
In a free country, there would not be surveillance drones patrolling the skies monitoring your every move.

In a free country, the Army would never dream of driving tanks through the streets.

In a free country, the president would not maintain “kill lists.” (If the authorities can track us with surveillance drones, why can’t they just kill us on the spot with predator drones?)

In a free country, there would not be a “no-fly list”. Uncle Sam could not arbitrarily interfere with anyone’s right to travel.

In a free country, there would be no racial or other kind of profiling. Uncle Sam could not arbitrarily categorize people for any reason.

In a free country, polluters would be subject to strict liability for any harm inflicted on others. There would be no special protection for companies like BP.

In a free country, there would be no federal disaster or emergency management agencies. As taxation would be minimal, local areas would have far more resources with which to solve their own problems without Uncle Sam pulling the strings. Foreign donations of aid to disaster victims would not be interdicted at the border.

In a free country, there would be no federal student loans. The cost of higher education would plummet.

In a free country, there would be a free market in light bulbs.

In a free country, the president could not have you arbitrarily arrested and indefinitely detained on the basis of a mere accusation without any due process whatsoever. Habeas corpus would be secure.

In a free country, the president could not rule by executive order. Other than granting pardons, he could do nothing without congressional approval.

In a free country, Congress would exercise its power under Article 3, Section 2 of the Constitution to restrict the scope and authority of the federal courts. Judges who based their rulings on anything other than the Constitution would be impeached swiftly. Shari’a law would cease to be a concern.

Law of the land in the “Land of the Free.”

In a free country, we would not have adopted nine of the ten “planks” of Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto. How have we done this? How have the ten planks replaced the Bill of Rights and the Ten Commandments?

In a free country, your property rights would not be under attack. (Plank 1) There would be no zoning laws. You could not lose your home or business for failure to pay taxes. There would be no EPA harassment of landowners over “wetlands” and other issues. The FEDGOV would not be the nation’s largest landowner.

In a free country, there would be no progressive income tax or, for that matter, any taxes on income. (Plank 2)

In a free country, there would be no inheritance tax. (Plank 3)

In a free country, there would be no confiscation of property of those who resisted the powers that be. (Plank 4) There would be no civil asset forfeiture laws.

In a free country, there would not be a central bank. (Plank 5) There would be no Federal Reserve and we would not have an umpteengazillion dollar national debt.

Please don’t shout as they fiddle about.

In a free country, there would be no government control of communications and transportation. (Plank 6) There would be no FCC, DOT, ICC, etc. Airports would not be mini-police states. Sexual assault would not be a condition of travel.

In a free country, there would be no government intrusion in manufacturing and agriculture. (Plank 7) There would be no Department of Labor or Department of Agriculture. Your business could not be shut down for OSHA violations. There would be no federal farm subsidies or price supports.

In a free country, there would be no federal control of labor. (Plank 8) There would be no National Labor Relations Board, no minimum wage laws, no affirmative action or racial quotas.

Corporate farm. Family farm.

The merger of agriculture and industry (Plank 9) is tough to explain in one paragraph. The centralizers can only be happy that farming is increasingly controlled by conglomerates that are far more likely to kiss up to the FEDGOV than a family that has worked the same piece of land for four generations.

In a free country, the government would not be in control of education. (Plank 10) While neither the Bible nor any of America’s Founding documents say anything about state education, you will find state education as a policy prescription of the Communist Manifesto.

In a free country, people would understand that liberty is a gift from God and not a privilege to be granted and withheld by government. They would likewise understand that liberty is preserved NOT by perpetual war, but rather by eternal vigilance of informed citizens against encroachments by government at all levels.

So there you have it.

America is not a free country.

I know, I know, I know: I can vote and I can write this without fear of punishment. And no one is being hauled off to death camps in America. At least not yet.

The incineration of 80 innocent people by the FEDGOV at Waco in 1993 was a trial balloon floated before a brainwashed nation. Millions of Americans derisively giggled at “that cult.” When they came for the Davidians, we did not say anything because we were not Davidians.

Today, millions of Americans still buy the lie that America is a free country. Hitler knew the power of the lie: if you lie to people often enough, they will believe anything. And while we are not at the Hitler phase yet, we will arrive there if we keep believing everything our ruling class – or at least our preferred faction of this class – says and believing we are a free nation. You cannot have it both ways.

Yes, we have a measure of liberty left. But we are giving it up at a frightening rate.

Sadly, some people will not clue in until the death camp phase. I pray fervently that enough Americans wake up before then.

I am a Christian and Scripture tells me to preach the truth without ceasing, for there will come a time when people will not want to hear the truth. Rather, they will surround themselves with ear-ticklers who will tell them whatever they want to hear, regardless of how preposterous.

People ask me if I get frustrated fighting the freedom fight in a society where so many will gladly relinquish that freedom. Yes I do! However, in late 1991, God called me to be a watchman and to warn everyone I could of the tyranny descending on America. I must continue to fight this fight and leave the results up to Him. I invite you to join me.

A free country would not be a perfect country. However it would be the best possible country.

I am not going to wish you a happy Independence Day, as the spirit of July 4, 1776 has been lost for at least a century in America.

So, I will just wish you a happy Fourth of July.