3.  Professional Paranoid, Part III
    by William Stone, III
    wrs{at}0ap.org

Exclusive to TLE

    Part 1: http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/libe236-20030831-03.html
    Part 2: http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/libe237-20030907-03.html

In Part I of "Professional Paranoid," I explored the idea that
there are no terrorists of note in the United States, giving a specific
example as to why this is so.  If terrorists existed, there is nothing to
prevent this country from looking like Israel or Iraq.  The fact that no
terrorist attacks have occurred in more than two years is proof that no one
is actually trying.

In Part II, I [cited] statistics of terrorism, easily proving that in the
United States, you're 9,683% more likely to die in an automobile accident
than in a terrorist attack.  I also proved that the current draconian,
anti-freedom measures put in place by the big-government, tax-and-spend
Republicans don't make America more safe.  In fact, these laws make us far
LESS safe.

In Part III, I'd like to examine the real enemy of freedom in the United
States.  It's neither terrorists nor Middle Eastern religious nuts.

Recall from Part II that in the entire history of the Republic, there have
been 3262 fatalities due to terrorism.  From 1992 - 2001 alone, there were
315,856 automobile-related fatalities.

In any given year, there are over 280 million victims of government.

The statistical likelihood of being killed in a car accident is very low in
the United States.  The chance of being killed in a terrorist attack is far
closer to 0% than 1%.  However, it is literally a 100% certainty that you
will be a victim of government policies.

First and foremost among these policies are those that allow government to
steal money.  The Federal government steals about 30% of everyone's income,
while State and local governments steal another 20%.  Through immoral
policies that add taxation at literally every point of production of every
good and service in America, consumer prices are inflated by some 800%. 
Via immoral, Unconstitutional interference in the finance industry,
government has driven the value of Federal Reserve Notes to a tiny fraction
of what they were when I was a child.

It is a 100% certainty that you will have half your money stolen from you,
pay eight times what you need to for everything you see on every store in
America, and that it will require more money every year to make the
purchase.

Compare this to the utterly negligible risk that you'll be a victim of
terrorist attack.

Morally, the Unconstitutional Federal nanny-state encourages a slave
mentality.  Rather than believing that we are each born free individual who
may do as we please, an intrusive government fosters the belief that rights
are bestowed from government, to give and take as it pleases.

As I pointed out in Part II, Federal policy has no impact whatsoever in a
terrorist's ability to carry out misdeeds (not, as I pointed out in Part I,
that any of them are actually trying).  The architect of these immoral,
Unconstitutional policies aren't idiots:  they know full well that their
policies have no use in preventing or punishing terrorism.

Why, then, do government officials feel compelled to force these policies
upon not only us, but every American born after 9/11?

I've been alive almost forty years.  My father is a clinical psychologist
who worked for many years in the security wing of the Nebraska state mental
hospital.  This is the wing that houses individuals so sick that they are a
danger to other prisoners:  serial murderers and rapists, pedophiles ...
the Jeffrey Dahmers and John Wayne Gaceys of the world.  For many years, I
literally had no conception that it was unusual for a boy's father to go to
work through a pair of six-inch steel doors adjacent to a guard station
encased in bulletproof plexiglass.

In my adult career as an professional paranoid, I'm rather well-prepared.
When asking the question, "Why do my elected officials insist on doing
things I know for a fact have no positive impact on American life?"
I'm not inclined to be charitable.  Seminal libertarian author L. Neil
Smith once pointed out that individuals who insist on implementing policy
that can are easily demonstrable as harmful are either stupid, insane, or
evil -- possibly all three. [see
http://www.webleyweb.com/tle/libe202-20021209-02.html]

America's "War on Terror" is easily demonstrable as harmful to
American life.  The politicians who support it are either stupid, insane,
or evil.

I reject out of hand the notion that the majority are stupid.  I don't
think stupid people get elected to Congress or the Presidency.  A few,
perhaps, but not all.

Insane?  Possibly, though not in the way most people think of it.  Elected
officials at the Federal level are certainly power-mad.  They each have a
burning desire to amass as much personal power as possible and maintain it
for as long as they can.  If any one of them could arrange to be crowned
Emperor of Earth, they would.  Fortunately, each of them is actively
working toward his own coronation, so the political in-fighting tends to
keep any one of them from rising to a position of prominence.

(RJT:  I've seen the perfect phrase to describe these types:  "Scared
little boys"!  Sorry I can't recall where I saw it...)

Certainly many elected officials suffer from some form of personality
disorder, but one would be hard-pressed to prove it without psychological
testing.

So in general, aside from a large dose of power-madness, insanity (e.g. the
inability to understand that their policies are harmful) seems unlikely.

What's left?  Evil.  Our elected officials are just plain evil.  Their
power madness leads them to take any and every measure possible to
consolidate their power.  If that requires enacting policies and programs
that harm millions of individuals, they'll happily do it.

Fortunately, even evil, power-mad politicians run the risk of offending
their voters so much that they won't be re-elected.  This has the tendency
to temper their actions.  Certainly, if they thought they could get away
with it, there isn't a single elected official who wouldn't vote to levy a
100% income tax, nationalize every industry in the country, and take
America directly to tyranny (as opposed to doing it a little bit at a
time).  However, if they enacted such a measure, they'd almost certainly be
voted out.

So they sit, scheming and making deals with other selfish, power-mad
weasels in smoky, badly-lit back rooms.

Then an event like September 11 occurs.  Suddenly, millions of people are
frightened.  Their judgment disappears.  They scream to their elected
officials, "We don't care what you do to us, just GET THOSE
BASTARDS!"

And the politicians smile and take full advantage of the situation to enact
policies that would otherwise get them voted out of office.

Who, then, is the true enemy of freedom in the United States?  Terrorists
who haven't struck in two years and only three times previously in the
entire history of the United States?  Or evil, power-mad politicians who
spend all their waking hours scheming and taking away as many freedoms as
they possibly can -- every single day?

One day -- and that day is probably much closer than any of us think -- the
politicians will come to the ugly realization that the United States has
gone the way of the Soviet Union and every other communist regime in the
world.  You simply cannot steal everyone's money AND drive up prices AND
devalue your currency and expect the country to survive.  I would suggest
that the present recession -- which shows no real signs of improving -- is
symptomatic of this.

One day, elected officials will sit in their offices in Washington scheming
and passing laws that only they and a few deluded souls who think the
United States still exists will pay attention to.  Our elected officials
probably won't notice that the United States fell until the rest of us have
built a truly free society and promptly left this rock for the stars.

They're evil, no question about it.  They're demented, twisted disgusting
little trolls deep down in their evil souls.  They're intent on making
themselves Emperor at everyone's expense, without even understanding that
they'll never be able to accomplish their goal.

So let them have their fun.  No doubt they'll make our lives a little more
miserable in the meantime, but as Princess Leia so wisely noted, "The
more you tighten your grip, the more systems will slip through your
fingers."

Let them tighten their grip -- and like the professional paranoid, keep a
keen eye out for a place to squeeze through.

Freedom, Immortality, and the Stars!


--
William Stone, III is a South Dakota-based computer nerd (RHCE, CCNP),
security consultant (CISSP), and Executive Director of the Zero Aggression
Institute (http://www.0ap.org).  He seeks the Libertarian Party's
nomination in 2004 for United States Senate.

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