By Nathan Barton
Tyranny? Police state? RU Kidding? What DO we live in? For your consideration, the following:
Police seized six children from a family because they were camping, according to Off the Grid News. The agonizing experience for Christopher and Antonia Hernandez began 19th May when Otsego County (Michigan) sheriff deputies and a CPS official took their children, and ended June 10 when their children were returned after the parents won a court ruling based on the fact the mother and children are eligible for enrollment in the Tlingit AmerInd tribe of Washington state. The federal Indian Child Welfare Act makes it more difficult for state officials to separate Native American families. Michigan has a similar state law. This strikes close to home: my parents were similar “abusers” as the summers of 1966, 1967, and 1968, the family (including myself and my younger brother and sister, ages 13 down to 7) camped for the entire summer EACH of those three years. And most places we camped (in two old style tents) we had no electricity, and the campground didn’t even have running water (except for the month of June when it normally rains every evening in the Black Hills). We had to use pit latrines in several of the places we camped. Of course, the experience scarred me for life: my younger sibs were not so damaged: neither of them are politically astute, much less libertarian. Seriously, I cannot imagine the trauma these children went through: nearly 4 weeks without their parents! For camping!
How much tyranny is “too much?” How much liberty lost is too much, or drags us down to a state of slavery? We’ve been in that situation for decades. Yes, I know that Investor’s Business Daily tells us that the decline of U.S. economic freedom will lower our living standards. They report that worldwide, economic freedom has been rising in recent decades. However, since 2000, U.S. economic freedom has been faltering… Actually, it has been going on, at least in most states, for a LOT longer than 15 years, and I can tell you for a certainty that our living standards are already SIGNIFICANTLY lower because of the decline of freedom: a decay of living standards that goes back most of my life, to the early 1970s. Liberties go away, and so does the standard of living for 90% of us. As with L. Neil Smith, I wonder if it is possible to imagine the high standard of living Americans (and the rest of the world) would have if we had not been subjected to the parasitism of government and the loss of our economic and personal liberties all these decades.
One of the major excuses for the police state is the dangers of drugs, and that it is “for the children.”
Really? Science Daily reports from the Lancet that legalizing medical marijuana does not increase use among adolescents. A nationwide study analyzing 24 years of data (1991 to 2014) from over one million American adolescents in the 48 contiguous states has found no evidence that legalizing the use of marijuana for medical purposes leads to increased use among teenagers. This shocking news, along with the bizarre idea that DRUGS do NOT cause DRUG ADDICTION, is gaining traction in the mainstream of life and media, and pushing (again) government and gov-goons to the fringes. Just imagine, the excuse for a CENTURY of a war on some drugs is now proven to be garbage: just as guns do not cause murder, drugs do not cause drug addiction. People do. Just as jack-boots do not cause tyranny, nor slaves cause slavery.
Again, really? Improving K-12 System Could Produce More College Graduates, according to Education Next. They say, there is strong evidence that college adds real value in terms of students’ skills, knowledge and career preparation, value that translates into higher earnings… Well, I agree. And the number one way of improving the K-12 system is to GET GOVERNMENT OUT OF IT. Make it private, homeschool, unschool, let religious groups organize it: just get government OUT. End government-run, tax-funded schools. And with them can go “DARE” and oaths of fealty to the State, and all the rest of the garbage that replaces real learning.
A short commentary today, so enjoy the last few days of Spring!
The Price of Liberty 
I think the operating concept of our current “free” society is, “If it is not permitted, it is forbidden.”
Funny though, if the family in michigan had been living out of their car or in an abandoned building with no services in a major city, no one would care or probably notice. It is not unusual for displace families in our state to camp in the desert haul water, live in tents etc. There is no where else for them to go.
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Indeed, Matt… I’m not sure just how much more screwed up that situation could be (though the goon squads could likely think of something…) As for the homeless, displaced and even the permanently poor, there seem to be two separate problems. They don’t both apply to everyone, but probably to a great many. First is the vast body of “law” and regulations that destroy families, jobs, businesses, home building/ownership in a rational way, and so much else. The handouts and “programs” add to that by destroying incentive and self respect, etc.
Then there is the character problems of those who buy into all of that and make little or no attempt to exercise self ownership and responsibility, being more or less content to function as slaves/ cattle for politicians and bureaucrats. What a sick vicious cycle.
But I know from personal experience that it is not necessary to stay on that deadly Ferris wheel. My family was homeless and destitute for a few years after my father died. Our friends and relatives did what they could to assist mother while she learned some marketable skills and found jobs. It wasn’t long before she could stand on her own, and she spent the rest of her life giving the same sort of “tough love” to others. But we were so fortunate… there wasn’t any such thing as “welfare” in 1950.
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