How are we libertarians going to counter the continuing march towards complete societal lockdown? In the news, we find that the US state is tightening its grip on the internet. Cops can put a GPS tracker on your car without a warrant. Naked body scanners have flown out of the airports and are now in a van near you. And Obama can assassinate people without even telling us about it. Is the answer violent resistance?
The Freeman published an article by Wendy McElroy about how the US state is slowly claiming more control over the internet. Soon we may see Chinese-like censorship. The US may lose control over the root domain servers (good!). Should we move our domains and websites offshore? Where do I buy a Somali domain name?
Cops don’t need a warrant to track your movements by putting a GPS tracker on your car. So says a US Court of Appeals. Now not even taking the battery out of your cellphone will guarantee privacy for your daily errands. Ooops, it’s already happening. One redditor’s friend found a GPS tracker on his car. This particular model is only sold to police and law enforcement.
Naked body scanning technology is now mobile. Vans with the backscatter x-ray technology are apparently wandering the nation. The marketing director of American Science & Engineering assures readers that the x-ray dosage is tiny and couldn’t hurt a fly. They also removed a video about their products from YouTube. I don’t know about you, but I think people should ask before randomly x-raying me.
Constitutional scholar Barack Obama claims the power to murder people, even those he recognizes as citizens of the state he leads, and keep it a state secret. This has to be the scariest anti-libertarian news of the week. If they can secretly kill you without rendering accounts to anyone, what is left to fight about? Without life, there are no other rights, no other values worth fighting over.
Some commentators urge us to violent resistance. Let’s prepare for that. Get in shape, get rifles, become marksmen. Prepare for a protracted guerrilla war. But don’t advocate that. Don’t seek it out. Instead, exploit all the methods of non-violent resistance available to us. Challenge the state to honor its own rules. Either they will reform or, more likely, our ranks will grow as more people realize what a sham the state is.
Liberty on Tour and countless others in the liberty movement are doing an outstanding job of nonviolent resistance. Plug in to the online libertarian network. Learn what others are doing. When you are ready, resist in your own way. Start small and but keep starting.
Photo credit: araswami. Photo license.
2 replies on “How will Libertarians Counter this Bad News for Liberty in America?”
I agree that sometimes it seems bleak. That is why it is more important than ever to recruit and activate more libertarians. While I can’t promise victory, I know that the more these ideas have spread the better our chances.