Freedom Frauds: Hard Lessons in American Liberty

Freedom Frauds: Hard Lessons in American Liberty
by James Bovard

Kindle — order ebook from Amazon

Freedom Frauds is an array of stories from the past decade that might be good for laughing or cussing.

There’s the story of how James Bovard got nailed by the police while searching for donuts, revelations from his long bus ride with a down-and-out-Vietnam War vet, how he learned not to shovel working for the Virginia Highway Department, his ancient transgressions against Boy Scout neckerchief edicts, and the true facts of why he was evicted from the Supreme Court for laughing.

Freedom Frauds also exposes how politicians and the media have hollowed out our liberty over the past century. The Founding Fathers created a Bill of Rights to restrain government coercion of the American people. But succeeding generations of presidents and congressmen scorned the
Constitution and sanctified one precedent after another to subjugate citizens to Washington.

After 9/11, President George W. Bush accelerated the hollowing out of freedom, epitomized by his embrace of torture methods pioneered by the Soviet Union. President Barack Obama, despite his pious rhetoric, piled on new pretexts to unleash bureaucrats and penalize anyone who failed to kowtow to the latest health care and other decrees. As a result, Americans have scant protection against the depredations of the Internal Revenue Service, Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and an array of other alphabet agencies whose existence would have mortified our forefathers. Police forces have been militarized and unleashed across the land by both Republicans and Democrats, and it is only recently that accurate body counts of police victims have been even been tabulated.

Similarly, both parties have embraced foreign wars on the flimsiest pretexts, usually championed by media coverage that ignores the carnage inflicted on foreign civilians. But the U.S. government remains far more adept at killing foreigners than protecting Americans.

Many of the worst federal abuses have long since become hallowed. The names and parties of the predators change, but many of the anti-freedom scams are the same. Attorney Generals Jeff Session, Eric Holder, and John Ashcroft have far more in common with each other than any resemblance to
James Madison. Presidents Trump, Obama, and Bush are peas in a pod compared to Thomas Jefferson.

Despite the anti-Washington backlash in the 2016 election, it remains “business as usual” for the vast majority of federal agencies and policies. And, as comedian Lily Tomlin declared, “No matter how cynical you become, it’s never enough to keep up.” But as long as there is a cadre of Americans who continue to supremely value their own freedom and independence, there is hope for reversing the onslaught of Leviathan.

Kindle — order ebook from Amazon