How to tell if you are in a tyrannical police state

The New American
Dec. 24, 2005

Tyrannical police states have certain universal characteristics. They spy on their own citizens, kidnap people at will, and imprison them without bothering to charge them with crimes or even give them a trial by jury. Police states imprison innocent people, again and again and again. And they declare kidnapped victims non-persons and torture or kill them at will.

How do police states get away with it? From Hitler to the present, totalitarians say that we must give up our rights and freedoms because it’s the only way for law enforcement to have the tools to protect us from catastrophic terrorist incidents. Of course, that’s the opposite course advocated by America’s Founding Fathers, like Benjamin Franklin, who counseled: “They that would give up essential liberty for temporary security deserve neither liberty nor security.”

Now, I ask you: What do any of these things have to do with America today?