The failing empire...

Coercion by force never works. Every time that a society has tried to expand itself through the use of force, it has failed. Look back through history at the examples from China, Rome, the Mongols, the English, the Russians, the Turk, the Germans, the Italians, the Japanese. Now, compare that with today's modern American empire.

We have troops in more than 100 countries. In recent decades we've tried to covertly or overtly affect the stability of dozens of governments around the world. I believe that we are now reaching the end of our empire building road as today's young Americans are increasingly unwilling to fight for the welfare state that we have become.

As James Burnham says:

[Modern liberalism] does not offer ordinary men compelling motives for personal suffering, sacrifice, and death. There is no tragic dimension in its picture of the good life. Men become willing to endure, sacrifice, and die for God, for family, king, honor, country, from a sense of absolute duty or an exalted vision of the meaning of history… . And it is precisely these ideas and institutions that liberalism has criticized, attacked, and in part overthrown as superstitious, archaic, reactionary, and irrational. In their place liberalism proposes a set of pale and bloodless abstractions—pale and bloodless for the very reason that they have no roots in the past, in deep feeling and in suffering. Except for mercenaries, saints, and neurotics, no one is willing to sacrifice and die for progressive education, medicare, humanity in the abstract, the United Nations, and a ten percent rise in Social Security payments.

Unless you are a ditto-head sheep, you can probably figure out that our economy only appears strong because of the hidden fraud committed by the Federal Reserve as it continues to print money at record pace.

Unless and until our politicians dramatically change course, and begin to curb their borrowing and spending on social programs and pork barrel projects, our Republic inches closer to depression or collapse.

It is my view that the American ideal of individuals who enjoy the unalienable rights to life, liberty and property by birthright is the best concept ever committed to paper. Sadly and predictably, corruptible men have twisted and mangled the concepts over the years as the American people continue to ignore the warnings given by our founding fathers who implored us to be ever-vigilant against tyranny and democracy.

We now find ourselves in a terrible position where our government has transformed into precisely the same as that of King George, who was defeated by George Washington and his Army of liberty-loving Patriots in the Revolutionary War.

How does this all tie together? Our supposed leaders trample on the once respected unalienable rights of Americans as they seek to impose what they proport to be the “American way of life” around the world. In order to confuse the average American fool, the federal government artificially inflates the strength and stability of our economy in attempt to boost its credibility both domestically and internationally.

We are being told at the war in Iraq is all about spreading freedom through the Middle East, yet I dare ask, how can America spread a concept in which most of us do not subscribe?

How can we possibly teach Iraqis about the value of free speech or private property when our government recognizes neither?

Why would somebody believe that free and fair elections are virtuous when our own elections are anything but free and fair? If Iraqis utilize finger ink to ensure the one man/one vote concept, why not use the same system in America?

How could an Iraqi learn to appreciate the concept of warrant requirements when it comes to search and seizure when our President does not uphold the practice, even when he has a court at his disposal that rubber-stamps warrants with alarming regularity?

I challenge anyone to select a single Article or clause in the Bill of Rights (except perhaps the 3rd or 7th ) that has not been dramatically altered in favor of the government and against the individual since its inception.

No, the truth is that this war has nothing to do with freedom, and our government has no respect for individual rights or human liberty. If there was any doubt left in my mind before this week, it was erased permanently when I heard Judge Alito explain his view that there is no check or balance on the Supreme Court outside of its members themselves.

Understandably, the big government socialist Democrats didn't object, but nary a word was uttered by the Republicans who supposedly believe in limited government.

Judge Alito stated clearly that he believes in government power when it comes to limitations on free speech, such as the “free speech zones” set up at the 2004 RNC Convention, and he believes in giving very wide latitude when it comes to the scope of search warrants, as evidenced by his opinion in the case of a strip-search of a 10-year-old girl who happened to find herself in the wrong house at the wrong time.

The American Republic is collapsing before our eyes, and most of us are either asleep or busy rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic that is America and our Constitution.

My only solution is to prepare myself and my family for the inevitable dark times which surely await us in the coming decades.

American Empire