Freedom's Real Enemies

By Chuck Baldwin
June 11, 2010


This column is archived at
http://chuckbaldwinlive.com/home/?p=1708


Politicians in Washington, D.C., love to manufacture a crisis. The crisis
generates fear within the citizenry, thereby allowing the federal government
to centralize more and more power. During a crisis, the citizenry becomes
much more forgiving of federal abuses and accommodating of federal
encroachments than it otherwise would be without a crisis. Hence, we have a
federal "war on drugs," and a "war on poverty," and a "war on terror," and
an "oil crisis," and an "energy crisis," and a "domestic terrorism crisis,"
and an "education crisis," and a "border crisis," and an "economic
crisis"--Blah! Blah! Blah!

You can mark it down: every major crisis that America has faced over the
last several decades has been either manufactured or facilitated by policies
and activities originating in Washington, D.C. But at the same time that DC
is creating these crises, it categorizes any ideological group it finds
distasteful as a convenient scapegoat. These convenient scapegoats can
include "angry white guys," "tea party extremists," "a vast right-wing
conspiracy," Constitution Party or Libertarian Party "extremists," "Second
Amendment extremists" (gun owners), "pro-life extremists," ad infinitum, ad
nauseam.

Yet, while DC's elitists are plotting America's next crisis and figuring out
whom to categorize as America's next "extremist," some real enemies are
waging war against the freedoms and liberties of our once-great republic.
And, ladies and gentlemen, these enemies are much more subtle, a lot closer,
and much more dangerous than almost anything you are being told about.

Here are some of freedom's real enemies:

Big Cities

When the United States was a much smaller--much more agricultural--nation,
our freedoms were mostly intact. The mass exodus out of rural America into
urban America has been a bane of freedom--and it will continue to be so.

Thomas Jefferson addressed this issue astutely when he wrote in a letter to
James Madison, "When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in
Europe, we shall become corrupt as in Europe." (Source: The Jeffersonian
Cyclopedia, A Comprehensive Collection of the Views of Thomas Jefferson)

Jefferson spoke again of this danger in a letter to Benjamin Rush. He wrote,
"I view great cities as pestilential to the morals, the health, and the
liberties of man. True, they nourish some of the elegant arts, but the
useful ones can thrive elsewhere, and less perfection in the others, with
more health, virtue and freedom, would be my choice." (Source: Ibid.)

Big cities are most always more liberal, more socialistic, more utopian, and
more centralist. Citizens living in big cities readily submit to the
machinations and designs of Big Government with much greater regularity than
do their rural counterparts. In states where a handful of big cities
dominate State politics, Big-Government policies almost always take over the
politics of the entire State. If you doubt that, just speak with
freedom-loving citizens in New York, Illinois, or Maryland.

Consider, specifically, the freedom most necessary to preserve our
liberties: the right of the people to keep and bear arms. People in states
that are less populated enjoy much greater liberty than do people in heavily
populated states. For example, Boston's Gun Bible (BGB) ranks the states
according to the degree of gun ownership (and possession) protection in each
State. It is no coincidence that the states with sparser populations are
much freer than states with denser populations.

Here is BGB's breakdown of the most and least free gun ownership states:

Most Free States:

1. Vermont
2. Idaho and Kentucky (tie)
3. Louisiana and Alaska (tie)
4. Wyoming
5. Montana

Least Free States:

1. New Jersey
2. Illinois
3. Hawaii
4. Massachusetts
5. New York

Population density in the "most free" states is less than 50 persons per
square mile, while in the "least free" states it is more than 460 persons
per square mile. Case closed!

While big cities will typically tolerate much more in the way of
licentiousness and sexual perversion, they are also the first to tolerate
Big-Government socialism. Without a doubt, Thomas Jefferson was right: big
cities are "pestilential to the morals, the health, and the liberties of
man."

If you want to live free in the future, you will probably need to leave the
big city--and perhaps the states that are dominated by big cities.

The National News Media

For the most part, the national news media is no friend of freedom. About
all most of them know of the US Constitution is the part about the "freedom
of the press" (from the First Amendment, of course). Watch any of the Big
Three television network newscasts on any weekday evening, and what will you
see? You will see the exact same stories regurgitated over and over
again--even with the exact same spin! And that spin is most always tilted
toward bigger and bigger government. This goes on night after night, week
after week, month after month, and year after year. But this is all just
coincidental, right? Get real!

The cable news networks are not much better. About the only difference
between cable networks is that CNN will provide cover for Big Government
Democrats while viciously attacking all things Republican, and FOX NEWS will
provide cover for Big Government Republicans while viciously attacking all
things Democrat.

Face it: the national news media is intoxicated with Two Party Politics.
They really don't care nearly as much about the fundamental tenets and
principles of liberty as they do about whether a Democrat or Republican wins
office. Washington's media elite are wined and dined by the same party
politicians that they cover on television or in the newspaper. (What a
racket!) Do you really think any major media news personality is going to
risk losing his or her job (which is exactly what would happen) by asking
too many questions, or boring too deeply, or straying too far off the
reservation? Once again, get real! All of these guys and gals know exactly
where the line--and the "third rail"--is located. And they all will stay
clear of both! It's not about reporting the news, or defending liberty, or
anything of the sort. It is about pleasing their big corporate
sponsors--corporate sponsors who are in bed with the elites from both major
political parties, by the way!

As long as the American people continue to allow the national news media to
manipulate and spin the news, our liberties will continue to erode.

Big Business

In fact, Big Anything can be freedom's enemy: Big Business, Big Labor, Big
Media, Big Cities, and Big Religion. Big Anything!

However, the rate and degree to which Big Business has been able to advance
during the last half of the twentieth century--and now into the twenty-first
century--is especially problematic for the survival of liberty. Dear friend,
it is a mistake to equate Big Business with freedom. Big Business has little
to do with capitalism and free enterprise and much to do with monopolism and
globalism. Big Business does not want to compete with private enterprise; it
wants to crush it! Big Business sees Big Government as a friend and partner.
In fact, Big Business and Big Government are conjoined twins. They grow and
live as one.

Accordingly, it is no accident that when the Bilderbergers got together a
few days ago at the Hotel Dolce in Sitges, Spain, for their super-secret
meeting, the list of attendees included the cabal of super-elites from Big
Government, Big Business, Big Academia, and Big Media. People such as Bill
Gates (Microsoft), Roger Altman (former Deputy Secretary of the US
Treasury), Martin Feldstein (Harvard University), Niall Ferguson (Harvard
University), Philip Gordon (Assistant Secretary of State for European and
Eurasian Affairs), Donald Graham (The Washington Post), Richard Holbrooke
(Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan), Robert Hormats (Under
Secretary for Economic, Energy and Agricultural Affairs), Henry Kissinger
(former Secretary of State), Klaus Kleinfeld (Chairman and CEO, Alcoa),
Craig Mundie (Microsoft), Peter Orszag (Director, Office of Management and
Budget), Charlie Rose (Producer, Rose Communications), Robert Rubin
(Co-Chairman, Council on Foreign Relations; former Secretary of the
Treasury), Eric Schmidt (CEO and Chairman of the Board, Google), James
Steinberg (Deputy Secretary of State), Lawrence Summers (Director, National
Economic Council), Christine Varney (Assistant Attorney General for
Antitrust), and Paul Volcker (Chairman, Economic Recovery Advisory Board).
And please remember that these are only the names of those that were
published. The complete list of attendees is top secret and never released.
For example, was Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner there? He is a
Bilderberg (and CFR) member.

But of course, this meeting--complete with the tightest security and secrecy
possible--is only for the purpose of social fellowship and clubmanship,
right? That the world's most interconnected business, governmental, and
media elites would meet outside the viewing and listening of everyone is
supposed to be dismissed as irrelevant and insignificant, right? Well, if
you get your news from ABC, CBS, NBC, CNN, or FOX NEWS, that is exactly what
you are being led to believe.

Yet, Big Business has been conspiring with Big Government for the purpose of
personal aggrandizement (at the cost of liberty, of course) for
decades--probably centuries. Remember, it took an act of Congress to stop
old Prescott Bush (George H.W. Bush's father and G.W. Bush's grandfather)
from sending financial assistance to Nazi Germany. Know, too, that
international bankers today are supporting governments (some that are openly
hostile to the United States) in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Again,
Big Business and Big Government are conjoined twins--an interconnected body
that grows in unison at the expense of our liberties.

Freedom has many more real enemies that could be added to this list, of
course; and maybe in the future we can talk more about them. For now,
recognize that our liberties are hanging by a thread in this country. And
the next time you hear someone in Washington, D.C., or the national news
media railing against the latest "crisis" that requires Big Government to
fix, please remember who the real enemy is.

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(c) Chuck Baldwin

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