In Tyranny Comes Home,
George Mason Professor Christopher Coyne deftly documents what every
founder understood: military interventions abroad kill liberty at home.
Mr. Coyne will examine and explain that if we do not all hang together
to dismantle our warfare state, then we will all hang separately.
James
Madison -- the Albert Einstein of political science -- warned more than
two centuries ago: “The means of defense against foreign danger have
been always the instruments of tyranny at home...If Tyranny and
Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a
foreign enemy."
War makes legal what is customarily punished as first-degree murder. As Cicero advised, in times of war the law is silent.
The
United States is history’s most heavily garrisoned warfare state. The
President plays prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner to kill any
person on the planet based on secret, unsubstantiated information that
the target might threaten us -- the very definition of tyranny. Is there
any wonder lesser invasions of liberty abound: dragnet surveillance of
the entire population, detention
without accusation or charge, scorn for due process, militarization of
the police, and Espionage Act prosecutions to suppress dissent?
Shakespeare’s Macbeth captured this inter-connectedness in King Duncan’s murder:
If it were done when 'tis done, then 'twere well
It were done quickly: if the assassination
Could trammel up the consequence, and catch
With his surcease success; that but this blow
Might be the be-all and the end-all here,
But here, upon this bank and shoal of time,
We'd jump the life to come. But in these cases
We still have judgment here; that we but teach
Bloody instructions, which, being taught, return
To plague the inventor: this even-handed justice
Commends the ingredients of our poison'd chalice
To our own lips.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment