JAMES BOVARD
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EPIGRAMS
FROM TERRORISM & TYRANNY: TRAMPLING PEACE, FREEDOM, AND JUSTICE TO RID THE
WORLD OF EVIL (PALGRAVE MACMILLAN, 2003)
The Patriot Act treats every citizen like a suspected terrorist and every federal agent like a proven angel.
Habeas corpus is an insurance policy to prevent governments from going berserk.
It took less than a week for Washington politicians to transform the Federal Aviation Administration’s greatest debacle into its finest hour.
Like a Soviet historian, John Ashcroft rewrote the judicial history of the United States and expunged all the court decisions detailing and denouncing abuses by law enforcement.
Most of the homeland security successes in the war on terrorism have been farces or frauds.
Nothing happened on 9/11 that made the federal government more trustworthy.
The worse government fails, the less privacy citizens supposedly deserve.
There is power in information: the more information government gathers on people, the more power it has over them. The more government surveillance, the more intimidated Americans become.
There is no technological magic bullet that will make the government as smart as it is powerful.
The U.S. government is far more efficient at making enemies than at defending Americans.
Killing foreigners is no substitute for protecting Americans.
Perpetual war inevitably begets perpetual repression. It is impossible to destroy all alleged enemies of freedom everywhere without also destroying freedom in the United States.
A lie that is accepted by a sufficient number of ignorant voters becomes a political truth.Citizens should distrust politicians who distrust freedom.
In the long run, people have more to fear from governments than from terrorists. Terrorists come and go, but power-hungry politicians will always be with us.
Freedom will only be permanently secured when people cease craving power over other people. In other words, as long as human beings are human, freedom will be in peril.