{"id":21184,"date":"2024-12-19T09:31:44","date_gmt":"2024-12-19T14:31:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=21184"},"modified":"2024-12-19T09:31:44","modified_gmt":"2024-12-19T14:31:44","slug":"forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/19\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\/","title":{"rendered":"Forty Years Sniping at Leviathan"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\n

\"\"<\/a><\/h1>\n

Forty Years Sniping at Leviathan<\/a><\/h1>\n

by James Bovard<\/a><\/span> | Dec 19, 2024\"\"<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

I have spent decades trying to turn political dirt into philosophic gold. I have yet to discover the alchemist\u2019s trick, but I still have fun with the dirt.<\/p>\n

I was born in Iowa and raised in the mountains of Virginia. Wheeling and dealing with old coins as a teenager vaccinated me against trusting politicians long before I grew my first scruffy beard. Shortly after my fifteenth birthday, the U.S. government drove the final wooden stake into the nation\u2019s currency when President Richard Nixon announced that the U.S. government would cease redeeming any dollars for gold. The dollar thus became a fiat currency\u2014something which possessed value solely because politicians said so.<\/p>\n

Reading Coin News<\/i> and other numismatic publications, I soaked up the rage at how the U.S. government was intentionally torpedoing the value of the dollar<\/span>. When I got laid off from a construction job after graduating high school, I saw it as a sign from God (or at least from the market) to buy gold. I liquidated my coin collection and poured the money into gold. Nixon\u2019s resignation redeemed my gamble.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t get rich but made enough to help pay for sporadically attending Virginia Tech, with some money left over to cover living expenses during my first seasons of literary strikeouts after I decided to become a writer. The Watergate scandal and the bipartisan crimes of the Vietnam War helped me recognize that politicians as a class were scoundrels. <\/span><\/p>\n

After living in Boston and southern Illinois, I moved to Washington DC in 1980 to <\/span>try my luck as an investigative journalist. I sought to write articles that would awaken Americans to the growing threats to our rights and liberties. I thought that exposing damning facts would wake up enough Americans to stop government from destroying everyone\u2019s freedom. At that point, politicians and their media allies usually portrayed government as a hovercraft sailing along, kindly assisting people on the road of life. The state that I had met on my life\u2019s pathways was often <\/b>oppressive, incompetent, and venal. I saw no profit in delusions about the benevolence of officialdom. Instead, I realized that idealism on liberty demands <\/b>brutal <\/b>realism on political power.<\/span><\/p>\n

In ancient Greece, the famous cynic philosopher Diogenes purportedly scoffed at a rival who had \u201cpracticed philosophy for such a long time and never yet disturbed <\/i>anyone.\u201d I had the same view on investigative journalism. But in Washington DC, most of what passes for \u201cjournalism\u201d is simply shilling for Leviathan. It is impossible to overstate the servility of reporters proud to serve as \u201cstenographers with amnesia.\u201d<\/p>\n

In contrast, I was a philistine who gave no credence to an agency\u2019s mission statement. After I wrote a piece in 1983 lambasting a new program by the Ronald Reagan administration to lavish subsidies on businesses purportedly to train workers, an assistant secretary of Labor denounced my \u201ccallously cynical concept of the American free enterprise system\u201d and wailed, \u201cBovard was determined to disparage all government efforts without giving President Reagan\u2019s reforms a chance.\u201d Actually, I was happy to \u201cdisparage all government efforts\u201d doomed to repeat past failures. <\/span>I learned how to smell a policy rat.<\/p>\n

I recognized that atrocities that went unchallenged set precedents to haunt Americans in perpetuity. After I wrote a Wall Street Journal <\/i>piece detailing how an FBI sniper gunned down Vicki Weaver\u2014a mother holding a baby at a cabin door in the mountains of northern Idaho\u2014I was denounced by FBI chief Louis Freeh for \u201cmisleading or patently false conclusions\u201d and \u201cinflammatory and unfounded allegations.\u201d My articles helped demolish the Ruby Ridge cover-up, concluding with the feds paying a multimillion dollar settlement for wrongful killings. But the FBI\u2019s long record of outrages did not deter conservatives from exalting the agency after 9\/11 or deter liberals from conferring sainthood upon the Bureau for its efforts to undermine Trump. <\/span><\/p>\n

My disdain for prevailing pieties spurred plenty of denunciations. After my 1995 book dedicated to \u201cVictims of the State<\/span>\u201d <\/i>(Shakedown: How the Government Screws You from A to Z<\/i>), Entertainment Weekly<\/i> scoffed that I was \u201cparanoid.\u201d So I should have written \u201clucky beneficiaries\u201d instead? In 1999, a Los Angeles Times <\/i>book review castigated me as an \u201cunvarnished example of the contemptuous attitude toward the American political system.\u201d After I wrote an op-ed mocking the \u201cnight pay\u201d bonuses for non-working Customs Service agents, the American Federation of Government Employees denounced me for \u201csenselessly vilifying government workers\u201d and planting \u201cseeds in the minds of sick people such as Timothy McVeigh, resulting in tragedies such as the Oklahoma City bombing.\u201d Hell, I have never even been to Oklahoma. <\/span><\/p>\n

By the late 1990s, being an investigative journalist was akin to plinking at a rigged carnival shooting gallery. Each time you scored a bullseye, three more targets quickly popped up. <\/span>I wrote plenty of pieces debunking both Bill Clinton\u2019s \u201cNew Liberalism\u201d and the pledge by Newt Gingrich\u2019s Republican Revolution to rein in rampaging agencies. Despite growing distrust of Washington, the vast majority of floundering federal programs seemed impervious to criticism. <\/span>Government had become so large and powerful that its abuses became little more than background noise.<\/p>\n

The 9\/11 attacks toppled media courage as well as the World Trade Center towers. Three months after the attacks, Attorney General John Ashcroft proclaimed, \u201cThose who scare peace-loving people with phantoms of lost liberty\u2026only aid terrorists for they erode our national unity and\u2026give ammunition to America\u2019s enemies.\u201d I wasn\u2019t giving ammo to anybody\u2014I was simply documenting how the George W. Bush administration was turning freedom into a phantom. But the Bush administration sought to intimidate anyone who was pro-freedom to their mouth shut about the most brazen power grabs perhaps since World War I.<\/p>\n

I didn\u2019t muzzle myself after 9\/11. The harder my articles hit, the less newshole I got. My pieces on Bush\u2018s torture regime were as popular with editors as if I had advocated cannibalism. A 2006 book review in The<\/em> Washington Times<\/i>, where I had been a contributor for more than twenty years, derided me as a \u201cbomb thrower\u201d who was guilty of \u201ccharacter assassination\u201d of President Bush. Was it my fault that George never found those weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?<\/p>\n

The Barack Obama era brought a fresh deluge of outrages and scandals, supplemented by bizarre power grabs, including a new prerogative for presidential assassinations of Americans suspected of terrorist connections. After I repeatedly lambasted Attorney General Eric Holder in USA Today<\/i>, the Justice Department press chief Brian Fallon pressured the paper to cease printing my \u201cconsistently nasty words about Mr. Holder.\u201d Fallon bitterly complained that I had \u201cauthored pieces criticizing [Holder] on civil liberties, relations with law enforcement, and civil asset forfeiture.\u201d Was it my fault if the attorney general was a menace to the Bill of Rights? USA Today<\/i> was unfazed and continued printing my exposes of federal law enforcement.\u00a0 <\/span><\/p>\n

The first Trump administration almost made bombast great again. Donald Trump yanked in the reins on a few federal agencies but otherwise the growth of Leviathan seemed to be on automatic pilot. In a series of pieces for USA Today<\/em> and elsewhere, I exposed how the FBI surveillance crime spree crippled both the Constitution and the Trump administration. When Trump sought to withdraw U.S. troops from Syria and Afghanistan, he was outfoxed by Democrats and the Deep State. Trump failed to perpetuate the Obama administration\u2019s leash on reckless biological research abroad, paving the way for the U.S. government to bankroll the Wuhan Institute of Virology. The COVID virus exited from that lab, resulting in seven million deaths worldwide and Trump\u2019s temporary elevation of Tony Fauci as COVID savior. By the time that Trump saw through the lockdown ruse and a deluge of new voting rules, he was too far behind to win the 2020 election.<\/p>\n

\u201cGovernment is good\u201d was practically the official storyline after Joe Biden took his oath of office in January 2021. Actually, \u201cno boondoggle left behind\u201d was his administration\u2019s tacit motto. Democrats and their media allies pretended that Biden\u2019s election victory miraculously fixed all the federal flaws that have damned programs and policies for most of the prior century. I wrote about how Biden unleashed federal surveillance and why libertarians should expect to be hammered harder than practically any other target. In USA Today<\/em>, New York Post<\/em>, and the Libertarian Institute webpage, I bashed Biden\u2019s COVID vaccine mandate. From the Disinformation Governance Board to the White House crackdown on COVID humor on Facebook, I heartily thrashed censors wherever I could find good newshole. Many of my key attacks on Biden, Trump, and earlier presidents can be found in Last Rights: The Death of American Liberty<\/span><\/a><\/em>, published by the Libertarian Institute.<\/p>\n

From getting kicked out of the Supreme Court for laughing at Leviathan, to heisting damning documents at World Bank headquarters, to racing around East Bloc regimes one step ahead of the secret police, I\u2019ve had more fun than I deserved. I appreciate the editors I\u2019ve found who are still willing to publish pieces exposing official crimes and political absurdities. And maybe one of these years, the tide will turn in favor of individual liberty.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Forty Years Sniping at Leviathan by James Bovard | Dec 19, 2024 I have spent decades trying to turn political dirt into philosophic gold. I have yet to discover the alchemist\u2019s trick, but I still have fun with the dirt. I was born in Iowa and raised in the mountains of Virginia. Wheeling and dealing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":21185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2124,4448,391,2434,987,432,47,137,2435,1381,129,164,527,245,88,652,26,798,708,434],"class_list":["post-21184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-biden","tag-bomb-thrower","tag-censorship","tag-coins","tag-deep-state","tag-eric-holder","tag-fbi","tag-george-w-bush","tag-gold","tag-iraq-war","tag-journalism","tag-leviathan","tag-memoir","tag-nixon","tag-reagan","tag-ruby-ridge","tag-terrorism","tag-treason","tag-trump","tag-washington"],"yoast_head":"\nForty Years Sniping at Leviathan - James Bovard<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I have been sniping at Leviathan for more than 40 years...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/19\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Forty Years Sniping at Leviathan - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I have been sniping at Leviathan for more than 40 years...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/19\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-12-19T14:31:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Bovard-Cover-shot-books.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"851\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"315\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jim\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@jimbovard\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Jim\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"8 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/19\\\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/19\\\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jim\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f\"},\"headline\":\"Forty Years Sniping at Leviathan\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-12-19T14:31:44+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/19\\\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":1550,\"commentCount\":2,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/19\\\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/Bovard-Cover-shot-books.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Biden\",\"bomb thrower\",\"censorship\",\"coins\",\"Deep State\",\"Eric Holder\",\"FBI\",\"George W. Bush\",\"gold\",\"Iraq war\",\"journalism\",\"leviathan\",\"Memoir\",\"nixon\",\"reagan\",\"Ruby Ridge\",\"Terrorism\",\"treason\",\"Trump\",\"Washington\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/19\\\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/19\\\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/19\\\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\\\/\",\"name\":\"Forty Years Sniping at Leviathan - James Bovard\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/19\\\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/19\\\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\\\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/Bovard-Cover-shot-books.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-12-19T14:31:44+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f\"},\"description\":\"I have been sniping at Leviathan for more than 40 years...\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/19\\\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/19\\\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/19\\\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\\\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/Bovard-Cover-shot-books.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/Bovard-Cover-shot-books.jpg\",\"width\":851,\"height\":315},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2024\\\/12\\\/19\\\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Forty Years Sniping at Leviathan\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/\",\"name\":\"James Bovard\",\"description\":\"\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f\",\"name\":\"Jim\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/secure.gravatar.com\\\/avatar\\\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r\",\"caption\":\"Jim\"},\"description\":\"Bovard's homepage is at http:\\\/\\\/www.jimbovard.com He can be contacted at jim@jimbovard.com James Bovard is the author of ten books. The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \\\"the roving inspector general of the modern state\\\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \\\"one-man truth squad.\\\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \\\"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\\\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.\",\"sameAs\":[\"http:\\\/\\\/www.jimbovard.com\",\"https:\\\/\\\/www.facebook.com\\\/jim.bovard\",\"https:\\\/\\\/x.com\\\/jimbovard\"],\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/author\\\/admin\\\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Forty Years Sniping at Leviathan - James Bovard","description":"I have been sniping at Leviathan for more than 40 years...","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/19\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Forty Years Sniping at Leviathan - James Bovard","og_description":"I have been sniping at Leviathan for more than 40 years...","og_url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/19\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\/","og_site_name":"James Bovard","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","article_published_time":"2024-12-19T14:31:44+00:00","og_image":[{"width":851,"height":315,"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Bovard-Cover-shot-books.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Jim","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@jimbovard","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Jim","Est. reading time":"8 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/19\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/19\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\/"},"author":{"name":"Jim","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f"},"headline":"Forty Years Sniping at Leviathan","datePublished":"2024-12-19T14:31:44+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/19\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\/"},"wordCount":1550,"commentCount":2,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/19\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Bovard-Cover-shot-books.jpg","keywords":["Biden","bomb thrower","censorship","coins","Deep State","Eric Holder","FBI","George W. Bush","gold","Iraq war","journalism","leviathan","Memoir","nixon","reagan","Ruby Ridge","Terrorism","treason","Trump","Washington"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/19\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/19\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\/","url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/19\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\/","name":"Forty Years Sniping at Leviathan - James Bovard","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/19\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/19\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Bovard-Cover-shot-books.jpg","datePublished":"2024-12-19T14:31:44+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f"},"description":"I have been sniping at Leviathan for more than 40 years...","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/19\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/19\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/19\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Bovard-Cover-shot-books.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/Bovard-Cover-shot-books.jpg","width":851,"height":315},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2024\/12\/19\/forty-years-sniping-at-leviathan\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Forty Years Sniping at Leviathan"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#website","url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/","name":"James Bovard","description":"","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f","name":"Jim","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/d95466cfd0934e38803c5035629df727ae4ec1f3f96c6883c05b5c52e2044505?s=96&d=mm&r=r","caption":"Jim"},"description":"Bovard's homepage is at http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com He can be contacted at jim@jimbovard.com James Bovard is the author of ten books. The Wall Street Journal called Bovard \"the roving inspector general of the modern state\" and Washington Post columnist George Will called him a \"one-man truth squad.\" His 1994 book, Lost Rights: The Destruction of American Liberty, received the Free Press Association\u2019s Mencken Award as Book of the Year. His Terrorism & Tyranny won the Lysander Spooner \"Best Book on Liberty in 2003\" award. He received the Thomas Szasz Award for Civil Liberties work, awarded by the Center for Independent Thought and the Freedom Fund Award from the Firearms Civil Rights Defense Fund of the National Rifle Association. Bovard\u2019s writings have been publicly denounced by FBI director Louis Freeh, the Secretary of Agriculture, the Secretary of Housing and Urban Development, the Postmaster General, and the chiefs of the U.S. International Trade Commission, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency, as well as by many congressmen and other malcontents.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jimbovard.com","https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","https:\/\/x.com\/jimbovard"],"url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21184"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21184\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21187,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21184\/revisions\/21187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}