{"id":21423,"date":"2025-03-15T08:26:11","date_gmt":"2025-03-15T12:26:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=21423"},"modified":"2025-03-15T08:26:11","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T12:26:11","slug":"counterpunch-version-trumps-always-be-free-fairy-tale","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2025\/03\/15\/counterpunch-version-trumps-always-be-free-fairy-tale\/","title":{"rendered":"Counterpunch Version: Trump\u2019s \u201cAlways Be Free\u201d Fairy Tale"},"content":{"rendered":"

[[Key addition:\u00a0 Anyone who blindly believes Americans will \u201calways be free\u201d is halfway to serfdom<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

March 12, 2025<\/span><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s \u201cAlways Be Free\u201d Fairy Tale<\/a><\/h1>\n

James Bovard<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Facebook<\/span><\/a> Twitter<\/span><\/a> Reddit<\/span><\/a> Bluesky<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

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Email<\/span><\/a> <\/a><\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
\"\"In his State of the Union address last week, President Donald Trump promised that Americans \u201cwill always be free.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That throwaway line assured another round of applause from his Republican devotees on Capitol Hill.\u00a0 But will other Americans be as gullible or servile as members of Congress?<\/p>\n

Americans are indoctrinated in government schools to presume that our national DNA practically guarantees we will always be free. But few follies are more perilous than presuming that individual rights are safe in perpetuity. None of the arguments on why liberty is inevitable can explain why it is becoming an endangered species. Presuming that freedom is our destiny lulls people against political predators of all parties and creeds.<\/p>\n

Sorting out the absurdities in Trump\u2019s \u201calways be free\u201d assertion is like peeling a political onion.<\/p>\n

A key theme in the Trump\u2019s presidential campaign last year was that President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris were tyrannizing American with censorship, DEI\u00a0 mandates, and idiotic regulations.\u00a0\u00a0 When Trump said Americans \u201cwill always be free,\u201d did he presume that the Biden presidency never happened, or what?\u00a0\u00a0 Were all of the Biden administration\u2019s abuses expunged on the day that Trump took his oath of office as 47th<\/sup> president? Trump has vigorously nullified many of Biden\u2019s worst policies and executive orders.\u00a0 But the feds were oppressive long before Sleepy Joe arrived in the Oval Office.<\/p>\n

Trump raised\u00a0 a similar claim six years ago in his 2019 State of the Union address. Trump announced, \u201cAmerica was founded on liberty and independence \u2014 not government coercion, domination, and control. We are born free, and we will stay free.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sure, except for armies of government enforcement agent waiting to imprison Americans for violating hundreds of thousands of laws and regulations or simply \u201cpissing off the police.\u201d<\/p>\n

How can Trump\u2019s \u201calways be free\u201d assertion be reconciled with more than ten million people being arrested every year \u2013 many for nonviolent crimes?\u00a0 In early 2019, Trump bitterly complained that the FBI had used 29 people and armored vehicles to arrest Roger Stone. But SWAT teams conduct up to 80,000 raids a year, according to the ACLU, mostly for drug arrests or search warrants. Many innocent people have been killed in such raids.\u00a0\u00a0 Perhaps Trump doesn\u2019t consider such raids a violation of freedom unless they are targeting his high-profile supporters.<\/p>\n

Or maybe Trump believes that people forfeit their right to freedom after government suspects or accuses them of wrongdoing.\u00a0 Trump is a champion of asset forfeiture laws which entitle law enforcement to confiscate people\u2019s cash, cars, and other property based on the flimsiest accusation. Federal law-enforcement agencies seized more property via asset forfeiture\u00a0 than all the burglars stole from homeowners and businesses nationwide. Trump\u2019s new Bitcoin Reserve Fund and United States Digital Asset Stockpile will rely on asset forfeiture to finance acquisition.\u00a0\u00a0 The White House website noted that the Commerce and Treasury Secretaries \u201care authorized to develop budget-neutral strategies for acquiring additional bitcoin, provided that those strategies impose no incremental costs<\/a> on American taxpayers.\u201d What could possibly go wrong?<\/p>\n

How can Trump\u2019s \u201calways be free\u201d proclamation be reconciled with the perpetual abuses of the Internal Revenue Service? Federal, state, and local tax burdens turn citizens into sharecroppers of their own lives. The average American is forced to labor for 20 years simply to support the government.\u00a0\u00a0 Americans are forced to pay more\u00a0 in taxes than their total spending on food, clothing, and housing. Each week, scores of thousands of Americans have their bank accounts seized by the IRS, or have IRS liens put on their houses or land, or endure a tax audit, or receive notice of penalties and demands for additional taxes. Will people \u201calways be free\u201d even after government wrongfully seizes most of their income?<\/p>\n

Does Trump\u2019s \u201calways free\u201d claim last week have more credibility than his 2019 \u201cborn free\/stay free\u201d pledge? In early 2020, Trump praised the brutal tactics used by the Chinese government to supposedly thwart the spread of the virus.\u00a0 On March 16, 2020, Trump endorsed \u201c15 Days to Slow the Spread\u201d \u2014 a slogan that would live in infamy. Trump promised: \u201cIf everyone makes this change or these critical changes and sacrifices now, we will rally together as one nation and we will defeat the virus and we\u2019re going to have a big celebration together.\u201d Freezing the economy and daily life would magically vanquish the virus On April 13, 2020, Trump proclaimed, \u201cThe federal government has absolute power. It has the power. As to whether or not I\u2019ll use that power, we\u2019ll see.\u201d Politico reported that Trump\u2019s Justice Department was considering asking Congress to approve suspending habeas corpus for the duration of the pandemic, enabling the feds to detain anyone suspect of being infected or disobeying lockdown orders. Trump condemned many of Biden\u2019s worst Covid policy abuses.\u00a0 But that doesn\u2019t expunge Trump\u2019s guilt for knocking over the first Covid oppression dominos<\/p>\n

Did Trump mean to imply that Americans \u201cwill always be free\u201d but only as long as Trump is the supreme ruler?\u00a0 Many Democrats and liberals have been histrionic ever since Election Day last November, proclaiming that practically any reform or statement that Trump makes proves he is the reincarnation of Hitler.<\/p>\n

Trump is no Hitler but what about Napoleon?\u00a0 Last month, Trump tweeted out an old saying attributed to Bonaparte: \u201cHe who saves his Country does not violate any<\/a> Law.\u201d\u00a0 The New York Times fretted that \u201ctaken at face value, Mr. Trump\u2019s statement\u2026 suggested that even if what he is doing unambiguously breaks an otherwise valid law, that would not matter if he says his motive is to save the country.\u201d \u00a0Trump zealots such as Laura Loomer responded to the Napoleonic invocation: \u201c\u201cThank you, President<\/a> Trump. We love you.\u201d It doesn\u2019t inspire confidence that Trump administration lawyers are invoking the same \u201cunitary executive theory\u201d to justify his legal decrees that President George W. Bush used to disregard congressional prohibitions on torture<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Anyone who blindly believes Americans will \u201calways be free\u201d is halfway to serfdom.<\/strong> Trump is one of a long series of commanders-in-chief who expanded and exploited the dictatorial potential of the presidency. Americans cannot afford to be less vigilant of their rights and liberties no matter who is promulgating decrees in the Oval Office. Trump\u2019s occasional pro-liberty rhetoric provides no assurance against abuses of power that could end in a legal-constitutional Waterloo.<\/p>\n

An earlier version of this piece was published by the Libertarian Institute.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[[Key addition:\u00a0 Anyone who blindly believes Americans will \u201calways be free\u201d is halfway to serfdom. March 12, 2025 Trump\u2019s \u201cAlways Be Free\u201d Fairy Tale James Bovard Facebook Twitter Reddit Bluesky Email In his State of the Union address last week, President Donald Trump promised that Americans \u201cwill always be free.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 That throwaway line assured another […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21423","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nCounterpunch Version: Trump\u2019s \u201cAlways Be Free\u201d Fairy Tale - James Bovard<\/title>\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\/2025\/03\/15\/counterpunch-version-trumps-always-be-free-fairy-tale\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Counterpunch Version: Trump\u2019s \u201cAlways Be Free\u201d Fairy Tale - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"[[Key addition:\u00a0 Anyone who blindly believes Americans will \u201calways be free\u201d is halfway to serfdom. 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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\/21423","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=21423"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21423\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21424,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21423\/revisions\/21424"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21423"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21423"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21423"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}