{"id":2513,"date":"2011-02-10T09:13:39","date_gmt":"2011-02-10T14:13:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=2513"},"modified":"2011-02-10T09:14:23","modified_gmt":"2011-02-10T14:14:23","slug":"clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/10\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\/","title":{"rendered":"Clinton’s Forgotten Dictatorial Tendencies"},"content":{"rendered":"

… posted online<\/a> today by the Future of Freedom Foundation<\/strong> <\/a><\/p>\n

Freedom Daily October 2010
\nClinton\u2019s Forgotten Dictatorial Tendencies<\/strong><\/p>\n

by James Bovard <\/p>\n

It seems like a century since Bill Clinton was president of this country. Unfortunately, the abuses of George W. Bush and the pratfalls of Barack Obama are causing many people to raise their estimate of Clinton\u2019s presidency. But he earned his disdain fair and square, and a brief reminder of his abuses is in order. <\/p>\n

From concocting new prerogatives to confiscate private property, to championing FBI agents\u2019 right to shoot innocent Americans, to bankrolling the militarization of local police forces, the Clinton administration stretched the power of government on all fronts. From the soaring number of wiretaps, to converting cell phones into homing devices for law enforcement, to turning bankers into spies against their customers, free speech and privacy were undermined again and again. From dictating how many pairs of Chinese silk panties Americans could buy to mandating that people on Prozac could be entitled to arrive at work late, to President Clinton\u2019s efforts to require trigger locks for all handguns in crack houses, no aspect of Americans\u2019 lives was too arcane for federal intervention. <\/p>\n

The Clinton administration built its \u201cbridge to the 21st century\u201d by filling every sinkhole along the way with taxpayer dollars. From AmeriCorps projects to the foisting of unreliable toilets on poor people, to a flood-insurance program that multiplied flood damage, to programs to give the keys to lavish new single-family homes to public-housing residents, the Clinton administration\u2019s record domestic spending produced record fiascos. For Clinton, the only wasted tax dollar was one that did not buy a vote, garner a campaign contribution, or provide a chance to bite his lip on national television. <\/p>\n

Clinton was the Nanny State champion incarnate \u2014 the person who taught tens of millions of Americans to look to government for relief from every irritation of daily life \u2014 from child-safety car seats to unpasteurized cider to leaky basements. His perennial message was that people should trust political action far more than the voluntary efforts of individuals to improve their own lives. He continually reminded people of the greatness of the state and the helplessness of the citizen. <\/p>\n

In the same way that the success of NATO\u2019s attack on Serbia was measured largely by continual proclamations of \u201crecord numbers\u201d of sorties flown and \u201crecord numbers\u201d of bombs dropped, so the Clinton administration gauged its domestic policy successes by the number of new laws passed, new programs enacted, and new activities prohibited \u2014 by record fines levied and record prison sentences imposed. Federal agencies issued more than 25,000 new regulations \u2014 criminalizing everything from satisfying shower nozzles to snuff advertisements on race cars. <\/p>\n

While the media focused primarily on new benefits that Clinton promised, little attention was paid to the swelling tax burden on working Americans. Federal income-tax revenue doubled between 1992 and 2000. The total tax burden on the average family with two earners rose three times faster than inflation. Though the IRS wrongfully seized hundreds of thousands of Americans\u2019 paychecks and bank accounts during his presidency, almost all of the agency\u2019s power survived unscathed. <\/p>\n

Faith in the coercive power of the best and brightest permeated Clinton administration policy-making. More commands, more penalties, and more handouts were the recipe for progress. The Clinton administration consistently acted as if nothing is as dangerous as insufficient government power. <\/p>\n

The history of the Clinton administration cannot be understood apart from the president\u2019s personal view of government. Clinton portrayed government as the Lone Ranger \u2014 or, more accurately, millions of Lone Rangers, each with a sacred mission to rescue people whether they want to be rescued or not. For Clinton, government was never merely a bunch of clerks in some drab office vegetating toward a pension. Instead, government was \u201ca champion of national purpose\u201d \u2014 \u201cthe instrument of our national community\u201d \u2014 and \u201ca progressive instrument of the common good.\u201d He urged Americans in 1998 to commit themselves \u201cto a new kind of government … to give all our people the tools to make the most of their own lives.\u201d His invocation of \u201cgovernment as toolmeister\u201d ignored the abysmal record of federal job training, literacy, and other programs supposedly created to help people help themselves. <\/p>\n

Many of Clinton\u2019s policies can be explained only by his belief in his own moral superiority. For Clinton, the officially proclaimed intent of a specific government policy or action far transcended whatever force government agents used against citizens. The more people government brought to their knees, the fairer society became \u2014 simply because government power was the personification of fairness. <\/p>\n

And the loftier the goal Clinton proclaimed, the more irrelevant private collateral damage became. One visionary foreign-policy speech was more important than a thousand cluster bombs dropped on foreign civilians. Vigorous denunciations of international terrorism were more important than the cruise missiles that destroyed Sudan\u2019s only pharmaceutical factory. Continual invocations of \u201cthe children\u201d at every political whistle-stop mattered more than the deaths of dozens of children after an FBI gas attack at Waco. <\/p>\n

The Clinton recipe for public safety was: If politicians can only frighten enough of the people enough of the time, then everyone will be safe. Because Clinton felt government must constantly intervene in people\u2019s lives, people had to be convinced that they were doomed unless politicians saved them on a daily basis. The result: constant efforts to alarm the citizenry on everything from health care to speed limits, to secondhand smoke, to global warming, to garbage dumps, to radon, to guns. <\/p>\n

Infantilizing Americans<\/strong> <\/p>\n

Clinton owed much of his popularity to his stealth statism. He was the master of intellectual shell games. In his 1996 State of the Union address, he announced, \u201cThe era of Big Government is over.\u201d Yet, once he had won reelection by campaigning as a moderate (or, in the words of presidential advisor Dick Morris, \u201ccampaigning as Pope\u201d), he opened the floodgates to bigger government. In his 1997 State of the Union address, he called for a \u201cnational crusade for education standards\u201d and federal standards and national credentials for all new teachers; announced plans \u201cto build a citizen army of one million volunteer tutors to make sure every child can read independently by the end of the third grade\u201d; called for $5 billion in federal aid to build and repair local school houses, a new scholarship program to subsidize anyone going to college, and federal subsidies for private health insurance; demanded a new law entitling women who had had mastectomies to stay in the hospital 48 hours afterwards; advocated a constitutional amendment for \u201cvictims\u2019 rights\u201d; urged Congress to enact a law criminalizing any parent who crossed a state line to avoid paying child support; and proposed enacting juvenile crime legislation that \u201cdeclares war on gangs,\u201d hiring new prosecutors, and increasing federal spending on the war on drugs. He also announced plans to expand NATO and declare \u201c10 American Heritage Rivers\u201d (thereby effectively prohibiting thousands of landowners from using their property along those rivers). Clinton, deeply concerned about American ethics, demanded that \u201ccharacter education must be taught in our schools.\u201d (This demand was not repeated in later State of the Union addresses). <\/p>\n

In his 1999 State of the Union address, Clinton proposed more than 40 new laws and programs. Citizens applauded proposals for more government \u2014 regardless of how poorly existing government programs functioned and despite the fact that most Americans personally distrusted Clinton at the time he sought more power over them. In his 2000 State of the Union address, he talked for almost an hour and a half and, according to one estimate, proposed the equivalent of $4 billion in new federal spending per minute. <\/p>\n

The notion that \u201cthe king can do no wrong\u201d permeated the Clinton administration\u2019s legal and public relations defense strategies. His administration perennially invoked sovereign immunity to protect feds accused of wrongdoing \u2014 from the FBI sniper who killed Vicki Weaver in the doorway of her Idaho cabin in 1992 to IRS agents who wantonly seized people\u2019s property and disrupted their lives; to Treasury Department employees who shredded 162 cartons of documents detailing how the government robbed hundreds of thousands of Indians who relied on the Bureau of Indian Affairs trust fund accounts; and to the FBI agents involved in the final attack at Waco. Clinton sought to raise the reputation of government to lofty new heights \u2014 at the same time that Justice Department lawyers argued that individual federal agents are exempt from liability for wronging other Americans. <\/p>\n

The Clinton presidency must not be judged solely on whether the Senate convicted him on impeachment charges, or whether he and his wife were shown to have obstructed justice during the Whitewater investigation, or whether a federal judge fined him for perjury. Focusing narrowly on the best-known scandals obscures how much misgovernment occurred during the 1990s. Far more Americans were affected by IRS depredations, HUD-ruined neighborhoods, and FDA-denied drugs than by Clinton\u2019s personal misbehavior. <\/p>\n

The Clinton administration changed the political fabric of this nation and the political expectations of the American people and the American media. Clinton\u2019s policies and rhetoric helped infantilize the American populace. He helped subtly transform the entire political system \u2014 year by year, crisis by crisis, hoax by hoax. <\/p>\n

The principle of government supremacy is Clinton\u2019s clearest legacy. He helped place the federal government above all laws \u2014 above the Constitution \u2014 and beyond any effective restraint. He ignored federal and Supreme Court decisions limiting his power, and Congress rarely had the gumption to check his abuses. Clinton exploited and expanded the dictatorial potential of the U.S. presidency. <\/p>\n

James Bovard is the author of Attention Deficit Democracy [2006] as well as The Bush Betrayal [2004], Lost Rights [1994] and Terrorism and Tyranny: Trampling Freedom, Justice and Peace to Rid the World of Evil (Palgrave-Macmillan, September 2003). <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

… posted online today by the Future of Freedom Foundation Freedom Daily October 2010 Clinton\u2019s Forgotten Dictatorial Tendencies by James Bovard It seems like a century since Bill Clinton was president of this country. Unfortunately, the abuses of George W. Bush and the pratfalls of Barack Obama are causing many people to raise their estimate […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[659,22,676,658,677,7,656,17,47,674,5,11,657,679,665,655],"class_list":{"0":"post-2513","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"tag-attention-deficit-democracy","8":"tag-clinton","9":"tag-congress","10":"tag-democracy","11":"tag-dictatorship","13":"tag-elective-dictatorship","14":"tag-fbi","16":"tag-impeachment","17":"tag-justice-department","18":"tag-rule-of-law","19":"tag-secrecy","20":"tag-surveillance","21":"tag-wiretapping"},"yoast_head":"\nClinton's Forgotten Dictatorial Tendencies - 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\/2011\/02\/10\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Clinton's Forgotten Dictatorial Tendencies - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"… posted online today by the Future of Freedom Foundation Freedom Daily October 2010 Clinton\u2019s Forgotten Dictatorial Tendencies by James Bovard It seems like a century since Bill Clinton was president of this country. Unfortunately, the abuses of George W. Bush and the pratfalls of Barack Obama are causing many people to raise their estimate […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/10\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\/\" \/>\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=\"2011-02-10T14:13:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2011-02-10T14:14:23+00:00\" \/>\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\\\/2011\\\/02\\\/10\\\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2011\\\/02\\\/10\\\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Jim\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f\"},\"headline\":\"Clinton’s Forgotten Dictatorial Tendencies\",\"datePublished\":\"2011-02-10T14:13:39+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-02-10T14:14:23+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2011\\\/02\\\/10\\\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\\\/\"},\"wordCount\":1626,\"commentCount\":0,\"keywords\":[\"Attention Deficit Democracy\",\"Attention Deficit Democracy\",\"Clinton\",\"Congress\",\"Democracy\",\"dictatorship\",\"dictatorship\",\"Elective Dictatorship\",\"FBI\",\"FBI\",\"Impeachment\",\"Justice Department\",\"Rule of Law\",\"Secrecy\",\"Surveillance\",\"Wiretapping\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2011\\\/02\\\/10\\\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\\\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2011\\\/02\\\/10\\\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\\\/\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2011\\\/02\\\/10\\\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\\\/\",\"name\":\"Clinton's Forgotten Dictatorial Tendencies - James Bovard\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2011-02-10T14:13:39+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2011-02-10T14:14:23+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2011\\\/02\\\/10\\\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\\\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2011\\\/02\\\/10\\\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\\\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/2011\\\/02\\\/10\\\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\\\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\\\/\\\/jimbovard.com\\\/blog\\\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Clinton’s Forgotten Dictatorial Tendencies\"}]},{\"@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":"Clinton's Forgotten Dictatorial Tendencies - James Bovard","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\/2011\/02\/10\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Clinton's Forgotten Dictatorial Tendencies - James Bovard","og_description":"… posted online today by the Future of Freedom Foundation Freedom Daily October 2010 Clinton\u2019s Forgotten Dictatorial Tendencies by James Bovard It seems like a century since Bill Clinton was president of this country. Unfortunately, the abuses of George W. Bush and the pratfalls of Barack Obama are causing many people to raise their estimate […]","og_url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/10\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\/","og_site_name":"James Bovard","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/jim.bovard","article_published_time":"2011-02-10T14:13:39+00:00","article_modified_time":"2011-02-10T14:14:23+00:00","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\/2011\/02\/10\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/10\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\/"},"author":{"name":"Jim","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f"},"headline":"Clinton’s Forgotten Dictatorial Tendencies","datePublished":"2011-02-10T14:13:39+00:00","dateModified":"2011-02-10T14:14:23+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/10\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\/"},"wordCount":1626,"commentCount":0,"keywords":["Attention Deficit Democracy","Attention Deficit Democracy","Clinton","Congress","Democracy","dictatorship","dictatorship","Elective Dictatorship","FBI","FBI","Impeachment","Justice Department","Rule of Law","Secrecy","Surveillance","Wiretapping"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/10\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/10\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\/","url":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/10\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\/","name":"Clinton's Forgotten Dictatorial Tendencies - James Bovard","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#website"},"datePublished":"2011-02-10T14:13:39+00:00","dateModified":"2011-02-10T14:14:23+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/79550830ad81c14be529a2c37469974f"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/10\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/10\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2011\/02\/10\/clintons-forgotten-dictatorial-tendencies\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Clinton’s Forgotten Dictatorial Tendencies"}]},{"@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\/2513","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=2513"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2515,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2513\/revisions\/2515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}