{"id":7952,"date":"2015-01-28T11:45:46","date_gmt":"2015-01-28T16:45:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/?p=7952"},"modified":"2016-09-29T11:40:31","modified_gmt":"2016-09-29T15:40:31","slug":"counterpunch-americans-fatal-freedom-apathy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/2015\/01\/28\/counterpunch-americans-fatal-freedom-apathy\/","title":{"rendered":"Counterpunch: Americans’ Fatal Freedom Apathy"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0COUNTERPUNCH<\/a>, January 28, 2015
\nSurrendering Liberty<\/h3>\n

America\u2019s Fatal Freedom Apathy<\/strong><\/h2>\n

by JAMES BOVARD<\/p>\n

According to our civic folklore, Americans are more devoted to freedom than any other nationality on earth.\u00a0\u00a0 But it is increasingly appears that this dogma is a relic of bygone times.<\/p>\n

A Gallup poll last July asked a thousand Americans: \u201cAre you satisfied or dissatisfied with your freedom to choose what to do with your life?\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 Only twenty-one percent of respondents said they were dissatisfied.<\/p>\n

Admittedly, the percentage of Americans who say they don\u2019t have sufficient freedom has doubled since the previous Gallup poll on this question in 2006, when only 9% complained. That number was stunningly low, considering the controversies back then over the Patriot Act and repressive \u201cfree speech zones,\u201d and the first round of explosive revelations of National Security Agency illegal wiretaps on thousands of Americans.\u00a0\u00a0 Obama in 2008 exploited the Bush administration\u2019s dreadful civil liberties record to portray himself as America\u2019s constitutional savior.<\/p>\n

Jon Clifton, the managing director of the Gallup World Poll, observed last summer that the 2006 freedom poll \u201c numbers make sense in terms of our classic self-perception. The recent numbers do not.\u201d But has the \u201cclassic self-perception\u201d been bogus for decades?<\/p>\n

In reality, the biggest mystery from the Gallup poll is why 79% of Americans nowadays are content with how the government treats them on a daily basis. Do they like getting molested by the TSA, boarhawged by the IRS, and hounded by traffic cops every time they drive down the street? Do folks not recognize the perils of politicians plotting to seize their property, take away their guns, and commandeer them from womb to tomb?<\/p>\n

Today\u2019s Americans demonstrate little of their forefathers\u2019 passion for freedom. How many college students would happily permit the government to copy all their e-mail and computer hard drives in return for unlimited free music downloads? How many Wal-Mart gift certificates would it require for a typical citizen to forfeit all his Fourth Amendment rights, entitling government agents to search his car, house, and himself whenever they chose without a warrant? How many McDonald\u2019s gift certificates would it take to sway a person to pledge never to publicly criticize the president? How many senior citizens would agree to support the ruling party in perpetuity in return for a 20 percent boost in their Social Security benefits? How many Americans would agree to cease reading newspapers (and their pesky editorials) in return for free cable television?<\/p>\n

Many Americans are more comfortable rattling a tin cup for more benefits than in standing up and denouncing political abuses. Dick Meyer, editorial director of CBSNews.com, observed that voters \u201csee the government like a pharmaceutical company. They feel entitled to cheap if not free access to products and services, they want everything to be risk-free, and they want compensation if something goes wrong. Politicians of both parties have been perfectly willing to pretend the world can work that way.\u201d But a democracy of caretakers and cage keepers is irreconcilable with self-government or permitting people to live in ways officialdom disapproves.<\/p>\n

How many Americans want government to leave them alone compared to the number of people who value government primarily as a means to forcibly live at someone else\u2019s expense? Almost half of Americans are now receiving some type of benefit from the government. Federal programs create legions of political pawns that rulers can mobilize to perpetuate their own power. When people see voting as a meal ticket, then they will have no concern about limiting the power of their benefactors.<\/p>\n

The Gallup poll results on freedom are difficult to reconcile with a separate Gallup survey last year found that only 19% of Americans \u201ctrust government in Washington to do what is right\u201d most of the time. In other words, most of the 79% of Americans who said they have sufficient freedom also do not trust the government. Are folks so politically dense that they don\u2019t recognize that ceding arbitrary power to untrustworthy folks is not the smartest way to preserve their \u201cfreedom to live as they choose?\u201d Or are people\u2019s political views simply a near-random selection of transient impressions?<\/p>\n

Americans\u2019 faltering devotion to freedom has made it easy for politicians to corral them with criminal penalties for a vast array of nonviolent offenses.\u00a0\u00a0 Country singer Merle Haggard observed: \u201cIn 1960, when I came out of prison as an ex-convict, I had more freedom under parolee supervision than there\u2019s available to an average citizen in America right now\u2026 God almighty, what have we done to each other?\u201d Haggard might overstate the loss of liberty slightly; however, few politicians and pundits who assure Americans that they have ample freedom today experienced parole in the early 1960s. Some of the punitive laws (such as the drug war) have spurred controversy in the media. Yet, most citizens fail to recognize how the vast expansion of the prison population makes a mockery of the pretensions of American freedom.<\/p>\n

Many citizens are apathetic about their freedom because most of the media continually assures them that Big Government is nothing to fear. This dogma has become more popular with the Washington media since Obama replaced George W. Bush in the Oval Office.\u00a0\u00a0 And Americans are also encouraged to believe that there is practically a law of history that guarantees the triumph of democracy. The long record of hard facts voiding supposed \u201claws of history\u201d is conveniently forgotten.<\/p>\n

The latest variation of the \u201cinevitable triumph of freedom\u201d theme whoops up the fact that the word \u201clibertarian\u201d is no longer considered odious inside the Beltway. But invoking libertarian thinkers such as Friedrich Hayek has not stopped the Federal Reserve from torpedoing the value of the U.S. dollar. Invoking Milton Friedman does not prevent politicians of both parties from wrecking markets whenever they could reap campaign contributions. Ronald Reagan declaimed in his first inaugural address in 1981 that government was the problem, not the solution. Reagan often abandoned his limited government mantra and launched one moralistic crusade after another, including reviving a war on drugs that was the primary source of a fourfold increase in America\u2019s prison population in the following decades. Reagan did little or nothing to curb Internal Revenue Service Agents\u2019 abuse of American citizens. The Justice Department pioneered sweeping new interpretations of the racketeering law that criminalized new forms of white-collar behavior. It also swayed the Supreme Court to define down the Fourth Amendment to give federal agents far more leeway to invade private land without a warrant.<\/p>\n

In 1994, the Republican Party captured control of Congress after promising to roll back federal power in numerous areas. The \u201cRepublican Revolution\u201d was hailed as a sea change in the fight against Leviathan. But the Republicans championed new laws and mandates on a slew of issues at the same time that their efforts to repeal previous political and regulatory power grabs were largely toothless.<\/p>\n

Likewise, the resurgence in popularity of libertarian buzzwords has done nothing to prevent Obama from proclaiming that he will rule America with his pen and phone, barraging the nation with executive orders of doubtful legality. As long as Obama does not explicitly announce that the Bill of Rights is null and void, his actions are portrayed as legitimate. .<\/p>\n

A mere change in fashionable political terms will not revive a constitutional system that has been going to hell since the New Deal. It is far easier to enact new government programs than to abolish old abuses. Anyone who doubts that truth should examine the sordid history of federal farm programs. Nor is there any reason to presume that the next president or the next gang of congressional leaders will have any more devotion to freedom than today\u2019s power hungry rascals.<\/p>\n

That Gallup poll on freedom proves that Americans are far more politically docile than we have been taught to believe. But it will take more than lustily reciting the Pledge of Allegiance to safeguard our liberties.\u00a0\u00a0 We may learn too soon how many people will happily surrender all their remaining rights in return for bogus promises to keep them safe.<\/p>\n

James Bovard, a policy advisor to the Future of Freedom Foundation, is the author of Public Policy Hooligan, Attention Deficit Democracy, The Bush Betrayal, Terrorism and Tyranny, and other books. More info at www.jimbovard.com; on Twitter @jimbovard<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0COUNTERPUNCH, January 28, 2015 Surrendering Liberty America\u2019s Fatal Freedom Apathy by JAMES BOVARD According to our civic folklore, Americans are more devoted to freedom than any other nationality on earth.\u00a0\u00a0 But it is increasingly appears that this dogma is a relic of bygone times. A Gallup poll last July asked a thousand Americans: \u201cAre you […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7953,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[547,22,15,451,52,17,194,45,545,137,164,38,165,28,14,546,24],"class_list":["post-7952","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-apathy","tag-attention-deficit-democracy","tag-congress","tag-constitution","tag-democracy","tag-elective-dictatorship","tag-epigrams","tag-freedom","tag-gallup-poll","tag-george-w-bush","tag-leviathan","tag-obama","tag-paternalism","tag-roosevelt","tag-rule-of-law","tag-servitude","tag-supreme-court"],"yoast_head":"\nCounterpunch: Americans' Fatal Freedom Apathy - 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\/2015\/01\/28\/counterpunch-americans-fatal-freedom-apathy\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Counterpunch: Americans' Fatal Freedom Apathy - James Bovard\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"\u00a0COUNTERPUNCH, January 28, 2015 Surrendering Liberty America\u2019s Fatal Freedom Apathy by JAMES BOVARD According to our civic folklore, Americans are more devoted to freedom than any other nationality on earth.\u00a0\u00a0 But it is increasingly appears that this dogma is a relic of bygone times. 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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\/7952","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=7952"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7952\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9700,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7952\/revisions\/9700"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7953"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7952"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7952"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jimbovard.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7952"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}