Deep State's Victory Signals Shift in 2024 Liberty Landscape | Erosion of Civil Liberties Advances
Everyday, the future feels a little bleaker. We're drowning in a sea of government overreach, abuse, and corruption.
Here's a chilling account of the difficulties we faced in 2024, marred by the government's insatiable lust for power and relentless attacks on our civil liberties.
The year 2024 was marked by an escalation in government overreach and abuses of power. The militarization of our police forces continued unm evolved, with neighborhood precincts increasingly resembling military strongholds. Schools, once hallowed ground for learning and growth, transformed into fortresses with the implementation of "safety" measures that criminalized minor offenses and instilled fear. The right to private property faded further, as the government acquired enormous power to seize assets under various pretenses. The plight of the homeless worsened, with cities enacting draconian measures to criminalize homelessness. Military veterans, once celebrated as heroes, began to face suspicion and surveillance.
Across all fronts, the government overstepped its boundaries.
For every new law enacted by state and federal legislatures, every new ruling handed down by government courts, and every new weapon employed by government agents, we got a reminder that in the eyes of the government and its corporate puppeteers, "we the people" possess little more than the rights granted by the Deep State on an as-needed basis.
The all-seeing Surveillance State cast an even darker shadow over our remaining shreds of privacy. Facial recognition technology encroached upon new areas of our lives, with vast amounts of our biometric data collected without our knowledge or consent. Data breaches persisted, underscoring the vulnerability of our personal information.
Free speech continued to be under attack. Protest laws, free speech zones, and other obstacles made it tougher for citizens to exercise their First Amendment rights. Social media companies, often in cahoots with the government, were guilty of censorship of unpopular viewpoints. This online suppression created an echo chamber and limited the free exchange of ideas.
The power and influence of the Deep State and the military-industrial complex continued to grow. Endless wars abroad depleted the nation's resources while failing to make Americans any safer. The military-industrial complex tightened its grip on nearly every aspect of American life.
The government consistently failed in its duty to protect our lives, liberty, and happiness. Police brutality ran rampant, wreaking havoc on our freedoms, communities, and lives. The government refused to heed the voices of the people, disregarded the Constitution, and treated the masses as mere sources of funding. Police officers gunned down unarmed citizens and their pets. Government agents, even local police, were armed to the teeth and trained to act like soldiers on the battlefield. Bloated government agencies drained taxpayer dollars. Government technicians spied on our emails and phone calls. And government contractors amassed fortunes through endless wars abroad.
The presidency transformed into an imperial throne. Although the Constitution grants the President specific, limited powers, recent years have seen American presidents assert the power to fundamentally alter the country's landscape for good or ill, often with the help of a complicit Congress and courts. As such, the presidency has become an imperial office, wielded by a ruler above the law and beyond any real accountability.
The cost of endless wars drove the nation deeper into debt. Policing the globe and waging endless wars abroad hasn't made America-or the rest of the world-any safer, but it has enriched the military-industrial complex at the expense of taxpayers.
The courts repeatedly failed to uphold justice. Time and again, the Supreme Court stood idly by while the American police state violated the rights enshrined in the Constitution. Reviewing critical court rulings from the past decade or so reveals a worrying trend towards pro-police state decisions by an institution that places order and the interests of the ruling class above the rights guaranteed by the Constitution.
Mass shootings took countless lives. Tragically, these crimes occurred at churches, nightclubs, colleges, military bases, elementary schools, government offices, and concerts. In every instance, the military-industrial complex's fingerprints could be found.
The rich grew richer, and the poor filled the jails. The police state expanded its power to punish ordinary citizens for even the slightest infractions. Even those who couldn't pay fine after fine were kept locked up in debtors' prisons. This is no longer a government "of the people, by the people, for the people." It is quickly becoming a government "of the rich, by the elite, for the corporations."
Police became even more militarized and weaponized. Despite growing concerns about the government's transformation of local police into a standing army, police departments continued to stockpile weaponry, equipment, and training reminiscent of battlefields. There are now believed to be more bureaucratic government civilians armed with deadly weapons than U.S. Marines.
Schools morphed into fortresses. Misguided policies aimed at fostering "safety" turned schools into prisons, transforming young people into prisoners. Zero tolerance policies, surveillance cameras, metal detectors, random searches, drug-sniffing dogs, massive lockdowns, active shooter drills, and militarized police officers normalized an oppressive atmosphere in schools.
The government waged a renewed war on private property. Fighting to protect our private property as our last bastion of freedom has become a fruitless battle. The government now has absolute control over our homes, cars, land, and bank accounts. It can seize our belongings under the guise of civil asset forfeiture, unpaid taxes, eminent domain, or public interest, among other reasons.
The plight of the homeless continued to worsen. In communities across the nation, lawmakers adopted various strategies to discourage homelessness, such as parking meters, zoning regulations, fines, and even robots. One of the most common (though least discussed) practices: homeless relocation programs that transport the homeless outside city limits.
Veterans were mistreated by the government. The government has fallen short in respecting the freedom of military veterans and addressing their needs once they returned to civilian life. The suffering of veterans today is America's disgrace, with countless veterans impoverished, unemployed, traumatized mentally and physically, overwhelmed with depression, suicidal thoughts, marital stress, homelessness, subpar medical treatment at clinics and hospitals, and buried under mountains of paperwork within Veterans Administration offices. Many veterans are now treated as potential threats-subjected to surveillance, censorship, and even threatened with incarceration or involuntary commitment-for daring to speak out against government wrongdoings.
To sum up, 2024 was a year of despair for those who value their freedoms.
Despite who sits in the White House, politics won't fix a system that's irrevocably broken.
In my book "Battlefield America: The War on the American People" and its fictional counterpart "The Erik Blair Diaries," I make clear that the greatest threat we face as a nation in 2025 is not extremism but despotism, exercised by a ruling class that owes allegiance only to power and money.
References:[1] https://www.rutherford.org/publications_resources/john_whiteheads_commentary/the_deep_states_triumph_2024_and_the_erosion_of_liberty[2] Howard W. French, "Everything Under the Heavens: How the Past Helps Shape China's Push for Global Power" (Knopf, 2018)[3] Freedom House, "Freedom in the World 2020" (Freedom House, 2020)[4] Public Citizen, "Challenging the Trump Administration's Assault on Democracy" (Public Citizen, 2018).
- The government's relentless attacks on civil liberties in 2024 exacerbated public disillusionment, as the future increasingly resembled a dystopian landscape marred by political corruption and government overreach.
- In the year 2024, the Surveillance State intensified its encroachment on citizens' privacy, with facial recognition technology and data breaches threatening the sanctity of private biometric data.
- The fight for free speech became an uphill battle as laws and censorship tactics stifled open discourse, creating an echo chamber that limited the exchange of diverse ideas.
- The military-industrial complex widened its influence in politics, contributing to the endless wars abroad that plunged the nation into debt, while the police state continually overstepped its bounds, eroding trust in law enforcement.
- As the government's centralized power grew unchecked, the preservation of freedom, truth, privacy, and justice became stressed concerns amidst the chaos of war, politics, and crime.
