Written by Steven Nekhaila.
The Founders warned us that government is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. But we did not listen. We traded our birthright of liberty for agency handbooks, compliance reports, and federal grants.
Power today does not arrive with a sword. It arrives with a spreadsheet. It rules not by decree but by regulation. The man who once governed himself now needs permission from six agencies to start a business, raise his child, or fix his roof. Every aspect of life—faith, education, medicine, labor—has been parceled out into minidemocracies. Each one demands allegiance. Each one drains autonomy.
This is not freedom. It is managed liberty, rationed by bureaucratic barons. The Constitution, once crafted to bind government down with the chains of law, now lies dormant. The state no longer guards our rights. It distributes privileges and revokes them when obedience falters.
The law no longer distinguishes between crime and defiance. A man is punished not for harm but for disobedience. The state demands loyalty to process, not to principle. And the people, lulled by comfort and fear, comply.
Libertarians must stop pretending this erosion is a mistake. It is not. This is conquest. It is slow, quiet, and bloodless. The state has become a religion, and the citizen has become the sacrament it consumes.
Our task is not reform. It is reclamation. We must destroy the myth that we must be ruled in order to be free. We must revive the truth that consent is not a checkbox. It is a sword. We must refuse to yield. Refuse to ask. Refuse to obey.
The state did not seek your permission when it took your freedom. You do not need its permission to take it back.
Leave a comment