Not since the Bolshevik revolution in Russia and the Nazi takeover in Germany has a western nation seen the kind of collapse of individual freedom that the United States of America is currently seeing. Under President George W. Bush, the constitutional protections of our liberties are speedily vanishing. News reports of the demise of our freedoms are so common it is difficult to keep up with all of them.

For example, the August 16 edition of Newsweek reports, "Rep. Porter Goss, President Bush's nominee to head the CIA, recently introduced legislation that would give the president new authority to direct CIA agents to conduct law-enforcement operations inside the United States - including arresting American citizens.

"The legislation, introduced by Goss on June 16 and touted as an 'intelligence reform' bill, would substantially restructure the U.S. intelligence community by giving the director of the Central Intelligence (DCI) broad new powers to oversee its various components scattered throughout the government."

Another report of America's dissolving liberties was published by World Net Daily on June 21, 2004. It said, "President Bush plans to unveil next month a sweeping mental health initiative that recommends screening for every citizen and promotes the use of expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs favored by supporters of the administration."

Can anyone imagine anything more Orwellian than allowing the federal government to be given the power to "screen" every American citizen? This is right out of Huxley's "Brave New World."

Another disturbing report comes from The New American. It told how the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld the "right" of President Bush to suspend habeas corpus protections of U.S. citizens. The vote was 8-1 with only Justice Antonin Scalia dissenting.

The New American report said, "In an unusually pointed dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia condemned the majority decision for eviscerating the habeas corpus guarantee, which prevents the government from indefinitely imprisoning individuals without formal criminal charges or legal recourse.

"Invoking Alexander Hamilton's warning against Americans 'resort[ing] to repose and security to institutions which have a tendency to destroy their civil and political rights,' Scalia observes: 'The Founders warned us about the risk, and equipped us with a Constitution designed to deal with it.' However, he concludes, 'the Court has proceeded to meet the current emergency in a manner the Constitution doesn't envision'- one that may ultimately prove deadlier to our system of ordered liberty than anything al-Qaeda could inflict on us."

All Americans need to remember that it doesn't matter one iota whether it is a fascist-leaning conservative or a socialist-leaning liberal who attempts to steal our God-given liberties: each is equally a tyrant and should be vigorously opposed by liberty- loving people everywhere! Well did Benjamin Franklin say, "Rebellion to tyrants is obedience to God."

The American people also need to realize that we are in a fight to preserve our liberties and that the major source of this attack against our freedoms is coming, not from Baghdad, but from Washington, D.C.

Therefore, be they Democrats or Republicans, men or women, whites or blacks, conservatives or liberals, Christians or pagans, all who attempt to use their political or judicial offices to trample our constitutionally protected liberties must be met with unyielding resistance!

© Chuck Baldwin

E-mail comments to chuck@chuckbaldwinlive.com