The State of the Nation: I am afraid

By John W. White­head
Pres­i­dent, The Ruther­ford Institute

“As I look at America today, I am not afraid to say that I am afraid.” – Bertram Gross, Friendly Fas­cism: The New Face of Power in America

Omi­nous devel­op­ments in America have been a long time coming, in part pre­cip­i­tated by “we the people” – a cit­i­zenry that has been asleep at the wheel for too long. And while there have been wake-up calls, we have failed to heed the warnings.

Just con­sider the state of our nation:

We’re encased in what some are calling an elec­tronic con­cen­tra­tion camp. The gov­ern­ment con­tinues to amass data files on more and more Amer­i­cans. Every­where we go, we are watched: at the banks, at the gro­cery store, at the mall, crossing the street. This loss of pri­vacy is symp­to­matic of the growing sur­veil­lance being car­ried out on average Amer­i­cans. Such sur­veil­lance grad­u­ally poi­sons the soul of a nation, trans­forming us from one in which we’re pre­sumed inno­cent until proven guilty to one in which everyone is a sus­pect and pre­sumed guilty. Thus, the ques­tion that must be asked is: can freedom in the United States flourish in an age when the phys­ical move­ments, indi­vidual pur­chases, con­ver­sa­tions and meet­ings of every cit­izen are under con­stant sur­veil­lance by pri­vate com­pa­nies and gov­ern­ment agencies? More>>