8 Ways Control Freak Government Is Sabotaging FreedomBy Lily Dane Its no secret that the US government continues to grow larger, more oppressive, and more authoritarian with each passing year. If one were to attempt to write down all of the ways the government impedes liberty and stomps all over the people it is supposed to serve, it would take daysperhaps weeksto accomplish. So, this list is by no means exhaustive, but here are 8 ways the control-freak US government is sabotaging freedom and making life more difficult for citizens. Cannabis has been illegal at the federal level since 1970, when Congress placed it under Schedule I.It was supposed to be a provisional classification. Back then, not much was known about the plant. In 1972,the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse released a report favoring decriminalization of cannabis. The Commissions chairman, Raymond P. Shafer, presented a report to Congress and the public entitled Marihuana, A Signal of Misunderstanding, which favored ending marijuana prohibition and adopting other methods to discourage use. The Commissions report said that while public sentiment tended to view marijuana users as dangerous, they actually found users to be more timid, sleepy, and passive. It concluded that cannabis did not cause widespread danger to society. It recommended using social measures other than criminalization to discourage use, and compared itsuse to that of alcohol. But the Nixon administration took no action to implement the recommendation, and the reasons are pretty damn nefarious: Nixon aide, John Ehrlichman, told journalist Dan Baum in 1994, according to an article published in Harpers Magazine in 2016, the truth about the origins of the War on Drugs: You want to know what this was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what Im saying? We knew we couldnt make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. The War on the People is a more apt title for Nixons sinister plan. Unfortunately, the consequences did not end with his reign: the long-term effects have been devastating to society. The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world (land of the free, indeed), and about half of those imprisoned are locked up on drug charges. Who pays for the drug war and the associated mass incarceration? Taxpayers.Each year, the war on drugs costs us$51,000,000,000. And theres no end in sight. On August 11, 2016, the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) announced for the 4th time that it would not reclassify marijuana. The plant will remain a Schedule I drug. Despite a substantial and growing body of evidence that cannabis NOT a danger to society and evenoffers incredible health benefits, the agency has opted to keep it illegal at the federal level. Why? Well, it just might have something to do with the DEAs highly profitableDomestic Cannabis Eradication/Suppression Program.In 2014, via this program, 4,300,833 cannabis plants were seized, 6,310 arrests were made, andthe value of assets seized from cultivators totaled$27,342,950.59. Even states that havelegalized marijuana for recreational use arenot immune from the DEAs eradication programs: Last year, they continuedin Washington and Oregon. Full state breakdowns have not been provided, buta DEA spokesman said that just under 36,000 marijuana plants were destroyed in Washington last year at a cost to federal taxpayers of about $950,000, or roughly $26 per plant. In many states, the eradication program money is used to fund aerial operations involving helicopters searchingfor marijuana plants. Sometimes, overzealous or untrained officers seize perfectly legal plants, like okra, mistaking them for marijuana. On August 31, the DEA announced that it was going to wage war on another medicinal plant kratom. The agency plans to list it under Schedule I, like cannabis. A group of kratom vendors filed a lawsuit against the government to block the move, angry advocates took to social media in protest, and scientists expressed concern overwhether they would be able to continue kratom research.After widespread and VERY vocal outrage, the DEA announced it would postpone the schedulingto allow time for the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to expedite research on the plant. Translation: The DEA is going to get the FDA to pretend to investigate kratom. The FDA will not actually conduct any research, but will claim that it did, and will say it found thatkratom is dangerous. The FDA will tell the DEA that listing the medicinal plant under Schedule I is justified. The DEA will do that very thing, and the War on Drugs will shift its focus from cannabis (which is expected to become legal in at least five more states this year) to kratom. You see, we cant have kratom being legal and available, because it poses a serious threat to Big Pharma, and pharmaceutical companies and the FDA have a cozy relationship. The FDA has a lot to lose by allowing medicinal plants to be fully legal: the agencyhas collected $7.67 billion in user fees since pharmaceutical manufacturers began paying the fees in 1992. It costs big bucks to get the FDA to put its seal of approval on a drug. Both cannabis and kratom show a great deal of promise in treating and managing a wide range of serious and chronic health problems. Kratom can be used in place of prescription opiates in the management of pain and also can treat opiate addiction. And because both cannabis and kratom are plants that are easily grown, we dont need Big Pharma to provide them for us. Meanwhile, one of the most dangerous and widely abused drugs remains legal and commonly prescribed: opiate painkillers. Since 1999, prescription opioids have killed over 190,000 people. It used to be that police departments focused on solving real crimes ones with an actual victim. But theres no money to be made there. While the number of rapes that occur in the US is said to be steadily declining, the countrystill frequently finds itself among nations with the highest number of confirmed rapes in the world. Obtaining physical evidence of rape is crucial to convicting offenders, and that evidence is collected via the use of rape kits. But it seems that police departments dont really care about nabbing rapists. After all, whats in it for them? As we recentlyreported: Last year,Harold Medlock, Chief of Police for the Fayettville Police Department in North Carolina, admitted that between 1995 and 2008, 333 of their rape kits were destroyed to make more space in their evidence room, of which, 167 were for unsolved crimes. Even when these kits arent destroyed, many of them sit around for years without being tested. Its been estimated that there is a massive backlog of about 400,000 rape kits in this country, though the actual number may be even higher since many police departments dont keep track of this statistic. Rapists are free, roaming the streetswhile non-violent drug users are locked in cages. Law enforcement departments and the government are using sophisticated surveillance and tracking technology to watch us and catch us breaking the smallest of laws (license plate readers can now inform police if you have not gotten car inspections or complied with emissions test requirements, for example). You would think that all of this technology would mean more actual, violent crimes are being solved. Not so in fact, despite the ever-growing police state, cops are solving LESS murders: In criminal justice, clearance rates are used as a measure of crimes solved by the police. The clearance rate is calculated by dividing the number of crimes that are cleared (a charge being laid) by the total number of crimes recorded. In the United States, the murder clearance rate in 1965 was more than 90 percent. Since the inception of the war on drugs, the murder clearance rate has plummeted to an average of less than 65 percent per year. This decline is in spite of there being far fewer murders.It is also in spite of new technological developments to help police solve crimes, like DNA testing, advanced forensic labs, and unethical spying deviceslike the stingray. Solving rapes and murders are not profitable endeavors for police departments. Speaking of that, theres something else government thugs like to do This racket allows armed government thugs cops toseize your property cash, jewelry, cars and even your home without charging or convicting you with a crime.The Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments are supposed to prohibit the governmental takings of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, but the thugs have found a way around that. In civil asset forfeiture cases the government proceeds directly against your property. YOU dontneed to be convicted of a crime, so criminal procedure does not apply. And because the forfeiture is against your property, you are a third party claimant in related court proceedings. This practice is, in essence, legalized theft. Asset forfeiture creates huge incentives for law enforcement officers to police for profit. The money can be used for salaries and to purchase advanced equipment and all kinds of fun stuff for police departments. In2014 alone, federal authorities seized over$5 billion in assets. Thats more than the$3.9 billion stolen by everyday criminals in the same year. Thats right: Law enforcement agencies are stealing more from us than the criminals cops are supposed to protect us from. Wrap your head around that. George Orwells classic novel was not meant to be an instruction manual, but here we are. As Brandon Turbeville explains: Americans may not be able to admit it to themselves but the military soldiers parading on the streets as police officers, police-operated tanks, and horrifying number of imprisoned citizens have spoken for them. The number of Americans brutalized physically and mentally by those who are sworn to serve and protect are speaking clearly enough. The relatively recent concept of pain compliance, rough interrogation, and rough rides coupled with the long held tradition but fast increasing commonality of direct beatings, shootings, murders, and on-site executions by police in America have had the final say. And we, the taxpayers, are being forced to pay for this. The amount spent on domestic counter-terrorism since 9/11 is a shocking $1 trillion. This is only for homeland security measures, not the overseas so-called War on Terrorism. Yet, we are more likely to be killed by a police officer than by a terrorist. Go figure. Yes, there are industries that profit from people being locked up. Police unions, private prison corporations, and prison guard unions are three of them. Continuing the War on Drugs, which leads to nearly half of all imprisonments, benefits the alcohol and beer industries, and of course Big Pharma (those industries hate competition!). All of these groups have powerful lobbies that influence policy. The Obama administration promised Americans that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would allow us to keep our plans and our doctors, that our premiums would be lower, that families making less than $250,000 per year would not see any form of tax increase, that we would have more choices and lower costs, and that every American would be insured. Not a single one of those promises has been kept. In fact, the opposite of every one of those claims is now true, and the middle class is suffering the most. Prior to the birth of the ACA, government meddling in healthcare made it more expensive, as the Mises Institute explains: The U.S. health care cost crisis didnt start until 1965. The government increased demand with the passage of Medicare and Medicaid while restricting the supply of doctors and hospitals. Health care prices responded at twice the rate of inflation. The history of medical cost inflation and government interference in health care markets appears to support the hypothesis that prices were set by the laws of supply and demand before 1980 and perhaps 1990. Even the degree of monopolization and nationalization promoted by politicians before 1965 was not enough to cause significant cost inflation and spending increases until demands created by Medicare and Medicaid outstripped the restricted supply of physicians and hospitals. This should have been a cautionary tale, but government is not one to learn from history (nor does it care, as long as there is a chance to extort money from the people). Instead of butting out of the healthcare market, the government doubled down. Also from Mises: Americans also spend large amounts of private funds on health care. And, thanks to continued increases in health care regulation brought on by Obamacare, health care premiums will continue to increase. In June the Associated Pressreported: Premiums for popular low-cost medical plans under the federal health care law are expected to go up an average of 11 percent next yearPremiums are going up faster in 2017 than they have in past years, said Cynthia Cox, lead author of the analysis. Essentially, Americans pay twice for health care. They pay once through taxation and regulation which increases subsidies. The subsidies in turn raise prices, just as subsidies always do (ceteris paribus).And then, Americans pay a second time when the time comes to pay those subsidy-inflated prices out of pocket. Expect this to get worse. As Obamacare collapses, single payer will be ushered in. If the government wants your private property for their purposes, they may take it or regulate it through the power of eminent domain. Government officials can legally force you to sell them your property if they want the land for redevelopment plans, for instance. In 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court decided (Kelo v. London) that held government officials could use eminent domain to take private property based on nothing more than a promise to generate more tax revenue. A large eminent domain case is currently being argued in Connecticut, and it is particularly disturbing. Instead of the government contacting a private developer to advance a redevelopment plan (as in Kelo), the reverse is happening. That is, the government of West Haven didnt come up with the idea to tear down private properties to build a shopping mall a private developer did, and it is using the force of government to get what it wants. This is not only wrong, but is unconstitutional. Speaking of government taking property You dont truly own much in the US these days. Even if your home or car is paid for in full, the government will expect you to pay taxes on those pieces of property for eternity. And if you fail to pay, guess what? Theyll come and take itno matter how little you owe. In one particularly heinous example of this, a woman lost her home over an unpaid interest charge of a whopping$6.30. All you have to do is miss a tax payment for the harsh reality of home ownership to slap you in the face. Eileen Battisti of Aliquippa, PA, found that out the hard way. When Anthony, her husband, died in 2004, she paid off the mortgage with proceeds from his life insurance. In September 2011, she lost her home, valued at around $280,000, over an unpaid interest charge of $6.30. Her house was sold at auction for $116,000. In July 2015, Battisti won back her home after four years of court battles over the property. Xui Lui of Georgia purchased a condo in 2011. She paid for the unit in cash, but didnt pay a $95 tax bill for the property that year. In 2014, Lui received notice that her home was sold at auction over the unpaid bill, despite her having paid all city and county taxes every year except for the first year she bought the condo! Certified letters warning Lui of the outstanding tax bill were returned to the city because a clerical error didnt include her full address.City officials themselves never picked up on the problem either, despite the fact that the notices sent to Lui kept being returned to sender. The problem? The warnings were mailed without Luis name or address posted on the letters.An October 2014 update on this case states that Lui was offered the option to keep her condoif she paid $300 in late fees for something that wasnt even her fault. In the articleDear Homeowner: If Youre Paying $260,000 in Property Taxes Over 20 Years, What Exactly Do You Own?Charles Hugh Smith says, If we understand property taxes as a lease from the local government for the right to gamble on another housing bubble arising, we see ownership in a different light. If the homeowner owes local government $13,000 a year in property taxes, what does the homeowner own once they pay $260,000 in property taxes over 20 years? Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform(ATR), said: The American income tax is perhaps the most dramatic example of how government grows at the expense of liberty. Slowly. Constantly. Inexorably. A chart created by ATR shows just how much the income tax alone has grown since its inception: In 2015,Americans handed over more than five trillion dollars to federal, state, and local governments about 30 percent of what they earn. If you worked during all 52 weeks of 2015, more than 16 weeks of your labor went to the IRS. Thats almost $1 trillion more than we spend on food, clothing, and housing put together. Of course, the income tax is far from being the only tax we are forced to pay, as Michael Snyder explains: there are dozens of other taxes that Americans pay every year. Of course not everyone pays all of these taxes, but without a doubt we are all being taxed into oblivion. It is like death by a thousand paper cuts. Our politicians have become extremely creative in finding ways to extract money from all of us, and most Americans dont even realize what is being done to them. By the time it is all said and done, a significant portion of the population ends up paying more than half of what they earn to the government. Snyder then goes on to list 97 other taxes Americans pay. NINETY-SEVEN. I believe Ron Paul and Judge Andrew Napolitano said it best This concludes Part 1 of our exploration of the ways government stomps all over us. Stay tuned for Part 2. Contributed by Lily Dane of The Daily Sheeple. Lily Dane is a staff writer for The Daily Sheeple. Her goal is to help people to Wake the Flock Up! I am a libertarian socialist, a term invented in the mid 19th Century to describe those who rejected both state and private forms of tyranny. LIb socialists were promoting human rights along with a workers economy of shared ownership and control: the old socialist vision of those doing the labor and creating the value actually owning and managing their workplace in an economy of competing workers coops, non-profits, and ESOPS (to add the modern touch). The state tyranny is rejected along with the private tyranny of bosses, corporations, and absentee owners. You may not heard of libertarian socialism or think it an oxymoron, but it is much older than the modern pro-corporate libertarianism of today. Modern right libertarians reject state tyranny but accept corporate tyranny. For example, while all levels of government are prohibited for punishing or firing you for exercising your First Amendment rights, in most states, with no cause laws, your boss can fire you for any reason without giving his cause. If you express views in an op ed he does not like, he can fire you and unless you can prove he did it because of your race or gender (which is both costly and unlikely to succeed), you are a victim of private tyranny. Most corporations operate as totalitarian governments, controlling the workers activities, time, wages, and benefits, with the workers having no voice. When Reagan crushed the private union movement, he invited private enterprises to practice tyranny over the lives of their employees, including the right (in the majority of states) to fire you with no cause. Even if you are say, an African-American who is fired, you will not be able to argue you were fired based on your color of skin, since the obvious response is: if we dont want black workers, why would we have hired you. You cant win. You have no power. And so the program of the socialist libertarians is to make not only government tyranny illegal but private tyranny as well. Under social libs, no one could be fired or punished without cause, and all workers would have a strong voice in how things are run. For instance, if bad times come, most corporations will just lay off workers. This puts a huge burden government, and those who wish to decrease government, must not allow corporations to discard workers at the taxpayers expense. In a system where workers have rights, the solution (this is done in Europe frequently) is to have all workers reduce hours by 10%or all take a 10% reduction in pay.and then, in good time, make it up with a 10% raise. Under workers control, free enterprise will not rely on government to take care of injured or unneeded workers. Nor would any workers coop vote to send its jobs to China! And so there is a 3d way, embraced by our most respected thinkers (who are are all banned from the corporate media), including the late Howard Zinn, the 2006 worlds most prominent intellectual Chomsky, Alperowitz, Wolf of MIT, and others, whose alternative views are so dangerous they are not allowed into the mainsteam media. And that is why the concept of libertarian socialism seems so bizarre.it has been censored both in academia and in the media. Most who know these great intellectuals know them through their books and alternative media. Our most respected intellectuals are banned at home: prophets in their own land. So it is the case that government, in the service of the corporations (he who pays the piper calls the tunes) sabotages freedom, on behalf of their corporate sponsors (often they are the same people: corporate elites occupy key government posts); and corporations use totalitarian methods of organization and fascist methods of taking control of government to sabotage our freedom. For that reason, I urge you to become familiar with the 3d Way of libertarian socialism, which is both libertarian (the first to treat women as equal to mento recognize the universality of human rights) and old school socialist, rejected all forms of state socialism (which is the same as state capitalism, as under Stalin), which rejects the state and places power into the hands of ordinary workers, in a state of equality and human rights for all. This is the Alternative they have been hiding from you. Do your own research! Control freak is too benign in my opinion. Sewer Nations government has morphed into a world-killing cabal while Idiot Culture snored away thinking they were safe because.. after all, were exceptional and the Judas Class in D.C. really really adore us. ROFLMAO Yeah, you bet! 