We are now struggling to emerge from the wreckage of a constitutional republic, transformed into a kleptocracy (government by thieves), collapsing into kakistocracy (government by the worst), and enforced by a police state algogracy (rule by algorithm).
This week alone, the Trump administration is reportedly erecting protest barricades around the White House, Congress is advancing legislation that favors the wealthy, and President Trump is grandstanding at the opening of a detention center dubbed “Alligator Alcatraz.”
Against such a backdrop of government-sponsored cruelty, corruption and shameless profiteering at taxpayer expense, what, to the average American, is freedom in an age when the government plays god—determining who is worthy of rights, who qualifies as a citizen, and who can be discarded without consequence?
What are inalienable rights worth if they can be redefined, delayed, or revoked by executive order?
Frederick Douglass posed a similar challenge more than 170 years ago when he asked, “What, to the American slave, is your Fourth of July?”
His question was a searing indictment not just of slavery but of a government that proclaimed liberty while denying it to millions—a hypocrisy that persists in a system still governed by institutions more committed to power than principle.
Every branch of government—executive, legislative, and judicial—has, in one way or another, abandoned its duty to uphold the Constitution. And both parties have prioritized profit and political theater over justice and the rights of the governed.
The founders of this nation believed our rights come from God, not government. That we are born free, not made free by bureaucrats or judges. That among these rights—life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness—none can be taken away without destroying the very idea of government by consent.
And yet that is precisely what’s happening.
We now live under a government that has become judge, jury, and executioner—writing its own laws, policing its own limits, and punishing those who object.
This is not what it means to be free.
When presidents rule by fiat, when agencies strip citizenship from naturalized Americans, when police act as both enforcers and executioners, and when courts rubber-stamp the erosion of basic protections, the distinction between a citizen and a subject begins to collapse.
What do inalienable rights mean in a country where:
- Your citizenship can be revoked based solely on the government’s say-so?
- Your freedom can be extinguished by surveillance, asset seizure, or indefinite detention?
- Your property can be taken, your speech censored, and your life extinguished without due process?
- Your life can be ended without a trial, a warning, or a second thought, because the government views you as expendable?
The answer is stark: they mean nothing—unless we defend them.
When the government—whether president, Congress, court, or local bureaucrat—claims the right to determine who does and doesn’t deserve rights, then no one is safe. Individuals become faceless numbers. Human beings become statistics. Lives become expendable. Dignity becomes disposable.
It is a slippery slope—justified in the name of national security, public safety, and the so-called greater good—that leads inevitably to totalitarianism.
Unfortunately, we have been dancing with this devil for far too long, and now, the mask has come off.
This is what authoritarianism looks like in America today.
In fact, read the Declaration of Independence again, and you’ll see the grievances America’s founders laid at the feet of King George—unjust laws, militarized policing, surveillance, censorship, and the denial of due process—are the very abuses “we the people” suffer under today.
Had Thomas Jefferson written the Declaration about the American police state in 2025, it might have read like a criminal indictment of the crimes perpetrated by a government that:
Polices by fear and violence:
- raiding family homes in the dead of night with SWAT teams that shoot pets and traumatize children;
- targeting vulnerable individuals—including the disabled and neurodivergent—for arrest under pretexts of noncompliance;
- killing unarmed citizens for not complying quickly enough;
- using roadside cavity searches and rectal probes as tools of humiliation and control.
Surveils and represses dissent:
- spying on its own citizens, reading private messages, tracking movements, and mining personal data;
- collecting DNA from innocent Americans and compiling biometric databases without consent;
- tracking drivers with license plate scanners and red-light cameras without due process;
- detaining protesters, journalists, and whistleblowers without trial, often labeling them as domestic threats;
- jailing veterans for criticizing the government;
- placing ordinary Americans on watchlists and labeling dissent as terrorism.
Strips away rights:
- seizing property through civil asset forfeiture without charges or due process;
- building secret prisons and detention centers shielded from judicial oversight;
- stripping citizenship from those it deems disloyal, making constitutional rights conditional;
- criminalizing homelessness, dissent, and disloyalty as pretexts for exclusion and punishment;
- criminalizing routine behavior under vague laws that fuel mass incarceration and overcriminalization.
Concentrates unchecked power in the executive:
- bypassing Congress with executive orders, sidelining the courts, and ruling by decree;
- weaponizing federal agencies to suppress opposition and silence critics;
- treating constitutional limits as optional and the presidency as a personal fiefdom.
These are not isolated abuses.
They are the logical outcomes of a government that has turned against its people.
In the nearly 250 years since early Americans declared their independence from Great Britain, “we the people” have worked ourselves back under the tyrant’s thumb—only this time, the tyrant is one of our own making.
But if history teaches us anything, it’s that the power of the people—when awakened—is stronger than any empire.
For decades, the Constitution has been our shield against tyranny.
But today, it’s under siege. And now we must be the shield.
Surveillance is expanding. Peaceful dissent is being punished. Judges are being targeted. The presidency is issuing decrees and bypassing the rule of law.
Every institution meant to check power is being tested—and in some cases, broken.
This is the moment to stand in front of the Constitution and defend it.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the fight for freedom is never over. But neither is it lost—so long as we refuse to surrender, refuse to remain silent, and refuse to accept tyranny as the price of safety.
It is time to remember who we are. To reclaim the Constitution. To resist the march toward authoritarianism. And to reassert—boldly and without apology—that our rights are not up for negotiation.
Reprinted with permission from Rutherford Institute.
