I know, from personal experience, that most of you would rather be out partying, hanging out with friends, watching television, playing video games, or hanging out with your girlfriends/boyfriends than paying attention to politics. It is not hard to see that social appearances top that of actual intelligence and critical thinking. I understand that society has plagued you with a considerable amount of pro-government propaganda and demoralizing content. It is blaringly obvious that you rather have your friends think you are “cool” than stand out from among the crowd and stick up for your rights, as well as your morals. Lastly, I understand that not all of you have fallen ill to the ignorance that has an insurmountable stranglehold over our society. However, sad as this may be, we are in the minority. That being said, I don’t mean to paint the matter with a broad brush, but a majority of our generation are not critical thinkers and are not the least bit interested in fighting against the ever-increasing authoritarian state. Therefore, this letter speaks to the majority as a warning, and it speaks to the minority as a motivator to furnish new warnings to our generation and as an inspiration to make us want to take further action.
In school, we have learned of the atrocities performed by the dictators of the 20th century. We were taught how they conducted random kidnappings, threw people – who went against the party lines – in gulags, slaughtered civilians in firing lines, raped children and women, and made the youth of their nation turn on their own parents by ratting them out to the “authorities” if they criticized the state. Even more mind numbing, the youth, at times, were forced to murder the people of their own townships and their families (Mou’s regime). As a further matter, without a doubt, we have all been taught that these sorts of sickening acts of state aggression would never see the light of day in America; that they would never come to fruition in the “land of the free.”
What if I told you that the violent acts of state aggression in the 20th century are, in fact, seeing the light of day in America?
In the 1990s, the United States Marine Corps crafted an urban warfare training program called “Operation Urban Warrior.” This program’s purported goals are to train the military for urban combat operations in which there are large populaces, cultural differences, combat training in urban environments “against a backdrop of civil unrest”, biological attacks, and “to support the national military strategy of preparing for the threats of a new century and a changing enemy.”
Here is the mission statement from the Department of Defense’s Urban Warrior page on their website:
To support the national military strategy of preparing for the threats of a new century and a changing enemy. To enhance domestic national security. To conduct and refine disaster relief and humanitarian assistance operations for use in the United States and abroad. To conduct urban combat operations and ready Marines for the likelihood that battles in the 21st Century will be focused in the world’s rapidly expanding urban areas.
Here are their mission goals:
Using a sea-based, Navy-Marine Corps team, provide humanitarian and disaster relief assistance to a large, metropolitan city, including food, water, shelter and medicine. Successfully conduct an amphibious landing, helicopter assault and mass casualty drill in response to an incident involving chemical or biological weapons, and in coordination with civilian police and fire departments. Conduct a mid-intensity combat operation in an urban environment against a backdrop of civil unrest, and restore order.”
Again, just as the case is with the white paper regarding drone assassinations, the federal government has not specifically defined who the “enemy” is. However, you can figure out the said enemy they are referring to when the following federal documents outline who you should consider a terrorist or an enemy: The FBI’s Project Megiddo document, the FBI’s and BJA’s Communities Against Terrorism documents, New Jersey’s Department of Homeland Securities Terrorism and Awareness Prevention document, and the Department of Homeland Security’s Hot Spots of U.S. Terrorism document. Each and everyone one of these – as stated in my drone letter – classify Americans as the enemy, “domestic terrorists”, for supporting the Constitution, Ron Paul, liberty, the Founding Fathers, the Second Amendment, for having goose bumps (no joke), for being over dressed for the weather, for paying with cash or credit cards, and for shielding our computer screen while in an Internet café.
In closing, Operation Urban Warrior drills were conducted in San Francisco’s East Bay and Chicago in 1998 and 1999. These urban warfare drills are becoming more prevalent as each year passes by. In January of 2013, the military conducted unannounced urban warfare drills in Miami, Houston, and a few other locations in cooperation with local authorities. This is just one example of the growing authoritarian police state. If the Founders had ever witnessed a military preparing for civil unrest, which – in accordance to the Constitution – can be considered a “standing army”, they would have spoken out with great reproach.
The final examples of the growing authoritarian regime, which we have all been taught would never come into fruition in the United States, are: The PATRIOT Act, H.R. 347, the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013, the drone policy, national disarmament, and the National Defense Resources Preparedness executive order. Understandably, these are vast topics which could take volumes to break down and connect one thing to another, with parallels from the past and present. However, in order to keep this warning letter short, I will give you a brief overview of each issue mentioned above.
The PATRIOT ActThe Patriot Act was signed into law on October 26th, 2001, by President George W. Bush. The Patriot Act allows for unwarranted searches and seizures on the basis of suspected terrorism. In addition, it allows for the unwarranted wiretapping of communications. These actions are in clear violation of the 4th Amendment. In short, it allows the federal government to monitor and search any American citizen they want, simply on a suspicion.
H.R. 347H.R. 347 is more commonly known as the anti-protest bill. It makes it a criminal offense to protest on federal building and grounds, despite the fact that tax payers pay for those public servants and buildings. This, in all actuality, makes them public grounds. The bill is also unconstitutional in the sense that it violates your First Amendment rights.
The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2013The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) is military bill previously signed into law before President Obama. However, on the 31st of December, 2011, President Obama reauthorized it with Sections 1021 and 1022, contained in the military detentions section. These new provisions allows for the indefinite detention of any American citizen for being a “suspected terrorist.” It stops you of your right to due process, a speedy and public trial by an impartial jury, and the Writ of Habeas Corpus. The lack of these rights under authoritarian regimes is what leads to people’s unfortunate stays in political prisons and gulags. As noted earlier, you can be a suspected terrorist for having goose bumps. This means you are a potential candidate for being indefinitely detained, among the many other reasons that classify you as a “suspected terrorist.” It also declares the U.S. as a “battlefield,” as Senator Lindsey Graham announced. No authoritarian regime in the past has ever gone so far as to make a legal to kidnap the citizens of their countries. They just did it.
Drone PolicyI hate to repeat what I said in my last letter, however, it is a must. With respect to the Administration’s leaked white paper, you and I can be drone bombed for being classified as an “affiliated terrorist group” to Al-Qaeda. In regard to the documents mentioned above, Ron Paul supporters are considered “affiliated terrorist groups.”
National DisarmamentNow, it hasn’t happened yet, but it’s on the verge of happening if we do not do something. In the aftermath of the Sandy Hook Massacre, the gun-grabbing agenda picked up pace. In response to the hysteria surrounding the shooting, Senator Dianne Feinstein proposed gun legislation that would virtually ban over 1,000 fire arms and would require that all firearms, as well as their owner’s information, be registered in a national database. The dictators of the 20th century would have loved this idea of registering gun owner’s information in a national database because it would have, when they dropped the iron curtain down onto their nations, made their disarmament operations much easier and much faster.
The National Defense Resources Preparedness executive orderThis is an executive order that was signed by President Obama. It is one of the largest federal usurpations of power any society has seen. “The new Executive Order states that the president and his secretaries have the authority to commandeer all U.S. domestic resources, including food and water, as well as seize all energy and transportation infrastructure inside the borders of the United States,” the Huffington Post reported in an article titled, “Martial Law by Executive Order.” The article went on to further its description of the power the federal government granted itself:
“The Government can also forcibly draft U.S. citizens into the military and force U.S. citizens to fulfill “labor requirements” for the purposes of “national defense.” There is not even any Congressional oversight allowed, only briefings.”
In a nutshell, the President can implement instant communism.
Pretty crazy, right?
I urge you to take action. We have hopped on board the train to despotism and it seems as though it is charging full-speed ahead into tyranny. I apologize for not being able to provide lengthy examples and explanations as to why I purport that we are under authoritarian control, but I hope the examples given did the job.
It is up to us to fight for the liberty we are using quickly. It is time to put away the video games and focus on learning, on educating yourself and others, and on understanding the philosophical ends of liberty. It is time that we show the generation above us – who have been warning us longer than we’ve been alive, in some respects – that we will restore the individual and economic freedom which once made this nation a wonder of the world.
I know that you do not want to live under despots. I would hope that the issues listed above have frightened you, for that is the only way by which we can begin to reverse these drastic issues our nation is faced with.
That being said, we have two choices: Take action and attempt to regain our freedom or be slaughtered by the authoritarian state.
I am a high school student myself. I am 16 years old and I have sacrificed the typical things students our age are interested in because I see our situation for what it is. It is a bone chilling situation, which can take a sharp downward spiral at any time. Upon noticing, it motivated me to take action; to stand up against the state. I plead to you. Stand up against the state, as I and many others have. If we do not do this, we will be left with no other choice: A revolution in self-defense. I hate to say it, but that is the severity of the situation.
For liberty,
Alec Scheer,
Founder of We Are 1776
