Libertarians have long warned that interventionism in foreign affairs inexorably leads to interventionism in domestic policy.
The hallmark of worldwide liberal-blessed Neocon-beloved empire-building is the quaint little idea of preemptive war.
The mentality works like this:
"That nasty little backwater sandbox of Upyerwazooistan, whose military can't fight its way out of a moldy goatskin, might have a weapon of mass destruction that they might give to a terrorist that they might smuggle across our dangerously wide-open southern border in a donkey cart that might be used to blow up the President's vacation home so we have to bomb Third World peasants and kill off thousands of American soldiers in the process of imposing the ideal of corrupt American-style 'democracy' on everyone."
Preemptive warfare abroad translates into preemptive crime-prevention at home.
Preemptive Warrant Serving has become a popular sport in our cities. SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) teams were originally created to counter street gangs and bank robbers who outgunned the poor cop on the beat.
Now, SWAT is made up of former playground bullies and narcissistic Peter Pans who never got over playing cops and robbers. They get to dress up like Ninja assassins, flail heavy artillery about, and terrorize the living bejesus out of people without ever being held accountable for killing, maiming, traumatizing, and demolishing an entire household when they invade the wrong address.
"Badges? Of course we need stinking badges. Badges put us above the law."
The SWAT mentality is the same as the nation's foreign policy mentality:
"We have to serve a Smoking in Public warrant on a nonviolent subject who is sound asleep with his family at 3 a.m., but that insignificant civilian might have a gun and he might wake up and he might think we are home invaders (which we are) and he might shoot at us in self-defense so we need to bash-and-enter like Storm Troopers with flashbangs and loud bellowing and taser him into submission in the name of protecting the public, serving the general welfare, and defending our sacred Bill of Rights, whatever that is."
So now SWAT stands for Scaring Women and Toddlers.
Now that the floodgates are open, everybody wants to play. According to the Dallas Morning News, their fellow bureauhacks in neighboring Fort Worth have implemented "mandatory blood tests for drivers believed to be intoxicated."
(Note the words "mandatory" and "believed to be.")
Here's how Preemptive DUI Enforcement works:
If a suspect refuses a breathalyzer, members of Fort Worth's finest will be empowered to trash the centuries-old principle of "innocent until proven guilty" and stick a (dirty? hepatitis infected?) needle in his arm.
("Badges? Of course we need stinking badges. Badges put us above the law.")
The article doesn't say what happens to the "citizen" who declines the mandatory blood test. Perhaps the Medi-Cop calls for backup and a 15-member SWAT team arrives to force the "suspect" to the ground, taser him into submission, and slam the civil-rights-denied "peasant" into the slammer.
Ain't democracy grand?
But everyone, at all levels of power, wants to get into the act.
According to the Washington Post, New Jersey launched a health initiative at the beginning of the year to control mother-to-child transmission of HIV, making screening tests mandatory for all pregnant women in the state.
(There's that "mandatory" again.)
The stated justification for this Preemptive War on HIV? Out of 115, 000 births in the Garden State each year, seven children were born with HIV in 2005, two in 2006, and none in 2007.
(Note that "none.")
The real justification? "If people are left alone to make medical decisions with their doctors they might discover that they don't need us bureauhacks. Omigod! Then we'll have to get real jobs."
The solution to these anti-freedom evils is freedom. Not the pretend, lip service, newspeak freedom we hear from politicians, but real freedom.
Freedom from government.
Garry Reed is a longtime advocate of the libertarian philosophy of non-coercion that espouses personal autonomy and individual responsibility, civil rights and economic liberty, maximum freedom and minimum government. His Web site is (http://www.freecannon.com ).
