From the September 2002 Idaho Observer:

America is at that awkward stage

by Don Harkins

After all we have been through and after all that continues to reveal itself, particularly since Sept. 11, 2001, it has suddenly become crystal clear that we are a nation in transition: We are being systematically restored to our rightful station as subservient slaves of sovereign state masters.

The most radical concept in the history of the relationship between ordinary people and governments was given life with the founding of the United States of America. For the first time people were the sovereigns and government was the servant; public servants to function at the pleasure and convenience of people rather than people existing at the pleasure and convenience of an elite ruling class.

In hindsight I can see how this reversal (people as masters of government servants) was an aberration conceded by Revolutionary War-era elitists to accomplish “Manifest Destiny.” The American people were “given” their “inalienable” rights, the Homestead Act and the 1876 Mining Law as incentives to brave the wild animals, suffer the harsh climates, defeat the Indian nations and conquer this nation “from sea to shining sea.”

By the turn of the last century we had pretty well conquered North America. The Indians were on reservations, the wild animals had gone to higher ground and what a generation ago were outposts in the rugged wilderness were suddenly cities.

Then came the income tax and the government began to lay claim to our wages while we kept behaving as if we were free. We explored, found the resource wealth of our nation and built the roads to harvest them and more roads to deliver them to marketplaces all over the world.

Then came the Great Depression (a manufactured event) and the New Deal (a planned eventuality) and the age of socialism through government programs was born in America. And still we celebrated the Fourth of July as if we had our independence though every day since has produced more laws, statutes, rules, regulations and ordinances by which we are expected to abide.

We were so on fire with the inalienable rights we have been told since kindergarten are our birthright by God, we didn't even notice that the harder we applied our freeman's energy to resources the faster we were building the institutions of slavery around ourselves.

And now we have completed our tasks -- and in just 227 years. Our freedom is no longer an asset to government, it is a liability.

So, we are at that awkward stage -- we are transitioning from being sovereign citizens with the rights of self determination back into our historically inevitable station as slaves. While our leaders are still telling us that we are free citizens of the freest and greatest country in the world, fewer and fewer of us believe them . Soon the masks of freedom will be ripped from those corporately puppeted political faces to reveal the despotic monsters for what they really are.

The question at that moment will be: Now what -- fight for freedom or submit to slavery?