~ Introduction ~

Yes, perhaps many matters concerning the culture war as it relates to freedom and liberty in America are heading for a good turn around under the Trump administration, especially in regard to Title IX and women’s rights and security in the locker rooms and rest rooms. Religious freedom remains strong too under Trump, but on the whole, when we look at the combination of the issues underlying the cause of freedom and liberty in America, we have miles to go, and our Inalienable God-given Rights remain imperiled.

That both Democrat and Republican administrations and Congress have repeatedly renewed the Patriot Act and the FISA Act tells you all you need to know about the state of freedom and individual liberty in America.

As Aldous Huxley observed so many decades ago:

“A really efficient totalitarian state would be one in which the all-powerful executive of political bosses and their army of managers control a population of slaves who do not have to be coerced, because they love their servitude.”

We currently find millions of citizens who fit Huxley’s description of slaves. And it bodes ill for the future of the country.

Today’s new American serfs and slaves bear a helluva remarkable resemblance to someone with a job, a mortgage, a Social Security number, and one of RFK’s smartwatch health monitors. They have more conveniences than any generation in history, yet less individual sovereignty and liberty over the entirety of their life and existence on this earth.

No matter how uncomfortable many may find the truth, this is the path by which all can rediscover genuine freedom and liberty and tear asunder that which the totalitarian minds have forced upon our society and country on the whole.

No one can ever escape their prison walls, until the day someone awakens them to make them understand they are living inside a prison.

Fyodor Dostoyevsky, a 19th century Russian novelist, made note of this very thing, when he wrote:

“The best way to keep a prisoner from escaping is to make sure he never knows he’s in prison.”

And the first step to real freedom and liberty is to start ripping all the mechanisms of tyranny from our system such as it currently exists. Raze it to the ground, burn it to ashes and build a truly free society and a strong people from the ashes. ~ J.O.S.

The Vanishing Horizon of Liberty

“Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number –
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you –
Ye are many – they are few.” ~ Percy Bysshe Shelley

In a time when I thought the American idea and Her original free, independent spirit at the time of Her founding should have the country soaring to new heights of American exceptionalism, rooted in our founding principles of personal responsibility and individual liberty, I find myself standing at a strange crossroads, a stranger in my own land with very little in common with most of America’s current inhabitants. After some forty-six years of mentoring, engaging, and writing in defense of all the values I hold dear, I see a nation that has largely abandoned those ideas, out of malice and envy as they demand a government that destroys individual liberty in exchange for comfort on the government dole and subsidies and so-called “security”.

Men used to understand and accept a certain code of discipline and the notion of self-rule and one’s own individual sovereignty, God’s moral code, natural rights and the necessity of keeping any government small in size and extremely limited in scope and authority. But through the centuries, they have allowed dark forces and poorly educated men and women to lead them far and away from the movement for freedom and liberty that started over 250 years ago, and they fed the Leviathan to become the unmanageable monstrosity we see today, as a corrupt bureaucracy has taken shape along with an illegal tax code and an out-of-control legal system that no longer truly serves the people, having crept into our system guised under necessity, despite the fact that George Washington led the American people through the War for Independence and crossed the Delaware River on Christmas night 1776 over a three percent tax on tea, among many other abuses and grievances.

We’ve allowed a movement for freedom and liberty to be ended through big government and an ever-expanding legal code that virtually makes every harmless act a crime. We aren’t ever really allowed to own our own homes via forever property taxation, and we don’t even get to really control our own money and the value of our labor. For those who suggest it is all part of a social contract we are born into and must obey, for the life of me, I do not accept this, and I refuse to obey anything that goes against my conscience, my freedom and individual liberty.

Americans seem oblivious to the fact that the nation’s $37 trillion national debt is theirs to pay, and the more this debt grows, the more the government will feel compelled to force everyone to pay more in taxes. It serves as a lien against all Americans’ future labors and productivity, no matter that many people, including myself, can unequivocally state that we didn’t vote for this monstrous level of debt and would have rather done without all the Government goodies than be saddled with a debt that hangs around the neck of the nation, until and unless it is finally paid down or completely paid off – highly unlikely now.

How can any American live truly free with such an economic anchor chained around their neck?

An undeniably deep ideological chasm has opened between those who love rugged individualism and true freedom and those who love their collective security regardless of any number of violations made against their Inalienable God-given Rights. The GenZers and Millennials have a different set of so-called “values” heavily influenced by the Marxist infiltrators of secondary education and America’s universities, and they seem to care not one whit for their freedom and liberty so long as the government gravy trains and circuses keep running on time. Their ideas have been crafted by way of their desire for modern comforts, the connectivity of the electronic age and their own immoral imperatives that see nothing wrong whatsoever in demanding cradle to grave care at the expense of others.

What was once a republic built upon freedom has morphed into a labyrinth of laws and restrictions, where every footstep, every harmless act, risks being deemed transgression. A dog’s paw crossing a boundary – punishable. A man’s refusal to conform – suspect.

Individual liberty, our very freedom, is a part of our Inalienable God-given Rights, and it is something that is not granted by any government. And when left no other choice in the face of constant violations of liberty, we may and must always choose to seize it and take it back for our very own, by way of civil disobedience, nullification, combatting illegal and illegitimate “law” in courts, in order that we may break through the invisible barriers found everywhere within our society, from within the confines of the legal, economic and ideological system that all work to limit us and our liberty while enslaving us to the system in the process.

The worst year for America was 1913. This was the year the country saw the creation of the unconstitutional Federal Reserve Bank and the Income Tax, and it was the moment that we saw the “United States Note” replaced by the “Federal Reserve Note” to our misery from that day forth.

Our U.S. currency isn’t real currency backed by anything of any real worth or substance. Those Federal Reserve notes are the equivalent of IOUs within a fascist economic system supported by insane Keynesian and Marxist economic “principles” and the severely flawed Modern Monetary Theory, whereby every dollar represents an obligation to private banks. It’s a mad system that demands its users try to pay off debt with debt instruments, an impossible task at best.

The consequence? Today, Americans surrender thirty to fifty percent of our labor to the Government before we even ever see it. And yet, it is our labor, is it not. But just you try to refuse and watch how fast the Government Agents with firearms drawn come down on you hard. Everything under the sun and within one’s grasp is taxed, from income to property to groceries and leisure and luxury items, and even essentially one’s savings which lose their value through massive spending and subsequent high inflation that follows, while many U.S. states still extract death, inheritance and gift taxes.

Government is not our friend, and its agents view us as numbers and cogs in a machine, to serve the needs of the government, to keep us bound to a debt-based system and worthless fiat money that forces all of America’s citizens to work like dogs from early adulthood to near death, just in order to barely scrape by, which isn’t to say there are others who have learned to game the system and do quite well for themselves in the end. In the end, we always find an out-of-control Government that acts like it owns every American and his labor, treating us all like serfs without any other choice other than to obey, or go to prison – or die.

No one in this damned country is free, when a person has to get a permit and permission to wander through wooded lands, simply because those lands bear the designation of “national park”. How can anyone live free and acquire the greatest degree of individual liberty when every parcel of land is either owned and controlled by the government or private individuals and even one’s supposed right to freely travel the countryside is forever restricted. If one wishes to travel today, they have to either use a personal vehicle they paid taxes on, licensed at more cost, and insured at greater cost because “the law” mandates it, on government owned roads paid for by more taxes, or a person takes a government operated bus or walks. If one chooses to walk, which is a person’s right, there isn’t any place he can walk today that isn’t technically “owned” by the government or a private individual or corporation, leaving one’s self always open to malicious prosecution if the other person takes exception or just doesn’t like someone.

Many won’t like that I said “this damn country“. It was used with intention in anger of a nation and a people that have let freedom slip away and allowed so vile an immoral subculture to take root throughout all society and the very Congress and institutions of government, which are empowered to serve the people, that it will surely eventually end the republic, since the Constitution only really works if it’s used by a moral people. I love America better than most, most of Her current crop of people not so much.

To be fair, President Trump has suggested he is open to selling off some “federal land” so more Americans can own land and homes, but, in my mind, the federal government never had the right or authority to claim ownership of all the land in America. Not even the states have the authority to claim the land not already privately owned, because government doesn’t exist without the consent of the people, and it is the sovereign American citizen who holds the greatest moral authority to claim any and all land – cities were organized as mechanisms to support private property and defend their citizens, joining forces within state boundaries as an extension of this function. And there won’t be anything fair about Trump’s plan, if the big developers are allowed to rush in and immediately use their already vast wealth and millions to buy up any offered lands, once again placing the average American at a disadvantage and making the disparity between the rich and the poor ever more evident, on full display.

Think I’ll go lay claim to about forty acres at latitude 43.79 and longitude 110.68. NOW we’ll  be havin’ some fun!

But, property rights don’t supersede a person’s right to walk from one end of this country to the next, regardless if one walks down the side of the interstate or a state highway or step off a road to walk through “state owned” property — the state which has no real authority to say they own all the land in America, other than from the lack of dissent by the citizens of America. If sidewalks are not in place, a person on foot has no real recourse but to step off a road from time to time, onto someone’s property in order to avoid oncoming automobiles. And not everyone owns an automobile today, as hard as that may be to believe, or lives in an area where tax collections have been sufficient enough to see sidewalks poured along every stretch of road in residential areas.

If a person harmlessly allows his dog to place his paws a foot onto another man’s yard, he can be charged with trespassing, even though he hasn’t actually harmed anyone. How does anyone manage to live free in such an authoritarian/ totalitarian minded society without finding one’s self cast in the light of an outlaw.

And no one should ever make a natural assumption to their right to self-defense these days, when so many states make the very act a crime. Kill a burglar in your house and he’s the victim in many states and you get a trip to prison. Try carrying a weapon for the purpose of self-defense, and they call it “carrying a weapon for the intent of going armed” and a “crime”, as if there’s any other reason for carrying a weapon and as if it isn’t one’s right to exert if one finds it necessary to their own self-defense for any reason.

Making certain no one escapes their clutches, Government agencies, be they federal or state, now watch our every move from asshole to zulu. We are heavily searched and scrutinized before we board airplanes, and everyone now must have a Real ID just to fly from one state to the next. Facial recognition is everywhere in every city and our every financial transaction is monitored, even as the Trump administration, which has promised never to implement a cashless CBDC system, seems to be doing just that, by way of its new massive Artificial Intelligence initiative and numerous projects springing out of them, leaving little doubt that the nation is in fact headed toward a cashless system that will give the U.S. government incredible new powers and an untold level of control of all Americans.

Some few years ago, I warned that China’s social credit score system would in fact come to America, and now, everything needed to control you via such a mechanism is in place, ready to make any person who doesn’t conform to government edicts unemployable and unable to participate in society, just as the Technocrats attempted during the Covid scamdemic using corporate controls and social media. In the future, the Government will simply make your savings disappear with a push of a button in the blink of an eye, for any behavior they deem anti-regime.

Think Americans are free. Just look at all the hits the Bill of Rights have taken under the Patriot Act and the FISA Reauthorization Act. As of yet, an untold number of unethical, corrupt, treasonous men and women within the federal government have misused and abused the unconstitutional “authorities” under these acts to engage in many government overreaches of power, civil rights abuses and treason against the United States of America, as scores of innocents suffered the harm brought by these actions and even found themselves wrongfully charged with “crimes” and imprisoned.

Think again. You’re not free. Just ask the political prisoners who were rounded up after the January 6th protest and riot that took place at the Capitol Building, arrested, charged – many not charged, and left to rot in prison without a trial or wrongfully coerced into accepting plea deals for simply taking a stroll through the Capitol Building in many cases.

Your not free in America if you’re Jewish, or so it seems. No mayor or college president seems to care that your civil rights are repeatedly violated daily in America by the pro-Hamas islamofascists, as they intimidate, block, shove and basically assault you to and from your classes and workplaces. Better to be a member of Antifa or Black Lives Matter if you live in states that subscribe to the sort of Marxist-Maoist claptrap espoused by the likes of Zohran Mamdani or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, even if President Trump’s administration is currently making some great inroads to quelling the violent antics of these red, radical rat bastards.

America certainly isn’t free whenever administrations from both parties have tried to censor political opponents and silence free speech on any matter. You’re not free when any Congress or administration tries to criminalize any criticism of anything, any group or any person, whether we are criticizing Jews or Muslims for whatever the reason. And yet, in recent years, America has witnessed Congressmen from both parties propose “hate speech” legislation in direct contravention of our First Amendment Rights; there is no such thing as “hate speech” in America, there is only Free Speech.

Americans for the most part have become cheap imitations of strong-minded, strong-willed, independent free born Americans. In essence, they now pretend to be patriots who love freedom and individual liberty, but as they wrap themselves in the American flag and cry “Freedom”, their disguise immediately comes undone as they embrace the cold chains of slavery to government controls and benefits in the name of comfort and security, individual liberty be damned – cowards who turn a blind eye when someone they see as “the other” have their own security threatened and their rights violated.

When John Adams spoke of “a government of laws, not of men,” he envisioned a system that restrained tyranny. But he also warned that liberty required moral vigilance from the people themselves.

Thomas Jefferson, ever the champion of natural rights, feared the rise of centralized authority. He said, “When the people fear the government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.”

The Whiskey Rebellion of 1794 reminds us that even in the early years, citizens resisted taxation that felt disconnected from their reality – a pattern still familiar today.

When you look at yourself in the mirror, what do you see – a real free born American standing ready and willing to fight to remain free or a modern-day serf ready to bow and serve the Leviathan and its new masters?

Too many young Americans have been indoctrinated by the Marxist-Maoist communist and islamofascist strain of “educators” within the nation’s education system, and we now find that they increasingly echo the propaganda and sentiments that promote and facilitate collectivism/communism and the government dole above autonomy, self-responsibility, accountability and the sovereign individual – one of the saddest things any true American will see in a country that was supposedly founded on the principles and virtues of freedom, liberty, personal responsibility and independence.

Their “new” ideas are antithetical to freedom and liberty and a stark contrast to America’s founding; and, as this ideological rift grows wider and deepens, I see storm clouds gathering over the American horizon, whereby the civil unrest and bloody violence of the past decades pale in comparison to what is to come, leaving a legacy of death and destruction behind rather than freedom and liberty for all.

This is a future I would not and do not want for my grandchildren, and yet, it appears we sit upon the precipice wherein it is a very real possibility over the next decade. I wish only that they may live in a country where peaceful individuals and their families are left alone by the government to live life as they see fit, so long as they do no harm. More than a radical notion, that should be common sense.

For now, the U.S. government and the various far left states cannot seem to tolerate a free individual, even though our Bill of Rights enumerates those things they cannot do to limit our Inalienable God-given Rights. To live free in any age is a struggle and almost seems to be a fantasy and a utopian notion in and of itself, when we see those principles so often and so easily cast off and dismissed, and it is rapidly devolving into a life-or-death struggle today as we find so many petty tyrants in our country forever encroaching and forever trampling on everybody, everywhere across the country in ways that were thought would never be seen in the land of the free and the home of the brave – THIS America I love so well.

Still, freedom lives, from the underground presses of revolutionary pamphleteers, much aligned with men like Thomas Paine and ‘Common Sense‘, to the exalted teachings of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn straight from the gulags and Soviet surveillance. The principles of freedom and liberty never die in men of substance – they recede, wait, and rise again through those willing to nurture them. And every American worth their salt must leave a legacy of freedom behind for all generations to come. This is your time to resist and even move to eradicate the Marxist-Maoists within our society, in a movement to preserve freedom and liberty for America’s children and their children’s children and generations yet to come.

And here I stand, wondering if to live free requires me to live outside the system, like an outlaw without ill intent, until such time Government Agents seek me out to draw me back into the fold and answer to my affront to their authority, raising my anger and forcing me to act with extreme prejudice and any and all violence necessary to remain free. It’s a choice not born of anger initially but ending in violence out of necessity and conscience. A life off-grid, or at least away from the script the powers that be have in mind for me and every other American. Not hidden but deliberate. A life devoted to principles instead of permissions.

August 7, 2025

~ the Author ~
Justin O. Smith Has Lived in Tennessee Off and on Most of His Adult Life, and Graduated From Middle Tennessee State University in 1980, With a B.S. And a Double Major in International Relations and Cultural Geography – Minors in Military Science and English, for What Its Worth. His Real Education Started From That Point on. Smith Is a Frequent Contributor to the Family of Kettle Moraine Publications.