The True Axis of Evil

The True Axis of Evil

By Bruce Fein
The Washington Times
September 20, 2014

An axis of evil threatens the liberties of the United States from within:

The Warfare State; The Surveillance State; The Bail-Out State;
and, The Welfare State.

A natural extension of former Vice President Dick Cheney’s one
percent doctrine, the axis feeds on an effete quest for a risk-free
existence — the opposite of the risk-taking philosophy that gave
birth to the nation.

The greatest threat to our liberties is the warfare state.

Alexis de Tocqueville presciently noted in “Democracy in America,”
“All those who seek to destroy the liberties of democratic nations
ought to know that war is the surest and the shortest means to
accomplish it.”

War makes legal what is customarily first-degree murder.

It subordinates transparency to secrecy.

And due process, privacy, free speech, and the separation
of powers bow to shouts of national security.

The warfare state is earmarked by endless gratuitous wars
unjustified by self-defense, i.e., wars of aggression according to
the international law principles championed by the United States
during the post-World War II Nuremberg trials.

Our wars against Iraq, Libya, ISIS, Afghanistan, and the perpetual
global war against international terrorism are illustrative.

The U.S. “pivot” to Asia is a precursor to a gratuitous war against
China over the South or East China Seas, uninhabited islands, or
otherwise.

No nation or non-state actor credibly threatens U.S. sovereignty.

Any would-be aggressor against United States territory would be
instantly crushed by our brave and unexcelled armed forces.

No one goes to sleep here worried about a foreign invasion.

We are safer from that danger than any other country in the
history of the world.

But warfare states like the Unites States fight for the sake of
domination or control in imitation of adolescent bullies on a
high school playground.

They create self-fulfilling prophecies.

They preventively attack invented enemies, who predictably fight
back in retaliation, which in turn is said to justify the preventive
attacks.

ISIS is a perfect example.

It was initially confined to fighting tyrannies in Syria and Iraq with
no motivation to sail across the Atlantic Ocean to attack the United
States.

Then we preventively commenced war against ISIS to prop up a
sectarian dictatorship in Iraq and the non-moderate moderate
armed opposition in Syria.

The ranks of ISIS predictably swelled to defend against the attacks.

The United States has given ISIS a motive to respond in kind, which
will be said to have justified our preventive war.

The surveillance state is first cousin to the warfare state.

Willing to crush liberty in hopes of diminishing risk, it exposes all
citizens to surveillance on the hunch that some may be connected
to international terrorism.

Unlike the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted List, a secret terrorist watch list
has been created without due process safeguards for listing or de-
listing.

In addition, the National Security Agency tracks the domestic and
international communications of every citizen of the United States
in hopes of discovering an international terrorism link.

The NSA’s tracking persists despite more than eight years
of futility.

Additional suspicion less surveillance programs of the NSA
undertaken pursuant to an executive order of the President
remain cloaked in secrecy.

The risk-free surveillance state betrays the right to be let alone
which gave birth to the American Revolution.

Its spirit was voiced by William Pitt the Elder in an electrifying
1763 address to Parliament:

“The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces
of the crown. It may be frail, its roof may shake; the wind may
blow through it; the storms may enter, but the King of England
cannot enter — all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the
ruined tenement.”

The bail-out state and welfare state are also fueled by risk
aversion.

They protect corporations and individuals alike from the economic
risks of free and open competition, the locomotive of wealth.

They perversely diminish the rewards of skill, foresight, and
industry, while eliminating or reducing the penalties of corruption,
recklessness, incompetence, or sloth.

A stagnant economy, however, cannot sustain the stupendous costs
of a warfare state.

We should be jolted by the teaching of all human experience.

A country that makes liberty subservient to fears of risk will soon
be a museum piece.

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/sep/18/fein-true-
axis-evil