MKitch3|Sept. 23,2325
“When government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny.”
-Thomas Jefferson
Every generation of Americans swore it would never happen here. Tyranny was something our ancestors fought to throw off, not something we’d ever embrace. But here we are, surveilled and regulated, treated like suspects by our own government. What changed? Everything. And it didn’t happen overnight. This is a post that came out of my white paper on the subject.
The Founders’ Blueprint
America was born in rebellion against a king who taxed, surveilled, and sent soldiers to knock on doors. The Bill of Rights was supposed to keep that nightmare from returning. Free speech, private property, the right to bear arms, the guarantee that no soldier or bureaucrat could barge into your life without cause—those were meant to be permanent guardrails.
It didn’t take long to start breaking them. The Alien & Sedition Acts (1798) literally made criticizing the government illegal. Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War, locking up Americans without trial. Cracks formed almost immediately.
Government’s Growth Addiction
Crisis became the permanent excuse. The Civil War gave us income tax and centralized federal power. The Progressive Era gave us the IRS, Federal Reserve, and FBI. FDR’s New Deal locked in a federal managerial state that never shrank back. Each step was sold as “temporary.” None of it was.
Birth of the Police State
Prohibition turned ordinary Americans into criminals. Federal agents stormed homes, raided bars, and perfected surveillance tactics.
By the 1960s, the FBI was running COINTELPRO, spying on civil rights leaders and antiwar activists. Martin Luther King Jr. was wiretapped and harassed by his own government.
Then came the War on Drugs. SWAT teams, civil asset forfeiture, mass incarceration—it all became normal. The courts shrugged and gave police qualified immunity, making them nearly untouchable.
The 9/11 Jackpot
If you were in Washington on September 12, 2001, you had a golden ticket. Politicians rushed the Patriot Act into law, and suddenly secret courts, mass surveillance, and indefinite detention were standard operating procedure.
The Department of Homeland Security was created, the TSA became permanent, and the NSA quietly built a surveillance system that made East Germany’s Stasi look like amateurs. Local police got armored vehicles and battlefield rifles. By the time Ferguson erupted in 2014, America’s cops looked more like an occupying army than public servants.
COVID and the Emergency State
If 9/11 built the hardware, COVID-19 installed the software. Americans were confined to their homes under threat of arrest. Businesses were shuttered by decree. Speech questioning the rules was censored online. Vaccine passports and contact tracing apps were rolled out like beta tests for a digital permission system.
For the first time, it became obvious: government no longer needed war or terrorism to justify emergency powers. Public health worked just fine.
From Liberty to Permission
The cultural shift might be the most dangerous part. The founders assumed government must always justify its power. Today, the expectation has flipped. Citizens are forced to justify their freedom. Want to travel, work, or even speak online? Prove you have permission.
The Timeline of Tyranny
- 1798: Alien & Sedition Acts criminalize dissent.
- 1861: Lincoln suspends habeas corpus.
- 1917: Espionage Act punishes antiwar speech.
- 1933: New Deal locks in permanent bureaucracy.
- 1971: War on Drugs militarizes policing.
- 2001: Patriot Act launches mass surveillance.
- 2020: COVID lockdowns confine Americans in their own homes.
Where We’re Headed
America has become what it once resisted: a heavily surveilled, heavily policed society where the rule of law is too often the rule of fear. The infrastructure for tyranny already exists—databases, cameras, drones, militarized police forces. All it needs is the next “emergency” to tighten the screws.
The choice now is simple. Reclaim the founder’s suspicion of government, or learn to live inside a digital cage disguised as democracy.