For Liberty and Union: Paper No. 3

(by An American Citizen)

On Power and Fear

Power without fear is impotent. Fear without power is paranoia. But power wielding fear becomes control. Since 9/11, each crisis has followed the same script: maximize fear, offer protection, grab power, never let go.

The Kirk assassination is just the latest verse in this dark song. Within 48 hours of the shooting, Senator Richard Blumenthal introduced the Digital Security Act, expanding surveillance authorities that privacy advocates had fought for years. Representative Adam Schiff called for "enhanced monitoring of domestic extremism," using tragedy to advance an agenda drafted long before. They never let a crisis go to waste—especially one they can milk for power.

The Ratchet of Emergency Powers

Powers expand during crisis but never contract after. Like a mechanical ratchet, movement occurs in one direction only.

The evidence is overwhelming. The federal income tax, introduced as a temporary measure in 1913 to fund World War I, now consumes 20-40% of most Americans' earnings. Social Security numbers, explicitly not to be used for identification when created in 1936, are now required for employment, banking, healthcare, and countless other activities. The NSA, chartered for foreign intelligence only, was caught in 2013 bulk-collecting every American's phone records.

Currently, America operates under 42 active national emergency declarations, some dating back to 1979. These grant presidents power to seize property, deploy military domestically, suspend habeas corpus, control all communication, freeze assets without trial, restrict movement, and bypass Congress entirely. The National Emergencies Act requires annual renewal, but no president has ever allowed one to expire. Trump inherited 32 emergencies from Obama, added 7, and Biden has terminated none while adding 9 more.

The International Emergency Economic Powers Act alone has been invoked 66 times since 1977. Once declared, these "temporary" measures become permanent fixtures of executive power. No president voluntarily surrenders authority their predecessor claimed.

The Architecture of Modern Fear

Fear management has evolved into a science. The Department of Homeland Security's budget has grown from $19 billion in 2002 to $107 billion in 2024—a 463% increase that dwarfs inflation. What are we buying with this money? Not safety, but the infrastructure of perpetual anxiety.

Physical threats dominate the narrative despite statistical safety. You're more likely to die from furniture falling on you than terrorism, yet we've spent $8 trillion on the "War on Terror." COVID had a 99.7% survival rate for those under 70, yet we transformed society entirely. The murder rate in 2023 was 6.3 per 100,000—half what it was in 1991—yet we're told violence is epidemic.

Economic fear keeps resistance impossible. The average American has less than $1,000 in savings and lives paycheck to paycheck by design. When missing one payment means homelessness, who dares resist? When speaking out means unemployability, who speaks? The precarity isn't accidental—it's engineered.

Social fear weaponizes our humanity. After January 6, the FBI created a tip line that received 200,000 reports from Americans turning in their neighbors. China's social credit system horrifies us, yet we're building the same thing through corporate coordination. PayPal's attempted $2,500 fine for "misinformation" in 2022, though withdrawn after backlash, revealed the infrastructure already exists.

The Surveillance State You Inhabit

Edward Snowden's revelations barely scratched the surface. The Utah Data Center, operational since 2014, stores approximately 12 exabytes of data—enough to store every phone call, email, and internet search of every American for a century. The facility's power usage could supply 65,000 homes, all dedicated to watching you.

Your phone is a tracking device that happens to make calls. In 2023, law enforcement made 600,000 requests for location data from carriers. Google received 150,000 government requests for user data. Ring doorbell cameras gave police footage from 11 million homes without warrants through their "Neighbors" app partnership.

The Fourth Amendment supposedly protects against unreasonable searches, but the Third Party Doctrine—invented by courts, not the Constitution—says you have no privacy in anything shared with companies. Since you "share" everything with tech companies to function in modern society, you effectively have no Fourth Amendment rights at all.

Fusion centers, created after 9/11, merge federal, state, and local surveillance into a seamless web. The 80 fusion centers nationwide employ 12,000 personnel who monitor "suspicious activity" like photography, note-taking, or "expressed dislike of attitudes and decisions of the U.S. government." A 2012 Senate report found they produced "no useful intelligence" on terrorism but excellent intelligence on political dissidents.

Breaking the Psychology of Submission

Learned helplessness, studied by psychologist Martin Seligman, occurs when subjects repeatedly experiencing uncontrollable stress eventually stop trying to escape, even when escape becomes possible. This isn't accidental—it's the goal.

They've created a population that polices itself. The Stanford Prison Experiment showed how quickly people adopt authoritarian roles when given permission. Now we see it daily: neighbors reporting gatherings, employees monitoring coworkers' social media, children informing on parents' "problematic" views.

But resistance is contagious too. Research on the "36% rule" shows that when just over one-third of a population refuses compliance, systems of control collapse. East Germany's Stasi, history's most comprehensive surveillance state, fell in weeks once citizens stopped cooperating. The Soviet Union, seeming eternal, vanished almost overnight when people simply stopped believing.

The Power They Fear Most

Mass noncompliance terrifies them because their system requires near-universal participation. If just 10% of Americans stopped using credit cards, the surveillance economy would collapse. If 10% used cash exclusively, digital currency plans would fail. If 10% homeschooled, the education monopoly would break. If 10% refused unconstitutional orders, enforcement would become impossible.

Local organization multiplies this effect. Sheriff Richard Mack's Constitutional Sheriffs movement has 4,000 members who've pledged to refuse enforcement of unconstitutional federal orders. The Second Amendment Sanctuary movement has spread to 1,930 counties—61% of all US counties—where local authorities refuse to enforce federal gun laws. These aren't symbolic—they're creating facts on the ground that federal power can't overcome.

Economic independence breaks their leverage. The parallel economy—businesses openly supporting freedom—generated $25 billion in 2024. Local currencies in places like Ithaca, New York, and BerkShares in Massachusetts prove alternatives work. Cryptocurrency market cap exceeds $2 trillion, creating financial sovereignty they can't control.

Truth travels faster than lies. Despite censorship, the Twitter Files reached 100 million people. Despite deplatforming, Joe Rogan has more viewers than CNN. Despite "fact-checkers," people increasingly trust independent media over corporate outlets. The Ministry of Truth can't compete with millions of citizens armed with cameras and internet connections.

Conclusion: The Natural Limit of Power

All power ultimately rests on consent—withdrawn consent is revolution without violence.

The federal government employs 2.95 million civilians trying to control 335 million Americans. The math only works with our cooperation. Their surveillance needs our participation. Their economic weapons require us to remain in their system. Their fear only works if we accept it.

They want you believing resistance is futile. But every empire falls. They want you thinking resistance is dangerous. But submission to tyranny is more dangerous. They want you feeling alone. But millions stand with you, afraid to speak until someone else speaks first.

Be that first voice. Your courage will inspire ten others. Those ten will inspire a hundred. Courage compounds exponentially, just like fear—but courage leads to liberty while fear leads to chains.

The Myth of the Perfect Moment

History's graveyards are filled with those who waited for the "right time" to resist tyranny. The Germans who thought Hitler would moderate. The Russians who believed Stalin's purges would end. The Chinese who expected the Cultural Revolution to pass. Evil doesn't announce itself with trumpets—it creeps in wearing the mask of safety, necessity, emergency.

There is no perfect moment for resistance. There's only now, when it's difficult but possible, or later, when it's necessary but fatal. Tyranny's genius is making each step seem reasonable, each surrender temporary, each loss reversible. Until one morning you wake to find the cage complete and the key destroyed.

Waiting for consensus is waiting for chains. Waiting for safety is waiting for slavery. The comfortable moment to resist never comes—by design. Systems of control ensure that by the time everyone agrees action is necessary, action is impossible.

The Kirk assassination was their latest fear production—within twenty days, they escalated to declaring American cities military "training grounds." The pattern accelerates: tragedy, fear, power grab, occupation. Each crisis demands more power, less liberty, permanent emergency. The question isn't whether they'll try—they will. The question is whether we'll comply.

Power accumulates through fear. Liberty returns through courage.

Choose courage. The powerful fear the fearless.

Become what they fear.

For Liberty and Union

Signed,
An American Citizen

Who Fears Only the Loss of Liberty

September 25, 2025