My favorite freedom quotation is by Johann Goethe: “None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free.” That statement perfectly captures the plight of the American people. Owing mostly to the indoctrination they receive in the government schools to which their parents were forced to send them, most Americans honestly believe that they live in a free society. Their mindsets are reflected in the words of the popular song by Lee Greenwood: “I’m proud to be an American where at least I know I’m free.”
Why is acknowledging the truth and the reality about one’s seldom so important? Because if someone falsely believes he is free, he has no incentive to break his chains. Since in his mind he’s already free, he isn’t open to the things that need to be done to liberate him. He is grateful for his serfdom because he is convinced that it is freedom.
This is the greatest thing about Last Rights, the newest book by Jim Bovard, who has long served as a senior fellow and a regular contributor here at The Future of Freedom Foundation. It provides Americans with a powerful dose of truth and reality about their condition. I guarantee you: There is no way that anyone who reads this book will come away thinking he’s free. In chapter after chapter, Bovard explains with real-life examples and exquisite analysis how Americans have had their freedom destroyed and are now living lives as serfs.
Swat teams bashing down people’s doors in the middle of the night. A vicious drug war that has not only destroyed liberty but also given rise to drug cartels and the violence that comes with them. Gun-control measures that have destroyed the right of self-defense. Covid lockdowns that brought massive economic destruction and dislocation to people’s lives. Public-school systems that turn minds into malleable mush that fall for whatever official narrative is being put out. Federal largess that has made millions of Americans hopelessly dependent on the dole. A massive federal surveillance scheme that, as Bovard puts it, “leaves no room for dissent.” A forever “war on terrorism” that has destroyed freedom and privacy, including at airports. Federal censorship that has eviscerated the First Amendment. Foreign wars and interventions, mostly based on deliberate lies. A vicious IRS that ensures that people pay the taxes that fund all this official mayhem.
Bovard details it all, with example after example to prove his points. As he aptly puts it, “Rather than the Rule of Law, we have a government of threats, intimidation, and browbeating. ‘Government of the people’ defaulted into ‘government for the people,’ which degenerated into perennially punishing people for their own good.” Implicitly acknowledging the importance of Goethe’s point, Bovard writes, “The first step to reviving liberty is to recognize how far politicians have stretched their power. But nothing can safeguard freedom except the bravery of citizens who refuse to be shackled.”
Bovard has an entire chapter on what is known as “asset forfeiture.” This is a program in which the federal and state governments now have the power to seize people’s assets without charging them with a crime. How in the world can such a program be reconciled with a genuinely free society? It can’t be. And yet, there it is. That’s the type of governmental power under which Americans live. As Bovard states, “Federal agencies have used legal flimflams to snare more than $50 billion in private property since 2000.” Moreover, the money is usually confiscated from poor people because government officials know that they lack the means to fight back, especially when the government has seized their money and won’t let them use to fight to get it back. Bovard appropriately describes the asset-forfeiture program as “highway robbery.” Don’t count on the Supreme Court to protect freedom or the Constitution when it comes to asset forfeiture. As Bovard puts it: “Rather than standing up for decency and due process, the Supreme Court became a silent partner in the fleecing of legions of Americans. Perpetual law enforcement looting could not occur without perennial political and judicial complicity.”
Bovard’s chapter on gun control, which is entitled “The War on Gun Owners,” is itself worth the price of the book. As our ancestors clearly understood, the right to keep and bear arms is a necessary prerequisite to a free society. A disarmed society becomes an obedient, compliant, weak, and subservient society, especially in the face of a tyrannical regime. Just look at the people of Venezuela, who are governed by a president who has refused to leave office after being rejected by the voters. Since he imposed gun control several years ago on the people of Venezuela, they now lack the means of violently overthrowing their illegitimate dictator and his well-armed national-security establishment. Their protests are now weakening in the face of omnipotent, fully-armed government, one that doesn’t hesitate to arrest or kill disarmed opponents of their government’s tyranny. That’s what lies in store for Americans if they go down the gun-control road. As Bovard puts it so well: “Private firearm ownership is the last best check on tyranny. Banning firearms is a declaration of war on all limits on political power. Politicians who proudly seek to destroy the Second Amendment cannot be trusted to respect any other constitutional right. The civil disobedience of peaceful gun owners is one of the best hopes for the survival of American liberty.”
Bovard has an entire chapter on the tyrannical measures employed to address the Covid crisis. This is one of the best analyses ever written about how the federal and the state governments used Covid to destroy American freedom. Bovard calls the government’s response to Covid “the most politically exploited pandemic in American history.” He writes: “In the long run, people have more to fear from politicians than from viruses. No-fault Czars are no substitute for individual liberty.”
In 1944, Friedrich Hayek wrote his famous book The Road to Serfdom. Americans traveled that road, but ultimately the end of the road was reached a long time ago. The problem is that most Americans still don’t realize that. Even worse, many of them don’t even know that such a road existed. Bovard’s book Last Rights is the perfect antidote to that malady. Anyone who reads it from beginning to end cannot help but recognize that Americans have, in fact, lost their rights and their liberty and have become serfs. Acknowledging that truth and that reality is the first step toward restoring our rights and our liberty.
