The Police State

In a free society, political crimes like treason and "seditious libel" are few and far between. Under despotic regimes, on the other hand, political crimes multiply. 

In the Gulag, political prisoners were systematically terrorized by ordinary criminals with the encouragement of the authorities. It was hoped this would help the regime liquidate the state's ideological enemies. 

To progressive elites, the state (at least one run by progressives) is omniscient and all-powerful. To anyone with understanding, the state is an entity usually run by gangsters.

The regime has increasingly been consumed with paranoia over threats to itself—propagandistically termed "threats to democracy"—while real crime against private citizens is clearly not a priority at all. 

Murray Rothbard wrote that egalitarianism was a war against nature. Statism has become a war against reality.

Federal prosecutors and other law enforcement agents are turning blockchain firms into government subsidiaries. The real goal is to criminalize what really are lawful, private exchanges.

In 1944, F.A. Hayek's best-selling book, The Road to Serfdom, warned the West that the "free" nations would lose their freedom as government expanded. He was right.

When Mises wrote that the fascists had "saved European civilization," he could have been describing Francisco Franco of Spain, who kept Spain from becoming a communist dictatorship.

After governments create crises, they use those crises to seize new powers. After the crisis subsides, governments give up some, but not all, of their new authority, which we call the ratchet effect.

While Americans believe the First Amendment protects their speech, the US government and mainstream media have joined together to suppress speech that does not coincide with government policies.