Doug Casey on the “Freedom Gap” and Why It Will Soon Close

Guest Post by Doug Casey

International Man: The US has been diverging from its founding principles for a long time.

However, in recent years, that trend has gone parabolic.

How did the US get here, and where is it headed?

Doug Casey: It’s the natural course of events. I draw your attention to the Second Law of Thermodynamics, which among other things, states that over time all systems wind down and degrade.

That certainly includes the ideas that the US was founded on. The founding principles of America were unique and different from those of any other state. But their degradation started very early with the Alien and Sedition Acts in 1798. The government started to violate the country’s founding principles almost no sooner than the ink on the Bill of Rights was dry. Since then, the US Government has consistently proved itself to be not the defender of individual rights and liberty but their main enemy. That’s to be expected, of course. It’s the nature of government.

The US has built a giant regulatory state over the years, supported by ever-increasing taxes, laws, and punishments. It started in earnest with the Interstate Commerce Commission in 1887, which politicized transportation, leading to the degradation and bankruptcy of almost all US railroads by the 1960s. Dozens of large three and four-letter agencies, and hundreds of small ones followed. Every year their employees strive to grow their reach and their budgets. It’s said that they’re well-intentioned, but in fact, they exist to tell Americans what they must and must not do.

And since war is the health of the State, every time the US has had a war, it’s run up more debt, more taxes, and more regulations. War also favors the idealization of populist politicians.

Take Teddy Roosevelt. He was personally charming and a veritable Renaissance Man who you might love to hang out with, but a disaster from the point of view of freedom for the individual man. Woodrow Wilson not only lacked charm but completely unnecessarily drew the US into World War I, nearly nationalized the US economy, and started the Federal Reserve and the income tax. Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal (contrary to prevailing myths) made the Great Depression much worse and much longer-lasting. His economic and social programs were, in many ways, identical to fascist programs that were popular across Europe during the 30s. The State grew while the ambit of the individual shrank.

Next came Lyndon Johnson with the Vietnam War and his Great Society, which made both the welfare and the warfare states permanent features of US society—while cementing the lower classes to the bottom and funneling billions to the politically well-connected. The situation has gotten completely out of control since the War on Poverty, and the War on Drugs were declared. We now have a permanent War on Terror, along with wars on Covid and Global Warming. You can see the trend.

Since the beginning of the 20th century, the government has metastasized. In 1900 it was a distant minor nuisance taking less than 3% of GDP. Today government controls everything. We’re approaching the point where everything that’s not mandatory is prohibited. Permissions and licensing impinge on absolutely every activity. Since trends in motion tend to stay in motion, and this one’s been accelerating, we’re headed for a genuine crisis.

International Man: During the Covid hysteria, the US—and most Western countries—adopted the same totalitarian policies as China and other explicitly unfree societies. Unfortunately, it seems these policies are here to stay, or at the very least, could come back at a moment’s notice anytime the politicians want.

In that sense, is the US closing the “freedom gap” with authoritarian countries?

Doug Casey: As I said, America used to be special and different.

But over time, the country has transformed into just another nation-state, no different from 200 others that cover the face of the earth like a skin disease. America was a great idea, but that idea is dead. With aggressive statists in office for at least the next three years, the situation can only deteriorate further. If Biden’s proposed tax measures are passed, for instance, they will make the US definitively, and by a large margin, the highest taxed OECD country in the world.

And of course, the currency units that the Federal Reserve prints to finance trillion-dollar government deficits is a tax as well and impinges very directly on your personal freedom. The average American remains oblivious to the actual cause of inflation.

The average American doesn’t realize what’s happened because the US standard of living is still substantially higher than that of most other countries in the world, artificially maintained by our major export: US dollars. In fact, our talking about a freedom gap goes over the heads of most Americans. They still think that the US is special and different. Most ancient Romans probably thought the same thing, even into the 5th century. Perceptions and beliefs always lag reality.

International Man: What do you think the future looks like for individual freedom in the US?

Doug Casey: Trends in motions tend to stay in motion—and the degradation of freedom is actually accelerating. So I don’t see anything getting better. It’s true that there are signs of a reaction—like the truckers’ freedom convoys. When the riots start in earnest, perhaps this summer, we’ll see what happens. The US is a tinderbox, where Red and Blue people have come to despise each other.

That said, Americans at least appear to have preferred Biden to Trump in 2020. The Biden/Harris administration represents the values of Jacobinism and Bolshevism, and it seems most Americans have no problem with that. I liked Trump because, even though he’s devoid of philosophical core, he was at least genuine and highly entertaining. And, most importantly, a cultural conservative.

The fact that Americans not only elected but reelected Barack Obama tells you that the Biden win wasn’t a freak occurrence. It shows where the average American’s head is at. Will there be a reaction from America’s remaining cultural conservatives? That would be a good thing. But it might turn into secession movements or an actual civil war.

There’s little reason to believe that things are going to turn around. There’s no return to an era of liberty, peace, and prosperity any time soon—even assuming the morons in DC don’t start WW3. As a matter of fact, we’re in the early stages of the Greater Depression. From here on, repression, war, and economic malaise will be with us for years to come.

I have no doubts that, since most Americans think that the State is a cornucopia that can solve all ills, there will be calls for what amounts to a dictator. By 2024 a charismatic candidate will claim that he can turn the country around if you just give him more power to do it. I’ll put my money on a general, since the military still has a lingering reputation for being relatively effective and not as corrupt as the rest of the government. ‘Murcans’ will willingly vote in a strong man who promises to kiss everything and make it better.

The only certainty then is that the last of the values that made America different and great will be washed away. All that’s guaranteed to survive is the US state. They even have a name for their goal. It’s called “Continuity of Government.” It can’t be emphasized enough that their prime directive is to survive. You can rest assured that the US government itself will attempt to survive at any cost. It’s a parasite on its host. And like any parasite, it’ll kill its host if that’s what it needs to survive.

International Man: Rather than passing laws explicitly restricting speech, the establishment is content with letting Big Tech—which is intimately connected to government—do their dirty work.

Anyone espousing views contrary to the “current thing” narrative is at risk of being de-platformed, fired, blacklisted, intimidated, and having their personal information leaked.

All of this comes from corporations, cancel culture, the media, and private individuals.

In addition to the State, freedom of speech has plenty of other opponents.

What is your take, and where is this headed?

Doug Casey: One of the things that made America different is that the Bill of Rights was attached to the Constitution. The purpose of the Bill of Rights was to defend the individual citizen from the depredations of this State.

The Constitution itself is just an operating plan for the government—technicalities about how politicians are elected, what the powers of the different parts of the government have, and so forth. The Bill of Rights is really what makes the US Constitution special. The Bill of Rights is the political essence of America. It should be inviolable.

But over the years, it’s been completely interpreted out of existence. It’s become meaningless. It’s just window dressing and blather at this point.

The government has transformed itself into the enemy of the average individual. But it’s actually worse than that. The large corporations and their managers are closely hooked up with the government and its apparatchiks-—not just Facebook, Google, and Apple, but almost every large corporation. And all the Praetorian agencies, like the FBI, the CIA, the NSA, and many others, which amount to heavily armed, self-perpetuating mini governments within the government with semi-independent lives of their own.

This is all headed in the wrong direction. Where will it end?

It’s going to end with class warfare. The rich will get much richer in the future because all of the government’s spending is directed toward rich people. Most people in the middle class will drop into the lower class and be cemented there with welfare benefits—with a patina of race war and gender war accompanying the general degradation of society.

We’re headed towards a monumental crisis. I think it’s going to be the biggest crisis since the Industrial Revolution changed the nature of society 200 years ago.

International Man: Given what we’ve discussed, what are some things people who value individual rights can do to protect their self-sovereignty?

Doug Casey: You can’t change these megatrends personally. All you can do is try to insulate yourself from them as best you can while maintaining your personal dignity and not rolling over like a whipped dog to the bad guys.

In today’s world, that means you have to diversify internationally so that when the going gets tough in any one country— including the US— you’ll have a plan B for someplace else in the world where you can transplant until it blows over.

Unfortunately, the whole world is moving in the wrong direction. It’s not as easy as it used to be, but you have to diversify yourself physically. Make sure that your financial affairs are in order. One major element that people are forgetting is that in a world controlled by electronics, you want to have physical wealth that can’t be confiscated, taxed, or blotted out by computers. Especially as CBDCs, central bank digital currencies come into existence.

The two final thoughts: One, spend whatever time and trouble necessary to accumulate gold and silver coins in your own possession. Two, own some non-urban real estate. Notwithstanding higher real estate taxes, it’s one of the last things likely to be a fairly safe asset.

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