Freedom Under Fire | The Rutherford Institute

What started as a movement to denounce police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s death at the hands of killer cops has become a free-for-all campaign to rid the country of any monument, literal or figurative, to anyone who may have at any time in history expressed a racist thought, exhibited racist behavior, or existed within a racist society. Censoring speech—toppling monuments—kowtowing to...

The system is rigged and the U.S. Supreme Court—the so-called “people’s court”—has exchanged its appointed role as a gatekeeper of justice for its new role as maintainer of the status quo, ensuring there will be little if no consequences for the cops who brutalize and no justice for the victims of police brutality. This is how unarmed Americans keep dying at the hands of militarized police. By ref...

What is unfolding before us is not a revolution. The looting, the burning, the rioting, the violence: this is an anti-revolution. The protesters are playing right into the government’s hands, because the powers-that-be want this. They want an excuse to lockdown the nation and throw the switch to all-out martial law. They want a reason to make the police state stronger. It’s happening faster than w...

From 9/11 to COVID-19, this year’s crop of graduates have spent their entire lives in a state of emergency. As constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead points out in this week's podcast, those coming of age right now were born in the wake of the 9/11 attacks; raised without any expectation of privacy in a technologically-driven, mass surveillance state; educated in schools that teach conformity a...

What started out as an apparent effort to prevent a novel coronavirus from sickening the nation (and the world) has become yet another means by which world governments (including our own) can expand their powers, abuse their authority, and further oppress their constituents. Until now, the police state has been more circumspect in its power grabs, but this latest state of emergency has brought the...

Yes, COVID-19 has taken a significant toll on the nation emotionally, physically, and economically, but there are still greater dangers on the horizon. As long as “we the people” continue to allow the government to trample our rights in the so-called name of national security, things will get worse, not better. It’s already worse. Now there’s talk of mass testing for COVID-19 antibodies, screening...

Welcome to the age of technofascism. Big Tech wedded to Big Government has become Big Brother. While on paper, we are technically free to speak—at least according to the U.S. Constitution—in reality, however, we are only as free to speak as the government and its corporate partners such as Facebook, Google or YouTube may allow. As constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead makes clear in this week'...

Grisly experiments, barbaric behavior and inhumane conditions have become synonymous with the U.S. government, which has meted out untold horrors against humans and animals alike. For instance, did you know that the U.S. government has been buying hundreds of dogs and cats from “Asian meat markets” as part of a gruesome experiment into food-borne illnesses? The cannibalistic experiments involve ki...

We still have choices. Just because we’re fighting an unseen enemy in the form of a virus doesn’t mean we have to relinquish every shred of our humanity, our common sense, or our freedoms to a nanny state that thinks it can do a better job of keeping us safe. Whatever we give up willingly now—whether it’s basic human decency, the ability to manage our private affairs, the right to have a say in ho...

You can always count on the government to take advantage of a crisis, legitimate or manufactured. This coronavirus pandemic is no exception, as constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead makes clear in this week's podcast. Not only are the federal and state governments unraveling the constitutional fabric of the nation with lockdown mandates that are sending the economy into a tailspin and wreaking...

This is a test. This is not a test of our commitment to basic hygiene or disaster preparedness or our ability to come together as a nation in times of crisis, although we’re not doing so well on any of those fronts. No, what is about to unfold is a test to see how well we have assimilated the government’s lessons in compliance, fear and police state tactics; a test to see how quickly we’ll march i...

How will the government’s War on the Coronavirus impact our freedoms? For a hint of what’s in store, you can look to China—our role model for all things dystopian—where the contagion started. In an attempt to fight the epidemic, the government has given its surveillance state apparatus, which boasts the most expansive and sophisticated surveillance system in the world, free rein. The problem is wh...

Two years after President Trump announced his intention to “harden” the schools, our nation’s children are reaping the ill effects of gun-toting, taser-wielding cops in government-run schools that bear an uncomfortable resemblance to prisons. As constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead explains in this week's podcast, the fallout has been what you’d expect, with the nation’s young people treated...

Mark my words: gun control legislation, especially in the form of red flag gun laws, which allow the police to remove guns from people suspected of being threats, push us that much closer towards a society where everyone must be preemptively rendered harmless. As constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead explains in this week's podcast, these laws, growing in popularity as a legislative means by w...

While Congress subjects the nation to its impeachment-flavored brand of bread-and-circus politics, our civil liberties continue to die a slow, painful death by a thousand cuts. Case in point: while Americans have been fixated on the carefully orchestrated impeachment drama that continues to monopolize headlines, Congress passed and President Trump signed into law legislation extending three key pr...

It’s getting harder by the day to reconcile John Lennon's dream of peace with the reality of the American police state. Indeed, those who dare to speak up are being labeled dissidents, troublemakers, terrorists, lunatics, or mentally ill and being tagged for surveillance, censorship, involuntary detention or, worse, even shot and killed in their own homes by militarized police. Yet as constitution...

Think twice before you call the cops to carry out a welfare check on a loved one. Especially if that person is autistic, hearing impaired, mentally ill, elderly, suffering from dementia, disabled or might have a condition that hinders their ability to understand, communicate or immediately comply with an order. Particularly if you value that person’s life. At a time when growing numbers of unarmed...

There can be no free speech for the citizenry when the government speaks in a language of force. What is this language of force? Militarized police. Riot squads. Camouflage gear. Black uniforms. Armored vehicles. Mass arrests. Pepper spray. Tear gas. Batons. Strip searches. Surveillance cameras. Kevlar vests. Drones. Lethal weapons. Less-than-lethal weapons unleashed with deadly force. Rubber bull...

Take heed, America. Our losses are mounting with every passing day. What began with the post-9/11 passage of the USA Patriot Act has snowballed into the eradication of every vital safeguard against government overreach, corruption and abuse. The rights embodied in the Constitution, which have been steadily chipped away at, undermined, eroded, whittled down, and generally discarded, are now on life...

The U.S. government is working hard to destabilize the nation. No, this is not another conspiracy theory. Observe for yourself what is happening right before our eyes. Domestic terrorism fueled by government entrapment schemes. Civil unrest stoked to dangerous levels by polarizing political rhetoric. A growing intolerance for dissent that challenges the government’s power grabs. Police brutality t...

If the government is consistent about any one thing, it is this: it has an unnerving tendency to exploit crises and use them as opportunities for power grabs under the guise of national security. Cue the Emergency State, the government’s Machiavellian version of crisis management that justifies all manner of government tyranny in the so-called name of national security. The government’s proposed r...

Despite the finger-pointing and outcries of dismay from those who are watching the government discard the rule of law at every turn, the question is not whether Donald Trump is the new Adolf Hitler but whether the American Police State is the new Third Reich. As constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead makes clear in this week's podcast, the warning signs are unmistakable for those who can view t...

We are in desperate need of a populace that can stand united against the government’s authoritarian tendencies. So disagree all you want about healthcare, abortion and immigration—hot-button issues that are guaranteed to stir up the masses, secure campaign contributions and turn political discourse into a circus free-for-all—but surely we can manage to stand united on certain principles that shoul...

The First Amendment does more than give us a right to criticize our country: it makes it a civic duty. Certainly, if there is one freedom among the many spelled out in the Bill of Rights that is especially patriotic, it is the right to criticize the government. The right to speak out against government wrongdoing is the quintessential freedom. Unfortunately, as constitutional attorney John W. Whit...

Politics, religion, sports, government, entertainment, business, armed forces: it doesn’t matter what arena you’re talking about, they are all riddled with the kind of seedy, sleazy, decadent, dodgy, depraved, immoral, corrupt behavior that somehow gets a free pass when it involves the wealthy and powerful elite in America. In this age of partisan politics and a deeply polarized populace, corrupti...