https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/04/the_west_declares_war_on_itself.html
For Americans who cherish self-government, free speech, and personal liberty, the reality of today’s America is jolting. How can Hillary Clinton’s campaign, Barack Obama’s FBI, and an assortment of sordid Intelligence Community actors conspire to frame Donald Trump as a Russian spy in a veritable coup d’état without suffering any legal consequences? How can the IRS target Americans for their political viewpoints and be rewarded with bigger budgets and more armed agents? How can the FBI illegally spy on a presidential campaign, target parents concerned over the content of their children’s public education, and label half of America “extremists,” and not be disbanded?
How can the Department of (in)Justice seek to punish Americans’ speech and religious faith as impermissible expressions of “hate” and deprive Americans of their Second Amendment protections without being immediately defunded as a threat to the Bill of Rights? How can the State Department lecture regimes around the world about violently quelling political dissent and violating human rights when thousands of Americans who protested for fair elections have been persecuted as “insurrectionists,” denied impartial justice, and imprisoned for having “incorrect” beliefs? These are not the actions of any “free” nation and are shockingly antithetical to America’s foundations in liberty.
From this perspective, it seems apparent that the American government has not so quietly declared war on the American people. Why? Because it has abandoned any effort at preserving the qualities of its charter that once distinguished the American system as “exceptional” from all others — chiefly its constitutional framework empowering individual citizens and states while severely limiting centralized authority from ever infringing Americans’ inalienable rights and liberties. This idea — that legitimate political power can arise only from the people — had been an invaluable guardrail for keeping governing excesses, if not outright tyranny, in check. The steady erosion of this principle over the last century and its replacement with the age-old fallacy that “might makes right” have squandered American exceptionalism and invited tyranny to return through the front door.