Freedom in Chains : The Rise of the State and the Demise of the Citizen

According to perpetual social and political critic James Bovard, the power inherent in government is alive and well; unfortunately, as he reminds us, they are not always necessarily accomplishing the people's will. Thus we find ourselves in circumstances in which governments are both larger and more powerful than ever before, while the individual citizen's ability to control and influence the course of his or her own life and liberty is becoming more and more problematic. In this stirring expose, the author explores how the federal government increasingly poses a threat to destroy individual rights and liberties in an attempt to preserve the fiction of government as superceding the citizen. Bovard wonders along with us how this state of affairs has managed to occur, and takes a thoughtful and impressive tour of the history of government control over individual liberties in an attempt to better understand it, and the future it presents for our cogitation. Long before it was either fashionable or popular, conservative author Bovard was railing against the accumulating power and privilege of the crony-based capitalists who now seem to control the country. Here he draws blood from a dissection of the notion of state sovereignty, which he contends amounts to nothing so much as a glossy justification for the power elite's lust for ever-increasing power and privilege. Especially egregious in the author's view is the way the doctrine is being used to justify the behavior of others, to limit their rights to protect themselves, or to keep the fruit of their own labor. Indeed, all of this is food for thought. Moreover, Bovard is an interesting and quite eclectic scholar, someone who accomplishes both meticulous research and establishes the substantiation for his claims as he proceeds, and does so quite convincingly. He also seems to be profoundly well read, based on his wide use of quotations from such luminaries as Marx, Hegel, Rousseau, and Thomas Hobbes. Thus, he manages to raise some thought provoking issues regarding our seeming need to regulate many aspects of private behavior (such as the use of pot) that we can neither effective enforce nor usefully demonstrate to be evil for the individual. Bovard argues quite convincingly regarding the potential dangers of allowing others to regulate our Constitutionally guaranteed civil liberties according to their own moral prerogatives. Bovard reserves special scorn for the so-called "Peter Pan" theory of government as the benevolent and paternalistic defender of the commonweal, and actively guides the reader through a critical review of the two hundred year history on the subject, a history he finds rife with examples through which government has repeatedly used its power to thwart rather than support the will and civil liberties of the majority. This is a splendidly researched book that reads well and which has some disturbing thoughts regarding the state of our polity. It is also one I highly recommend.

...Freedom In Chains is a hard hitting book that explains thedifference between democracy and liberty and how statist politiciansand intellectuals have perverted the definition on liberty. Instead of the right to be left alone and doing what one pleases so long as no one else's rights are interfered with, statists have twisted it into something else. Government declares that there is a crisis or unmet need that requires taxation or intrusive laws that decrease our freedom in the guise of taking care of us. If you are a libertarian, Bovard's Freedom In Chains will remind you why you are one, if you are not a libertarian, it will hard not to become one after reading this book. It will really make you think hard about the role of the state and its citizens.

After reading Lost Rights, I couldn't wait to read this book. This book is an outstanding follow-up, with more insight into the evolution of government power. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in political science, philosophy, law, or really just interested on how the world works. If every American read this book, the Democrats and the Republicans would be relegated to third-party status practically overnight. The government is one thing if nothing else- coercive power over the individual. Upon that understanding we should make one thing clear: that the more power that is given back to the individual, the better we shall be able to live our own lives without a "nanny state" to watch behind our backs to make sure we don't do something "wrong", like ingest politically incorrect substances. It is in this spirit that I give this book my highest praise. It is worth every penny.

James Bovard explains, point blank, how the United States government has grown into an uncontrollable monster, negatively impacting each and every one of us, and taking away many basic rights that were once taken for granted. There is no denying that power corrupts. Give a politician the authority to pass one oppressive law and, eventually, more and more oppressive laws will follow. Government has become increasingly intrusive, unethical, and dishonest over the years as more and more special interest legislation has made its way through congress. This process did not take place overnight and it will not be eliminated overnight. Americans must work for change first on the local level, leading up to the state and national levels. We must act quickly before it is too late. I hope that many people will read this book and take action. A totalitarian United States government is closer than we think.

Once you read this book you'll have a tough decision to make: What will you do with the information? Will you muster the courage to start resisting tyranny while there's still some hope for a rebirth of liberty here in the U.S.?If you're in America, you do not live in a free country. If you have any doubt about that, you must read this book, and with it, I would recommend "Why Government Doesn't Work," by Harry Browne and "Your Money or Your Life," a brand new book by Sheldon Richman.While the Federal Government is distraction you with Kosovo and our new gauranteed-to-be-protracted war on terrorism, the IRS is tooling up do to more of what it's been doing for years, invading your privacy and controlling your life. The elephant/donkey boondoggle does not have your best interest in mind at all. You must put your best interest up front, especially when you vote. VOTE LIBERTARIAN!Amen