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Given that most all of us
living today have been born and raised under a national-security
state apparatus, we’ve all been inculcated with the notion that
the enormous military empire, CIA, and NSA are a necessary and
permanent part of our lives. We’ve all been taught that our very
freedom and well-being depend on the existence of these
agencies. In fact, we praise them and glorify them for
“defending our freedoms,” “keeping us safe,” and protecting
“national security.”
It’s
important, however, to bear in mind that the Founding Fathers
fully and totally rejected this type of governmental structure
and way of life, which is why our American ancestors lived
without such an apparatus for the first 150 years of American
history. Our predecessors understood that enormous, permanent
military establishments and secret intelligence agencies were
hallmarks of totalitarian regimes, not free societies, and, in
fact, constituted grave threats against the freedom and
well-being of the citizenry.
So, how
did the U.S. national-security state apparatus come into
existence? What caused the American people to move in this
totalitarian-like direction? Why did Americans decide to reject
the philosophy of liberty and limited government of the Founding
Fathers in favor of militarism, empire, foreign interventionism,
covert operations, coups, torture, assassinations, spying,
surveillance, and the like?
