Yes, despite slavery and the persecution and dispossession of their lands inflicted on Indians, the United States of America was at its foundation and for many decades afterwards the freest and most blessed country in the history of the world, an example of the kind of society and government we libertarians wish for. But that model has long since been diluted. 
  
          One could trace the decline of American freedom to the very beginning of the republic, when the Articles of Confederation were set aside in favour of a more centralized constitution. The slow movement towards a stronger central state can be chronicled throughout the 19th century, with a brief but ominous peak during the disastrous Civil War (see the classic study by Arthur A. Ekirch Jr., The Decline of American Liberalism). 
  
          At the end of the 19th century, the USA was still essentially what we could identify as a libertarian society. But then, it suddenly became a multinational empire when it took over bits of the Spanish empire during the Spanish-American War of 1898. A few years later, it got involved in WW1, and under the impulse of president Wilson and the so-called "progressive" elites was born the idea that it could export "democracy" and "freedom" and impose it to the rest of the world. This inaugurated a policy of interventionism in foreign conflicts and in the affairs of other countries that continues to this day, a policy thoroughly at odds with the American tradition of isolationism. There are today American troops everywhere on the planet, which is exactly what we should expect of an imperialist power. 
  

« One could trace the decline of American freedom to the very beginning of the republic, when the Articles of Confederation were set aside in favour of a more centralized constitution. »

          The so-called "New Deal" of the 1930s was simply the American equivalent of the corporatist and fascist state-building that happened in the same period on the Old Continent. It did not end the Depression but rather extended it, and constitutes the first major step in the creation of an American Welfare State. Other steps were taken in the 50s, 60s and 70s. 
  
          Ronald Reagan is falsely seen as somebody who put an end to this growth of government and radically curtailed state power. In fact, although taxes were reduced a bit and some industries were deregulated, no important government agency was eliminated in the 1980s and 1990s, and the American federal state continued to grow. The USA went further than any other western country in the enactment of "politically correct" coercive regulations for the management of race and gender relations, resulting in a widespread invasion of people's private lives and businesses' private decisions. Whether it is Democrats or Republicans controlling the White House and Congress, the U.S. state grows and grows and grows. 

A constitutional libertarian government or an imperial tyranny? 
  
          And now, we're going through a new phase in this increase and centralization of power. Since September 11, laws and decrees have been adopted that grant almost unlimited power to the government to tap suspects' phones, spy on Internet communications, conduct searches and detain witnesses, in an ever-tightening pattern that is choking civil liberties. Attorney General John Ashcroft said he intends to bug prisoner-lawyer conferences involving terrorist suspects, and could do so even if people have not been charged and even in the absence of a court order. 
  
          It is said that more than 1,100 people of Middle Eastern descent have been detained for many days without access to lawyers or knowledge of the charges against them since the attacks. The FBI and the Department of Justice are now discussing using coercive methods to force prisoners to talk – what we usually call "torture". 

          George W. Bush declared an extraordinary emergency that empowers him to order military trials for suspected international terrorists and their collaborators, bypassing the American criminal justice system, its rules of evidence and its constitutional guarantees. The presidential directive, signed by Bush as commander-in-chief, applies to non-U.S. citizens arrested in the United States or abroad. 
  
          The Washington Post has reported that: 

          The Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the war in Afghanistan have dramatically accelerated a push by the Bush administration to strengthen presidential powers, giving President Bush a dominance over American government exceeding that of other post-Watergate presidents and rivaling even Franklin D. Roosevelt's command. 
  
          On a wide variety of fronts, the administration has moved to seize power that it has shared with other branches of government. In foreign policy, Bush announced vast cuts in the U. S. nuclear arsenal but resisted putting the cuts in a treaty – thereby averting a Senate ratification vote. In domestic policy, the administration proposed reorganizing the Immigration and Naturalization Service without the congressional action lawmakers sought. And in legal policy, the administration seized the judiciary's power as Bush signed an order allowing terrorists to be tried in military tribunals. Those actions, all taken last week, build on earlier Bush efforts to augment White House power, including initiatives to limit intelligence briefings to members of Congress, take new spending authority from the legislature, and expand the executive branch's power to monitor and detain those it suspects of terrorism. 

          Even the government of what was once the freest country in the world is just that – a government. One should not be blinded by the glorious history of the USA, and by the rhetoric and propaganda that we hear today. The logic of a state is to extend its control within its borders and project its power outside of them. The American state is no exception to this rule. Those who do not see this are either totally ignorant of history, naive in the extreme, or deep down authoritarian supporters of a big government whatever they may say. 

The worst possible solution 

          Since Canada and the USA are so similar and close to each other, I used to think we should just merge the two countries and have one big united continent. There is quite a bit of support for that idea in Canada, and strangely enough in French Quebec more than anywhere else. 
  
          I have since realized that merging states to create even bigger states is the worst possible solution for the advancement of freedom. It is true that in Europe, there is more freedom of movement for people and businesses than there were a few years ago, thanks to the European Union. But the EU is following the same pattern that all other states follow, at an accelerated pace. It is growing into a super-state, intervening in all kinds of matters that are crucial for the future of European civilization like the size of sausages, imposing uniform rules and regulations over the whole continent and preventing local diversity and competition from upsetting this march towards uniformity. It already has its common currency, its agricultural policy and its industrial policy, and soon will set up its continent-wide welfare programs to ensure that millions of Europeans become dependent on its growth and power.  
 
          Why should we follow this route? Every day, millions of Canadians and Americans do something together: buy each others' goods, use each others' services, visit, exchange calls or e-mails, whatever. We don't need politicians to tell us to get together; in fact, they spend most of their time trying to put up artificial barriers between us and then meeting at summits to negotiate so-called "liberalization" agreements so as to mitigate their adverse effects. These, of course, would be unnecessary if barriers had not been erected in the first place.  
 
          A North American federation would create an even bigger and more dangerous imperial power, however small the constitution says it should remain. What we need in order to unite Canadians and Americans is not a common government, but rather the destruction of the two imperial states – the Canadian one being admitedly much less dangerous for global peace, but still destructive of freedom in its own sphere. We need to have as many little statelets or purely private territories as possible. These will be able to cooperate for defense if need be, but will not have the means to intervene all over the world in the affairs of other peoples, and will face competition from their neighbours if they restrict freedom too much at home.  
  
          Let us work so that individuals all over this continent share, cooperate and exchange, without having to submit to the dictates of parasitic coercive institutions. That will be the best demonstration of friendship and love between Canadians and Americans.  
  
 

Previous articles by Martin Masse

 

    « Après avoir pris ainsi tour à tour dans ses puissantes mains chaque individu, et l'avoir pétri à sa guise, le souverain étend ses bras sur la société tout entière; il en couvre la surface d'un réseau de petites règles compliquées, minutieuses et uniformes, à travers lesquelles les esprits les plus originaux et les âmes les plus vigoureuses ne sauraient faire jour pour dépasser la foule; il ne brise pas les volontés, mais il les amollit, les plie et les dirige; il force rarement d'agir, mais il s'oppose sans cesse à ce qu'on agisse; il ne détruit point, il empêche de naître; il ne tyrannise point, il gêne, il comprime, il énerve, il éteint, il hébète, et il réduit enfin chaque nation à n'être plus qu'un troupeau d'animaux timides et industrieux, dont le gouvernement est le berger. » 

Alexis de Tocqueville 
DE LA DÉMOCRATIE EN AMÉRIQUE (1840)