Twenty Years

When my teeth bite down I can see the blood
Of a thousand men who have come and gone
Now we grieve 'cause now it's gone
Things were good when we were young
--Von Bondies

Twenty years to the day. Yet, when I see a still or video of that day, I'm right back there. Like so many others, my world changed that day. 

Digesting events on that day, I was given marching orders from my Higher Power: Get smart on the founding of the America. Understand just how radical, and disruptive, a nation conceived in liberty was--and continues to be. Familiarize yourself with arguments pitting freedom vs security and how the framers addressed this tension. Prepare yourself for an assault on liberty.

Thus began a journey that continues to this day. I started with our key founding documents. Declaration. Constitution, Bill of Rights. The founding context. Federalist papers. Anti-federalist papers. Austrian economics. Mises. Rothbard. Hayek. Previous assaults on liberty. Civil War and Lincoln. Marx and Engels. Wilson and WWI. FDR and the New Deal. WWII. Studies of the Great Depression. Garrett. Nock. Paterson. Chodorov. Hazlitt. It goes on...

At first, I thought my orders were meant to lend understanding to declines in freedom seen since 9/11. Travel restrictions. The Patriot Act. Huge increases in deficit spending, debt, and monetary inflation.

However, recent events find me suspecting that the last twenty years were just prep--a warm up for what's coming.

The real assault on liberty may lurk dead ahead.