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So You Think Tyranny Can’t Happen Here? by Miguel A. Faria, MD
When discussing government overreach, which incidentally continues unimpeded, or the danger of the monopoly of force concentrated in the hands of government in the way of law enforcement, especially from federal police, particularly the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF), I’m frequently told that if one has done nothing wrong there is nothing to fear from government. And when I describe my first-hand experience in Cuba, or relate events from my studies of communism in the former USSR, China, Cambodia, Venezuela, and the Eastern European Satellite states, I’m told: “But Dr. Faria such cruelty and tyranny can happen in third-world countries, but it cannot happen here. This is America.” I respond somehow nonplussed, “Really? Have you heard, or rather read, of the story of David Koresh and the Waco, Texas, massacre of innocents by the ATF and the FBI Hostage Rescue Team on April 19, 1993. And I say read, because the victims — men, women and children, and Koresh himself — are all dead by the hands of the federal police. One only has to look at this issue a bit more closely to ascertain the deadly implications of just such a naive attitude.
Unfortunately, there are many more cases that have been swept under the rug by the media through insufficient or biased coverage. Of course, there was the well-known 1992 case of Vicky and Samuel Weaver (her 14-year-old son) killed at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, but there were also the many incidents of lesser known Americans, such as Carl Drega, who was driven to criminal insanity and murder by government and bureaucratic injustice; the totally innocent, John Gerald Quinn, whose home was subjected to a “no-knock” raid (once referred to as “dynamic entries”); and other lawful American gun owners, who over the years have been victimized by the errors or excesses of the ATF or for firearm misdemeanors or technicalities, such as Bruce Abramski, who was prosecuted for an alleged straw purchase and has filed a lawsuit against the State. I will not go into the war on drugs for that is another area that needs closer inspection. Suffice to say, many Americans have been apprehended, shot and killed for violating drug laws, even in the supposed safety of their own homes.
I have written about the dangerous trend toward the militarization of the police. In 2015 in a little known case, two Idaho deputies killed Jack Yantis, when the cattle rancher rushed to the scene where his bull had been injured in a car crash. No matter the particulars of this incident, it need not have happened.
On December 9, 2019, Frank Ordonez, a 27-year-old UPS driver was needlessly killed in a gun battle after his truck was hijacked and he was taken hostage by two armed robbers. The responding SWAT team appeared in full force and without beginning any type of negotiation and without a sniper in place, engaged the robbers in a shootout that left four people dead, including Ordonez, another innocent bystander, and the two robbers. Why was the life of Ordonez and the other innocent person killed not taken into account in such a rash confrontation? Were they only unfortunate “collateral damage?”
A more recent incident — this time a case of government overreach and police state tactics — is that of Duncan Lemp, a 21-year-old young tech engineer who was shot and killed in the early morning hours of March 12, 2020 in Montgomery County, Maryland. He was shot and killed in his own home in a “no-knock” raid by a SWAT team serving a “high-risk warrant” for alleged “firearms offenses.” If one reads the account in Wikipedia, it is an incendiary, one-sided narrative, painting this young man as a right-wing paramilitary troublemaker. Not until we read the brief response by his own family at the end of the Wikipedia account do we finally get a more balanced view.
There is no evidence that there was any imminent threat to law enforcement or to anyone else. The police have refused to release video footage of the shooting. Why? And even if this young man had possessed illegal weapons as the police claimed, there was no need for this horrific event to take place in America. Incidentally all of these accounts on Wikipedia and in the mainstream media reports are heavily biased against the victims and quite sympathetic to the almighty State. As the saying goes, to the victors go the spoils — and they also get to write the history!
And then, when we thought we have heard it all, in Louisville, Kentucky, on March 13, 2020, three police officers in unmarked vehicles dismounted and conducted a botched “no-knock” raid at the wrong address! They woke up EMT Breonna Taylor and her CCW-licensed boyfriend, who thinking they were subject to a home invasion, fired his gun, wounding one of the cops in the leg. An unequal gun battle ensued in which Taylor was hit eight times by police fire and killed. The boyfriend was apprehended and charged with the attempted murder of police officers. The police raid was supposed to have happened at a “trap-house” more than 10 miles from Taylor’s apartment. Taylor’s family has filed a lawsuit.
No wonder there have been record numbers of firearms sold during this coronavirus “pandemic,” as well as record numbers of new gun owners. It is not only fear of the many thugs and shysters trying to take advantage of the population but also fear of government overreach and growing authoritarianism, including civil liberties, during this “pandemic.”
So my naive friends, tell the victims who were killed by law enforcement enforcing unjust laws or totally innocent ones shot in crossfire, that they have nothing to fear because they have supposedly done nothing wrong! The judicious adages of the great English jurists — Sir Edward Coke (1552-1634) that a man’s home is his castle that not even a king can violate and that of Sir William Blackstone (1723-1780) that a man has a right to self-defense — have been thrown out the window, so that the government has arrogated to itself the right to burst into a citizen’s home based solely on the suspicion or a tip from an informer working with the police (usually ruffians looking for reduced sentences for their own crimes) that there are illegal firearms in the house. Yes, as you have read in this brief survey, when the government is given a monopoly of force and not held accountable, you do have a lot to fear, even if you done nothing wrong.
Written by Dr. Miguel Faria
Miguel A. Faria, M.D., is Associate Editor in Chief in socioeconomics, politics, medicine, and world affairs of Surgical Neurology International (SNI). This article is excerpted, updated, and edited from his newly release book, America, Guns, and Freedom: A Journey Into Politics and the Public Health & Gun Control Movements (2019).
This article may be cited as: Faria MA. So You Think Tyranny Can’t Happen Here? HaciendaPublishing.com, May 23, 2020. Available from: https://haciendapublishing.com/so-you-think-tyranny-cant-happen-here-by-miguel-a-faria-md/
This article was also published on GOPUSA.com on May 21, 2020 and on TheTruthAboutGuns.com on May 22, 2020.
Copyright ©2020 Miguel A. Faria, Jr., M.D.
4 thoughts on “So You Think Tyranny Can’t Happen Here? by Miguel A. Faria, MD”
I found a very good discussion about good cops and bad cops. I think my post here explains everything and adds to my article about whether tyranny can happen here. This refers to comments about this same article in my friend Peter Blindts’s timeline:
This discussion is ripe for instruction. There is a solid line in my mind between good and bad cops. Cops who risk their lives to protect good citizens, save lives, and protect property, and abide by the Constitution are good cops. I support the “back the blues” in its original and full intent as discussed as to oppose thugs of all fascist strips, such as Antifa and Black Lives Matter, etc. On the other hand, cops who followed orders blindly, like the Gestapo or KGB, who work at the pleasure of their State superiors, violate citizens’ rights and the Constitution, who carry out dynamic entries, or “no-knock raids” on citizens in their home homes — except to apprehend extremely dangerous criminals or to save lives of hostages in imminent danger— are not cops but jack booted thugs. Armed citizens have the right to protect themselves in those situations, as cops can not be distinguished from thugs (and even if they identifying themselves as police, one cannot be sure). And so tyranny must be opposed, especially from rogue federal police. And my article should be interpreted in that fashion, as should be my book. Thank you for allowing me to butt in the conversation. 🌻 🍄😉😎 Dr. Miguel Faria, America, Guns, and Freedom (2019)
Heavily armed assassins stormed the president’s home in the hills above Port-au-Prince at around 01:00 local time (05:00 GMT) on “Wednesday. A group of 28 foreign mercenaries, including retired Colombian soldiers, assassinated Haiti’s President Jovenel Moïse earlier this week, police say…Police say they are still searching for the masterminds behind the attack.
“In the early hours of Wednesday, a group of gunmen broke into the president’s home in the capital, Port-au-Prince, and shot him and his wife. Mr Moïse was found lying on his back with 12 bullet wounds and a gouged eye, and died at the scene, according to authorities. “Video released after the shooting appeared to show men dressed in black pretending to be US drugs agents, shouting: “DEA [US Drug Enforcement Administration] operations, everybody stay down!”— BBC
Notice that the thugs pretended to be DEA agents and shouted DEA everybody stay down! When police act like thugs who can tell the difference? The President and his bodyguards, if present should have fired back to save their lives. — Dr. Miguel Faria
I’m not sure if another Veteran has chimed in, so I’m going to answer it from my point of view. Others may disagree, and I won’t even go into the idea that there would be mass defections. This is how the US Civilian population wins a war against the US military.
The Military itself is a might giant, but it’s based solely on the idea that it will be fighting a small demographic, one that is comparable size to itself, maybe a few times larger, or a few times smaller. For example, the Vietnamese outnumbered our troops 5:1 and they lost a total of some 900,000 soldiers. That war is still considered a loss on our part. Maybe we pulled out too early, maybe we didn’t.
The US Army is considered our occupational force, it’s spearheaded by the US Marines who act as shock troops clearing a path. These two combined forces make up a solid 800,000 men and women. But then we have to take some real numbers into effect. The Army itself consists of about 80,000 Infantry troops give or take. The rest are BARELY trained in Infantry tactics, they know how to shoot a gun, but they don’t know how to clear a room. They know how to shoot a target from 300yds, they don’t know how to launch a TOW missile. The army doesn’t waste resources training every single member to be war fighters, it’s a common misconception. The Marine Corps however, does. That’s 200,000 Marines that are at least moderately trained and infantry role ready. But only 30,000 of the Marines are actually Infantry. So together, you have a total of 110,000 Infantry trained Marines and Soldiers that are capable of employing advanced tactics with a 170,000 Marines capable of filling in.
You’re looking at an Infantry force of 280,000 Men and Women that are true boots on the ground war fighters. Now we throw in Air to ground capabilities. This is expensive, and risky. You don’t want to blow up the wrong targets and turn more of the population against you, let alone blowing up your own resources. So that would be used sparingly. VERY Sparingly. Artillery falls into the category as well. Also, landing a shot on the tail rotor of a helicopter (not exceptionally hard to do with a 30–06 or .308 from 1000yds) would destroy the whirly bird (put it into an unrecoverable spin). Now granted you’re not going to take down an F-18 like that, but it’s not hard to imagine bringing down an Apache or Blackhawk.
Now on to Tanks and Armored Vehicles. Believe it or not these are pretty easy to bring down. The Tank is only dangerous when it can see you. And it has a ton of blind spots. Forget the Hollywood scenes of Infantrymen riding on the outside of a tank (that would literally make it impossible to fire the main cannon because you’d blow the eardrums of the outside crew) a homemade pipe bomb of decent size would blow the tracks off, making your tank obsolete. If Iraqi’s with 3rd grade educations can figure out how to make those I promise you the American civilian population can as well.
Now we get on to leadership. A lot of people that ask this question tend to forget just how many Veterans exist in the United states, from e-2 to O-9, without a doubt these Men and Women would be the first line of leadership in any Civilian Militia Outfit, the ones that know the US Military’s tactics, and how to fight like them and against them. So you can bet that if this were to go down you’d have Veterans putting together groups consisting of Veterans, and of Civilians we can train up to speed to fight effectively. We would employ the same tactics the Iraqi’s and Afghanis employed against us, using roadside bombs and ambush tactics to delay, destroy, or commandeer convoys. These convoys could contain anything, from food, to tanks (these get transported where they’re needed, they don’t just drive them from base to base, to fuel intensive, easier to load them on to a flat bed semi-truck and drive that way with an escort)
The only possible way the government comes out ahead is to use Nuclear Weapons to scare the population back into submission. And even that’s an iffy outcome. Now, on to the reality of the situation. Whoever the President is at the time these orders are given, would have to live in a bunker for the rest of his presidency, because Washington DC would be the end game of any resistance. Take the city, execute the government and the war ends. Ryan Stephens, 4 Years Active Duty USMC, 3 combat tours—Quora, 2017.
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I’m reminded very much of a survey that was reported to have been distributed among the Marines at Twenty-Nine Palms back around 1993 asking if they’d obey if given orders to go door-to-door in the USA and confiscate privately owned firearms. Back then only about 10% said that they would, that it would be unConstitutional and that they’d disobey such orders. You sir, strike me as one of those 10%.— Chris Meissen, FB
The Marines that would go along and fight, backing the confiscation were over 27%, not 10%. The survey was part of the Col’s academic paper on ~”unit cohesion.” Here is the 29 Palms Survey.—- Scott Stillwell (FB).
Thank you. Dr. Miguel A. Faria, August 29, 2021
http://jpfo.org/articles-assd/29palms-mcmanus.htm
The 27% answer was given in that link. It is to the question regarding assignment to wage war against US citizens. Col Cunningham says: “The survey results: 42.3 percent strongly disagreed with this statement; 19.3 percent disagreed; 18.6 percent agreed; 7.6 percent strongly agreed; and 12.0 percent had no opinion. In one of the footnotes appearing in his thesis, Cunningham quotes comments placed by some of the Marines next to their answers to this question: “What about the damn Second Amendment? ”
That’s 26.2% that would not have a problem with waging war on US citizens. I believe some of the 12% with no opinion would easily provide another 0.8%. The number is ~30%, which is what I consistently find in populations that are reliably willing to subjugate people to absolute authoritarian rule. It seems to be a genetically predisposed social attitude.— Scott Stillwell