Imagine this happening to you:

Last night at 12:30 pm a MD State Police “Armed Response Team” showed up at our door. I was dead asleep, my Wife was laying some ceramic tile on our basement floor when our driveway alert went off several times. She looked at the camera monitor and screamed that Police in Assault gear were running up to our front door. That made me sit straight up from a dead sleep.

We thought they were there for my Brother in Law who had just been mailed Bench Warrants to our home, but he doesn’t live here and he is already incarcerated, so my Wife opened the door for them. Then I heard one of them say he had some papers for me or needed to speak with me,so I got up to speak with them 6 or 7 officers in full assault vests, etc. and NO ONE in uniform. Four heavily armed police came into the house while at least two others walked around outside of our home.

One, began to talk to me asking me about the types of weapons I own. Remember now, I was just startled from a dead sleep and I kept asking why are you here, why do you want to know about my guns? Every gun I bought in Maryland I bought from a MD Dealer. Well this Trooper said that I had purchased a “large amount” of ammunition recently and wanted to know why. When I questioned why he was asking, then he changed his tune to what type of Handguns I had. I told him I just purchased my first handgun in Maryland last week, but had not even picked it up from the Store . He questioned me about other handguns I might own and I realized that he was “fishing” to match his list of my ammunition purchases with handguns that I owned.

No warrant. No uniformed officers. Only SWAT sturmtruppen. Nothing to see here, folks… just another police-state violation of the 4th Amendment. Move along. Move along.

And there was New Orleans in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, when local law enforcement and national guard abridged the 4th and 2nd Amendments:

But that’s okay, because The Government is here to protect you! 

Like in West Helena, Arkansas, where the mayor has imposed a 24-hour curfew, allowing police to stop, search, and question anyone they choose.

There’s also the black-clad submachine-gun-toting “anti-terror” police patrolling New York City subways.

Or what about Chicago? While Mayor Daley is fiddling while Chicago’s gang-related murder toll in any given month makes it safer to serve in Iraq, Governor Blagojevich has begun talking to the Illinois National Guard commanders, effectively putting them on alert to be ready to step in, in the event the violence gets too bad. Governor Blagojevich also wants to install Big Brother-ish speed trap cameras, and use the money to fund an “elite tactical team” to be deployed in Chicago and other areas. Part of their mission? Augment the Chicago Police Anti-Gun Enforcement Unit.

And let’s not forget the recent raid on the home of the mayor of Berwyn Heights, Maryland, that was a drug bust gone way, way wrong. The Gestapo-style raid ended with the mayor and his mother-in-law in handcuffs on the floor for two hours and both of the family dogs shot dead, even though the police knew neither the mayor nor his family were involved.

From Orlando to New York, Chicago to Columbus, thousands of closed-circuit TV cameras are being deployed “to fight crime”, despite the fact that time and again crimes occur in full witness of dozens or even hundreds of cameras, and the criminals escape. Coupled with license plate recognition systems, these prying eyes can track your every move. As if this isn’t bad enough, police are deploying military-like Unmanned Arial Vehicles (UAVs) loaded with cameras and sensors, again in the name of “fighting crime.” Over in England, Big Brother captures citizens on average 3,000 times per week “to fight crime,” yet they were unable to prevent the horrific terrorist bombing of their subways.

We are moving quickly toward an Orwellian police state, and no one seems to care.

At this point, the only thing keeping us free is the possession of millions of firearms by the citizens of this country. The power of the 2nd Amendment lies in the “last resort” ability it gives to the citizens to throw off a tyrannical government. This is why the 2nd Amendment is perpetually under attack by The Government, and it is also why it is essential that we preserve our 2nd Amendment rights. 

So what will you do when they come for your guns in the name of “fighting crime”? Will you hand them over? Will you demand a warrant and slam the door in their face? Or will you exercise The Mailbox, The Ballot Box, and The Jury Box to ensure that they never come knocking?

It is the sincere hope here at FiveBoxes that we never need to use The Fifth Box to preserve our liberties. But as Americans, we must all be ready and willing to do so if necessary.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty. 

— Thomas Jefferson

A bleak future is in store if we continue this trend. All the pieces are lining up to create a “perfect storm” that will see the United States sink into socialism. Look at the evidence:

1. Fuel costs are on the rise. This causes…
2. Increased costs for goods and services. This includes…
3. Increased food costs. Part of this is because of #1 (higher fuel costs = increased production & delivery costs) and it’s also due to the use of corn for the production of ethanol instead of animal feed.
4. The sub-prime mortgage market implosion has helped put us in a recession. The government is in full-fledged panic mode, and trying to prop up our economy by continual fed rate cuts and a “tax rebate”; it’s only a matter of time before the Fed can’t do anything else and our economy goes into freefall. This will lead to…
5. Increased number of people getting laid off. Since many people bought into houses they couldn’t afford (thanks to — yes — sub-prime interest-only mortgages) more homes will go into foreclosure. These out-of-work people who are also out of a home will need…
6. Food, which is more expensive. (See #3.) It doesn’t help that…
7. The U.S. dollar is sinking rapidly in value on the world market, and is now worth less than the Canadian dollar.

So how does all this lead to a socialist tyranny nightmare?

No one is willing to stand up and take responsibility. No one is willing to say, “I screwed up. I made a bad decision.” Instead, they’re all looking to The Government to bail them out. And when The Government takes control, when The Government interferes too much, you have begun the decent into socialism.

We, as a nation, have become addicts. Addicts to stuff. SUVs and HDTVs. Starbucks and home theater systems. Designer clothes and iPods. And, like any addict, we are unwilling to give up our stuff. Rather than give up our stuff, we give up our responsibilities, and in giving up our responsibilities we give up our freedom. Freedom from failure is not freedom, it is slavery to they who keep you from failing.

People who are bailed out of foreclosure are enslaved by the state and federal governments that bail them out. U.S. banks are enslaved to foreign banks who bailed them out. The U.S. government is enslaved to China (among other countries) who loaned the U.S. money. And we’re not stopping. It’s not getting better. Why? Because we haven’t hit bottom. Like any addict, we, as a nation need to hit bottom. And The Government is doing everything it can to soften the blow, only lengthening and deepening the fall.

As the jobless rates climb, the number of people on food stamps will continue to increase. (There’s already a sharp rise in food stamp handouts. See here, here, and here.) And because of the skyrocketing food prices, the food stamps are buying less and less. So when the trucking industry, who delivers all our stuff (and most importantly, our food) goes broke, everyone will clamor for The Government to come to the rescue. Again. Then it will be in the position to use this stranglehold on the nation to impose any further expansion of the government that it sees fit.

Right now, The Government is busy fixing problems that it created in the first place. And rather than admitting it has only made problems worse, it uses the failures of its own policies to justify its own expansion.

And we will capitulate because food is a basic need, and because all along the yellow brick road, we failed to take responsibility because we wanted our stuff more than our freedom.