By Stephen Lendman

March 23, 2020 "Information Clearing House" -  Crises are opportunities for ruling authorities to institute policies not easily introduced during normal times.

Post-9/11 and at other extraordinary times, the public is willfully deceived to believe that by sacrificing personal freedoms, greater security is possible — not realizing that both will be lost.

The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. The cost of its loss is tyranny — the US and West far advanced toward it’s becoming full-blown.

Protecting public health to prevent COVID-19 from spreading by stay-at-home orders, state and community lockdowns, and social distancing reflect common sense policymaking.

Overstepping occurs if martial law is declared and constitutional rights are suspended — what tyrannical police state rule is all about.

Post-9/11, US hardline rule became reality by presidential executive orders, national and homeland security presidential directives, and enactment of police state laws — along with actions against designated domestic and foreign adversaries, dissent, civil liberties, human rights, and other democratic freedoms.

State-sponsored indefinite detentions, assassinations, extraordinary renditions, military commission trials, torture, mass surveillance, and other extrajudicial actions were instituted and remain in place on the phony pretext of protecting national security at a time when America’s only enemies are invented.

For nearly two decades, the US has been waging war OF terrorism, not on it, at home and abroad — a bipartisan coup d’etat on world peace, equity, justice and the rule of law.