The US government is not America. The State governments in America are not America. This fact can be seen in what we call the Bill of Rights, Amendments to the US Constitution.
The Bill of Rights disallows the various US and State governments from doing things against the people of America. The fact that the people in the US and State governments use supposed authority that they do not have, shows that the formal governments are not acting in good faith.
The U.S. Government Is Not America
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/10/jacob-hornberger/the-u-s-government-is-not-america/He wrote: "Rep. Ilhan Omar (D., Minn.) has always made one wonder how a person could flee oppression in Somalia, find freedom in the U.S., and somehow end up viewing America as the villain in global affairs."
"Viewing America as the villain in global affairs"? I'm no expert on Omar's views but I doubt very seriously whether she views America as the villain in global affairs. My hunch is that she views the U.S. government — and especially the national-security-state branch of the U.S. government — as the villain in global affairs.
One of the big problems with conservatives is that they conflate the U.S. government with America the nation. For them, the government and the country are one and the same thing. Thus, given that mindset, it stands to reason that if one criticizes or condemns the U.S. government's evil and immoral acts in foreign affairs, conservatives consider that person to be criticizing our country.
But that conservative conflation of the government and the country is totally wrong-headed. The fact is that we are talking about two separate and distinct entities: The U.S. government and America the country.
This phenomenon is perfectly reflected by the Bill of Rights, which expressly protects the country from the federal government. That concept, needless to say, befuddles conservatives. The conservative no doubt asks himself: How can the Bill of Rights protect the country from the federal government given that the federal government and the country are one and the same thing?
But they are not one and the same thing. They are two separate and distinct entities. The fact that the U.S. government commits evil and immoral acts around the world does not mean that America is committing those evil and immoral acts. In fact, when a government is engaged in committing evil and immoral acts, it is up to people of that nation to put a stop to such wrongful conduct on the part of their government. That process oftentimes begins with the citizenry criticizing and condemning the government's wrongful conduct. Indeed, it might be said that an apathetic, indifferent, frightened, or even supportive populace bears moral responsibility for the evil and immorality committed by their own government.
Martin Luther King, Jr., specifically identified "my own government," not America, as the biggest purveyor of violence in the world. I don't see how any reasonable person, including Freeman or any other conservative, can dispute King's assessment. Let's go back to King's era — during the old Cold War racket, when U.S. officials and conservatives were claiming that there was an international communist conspiracy based in Moscow by which America was in danger of being taken over by the Reds (rather than by the terrorists, the Muslims, the drug dealers, and the illegal-immigrant invaders).
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In addition, the US and State governments are illegally and unlawfully overstepping their authority in all kinds of ways in America.
Who Owns Your Life?
https://www.lewrockwell.com/2026/10/george-f-smith/who-owns-your-life/Under what concealment has this power lain hidden, which now for the first time comes forth, with a tremendous & baleful aspect, to trample down & destroy the dearest rights of personal liberty? — Daniel Webster, address to the House of Representatives, December 9, 1814 arguing against a proposed military draft
Ask a young person whether he personally consented to everything the federal government has the legal authority to require of him. If he answers no, the conventional reply is that direct consent isn't necessary: he is represented by elected officials. But representation is not agency in the ordinary sense. He has signed no contract with his representative, cannot direct his votes, and cannot terminate the relationship even if the representative breaks all his campaign promises.
Furthermore, he is still subject to their legislation even if he didn't vote or if the legislation was passed before he was eligible to vote. How many people alive today voted for legislation establishing a legal counterfeiting racket known as the federal reserve or the income tax and its associated hit squad, the IRS?
Or the Selective Service Act of 1918?
Has government offered today's constituents to vote on these and other laws passed before they were born?
The same is true for the President and his cabinet. People vote for Dr. Jekyll hoping he doesn't turn out to be Mr. Hyde, but if he does, or worse, it is not easy to undo the damage.
In Rights of Man, Part the First, Thomas Paine critiqued Member of Parliament Edmund Burke's defense of the English government in his pamphlet Reflections on the Revolution in France. Paine cites Richard Price's sermon of November 4, 1789 as upsetting to Burke. Price, a Welsh-born Presbyterian minister and author of Observations on the Nature of Civil Liberty (1776), argued that England's Glorious Revolution of 1688 had established three fundamental rights of the people: "To chuse our own governors; to cashier them for misconduct; and to frame a government for ourselves."
Burke denied all three. He said previous generations had constitutionally settled Britain's government and thereby bound their descendants. As I wrote previously, Paine argued that
Every age and generation must be as free to act for itself, in all cases, as the ages and generation which preceded it. The vanity and presumption of governing beyond the grave, is the most ridiculous and insolent of all tyrannies. . .
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