Creeping Towards Dictatorship

By Todd Strandberg
Rapture Ready

In 1993, I was at a prophecy conference in Tampa, Florida, listening to an endless parade of speakers talking about how the newly elected Bill Clinton was going to enslave America. The speakers had a mountain of evidence, but they lacked one critical factor. They failed to include a practical scheme the Clinton people might have to overcome our Constitutional rights.

I've heard about secret plans for tyranny since I was a youngster. Some people spend all their lives warning about the Illuminati, Bilderbergs and the Trilateralists. These One World organizations may influence policy makers, but they don't have any power to dictate it. If they did, we would have all been enslaved decades ago.

For about 20 years I've been refuting this inaccuracy, saying that the conspiracy theorists are full of hot air. I believe there is now an immediate threat of autocratic rule taking over our nation. I've always believed that there was a general effort to erode our civil rights. Up until now it has been a very gradual process. In the past few years, the attacks by the enemy have become continuous.

One of the biggest mistakes we can make is to focus on a personality, where we are endlessly trying to play pin-the-tail-on-the-Antichrist. The problem with looking for the next Adolf Hitler is that he can be anyone and come from anywhere. Our true focus should be on the process. As time goes by, I'm seeing less difference between the Democrats and Republicans. I blame the George W. Bush administration for moving America in the wrong direction just about as much as I do the current Obama Presidency.

I point to Bush's 'Patriot Act' as one of the clearest indications that we are creeping towards dictatorship. The Act dramatically reduced restrictions on law enforcement agencies' ability to search telephone, e-mail communications, medical, financial, and other records. Rather than being allowed to eventually expire, the 'Patriot Act' continues to evolve.

James Madison, while a United States Congressman, said, "If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy." Madison’s warning might explain why every time another Arab terrorist tries to cause mayhem, another chunk of my civil rights is taken away.

The key reason I think the danger of tyranny is so great is the level of apathy one finds today. The huge Health Care bill was passed in May, and two months later you hardly hear anything about it. Just this past week, a bill was introduced to give President Obama an internet kill switch. Few people bother to ask if such attempted Federal control over the Internet is a threat to free speech.

Milton Mayer wrote the book, "They Thought They Were Free." It was based on interviews he had with Germans still living after World War II who had been members of the Nazi Party. In it Mayer detailed how easy it is for people to live in a dictatorship and not even know it.

"As we know Nazism, it was a naked, total tyranny which degraded its adherents and enslaved its opponents and adherents alike; terrorism and terror in daily life, private and public; brute personal and mob injustice at every level of association. These nine ordinary Germans [who lived in Nazi Germany] knew it otherwise."

"An autocracy? [they say] Yes, of course . . . But a tyranny, as you Americans use the term? Nonsense."

German Church leader Martin Niemöller found out the hard way why we should never trust leaders with our freedom. After he was arrested in 1937, his former cell mate, Leo Stein, related his story to The National Jewish Monthly. Stein reports that having asked Niemöller why he ever supported the Nazi Party, Niemöller replied:

"I find myself wondering about that too. I wonder about it as much as I regret it. Still, it is true that Hitler betrayed me. I had an audience with him, as a representative of the Protestant Church, shortly before he became Chancellor, in 1932. Hitler promised me on his word of honor, to protect the Church, and not to issue any anti-Church laws. He also agreed not to allow pogroms against the Jews, assuring me as follows: ‘There will be restrictions against the Jews, but there will be no ghettos, no pogroms, in Germany.’" (Stein, Leo (May 1941). "NIEMOELLER speaks! The National Jewish Monthly. pp. 284–5, 301–2.)

I am greatly concerned about how our nation's weak financial health could affect our civil liberties. If we should slip into a depression, the one-world folks will have a free hand to take scissors to the constitution.

I'd rather be raptured from a free nation, but I know we shouldn’t be too hopeful about the world state as we approach the door step of the tribulation hour. All we can do is contend for liberty right to the very end.

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