Has US Become a True Police State?

In an essay called "It Is Official: The US Is a Police State," one of my favorite writers, Paul Craig Roberts, argues that:

An American Police State was inevitable once Americans let “their” government get away with 9/11. Americans are too gullible, too uneducated, and too jingoistic to remain a free people. As another Nazi leader Herman Goering said, “ The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. Tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peace-makers for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger.”

This is precisely what the Bush and Obama regimes have done. America, as people of my generation knew it, no longer exists.

In a true police state, a libertarian like Ron Paul would be eliminated from public view.  He would not be appearing frequently on TV.  He wouldn't appear at all.  He would be silenced.  The government always has various options, and it might decide to murder him, as it likely did JFK.  The important point is, it would not only have the power to silence him, it would exercise that power.  So far it hasn't.  He's getting the rabble roused, but other than that he's harmless.  Big government marches on.  Let him talk.  The fact that he has little effect will prove that people want government to grow indefintiely.  Slavery will seem like the people's choice. 

In a true police state, the internet would be controlled to the point that no serious criticism of the government would be tolerated; an article like PCR's would be censored and its author arrested for providing "material support" to terrorism.  Lew Rockwell would find his website shut down.  This blog wouldn't exist.  A growing government crushes what remains of our liberty, it will never stop, and it has every reason to be pleased with its progress, but there's still work to do.

As we move closer to a one-world superstate and a global central banking system printing money at will, the prospects for complete state control of our lives in an Orwellian sense becomes more realistic.  Almost no one believes "1984" is a plausible scenario, which is one reason it becomes increasingly plausible.  Did the German people of 1927 foresee the Germany of 1939?  The Russian people foresee the horror of Stalin?

We're in deep trouble, but we still have a fighting chance.  Government is doing everything wrong to get the economy moving again.  As painful as this will be, the coming implosion may be our best hope for diluting the power of the state.