Giving Thanks for Our Blessings Means Saying ‘No Thanks’ to Police State Tyranny
By John & Nisha Whitehead
November 25, 2025

“Hold on, my friends, to the Constitution and to the Republic for which it stands. Miracles do not cluster, and what has happened once in 6000 years, may not happen again. Hold on to the Constitution, for if the American Constitution should fail, there will be anarchy throughout the world.”—Daniel Webster

We find ourselves approaching that time of year when, as George Washington and Abraham Lincoln proclaimed, we’re supposed to give thanks as a nation and as individuals for our safety and our freedoms.
 
It’s not an easy undertaking.
 
The contrast between George Washington’s first Thanksgiving proclamation and the state of the nation today reveals how far we have drifted—and how low we have fallen—since Washington called upon early Americans (a nation of immigrants) to give thanks for a government that protected their safety and happiness, and for a Constitution designed to safeguard civil and religious liberty.
 
But how do you give thanks for freedoms that are constantly being eroded?

How do you express gratitude for one’s safety when the perils posed by the American police state grow more treacherous by the day?
 
How do you come together as a nation in thanksgiving when the powers-that-be continue to polarize and divide us into warring factions?
 
To our collective misfortune, we have been saddled with a government that is a far cry from Washington’s vision: governed by wise, just, constitutional laws; faithfully executed by principled public servants; promoting peace, virtue, and liberty; and fostering the prosperity of the nation.
 
Instead, the U.S. government has become a warring empire: lawless in its ambitions, militarized in its posture, abusive in its policing, and increasingly hostile to conscience, truth, and constitutional limits.
 
Washington never intended Thanksgiving to be a day of glib platitudes—a moment to be grateful for whatever crumbs the government chooses to bestow upon us. He intended it to be a day of reflection, honesty, and moral accounting, a day when the nation examines its failures, acknowledges its wrongs, and commits to restoring liberty in the year ahead.
 
If Thanksgiving is to mean anything in times such as these, it must also compel us to speak plainly about the forces that threaten our freedom. Giving thanks for our blessings requires the courage to say “no thanks” to the very forces working to strip away the blessings we claim to celebrate.
 
In that true spirit of Thanksgiving, here is a sobering list of things for which we should not give thanks in this age of the American police state.
 
Say “no thanks” to oligarchy and self-serving, pay-to-play politics. A pay-to-play culture now permeates the highest levels of government, dominated by a mindset that money—not law—defines the boundaries of power. America is being bought and sold by corporate elites and political cronies. “We the People” have been pushed into a permanent underclass, ruled by a political machine that monetizes every aspect of governance—surveillance, policing, incarceration, immigration enforcement, even war itself. Our elected officials increasingly represent the interests of the wealthy and well-connected rather than the rights and needs of the citizenry. This is oligarchy masquerading as representative government.
 
Say “no thanks” to an imperial presidency that rules by fiat. Executive power has metastasized into something the Framers would not recognize. In 2025 alone, we have seen:

• sweeping executive orders redefining law without Congress’ oversight or approval,
• federal agencies weaponized against political enemies,
• unilateral decisions to deploy federal troops domestically,
• and attempts to redefine constitutional rights by proclamation.

Whether the occupant of the Oval Office is a Republican or Democrat, the result is the same: presidents now behave as lawmakers, judges, and enforcers combined — a constitutional impossibility and a recipe for dictatorship. The Founders warned us plainly: when one person claims the authority to rule by decree, liberty is already in mortal danger.
 
Say “no thanks” to martial law and standing armies used against the American people. What once would have been unthinkable is now routine. National Guard units have been federalized to police protests. Tactical teams roam American streets outfitted like combat forces. A generation of Americans is growing up under the shadow of armored vehicles and militarized responses to ordinary civil unrest. This year’s federal deployments in California and elsewhere following ICE raids—justified by vague claims of “restoring order”—are only the latest sign. A government comfortable using soldiers against its own citizens is a government that has abandoned the constitutional line between civilian authority and military force.
 
Say “no thanks” to the government’s fear tactics. Fear is the oldest tool of tyranny. We have seen fear weaponized to justify:

• speech crackdowns,
• “domestic threat” watchlists,
• expanded surveillance authorities,
• “emergency powers” without end,
• and the rounding up of vulnerable populations under the guise of safety.

From mental-health “round-ups” to demands that soldiers obey unlawful commands without question, fear has become the operating currency of government power. When the people are afraid, they can be controlled. When one’s right to conscience is criminalized, that conscience can be silenced.

Say “no thanks” to endless wars. For more than two decades, the U.S. has been mired in endless wars without clear objectives, limits, or endpoints. The war footing has become perpetual—an unbroken justification for secrecy, surveillance, militarization, and unchecked executive power. Wars abroad have consequences at home: they brutalize our politics, exhaust our populace, expand federal power, and normalize the idea that violence—rather than diplomacy, law, or liberty—is the default solution for national problems.
 
Say “no thanks” to everywhere wars. When government can label anyone, anywhere, an “enemy” in order to wage war, we are all in danger. That danger is no longer theoretical. In the same breath that the administration touts lethal military strikes against Venezuelan boats in Caribbean waters, federal agents are conducting coordinated militarized raids on communities across the country. The lesson to be learned: a nation permanently on war footing eventually turns its war machinery inward.
 
Say “no thanks” to the transformation of domestic police into extensions of the military.  For decades, billions in Pentagon gear—tanks, drones, armored carriers, battlefield weapons — have been funneled to local police under the 1033 military surplus program. Training once reserved for war zones has become standard for domestic policing. The results are unmistakable:

• SWAT raids for routine warrants,
• trigger-happy policing,
• a “kill or be killed” mentality,
• and communities patrolled like occupied territories.

The police are no longer peace officers. They are an occupying force.
 
Say “no thanks” to ICE raids that trample constitutional rights and terrorize communities. What began as an agency tasked with immigration enforcement has mutated into something far darker: a roaming domestic strike force. ICE’s quota-driven model incentivizes arrests at all costs, creating a bounty-hunter culture in which constitutional rights are obstacles, not guarantees. From coast to coast, ICE goon squads—incognito, thuggish, fueled by profit-driven incentives and outlandish quotas, and empowered by the Trump administration to act as if they are untouchable—are prowling neighborhoods, churches, courthouses, hospitals, bus stops, and worksites, anywhere “suspected” migrants might be present, snatching people first and asking questions later. No one is off limits—not even American citizens.
 
Say “no thanks” to a government mindset that seeks to transform the nation into a prison state. From the creation of Alligator Alcatraz to the administration’s $170 billion plan for megaprisons, the U.S. incarceration system is being expanded at breakneck speed. Combined with predictive enforcement, surveillance dragnets, and limits on due process, the United States is rapidly becoming a prison state — one that cages not only bodies, but autonomy, dissent, and opportunity.
 
Say “no thanks” to a surveillance state that has become a fourth branch of government.  We now live in a world in which everything—your words, your purchases, your location, your associations—is recorded, stored, and weaponized by the government and its corporate partners in crime. The surveillance state watches, catalogs, and predicts everything we do. This year alone has seen the normalization of:

• Palantir-powered national tracking systems,
• AI threat-scoring of ordinary Americans,
• geofence warrants turning whole neighborhoods into suspects,
• biometric mandates proposed as “public health tools,”
• and the creation of federal databases of “pre-crime indicators.”

Say “no thanks” to a government that punishes the poor. 2025 has brought a brutal resurgence of debtors’ courts, cash-bail coercion, poverty penalties, and retaliatory prosecutions. The criminal legal system has become a two-tiered caste structure—harsh for the poor, lenient for the powerful.
 
Say “no thanks” to policies that muzzle dissent. Whistleblowers, journalists, activists, and critics continue to find themselves targeted for speaking truth to power. In a climate where thought crimes and “dangerous ideas” are policed, those who criticize the government are increasingly being portrayed as traitors and subjected to investigation and prosecution.
 
Say “no thanks” to courts that rubber-stamp government power. Time and again, the courts have chosen order over justice, secrecy over transparency, and government power over constitutional rights—refusing to rein in geofence warrants, no-knock raids, military deployments, or the ever-expanding surveillance state.
 
Say “no thanks” to a government that criminalizes the rights enshrined in the Constitution. Perhaps the most alarming development of all is the growing chorus of political voices calling for the arrest—even the execution—of those who urge members of the military to follow their conscience and refuse unlawful, unconstitutional orders. Let us be clear: the American military’s oath is to the Constitution—not to any president, political agenda, or unlawful order. Anyone who suggests otherwise should be court-martialed.
 
Say “no thanks” to government theft disguised as fines, fees, taxes, and forfeitures. When the government can seize your home, your car, your money, or your property without due process, you are no longer a free citizen—you are a subject. Asset forfeiture, civil penalties, red-light cameras, code-enforcement schemes, and debt-trap fines have turned the government at all levels into a predatory revenue machine. The line between public property and private property has vanished. This is legalized theft.
 
At some point, we’ve got to face up to the uncomfortable truth that freedom is slipping through our fingers, and that the government now poses a greater threat to our safety than any outside force ever could.
 
We cannot keep pretending that “it can’t happen here” while it is happening all around us.
 
There comes a point at which no people—not even a patient, hopeful, long-suffering people—can continue pretending that the crumbs of liberty left to them constitute freedom.
 
Thanksgiving is supposed to remind us of our blessings. But it is also meant to remind us of our responsibilities.
 
A free people must do more than count their blessings.
 
We must guard them. We must assert them. We must defend them—even when doing so is dangerous, costly, or unpopular.
 
There is still time to turn back from the brink, but the hour is late.
 
If we want future generations to enjoy even a measure of the freedom we inherited, then “We the People” must refuse to go quietly into the machinery of the police state.
 
We must refuse to be governed by fear.
 
We must refuse to surrender our rights for the illusion of safety.
 
And we must refuse to bow to those who insist that conscience is treason and obedience is the highest virtue.
 
The Founders gave us a constitutional republic on the condition that we fight to keep it. That responsibility cannot be outsourced to politicians, courts, or parties. It rests squarely with the people themselves, with those who refuse to surrender conscience, rights, or truth to the demands of tyrants.
 
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People and in its fictional counterpart The Erik Blair Diaries, the only force strong enough to restrain government overreach is an informed, engaged, and courageous citizenry that will not trade its birthright for the hollow comforts of authoritarianism.
 
The future of freedom depends not on presidents or parties but on “We the People”—ordinary individuals who refuse to be silent, refuse to be intimidated, and refuse to give up on the promise of America.
 
So this Thanksgiving, let us give thanks. But let us also say—with clarity and conviction—no thanks to tyranny, in whatever form it takes.
 
WC: 2026

Source: https://tinyurl.com/3z6wd9wz

COMMENTARY PODCAST AVAILABLE

Freedom Under Fire, a weekly podcast of constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead's popular syndicated column, is available on SoundCloud and iTunes. Click here to access the podcast.