Those systems are: the drug war, the war on illegal immigration, the national-security state, foreign interventionism, militarism, and empire. This article will examine these aspects of American statism in the context of the Venezuelan crisis and show how they have contributed to the death of American liberty.

The drug war 

It would be difficult to find a better example of a government program that has destroyed the liberty of the American people than the drug war. In a genuinely free society, people have the right to ingest whatever they want, no matter how damaging, unhealthy, or destructive it might be. What an adult decides to put into his mouth is simply none of the government's business.

But the federal government has made it its business by making it illegal for Americans to possess or distribute drugs. If someone violates the government's drug laws, he is sent to his room in a federal prison for a very long period of time. With the drug war, the government has made itself the people's master, while the citizenry have been converted into frightened little serfs on the government's plantation.

In a free-market society, pharmacies and other reputable businesses sell drugs, which thereby ensures that consumers are acquiring a high-quality product. Once drugs are made illegal, however, those pharmacies and reputable businesses naturally cease selling drugs.

But that doesn't mean that drugs stop being sold. It simply means that someone else starts selling them. That's where the black market — or illegal market — comes into play. That market attracts unsavory people — those who are willing to resort to violence to eliminate competition and who oftentimes sell lower-quality and even adulterated drugs to consumers. It is drug illegality that produces the drug cartels, the drug lords, the drug dealers, the drug gangs, and the corrupted, adulterated drugs that kill people.

The government then uses the rise of the drug cartels and the deaths by adulterated drugs, which its drug war has brought into existence, to "crack down" and expand its power. At the same time, the government engages in a harsh crackdown on drug consumption, with such measures as mandatory-minimum sentences, asset-forfeiture laws, racist enforcement, no-knock raids, stop and search, warrantless searches of automobiles, and much more.

The drug war is a never-ending war. It just goes on and on, year after year, decade after decade. Record drug busts. The killing or capture of drug lords. Overcrowded prisons. Massive violence, including gang wars and assassinations of public officials.

Above all, the drug war provides U.S. officials with the ability to expand their power and control over the American people, which ultimately is what this vicious and perpetual government program is all about.