John Whitehead

Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His new book Battlefield America: The War on the American People  (SelectBooks, 2015) is available online at www.amazon.com. Whitehead can be contacted at [email protected].

The ABC’s of America’s Descent into Tyranny

You can call it the age of authoritarianism. Or fascism. Or oligarchy. Or the American police state, whatever label you want to put on it, the end result is the same: tyranny.

John Whitehead
By John Whitehead
Police, Police State

Big Brother does not watch us, by his choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth. When a population becomes distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short, a people become an

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50 Years Ago MLK Warned of Racism, Materialism and Militarism -They Still Reign Supreme

The “giant triplets of racism, extreme materialism, and militarism“ that Martin Luther King railed so passionately against have yet to be conquered.

John Whitehead
By John Whitehead
People gather for events commemorating the 50th anniversary of the assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. on Wednesday, April 4, 2018, in Memphis, Tenn. King was assassinated April 4, 1968, while in Memphis supporting striking sanitation workers. (AP Photo/Mark Humphrey)

In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it is perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in. [Y]ou can be filled with bitterness, with hatred, and a desire for revenge. We can move in that direction as a country, in great polarization…filled with hatred toward one another. Or we

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If Police Don’t Have to Protect the Public, What Good Are They?

The U.S. Supreme Court has repeatedly affirmed, most recently in 2005, that police have no constitutional duty to protect members of the public from harm.

John Whitehead
By John Whitehead
Police ride on an armored vehicle through Baltimore on an armored vehicle following protests which occurred after the funeral of Freddie Gray, who was killed by police. A 10 p.m. curfew was in effect, April 28, 2015 (AP/David Goldman)

In the American police state, police have a tendency to shoot first and ask questions later. In fact, police don’t usually need much incentive to shoot and kill members of the public. Police have shot and killed Americans of all ages—many of them unarmed—for standing a certain way, or moving a certain way, or holding something—anything—that

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Military Spending Is Already Bankrupting America

Since 2001, the U.S. government has spent more than $1.8 trillion in the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq – that’s $8.3 million per hour.

John Whitehead
By John Whitehead
Donald Trump military spending

Mark my words, America’s war spending will bankrupt the nation. For that matter, America’s war spending has already bankrupted the nation to the tune of more than $20 trillion dollars. Now the Trump Administration is pushing for a $4.4 trillion budget for fiscal year 2019 that would add $7 trillion to the already unsustainable federal deficit in

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America’s Dirty Little Secret: Sex Trafficking of Young Girls

Our culture is grooming these young people to be preyed upon by sexual predators. And then we wonder why our young women are being preyed on, trafficked and abused?

John Whitehead
By John Whitehead
Mebers of the industry group Club Owners Against Sex Trafficking sit for a talk given by a U.S. Department of Homeland Security agent teaching owners of strip clubs and strippers how to spot sex traffickers, at the Burbank Community Services Building in Burbank, Calif. A year-long academic study of sex trafficking in Las Vegas is providing a glimpse at a shadowy world behind the neon where underage girls threatened by pimps solicit for business in casinos, on streets and online. (AP/Damian Dovarganes)

They’re called the Little Barbies. Children, young girls—some as young as 9 years old—are being bought and sold for sex in America. The average age for a young woman being sold for sex is now 13 years old. This is America’s dirty little secret. Sex trafficking—especially when it comes to the buying and selling of young girls—has become big

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The State of Our Union: A House Divided, Enslaved & Mired in the Mistakes of the Past

“A house divided against itself cannot stand. I believe this government cannot endure, permanently, half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved — I do not expect the house to fall — but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing or all the other.”— Abraham Lincoln

John Whitehead
By John Whitehead
A man dressed in red-white-and-blue sits on the curb during a protest against President-elect Donald Trump, Wednesday, Nov. 9, 2016, in Seattle's Capitol Hill neighborhood. (AP Photo/Ted S. Warren)

History has a funny way of circling back on itself. The facts, figures, faces and technology may change from era to era, but the dangers remain the same. This year is no different, whatever the politicians and talking heads may say to the contrary. Sure, there’s a new guy in charge with a talent for stirring up mayhem and madness, but for the

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Jesus Stood Up To The Roman Empire And He’d Resist US Empire Today

From the time he was old enough to attend school, Jesus would have been drilled in lessons of compliance and obedience to government authorities, while learning little about his own rights.

John Whitehead
By John Whitehead
Activists come face-to-face with police officers while protesting NATO in Chicago Saturday, May 19, 2012. (Photo by Norbert Schiller/Mint Press)

“Jesus is too much for us. The church’s later treatment of the gospels is one long effort to rescue Jesus from ‘extremism.’”—author Gary Wills, What Jesus Meant OPINION -- The Christmas narrative of a baby born in a manger is a familiar one. The Roman Empire, a police state in its own right, had ordered that a census be conducted. Joseph and

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