Democracy vs. Modern Feudalism

• Right to space to occupy is denied by default, unless payments are made monthly to lender or landlord. Public lands off-limits.
• Likewise, the right to food, water, medical care, clothing, education and training, tools, and pretty much everything but air to breathe, are by default denied unless paid for with currency. Productivity or contribution to society, community, or fellow humans is not acceptable payment unless it gives one currency to use as payment.
• In order to have currency to purchase the means to exercise one's right to life, one must either convince someone to hire you, or run a successful business, or be born wealthy. By default, you have no right to currency, likewise you have no right to employment or other source of currency. The "market" determines your employment status and wages. There is no right to be paid a living wage for your work.

Therefore, the right to life is only fully realized if you live as a life-form of pure energy. If you live as a biological life-form with a physical body, you have the right to life in theory but not the right to any of the means to exercise that right. Your life is perpetually held hostage for ransom until you graduate from physical form to pure energy.

Where the statutory, Constitutional, and foundational human rights in a liberal democracy coexist with the modern feudal (capitalist) socioeconomic paradigm and power structure, the socioeconomic power structure overrides the Constitutionally guaranteed rights.

• Your liberties in the physical world are in practice directly proportional to your socioeconomic status (your wealth). Most liberties require access to resources to exercise. All resources are by default denied and can only be accessed via payment in currency, which as stated above is not a protected right.
• You are of course free to think what you want inside your own head.

This is where subjective and objective meet and intertwine. On one hand, there are more than one kind of happiness. There is externally-generated, dependent happiness such as comes with achieving a goal or dream, falling in love, winning something, encountering something beautiful, etc. On the other hand are more durable, stable forms of happiness that are internally generated, independent of external circumstances. So you can be happy when things are going well but also in spite of them not going well, and one can be unhappy due to undesired circumstances or in spite of everything going well.

That said, there is no doubt that a loving, nurturing, empowering family and community contribute in big ways to the likelihood of experiencing happiness, and a neglectful, abusive, toxic, oppressive or disempowering family and community greatly amplify the likelihood of unhappiness. When you are hungry, overworked, underpaid, disempowered, disrespected, and denied access to just about everything, you're going to have to be a rare individual indeed to achieve happiness. Therefore, while it doesn't directly bar one from pursuing happiness, it makes it an almost impossible lift for most people.

Could one achieve happiness as a slave, a child soldier, a political prisoner, or survivor of atrocities? Yes. It is possible. But to extrapolate that to justify oppression and disempowerment of any living being? Absolutely not!

At this very moment in the United States, under a regime representing an effective coup and outright takeover of the government by the ultra-wealthy, the current administration is effectively nullifying habeas corpus protections through executive actions that circumvent due process, particularly for immigrants and political dissidents. So far none of the checks and balances designed into the Constitution to prevent abuse of power have been able to stop this.

Here we see starkly how modern feudalism (Capitalism) overrides and erodes human rights wherever the two coexist in the same society as a cancer destroys the body of its host or a parasitic fungus hijacks the nervous system of its host.

Under the current autocratic regime in the United States, these rights are suffering the same assaults and negations as habeas corpus.

While this right is not under direct attack from the current regime, the negation of the previous two rights means that in practice anyone deemed to be unworthy by the regime is summarily arrested and imprisoned, even deported to countries where they have no ties, thereby denying them all due process including any semblance of a trial.

This right is also under direct assault by the current oligarchy in the USA as the current regime in power is unilaterally canceling by decree hundreds of existing contracts, both under the excuse of cutting government spending as well as to pressure and blackmail cities, states, schools, universities, and businesses that refuse to obey presidential decrees forbidding diversity, equity and inclusion and demanding collection of people's private information for the purpose of targeting those critical of the government and its policies for persecution.

These rights are only protected in any way when exercised on premises that you own or with permission of the owner of wherever you are occupying space at the moment.

These rights are not guaranteed or protected at your place of employment or on the premises of any business where you may be transacting, as well as in your rented dwelling to some degree. Your freedom of speech is also not guaranteed or protected on social media, since employers, prospective employers, landlords, prospective landlords, and others may deny you employment or a place to stay if they don't like what you say.

They are theoretically protected in public spaces but here again, the current authoritarian regime (and to a lesser degree earlier regimes) is making inroads against these rights as well. The degree to which these rights are protected depends on the attitude of the federal, state, and local authorities. The current regime is already selectively ignoring those rights in deference to the power and wishes of the ultra-wealthy.

In a conflict between the non-wealthy individual and their employer, landlord, business where they shop, or government agency, the individual increasingly loses.

So far this right appears to be uncontested and protected. One reason is because a lot of money is made selling arms.

So far, this right has not been eroded, though eminent domain, which theoretically is intended only to seize land with fair compensation for projects of overwhelming public good, has been allowed to be distorted to allow mammoth developers and other mega corporations to seize property from individuals, families, and small businesses to use for their for-profit projects.

This right may very possibly be eroded in the future, however, in the context of current developments in which the armed forces are being deployed against peacefully demonstrating citizens and against people (both documented and undocumented immigrants, naturalized citizens and even born citizens) for their political beliefs, religion, and sometimes arbitrarily for no reason with no regard for due process. Born U.S. citizens have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for constitutionally protected political activity, and multiple U.S. citizens have been killed by ICE operatives in incidents where video evidence contradicted official accounts — with no accountability for the agents involved. Prisons are being built to imprison people in direct disregard for the Constitution. Therefore, it's not inconceivable that people may in the future be forced to quarter soldiers who are deployed against them.

This is not guaranteed. In many U.S. cities and municipalities (and even a few states) police are allowed to seize the meager belongings of homeless people at will with no path for their retrieval and to arrest and fine or imprison them for simply being homeless. This also nullifies protections against bills of attainder and ex post facto since an entire segment of the people are defined as illegal and not subject to normal protections. Also immigrants and political dissidents are being subject to seizure of their persons and property.

Currently the regime in Washington has stepped up attempts to streamline the power of government and law enforcement to force examination of the cell phones of people, including citizens, entering the country at points of entry with no warrant or suspicion.

• Due process is now under direct assault from the Executive branch. People are now being arrested, imprisoned, and deported with zero due process on the say-so of the President. A presidential memorandum (NSPM-7) has designated anti-fascist activity as terrorism without differentiating between violent and nonviolent expression — effectively defining anti-capitalist and anti-fascist political views as grounds for classification as a terrorist. Under the Patriot Act framework, such classification can strip due process protections entirely. Citizens have already been sentenced to lengthy prison terms under these provisions for acts as constitutionally protected as transporting political literature. Due process is being eroded.
• Protection against self-incrimination is not currently explicitly being targeted or undermined, but the modus operandi of the current regime is likely to do so when it considers it expedient. With the suspension of due process, there is no trial and therefore protection against self-incrimination is moot.
• While double jeopardy has not specifically been singled out for negation, it is also effectively being negated via the failure to observe due process.

• Speedy trial is already not respected in many jurisdictions where many accused spend months or more awaiting trial, often in jail due to inability to post bail. While the current regime is the extreme manifestation of the subversion of democratic institutions by the socioeconomic power structure, this situation has persisted for decades prior to the current takeover.
• Public trial now no longer guaranteed. Many people are being arbitrarily detained, imprisoned and deported with no trial whatsoever or on closed door proceedings on the say-so of the president or his minions.
• Impartial jury is not so far being targeted.
• Confrontation of witnesses is already being undermined via presidential decree and abuse of the label of national security.
• Under modern feudalism, the right to counsel in criminal cases is technically respected, but non-wealthy defendants are at a permanent, systemic disadvantage. Since attorney fees are almost universally out of reach for most people, most defendants must rely on public defenders who are always overworked and under-funded, while corporations and wealthy people keep stables of top-notch attorneys on retainer with virtually unlimited funds and resources. A poor or middle-class defendant will usually have a very different result from a wealthy or corporate defendant.

This has not yet been directly under assault, but as is the case in criminal cases, the disparity between the ability of a poor or middle-class litigant and a wealthy or corporate litigant to proceed is extreme. In addition unlike in criminal cases, the party sued is not entitled to a public defender so they are forced to either hire whatever counsel they can afford or else defend themselves in pro per.

This right has mostly been eroded into meaninglessness. In many jurisdictions, bail is out of reach of many defendants, as are fines and court fees, who wait for many months in jail for their day in court. Excessive fines are applied to homeless people who inevitably end up doing jail time. Courts are backlogged so the waits can be extreme. Many prisons are for-profit and inmates are subjected to slave labor.

In addition, the current regime as of 2025 is imprisoning people and depriving them of any due process just on suspicion or even for their political or ideological beliefs. Some are even deported to violent prisons in other countries and even to war-torn countries with which they have no connection or affiliation.

The current regime, now under the dictatorial control of ultra-wealthy oligarchs, is demolishing this right daily. In addition to actively negating rights spelled out in the Constitution, the current regime is pushing a paradigm in which rights are by default denied unless otherwise specified.

Under the current regime, this is interpreted and implemented capriciously and arbitrarily according to the whims of the regime in power which itself is an organ of the wealthy oligarchs/modern feudal lords. States are being allowed to restrict medical care, the rights of women, set firearm policy, impose religion on public schools, and more. But states are being militarily assaulted and actively persecuted for enacting laws and policies of diversity, equality, and inclusion, for welcoming and protecting refugees, for incentivizing and encouraging green energy and environmental protective measures, for protecting women's rights to medical care, for protecting the rights of LGBTQ+ people, and for any failure to fall in line with the regime's philosophy.