Doug Casey: Without doubt, the US is transforming from a nation of whipped dogs into something much worse, a nation of squealing rats. It's because fear is being used by the powers that be to "unite" the country, much the way the inmates of a prison are united.

We've always had snitches, of course, starting with the silly little girls in Salem that turned in "witches" for keeping to themselves or gathering medicinal plants. More recently, the government has cultivated a class of snitches looking to profit from others they think aren't paying their "fair share" of taxes. More recently, we've encouraged snitches to seek out suspected terrorists—which constituted a near-zero threat. And now, we have plague snitches.