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Cato Video • November 9, 2009 

# David Boaz on the rise of the state. 

Freedom is under assault, and has been for a while. The United States went through a lot in the past eight years — the excesses of the Patriot Act; the intrusion of the federal government into local schools; state decisions on marijuana, end-of-life choices, and state marriage law; the biggest expansion of entitlements in 40 years; a law to sharply restrict core political speech; the steady accumulation of power in the executive branch and in the person of the president. The centralization of power is continuing in the Obama years. 

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##### [David Boaz](/people/david-boaz)

Former Distinguished Senior Fellow, Cato Institute