American children now know the word “homeland” and also know their private parts threaten its security. Plus a $17.8 trillion debt casting a shadow as far as the imperial eye can see doesn’t help matters of freedom either. This country needs a comeback, but the eclipsing of America (the idea) by the United States (the police state) is near complete.

So where’s our sign directing a different course? Fortunately, there are many. Look around you and traces of a decentralized resistance appear. If you can’t see them yet, you will. In less than three years’ time, it will be the police state yearning for its good old days.

Every government faces the economic knowledge problem, but it’s the people who know too much that are most problematic for it. Declining levels of ignorance with regard to illicit drugs and guns mean less an opportunity for central planners and enforcers to play off related mass fears. This is compounded with the growing understanding that prohibition is the root of societal decay, not the contraband.

From that awareness, the real fun begins. Cities, counties, and states have already tested pushback to federal policing with laws negating drug and gun laws. The news of Washington and Colorado nullifying marijuana prohibition has had international impact. Not so highly reported are the equally daring efforts against gun control in 21 separate states. Idaho, Kansas, and Alaska passed legislation to declare infringements on the 2nd Amendment null and void within the state. Again, this is just the beginning.

Beyond political victories, a new culture is emerging. Who doesn’t believe the gun folks and drug folks are finding each other? They have more in common than with their Washington, D.C. representatives after all. Colorado may be the best example of this potential nexus; 55 of its 62 sheriffs attempted to sue the state for its unconstitutional gun laws.

If California’s decriminalization of marijuana has been worth keeping kids in school instead of jail or the morgue then there’s much, much to be hopeful about. Along with California, other likely followers in Washington and Colorado’s footsteps are Oregon, Alaska, Hawaii, and Maine. Considering 57% of Americans already live somewhere with reformed marijuana laws, you have to ask what’s next? A Ronald Reagan-appointed federal judge thinks the answer is legalizing heroin, cocaine, and meth.

Laissez-faire for guns is a possibility too. Watch out for viral campaigns by groups like ShallNot.org who are targeting every federal law on the books. Vigilant citizens and their re-elected sheriffs aren’t likely to back down just because Washington, D.C. did. Out of native bias, I mention California again: Los Angeles’s ridiculous gun control is causing violent weapons-related crimes to skyrocket so even in presumed safe havens for the police state, expect the unexpected from citizens who know better.

When it comes to America, nothing is inevitable. Like any other empire, the foreign policy dictates the domestic policy in the form of militarizing police – such a course of murder-suicide uninterrupted obviously will end badly. But the way out of empire’s damnation towards a peaceful and prosperous republic is at hand.

To not only question but defy the domestic standing army would logically extend to the role of its foreign-directed counterpart. Rolling back the empire from the inside out is the comeback, and it depends on collaborative action of historic proportions.

2015 will be a year of meetings, townhalls, and other events that spark grassroots uprisings. This space will cover them but only with your help, so be a part of the comeback that finishes the homeland and starts a free country. This may be our last shot.