“…nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of the law…” Mr. Emiliano Gonzolez was never charged, let alone convicted, but he still looses his life savings. The State gets to keep the $124,700 they seized from the car he rented. Under congress’ Forfeiture Act a drug dog barking at a rental car, used by possibly hundreds of people, is enough evidence to convict his money of drug trafficking.
Continuously reinterpreting and expanding the meaning of the Constitution has weakened our liberties from freedom of speech, association, religion, the right to assemble, assumption of innocents, among others. It has given the police state new liberties, including no-knock-warrants, warrantless phone taps or searches and, as the above victim can verify, assumption of guilt. This is due to an idea that the Constitution is a “living document”, that it is some how outdated or, as others reason, for society to interpret the intent of it. The Constitution as a “living document” is dangerous and has contributed to the erosion of our liberties.
Changes in the meaning of the 5th Amendment have undermined the stability of property rights. At first the words “public use” meant just that, roads, post offices, and government buildings, a little later railroads and utilities where added. Then in 1954 the Supreme Court in Berman v. Parker, unannounced to Mr. Webster, proclaimed the word “use” to mean “purpose” for fighting blight. The loss of protection the 5th Amendment provided the lower classes was only the beginning. Land grabs by gluttonous, cash starved municipalities increased. With each grab the courts allowed additional leeway in the reasoning for it. Some like GM were given older middleclass neighborhoods to build plants, that would supposedly create jobs. Others like Lakewood, Ohio for condominiums or Susette Kelo and her neighbors whose properties are planned to go to the multi-million dollar company Pfizer. Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said in the Kelo v New London principal dissent, “The specter of condemnation hangs over all property. Nothing is to prevent the State from replacing a Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or an farm with a factory”
Speaking of farms, Roscoe Filburn was fined $1606.08, adjusted for inflation, for having the audacity to grow more wheat then the Secretary of Agriculture gave him permission to. In Wickard v. Filburn the Supreme Court said that Mr. Filburn’s wheat still fell within the interstate commerce clause; not because it went over a state line but since he didn’t have to buy wheat, he affected the supply throughout the US. In theory, this means that if the Secretary of Agriculture feels that the country has too many tomatoes he can ban your grandmothers garden.
Wickard v. Filburn allowed Washington’s tentacles to taint even medicine, reaping needless suffering and, unfortunately, death. Several states have passed medical marijuana laws. This gave glaucoma suffers the ability to see, cancer and other terminal illness victims relief from their pain, and the bodies of AIDs victims the ability to keep down their life saving medications. The Supreme Court in Gonzales v. Raich, once again using the “living document” mentality, declared that the state and its people had no right to decide what was best for them; not because the medicine was transported over state lines but merely because it could be. Peter McWilliams an AIDs and cancer victim, died on June 14, 2000. Unable to hold down the drugs without the marijuana treatment a doctor had prescribed to him but a federal judge had forbidden him to use, he drowned on his own vomit. That same so called pillar of justice had prohibited the defense, in his trial, from telling the jury that Mr. McWilliams needed the marijuana to keep down his medications, or even that it was prescribed by a doctor and legal in California.
The Declaration of Independence states we have “…certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness…” These rights were not given to us by politicians, judges or a document. They are natural, obtained by our existence, they are our birthright. The framers of the Constitution believed that it was government's duty to protect these rights for us against anyone that would take them away. They also mistrusted men of power, those who as the protectors, could become drunk with power, abuse their positions and become the very ones that they were to protect our rights from. For some time now politicians and judges have ruled over us by using the "living document", saying its meaning can be changed to fit the needs, wants, demands, and even ideology of large, powerful groups. If this is true our “unalienable Rights” are no longer rights protected by the Constitution, but privileges granted or denied us by the courts and the whims of politicians. Tomorrow grandma's garden could be outlawed or the State might decide to give her home to the Seneca Casino and take her pain killers away. Then again, the police might decide her walker can transport drugs and convict it.
Alexander Hamilton feared a democracy leading to politicians catering to the masses at the expense of the individual; Thomas Jefferson feared a strong central government catering to the rich and big business would do the same. To which Jefferson proclaimed, "In questions of power, then, let no more be said of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief with the chains of the Constitution." The “living document” mentality is shattering the chains that kept the State and politicians from acquiring unlimited power and the Supreme Court keeps hitting it with an ideoligical sledge hammer.
Thursday, October 08, 2009
Half Baked Ideas Just Need More Time in the Oven
Looking at the tea parties and ignoring (or taking with a grain of salt) the medias trivializing of, or stereotyping of them, one sees a lot of different ideologies out there. Could this be that the majority of people are dissatisfied with the “lesser of two evils”? With the blatant, sped up centralizing of power and that those not in the so called “left/right” confines of ideologies are starting to realize that neither party is what they truly want.
Being a radical about individual rights, I have a paranoid attitude towards government. It’s kind of funny, that after over a decade in the Marines I’d be leery of the centralized government, but maybe that’s partly why. After all, that’s one of the reasons I got out. We swore to defend, with our lives, the Constitution from “all enemies foreign and domestic.” I started to see the oath as a conflict. Having to defend the Constitution and obeying superiors (Executive and Legislative branches being the highest); but then this is a path of logic for another post; back to the path at hand.
With so many different ideologies opposed, or at least not happy, with the current direction of the country (a.k.a. centralization) what if they/we all banded together for the purpose of “decentralization?” Say a new party not based on economic or moral ideology but based on unpolluted individualism, family, and community, and to a lesser extent state’s rights. If this party were to gain elected seats to oppose the central government and to a lesser extent the state’s power grabs too, would it be able to slow or even reverse the consolidation of power and the strangling of liberty?
Hmmmm….
Being a radical about individual rights, I have a paranoid attitude towards government. It’s kind of funny, that after over a decade in the Marines I’d be leery of the centralized government, but maybe that’s partly why. After all, that’s one of the reasons I got out. We swore to defend, with our lives, the Constitution from “all enemies foreign and domestic.” I started to see the oath as a conflict. Having to defend the Constitution and obeying superiors (Executive and Legislative branches being the highest); but then this is a path of logic for another post; back to the path at hand.
With so many different ideologies opposed, or at least not happy, with the current direction of the country (a.k.a. centralization) what if they/we all banded together for the purpose of “decentralization?” Say a new party not based on economic or moral ideology but based on unpolluted individualism, family, and community, and to a lesser extent state’s rights. If this party were to gain elected seats to oppose the central government and to a lesser extent the state’s power grabs too, would it be able to slow or even reverse the consolidation of power and the strangling of liberty?
Hmmmm….
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Unauthorized Babysitters
Once again the heavy hand of faceless bureaucrats interferes with the daily lives of the working class. In Michigan a neighborhood mom babysits a couple of friends’ kids before school starts so they (the mothers) can go off and work. But the “State” in its all knowing and all seeing wisdom says that to do so the mother needs the “State’s” permission, in way of “daycare license.”
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090930/ap_on_re_us/us_baby_sitter_backlash_mich
I’m sure this is to protect the children, as all intrusions by the “state” are reasoned to do. However, in what way can the “State” tell if the mother babysitting is not a danger to the children that the other mothers don’t posses by actually knowing her? These arrangements are between friends and a neighborhood. What’s next, the teenager that babysits a neighborhood kid has to get a state license to do so or they shut her down? But then they’ve done it to kids’ lemonade stands already.
Yes, welcome to America, land of opportunity, so long as you pay the state its extortion fees.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090930/ap_on_re_us/us_baby_sitter_backlash_mich
I’m sure this is to protect the children, as all intrusions by the “state” are reasoned to do. However, in what way can the “State” tell if the mother babysitting is not a danger to the children that the other mothers don’t posses by actually knowing her? These arrangements are between friends and a neighborhood. What’s next, the teenager that babysits a neighborhood kid has to get a state license to do so or they shut her down? But then they’ve done it to kids’ lemonade stands already.
Yes, welcome to America, land of opportunity, so long as you pay the state its extortion fees.
Thursday, September 24, 2009
Comfortably Numb Stupor
After several glasses of wine:
Still wondering what authority society and to a greater extent the “state” has over me by using their self-imposed “responsibility” to me?
Since I reject the assumption that either has a responsibility to me, except the “State’s” obligation to protect property rights, neither has authority over me unless to limit my action against another’s property.
Or……as Kant says, or more accurately said:
“The function of the State is to impose the minimum restrictions and safeguard the maximum liberties of the people, and it never regards the person as a thing.”
Now I’m wondering if a revenue generator is a “thing.”
Still wondering what authority society and to a greater extent the “state” has over me by using their self-imposed “responsibility” to me?
Since I reject the assumption that either has a responsibility to me, except the “State’s” obligation to protect property rights, neither has authority over me unless to limit my action against another’s property.
Or……as Kant says, or more accurately said:
“The function of the State is to impose the minimum restrictions and safeguard the maximum liberties of the people, and it never regards the person as a thing.”
Now I’m wondering if a revenue generator is a “thing.”
I told you s_
After not posting for more than two years I find it very satisfying that numerous people are now just as radical, unpatriotic, racist, angry, swastika wearing, mob mentality, pawns to the pharmaceuticals (and other big industrialist corporations) as I have been labeled for over almost two decades.
What’s even more comforting, than spooning the wife, is the fact that some that thought I was just being paranoid, about the ever encroaching, ever intrusive, ever expanding central government are now going “OMG!” Bet you’ll read the Constitution and Federalist papers now…..and while you’re at it read Huxley, Rand, and Hayek.
So, although I would much rather look the fool at the moment…I’ll repeat what I use to say then, “Come, Come to the dark side of decentralization, individualistic liberties and Lazzie Faire…that is Libertarianism”
Or just be a tool for what ever powers to be the sheep elect.
What’s even more comforting, than spooning the wife, is the fact that some that thought I was just being paranoid, about the ever encroaching, ever intrusive, ever expanding central government are now going “OMG!” Bet you’ll read the Constitution and Federalist papers now…..and while you’re at it read Huxley, Rand, and Hayek.
So, although I would much rather look the fool at the moment…I’ll repeat what I use to say then, “Come, Come to the dark side of decentralization, individualistic liberties and Lazzie Faire…that is Libertarianism”
Or just be a tool for what ever powers to be the sheep elect.
Saturday, April 21, 2007
The Law Against Laws
Everyday in papers around the world there are rumors of new laws, proposed or enacted. Some dictate when not to talk on a phone, where and what not to smoke, what not to cook with, and for the citizen’s own good, when to wear a helmet or seatbelt. Recently there was an article discussing what some call the criminalization of America. Professor Jonathan Turley of George Washington University, mentions the 12-year-old girl arrested for eating French fries in a Washington, D.C. metro station and the grandmother whose crime was letting her “shrubbery” grow to scandalous heights (21A). The Knights who say Ni better mind their hedges. Professor Turley also points to a State Senator in Louisiana who wants to criminalize wearing pants too low (21A). These laws probably came from some concerned, scandalize citizens saying, “There ought to be a law”.
Over 200 years ago a group of men, who had just rid themselves of over burdensome laws, decided there ought to be a law about “there ought to be a law”. Their solution was the U.S. Constitution and its Amendments, better know as the Bill of Rights. Most people have a misconception of what it is; a majority thinks it gives them their rights. In actuality those rights were already theirs. The Constitution, unlike all other laws does not prohibit, curtail, or manage a citizen’s acts, but rather it prohibits prohibiting, curtails curtailing, and manages managing that the lawmakers would otherwise do. The Constitution is in fact a law that is not a law.
In the Constitution’s First Amendment it says, “Congress shall make no laws” about five things, one of which is restricting the citizens’ right to peaceably assemble. The populace may come together to protest or applaud anything they feel is wrong or right with the country. According to the Constitution the government can not curtail this right, though at times it tries. This is the one instance where groups of citizens emulate the founders the most, by a mass act of civil disobedience, ignoring the authority's attempt to suppress them. As the saying goes, “If citizens ask for the government’s permission to protest, they deserve to be told no.”
In another area, the Constitution forbids authorities from entering or taking property without due process of the law. Specifically the Fourth Amendment which says a citizen can tell the authorities that he or she does not consent to having his or her property searched; along with Fifth Amendment which says the authorities can not hold a citizen without just cause or deprive him or her of his or her life, liberty or property without due process. These two corner stones curtail the abuse of search and seizure. Most laws dealing with property try to give the authorities the power over it, such as the search and seizure laws outlined in the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act. These laws give police the ability to take property, not only, when an actual crime has been committed, but also when there is only a suspicion of one. James Madison in “Property” said, that where “excess of power prevails” an individual’s property whether body, thought, or physical would not be secure (1). This is why the Founders tried to make it virtually impossible for government to enter a citizen’s home or other property and seize anything without proof. These two Constitutional Amendments limit the authority’s ability to take property away.
Then there are the laws forbidding the verbal or written expression of particular ideas. The reasoning in most cases is to protect the populace against hate, prejudices or lesser untruths. The Constitution, again the First Amendment, forbids the limiting of individuals’ expression of ideas, whether truth or not. Ironically, the laws aimed at protecting the truth actually weaken it, and allow untruths to go unchallenged; the very opposite of its intentions. A nineteenth century philosopher and economist, John Stuart Mill, suggested as much; when a perceived idea that is commonly considered true, is shown through reasoning to be false, all of mankind benefits from “exchanging error for truth”. On the other hand, when an individual’s belief is exposed as being false through the open exchange of that same reasoning, he gains truth (14). The restrictive law’s aim is to protect but fails to do that, yet the Constitution disregarding the perceived need, not only protects freedom of speech but strengthens that which the law failed too.
Another way the Constitution can be summed up is by what Professor William Warner, Chair of the University of California’s Santa Barbara English Department wrote, “this ‘right’ is not won through laws…but through a law against laws” (3). Although Professor Warner is speaking specifically about freedom of speech, the same can be said of the whole Bill of Rights. Each amendment is a “law against laws”. This concept is the complete opposite of the purpose of laws Rather than forbidding or dictating conduct it is inviting the free expression of it.
Though the U.S. Constitution is a law or more specifically, the supreme law of the land, it is the facilitator of freedom. Unlike other laws that are the oppressors of individual thought and expression it is their champion. The law says nobody can say that, nobody can do that, and nobody may see, taste, or touch that. Whereas the Constitution says, “Go ahead, it’s a free country.” Then again, Professor Turley might just be wondering when the last time anyone actually heard that phrase was.
...There just ought to be a law...
Works Cited
Madison, James. “Property” National Gazette 29 March 1792
Duke University. 2 Apr. 2007
Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc. 2002
Originally published, London: J.W. Parker 1859
Turley, Jonathan. “Justice? What a Joke.” USA Today 27 Mar. 2007: 21A
Warner, William B. “Print on the Market and the Ideal of Public Culture” 9Aug99. University of
California Santa Barbara English Department. 28 Mar. 2007:
Over 200 years ago a group of men, who had just rid themselves of over burdensome laws, decided there ought to be a law about “there ought to be a law”. Their solution was the U.S. Constitution and its Amendments, better know as the Bill of Rights. Most people have a misconception of what it is; a majority thinks it gives them their rights. In actuality those rights were already theirs. The Constitution, unlike all other laws does not prohibit, curtail, or manage a citizen’s acts, but rather it prohibits prohibiting, curtails curtailing, and manages managing that the lawmakers would otherwise do. The Constitution is in fact a law that is not a law.
In the Constitution’s First Amendment it says, “Congress shall make no laws” about five things, one of which is restricting the citizens’ right to peaceably assemble. The populace may come together to protest or applaud anything they feel is wrong or right with the country. According to the Constitution the government can not curtail this right, though at times it tries. This is the one instance where groups of citizens emulate the founders the most, by a mass act of civil disobedience, ignoring the authority's attempt to suppress them. As the saying goes, “If citizens ask for the government’s permission to protest, they deserve to be told no.”
In another area, the Constitution forbids authorities from entering or taking property without due process of the law. Specifically the Fourth Amendment which says a citizen can tell the authorities that he or she does not consent to having his or her property searched; along with Fifth Amendment which says the authorities can not hold a citizen without just cause or deprive him or her of his or her life, liberty or property without due process. These two corner stones curtail the abuse of search and seizure. Most laws dealing with property try to give the authorities the power over it, such as the search and seizure laws outlined in the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act. These laws give police the ability to take property, not only, when an actual crime has been committed, but also when there is only a suspicion of one. James Madison in “Property” said, that where “excess of power prevails” an individual’s property whether body, thought, or physical would not be secure (1). This is why the Founders tried to make it virtually impossible for government to enter a citizen’s home or other property and seize anything without proof. These two Constitutional Amendments limit the authority’s ability to take property away.
Then there are the laws forbidding the verbal or written expression of particular ideas. The reasoning in most cases is to protect the populace against hate, prejudices or lesser untruths. The Constitution, again the First Amendment, forbids the limiting of individuals’ expression of ideas, whether truth or not. Ironically, the laws aimed at protecting the truth actually weaken it, and allow untruths to go unchallenged; the very opposite of its intentions. A nineteenth century philosopher and economist, John Stuart Mill, suggested as much; when a perceived idea that is commonly considered true, is shown through reasoning to be false, all of mankind benefits from “exchanging error for truth”. On the other hand, when an individual’s belief is exposed as being false through the open exchange of that same reasoning, he gains truth (14). The restrictive law’s aim is to protect but fails to do that, yet the Constitution disregarding the perceived need, not only protects freedom of speech but strengthens that which the law failed too.
Another way the Constitution can be summed up is by what Professor William Warner, Chair of the University of California’s Santa Barbara English Department wrote, “this ‘right’ is not won through laws…but through a law against laws” (3). Although Professor Warner is speaking specifically about freedom of speech, the same can be said of the whole Bill of Rights. Each amendment is a “law against laws”. This concept is the complete opposite of the purpose of laws Rather than forbidding or dictating conduct it is inviting the free expression of it.
Though the U.S. Constitution is a law or more specifically, the supreme law of the land, it is the facilitator of freedom. Unlike other laws that are the oppressors of individual thought and expression it is their champion. The law says nobody can say that, nobody can do that, and nobody may see, taste, or touch that. Whereas the Constitution says, “Go ahead, it’s a free country.” Then again, Professor Turley might just be wondering when the last time anyone actually heard that phrase was.
...There just ought to be a law...
Works Cited
Madison, James. “Property” National Gazette 29 March 1792
Duke University. 2 Apr. 2007
Mill, John Stuart. On Liberty. Mineola, NY: Dover Publications, Inc. 2002
Originally published, London: J.W. Parker 1859
Turley, Jonathan. “Justice? What a Joke.” USA Today 27 Mar. 2007: 21A
Warner, William B. “Print on the Market and the Ideal of Public Culture” 9Aug99. University of
California Santa Barbara English Department. 28 Mar. 2007:
Thursday, February 01, 2007
An Observation from Curious George
Recently I had a class assignment to find a specific edition of a nameless business weekly. Unknown to me, it hadn’t hit the stand yet, needless to say after several stores, Tops, Wegmans, Walmart, Target, and a few others I gave up. At the last store though, frustration building and mumbling to myself, I noticed a pattern; there were only a few business and finance magazines on the shelf, compared to any other topic.
I started looking at the bulk of the magazines by topic. I didn’t do any real count but there were more fashion, and high end luxury magazines then any others, will accept maybe the numerous auto mags, though most of the cars on the covers were luxuries. There were women magazines with articles like, “How to make your man beg” or “Secrets your lover wants you to know”, ironic that these magazines started because of and during the women’s liberation movement. Most had one thing in common; the items were beyond the reach of the average joe, including the ways to “make your man beg”.
What came to me, not in a midsummer nights dream, was that the one topic that creates the possibility of acquiring these luxuries is business and wealth, yet those are the two types of magazines in the shortest supply on the racks. Now the stores only sell what the consumer wants, that in it’s self is telling, but I’m curious to the ratio in “rich” areas. I’d be willing to wager that there are almost as many business/wealth magazines as the other kinds.
I’m not saying there is any thing wrong with this, I just found it interesting, in a “curious” kind of way. Maybe it’s just a consequence of being named George.
I started looking at the bulk of the magazines by topic. I didn’t do any real count but there were more fashion, and high end luxury magazines then any others, will accept maybe the numerous auto mags, though most of the cars on the covers were luxuries. There were women magazines with articles like, “How to make your man beg” or “Secrets your lover wants you to know”, ironic that these magazines started because of and during the women’s liberation movement. Most had one thing in common; the items were beyond the reach of the average joe, including the ways to “make your man beg”.
What came to me, not in a midsummer nights dream, was that the one topic that creates the possibility of acquiring these luxuries is business and wealth, yet those are the two types of magazines in the shortest supply on the racks. Now the stores only sell what the consumer wants, that in it’s self is telling, but I’m curious to the ratio in “rich” areas. I’d be willing to wager that there are almost as many business/wealth magazines as the other kinds.
I’m not saying there is any thing wrong with this, I just found it interesting, in a “curious” kind of way. Maybe it’s just a consequence of being named George.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)