Is the United States going into a new era of slavery, and dragging the world along in its wake? A question such as this seems ludicrous at first glance, not worthy of a second thought, but.. wait. What is slavery anyway?
International law defines slavery as any practice by which a person exercises any or all of the powers of ownership over any other person. Those powers of ownership, in the legal realm, are powers of dominion and control, powers of alienation (as the legal term of transfer), lease, lien, and severance.
But how does this affect our understanding of slavery? Severance is the power to remove from the property parts of that real property (such as a tree, or rock thereupon) and transfer ownership in full or part to that part of real property. Lien is the ability to transfer the use or nominal control of a property for a fee paid to the owner, with the understanding that failure to pay that fee results in the return of that property to the owner. Alienation is an absolute transference of the property (to alienate or make alien to the original owner) and placing all such property rights in another. Dominion is absolute control over the property, the ability to do whatever one might wish with it. Control is part of that dominion, an exercise of the power of dominion, rather than its mere presence.
These things all are keys to property. They are the fundamental powers involved in all legal property litigation in the United States. One exercises dominion and control by refusing the use of one's property to another, or by allowing it with a simple or complex fee, or contractual obligation. Some properties, however, are considered inalienable, i.e. the possessor has no property rights allowing that transfer of property. These properties are held in trust, or have been vested in such a way that the powers to transferal are also specifically denied in the absolute property grant.
One of the tenets of real property, and personal property, is that once an absolute investiture of property is granted, no subsequent legislation, or court case may take it away. Those absolute investitures are mandated by both common law, criminal law, and civil law as being untouchable by later decisions, save for fraud, coercion, or actual malice in such a transfer.
Such were the investitures of our recognized, legal, civil, and human rights in the United States. They were not created by the constitution, as they existed, arguably, as a recognized legal property before it. These rights, these 'inalienable' rights, were invested absolutely in each individual as a part of the protected property established before that constitutional contract, and recognized therein as being untouchable by our legislatures.
But what does this have to do with slavery either? There is something about property that we all recognize, but rarely think about consciously. When we own property, we have to have proof that we own it. In the old days, they marked property with owner's marks, brands, stained with ink, burned with acid or etched into steel or flesh. Today, we mark our properties with registries, numbers and information unique to the property.
It is via those registration marks that we establish our dominion, control, and proprietor's right to that property. If our vehicles' VIN number does not match the information within our title to the property, we cannot exercise that dominion and control over that vehicle within a court of law, and no court of law will accede to our property interest, no matter how well vested, within it.
We do the same, however, with people. Just as we branded them, in the past, we brand them today, with registries, with numbers, allowing others to exercise dominion and control over their lives. With blandishments, apparently reasonable and proper, we tend to look away as more and more of our lives are signed over to others. We allow people to rent driver's licenses, for a period dependent upon the state, which establish our legal identity in the land. We register ourselves with numbers, for instance, our 'social security' number, unique to us, and an identifying mark allowing others to garnish the fruits of our labors, and the sweat off our brows, and in our name, to place us in debt and tax us.
We register our dogs, our cars, and our property, not our people. We place liens on property, not on people. We register things... not people. How can something be civil, and regulatory, creating a registry that does not affect the transfer of a tangible good or property, but that of an intangible? The intangible in question is life itself. How can we allow others to exercise that dominion and control over ourselves, our children, our children's children, and in the name of 'prosperity' or 'safety' or anything else, exercise that dominion and control, that assize of property gains, the registration that turns us into chattel?
But yet, we can look over, and say 'At least I don't have it as bad as the felon/sex offender/murderer'. But do we? We can, at this very date, have our properties seized on any pretense, have our homes, our bank accounts, our monies, and all real property within the United States seized with no recompense, no remuneration, and no consideration by people that do not answer to our will. Our position is precarious, inherently insecure, and the government claims the power to remove not only our ability to live, but our ability to complain, and even our ability to resist their actions.
In 1650, the first step in disarming the British was not to ban weapons for the purpose of protecting the Crown, but to ban them for the purpose of protecting the game and reducing crime. Today, the only people who may legally own arms in Britain are the British Army and security forces. They, however, have no duty to the individual taxpayer or individual safety, but to some intangible higher law.
We register the whereabouts of our criminals and our citizens, create databases to track them, then regulate further upon what we discover. The term 'to regulate' has become synonymous with 'to ban or control', but it was not always thus. It was originally 'to make operate smoothly' 'to make hit the aim point' or 'to operate within specified bounds'. To regulate a clock, you'd shave minute amounts from the pendulum, to alter the time required in its swing until it matched a reference point. To regulate a rifle, you'd test it to ensure its point of aim, firing, and such were all reliable. One regulated by rules, but no such rule had any punishment other than fine and public censure. It was a remedial system, not a punitive one.
But yet, we claim the power to imprison now with our regulation, the power to seize intangible properties immutably vested in the people, the protected property interest in their own self-defense, their lives, and even in property itself.
Can you claim not to be a slave, if they can come, without discussion, and dictate to you in your own home how you shall live? If they can tell you what you must eat, how much exercise you must do, are you still free? If they can tell you how you must speak, how you must raise your biological children, determine how much you must pay to exercise any such inalienable property right, who owns you?
Is it not an exercise of dominion and control to force a person into a 'contractual' agreement from which they cannot extricate themselves, and could not refuse to sign without facing jail terms? Is it a power of free agency and will to be told how one must pray, or where? Is it not an exercise of dominion and control to force a person, against their own will, interests, and at the cost of their own life to exposed themselves to ruin?
And is it not an exercise of dominion, and control, of the powers of ownership to declare that they must work, and exercise all the duties of a citizen, but have none of the rights of citizenship, or even human rights? Is it not an exercise in disposition to declare that they have no recourse for such a 'civil' act? Is it not an exercise in the power of severance to declare that the properties inherent in the person are no longer their own, but to be sold for the benefit of others?
Where are registries taking us, as a nation, and as a world, and is such a world truly one that we would wish to live in?
Not one I'd wish to live in, even spoken as a self-proclaimed, and recognized total idiot.
Read more!
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
Our secret prison
We are all prisoners. All of us, every last one, lives in a world where our prison walls are not made of concrete and stone, not of cold steel and glass, but of barriers built in the human society itself.
These barriers are barriers of fear, of anger, of hatred, of derision and deception, wrought and worked in the fires of political expedience and the pursuit of power. Divisions, as always, are used to force separation, and thus remove cooperation.
We humans are a divisive lot, faction-filled and apparently programmed at the genetic level to compete, to find advantages for ourselves, and disadvantages for those we dislike. What is the truth? Among all the races, among all the factions of humanity, at the core of what makes us human, we are all the same. We are born, we live, we bleed, and ultimately we die. It is the nature of things, and of humanity.
When we are young, we are filled with wonder, and the world is full of flowers, and even the clouds and heat-haze of the roads reaches into our mind and pulls forth the imagination. When young, we do not hate, we do not fear, unless we are taught to do so, and be so. When brought up together, unless someone tells us it is 'wrong' to be different, we treat each other the same. We, however, seek an advantage, and in our equality, the greatest advantage is found when we separate others from us, and from their own. Because they are different they may be singled out, forced out, isolated, and targeted. They, for whatever reason, become something alien, something depersonalized and dehumanized, upon which our anger for our own perceived shortcomings boils forth.
When we hate, we focus on that which we see is not like ourselves, but the true measure of our anger is for that which we see in ourselves, and reject. We step out, reach out, and see a world that is so very full of temptation, of shame, of wants and desires, jealousy and lust, and because we sublimate them, hide them, and deny them, we attack, so often, the people that hold the very hidden desires that we cannot admit, not even to ourselves.
The greatest advantages one can place is via the power of the law, attempting to create advantages by force and coercion. Sometimes, however, it is more expedient to simply see to it that there is a disadvantage laid upon the back of a group. This process was supposed to be eliminated by the nature of general government, and the common law. The Jim Crow laws of the south, the gerrymandering, the outlawing of firearms for unpopular classes, poll taxes, literacy tests, and so many other things were designed, not to simply prevent certain classes from voting, but to prevent them from being seen as human. But.. were they not human? I believe that they can be argued to be nothing else.
As we tried to move from the hatred of people due to skin color (without regard to any 'color' of race) there were those who recognized a great deal of power in that hatred. By creating fear, they could sway crowds, incite people into the mass mind, the mob mind, where their individuality and critical thought ceased. However, the old methods of separation were slipping. What, then, was the answer?
The power was recreated fairly simply, creating classes that had labels that could not be seen in the skin, could not be understood, and that seemed so utterly alien that the political process could declare them to be monsters. They created labels, held them up to society as monsters, then let the old inner demons run forth. But how much more dangerous is a label to be feared that can be applied to anyone, at any time, that requires no proof of veracity, no evidence, just a simple allegation? A nebulous label which you can apply to anyone, quashing their rights.
I may be a total idiot... but even I can see the terrain that path leads through. We may be prisoners, but we don't need to make every mile... the Green Mile.
Read more!
These barriers are barriers of fear, of anger, of hatred, of derision and deception, wrought and worked in the fires of political expedience and the pursuit of power. Divisions, as always, are used to force separation, and thus remove cooperation.
We humans are a divisive lot, faction-filled and apparently programmed at the genetic level to compete, to find advantages for ourselves, and disadvantages for those we dislike. What is the truth? Among all the races, among all the factions of humanity, at the core of what makes us human, we are all the same. We are born, we live, we bleed, and ultimately we die. It is the nature of things, and of humanity.
When we are young, we are filled with wonder, and the world is full of flowers, and even the clouds and heat-haze of the roads reaches into our mind and pulls forth the imagination. When young, we do not hate, we do not fear, unless we are taught to do so, and be so. When brought up together, unless someone tells us it is 'wrong' to be different, we treat each other the same. We, however, seek an advantage, and in our equality, the greatest advantage is found when we separate others from us, and from their own. Because they are different they may be singled out, forced out, isolated, and targeted. They, for whatever reason, become something alien, something depersonalized and dehumanized, upon which our anger for our own perceived shortcomings boils forth.
When we hate, we focus on that which we see is not like ourselves, but the true measure of our anger is for that which we see in ourselves, and reject. We step out, reach out, and see a world that is so very full of temptation, of shame, of wants and desires, jealousy and lust, and because we sublimate them, hide them, and deny them, we attack, so often, the people that hold the very hidden desires that we cannot admit, not even to ourselves.
The greatest advantages one can place is via the power of the law, attempting to create advantages by force and coercion. Sometimes, however, it is more expedient to simply see to it that there is a disadvantage laid upon the back of a group. This process was supposed to be eliminated by the nature of general government, and the common law. The Jim Crow laws of the south, the gerrymandering, the outlawing of firearms for unpopular classes, poll taxes, literacy tests, and so many other things were designed, not to simply prevent certain classes from voting, but to prevent them from being seen as human. But.. were they not human? I believe that they can be argued to be nothing else.
As we tried to move from the hatred of people due to skin color (without regard to any 'color' of race) there were those who recognized a great deal of power in that hatred. By creating fear, they could sway crowds, incite people into the mass mind, the mob mind, where their individuality and critical thought ceased. However, the old methods of separation were slipping. What, then, was the answer?
The power was recreated fairly simply, creating classes that had labels that could not be seen in the skin, could not be understood, and that seemed so utterly alien that the political process could declare them to be monsters. They created labels, held them up to society as monsters, then let the old inner demons run forth. But how much more dangerous is a label to be feared that can be applied to anyone, at any time, that requires no proof of veracity, no evidence, just a simple allegation? A nebulous label which you can apply to anyone, quashing their rights.
I may be a total idiot... but even I can see the terrain that path leads through. We may be prisoners, but we don't need to make every mile... the Green Mile.
Read more!
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Why is there so much crime? Why are so many poor?
Have you ever wondered what is happening in our nation? Why are our people so desperate? Why is there so much hunger, so much need, so much crime, so much want? We reach out and find ourselves failing, taking new jobs, working harder, faster, longer, and sacrificing more and more in a world that seems to care nothing at all if we exist, so long as we are paying our taxes.
The answer to this question is manifold, the taxes taking a quarter of our income don't help, but the greater answer, the answer that explains why many households try to hold down two jobs for each parent, is a bit more subtle, more insidious, and far more planned.
Each time we borrow money, and promise to repay there are several things going on. That promise to repay becomes a debt, an income owed to the bank which they can work with. However, the interest on that loan has to come from somewhere, so it comes from your work.
Easy credit, no money down, no payments for six months, and we sell our souls, our bodies, and the future of our children. It's not the taxes that make us poor, it's the debt. The taxes are just another manifestation of that debt owed by our government.
Benjamin Franklin said it the best, really.
I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom. And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers. Our landholders, too, like theirs, retaining indeed the title and stewardship of estates called theirs, but held really in trust for the treasury, must wander, like theirs, in foreign countries, and be contented with penury, obscurity, exile, and the glory of the nation. This example reads to us the salutary lesson, that private fortunes are destroyed by public as well as by private extravagance. And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, and to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering. Then begins, indeed, the bellum omnium in omnia, which some philosophers observing to be so general in this world, have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man. And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.
Letter To Samuel Kercheval, Monticello, July 12, 1816
What we often don't see about debt is its real cost. We pay more and more until we must depend on that debt to survive, depend on the sufferance of banks, and credit, and no longer are we the masters of our own destinies. They manipulate us so we cannot even get jobs without credit checks, we cannot buy vehicles via cash anymore, but only via credit; and more, and more we find ourselves pinching pennies every month, dealing with the luxuries that cost us our peace of mind and our security in our property.
Each of us are laid down in slavery from the moment of our birth, to the moment of our death. The only way out of this slavery is to rebel, but we dare not? After all, who would DARE to go against those who offer us seeming riches, free money, convenience; but who would see what we are becoming?
We no longer work to put back money for the future. Futurity, after all, knows nothing of our assets, but only our debts. And the harder we work to try to pay off those debts, at a certain point, it becomes more and more obvious what has happened, and simply to maintain the debt at a minimum level, we let it stretch out into eternity, forever growing, forever becoming more and more massive until it crushes us and we lose everything: except the debt.
Oh yes, it's a cunning and insidious thing. Our creditors, our jailors, and our slavemasters know very well what they are doing. A people without the power of credit has disarmed themselves of a weapon against those who have such. And more and more, we're inundated with the messages of its convenience.
But what happens when the debt is called due? We lose everything we used as collateral, and now they propose, once again, debtor's prisons to 'work off' the debt. We've learned nothing... and the old masters are once again the new masters...
And slavery and tyranny are here, and to maintain it, they must disarm us. And what, I might ask, is the best way to disarm us? The plan is simple. First, arrange it so the courts only hear lawyers, not the people themselves. Next, arrange it so those very lawyers are the only people raised up to the seats of government. Then, establish precedents allowing single persons, or groups of persons to be disarmed, for the public good. Expand infinitely.
If you can get away with it, also expand other classes with living limitations, remove voting rights, and in general, make it a living hell for anyone ever convicted of a crime. Remove the protections of the constitution wherever you can extort, coerce, or flat out defraud a way around it.
And make damn sure that debt is easy to get into... but almost impossible to escape. To maintain high crime levels, you need high debt levels. The more money comes out of each person in interest payments, the less money can actually be used for their own support, and so it too often is supplemented in ways that are outside the law. This continues your excuse for higher taxes for protection, as well as your ability to clamor for new laws against the class of 'criminals.'
Never mind what actual recidivism rates are, or what kind of crime it is, or even the judgment of the court and jury. That doesn't matter, what matters is the illusion of safety.
As of this moment, and for the past many decades, you have no right to police protection. I could quote many cases, but the simplest explanation is a link.
http://hematite.com/dragon/policeprot.html
http://psacake.com/dial_911.asp
Given the nature of the actions taken by the police force, of late, the rising police brutality and the increasing militarization and use of SWAT teams, can we really affford to ignore that lack of protection? And who protects us from them?
Perhaps the best question, in this total idiot's mind, is: Why is their right to self-protect greater than our right to self-protect, and if we have no longer any right to self-protect, why is there no protected property interest in being protected?
The argument that must be made in the favor of police is simply that police cannot be everywhere at once, and more than that, have no power of prescience to prevent crime. They are a reactive force, and their charter maintains reactivity due to the nature of proactive police work. Proactive work has been, and nearly always becomes the work of tyrants.
Who do the police serve? They claim 'to serve and protect', but to protect who? The easy answer is the society, but historic reference will show that such police forces grew out of the Irish poll guards, the firemen, and the political bosses. We might pay the taxes to preserve that police force, and they are necessary to the rule of law, but they are certainly not there to protect any individual, or even any group of individuals. They are paid mostly through the auspices of the government, who has many lobbying groups by those very people that assist in the creation of debt, and further, assist in the creation, maintenance, and day to day running of the ever-growing prison system, and are paid a great deal in both political favors and monetary bonuses for ensuring that those prisons remain full.
So who would believe that the government, in order to make police work easier, might remove more of your rights, offering you 'increased safety' but no protection at all?
Only a total idiot...
Read more!
The answer to this question is manifold, the taxes taking a quarter of our income don't help, but the greater answer, the answer that explains why many households try to hold down two jobs for each parent, is a bit more subtle, more insidious, and far more planned.
Each time we borrow money, and promise to repay there are several things going on. That promise to repay becomes a debt, an income owed to the bank which they can work with. However, the interest on that loan has to come from somewhere, so it comes from your work.
Easy credit, no money down, no payments for six months, and we sell our souls, our bodies, and the future of our children. It's not the taxes that make us poor, it's the debt. The taxes are just another manifestation of that debt owed by our government.
Benjamin Franklin said it the best, really.
I am not among those who fear the people. They, and not the rich, are our dependence for continued freedom. And to preserve their independence, we must not let our rulers load us with perpetual debt. We must make our election between economy and liberty, or profusion and servitude. If we run into such debts, as that we must be taxed in our meat and in our drink, in our necessaries and our comforts, in our labors and our amusements, for our callings and our creeds, as the people of England are, our people, like them, must come to labor sixteen hours in the twenty-four, give the earnings of fifteen of these to the government for their debts and daily expenses; and the sixteenth being insufficient to afford us bread, we must live, as they now do, on oatmeal and potatoes; have no time to think, no means of calling the mismanagers to account; but be glad to obtain subsistence by hiring ourselves to rivet their chains on the necks of our fellow-sufferers. Our landholders, too, like theirs, retaining indeed the title and stewardship of estates called theirs, but held really in trust for the treasury, must wander, like theirs, in foreign countries, and be contented with penury, obscurity, exile, and the glory of the nation. This example reads to us the salutary lesson, that private fortunes are destroyed by public as well as by private extravagance. And this is the tendency of all human governments. A departure from principle in one instance becomes a precedent for a second; that second for a third; and so on, till the bulk of the society is reduced to be mere automatons of misery, and to have no sensibilities left but for sinning and suffering. Then begins, indeed, the bellum omnium in omnia, which some philosophers observing to be so general in this world, have mistaken it for the natural, instead of the abusive state of man. And the fore horse of this frightful team is public debt. Taxation follows that, and in its train wretchedness and oppression.
Letter To Samuel Kercheval, Monticello, July 12, 1816
What we often don't see about debt is its real cost. We pay more and more until we must depend on that debt to survive, depend on the sufferance of banks, and credit, and no longer are we the masters of our own destinies. They manipulate us so we cannot even get jobs without credit checks, we cannot buy vehicles via cash anymore, but only via credit; and more, and more we find ourselves pinching pennies every month, dealing with the luxuries that cost us our peace of mind and our security in our property.
Each of us are laid down in slavery from the moment of our birth, to the moment of our death. The only way out of this slavery is to rebel, but we dare not? After all, who would DARE to go against those who offer us seeming riches, free money, convenience; but who would see what we are becoming?
We no longer work to put back money for the future. Futurity, after all, knows nothing of our assets, but only our debts. And the harder we work to try to pay off those debts, at a certain point, it becomes more and more obvious what has happened, and simply to maintain the debt at a minimum level, we let it stretch out into eternity, forever growing, forever becoming more and more massive until it crushes us and we lose everything: except the debt.
Oh yes, it's a cunning and insidious thing. Our creditors, our jailors, and our slavemasters know very well what they are doing. A people without the power of credit has disarmed themselves of a weapon against those who have such. And more and more, we're inundated with the messages of its convenience.
But what happens when the debt is called due? We lose everything we used as collateral, and now they propose, once again, debtor's prisons to 'work off' the debt. We've learned nothing... and the old masters are once again the new masters...
And slavery and tyranny are here, and to maintain it, they must disarm us. And what, I might ask, is the best way to disarm us? The plan is simple. First, arrange it so the courts only hear lawyers, not the people themselves. Next, arrange it so those very lawyers are the only people raised up to the seats of government. Then, establish precedents allowing single persons, or groups of persons to be disarmed, for the public good. Expand infinitely.
If you can get away with it, also expand other classes with living limitations, remove voting rights, and in general, make it a living hell for anyone ever convicted of a crime. Remove the protections of the constitution wherever you can extort, coerce, or flat out defraud a way around it.
And make damn sure that debt is easy to get into... but almost impossible to escape. To maintain high crime levels, you need high debt levels. The more money comes out of each person in interest payments, the less money can actually be used for their own support, and so it too often is supplemented in ways that are outside the law. This continues your excuse for higher taxes for protection, as well as your ability to clamor for new laws against the class of 'criminals.'
Never mind what actual recidivism rates are, or what kind of crime it is, or even the judgment of the court and jury. That doesn't matter, what matters is the illusion of safety.
As of this moment, and for the past many decades, you have no right to police protection. I could quote many cases, but the simplest explanation is a link.
http://hematite.com/dragon/policeprot.html
http://psacake.com/dial_911.asp
Given the nature of the actions taken by the police force, of late, the rising police brutality and the increasing militarization and use of SWAT teams, can we really affford to ignore that lack of protection? And who protects us from them?
Perhaps the best question, in this total idiot's mind, is: Why is their right to self-protect greater than our right to self-protect, and if we have no longer any right to self-protect, why is there no protected property interest in being protected?
The argument that must be made in the favor of police is simply that police cannot be everywhere at once, and more than that, have no power of prescience to prevent crime. They are a reactive force, and their charter maintains reactivity due to the nature of proactive police work. Proactive work has been, and nearly always becomes the work of tyrants.
Who do the police serve? They claim 'to serve and protect', but to protect who? The easy answer is the society, but historic reference will show that such police forces grew out of the Irish poll guards, the firemen, and the political bosses. We might pay the taxes to preserve that police force, and they are necessary to the rule of law, but they are certainly not there to protect any individual, or even any group of individuals. They are paid mostly through the auspices of the government, who has many lobbying groups by those very people that assist in the creation of debt, and further, assist in the creation, maintenance, and day to day running of the ever-growing prison system, and are paid a great deal in both political favors and monetary bonuses for ensuring that those prisons remain full.
So who would believe that the government, in order to make police work easier, might remove more of your rights, offering you 'increased safety' but no protection at all?
Only a total idiot...
Read more!
Saturday, July 25, 2009
The real reason for racism.
We stand in a crossroads, a crux point, where every move has consequences that trip us further down paths out of our control, yet we must move. We see hatred and intolerance everywhere we look, and there seems no end to it. We talk about how we must control x, y, or z, then complain about how our lives grow emptier of value, bereft of purpose, and how we've lost our way in an uncaring world.
We talk about how this group or that group ought to be restrained in the interests of the greater good, but too often we mean 'because they aren't like me'. We talk about limiting people's rights to speak about religion, about politics, because it offends us, but it really boils down to 'because they aren't like me'. But each time we limit a class of persons, we're actually accomplishing nothing toward the works of preserving our own ideals, our own liberties, and the perceived threat of others voting away our rights, our powers, our liberties, becomes far more possible.
For liberty is a living being. When we weaken her, abuse her, she becomes more vulnerable to abuse. When we cut her, she grows weaker, when we sever one part from another, eventually unrecognizeable.
The tools to weaken liberty were set out in many works... from the 'more equal than others' part in Animal Farm, to the discussions of the ubermensch of Hitler. Any time any portion is judged wiser, more capable, more knowing, better, the other will be viewed as less capable, less knowing, more foolish, and worse.
I am a 'conservative', but in the old form. I hope for days that no laws are built on race or separation. But I must ask, however, if it is not equally racist to base ideals that any race is better or more capable in one sphere than another?
Does this not add to separation rather than combination? When we say 'a black man is more capable of empathy than a white', is it not simply another subtle form of racism? It is based entirely upon race, and therefore highly suspect. Those subtle divisions are what leads us down the road we find ourselves upon; the idea that some people are less worthy than others, less capable, lesser and worse due to an arbitrary status that has no meaning.
There will always be racists, but we equally must look at ourselves. I continually hear people talking about how 'x' is more qualified... due to nothing less than the race, or the gender, or both. How they would make a better decision than 'y' of 'z' gender. My question is why it matters? Is it not another excuse to continue racism and gender issues in the guise of equality? Is it not racism to judge, for or against, on the issue of race?
If it is not... then we are no further along than when we started. It is equally racism to look for offense due to race as to give offense due to race. We've become, via the help of others who believe us incapable of decisions about racism, overly sensitive to the subject. We find more and more that we are set up, to try and fail without the 'help' of those who have appointed themselves to help us, and benefit from the positions.
Has racism become an issue that the nation cannot allow to die? Have we implemented policies that continue the segregation, even as we claim to seek to end it? Do our policies encourage weakness and dependency upon outside sources, upon laws, rather than upon self-control, self-actualization, and self-realization? Does anyone tell us that we are too weak to continue the fight? If so, then certainly they are using racism to control you. The truth is, we are all human beings, regardless of race, regardless of gender, without regard for sexuality, for religious preference. We all have our frailties, our failings, and we all have a great deal of power over ourselves and our world.
And we all have the ability to fight those who would keep us down, those who would say to you; “Don't be like the other side. Don't get an education, that's their way. Don't better yourselves. We'll take care of you.” What hubris! What gall! Why should any people be subjugated by their own, held helpless in their circumstances then told it's the 'other side' that keeps them there? We keep getting told that it's a democracy, and that we fight to preserve democracy or institute it overseas. It was, however, never intended to be a true democracy, but a republic of limited powers, with checks and balances, including checks and balances to prevent one part of the people from enslaving the others with 'good intentions'.
And yet today, racism still lives, and slavery still thrives. Not the slavery of the plantation, or the whips and chains, but slavery of the heart, subjugation of the will, and education, and reality. And it is accomplished, not by masters of the plantation, but those who seek to 'protect', without ever allowing us to realize that there is more to protection than allowing someone else to be your champion. The true champion teaches you to protect yourselves, teaches you to channel that moral outrage into building bridges, not tearing them down. The true champion teaches you to become more than you are, and be a power in the world not because of your race, but because of who you are inside.
Judged by the content of your character, not the color of your skin. Judged by your actions, your mind, your spirit, not by the melatonin or lack thereof. We are not blind to race... but only blind to the powers within ourselves, and those who seek to maintain us as a willing electorate by trying to ensure that the 'other side' has no foothold.
How often does crime become a racial issue? How often do we see juries selected not for their knowledge or discernment, but because of their race, and cases challenged not because of the facts or procedure, but the race of the prosecutor, jury, and judge? Does it not make more sense, if a judge or prosecutor are influenced by issues of race to ensure that they do not retain the office? Are there not recourses to misdirection and malfeasance?
But yet politicians would have us believe that the only route is new laws to protect one class of citizen from another. We already have laws dealing with 'racial issues'. Perhaps a better route would be allowing us, and our 'other side' to come to grips with our differences, and to recognize our similarities. But something in us cries out after all the hatred, “We have nothing in common with them!” “Why should we embrace them when they have done this to us?” Us versus them. To use an old term 'black vs white', and absolutism. So long as either side clings to the paradigm that the other side is bad, evil, and attacking them, there can be no peace. So long as there are sides, there will be war. And so long as we embrace stereotypes, they will continue to exist, as badges of honor, or badges of shame, and those with power will continue using it for the ends of power.
Even a total idiot can see that.
Read more!
We talk about how this group or that group ought to be restrained in the interests of the greater good, but too often we mean 'because they aren't like me'. We talk about limiting people's rights to speak about religion, about politics, because it offends us, but it really boils down to 'because they aren't like me'. But each time we limit a class of persons, we're actually accomplishing nothing toward the works of preserving our own ideals, our own liberties, and the perceived threat of others voting away our rights, our powers, our liberties, becomes far more possible.
For liberty is a living being. When we weaken her, abuse her, she becomes more vulnerable to abuse. When we cut her, she grows weaker, when we sever one part from another, eventually unrecognizeable.
The tools to weaken liberty were set out in many works... from the 'more equal than others' part in Animal Farm, to the discussions of the ubermensch of Hitler. Any time any portion is judged wiser, more capable, more knowing, better, the other will be viewed as less capable, less knowing, more foolish, and worse.
I am a 'conservative', but in the old form. I hope for days that no laws are built on race or separation. But I must ask, however, if it is not equally racist to base ideals that any race is better or more capable in one sphere than another?
Does this not add to separation rather than combination? When we say 'a black man is more capable of empathy than a white', is it not simply another subtle form of racism? It is based entirely upon race, and therefore highly suspect. Those subtle divisions are what leads us down the road we find ourselves upon; the idea that some people are less worthy than others, less capable, lesser and worse due to an arbitrary status that has no meaning.
There will always be racists, but we equally must look at ourselves. I continually hear people talking about how 'x' is more qualified... due to nothing less than the race, or the gender, or both. How they would make a better decision than 'y' of 'z' gender. My question is why it matters? Is it not another excuse to continue racism and gender issues in the guise of equality? Is it not racism to judge, for or against, on the issue of race?
If it is not... then we are no further along than when we started. It is equally racism to look for offense due to race as to give offense due to race. We've become, via the help of others who believe us incapable of decisions about racism, overly sensitive to the subject. We find more and more that we are set up, to try and fail without the 'help' of those who have appointed themselves to help us, and benefit from the positions.
Has racism become an issue that the nation cannot allow to die? Have we implemented policies that continue the segregation, even as we claim to seek to end it? Do our policies encourage weakness and dependency upon outside sources, upon laws, rather than upon self-control, self-actualization, and self-realization? Does anyone tell us that we are too weak to continue the fight? If so, then certainly they are using racism to control you. The truth is, we are all human beings, regardless of race, regardless of gender, without regard for sexuality, for religious preference. We all have our frailties, our failings, and we all have a great deal of power over ourselves and our world.
And we all have the ability to fight those who would keep us down, those who would say to you; “Don't be like the other side. Don't get an education, that's their way. Don't better yourselves. We'll take care of you.” What hubris! What gall! Why should any people be subjugated by their own, held helpless in their circumstances then told it's the 'other side' that keeps them there? We keep getting told that it's a democracy, and that we fight to preserve democracy or institute it overseas. It was, however, never intended to be a true democracy, but a republic of limited powers, with checks and balances, including checks and balances to prevent one part of the people from enslaving the others with 'good intentions'.
And yet today, racism still lives, and slavery still thrives. Not the slavery of the plantation, or the whips and chains, but slavery of the heart, subjugation of the will, and education, and reality. And it is accomplished, not by masters of the plantation, but those who seek to 'protect', without ever allowing us to realize that there is more to protection than allowing someone else to be your champion. The true champion teaches you to protect yourselves, teaches you to channel that moral outrage into building bridges, not tearing them down. The true champion teaches you to become more than you are, and be a power in the world not because of your race, but because of who you are inside.
Judged by the content of your character, not the color of your skin. Judged by your actions, your mind, your spirit, not by the melatonin or lack thereof. We are not blind to race... but only blind to the powers within ourselves, and those who seek to maintain us as a willing electorate by trying to ensure that the 'other side' has no foothold.
How often does crime become a racial issue? How often do we see juries selected not for their knowledge or discernment, but because of their race, and cases challenged not because of the facts or procedure, but the race of the prosecutor, jury, and judge? Does it not make more sense, if a judge or prosecutor are influenced by issues of race to ensure that they do not retain the office? Are there not recourses to misdirection and malfeasance?
But yet politicians would have us believe that the only route is new laws to protect one class of citizen from another. We already have laws dealing with 'racial issues'. Perhaps a better route would be allowing us, and our 'other side' to come to grips with our differences, and to recognize our similarities. But something in us cries out after all the hatred, “We have nothing in common with them!” “Why should we embrace them when they have done this to us?” Us versus them. To use an old term 'black vs white', and absolutism. So long as either side clings to the paradigm that the other side is bad, evil, and attacking them, there can be no peace. So long as there are sides, there will be war. And so long as we embrace stereotypes, they will continue to exist, as badges of honor, or badges of shame, and those with power will continue using it for the ends of power.
Even a total idiot can see that.
Read more!
Friday, July 10, 2009
Fraus omnia vitiate
It's an old maxim that fraud vitiates anything it touches, and in the nature of such laws, even laws are subject to its hold. This posting today is about the Common Law, the law common to all, and its nature and substance. I pray you will be patient with me, as the archaic language has infected my poor, idiotic brain, and thus, I also hope, you can understand that which I wish to convey.
Fraus omnia vitiate. Fraud vitiates everything it touches. When fraud is involved in civil contract or in the establishment of a law, all such laws or contracts are unraveled, made into nothing at all. If fraud can be proven, such laws by their natures could not exist, for they were created under both a false pretense, as well as created with understanding and assent on false pretenses.
There is also an old maxim of the republican form of government (quite distinct from the pretended 'republican' party.) Potestas stricte intepreteur: A power is strictly interpreted. No grey areas, no penumbras, powers themselves must be strictly limited, not vague in any way, shape, or fashion, and wrought in powers granted specifically and explicitly to any organization via the contractual agreements of its incorporation.
Our government, by its nature, is an incorporation. It was given specific powers as a person, so the government could last far longer than the death of any or all of its original founders. It, by itself, was given no rights, but only powers to be wielded and blocked from the assumption of certain powers, acts, and writs.
This brings us to a second common law statement: In dubiis, non praesumitur pro potentia. In cases of doubt, the presumption is never in favor of a power.
These give rise to specific remedies under the law, where the federal government was Incorporated via the contract of the Constitution, and those remedies were placed within.
In the first part, there is another old aspect of the common law. "qui tam pro domino rege quam pro sic ipso in hoc parte sequitur" He who sues for the king as for himself. We have the authorization under the common law to sue for any specific actions outside the contract. Legal immunity and sovereign immunity does not apply outside the specific powers of the contract, and the states constitutions themselves are legal contracts that instituted and Incorporated the states.
These actions are called a 'Quo warrantio' action: 'By what warrant does the entity place these burdens?' coupled with the closely related common law writ of ultra vires. 'such action is outside of the power granted to the entity'.
In the United states, these writs have been specifically moved to civil law actions, however, they are still applicable to any entity, public or private, including the government itself.
In such case it would be possible to bring an ex relatione suit, or a suit brought by a private party in a qui tam action, against those projectors of ultra vires powers, where quo warrantio has failed.
If these powers were not specifically granted, explicitly granted, and the explanatory documents did not grant them, then such powers are an act of fraud. If they were specifically prohibited, they are something quite more, an act of a highwayman, a thug, and a thief. They are acts of war against our persons, and our property, and our rights, and we are no more bound to them than we are bound to declaim that the sun is made of porridge or the moon is made of apple puree.
Our nation is based upon this old, forgotten, and what they wish us to believe as 'obsolete' common law. This common law, indeed, is the only authorized law within the nation, with all of its idiosyncrasies, and all of its faults. It is part and parcel of the 'republican form of government' that the states were required to guarantee.
This republican form of government acts not only upon the federal government, but the states and the people. There is a separation of powers and specific limitations placed therein, explained within the writings of the federalist papers, and the discussions of the Continental Congress. The powers of the people themselves are limited, to prevent them from establishing tyrannies over minorities. Targeted legislation was prohibited, through the 'attainder clause' of the contract, and reaching back in time to punish someone was limited under the 'ex post facto' clause.
No legislation, according to the founders, could be written that benefited one class at the expense of another, nor that targeted classes of persons in exception to others. All legislation had to be laid down equally, or not at all. As part and parcel of a republican form of government, this was a necessary check and balance against both the government, the people, and enterprising speculators that knew if there was a benefit, or a penalty to any person, then such an imbalance would continue to infinity, ultimately devolving the whole into tyranny or anarchy, both of which the strong prevail and the weak die.
As well, checks and balances are placed against corporations, to prevent monopoly, which is assuredly its own form of tyranny.
The nature of the Constitution of these united states is nothing less than a contract establishing a new entity, incorporating it, and then placing in its hands certain, limited powers, and then very strong Prohibitions and limitations. In that Establishment, the states and people also took upon themselves specific limitations, duties, and powers, in order to prevent tyranny in all of its forms.
All of our rights in the bill of rights were ensured for that end, not established, but ensured. Any attempt at removal of those rights, regulation of those rights, or mutilating the meaning of the words until they bear as little resemblance to the original as spam bears to real meat is an act of war and subjugation, high treason, and fraud.
They do not exist because of the Establishment of the Constitution, they exist in spite of that Establishment, and moreover to resist the powers of that very Establishment and defend that entity at the same time.
Those rights, from the right to free assembly, to freedom of speech, religion, the right to keep and bear, are not created by the government for they pre-existed it. They are created to give you indications when the government is going too far... for those things must fall before full tyranny exists.
And ask yourselves, are you free to speak, or do they attempt to regulate your speech if it offends others? Are you free to assemble, to petition, to have religion, or do they create laws for, and against such? Are you free to believe, to marry, to work as you wish, or do they create benefits for or against such statuses? Are you free to carry a weapon at your side, regardless of its nature, without interference if you are using it peaceably?
Can you stand up and sue the police should they fail to protect you? No...t hey are not there to protect, but to arrest lawbreakers and preserve the public peace.
Your right to keep and bear is the right that keeps all other rights intact. If you have no right to keep and bear, they have taken away the means of protecting your property, from the 'real property' to the immeasurably more valuable 'property in rights' that Madison and Paine spoke of. When you lack the ability to enforce that property right, your property falls, and moreover, so does your liberty and your life.
Those guards are for all, even felons, even those who are unpopular, for it is the government that determines what a felony is, is it not? Perhaps this idiot has had one too many lobotomies, imbibed a few too many insecticides, however, it would seem to me that the governments, state, federal, and local, would be the most likely sources of tyranny. However, they claim the power to establish laws that then remove those rights to resist tyranny, which is its own form of tyranny.
The rule of law must prevail. The law is either limited, or it is unlimited. The Constitution limits it, and to go outside of those limits is to negate both the purpose and function of the Constitution. The law is limited in such that the president cannot assign his powers, or those of the congress, to external persons beyond the control of the very people that gave it to him. Neither can the congress assign legislative powers to the president, nor can the congress assign judiciary powers to the executive branch.
It is our duty, or sovereign duty, our right, our privilege to resist tyranny in all of its forms. Even if we die in such resistance, it is better than the misery granted to all posterity were we not to act.
We are the arbiters, the check and balance against the government, and they seek to disarm us with cunning wiles and making the Constitution vague, in spite of the clarity of language with which it was writ.
There is only one purpose for such: The purpose of tyranny. It's well-founded in the documentation that these very actions, actions taken outside of the powers granted, are acts of war, subjugation, fraud, and slavery.
And this total idiot must ask... what it means if we stand idle.
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Do we gain any security by giving up our powers to those we cannot control? Do we gain any safety, any peace, if our will, our power, and our government all are turned against us?
It's time to bring things back to the Constitution, the intent and purpose thereof, ending tyranny in all of its myriad forms.
Even this total idiot can see that.
Read more!
Fraus omnia vitiate. Fraud vitiates everything it touches. When fraud is involved in civil contract or in the establishment of a law, all such laws or contracts are unraveled, made into nothing at all. If fraud can be proven, such laws by their natures could not exist, for they were created under both a false pretense, as well as created with understanding and assent on false pretenses.
There is also an old maxim of the republican form of government (quite distinct from the pretended 'republican' party.) Potestas stricte intepreteur: A power is strictly interpreted. No grey areas, no penumbras, powers themselves must be strictly limited, not vague in any way, shape, or fashion, and wrought in powers granted specifically and explicitly to any organization via the contractual agreements of its incorporation.
Our government, by its nature, is an incorporation. It was given specific powers as a person, so the government could last far longer than the death of any or all of its original founders. It, by itself, was given no rights, but only powers to be wielded and blocked from the assumption of certain powers, acts, and writs.
This brings us to a second common law statement: In dubiis, non praesumitur pro potentia. In cases of doubt, the presumption is never in favor of a power.
These give rise to specific remedies under the law, where the federal government was Incorporated via the contract of the Constitution, and those remedies were placed within.
In the first part, there is another old aspect of the common law. "qui tam pro domino rege quam pro sic ipso in hoc parte sequitur" He who sues for the king as for himself. We have the authorization under the common law to sue for any specific actions outside the contract. Legal immunity and sovereign immunity does not apply outside the specific powers of the contract, and the states constitutions themselves are legal contracts that instituted and Incorporated the states.
These actions are called a 'Quo warrantio' action: 'By what warrant does the entity place these burdens?' coupled with the closely related common law writ of ultra vires. 'such action is outside of the power granted to the entity'.
In the United states, these writs have been specifically moved to civil law actions, however, they are still applicable to any entity, public or private, including the government itself.
In such case it would be possible to bring an ex relatione suit, or a suit brought by a private party in a qui tam action, against those projectors of ultra vires powers, where quo warrantio has failed.
If these powers were not specifically granted, explicitly granted, and the explanatory documents did not grant them, then such powers are an act of fraud. If they were specifically prohibited, they are something quite more, an act of a highwayman, a thug, and a thief. They are acts of war against our persons, and our property, and our rights, and we are no more bound to them than we are bound to declaim that the sun is made of porridge or the moon is made of apple puree.
Our nation is based upon this old, forgotten, and what they wish us to believe as 'obsolete' common law. This common law, indeed, is the only authorized law within the nation, with all of its idiosyncrasies, and all of its faults. It is part and parcel of the 'republican form of government' that the states were required to guarantee.
This republican form of government acts not only upon the federal government, but the states and the people. There is a separation of powers and specific limitations placed therein, explained within the writings of the federalist papers, and the discussions of the Continental Congress. The powers of the people themselves are limited, to prevent them from establishing tyrannies over minorities. Targeted legislation was prohibited, through the 'attainder clause' of the contract, and reaching back in time to punish someone was limited under the 'ex post facto' clause.
No legislation, according to the founders, could be written that benefited one class at the expense of another, nor that targeted classes of persons in exception to others. All legislation had to be laid down equally, or not at all. As part and parcel of a republican form of government, this was a necessary check and balance against both the government, the people, and enterprising speculators that knew if there was a benefit, or a penalty to any person, then such an imbalance would continue to infinity, ultimately devolving the whole into tyranny or anarchy, both of which the strong prevail and the weak die.
As well, checks and balances are placed against corporations, to prevent monopoly, which is assuredly its own form of tyranny.
The nature of the Constitution of these united states is nothing less than a contract establishing a new entity, incorporating it, and then placing in its hands certain, limited powers, and then very strong Prohibitions and limitations. In that Establishment, the states and people also took upon themselves specific limitations, duties, and powers, in order to prevent tyranny in all of its forms.
All of our rights in the bill of rights were ensured for that end, not established, but ensured. Any attempt at removal of those rights, regulation of those rights, or mutilating the meaning of the words until they bear as little resemblance to the original as spam bears to real meat is an act of war and subjugation, high treason, and fraud.
They do not exist because of the Establishment of the Constitution, they exist in spite of that Establishment, and moreover to resist the powers of that very Establishment and defend that entity at the same time.
Those rights, from the right to free assembly, to freedom of speech, religion, the right to keep and bear, are not created by the government for they pre-existed it. They are created to give you indications when the government is going too far... for those things must fall before full tyranny exists.
And ask yourselves, are you free to speak, or do they attempt to regulate your speech if it offends others? Are you free to assemble, to petition, to have religion, or do they create laws for, and against such? Are you free to believe, to marry, to work as you wish, or do they create benefits for or against such statuses? Are you free to carry a weapon at your side, regardless of its nature, without interference if you are using it peaceably?
Can you stand up and sue the police should they fail to protect you? No...t hey are not there to protect, but to arrest lawbreakers and preserve the public peace.
Your right to keep and bear is the right that keeps all other rights intact. If you have no right to keep and bear, they have taken away the means of protecting your property, from the 'real property' to the immeasurably more valuable 'property in rights' that Madison and Paine spoke of. When you lack the ability to enforce that property right, your property falls, and moreover, so does your liberty and your life.
Those guards are for all, even felons, even those who are unpopular, for it is the government that determines what a felony is, is it not? Perhaps this idiot has had one too many lobotomies, imbibed a few too many insecticides, however, it would seem to me that the governments, state, federal, and local, would be the most likely sources of tyranny. However, they claim the power to establish laws that then remove those rights to resist tyranny, which is its own form of tyranny.
The rule of law must prevail. The law is either limited, or it is unlimited. The Constitution limits it, and to go outside of those limits is to negate both the purpose and function of the Constitution. The law is limited in such that the president cannot assign his powers, or those of the congress, to external persons beyond the control of the very people that gave it to him. Neither can the congress assign legislative powers to the president, nor can the congress assign judiciary powers to the executive branch.
It is our duty, or sovereign duty, our right, our privilege to resist tyranny in all of its forms. Even if we die in such resistance, it is better than the misery granted to all posterity were we not to act.
We are the arbiters, the check and balance against the government, and they seek to disarm us with cunning wiles and making the Constitution vague, in spite of the clarity of language with which it was writ.
There is only one purpose for such: The purpose of tyranny. It's well-founded in the documentation that these very actions, actions taken outside of the powers granted, are acts of war, subjugation, fraud, and slavery.
And this total idiot must ask... what it means if we stand idle.
Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Do we gain any security by giving up our powers to those we cannot control? Do we gain any safety, any peace, if our will, our power, and our government all are turned against us?
It's time to bring things back to the Constitution, the intent and purpose thereof, ending tyranny in all of its myriad forms.
Even this total idiot can see that.
Read more!
Friday, June 26, 2009
Who owns the government?
Who owns the government?
To figure this out, we need to know what ownership is. Ownership comes down to exercise of specific rights, among those are the ability to collateralize the property, its products, or its materials. The ability to sell or transfer the goods of the property (fruit or manufactured goods) are also part of that power of ownership.
It is ownership that defines property, the rights and powers thereof that establish what an owner is. Perhaps consider this: Your labor is collateralized against the loans that the United States establishes. You pay that labor tax with your income tax, and with every thing you buy, sell, or trade. Your property is forfeit if you fail to pay, or fail to pay enough, or even in some cases if you pay too much and do not claim it.
In the old slavery days, slaves as property could not do work that was not authorized by the master, anything they owned belonged to their owner, and they required permission to have families, to travel, and could be sold at the master's whim to another. Anything they had could be seized, and it was rare to have a slave with a weapon of any sort beyond the tools and implements of farming, for fear of their rebellion.
To make a slave, it was reasoned, first they must be disarmed, then removed of the ability to own property. Then they could be dispatched, and disposed of as the owner saw fit. It was not for security of the slaves that they were disarmed, though that argument was used. It was for the security of the owner. After all, a slave, though valuable property, was only a slave. If someone killed a slave, the property owner could always sue him for the cost to gain a new slave, or even take a slave in trade.
Not only do we have to ask permission to get married, but permission for many jobs, and pay taxes on our own labor, on the gross of our income, rather than the net. We are forced, by various means, to pay those taxes or have our homes seized. We're forced to pay insurance on our land and homes, on our cars, and pay licensure for our right to drive, our right to self-defense, and even on our right to vote.
And does our 'representative republic' still have the right to representation? Do we still have the power to call our representatives on the carpet for their misdeeds? Tonight, through the house, through a storm of objections from the people, was passed legislation that was unread by anyone voting on it. It was unvetted by the hands of those that were supposed to be our representatives, and those very representatives passed it on, without review, without consideration, without actually determining what was contained therein.
Who does the government belong to? To whom do they answer? Perhaps the best answer to that would be 'what happens if you refuse to pay your taxes?' Like any fiefdom, serfs who refuse to pay lose the property they are rented by their 'betters'.
Start following the money trail, if you really want to know who owns the government, look at who signs their paycheck. It's not you or me anymore, we have no say in how they're paid, if they're paid, or even any say about whether they did a good job or not.
The ones that pay their checks, are the very people putting us farther and farther into debt. We gain more taxes, and receive less in return, and they ignore our remonstrance and our petitions and our opinion.
We don't own the government... for those who do, find those that run the IMF, and the Federal Reserve. Their names are writ large upon that title to our being.
Read more!
To figure this out, we need to know what ownership is. Ownership comes down to exercise of specific rights, among those are the ability to collateralize the property, its products, or its materials. The ability to sell or transfer the goods of the property (fruit or manufactured goods) are also part of that power of ownership.
It is ownership that defines property, the rights and powers thereof that establish what an owner is. Perhaps consider this: Your labor is collateralized against the loans that the United States establishes. You pay that labor tax with your income tax, and with every thing you buy, sell, or trade. Your property is forfeit if you fail to pay, or fail to pay enough, or even in some cases if you pay too much and do not claim it.
In the old slavery days, slaves as property could not do work that was not authorized by the master, anything they owned belonged to their owner, and they required permission to have families, to travel, and could be sold at the master's whim to another. Anything they had could be seized, and it was rare to have a slave with a weapon of any sort beyond the tools and implements of farming, for fear of their rebellion.
To make a slave, it was reasoned, first they must be disarmed, then removed of the ability to own property. Then they could be dispatched, and disposed of as the owner saw fit. It was not for security of the slaves that they were disarmed, though that argument was used. It was for the security of the owner. After all, a slave, though valuable property, was only a slave. If someone killed a slave, the property owner could always sue him for the cost to gain a new slave, or even take a slave in trade.
Not only do we have to ask permission to get married, but permission for many jobs, and pay taxes on our own labor, on the gross of our income, rather than the net. We are forced, by various means, to pay those taxes or have our homes seized. We're forced to pay insurance on our land and homes, on our cars, and pay licensure for our right to drive, our right to self-defense, and even on our right to vote.
And does our 'representative republic' still have the right to representation? Do we still have the power to call our representatives on the carpet for their misdeeds? Tonight, through the house, through a storm of objections from the people, was passed legislation that was unread by anyone voting on it. It was unvetted by the hands of those that were supposed to be our representatives, and those very representatives passed it on, without review, without consideration, without actually determining what was contained therein.
Who does the government belong to? To whom do they answer? Perhaps the best answer to that would be 'what happens if you refuse to pay your taxes?' Like any fiefdom, serfs who refuse to pay lose the property they are rented by their 'betters'.
Start following the money trail, if you really want to know who owns the government, look at who signs their paycheck. It's not you or me anymore, we have no say in how they're paid, if they're paid, or even any say about whether they did a good job or not.
The ones that pay their checks, are the very people putting us farther and farther into debt. We gain more taxes, and receive less in return, and they ignore our remonstrance and our petitions and our opinion.
We don't own the government... for those who do, find those that run the IMF, and the Federal Reserve. Their names are writ large upon that title to our being.
Read more!
Thursday, June 18, 2009
How strangely will the Tools of a Tyrant pervert the plain Meaning of Words!
I chose to start off this post with an old quote, from Samuel Adams. This particular one is from a letter written to his son, on the 4th of October, 1790. He's written many other things, and they're quite worth reading, reflective of the time and the attitudes.
Welcome once again to the blog of the Total Idiot. I really know nothing at all, croaking like a frog and parading like a parrot in front of those present out in the blogosphere. I really don't know, nor do I care who reads this, or what they think of it. Wouldn't matter to me anyway, I'm too much an idiot to ponder long upon that.
This posting explores the nature of the Bill of Rights. It also explores the attitudes of the founders in regard to it, and the remedies placed by those selfsame founders for violations of rights, immunities, and privileges involved in the constitution. Read on if you dare brave the mind of a Total Idiot.
The Bill of Rights was introduced, with great public controversy, and spearheaded by one Thomas Jefferson. There were a number of persons involved, between the Federalists and Antifederalists. The federalists in general felt that such a bill would weaken the constitution, and that all such protections against the powers were already therein. The constitution, according to their viewpoint, was a bill of rights by its nature and its prohibitions. Those prohibitions, however, could only be in one location, article 1 section 9. It was recognized that this was a contract between the people and the Federal Government by the action of the representatives of the people, to be ratified by popular vote within the states. It established no rights, and could take none away.
There is only one prohibition against the federal government, however, that directly associates with the rights of individuals or groups made up of those individuals. Article 1, section 9 of the Constitution states: No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
Some would claim, spuriously, that the constitution only limits the federal government, that the states are not affected thereby, however, there are two sections which prevent this as well. Article 1, section 10 holds the same prohibitions against the states. The fourteenth amendment, further, was already in existence, as well as the thirteenth, within those simple clauses, and another. The amendments were unnecessary, as they already existed from the beginning.
However, simultaneously, the constitution is limited to a specific set of powers, and no treaty can exceed those powers either. Any treaty thus doing is null and void, by its very inception as the powers contained by the office of the president cannot be faithfully executed under a treaty that nullifies the law under which his presidency is founded.
According to the founders, all such protections were already present in the Constitution. The Federalist 84 speaks clearly:
If all rights were protected, then the only prohibitive clauses are article 1, section 9, and article 1, section 10. The states themselves were bound, and so was the government, and by that means, so were the people themselves from targeted legislation, legislation removing rights of groups, and any legislation giving a benefit or a detriment to any group of any composition. Individual actions could be tried by the court and the jury, but could not have their rights removed outside of the time that was judged an appropriate penalty by the court.
That penalty of law was designed to make total restitution between the offender and the society, and no further action could ever be taken in regard to it.
But yet by that very action, we've decided we can go back in time and wrest from the founders words the ability to place further restrictions after the crime upon those whom we have already punished.
We have decided, in our infinite wisdom, that we can ignore the requirement of warrant for searches and seizures, ignore the immunity from self-incrimination, ignore the ability of a person to assemble, to speak, to believe as they wish, and chosen to legislate our beliefs onto other groups, from marriage to the ability to have relationships.
Certainly, however, we could not be affected by doing so ourselves, right? What idiot would believe that by legislating away the rights of others, we open the ability of others to legislate away our own rights? What fool would look into the idea that perhaps, just perhaps, if we make people panicked enough over the statuses that the government creates, and the media hypes, that perhaps, just perhaps, we might damage the constitution enough that people will gladly turn over their protection, and their rights to the government?
After all, we could never have legislation that would prevent offense, or legislation preventing the ability to assemble on the most public of any venue, Washington D.C. We could never be punished for our self-defense, or that of our family, or home. No politician would ever allow legislation that would dilute our ability to oversee the vote, or our ability to redress grievances, for after all, they are our representatives, and what grievance could you give against them?
Certainly, the old maxim Potestas stricte interpretatur. and In dubiis, non praesumitur pro potentia. are obviously archaic. The founders could have never intended to limit the government today, even if that was their stated intent. Tyranny isn't tyranny, black is white, up is down, and you see five fingers.
A power is strictly interpreted, and in cases of doubt, the presumption is never in favor of a power. Archaic, eh? But look at the doctrine of 'reasonable review'... the person applying for relief must prove beyond a doubt not only abuse and unconstitutionality, but that the intent of the legislature and their power does not override their rights guaranteed against infringement. If there's a reasonable connection between the intent stated, and the actions taken, then the constitutionality is upheld.
Such great protection we now have against infringements of our rights. If the right to protect one's self, the right to speak, to assemble, to believe, to privacy, to our own homes, our own property, our own liberty means so little, then perhaps, just perhaps, the stated intent of the constitution, to prevent tyranny, is already fallen, and we must restore it to its proper state, as is our duty.
Have they mobilized the armies of our nation, conceived, and dedicated to the defense of the nation against her very flesh? Who then, could believe that perhaps the stated intent of such beneficial legislation might be slightly different from the actual intent? Certainly the United States would never engage its powers against us, after all, there has been no rendition of citizens to other nations for questioning without trial. Who could believe that they have engaged in active torture, against our own citizens, and citizens of other nations? Who would believe they would torture children for their own ends, or attempt to cover it up? Who would believe that they would place us further into debt, after running on fiscal responsibility, and be castigated by the 'left' for not moving fast enough or far enough? Certainly, who would believe that active army units might be employed in our cities and towns? Who would believe that the nation we love, which we call our own, might have her power turned against us by those who seek further power?
After all, have they given themselves the power of life and death against their own citizens? Can they offer orders, under the Federal Emergency Management Act, to shoot people on sight, to imprison them, to place their labor at the disposal of the executive under Executive Order? Who would believe such a thing in the Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave?
Only a Total Idiot. They have attempted more and more to turn those high powers which we granted in the beginning against us, attempt to quarter troops, both foreign and domestic, among us, and have prepared to wage war against us.
The only purpose for the accumulation of weapons and men inside the United States, is to use them.
Read more!
Welcome once again to the blog of the Total Idiot. I really know nothing at all, croaking like a frog and parading like a parrot in front of those present out in the blogosphere. I really don't know, nor do I care who reads this, or what they think of it. Wouldn't matter to me anyway, I'm too much an idiot to ponder long upon that.
This posting explores the nature of the Bill of Rights. It also explores the attitudes of the founders in regard to it, and the remedies placed by those selfsame founders for violations of rights, immunities, and privileges involved in the constitution. Read on if you dare brave the mind of a Total Idiot.
The Bill of Rights was introduced, with great public controversy, and spearheaded by one Thomas Jefferson. There were a number of persons involved, between the Federalists and Antifederalists. The federalists in general felt that such a bill would weaken the constitution, and that all such protections against the powers were already therein. The constitution, according to their viewpoint, was a bill of rights by its nature and its prohibitions. Those prohibitions, however, could only be in one location, article 1 section 9. It was recognized that this was a contract between the people and the Federal Government by the action of the representatives of the people, to be ratified by popular vote within the states. It established no rights, and could take none away.
There is only one prohibition against the federal government, however, that directly associates with the rights of individuals or groups made up of those individuals. Article 1, section 9 of the Constitution states: No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
Some would claim, spuriously, that the constitution only limits the federal government, that the states are not affected thereby, however, there are two sections which prevent this as well. Article 1, section 10 holds the same prohibitions against the states. The fourteenth amendment, further, was already in existence, as well as the thirteenth, within those simple clauses, and another. The amendments were unnecessary, as they already existed from the beginning.
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
However, simultaneously, the constitution is limited to a specific set of powers, and no treaty can exceed those powers either. Any treaty thus doing is null and void, by its very inception as the powers contained by the office of the president cannot be faithfully executed under a treaty that nullifies the law under which his presidency is founded.
According to the founders, all such protections were already present in the Constitution. The Federalist 84 speaks clearly:
There remains but one other view of this matter to conclude the point. The truth is, after all the declamations we have heard, that the Constitution is itself, in every rational sense, and to every useful purpose, A BILL OF RIGHTS. The several bills of rights in Great Britain form its Constitution, and conversely the constitution of each State is its bill of rights. And the proposed Constitution, if adopted, will be the bill of rights of the Union. Is it one object of a bill of rights to declare and specify the political privileges of the citizens in the structure and administration of the government? This is done in the most ample and precise manner in the plan of the convention; comprehending various precautions for the public security, which are not to be found in any of the State constitutions. Is another object of a bill of rights to define certain immunities and modes of proceeding, which are relative to personal and private concerns? This we have seen has also been attended to, in a variety of cases, in the same plan. Adverting therefore to the substantial meaning of a bill of rights, it is absurd to allege that it is not to be found in the work of the convention. It may be said that it does not go far enough, though it will not be easy to make this appear; but it can with no propriety be contended that there is no such thing. It certainly must be immaterial what mode is observed as to the order of declaring the rights of the citizens, if they are to be found in any part of the instrument which establishes the government. And hence it must be apparent, that much of what has been said on this subject rests merely on verbal and nominal distinctions, entirely foreign from the substance of the thing.
If all rights were protected, then the only prohibitive clauses are article 1, section 9, and article 1, section 10. The states themselves were bound, and so was the government, and by that means, so were the people themselves from targeted legislation, legislation removing rights of groups, and any legislation giving a benefit or a detriment to any group of any composition. Individual actions could be tried by the court and the jury, but could not have their rights removed outside of the time that was judged an appropriate penalty by the court.
That penalty of law was designed to make total restitution between the offender and the society, and no further action could ever be taken in regard to it.
But yet by that very action, we've decided we can go back in time and wrest from the founders words the ability to place further restrictions after the crime upon those whom we have already punished.
We have decided, in our infinite wisdom, that we can ignore the requirement of warrant for searches and seizures, ignore the immunity from self-incrimination, ignore the ability of a person to assemble, to speak, to believe as they wish, and chosen to legislate our beliefs onto other groups, from marriage to the ability to have relationships.
Certainly, however, we could not be affected by doing so ourselves, right? What idiot would believe that by legislating away the rights of others, we open the ability of others to legislate away our own rights? What fool would look into the idea that perhaps, just perhaps, if we make people panicked enough over the statuses that the government creates, and the media hypes, that perhaps, just perhaps, we might damage the constitution enough that people will gladly turn over their protection, and their rights to the government?
After all, we could never have legislation that would prevent offense, or legislation preventing the ability to assemble on the most public of any venue, Washington D.C. We could never be punished for our self-defense, or that of our family, or home. No politician would ever allow legislation that would dilute our ability to oversee the vote, or our ability to redress grievances, for after all, they are our representatives, and what grievance could you give against them?
Certainly, the old maxim Potestas stricte interpretatur. and In dubiis, non praesumitur pro potentia. are obviously archaic. The founders could have never intended to limit the government today, even if that was their stated intent. Tyranny isn't tyranny, black is white, up is down, and you see five fingers.
A power is strictly interpreted, and in cases of doubt, the presumption is never in favor of a power. Archaic, eh? But look at the doctrine of 'reasonable review'... the person applying for relief must prove beyond a doubt not only abuse and unconstitutionality, but that the intent of the legislature and their power does not override their rights guaranteed against infringement. If there's a reasonable connection between the intent stated, and the actions taken, then the constitutionality is upheld.
Such great protection we now have against infringements of our rights. If the right to protect one's self, the right to speak, to assemble, to believe, to privacy, to our own homes, our own property, our own liberty means so little, then perhaps, just perhaps, the stated intent of the constitution, to prevent tyranny, is already fallen, and we must restore it to its proper state, as is our duty.
it is natural to man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty? Are we disposed to be of the numbers of those who, having eyes, see not, and, having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.
I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided, and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House. Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received?
Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlement assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation.
There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free--if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us! They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength but irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable--and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.
It is in vain, sir, to extentuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!
Have they mobilized the armies of our nation, conceived, and dedicated to the defense of the nation against her very flesh? Who then, could believe that perhaps the stated intent of such beneficial legislation might be slightly different from the actual intent? Certainly the United States would never engage its powers against us, after all, there has been no rendition of citizens to other nations for questioning without trial. Who could believe that they have engaged in active torture, against our own citizens, and citizens of other nations? Who would believe they would torture children for their own ends, or attempt to cover it up? Who would believe that they would place us further into debt, after running on fiscal responsibility, and be castigated by the 'left' for not moving fast enough or far enough? Certainly, who would believe that active army units might be employed in our cities and towns? Who would believe that the nation we love, which we call our own, might have her power turned against us by those who seek further power?
After all, have they given themselves the power of life and death against their own citizens? Can they offer orders, under the Federal Emergency Management Act, to shoot people on sight, to imprison them, to place their labor at the disposal of the executive under Executive Order? Who would believe such a thing in the Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave?
Only a Total Idiot. They have attempted more and more to turn those high powers which we granted in the beginning against us, attempt to quarter troops, both foreign and domestic, among us, and have prepared to wage war against us.
The only purpose for the accumulation of weapons and men inside the United States, is to use them.
Read more!
"Civil" coercion, and protection.
And once again the idiot wakes, to spew upon the internet his idiotic thoughts. While an idiot, sometimes an idiot can see more clearly employing the tools which wise men often fail to use. Today, we're going to attempt something called 'reason'. Yes, I know, it's a forgotten art, lost in the mists of time, but I would like to try my hand at it, as I have perhaps heretofore been unreasonable.
What is a civil punishment? It is a punishment based in civil law, in the law of writ, the Roman Law which was used in Europe for centuries. Civil matters under the United States, however, fall under an entirely different classification. In the United States, Civil Law deals in the operation of parties between parties. It is private law, law of contracts, of tort, of escrow, and of estate and property. At the time of the Constitution, there was no law of writ per se at the federal level. All crimes that were tried in the county courtrooms, and the courtrooms of the states were based on the old Common Law.
Civil law, at the time, was incapable of rendering punishment. It could not reach beyond the terms of the contract, and therefore was cut and dried in its application. Lesser protections were applied to the use of civil law, including the removal of the right to protection against self-incrimination. Civil law, further, could not provide a single day in jail, though contempt of the court was a matter of criminal law, and for it as well, according to the law, there must be a trial.
Where are we today? Let an idiot take you down the path of his mind.
We claim that civil law allows us today to pass restrictions on people, on classes, on behaviors and beliefs. We attempt to use it against religions, regulate weddings, give people benefits and others detriments under its umbrella, but was this really what was intended? Or did it spring full-blown out of the mind of the legislators? Perhaps the best way to examine this is to determine when the laws changed in the United states, and why. But before I get to that, let me meander back to civil law.
Civil law is law of consent. It is law that can only occur with the consent of two parties. Law that is enforced upon another party, without the agreement of that party, cannot be civil. Any contract placed in coercion cannot be a valid contract. Any contract placed against the will of the person contracted with cannot be valid, it is null and void due to fraud. If there is fraud in the representation of the contract, the contract is void. (Fraud vitiates everything it touches).
How then is civil law civil? They claim that because they were elected as representatives, as senators, that the representation of the people gives implied and direct consent for them to emplace those laws on your behalf. However, if your representation was not paying attention, not present, or not consulted, is it still law? If that representation was applied without your consent, or even against your will (as in the case of the bailouts) is it still consent?
Can you withdraw your consent to the contract? Is there any means by which to fight the contract, or is there a bottleneck in the system, and economic and other obstacles designed to prevent the hearing of the complaint?
The Supreme Court hears only a few cases a year. Those cases (about 100 in a typical year) are far outstripped by new 'civil' and criminal laws. A number of those civil laws bear criminal punishments, so let's look at how that happened.
The Louisiana Purchase of April 30, 1808, added a substantial amount of new territory to the growing United States. This also had other effects, however. It introduced a new system of law to the United States, that enterprising politicians found very attractive... the Roman Law, the pre-napoleonic code. This law could introduce adversarial trials, changed the burden of proof from the prosecutor to the defendant, and did a number of other things, including the allowal of intent to override the actual punitive nature of the law. (if the law had a rational connection to the stated purpose, it was allowed). This ended up with the first civil laws being emplaced in the 1830s.
But what is coercion? Coercion is the emplacement of a threat to attempt to force an action that would not otherwise be taken by an individual, corporation, or entity. I.E. signing a contract with a gun to your head would be extortion and coercion. Threats to life, liberty, and property were all means of coercion.
Today, however, it's become commonplace We hold people in a jail cell for six months to a year, while their monies outside the system dwindle, to break their hope, and promise them huge punishments if they go to trial. Then we offer them a switch, waive your right to trial, and we'll reduce the penalties and charges. It seems like quite a deal... but is it? Is it even legal? You are already in jail, or simply wanting it to be over with, and the offered sentence seems vaastly less than the punishment that is otherwise offered, but do you have the right to waive your trial?
There is no option for such waiviers in the Constitution, all trials and all restrictions must be accomplished by a jury of your peers with full defense.
And look at these registries; suddenly we have a 'civil' system which has criminal penalties and felony actions for failure to comply with an imposed civil code.
Is this, by reason, civil, or is it coercive, and thus a criminal law attribute?
Does it provide punishment, or merely regulation? What is the purpose of regulation? This will be discussed in the next article.
But what is civil about forcing a person to do as you wish under the threat of punishment? Where is the consentual agreement?
For instance, we choose to prevent felons from bearing firearms (and attempts at expansion of this to misdomeanor offenses have occurred, as well as outright attempts to remove the second amendment from the Constitution). The recent court cases (DC v Heller) stated that it was an individual right to keep and bear for self protection. However, does this go as far as the founders intended?
No civil matter can be coercive, but what is more coercive than giving up the power to self-protect?
What is more coercive than forcing a person to rely upon the protection of another, and then prohibiting any right to that protection, and any civil consequences for failing to protect?
(Legal Snares for the unwary law-abiding citizen).
There can be no real protection, as the police cannot be everywhere at once. They cannot prevent crime, only answer it after it occurs. So how can defending yourself from crime be a crime?
Is this rational, or logical? Perhaps my poor idiot brain cannot comprehend the logic behind it. But we push felons to the side, to the fringes of society that are most dangerous, declare them unable to protect themselves, then deny them the services they need to get back on their feet in a legal manner, and further deny them any protection, restrict where they can work, what they can do, and how they must live.
And still, no person is protected.
Perhaps I'm just an idiot, but I fail to see how logical, consentual law can be allowed to be coercive, and further disable rights by failure to follow that law which could not be agreed to, and further transfer the control of those rights to the Federal Government (alienation in property law), when those very rights were designed and purposed to prevent the action of the government. If there is a right to self-protection, there is a right to self-protection. If this is a human right, and there is no right to be protected, then the laws that prevent the best means of that self-protection must logically fall, as the human right supercedes them.
If coercion in civil contracts voids them, then coercion by the government to establish a civil contract also voids the contract.
If they can do this kind of coercion against felons, and against misdomeanors now, for fear that they may someday commit a crime, how much longer will they be until they try to protect others from the crime that law abiding citizens may someday commit? After all, the statistics show most new crime comes from those not yet in the criminal system.
Basically, if the government can restrict the very rights that were designed to restrain it, by a status created by the government, how then is that good, right, or just? How does it restrict them from taking other rights, by statuses created by the government? Can they not restrict the right, then, to live on certain properties due to a status? They are already engaged in such. Can they restrict the right to protest? Already done, they license it and require you protest when and where they say, which makes quite an ineffective protest. If they can restrict when, where, and how you may protect yourself, and further IF you can effectively protect yourself, how are you protected?
Have you ever wondered why there has been such a rise of police brutality? Could it be that they know 99% of people are unarmed, and too afraid to fight them?
Who would think that? Only a total idiot.
Read more!
What is a civil punishment? It is a punishment based in civil law, in the law of writ, the Roman Law which was used in Europe for centuries. Civil matters under the United States, however, fall under an entirely different classification. In the United States, Civil Law deals in the operation of parties between parties. It is private law, law of contracts, of tort, of escrow, and of estate and property. At the time of the Constitution, there was no law of writ per se at the federal level. All crimes that were tried in the county courtrooms, and the courtrooms of the states were based on the old Common Law.
Civil law, at the time, was incapable of rendering punishment. It could not reach beyond the terms of the contract, and therefore was cut and dried in its application. Lesser protections were applied to the use of civil law, including the removal of the right to protection against self-incrimination. Civil law, further, could not provide a single day in jail, though contempt of the court was a matter of criminal law, and for it as well, according to the law, there must be a trial.
Where are we today? Let an idiot take you down the path of his mind.
We claim that civil law allows us today to pass restrictions on people, on classes, on behaviors and beliefs. We attempt to use it against religions, regulate weddings, give people benefits and others detriments under its umbrella, but was this really what was intended? Or did it spring full-blown out of the mind of the legislators? Perhaps the best way to examine this is to determine when the laws changed in the United states, and why. But before I get to that, let me meander back to civil law.
Civil law is law of consent. It is law that can only occur with the consent of two parties. Law that is enforced upon another party, without the agreement of that party, cannot be civil. Any contract placed in coercion cannot be a valid contract. Any contract placed against the will of the person contracted with cannot be valid, it is null and void due to fraud. If there is fraud in the representation of the contract, the contract is void. (Fraud vitiates everything it touches).
How then is civil law civil? They claim that because they were elected as representatives, as senators, that the representation of the people gives implied and direct consent for them to emplace those laws on your behalf. However, if your representation was not paying attention, not present, or not consulted, is it still law? If that representation was applied without your consent, or even against your will (as in the case of the bailouts) is it still consent?
Can you withdraw your consent to the contract? Is there any means by which to fight the contract, or is there a bottleneck in the system, and economic and other obstacles designed to prevent the hearing of the complaint?
The Supreme Court hears only a few cases a year. Those cases (about 100 in a typical year) are far outstripped by new 'civil' and criminal laws. A number of those civil laws bear criminal punishments, so let's look at how that happened.
The Louisiana Purchase of April 30, 1808, added a substantial amount of new territory to the growing United States. This also had other effects, however. It introduced a new system of law to the United States, that enterprising politicians found very attractive... the Roman Law, the pre-napoleonic code. This law could introduce adversarial trials, changed the burden of proof from the prosecutor to the defendant, and did a number of other things, including the allowal of intent to override the actual punitive nature of the law. (if the law had a rational connection to the stated purpose, it was allowed). This ended up with the first civil laws being emplaced in the 1830s.
But what is coercion? Coercion is the emplacement of a threat to attempt to force an action that would not otherwise be taken by an individual, corporation, or entity. I.E. signing a contract with a gun to your head would be extortion and coercion. Threats to life, liberty, and property were all means of coercion.
Today, however, it's become commonplace We hold people in a jail cell for six months to a year, while their monies outside the system dwindle, to break their hope, and promise them huge punishments if they go to trial. Then we offer them a switch, waive your right to trial, and we'll reduce the penalties and charges. It seems like quite a deal... but is it? Is it even legal? You are already in jail, or simply wanting it to be over with, and the offered sentence seems vaastly less than the punishment that is otherwise offered, but do you have the right to waive your trial?
There is no option for such waiviers in the Constitution, all trials and all restrictions must be accomplished by a jury of your peers with full defense.
And look at these registries; suddenly we have a 'civil' system which has criminal penalties and felony actions for failure to comply with an imposed civil code.
Is this, by reason, civil, or is it coercive, and thus a criminal law attribute?
Does it provide punishment, or merely regulation? What is the purpose of regulation? This will be discussed in the next article.
But what is civil about forcing a person to do as you wish under the threat of punishment? Where is the consentual agreement?
For instance, we choose to prevent felons from bearing firearms (and attempts at expansion of this to misdomeanor offenses have occurred, as well as outright attempts to remove the second amendment from the Constitution). The recent court cases (DC v Heller) stated that it was an individual right to keep and bear for self protection. However, does this go as far as the founders intended?
No civil matter can be coercive, but what is more coercive than giving up the power to self-protect?
What is more coercive than forcing a person to rely upon the protection of another, and then prohibiting any right to that protection, and any civil consequences for failing to protect?
(Legal Snares for the unwary law-abiding citizen).
There can be no real protection, as the police cannot be everywhere at once. They cannot prevent crime, only answer it after it occurs. So how can defending yourself from crime be a crime?
Is this rational, or logical? Perhaps my poor idiot brain cannot comprehend the logic behind it. But we push felons to the side, to the fringes of society that are most dangerous, declare them unable to protect themselves, then deny them the services they need to get back on their feet in a legal manner, and further deny them any protection, restrict where they can work, what they can do, and how they must live.
And still, no person is protected.
Perhaps I'm just an idiot, but I fail to see how logical, consentual law can be allowed to be coercive, and further disable rights by failure to follow that law which could not be agreed to, and further transfer the control of those rights to the Federal Government (alienation in property law), when those very rights were designed and purposed to prevent the action of the government. If there is a right to self-protection, there is a right to self-protection. If this is a human right, and there is no right to be protected, then the laws that prevent the best means of that self-protection must logically fall, as the human right supercedes them.
If coercion in civil contracts voids them, then coercion by the government to establish a civil contract also voids the contract.
If they can do this kind of coercion against felons, and against misdomeanors now, for fear that they may someday commit a crime, how much longer will they be until they try to protect others from the crime that law abiding citizens may someday commit? After all, the statistics show most new crime comes from those not yet in the criminal system.
Basically, if the government can restrict the very rights that were designed to restrain it, by a status created by the government, how then is that good, right, or just? How does it restrict them from taking other rights, by statuses created by the government? Can they not restrict the right, then, to live on certain properties due to a status? They are already engaged in such. Can they restrict the right to protest? Already done, they license it and require you protest when and where they say, which makes quite an ineffective protest. If they can restrict when, where, and how you may protect yourself, and further IF you can effectively protect yourself, how are you protected?
Have you ever wondered why there has been such a rise of police brutality? Could it be that they know 99% of people are unarmed, and too afraid to fight them?
Who would think that? Only a total idiot.
Read more!
Friday, June 5, 2009
Making hatred.
The United States has had a long, and ample history of creating internal problems. From the old problems with slavery, to problems with racial and ethnic divisions created and used by enterprising politicians, we are good at hating. We've hated so long that we've forgotten why we hate, and often have taken up the same weapons that we claim to hate.
This has, always and ever, been one of the greatest problems with hatred. We tend to forget the target, forget the reasons, and indulge in that unfettered brutality for which some of our hearts long.
What causes hate? The greatest cause is fear and lack of understanding, lack of compassion feeds into this. We fear, and we are angry for the threat the fear creates. Part of this is a near-instinctual process, wherein we tended to avoid others who appeared similar, though acting oddly, in order to reduce disease. Part of it is an educational process, by which our enforcement in schools of the necessity for everyone 'fitting in' and punishment of those who do not tends to create the situations for anger and hatred.
But why do we hate? Perhaps the answer can be found in who we hate, and how.
We are fond of our hatred, as a nation, and as a species. When we feel powerless we hate ever the more, grasping for something to control.
And that control is the core of hatred. It removes compunctions against actions which would normally horrify us, removes the civilized veneer that we hide our own ignorance and fear with, and makes us powerful for that moment. It objectifies the targets, personifies in them all of the evil and viciousness we see out there, and see in ourselves. At its base it is all about control.
Being different is not a bad thing. That is the ultimate lesson we need to learn to get past hatred, to get past the barriers which politicians and well-meaning pundits put up. It is no less racist to profile a person as being racist due to their skin color, or their ethnicity. It is no less intolerant to say that all 'x' are intolerant. Racism is one of the many cross-cultural ties that bind us, but it is also one of the ugliest.
It can be used as a club to silence dissent, as an identity, as part of who we are. If we were truly colorblind, would the race of the candidate matter, even if he or she is considered a 'minority'? Would political considerations trump the ability to do the job? Does it matter what race they are, if they are capable of doing the job for which they are elected, and doing it faithfully?
But we harp on Obama being a 'black' and Sotomayor for being 'Hispanic' and saying that such is a good thing... when it matters even less than if a penny is copper. They have no control over the person to whom they were born, and we have no control over how they lived their lives, therefore the qualifications are far more important than the race or lack thereof.
Let's look at who we hate.. let's pick an easy target, shall we? In my search for hated persons and classes, the Judaic race, the African Americans, the Native Americans all got thought of.. but there are more classes that transcend these. In the cases of the African Americans, it's people seeking power once again that keep that brew mixed and fermenting, the Hispanics have much the same going on, as do the Caucasian and all the other races. To have a protector, you must have a boogeyman, and what better one than the tyranny of the 'other races'? What is more vague, and therefore more likely to continue, easy to blind yourself against things that are similar and focused on any slight or fault done by one of these 'oppressors'? Is it not also racist?
There are very few groups of persons we hate that cross racial or ethnic lines. Perhaps the most powerful hatred we have is visceral, and directed against those that transgress against the laws of our society. We look at history of the United States where people not guilty of capital crime were restored their rights, powers, immunities, and priviliges at the end of the sentence, their sentence was spent, and they were made peaceable again with the society until they once again transgressed.
Today, however, we want our pound of flesh, from the heart. We claim to do it without blood, but we look at the felon once again as a second class citizen. We feel a moral superiority that 'at least we haven't broken any laws', or 'at least I didn't do that'. The smug certainty we hold leaves little room for seeing the trials and travails of humanity that they undergo due to a spent punishment.
If the punishment was insufficient, what more could we do to them to make it so? If it was judged sufficient, how can we as people assume that they have not paid enough, if the court and jury believed they had?
Let's focus in a little closer. You have your murderers, your drug offenders, your larcenists and arsonists, you have your manslaughter, your property offenses and then you have your deviants and sex offenders.
Among these who is most likely to recommit their original or a related act? Would it be the murderers or sex offenders? No, actually, it's not. The murderers and sex offenders have a lower reoffense rate than any other class of criminal.
We see these sex offenders out there, and our instinctual response is 'kill them, mutilate them, open their corpse and torture them'. What is it in us that goes so far? It's not just a righteous indignation, it's something of a more visceral fear... a fear that in the correct or incorrect circumstances we'd be the same. It is a lingering guilt, a shame, over our own sexualities. We see this same shame against those accused of homosexuality, and in some cases people speak against it, but who dares... speak about attacks against a sex offender?
Only a total idiot would, or a sex offender, goes the reasoning.
But let's look at things a bit closer.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice.
Let's look at this a moment. 5.3% vs 1.3%... sounds like a hugely higher risk.
At the risk of being idiotic, let's look at the math there.. 517 sex offenders vs 3,378 non-sex-offender prisoners. Which is more likely?
They say that sex offenders inevitably reoffend.. but does 5.7% (on the maximum end, depending on the nature of the crime, reoffense rates drop to as low as 1%) and there is less likelihood of reoffending the longer that the person is without an offense.
Let's take 700,000 offenders and assume a steady rate of 6% (the number as of last year that were on the registry) and exceeding the offense rate proposed by the data.
Let's also assume none of them die until the sequence terminates.
According to my spreadsheet, the first year 42,000 would reoffend, assuming static reoffense rates, and assuming that there is no changes in supervision, hormones, etc, or new offenders coming into that set.
How many years does it take for them all to reoffend at that rate? About 218. Now, the study notes something else.. that offense rates decrease the longer the offender goes without reoffense. At this point we've got a scale that increases closer to the origin, and approaches something indistinguishable from 0 at infinity.
The initial decay is fast.
So.. how do we have 700,000 offenders on the registry without hearing about 42,000 Lundsfords, Kankas, or Walshes a year?
The statistic is misleading. A 'reoffense' can be as little as public indecency, at this point, and the microscope is on them. If you are in public and rip out the crotch of your jeans picking something up, even if no flesh is exposed, the offender can be cited. Some indeed choose new victims, some choose young victims, but these are in the minority as well. (7.3% of the total of multiple child molesters versus single-offense child molesters at 2.4%.) This is a great difference from 90% to 100%.
You have a non-hetrogenous group, being dealt with in a hetrogenous and punitive manner, seeking further control. Precedents are being established that allows them to 'regulate' due to past offenses the possibility of future offenses. This gives them a huge amount of power. Perhaps this would indicate why they shifted from the 'black crime problem' to one that nobody was willing to defend. Race will always have defenders... and registered sex offenders, when defending themselves, are considered to be 'in denial' or 'making excuses'. It's a catch 22. Even if you are innocent, there is no way out.
Power and control, gentlemen. Any idiot can see what you've had done to you. Maybe' it's time to look other directions and at why you hate.
Besides.. how many of you have said 'I'd tap that', and then found out the person was underage?
And how many politicians got a pass on it after the 'Boys Town' scandal of the 80s?
It would seem an act of total idiocy to question the official line when a boys prostitution ring (and not always a consentual one) was linked through the congress and white house, and the story got buried. It would seem an even greater act of idiocy to claim that the government would potentially hide evidence and such a story in such a way that several of the persons later were involved in the legislation attacking such offenders, and were further accused of indecent acts against underage individuals in the congressional offices themselves?
After all.. who would believe such a story about those who pushed the legislation the most...
Only a total idiot.
Read more!
This has, always and ever, been one of the greatest problems with hatred. We tend to forget the target, forget the reasons, and indulge in that unfettered brutality for which some of our hearts long.
What causes hate? The greatest cause is fear and lack of understanding, lack of compassion feeds into this. We fear, and we are angry for the threat the fear creates. Part of this is a near-instinctual process, wherein we tended to avoid others who appeared similar, though acting oddly, in order to reduce disease. Part of it is an educational process, by which our enforcement in schools of the necessity for everyone 'fitting in' and punishment of those who do not tends to create the situations for anger and hatred.
But why do we hate? Perhaps the answer can be found in who we hate, and how.
We are fond of our hatred, as a nation, and as a species. When we feel powerless we hate ever the more, grasping for something to control.
And that control is the core of hatred. It removes compunctions against actions which would normally horrify us, removes the civilized veneer that we hide our own ignorance and fear with, and makes us powerful for that moment. It objectifies the targets, personifies in them all of the evil and viciousness we see out there, and see in ourselves. At its base it is all about control.
Being different is not a bad thing. That is the ultimate lesson we need to learn to get past hatred, to get past the barriers which politicians and well-meaning pundits put up. It is no less racist to profile a person as being racist due to their skin color, or their ethnicity. It is no less intolerant to say that all 'x' are intolerant. Racism is one of the many cross-cultural ties that bind us, but it is also one of the ugliest.
It can be used as a club to silence dissent, as an identity, as part of who we are. If we were truly colorblind, would the race of the candidate matter, even if he or she is considered a 'minority'? Would political considerations trump the ability to do the job? Does it matter what race they are, if they are capable of doing the job for which they are elected, and doing it faithfully?
But we harp on Obama being a 'black' and Sotomayor for being 'Hispanic' and saying that such is a good thing... when it matters even less than if a penny is copper. They have no control over the person to whom they were born, and we have no control over how they lived their lives, therefore the qualifications are far more important than the race or lack thereof.
Let's look at who we hate.. let's pick an easy target, shall we? In my search for hated persons and classes, the Judaic race, the African Americans, the Native Americans all got thought of.. but there are more classes that transcend these. In the cases of the African Americans, it's people seeking power once again that keep that brew mixed and fermenting, the Hispanics have much the same going on, as do the Caucasian and all the other races. To have a protector, you must have a boogeyman, and what better one than the tyranny of the 'other races'? What is more vague, and therefore more likely to continue, easy to blind yourself against things that are similar and focused on any slight or fault done by one of these 'oppressors'? Is it not also racist?
There are very few groups of persons we hate that cross racial or ethnic lines. Perhaps the most powerful hatred we have is visceral, and directed against those that transgress against the laws of our society. We look at history of the United States where people not guilty of capital crime were restored their rights, powers, immunities, and priviliges at the end of the sentence, their sentence was spent, and they were made peaceable again with the society until they once again transgressed.
Today, however, we want our pound of flesh, from the heart. We claim to do it without blood, but we look at the felon once again as a second class citizen. We feel a moral superiority that 'at least we haven't broken any laws', or 'at least I didn't do that'. The smug certainty we hold leaves little room for seeing the trials and travails of humanity that they undergo due to a spent punishment.
If the punishment was insufficient, what more could we do to them to make it so? If it was judged sufficient, how can we as people assume that they have not paid enough, if the court and jury believed they had?
Let's focus in a little closer. You have your murderers, your drug offenders, your larcenists and arsonists, you have your manslaughter, your property offenses and then you have your deviants and sex offenders.
Among these who is most likely to recommit their original or a related act? Would it be the murderers or sex offenders? No, actually, it's not. The murderers and sex offenders have a lower reoffense rate than any other class of criminal.
We see these sex offenders out there, and our instinctual response is 'kill them, mutilate them, open their corpse and torture them'. What is it in us that goes so far? It's not just a righteous indignation, it's something of a more visceral fear... a fear that in the correct or incorrect circumstances we'd be the same. It is a lingering guilt, a shame, over our own sexualities. We see this same shame against those accused of homosexuality, and in some cases people speak against it, but who dares... speak about attacks against a sex offender?
Only a total idiot would, or a sex offender, goes the reasoning.
But let's look at things a bit closer.
Compared to non-sex offenders released from State prisons, released sex offenders were 4 times more likely to be rearrested for a sex crime. Within the first 3 years following their release from prison in 1994, 5.3% (517 of the 9,691) of released sex offenders were rearrested for a sex crime. The rate for the 262,420 released non-sex offenders was lower, 1.3% (3,328 of 262,420).
The first 12 months following their release from a State prison was the period when 40% of sex crimes were allegedly committed by the released sex offenders. Recidivism studies typically find that, the older the prisoner when released, the lower the rate of recidivism. Results reported here on released sex offenders did not follow the familiar pattern. While the lowest rate of rearrest for a sex crime (3.3%) did belong to the oldest sex offenders (those age 45 or older), other comparisons between older and younger prisoners did not consistently show older prisoners’ having the lower rearrest rate.
The study compared recidivism rates among prisoners who served different lengths of time before being released from prison in 1994. No clear association was found between how long they were in prison and their recidivism rate.
Before being released from prison in 1994, most of the sex offenders had been arrested several times for different types of crimes. The more prior arrests they had, the greater their likelihood of being rearrested for another sex crime after leaving prison. Released sex offenders with 1 prior arrest (the arrest for the sex crime for which they were imprisoned) had the lowest rearrest rate for a sex crime, about 3%; those with 2 or 3 prior arrests for some type of crime, 4%; 4 to 6 prior arrests, 6%; 7 to 10 prior arrests, 7%; and 11 to 15 prior arrests, 8%. Rearrest for a sex crime against a child The 9,691 released sex offenders included 4,295 men who were in prison for child molesting.
Of the children these 4,295 men were imprisoned for molesting, 60% were age 13 or younger. Half of the 4,295 child molesters were 20 or more years older than the child they were imprisoned for molesting. On average, the 4,295 child molesters were eeleased after serving about 3 years of their 7-year sentence (43% of the prison sentence).
Compared to the 9,691 sex offenders and to the 262,420 non-sex offenders, released child molesters were more likely to be rearrested for child molesting. Within the first 3 years following release from prison in 1994, 3.3% (141 of 4,295) of released child molesters were rearrested for another sex crime against a child. The rate for all 9,691 sex offenders (a category that includes the 4,295 child molesters) was 2.2% (209 of 9,691). The rate for all 262,420 non-sex offenders was less than half of 1% (1,042 of the 262,420).
Of the approximately 141 children allegedly molested by the child molesters after their release from prison in 1994, 79% were age 13 or younger.
Released child molesters with more than 1 prior arrest for child molesting were more likely to be rearrested for child molesting (7.3%) than released child molesters with no more than 1 such prior arrest (2.4%).
Rearrest for any type of crime compared to non-sex offenders released from State prison, sex offenders had a lower overall rearrest rate.
When rearrests for any type of crime (not just sex crimes) were counted, the study found that 43% (4,163 of 9,691) of the 9,691 released sex offenders were rearrested. The overall rearrest rate for the 262,420 released non-sex offenders was higher, 68% (179,391 of 262,420).
The rearrest offense was a felony for about 75% of the 4,163 rearrested sex offenders. By comparison, 84% of the 179,391 rearrested non-sex offenders were charged by police with a felony.
Reconviction for a new sex crime Of the 9,691 released sex offenders, 3.5% (339 of the 9,691) were reconvicted for a sex crime within the 3-year followup period.
Reconviction for any type of crime Of the 9,691 released sex offenders, 24% (2,326 of the 9,691) were reconvicted for a new offense. The reconviction offense included all types of crimes.
Returned to prison for any reason Within 3 years following their release, 38.6% (3,741) of the 9,691 released sex offenders were returned to prison. They were returned either because they received another prison sentence for a new crime, or because of a technical violation of their parole, such as failing a drug test, missing an appointment with their parole officer, or being arrested for another crime.
Source: U.S. Department of Justice.
Let's look at this a moment. 5.3% vs 1.3%... sounds like a hugely higher risk.
At the risk of being idiotic, let's look at the math there.. 517 sex offenders vs 3,378 non-sex-offender prisoners. Which is more likely?
They say that sex offenders inevitably reoffend.. but does 5.7% (on the maximum end, depending on the nature of the crime, reoffense rates drop to as low as 1%) and there is less likelihood of reoffending the longer that the person is without an offense.
Let's take 700,000 offenders and assume a steady rate of 6% (the number as of last year that were on the registry) and exceeding the offense rate proposed by the data.
Let's also assume none of them die until the sequence terminates.
According to my spreadsheet, the first year 42,000 would reoffend, assuming static reoffense rates, and assuming that there is no changes in supervision, hormones, etc, or new offenders coming into that set.
How many years does it take for them all to reoffend at that rate? About 218. Now, the study notes something else.. that offense rates decrease the longer the offender goes without reoffense. At this point we've got a scale that increases closer to the origin, and approaches something indistinguishable from 0 at infinity.
The initial decay is fast.
So.. how do we have 700,000 offenders on the registry without hearing about 42,000 Lundsfords, Kankas, or Walshes a year?
The statistic is misleading. A 'reoffense' can be as little as public indecency, at this point, and the microscope is on them. If you are in public and rip out the crotch of your jeans picking something up, even if no flesh is exposed, the offender can be cited. Some indeed choose new victims, some choose young victims, but these are in the minority as well. (7.3% of the total of multiple child molesters versus single-offense child molesters at 2.4%.) This is a great difference from 90% to 100%.
You have a non-hetrogenous group, being dealt with in a hetrogenous and punitive manner, seeking further control. Precedents are being established that allows them to 'regulate' due to past offenses the possibility of future offenses. This gives them a huge amount of power. Perhaps this would indicate why they shifted from the 'black crime problem' to one that nobody was willing to defend. Race will always have defenders... and registered sex offenders, when defending themselves, are considered to be 'in denial' or 'making excuses'. It's a catch 22. Even if you are innocent, there is no way out.
Power and control, gentlemen. Any idiot can see what you've had done to you. Maybe' it's time to look other directions and at why you hate.
Besides.. how many of you have said 'I'd tap that', and then found out the person was underage?
And how many politicians got a pass on it after the 'Boys Town' scandal of the 80s?
It would seem an act of total idiocy to question the official line when a boys prostitution ring (and not always a consentual one) was linked through the congress and white house, and the story got buried. It would seem an even greater act of idiocy to claim that the government would potentially hide evidence and such a story in such a way that several of the persons later were involved in the legislation attacking such offenders, and were further accused of indecent acts against underage individuals in the congressional offices themselves?
After all.. who would believe such a story about those who pushed the legislation the most...
Only a total idiot.
Read more!
How did we get here? An idiot's take.
Our people, our nation have walked with open eyes, but quite blindly into the pit trap that is ahead of them. Shuffling forth like a crowd of grasping, hungry zombies after the nearby person atop the ice cream truck (with the music playing in the background for true horror), we've managed to destroy our freedoms, our liberties, and even our representation in our own government. So how did we get here? This article, and the next few articles will address this.
Suffice to say that we as a people got here with the best of intentions. "Good intentions", as said by Daniel Webster, "Will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."
This is not, however, to accuse the putative 'masters' of being the only ones at fault. We tend to forget that we too have a place in the process, and our good intentions often feed into the grasping and manipulative hands of those who would harm us.
The keys are manifold, and often in our own hands. We see perceived injustice, and say 'there ought to be a law' while ignoring that there may well already be.
Here are the key events that got us here.
A good part of the start of this was at the very beginning of the nation, when the Articles of Confederation were dying a death of a thousand cuts from internal stresses and loose monetary policies. The Bank of England provided loans, and the people of the Several States used those loans to back currency, often at large inflationary rates, allowing foreclosures on the properties that ended up owned by the banks by their backers. Rebellion was occurring, no standing army existed, and liberty was as much a myth as any dragon or unicorn. The nation was protected solely by the might of individual arms, and the mustering of those arms took time.
The issue of slavery as well was on the minds of the population. While the founders wrestled with its thorny grasp, they recognized that men must be free. At the same time, they recognized the economic hardship that such a takings would cause in many parts of the nation, as well as recognizing that said nation was also going to be recalcitrant in giving up its property. They set a date for correcting the situation, a date of 1808. It was not addressed until sixty years later.
There were other forces at work as well. On July 14, 1803, the treaty authorizing the Louisiana Purchase reached Washington DC. Napoleon had ceded the lands involved for a cash sum of 15 million dollars, a bauble according to the value of the total land area, resources, and materials involved. This however had another effect, the effect of introducing new law through the Louisiana territory, the civil law under the Roman tradition. Regulations, definitions, and many other things began replacing the Common Law as early as 1838.
On November 6, 1860, a lawyer was elected president. His name was Abraham Lincoln. He selected members for his cabinet from among his political opponents, to get a number of opposing views. Their advice was often barbed with traps, particularly the advice of Stanton. The president often walked the tightrope between political destruction, and solvency. When the southern states pronounced their secession from the union, Stanton (the secretary of war) was counseling Lincoln that the union was inseparable without a dissolution, threatening the continuity of the United States as it was seen at the time. Without the Confederate states, the Federal Government lacked a simple majority, preventing any legislation from being passed, any work from being done, any declarations or resolutions from being accomplished. The Union was at a standstill.
Abraham Lincoln at this point declared an emergency, and declared Martial Law, under the assumption of emergency powers. The Supreme Court struck this down in Ex Parte Merryman, but it was ignored by Lincoln. Lincoln then by executive order passed legislation allowing the Congress to operate without a quorum, by suspension of the normal rules of operation, they could pass legislation 'without contention'.
In other words, if nobody was there to say no, then the writ was law. This situation still exists today, with the suspension of the rules, and passage without contention. It would appear that Lincoln was drafting legislation to return the U.S. to the constitutional situation while he was murdered, but this is beyond the scope of this document.
Numerous powers were attempted at this time, from the case of Texas v White, to the case of Cummings V. Missouri and Ex Parte Garland. The issue of firearms came up, and the north fought to maintain the individual right to keep and bear arms even for the 'insurrectionist' south.
The passage of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments with interim (appointed) state governments complicated the mix. (Again beyond the scope of this document).
During this time an experiment with a national reserve bank ended, with another run on the bank. The experiment was repeated after the passage of an income tax amendment, and the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, in 1913. At this point, so long as the reserve bank did not have a run on too many banks at once, the system was seemingly secure. A financial boom time followed, the 'Roaring twenties' fed as well by the industrial complex of the First World War. Borrowing to invest had become common, and a fatal flaw. On Black Friday, the nation's fortunes plummeted. Loose monetary policy and lack of oversight of the Federal Reserve and lenders had caused an inflationary bubble, which popped and caused massive unemployment.
Due to this unemployment, the 'Bonus Army' came to Washington D.C. in order to attempt to gain an advance from their promised bonus bonds, due to the financial hardship. This left President Wilson in a bind, knowing the treasury did not have enough funds to pay the full amount of the bonds, and that the Federal Reserve refused to allow the bonds to be paid, he felt he had to refuse. Against orders, and ignoring repeated orders, the Army marched across the Potomac and chased the Bonus Army from the grounds of Washington D.C. (to this day rumors of atrocity abound, it's impossible to say what really happened, the official account was a child dead by tear gas, and several saber wounds in various people). Around the same time, numerous news and media agencies were bought up, forming a new 'associated press' that only had its independence in name.
This paved the way for Franklin Delano Roosevelt to gain the White House. In 1933, there was a national emergency declared by Congress, and the powers latent since Lincoln were activated once again, and have never to this date been deactivated, as the Congress in their panic allowed that only the president could declare an end to the emergency.
The president then declared a paper currency, dictated the seizure of all gold coins, bullion, and silver to back the currency and to be delivered to the Federal Reserve. The Internal Revenue Service was given extraordinary powers to seize property.
Desegregation in 1957, and use of the army in Little Rock did little to quell the powers of government.
We fast-forward a few years, to the Vietnam war, and a media more capable of using photography and film to influence the public. The power of the media and television, illustrations carefully chosen created a swell of anger in the people at home, against our soldiers and our government. The cold war begins, various presidents pass executive orders allowing the seizure of any property, including labor, and redistribution as the nation requires. The Watergate tapes, the scandals of multiple presidencies, a soaring national debt funded by the same bankers as back in the beginning, distracting the people through the media further, busily giving them people to focus on and hate, overemphasizing the problems of racial inequality, and legislation introduced to maintain it, claiming to be operating to remove it...
Are we really so much better off today?
Or are we all slaves already... this idiot wonders.
It would seem to me that government ownership and debt have made us entirely under their power, and as we must request permission to travel, permission to farm, permission for industry, permission for manufacture, permission to use our own lands and our own vehicles, permission to own our vehicles, our weapons, and even to have children and be married.. that we are fully owned by the government.
And this idiot wishes he were too stupid to be terrified of what that means.
Read more!
Suffice to say that we as a people got here with the best of intentions. "Good intentions", as said by Daniel Webster, "Will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters."
This is not, however, to accuse the putative 'masters' of being the only ones at fault. We tend to forget that we too have a place in the process, and our good intentions often feed into the grasping and manipulative hands of those who would harm us.
The keys are manifold, and often in our own hands. We see perceived injustice, and say 'there ought to be a law' while ignoring that there may well already be.
Here are the key events that got us here.
A good part of the start of this was at the very beginning of the nation, when the Articles of Confederation were dying a death of a thousand cuts from internal stresses and loose monetary policies. The Bank of England provided loans, and the people of the Several States used those loans to back currency, often at large inflationary rates, allowing foreclosures on the properties that ended up owned by the banks by their backers. Rebellion was occurring, no standing army existed, and liberty was as much a myth as any dragon or unicorn. The nation was protected solely by the might of individual arms, and the mustering of those arms took time.
The issue of slavery as well was on the minds of the population. While the founders wrestled with its thorny grasp, they recognized that men must be free. At the same time, they recognized the economic hardship that such a takings would cause in many parts of the nation, as well as recognizing that said nation was also going to be recalcitrant in giving up its property. They set a date for correcting the situation, a date of 1808. It was not addressed until sixty years later.
There were other forces at work as well. On July 14, 1803, the treaty authorizing the Louisiana Purchase reached Washington DC. Napoleon had ceded the lands involved for a cash sum of 15 million dollars, a bauble according to the value of the total land area, resources, and materials involved. This however had another effect, the effect of introducing new law through the Louisiana territory, the civil law under the Roman tradition. Regulations, definitions, and many other things began replacing the Common Law as early as 1838.
On November 6, 1860, a lawyer was elected president. His name was Abraham Lincoln. He selected members for his cabinet from among his political opponents, to get a number of opposing views. Their advice was often barbed with traps, particularly the advice of Stanton. The president often walked the tightrope between political destruction, and solvency. When the southern states pronounced their secession from the union, Stanton (the secretary of war) was counseling Lincoln that the union was inseparable without a dissolution, threatening the continuity of the United States as it was seen at the time. Without the Confederate states, the Federal Government lacked a simple majority, preventing any legislation from being passed, any work from being done, any declarations or resolutions from being accomplished. The Union was at a standstill.
Abraham Lincoln at this point declared an emergency, and declared Martial Law, under the assumption of emergency powers. The Supreme Court struck this down in Ex Parte Merryman, but it was ignored by Lincoln. Lincoln then by executive order passed legislation allowing the Congress to operate without a quorum, by suspension of the normal rules of operation, they could pass legislation 'without contention'.
In other words, if nobody was there to say no, then the writ was law. This situation still exists today, with the suspension of the rules, and passage without contention. It would appear that Lincoln was drafting legislation to return the U.S. to the constitutional situation while he was murdered, but this is beyond the scope of this document.
Numerous powers were attempted at this time, from the case of Texas v White, to the case of Cummings V. Missouri and Ex Parte Garland. The issue of firearms came up, and the north fought to maintain the individual right to keep and bear arms even for the 'insurrectionist' south.
The passage of the Thirteenth and Fourteenth amendments with interim (appointed) state governments complicated the mix. (Again beyond the scope of this document).
During this time an experiment with a national reserve bank ended, with another run on the bank. The experiment was repeated after the passage of an income tax amendment, and the passage of the Federal Reserve Act, in 1913. At this point, so long as the reserve bank did not have a run on too many banks at once, the system was seemingly secure. A financial boom time followed, the 'Roaring twenties' fed as well by the industrial complex of the First World War. Borrowing to invest had become common, and a fatal flaw. On Black Friday, the nation's fortunes plummeted. Loose monetary policy and lack of oversight of the Federal Reserve and lenders had caused an inflationary bubble, which popped and caused massive unemployment.
Due to this unemployment, the 'Bonus Army' came to Washington D.C. in order to attempt to gain an advance from their promised bonus bonds, due to the financial hardship. This left President Wilson in a bind, knowing the treasury did not have enough funds to pay the full amount of the bonds, and that the Federal Reserve refused to allow the bonds to be paid, he felt he had to refuse. Against orders, and ignoring repeated orders, the Army marched across the Potomac and chased the Bonus Army from the grounds of Washington D.C. (to this day rumors of atrocity abound, it's impossible to say what really happened, the official account was a child dead by tear gas, and several saber wounds in various people). Around the same time, numerous news and media agencies were bought up, forming a new 'associated press' that only had its independence in name.
This paved the way for Franklin Delano Roosevelt to gain the White House. In 1933, there was a national emergency declared by Congress, and the powers latent since Lincoln were activated once again, and have never to this date been deactivated, as the Congress in their panic allowed that only the president could declare an end to the emergency.
The president then declared a paper currency, dictated the seizure of all gold coins, bullion, and silver to back the currency and to be delivered to the Federal Reserve. The Internal Revenue Service was given extraordinary powers to seize property.
Desegregation in 1957, and use of the army in Little Rock did little to quell the powers of government.
We fast-forward a few years, to the Vietnam war, and a media more capable of using photography and film to influence the public. The power of the media and television, illustrations carefully chosen created a swell of anger in the people at home, against our soldiers and our government. The cold war begins, various presidents pass executive orders allowing the seizure of any property, including labor, and redistribution as the nation requires. The Watergate tapes, the scandals of multiple presidencies, a soaring national debt funded by the same bankers as back in the beginning, distracting the people through the media further, busily giving them people to focus on and hate, overemphasizing the problems of racial inequality, and legislation introduced to maintain it, claiming to be operating to remove it...
Are we really so much better off today?
Or are we all slaves already... this idiot wonders.
It would seem to me that government ownership and debt have made us entirely under their power, and as we must request permission to travel, permission to farm, permission for industry, permission for manufacture, permission to use our own lands and our own vehicles, permission to own our vehicles, our weapons, and even to have children and be married.. that we are fully owned by the government.
And this idiot wishes he were too stupid to be terrified of what that means.
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Thursday, June 4, 2009
Idiotic realizations
I have looked back into the span of history, at the conditions and needs of the early colonists. I've searched fro and pondered the meanings of words, of legal terms with a known connotation. I've rooted through many hundreds of pages of cases and legal understandings regarding contract law, criminal law, and history, and come to a set of very dumb questions.
These questions are fairly thorny ones. This idiot tends to over analyze, so I've attempted to simplify. The following are the moronic maundering of this total idiot.
The constitution was, is, and remains a civil document, a contract between the people and the federal government. Though representatives of the people came from the Several States under the constitution, it was the people that ultimately had to allow the ratification of that document, and establish a new entity, the federal government. By incorporating that government via civil contract, it could outlast its own creators, and establish a power to perpetuity, according to the terms of that contract. The original contract, if you notice, bore no punishments, no pains and penalties for violations, though it did bear the limitation of attainder for death for making war against the United States, her people, or the Constitution as an attainder of treason. The remedy for the misuse of those governmental powers was twofold.
1. All laws made outside of the authority explicitly granted in the original contract were null and void, deemed to never have had the capability or authority for existence.
2. Any act against the people would be met by whole force, as an act of treason and war.
The purpose and intent, as well, of that constitution was fairly visible. Looking at the history, our budding confederacy of states had just gone through a revolutionary war, seceding from the power and authority of the Empire of Great Britain, and forging for themselves hard-won liberty in the process. This road was difficult, however, banks were established and writs of credit issued, bills of paper that were unbacked by the state banks, and the people were rapidly defrauded of great amounts of gold, property, and liberty. Rebellion stirred when the newly formed state governments attempted to tax, and there was potential for invasion on every front. Loose monetary policy and attempts at barring trade between states led to potential war between states, and armies levied in one state threatened the perceived well being of another.
Amid this turbulent backdrop were men who were determined to ensure the survival of the new colonies, and to prevent them from being snapped up, purchased, or flat-out fraudulently stolen by the British Government and their banks. They established a constitution to:
establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
Today's 'flavor' of law puts a great deal of weight on intent of the law, rather than the rights of the people, quite in opposition of the original intent. In cases where rights and powers came into argument, the weight of proof was to be against the power, not the individual right.
The rights, indeed, were seen to pre-exist the constitution, and to be outside of the authority of that document. No rights were created, or destroyed by its establishment, and they were protected from infringement not by the bill of rights, but by article 1, section 9, and article 1, section 10.
article 1, section 9. No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
article 1, section 10. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.
What is a bill of attainder? A bill of attainder is any document that attempts to by writ remove any property from a person, without due process of law, the court, and the jury. According to the writers of the constitution (Madison, Hamilton, Adams) and the first supreme court justices (John Jay) the rights that were established outside of the government were also property, because by having property within those rights, one could file suit in a court of law for infringement of those rights, and further had the right, duty, and power to protect them by force of arms if necessary.
The rights to life, liberty, and property were the keys to the pursuit of happiness, and the adjunct right to defend such property against all takers was also important. Your liberty is, and was, expressed in your rights.
The government claims the power at this point to remove rights, not simply by the rule of law, but by whim, claiming that it is their provenance that establishes those privileges, and their power to determine the means by which they may be used. If your right to defend your life is a privilege, then is your life your own? This idiot must ask: if a people are limited in the operation of their rights to only what is permitted, are they rights? If someone else controls how you must live, how you must work, how you must eat, how you must sleep, how you must think, how you must travel, how you must vote.. are those rights still your own property? Property boils down to control of a subject. It would seem to this idiot that the control of the subjects is strongly within government hands.
Can you travel outside the country and return without their permission? Can you travel as you wish within it without showing your identification? Can you rely upon the officers of the law to actually protect you, or has the government chosen to indemnify them from that purpose? Does your nation or state control more of your life today... than you do?
Sure, we eat, we sleep, we drink when we wish. We watch our televisions and see our stars in the limelight without ever seeing the pasty makeup that's plastered on their faces, or even understanding what has been done to us.
We bemoan the standards of education dropping, but what do we do about it?
We sit and gripe in a coffee shop, kvetch about the winery. We're angry, we're hurting, but we're unfocused, unable to grip and grasp the enormity of what has been done to us.
I know of very few with no debt whatsoever for their personal debt, and none without debt from the government.
We are bound, eternally, to serve the government, on pain of prison. We can never pay off our debts, nor can we ever get beyond them. They establish for us, in our misery, scapegoats and whipping boys whom we reach out and gleefully flay. They propose laws for 'our own good' destroying our economies, our work, our futurity in its entirety, and we still sit back and watch them, and do nothing.
Oh yes, there are words for what has been done to us. We sit idly, supplicating the throne for surcease from our misery, and by the supplication we have time to have further chains bound down upon us.
Yes, there are words... and the word is slavery. By international law, we, as the people, are slaves. The government, established to serve us, and given power to protect our liberty, has chosen instead to make war against us, and to take up ownership of our lives, our property, our very existence and that of our children.
This is partly our own fault, and partly the fault of our parents and grandparents, and greatly the fault of our elected officials that for scraps from the table of power, are perfectly willing to continue selling us.
We can't let it continue... and any idiot can see that.
Read more!
- What is the nature of the document?
- What is its purpose and intent?
- What limitations does the document place against the powers it establishes?
- How does this compare with today?
These questions are fairly thorny ones. This idiot tends to over analyze, so I've attempted to simplify. The following are the moronic maundering of this total idiot.
The constitution was, is, and remains a civil document, a contract between the people and the federal government. Though representatives of the people came from the Several States under the constitution, it was the people that ultimately had to allow the ratification of that document, and establish a new entity, the federal government. By incorporating that government via civil contract, it could outlast its own creators, and establish a power to perpetuity, according to the terms of that contract. The original contract, if you notice, bore no punishments, no pains and penalties for violations, though it did bear the limitation of attainder for death for making war against the United States, her people, or the Constitution as an attainder of treason. The remedy for the misuse of those governmental powers was twofold.
1. All laws made outside of the authority explicitly granted in the original contract were null and void, deemed to never have had the capability or authority for existence.
2. Any act against the people would be met by whole force, as an act of treason and war.
The purpose and intent, as well, of that constitution was fairly visible. Looking at the history, our budding confederacy of states had just gone through a revolutionary war, seceding from the power and authority of the Empire of Great Britain, and forging for themselves hard-won liberty in the process. This road was difficult, however, banks were established and writs of credit issued, bills of paper that were unbacked by the state banks, and the people were rapidly defrauded of great amounts of gold, property, and liberty. Rebellion stirred when the newly formed state governments attempted to tax, and there was potential for invasion on every front. Loose monetary policy and attempts at barring trade between states led to potential war between states, and armies levied in one state threatened the perceived well being of another.
Amid this turbulent backdrop were men who were determined to ensure the survival of the new colonies, and to prevent them from being snapped up, purchased, or flat-out fraudulently stolen by the British Government and their banks. They established a constitution to:
establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity.
Today's 'flavor' of law puts a great deal of weight on intent of the law, rather than the rights of the people, quite in opposition of the original intent. In cases where rights and powers came into argument, the weight of proof was to be against the power, not the individual right.
The rights, indeed, were seen to pre-exist the constitution, and to be outside of the authority of that document. No rights were created, or destroyed by its establishment, and they were protected from infringement not by the bill of rights, but by article 1, section 9, and article 1, section 10.
article 1, section 9. No bill of attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed.
article 1, section 10. No state shall enter into any treaty, alliance, or confederation; grant letters of marque and reprisal; coin money; emit bills of credit; make anything but gold and silver coin a tender in payment of debts; pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law impairing the obligation of contracts, or grant any title of nobility.
What is a bill of attainder? A bill of attainder is any document that attempts to by writ remove any property from a person, without due process of law, the court, and the jury. According to the writers of the constitution (Madison, Hamilton, Adams) and the first supreme court justices (John Jay) the rights that were established outside of the government were also property, because by having property within those rights, one could file suit in a court of law for infringement of those rights, and further had the right, duty, and power to protect them by force of arms if necessary.
The rights to life, liberty, and property were the keys to the pursuit of happiness, and the adjunct right to defend such property against all takers was also important. Your liberty is, and was, expressed in your rights.
The government claims the power at this point to remove rights, not simply by the rule of law, but by whim, claiming that it is their provenance that establishes those privileges, and their power to determine the means by which they may be used. If your right to defend your life is a privilege, then is your life your own? This idiot must ask: if a people are limited in the operation of their rights to only what is permitted, are they rights? If someone else controls how you must live, how you must work, how you must eat, how you must sleep, how you must think, how you must travel, how you must vote.. are those rights still your own property? Property boils down to control of a subject. It would seem to this idiot that the control of the subjects is strongly within government hands.
Can you travel outside the country and return without their permission? Can you travel as you wish within it without showing your identification? Can you rely upon the officers of the law to actually protect you, or has the government chosen to indemnify them from that purpose? Does your nation or state control more of your life today... than you do?
Sure, we eat, we sleep, we drink when we wish. We watch our televisions and see our stars in the limelight without ever seeing the pasty makeup that's plastered on their faces, or even understanding what has been done to us.
We bemoan the standards of education dropping, but what do we do about it?
We sit and gripe in a coffee shop, kvetch about the winery. We're angry, we're hurting, but we're unfocused, unable to grip and grasp the enormity of what has been done to us.
I know of very few with no debt whatsoever for their personal debt, and none without debt from the government.
We are bound, eternally, to serve the government, on pain of prison. We can never pay off our debts, nor can we ever get beyond them. They establish for us, in our misery, scapegoats and whipping boys whom we reach out and gleefully flay. They propose laws for 'our own good' destroying our economies, our work, our futurity in its entirety, and we still sit back and watch them, and do nothing.
Oh yes, there are words for what has been done to us. We sit idly, supplicating the throne for surcease from our misery, and by the supplication we have time to have further chains bound down upon us.
Yes, there are words... and the word is slavery. By international law, we, as the people, are slaves. The government, established to serve us, and given power to protect our liberty, has chosen instead to make war against us, and to take up ownership of our lives, our property, our very existence and that of our children.
This is partly our own fault, and partly the fault of our parents and grandparents, and greatly the fault of our elected officials that for scraps from the table of power, are perfectly willing to continue selling us.
We can't let it continue... and any idiot can see that.
Read more!
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