The case for rights: criminals

As per usual for my postings, I fully expect this one to be both controversial, and subject to vociferous disagreement. This is a subject that is full of emotions and disagreement, and like any such subject, is bound to attract attention both logical, and less than savory. Do criminals have rights? Do they, when they commit a crime, give them up?

I do a great deal of reading, and a great deal of thinking. It has grown to the point where people claim I do so too much, and that my arguments are abstracted from the real world. However, in this case, the argument itself spawns from the real world itself, from the history that is my specialty and stock in trade.The question does not spawn full-blown from my brow like Athena of legend, nor does it grow like dragon's teeth planted into an army, but in the way all such arguments do, from an idea.

Our current prison system spawned from such an idea, around two centuries gone, an idea in Philadelphia, an idea of a new way of doing things, rather than the execution of felons, of a place for their penitence, and reformation. The term penitentiary comes from this root, the idea that penitence and separation were a more fitting punishment for wrongs against a society than death.

In this penitentiary, the prisoners were granted a bible, and a plain bed, food and water, and a place of solitude. The idea was to allow them to grow penitent, and to humble themselves and restore themselves to society.

Like all ideas, however, this idea was taken up by those who had power, and intended to increase it. In any case for the pursuit of power, there must be two things present, a people to protect, and someone to protect them from. From its roots in British law, conviction offered a steady stream of persons to protect the society from, and a society that was indebted to those that made the laws.

In its initial formation in this country, the nature of felony was a seizure of property, specific properties, in fact. Blackstone's commentaries on the Laws of England, in fact, touched upon this in his articles 'On conviction and its consequences'.

In effect, the felon, upon judgment, lost his right to property, lost his right to sit upon a jury, and lost his life. This was called attainder, the highest punishment any society could give. No longer was the individual a man, nor a human, but a monster to be hunted down and disposed of without qualm, no longer fit to live within society itself. This terrible consequence was only on judgment of guilt, and sentence to death.

This preserved the separation of the law-abiding from the law-breaking, and the largest punishment, and the most public spectacle, in old England, was death by drawing, then quartering. Tortures and hangings were also quite public, floggings, and hanging from a gibbet.

The idea of the new punishment was to be more humane, and more human. It was to offer opportunity for the offender to redeem himself both in the eyes of society, and his own. IT was, in many ways, a baptism by time, a remaking of the individual.

However, our politicians, in their zeal for someone to protect society from, and to control society by, decided that this was an excellent idea. It provided a ready-made excuse that emotions would dictate to us is a good one, for, after all, if one has violated the law before, does it not stand to reason that he may again? And certainly, precaution would seem to dictate that the restriction of those offenders would be a good thing, for after all, they have already set themselves against society.

From this argument spawned new laws, new arguments designed to remove the rights of human beings. After all, if a felon could not own a weapon, then certainly they would not be able to assault, maim, and kill so many. But yet, we ignore the other side of the coin. A felon is still human, still possessed of the right to live, and has no more right than any of us to demand police protection. There is no right to police protection in this nation, no matter the source.

It was always the most effective to have a vague nebulous class of persons out there that were the enemy. While targeted classes have their place in stirring up the public sentiment, vagueness has the advantage, from the eyes of the legislator, of deniability. It cannot happen to us, the reasoning goes, for we abide by the laws! That is for other people.

Lest we forget, the laws are made by those who would separate us into those to protect, and those to protect from. Moreover, by expanding the class to protect from, they expand the pool of persons entirely dependent upon their protection, which they need not give at all.

Let us also not forget that the rights enshrined within the Bill of Rights, and constitution, were deemed to be human rights, natural rights, established for the protection of all humanity, not merely the citizen. These principles were laid out in many later constitutions, to be agreeable to the federal. These rights were protected against that very government that now claims the power... to remove them for wrongdoing, and the power to eliminate them due to the violation of a law.

Why did our constitution not prevent this? It did. Article 1, sections 9 and 10 prohibit attainder. Attainder is the singular power by which any of this may be done.

"But how does this affect me?" the average citizen may cry. It affects you, because that power of attainder, and the principle of the loss of rights for the violation of a crime, will inevitably expand to the vacuum left by the people's lack of action against it. May I ask, what prevents the legislature from passing laws that declare an intimate aspect of life felonious? It is entirely possible for them to declare the excessive use of water a felony, and define excessive as two flushes of the toilet in a single day. It is equally possible for them to declare that the unregistered and unlicensed emission of co2 from any source exceeding 10,500L in a year becomes a felony for the owner of the property upon which the primary emission source occurs.

This, however, would include nearly every human being, as humans emit well over this amount every year, by simply breathing. The proof becomes a negligible exercise in mathematics, a simple statement, and you become a felon.

Sound extreme? Well, perhaps another example may be given.

You may become a felon for using, collecting, or possessing certain feathers without a license. You may become a felon for, in certain cases, engaging in the right to speech, engaging in the right to travel, or even having the temerity to fail to agree to a contract.

The nature of the power to protect, and the power to protect from, expands... and the more that the government may protect you from, the more that they may limit you in your everyday life.

It is by force, and force alone that government acts. Many of us have felt troubled through the years by the increased use of SWAT teams, by the increase in prevalence of violence by the police, but we dismissed it as a 'necessary' evil in the 'war on drugs'. We've allowed the stripping of rights from others, in order to protect ourselves... but the world gets crazier each day. We established 'free speech zones' in the capital, in order to protect politicians from ideas that may be contrary to their own. We allow persons within the United States to arrest with a self-written warrant, to incarcerate without trial, and thus to cause 'unpopular' elements to disappear... without ever speaking to an attorney, without representation, and without recourse. In our zeal for 'protection', we have established a 'constitution free zone' within 100 miles of the border.

We establish trials which, rather than the evidence being presented before a jury, and the laws being discussed, force the jury to either dismiss or rubber-stamp the actions of the prosecutor, and the charges are sealed under 'national security' as is the evidence, from both the defense, the judge, and the jury.

And we go along with it.

For our own protection, they discuss fully disarming our people, and removing the right to speak, if someone might be offended. They threaten and cajole, with lawsuit and cash, and today may seize your property it was involved in the commission of a drug crime... even if you gave no permission to allow it to be used thus.

Remember, protector and the protected. The more helpless that the government may keep you, the more force they may safely exert over you. With each encroachment, it becomes more difficult to push back, to restore your rights, and the rights of your children.

An arrest is not being taken into the station... an arrest is the mere act of stopping you. If you are stopped, and not free to go, that is an arrest, by its very definition, and is a crime without warrant, when an act has not been witnessed.

Consider the fact that prosecutors have said that there are certain crimes that are easy to convict, with minimal evidence, and they have immunity for fraudulently creating evidence to secure conviction.

The suspicion is often enough to convict.

Then ask yourselves if the idea of removing rights from felons... those same rights established to protect them from the government, and to do the same for you yourself, due to violations of the rules created by that same government, is a good idea.

After all, today the politicians present loopholes in the laws... for employees of the government, leaving themselves outside the law that is your burden.

Tax scandals, criminal scandals, drugs, sex, prostitution... and all swept under the rug by judicious application of money, which would leave any other man a felon.

Ask yourselves how this comports with the use of prisoners as laborers, to do dangerous and expensive jobs, at pennies per hour, then harvesting the outcome of their labor to pay for..tubes of toothpaste at vastly inflated prices.

Were we to do so as private citizens, we'd be convicted of involuntary servitude. It can hardly be argued that they are there willingly, or that in any other situation that they would volunteer their time, their energy, and their health for such wages.

Ask yourselves why nearly two percent of our population, a higher proportion than any other nation, are in prison... and a good four percent in addition to that have traveled through the prison system, and are now considered to be without rights.

Then ask yourselves again; "what separates us from them?"

The passage of a law,
By that very government that claims to protect you.

That flu shot? Perhaps by failing to take it you endanger others. Perhaps buying the wrong foods might endanger others. Perhaps, just perhaps, the mere fact of this posting, or the way you vote, the way you worship, the way you think, endangers others.

You might have to ask these questions.. for we are all felons in this nation, under some obscure law or other. The only difference at this point is if it has been enforced on you or not, and when they will choose to do so because you become inconvenient.

The country was established for one reason: the reason of protecting all rights within its borders. The government has no other legitimate purpose. it was for these ends that the states were given the powers of criminal justice, and for the correction of wrongs done against those rights the power of correction and punishment.

Not to 'protect' us from the things that go bump in the night at our own expense. But then.. I am a Total Idiot. What could I know?

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Who owns the nation?

One of the stickiest issues of current legal thinking is that of sovereignty and ownership. The federal government maintains that it is the sovereign, and that the states and people serve it. The states maintain that the federal government and people are the servant.

Which view is correct? How do we determine it? Perhaps the best explanation was given in a very old court case, Chisholm v. Georgia.

The same feudal ideas run through all their jurisprudence, and constantly remind us of the distinction between the Prince and the subject. No such ideas obtain here; at the Revolution, the sovereignty devolved on the people, and they are truly the sovereigns of the country, but they are sovereigns without subjects (unless the African slaves among us may be so called), and have none to govern but themselves; the citizens of America are equal as fellow citizens, and as joint tenants in the sovereignty.

— CHISHOLM V. GEORGIA, 2 U. S. 419 (1793)

The real answer, it appears, is neither of the above. The states and federal government belong to the sovereign, each of us individually holding that shared sovereignty.

We have no right to give it up, for ourselves or others. Sovereignty is not something that can be given or taken away, it is an inalienable property. It is something that holds itself outside of law, for it is the founder of law.

We are each lords, with sovereign powers in our own rights. This does not extend to the power to remove sovereignty from the persons of others, nor does it extend to the power to, with impunity, disarm and make war against others. It extends to the right to defend the self from any unprovoked attack, no matter who the aggressor is, and the right to maintain that sovereignty with any power that is at our disposal.

We cannot simultaneously own the government, and have created it, and have it own us. One or the other will struggle to dominance... and we are inattentive in our defenses against the government.

When we consider the nature and the theory of our institutions of government, the principles upon which they are supposed to rest, and review the history of their development, we are constrained to conclude that they do not mean to leave room for the play and action of purely personal and arbitrary power. Sovereignty itself is, of course, not subject to law, for it is the author and source of law; but in our system, while sovereign powers are delegated to the agencies of government, sovereignty itself remains with the people, by whom and for whom all government exists and acts. And the law is the definition and limitation of power. It is, indeed, quite true that there must always be lodged somewhere, and in some person or body, the authority of final decision; and in many cases of mere administration, the responsibility is purely political, no appeal lying except to the ultimate tribunal of the public judgment, exercised either in the pressure of opinion, or by means of the suffrage. But the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, considered as individual possessions, are secured by those maxims of constitutional law which are the monuments showing the victorious progress of the race in securing to men the blessings of civilization under the reign of just and equal laws, so that, in the famous language of the Massachusetts bill of rights, the government of the commonwealth 'may be a government of laws and not of men.' For the very idea that one man may be compelled to hold his life, or the means of living, or any material right essential to the enjoyment of life, at the mere will of another, seems to be intolerable in any country where freedom prevails, as being the essence of slavery itself.

YICK WO v. HOPKINS, 118 U.S. 356 (1886)

Our rights are a property. They are our gifts, given from our ancestors, to be passed down, well-honed and ready for use, to our children, maintained for our neighbors, kept bright and in good repair for newcomers into the society. Those rights of sovereignty belong, not merely to American citizens, but to any person that enters the nation. Along with those rights come duties to respect the sovereignty of others.

One might ask why I say rights themselves are a property. A property, in the strictest sense, is not an object, but a right to an object. it is a right to dominion, and control of an object. While property may involve dimunition, severance, and dissolution, inalienable properties cannot have those powers justly exercised. The right to an object in which you hold value, if that object be tangible or an idea, is property. It was for this reason that the civil court system was established, to offer recourse beyond the laws of war, beyond the powers of men and courts.

That essence of recourse is what made our country prosper. For the first time in history, property was sacrosanct, not because of law, but because to seize a property without just recompense was prohibited. Outside of that recourse, where it was not available, is the state of war, where man reverts to his individual sovereignty.

And hence it is that he who attempts to get another man into his absolute power does thereby put himself into a state of war with him; it being to be understood as a declaration of a design upon his life. For I have reason to conclude that he who would get me into his power without my consent would use me as he pleased when he had got me there, and destroy me too when he had a fancy to it; for nobody can desire to have me in his absolute power unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom - i.e. make me a slave. To be free from such force is the only security of my preservation, and reason bids me look on him as an enemy to my preservation who would take away that freedom which is the fence to it; so that he who makes an attempt to enslave me thereby puts himself into a state of war with me. He that in the state of Nature would take away the freedom that belongs to any one in that state must necessarily be supposed to have a design to take away everything else, that freedom being the foundation of all the rest; as he that in the state of society would take away the freedom belonging to those of that society or commonwealth must be supposed to design to take away from them everything else, and so be looked on as in a state of war.
This makes it lawful for a man to kill a thief who has not in the least hurt him, nor declared any design upon his life, any farther than by the use of force, so to get him in his power as to take away his money, or what he pleases, from him; because using force, where he has no right to get me into his power, let his pretence be what it will, I have no reason to suppose that he who would take away my liberty would not, when he had me in his power, take away everything else. And, therefore, it is lawful for me to treat him as one who has put himself into a state of war with me - i.e., kill him if I can; for to that hazard does he justly expose himself whoever introduces a state of war, and is aggressor in it.
9. And here we have the plain difference between the state of Nature and the state of war, which however some men have confounded, are as far distant as a state of peace, good will, mutual assistance, and preservation; and a state of enmity, malice, violence and mutual destruction are one from another. Men living together according to reason without a common superior on earth, with authority to judge between them, is properly the state of Nature. But force, or a declared design of force upon the person of another, where there is no common superior on earth to appeal to for relief, is the state of war; and it is the want of such an appeal gives a man the right of war even against an aggressor, though he be in society and a fellow subject. Thus, a thief whom I cannot harm, but by appeal to the law, for having stolen all that I am worth, I may kill when he sets on me to rob me but of my horse or coat, because the law, which was made for my preservation, where it cannot interpose to secure my life from present force, which if lost is capable of no reparation, permits me my own defence and the right of war, a liberty to kill the aggressor, because the aggressor allows not time to appeal to our common judge, nor the decision of the law, for remedy in a case where the mischief may be irreparable. Want of a common judge with authority puts all men in a state of Nature; force without right upon a man's person makes a state of war both where there is, and is not, a common judge.

-- John Locke, Second Treatise on government, On the State of War.


Indeed, it was James Madison, one of the Framers of the constitution that stated:

In the former sense, a man's land, or merchandize, or money is called his property. In the latter sense, a man has property in his opinions and the free communication of them. He has a property of peculiar value in his religious opinions, and in the profession and practice dictated by them. He has property very dear to him in the safety and liberty of his person. He has equal property in the free use of his faculties and free choice of the objects on which to employ them. In a word, as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights.

Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties or his possessions. Where there is an excess of liberty, the effect is the same, though from an opposite cause.

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own.

Conscience is the most sacred of all property; other property depending in part on positive law, the exercise of that, being a natural and inalienable right. To guard a man's house as his castle, to pay public and enforce private debts with the most exact faith, can give no title to invade a man's conscience which is more sacred than his castle.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where the property which a man has in his personal safety and personal liberty, is violated by arbitrary seizures of one class of citizens for the service of the rest.

That is not a just government, nor is property secure under it, where arbitrary restrictions, exemptions, and monopolies deny to part of its citizens that free use of their faculties, and free choice of their occupations, which not only constitute their property in the general sense of the word; but are the means of acquiring property.

-- James Madison, property and liberty

And what recourses do we have? There, in the most fundamental term, are four.

The Soap Box, the Ballot Box, the Jury Box, and the Cartridge box.

This trite statement, sadly, has its accuracy in the blood with which it has been forged. The soap box, the right to convince others of the truth of your statements, and the power to speak freely of your ideas without reserve.

The ballot box, the ability to vote your just laws into existence, without diminishing the sovereignty of others.

The Jury box, the ability to nullify the law where it is outside the constitution, and act as the conscience of society. To try both the facts, and the law of the case, to remove disproportionate punishment, and abolish arbitrary legislation.

And the cartridge box... for when there is no other recourse, and any person attempts to get you bound down, helpless, for the operation of their arbitrary will.

Each of these are in danger.. the government claims the power to remove each of them for the commission of crime. It simultaneously determines what things are crimes within the nation.

Something to think about.

If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of Almighty God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.

-- Samuel Adams

Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life; secondly, to liberty; thirdly to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can.

-- Samuel Adams.

... whenever the Legislators endeavour to take away, and destroy the Property of the People, or to reduce them to Slavery under Arbitrary Power, they put themselves into a state of War with the People, who are thereupon absolved from any farther Obedience ... [Power then] devolves to the People, who have a Right to resume their original Liberty, and, by the Establishment of a new Legislative (such as they shall think fit) provide for their own Safety and Security, which is the end for which they are in Society.

-- John Locke

If you think these things do not affect you... I pity you.

It is the good fortune of many to live distant from the scene of sorrow; the evil is not sufficiently brought to their doors to make them feel the precariousness with which all American property is possessed. But let our imaginations transport us for a few moments to Boston, that seat of wretchedness will teach us wisdom, and instruct us for ever to renounce a power in whom we can have no trust. The inhabitants of that unfortunate city, who but a few months ago were in ease and affluence, have now no other alternative than to stay and starve, or turn out to beg. Endangered by the fire of their friends if they continue within the city, and plundered by the soldiery if they leave it. In their present condition they are prisoners without the hope of redemption, and in a general attack for their relief, they would be exposed to the fury of both armies.

Men of passive tempers look somewhat lightly over the offenses of Britain, and, still hoping for the best, are apt to call out, Come we shall be friends again for all this. But examine the passions and feelings of mankind. Bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature, and then tell me, whether you can hereafter love, honor, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land? If you cannot do all these, then are you only deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bringing ruin upon posterity. Your future connection with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honor, will be forced and unnatural, and being formed only on the plan of present convenience, will in a little time fall into a relapse more wretched than the first. But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, Hath your house been burnt? Hath you property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and can still shake hands with the murderers, then are you unworthy the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.

This is not inflaming or exaggerating matters, but trying them by those feelings and affections which nature justifies, and without which, we should be incapable of discharging the social duties of life, or enjoying the felicities of it. I mean not to exhibit horror for the purpose of provoking revenge, but to awaken us from fatal and unmanly slumbers, that we may pursue determinately some fixed object. It is not in the power of Britain or of Europe to conquer America, if she do not conquer herself by delay and timidity. The present winter is worth an age if rightly employed, but if lost or neglected, the whole continent will partake of the misfortune; and there is no punishment which that man will not deserve, be he who, or what, or where he will, that may be the means of sacrificing a season so precious and useful.

It is repugnant to reason, to the universal order of things, to all examples from the former ages, to suppose, that this continent can longer remain subject to any external power. The most sanguine in Britain does not think so. The utmost stretch of human wisdom cannot, at this time compass a plan short of separation, which can promise the continent even a year's security. Reconciliation is was a fallacious dream. Nature hath deserted the connection, and Art cannot supply her place. For, as Milton wisely expresses, "never can true reconcilement grow where wounds of deadly hate have pierced so deep."

Every quiet method for peace hath been ineffectual. Our prayers have been rejected with disdain; and only tended to convince us, that nothing flatters vanity, or confirms obstinacy in kings more than repeated petitioning- and nothing hath contributed more than that very measure to make the kings of Europe absolute: Witness Denmark and Sweden. Wherefore since nothing but blows will do, for God's sake, let us come to a final separation, and not leave the next generation to be cutting throats, under the violated unmeaning names of parent and child.

--Thomas Paine. Common sense, 1775

So long as injustice exists within the society, it will come to your doorstep. The longer the wildfire burns, the more tenacious, the more powerful it grows. When fanned into the flames of war, can we stop it any longer, or are we but kindling in its path?

We all have the responsibility, the duty, and the right to stop this before it grows to that point. Have we failed in that duty?

I wouldn't know. I'm a total idiot.

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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.

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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.

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