Tuesday, July 28, 2009

You May Be a Federal Criminal

Federal law now criminalizes activities that the average person would never dream would land him in prison. Consequently, every year, thousands of upstanding, responsible Americans run afoul of some incomprehensible federal law and end up serving time in federal prison. [More]
Sounds like a Jeff Foxworthy routine gone bad, doesn't it? Except this was never intended to be funny.

Amazing--the government punishes a citizen for the consequences of being incarcerated and unable to comply with further edicts. It is a true "Catch 22."

Things will not change unless and until the costs of participating in state-sponsored terrorism exceed the benefits.

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

Two words. JURY NULLIFICATION!!! Smokhouse III

MamaLiberty said...

[quote]
Things will not change unless and until the costs of participating in state-sponsored terrorism exceed the benefits.
[/quote]

Exactly... what I've been saying for years.

It's long past time to "shoot the bastards."

MamaLiberty said...

Jury nullification is a fine concept, and would be useful in a system where the population was educated and demonstrated reasonable integrity.

Have you ever been on a federal jury, anonymous? Know anyone who ever was? Do you know how many of these bogus federal cases ever get TO a jury trial? Damned few, and shrinking daily. Actually, trials of any sort are growing rare, since the government can now just tuck you away with no "due process" at all.

You can't "nullify" a jury that is never called, where no charges were ever actually made, etc. Doesn't do you any good when you just vanish...

I am the FIJA contact person for Wyoming, so I know the drill. We can and will continue to fight to educate people, but we can't count on this to save our lives by any means.

Bill said...

Like Mama said, Jury Nullification is all well and good if you have intelligent citizens. Since we have gone through decades of a horrific public school system, I would estimate that less than 10% of the people can be considered intelligent, educated and informed. It is very easy for judges and prosecutors to identify this <10% and eliminate them from the jury pool. So, jury nullification has been rendered mostly useless.

Anonymous said...

Not to mention that the voir dire process always contains questions explicitly phrased to root out those who are aware of the rights and duties of jurors.

Sean said...

Oh, but it's not TIME yet! We have to be totally prepared! Everything has to be in perfect order! And no Ft. Sumters, PLEASE! Meanwhile, we are tortured, brutalized,beaten,raped,murdered, and sent away to prison because some collection of scum passed a law they didn't read, but sounded good. But by all means, let's just wait, until the time is right. I mean come on now, we can work within the system for real change, any day now. Write your con-gressmen , THAT'LL teach em'! I guess it's probably ok to screw around with this stuff, since it wasn't me, this time. Right?

Kent McManigal said...

When it is impossible for a NORMAL person to live a NORMAL life without breaking even ONE "law", it is not that the person is wrong, it is that the "law" has become counterfeit and needs to be tossed aside.

straightarrow said...

This will not be fixed with hearings and investigations and new laws. This will only be fixed through force or the recognized inevitability of the application of lethal force by citizens who have finally had enough.

The first we will see will be the outlyers, those who have grown impatient past tolerance and take vengeance. Vengeanc is the correct word, for they cannot seek justice, and they cannot win, so they will attack their persecutors. They will mostly die in the attempt and will surely die in prison should they survive the battles.

They will be painted as "psychos", bad actors, unstable people with histories of anti-social behavior. Mostly, it won't be true, but it will hold the vast majority in check at least temporarily. The actual service to society that these people will provide is to supply impetus to the state for further draconian measures against everyone. Until such time as everyone or almost everyone realizes that they have no choice but to apply that lethal force to the abusers and their hand maidens of enforcement.

Dark, bleak picture that that is, I do not see any other way but one. That way is to bow down accept chains of slavery, become livestock to their herdsmen and serve their profit and power whims. That is totally unacceptable. But it is what the abusers of liberty believe they can bring about.

Therefore, this cannot be settled peacefully in any arena. It will be settled by force.

ScottJ said...

This nugget in the article really got my attention: The Lacey Act is an example of the dangerous overbreadth of federal criminal law. Incredibly, Congress has made it a federal crime to violate any fish or wildlife law or regulation of any nation on earth.

So they passed a law to make us subservient to the laws of nations not subject to our Constitution?

Imagine if they turn that to gun law.

Anonymous said...

The time is nigh to visit violence upon the tyrants!

bob r said...

"Imagine if they turn that to gun law."

They already have in their own small way: being "convicted" in _any_ country for _anything_ carrying a potential penalty greater than 1 year makes you a "prohibited" person; forever. Doesn't matter if the "crime" in question is not a crime (of any sort) in the U.S.

W W Woodward said...

"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws."
Ayn Rand - Atlas Shrugged

There's no way to add anything to that.