How We Got To Here

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America is in trouble because Americans got lazy. Not so much physically but morally. They began to care more about some passing thing than about the things that truly matter; the things that made America unlike other places.

Better than other places.

Things like principles; the plain meaning of words. The Fourth and Fifth Amendments, especially. Which were (past tense deliberate) laws written to articulate and protect principles that matter.

It gradually became more important to – as Thomas More’s character in the play, A Man For All Seasons put it – cut down all the “trees” (laws) that sheltered the individual for the sake of making things easier for the government.

For example, the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches – defined in sane terms and plain English as any non-specific search of people at random, who’ve not done anything to suggest they may have committed a crime. Fishing expeditions, in other words.

The idea was that the government should have to – in the first place – substantiate suspicion. It wasn’t enough for a cop to say – I don’t like your looks. He had to be able to articulate some definite thing (evidence) that gave him reason to believe you had committed or were about to commit a crime.

Today, cops stop people at random, without any specific cause at all. Without even having to say they don’t like their looks. It is enough that they are cops. And that you are not.

It was once the case that prior to a physical search of your property, it was legally necessary to obtain a search warrant – a piece of paper issued by a judge, who was supposed to issue the thing only if the investigator asking for it could present some definite thing (evidence) that supported his asserted suspicion of criminal activity. And the warrant had to be specific, stating clearly who was to be searched and what and where. This was to prevent something that used to be routine in the colonies under the British – the general writ, which empowered King George’s minions to search anyone, anywhere for anything.

Today’s redcoats wear blue (and lately, black). They search whomever, whatever, whenever.

We are even coerced into witnessing against ourselves via threats that failure to do will bring down separate charges and punishments.

Is this America?

I do not recognize it as such.

How did we get to this point?

The change occurred gradually but has become a juggernaut for the simple reason that precedent becomes routine. Once accepted, an affront is forgotten. It not only becomes accepted – it becomes acceptable to do it again. (Which, as an aside, is why this Obamacare business is so important. If it stands, if Trump does not repeal – not replace  – it, it is certain we will shortly be forced to also buy other forms of government-mandated insurance; for example gun insurance, if you want to own a gun.)

But when did it begin to become acceptable?

Probably when the Supreme Court gutted the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to placate “moms” who were “mad” about drunk driving. This was back in the ’80s, when it was still legally necessary for a cop to have specific probable cause – weaving across the double yellow, for instance – before he could turn on his lights and pull you over.

This of course made it inconvenient to arrest and cage people who may have had some drinks but were not “drunk.” Back then, you could drink and drive and – provided your driving gave no cause to suggest impairment – you were free to continue driving.

Apparently, competent driving aggravates people who are in fact much more opposed to drinking.

And so, checkpoints – dragnet style. At which every single driver would be (and is) forced to stop and – in blatant Fourth and Fifth Amendment rape – submit to a random (and thus, unreasonable) search and prove they are not drunk, according to an arbitrary standard (BAC level) without the cops having to even assert that their actual driving was somehow “impaired.”

It also became the legal obligation of the people forced to stop at these checkpoints to provide evidence to be used against themselves in a criminal prosecution. The court ruled that you must submit to various tests supposedly designed to establish drunkenness and that failure to provide evidence was (and is) a crime in itself. The burden of obtaining evidence was lifted off the shoulders of the accuser – who could now claim that failure to provide it amounted to proof of guilt.

Even if it is later determined – as a result of the various tests, which you may be forced to submit to (including forced blood draws) that you were not, in fact, “drunk” (and perhaps had not been drinking at all) you will still be prosecuted for your failure to assist in your own prosecution.

The court came up with a truly Orwellian concept they called implied consent – which is like sort-of rape.

You either consented – or you didn’t.

The courts saying you have given implied consent to be stopped and searched at random by dint of driving, or because you got a driver’s license (which you had to get) is an outrage upon words as much as it is upon rights. How is it any different than asserting a woman who has gone out on a date with a man has consented to have sex with him? If anything, it’s even more outrageous in the case of driving and implied consent, because in the case of the couple, they both agreed to the date part of the thing.

No court would enforce a contract upon you whose terms you had not freely consented to. A contract agreed to under duress – that is, under coercion – or which contains codicils you, the signer, are not made aware of prior to signing, is by definition not binding.

Except when the court decrees otherwise – because “moms” were “mad.” And also because it opened the door to more and worse, which I am certain was the true purpose. Have you been to an airport recently? I assume you know that literally every keystroke you make, every site you surf, every search, your emails and Skypes and phone calls and texts are all of them recorded, the “data” used to profile and keep track of quite literally everything you do, even though you’ve done nothing illegal to warrant it.

It had to begin somewhere.

Arguably, it began some thirty years ago, when it became ok to stop motorists at random in the name of apprehending drunk drivers. Henceforth, all drivers would be presumed drunk until they proved otherwise.

Is it really surprising that we are now also presumed to be terrorists until proved otherwise? At the airport, online.

Everywhere.

Voila, we find ourselves living in an authoritarian state in which making it easier for the government to arrest and successfully prosecute people for something, for anything is considered desirable. As opposed to the old American idea that people ought to be free to be left alone unless they have given damn good reason to suspect they’ve committed a crime of some kind. That the burden of proof ought to be on the government rather than proving one’s innocence the obligation of the citizenry.

But these are ideas that seems as quaint today as free association or using cash to pay for things and being allowed to actually own things without having to pay taxes in perpetuity to maintain the fiction that we own those things.

Maybe one day our children will recover the sense we appear to have lost.

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78 COMMENTS

  1. The average person thinks we are free now. Imagine if Mr. Trump actually does some good, and actually does lower taxes and relax a few of the bazillions of onerous regulations. The average person will then see their police state as a utopian wonderland of “freedom” -and trhe more so if Mr. Trump’s actions cause the economy to pick-up for a while! In a corrupt and dysfunctional society, sometimes even what appears to be good, can work ultimately towards evil.

    My conclusion is: When you have a people who do not cherish real freedom, nor even know what it is, you are not going to have real freedom, until such time as the majority who hinder that freedom succumb to the consequences of their own ways.

  2. liberranter here makes a great point. We need to remember what was unique about Stalinism and its special police state. Stalin didn’t invent secret police, but he added a unique twist. Namely, actual guilt or innocence of a designated crime didn’t really matter. Stalinist repression didn’t actually work until you regularly rounded up and sent innocent people to the gulag. Most of them were, they knew it and their neighbors knew it.
    But his crooked judicial system (ours is now resembling) ignored that. If you were arrested and couldn’t pull the right strings, or you were really 100 kilometers elsewhere, maybe they’d let you go. Usually though, you were guilty upon arrest. Does this remind you of someplace today? Trials were a farce. To the gulag you went.
    In Houston TX local jails are crammed with poor folks who haven’t had trials but who can’t afford the high bail. Almost none are released on OR which means no bail. The system is corrupt due to the bail bond industry. So hundreds either have to plead guilty to whatever the “crime” or spend months in jail awaiting trial, usually far longer then any actual sentence would be if found guilty. So plead out and get out, or stay in and maybe you’ll avoid conviction after rotting for 10 month (and lose job, wife, car, apartment).
    Comrade Stalin would be proud. Many of these “crimes” are minor traffic offenses or minor drug busts.
    If you can’t pay off the bail bondsman or your private lawyer, enjoy your Jello and your new best friend on the floor next to you. That’s freedom in the USA.

  3. The true measure of a society is how it treats the least of man. Society must be willing to give even the Devil himself a fair trial, not for the sake of the Devil, but for the Rule of Law, ethics and integrity of society. When exceptions are made based on popular emotive reasons or for political expediency then society begins a spiral where the once unthinkable becomes the commonplace. The US is currently on this spiral.

  4. I pulled up the transcript of Trump’s inauguration speech (note: I hate Hideous Hillary worse than Trump), and searched for “free” and found exactly two mentions. First, “…to free the earth from the miseries of disease…” which of course refers to government action, not individual freedom, and second, “We all enjoy the same glorious freedoms…”. OK, at least mention of personal liberty. But he’s not content to let that stand even for a full sentence, and finishes, “…and we all salute the same great American flag.” BARF! That symbol of government oppression, growing worse by the day, if not the hour? I would rather salute a pile of excrement, which at least is not pointing a gun at me.

    Trump is, unfortunately, a reflection of the mentality of many Americans today. Like you, Eric, I hope our children will appreciate the virtues of running one’s own life more than most of the present generation(s) do.

  5. Ok, Eric, here’s the deal. All of these charges that arise from “statutes” are against the PERSON, not the man. Look at any vehicle code from any state and you will see something like “any person driving a motor vehicle,” etc. The license is issued to the person, not the man. There is no law in any state requiring the man have a license to exercise a right. The cops are vaguely aware of this, that’s why they are always asking for ID. The license is not the contract. The contract is entered into when you present the license to the cop, thereby pledging yourself, the man, as surety for the charges against the Person. It may sound preposterous to many, but a world of paper has been overlaid upon the world of Men. Since government is a legal fiction, a creation of man, existing in the mind only, it can not deal with men, only other fictions. Only Men can deal with other Men.
    I suspect the cops are so used to their bosses cowering in fear and submitting to the game that they have begun to treat their fellow men as things to be disposed of in any manner they deem fit. It is absolutely IMPERATIVE that we begin to understand what they are doing because sooner or later they will simply dispense with the illusion of superiority and just start shooting.
    Those at the top see us a imbeciles, incapable of handling our own affairs, so unaware of who we are that they have decided, not without reason, to send us to slaughter.
    The interwebtubes are full of information about this. Some sites are better than others. Start with Sovereignty international videos on youtube . Educate yourself for God’s sake and remember who you are.

        • Larry Becraft is an attorney who has decades of experience dealing with these type of issues. In that time he has dealt with many types of bogus, quasi-legal arguments – as well as the people who have wound up being stuffed into a cage as a result of using them.

          As I said, if this “PERSON/man” argument is fact, show the law that makes it so. (That’s the question that anyone that is confronted with a legal theory should ask: Where is the law that makes it so?)

          • Agreed times five, Jason…

            I assume posters such as this guy mean well but at the same time, I am suspicious that some may also be trolls deliberately trying to get people in trouble. To anyone reading this… “sovereign citizen” arguments will land you in jail, with a plate full o’ hassle.

            • Thanks, I just don’t want to see well-meaning people going off half-cocked after filling their heads with nonsense and getting themselves hurt. I’ve seen it happen a lot over the years.

              In the case of the link I provided, Larry Becraft is a seasoned attorney who is very favorably disposed to freedom issues but will not hesitate to call BS on scams and nonsense.

              It’s hard enough to get our Esteemed Publick Servants to obey the law as it is actually written. If you go in spouting garbage they will just laugh and mop up the floor with you one they catch up with you.

          • Ok, I’ll take you up on that. From the Montana vehicle code 6-1-101 definitions:(b) For purposes of this subsection (1), “person” means an individual, corporation, partnership, limited partnership, limited liability company, association, joint venture, state agency, local government unit, another state government, the United States, a political subdivision of this or another state, or any other legal or commercial entity. Remember, individual means A thing by itself, not a Man. Do you see “Man” listed there?
            46) (a) “Motor vehicle” means:
            (i) a vehicle propelled by its own power and designed or used to transport persons or property on the highways of the state; See person above, and property. So what is a motor vehicle? it is any conveyance operating in commerce.
            (20) “Driver” means a person who drives or is in actual physical control of a vehicle. Remember person? This definition is nonsense at first glance because how could a corporation be in physical control of a vehicle? It can’t, until you identify yourself as a person.
            Now let’s go to the code and see what we find.
            61-8-336. Turning movements and required signals. (1) A person may not turn a vehicle at an intersection unless the vehicle is in proper position upon the roadway as required by 61-8-333 or turn a vehicle to enter a private road or driveway or otherwise turn a vehicle from a direct course or move right or left upon a roadway unless the movement can be made with reasonable safety and until an appropriate signal has been given. A person may not turn a vehicle without giving an appropriate signal in the manner provided in this section. To whom does this apply? Well it says right at the beginning: a person may….
            Ok, there is your law. If you’re looking for one law that makes it so you’re barking up the wrong tree. You have to dig a little. Did Larry Becraft explain this? No, because he is a card carrying Bar attorney and if he spills too many beans he looses his bar card.
            Now, why are people losing in court so often? Because they went to court in the first place. Court is their domain and they are liars and thieves and they will do anything to keep the extortion racket going. You do this stuff administratively and nine times out ten you never hear from them. By the way, a sovereign citizen is an oxymoron. You may be a sovereign, or a citizen, but not both. And look up citizen, you will find it is an inferior status. Someone who pledges allegiance to a polity. In other words, is subservient to government. I, for one, wish to remain in the position of boss. Now, does this answer your question?

            • A few offerings for clarity. “Individual person.” you will see this quite often in municipal codes. It means a legal fiction that is not a group, like a corporation. JOHN HENRY DOE is an individual person. Note all block caps. Only corporations and a dead man’s estate are spelled that way. You spell your given name in upper and lower case. The name on the driver license is an individual person. It is not you. It is an entity created by the birth certificate and registered with the State. It is their property.
              Larry Becraft being a bar attorney is an agent of the court, by definition. That should tell you something.

              • Hi Rog,

                All of this – for the sake of argument – may be technically correct. It doesn’t matter. Present these arguments to a cop and he will simply arrest and cage you. Perhaps later a judge will dismiss the case. Perhaps. Probably not. Then you’ll get arrested and caged … again.

                The law isn’t what’s written; it’s whatever the people with guns say it is.

                • Leave the guys with guns out of this. They are just stooges. An example of administrative process is to return, unopened any communication from government with the words,”returned for cause, no such person at this address.” By accepting and opening the letter you admit to being the person addressed, which is ALWAYS in all block caps. Don’t be so defeatist, you guys sound like cowering slaves.

                  • Rog,

                    I’d like nothing more than to leave the guys with guns out of this! The problem is, they won’t cooperate.

                    You don’t open the letter; you ignore the summons. It doesn’t mean a bench warrant for your arrest won’t be issued – and enforced. They’ll seize you, seize your property. And insisting they have no jurisdiction, that you’re a free man rather than a “person” (and so on) will only annoy them and do nothing but make more trouble for you.

                    I’m all for doing whatever’s realistic to end-run/evade the state. But it’s terrible advice to tell people they can just ignore the state and it will leave them alone if they utter magic words such as “man” rather than “person.”

                    Because it won’t.

                    I got into a similar debate with a guy about the IRS. He claimed you could legally avoid income tax simply by refusing to “agree to the contract” by filling out W2s and 1099s… madness. A fast route to prison – and life under an overpass.

                    I do my best to suggest legal ways to avoid the system; and to evade the system where that’s reasonable (low risk of being caught and if you are caught, no life-altering consequences).

                    But I’d be doing my readers a grave disservice if I suggested to them, as you have, that you can ignore laws and not be punished if you know the “secret.”

                    The only such I am aware of is to own nothing, earn nothing and live the life of a beggar.

                    Then you can ignore the state.

                    And even then, it won’t ignore you.

                    • The same garbage keeps floating up year after year, the people purveying it thinking they’ve come up with something new. They haven’t. These are ideas that have long been discredited as nonsensical.

                      Upper case names make a difference in legal status? That’s about as nonsensical as it gets.

                    • Hi Jason,

                      Thanks for the back up on this… I don’t want this site to become a haven for crackpots (or get anyone in trouble by listening to crackpot advice)!

                      I also suspect that some of this is trolling… agent provocateuring…

                    • Eric,

                      I have seen so many people get hurt with this garbage over the years it really makes me angry. It also gives the opposition a broad brush with which to tar anyone involved in freedom issues as a loon.

                      Believe me, I have known quite a few freedom-oriented attorneys over the years and in the past even worked as a paralegal for a prominent civil rights attorney in my state. These guys would have loved to have found a real “silver bullet” that would free us from the tyrannical actions of the State if such a thing existed. It does not.

                      Upper case names? Some mysterious voodoo status conferred by the word “man?” Give me a break!

                      Scientists have a saying when confronted with a conjecture so ridiculous and so devoid of logic that it cannot even be approached on a rational basis: “It’s not even wrong.” That is the case here with the crackpot legal theories being presented.

                    • Eric, If you say that they ignore the law, and I gave an example of the law, rather statute, that clearly makes a distinction between person and anything else, if they ignore that then we are in a heap of trouble, aren’t we? Everyone here bitches and moans about the Matrix yet they hide behind the logic of the Matrix. When someone points out the tools that are being used against you, then all anyone seems to be able to say is “they have the guns!”
                      do you know what jurisdiction the courts are operating under? It’s called Statutory jurisdiction. There is no provision any any state or federal constitution for such a jurisdiction. So what is it? Do you believe there is no common law in the America? It’s still there but we have to invoke it. I get the impression you have given up thinking there are no good men and women in government. That they will not honor their oaths. Do you believe That? Are you at least willing to poke around a little and discover these things for yourself. I get the impression you are not because you are certain it’s bullshit. The commenters here remind me of a bucket of crabs. When one tries to crawl out the others drag him back in. Will you go to the sources I provided and take a look for your self or will you remain in the bucket and try to drag me back in. When enough people understand the origins of law, how it applies to them and how it has been used against them, the better things will be. We are the creators of government and the created can never be superior to its creator. Are you willing to live that? Or will you make excuses not to gain the necessary knowledge to gain back control of your servants. Believe me, they know who is the boss. Just watch a couple of Glen Winningham videos on sovereignty international on you tube and see how using the common law he has gotten people in government transferred and even fired. They know what they are liable for. Are you willing to stop pissing and moaning about it and do your research. I’m tired of the attitude displayed here and I believe this is the end of my contributions.

                    • But you still have not provided us with an example of any law that is supportive of your contentions. All you have provided is baseless drivel.

                    • I also meant to add, Rog, that in one of your responses to the issue of providing the law that establishes your contentions regarding “UPPER CASE NAMES,” you responded, and I quote:

                      “There is no law like that.”

                      Basically, you said it all right there.

                  • Show us the law which states that names in BLOCK CAPS have a different status from those that are printed in upper and lower case.

                    • Jeeesh.There is no law like that. It’s in the Chicago manual of style among other things. Stop trying to call this quackery until you do the research. You are simply regurgitating what you have been told about it. Look into it for crying out loud. I’m not trying to get anyone in trouble, I’m just urging people investigate and draw their own conclusions. But you can’t do that until you have done your homework. Just saying.

                    • Rog,

                      If there’s no law then your argument has no standing. Moreover, the law is what those with the titles and the guns say it is. Good luck telling them you are a “man” rather than a “person” and because your name is not written in ALL CAPS and you haven’t signed anything, their laws have no power over you.

                    • I have done the research and it is utter and complete bilge.

                      If there is no law that confers a special status on the term “man” then such status does not exist.

                    • Ditto for this UPPER CASE NAME nonsense.

                      If there is no law that confers a different status on UPPER CASE NAMES versus lower case names then there is no legal distinction between them.

                  • Rodger,
                    I guess maybe I am just not lucky but I never have seen the sort of judges that get as deep into the law or allow a defense to get as deep into the law as required to understand the scam that has been layered over and over for over a century.

                    Trying to argue finer points of the law in court is meaningless. The judges will just laugh or get angry when this is attempted. They don’t care, they didn’t ever bother to learn and they aren’t about to.

                    They have the same understanding as the average person on the street. Pay the income tax, get the license, whatever… that’s just what you do and you didn’t do it, so guilty as charged. NEXT!

                    That’s how it goes. You get there to go through the entire larkin rose presentation on the income tax. Nobody cares. Just like how medical care got here, nobody cares.

                    The tiny libertarian population learned, that’s how they became libertarians. But that’s the tiny percentage of the population that learns how keep right except to pass and other finer points of driving too.

                    The mass are morons and they believe what they are told and if you think you’re going to just show up and convince them with facts and logic think again.

                    • Hi Brent,

                      In addition: Rog doesn’t grok that non-lawyers are generally not welcome in court. If you are not an officer of the court, the judge will shut you down on procedures, irrespective of facts.

                      Besides which, Rog (and the others) have yet to produce a law that states the law only applies to “persons” (and that “person” is not synonymous with “citizen,” “individual,” etc.).

                      He seems intelligent, incidentally – which gets me to thinking he may be a provocateur.

                      It’s interesting to me that, as this site grows, it begins to attract such.

                      I am just paranoid enough to be more than usually cautious with “material” of this sort.

                • eric, I’ll tell you something that is “technically correct”. The Supremes ruled that a corporation was the same as an individual.

                  I’m guessing since that time you seen innumerable “individuals” incarcerated and convicted and incarcerated some more. How many times have you seen a corporation incarcerated? convicted and then incarcerated? None? 0? Zilch? If so you’ve seen the same thing the rest of us have. Just more unequivocal proof that the Just Us system only works for prosecutors, cops, lawyers and judges.

                  The only time I’ve seen it work in any relevant sort of way is with Tx. traffic lasws such as speeding which are suggestions so it’s said. You pays your money, one way or the other, and if you pays it to a lawyer, most likely the judge smiles to himself and thinks “Gotcha” even though you might beat the charge. If you don’t get a lawyer, just pay the damned ticket and pay again later when good on insurance, the background part of the system tags you for more money cause you didn’t use the people they depend on.

                  Justice in the US is such a farce I’m surprised everybody doesn’t laugh as hard as most of the people do I discuss it with. The only thing that would make it funnier is if prosecutors, lawyers and judges wore white wigs and blinders so only they could see each other winking.

                  • The all caps name is an indicator of what they are addressing. Why do suppose any correspondence with government is always all caps? Because it is the legal name. It doesn’t have to be spelled that way to indicate a legal fiction. This is the age of computers they could just as easily spell it upper and lower, but they don’t. Just because a name appears in upper and lower case does not mean it is not a legal fiction. Do you believe you have a legal name? what does that mean? What is a legal name as opposed to your given name?

                    • Interesting theory. Of course it is recycled garbage that has been going around for years.

                      However all you need to do to support your contention is to show us the law that states an “UPPER CASE NAME” has a different legal status than a “lower case name.” In several posts you have been asked for this and still have not provided a copy of this law.

                      A personal anecdote from years ago may help to illustrate the difference between working with wild speculative theories versus working with factual law:

                      Two friends of mine, we can call them Carl and Jerry, had similar problems: tickets for running stop signs on low-traffic streets due to coming only to a “rolling stop” rather than a complete standstill.

                      Carl was deeply into the kind of nonsense you are describing. He proceeded in court to make the same arguments you are making here. To make a long story short, Carl ultimately wound up a guest of the State. He tried perfecting his arguments time and time again to no avail. The last I heard of him he was essentially living in the proverbial van by the river, still convinced that he is not that “strawman” UPPER CASE person.

                      Jerry, on the other hand, although very much involved in freedom issues, took a different approach. Although not a lawyer, he researched the relevant statute and the stop sign, finding the township had placed the stop sign without proper state authorization. He presented this evidence and his case was immediately dismissed. Today he lives in comfort with his family and continues to research ways he can apply the law in a positive and factual manner.

                      Readers are free to decide which approach they prefer taking.

                  • Eric, you are correct that you should be cautious about material like that. When I was selling real estate, the bosses were always noting in meetings, that we were not lawyers, and to be careful what you said that could be seen as “legal” advice. It’s illegal to “offer” legal advice without being a licensed lawyer. It could get you sued pretty easily too.

                    • Hi Rich,

                      There’s that – and also, I just don’t want to have anything to do with nonsense. Especially dangerous nonsense. For myself and for others.

                      Speaking of which: I just received in the mail the book touted by that poster who assures us we can avoid paying taxes by following the advice contained therein. The book is self-published. I have glanced at it and when I have time I will read it. It may turn out to be well-written and the arguments it presents plausible and perhaps even sound in a technical sense. But it’s madness to believe that following such advice will result in anything but a world of hurt.

                      If it were that easy to just skip paying taxes, I suspect more of us would.

                      The bottom line is we have the system we have because it is the system most people – or a working majority – accept. Until it once again becomes not-cool to steal, to take other people’s things, to use force to compel them to do as you think they ought to do, we will continue to have this system.

                    • Eric,

                      I have not read that particular book, and it may or may not be on point. However, as a practical matter, those in power will protect tooth and nail their vampirish ability to steal massive amounts from the public. When you see a U.S. Attorney tell someone “You’re right, but we can’t let you win.” that pretty much sums up the situation.

                      You do have a shot at issues where you are not attacking The System itself. Go after their life blood though and these guys will come back at you with essentially infinite resources, whatever the law might say be damned. That’s why it’s called “tyranny.”

                      As I’ve said before, the thing to take away from that type of material is to be informed but NOT take any direct action against Uncle – unless and until you are in the jury box when some poor sod is being persecuted for “tax crimes” or some other bogus “crime against the State.”

                      That’s the one place where as an individual you can bring the entire massive gunvermin machine to a screeching halt and there’s not a damned thing they can do about it. (“The prosecutor didn’t prove his/her case to me beyond a reasonable doubt.” “The agent’s body language indicated to me he was lying.” Etc.) You just have to play the part of the dumb slave during voir dire.

                    • Larkin Rose copied from VHS his entire presentation on the income tax tracing the illegality from zero to when he made the videos. He lays out what appears to be a flawless case but it is trumped by one thing, the government says so and they have the guns are are willing to use them. The court system won’t give hours for a defendant to lay out this history nor will even 1 out of 12 probable jurors be able to grasp it. So guess what happened to Larkin Rose? He went to prison.

                      The only way to end this scam is for either government to go too far too fast, things to get bad enough that people start looking for what went wrong and answers they would not consider before, or somehow win over a critical mass. That’s in order of probability.

                      One guy in a court case won’t work. Every so often someone fights a speeding ticket long and hard enough that scam is just about to be broken when the government will just drop the charges. Case is over at that point and the scam remains. If anyone someone got that close to exposing the income tax on wages for what it is the same tactic would be used. They’ll let one guy get away to preserve the greater scam. Others may try to copy that defense but it will never work the same. They’ll change something in the way the courts work or some tiny piece of law or just get a different judge. They’ll also go after the same guy again once they made the changes for the same or new charges.

                      We’re trapped by the stupidity and intellectual laziness of our neighbors and I can see no way out of that without the neighbors becoming desperate.

              • This is more bilge and nonsense. All you have done is provide the definition of “person” in a specific statute. You have NOT provided any documentation whatsoever of this distinction you claim exists between “PERSON” and “man.” You are pulling the word “man” out of the air and claiming that it has some kind of special legal status. Please show us the law that places “man” in this status. Law deals with issues of fact, not whatever nonsense someone makes up out of thin air out of suppositions. Where is the law that confers this special status on “man?”

                The upper case distinction you speak of is also nonsense. As a former programmer decades ago I know from personal experience why so many computerized systems of records use UPPER CASE.

                It has nothing to do with the errant garbage that you claim it does. It has to do with the limitations of early computer hardware when so many of the database systems in use today were first developed, where storage was so limited that character sets omitted lower case characters. (Because of this only two-digit years were used in dates as well. Remember Y2K? The reason that problem existed is because at the turn of the century software designed in the 1950s and 1960s was still in common use. It still is, patched to use 4-digit years.) A huge amount of that software has been carried forward to this day, particularly in government where many obsolete systems are still in use. This software still uses upper case even if it has been ported to newer hardware.

                Larry Becraft being a bar attorney and an agent of the court tells me that he knows what he is talking about when it comes to law and you do not.

                Basicaly you have nothing. The crap you’re spouting has been around for many years and will just continue to get people thrown into the slammer. As has been noted it is difficult enough to get the people in power to obey the Constitution and their own laws. Go in with made-up nonsense and you have no chance at all.

            • Hi Rog,

              You write:

              “Now, why are people losing in court so often? Because they went to court in the first place. Court is their domain and they are liars and thieves and they will do anything to keep the extortion racket going. You do this stuff administratively and nine times out ten you never hear from them.”

              There is no “administrative option” other than to admit guilt and pay the fine – if it’s a minor infraction. If it requires a court appearance, and you don’t show, they will issue a bench warrant for your arrest. Now you’re open to being caged at any moment; a checkpoint, automated plate reader… minor moving violation… and you’re going to be cuffed and stuffed.

              • eric, nationwide there are less than 10% of people charged with a crime that go to a jury trial. I think the average is about 7% and those are nearly always bogus charges that won’t stand up in court but they’ll take the chance just to enrich the Just Us system.

                The reason nobody goes to court is the one charge they might make stick is followed by a dozen more so if convicted you only have to serve 15 or 30 years or so. Maybe just 5 if it has to do with non-compliant trash cans in the alley but certainly not DWI.

                In Texas they subsidize the hospitals that make enormous sums anyway with at least 3 years of payments you have to make after paying a fine for DWI and court costs plus community service. Since most people can’t pony up this money for a legitimate lawyer they just take the ass-fucking public defenders recommend and then live hand to mouth since their job prospects go downhill rapidly and they almost always lose whatever shitty job they had for being convicted.

                There’s a justice reform movement in Tx. that’s trying to change this but the hospitals, prosecutors and judges are fighting it tooth and nail and guess who has the most clout with legislators.

      • Ditto, Jason. Most people who pull that stuff in court, end up getting a court-ordered psychiatric evaluation. Funny thing is, a lot of the goobers who teach that crap, site a lot of junk from the UCC- something which doesn’t even apply to individulas, and which is only voluntary, even in regards to businesses/corps- but these people start citing it, and end up placing themselves under it’s jurisdiction by adhesion! LOL- it’s akin to locking yourself in a jail cell to preserve your freedom!

        And even if there were a legal basis for any of that stuff, so what? We can’t even make the courts/government agencies/fuzz abide by even the most basic precepts of the Constitution, because they now rule by force and not by law- so how pray-tell would we be able to get them to abide by something which isn’t even codified as law?

        Wish I would have saved the link- I watched a vid on Youtube a few weeks ago, where the victim started citing all of that stuff “The PERSON John Smith is not here…I am a man standing upon the land…yada, yada…” -after about 5 minutes of trying to reason with the guy, the judge sends him for a psych evaluation. Tell ya the truth, I didn’t even feel sorry for the guy. Spouting that stuff just made him sound like a lunatic. He had NOTHING he could actually even cite to uphold his claims….it was all just stuff that someone had taught him, and he apparently never bothered to verify if it were true, but just believed fervently in it.

  6. Will Trump rescind Lynch’s last minute order ordering the NSA to share your online data with your local law enforcement and without a warrant or probable cause? Imagine your local police chief who gets ‘asked’ by the mayor for the online file on a political opponent. Will the chief say no and risk his job? This order will enable political blackmail, graft, and incumbent permanency. It is truly evil.

    • Hi Tom,

      I hope so, but I doubt it. One of Trump’s worrisome characteristics is a penchant for “law and order.” This is where the charge that he has fascist tendencies springs from – and there is truth to it. Of course, Barry was as bad or worse.

      So I’m not sure which of the two is preferable.

      And we know Hillary would have been far worse than either!

      • Eric, what concerns me deeply is my millennial relatives. They buy into this ‘government is good’ idea and have no concept whatsoever of the dangers of Lynch’s action. They just don’t care. They also believe in global warming (carbon taxes), cross-dressers in the girl’s restroom (a sexual fetish), and uncontrolled immigration. If I so much as challenge any of their beliefs I get called out as a racist and homophobic. They are so certain of their moral superiority.

        • They’ve had that garbage drilled into them from grade school through college and consider it to be the norm. When the older generations die off there won’t be anyone around who remembers that things were ever different.

          Just like today no one can remember when there were no income taxes and you didn’t have to submit a Social Security number to work or do almost anything else. (There was a time when such things would have been unthinkable – after all this is America!)

  7. I wish we could have the Adam 12-Dragnet world of cops.
    I am old enough to remember it to be true. Of course I am old enough to know wishes are for children.

    • Hi David,

      I am old enough to remember the CHiPS world of cops… when they didn’t dress like stormtroopers or act as though they were. They carried revolvers and not unholstering their weapon – ever – was something they aspired to and would brag about after 20 or 30 years on duty.

      The jacked-up/buzzcut/order-barking assholes of today were extremely uncommon within living memory.

      But they are “keeping us safe” and protecting our “freedoms.”

      Most Americans have no idea that the same rhetoric was spouted by Dr. Goebbels and other such.

      • The peace officer model of cops was really brought home to me recently watching an old “Twilight Zone” episode; the main character was in some kind of trance, waving his arms and speaking gibberish. A cop comes up to him and asks if he can help – take him to a hospital, home, whatever. I just sat with dropped jaw and thought wow, that encounter today would end in about ten seconds with the cop blowing the guy away….and of course it would be “justified” because the piggy feared for his saaaafety.

        • Yup.

          Similar scene in one of my favorite under-rated movies; the adaptation of Vonnegut’s Mother Night, with Nick Nolte as the lead (Howard W. Campbell, Jr.)…. at one point, Nolte’s character just stops in the street and stands there. Eventually, a cop approaches and the dialogue is almost verbatim what you describe… of course, this is fiction. And it is set in America circa 1964.

          • I think I have mentioned it before, but watching the tv show CHIPS, the main characters never drew their guns once. Not one time over six seasons (one of the minor ones does once, but only after being knocked down to the ground). They would take defensive stances, backing down, the most they would do, put their hand near their gun (but not on it).

            That was the way most real PD’s operated into the 1980’s. Before they had semi-auto weapons, when they had at best, 6 shots. You backed down, because you had to. I think the weapons of cops have to be dialed back before the aggressive behavior goes away. They are all Rambo now.

        • I’ve said it many times before. An episode from the first season of COPS followed by a recent one.

          I watched an old episode of cops where there was some disturbance with a drunk guy. The cop decided that neighbor should take temporary custody of the drunk guy’s guns and the drunk guy would go to sleep in his own bed.

          In another instance a cop on a traffic stop ended up with the cruiser being hit by a drunk driver. Completely calm the cop handles the situation. No yelling, screaming, gun drawn or anything else.

  8. I hope the kids gain their senses quickly, then.

    I always pose a question to people who speak out against driving “drunk”. And though this may sound harsh, I will always have this opinion because of how many drivers’ lives were wrecked by the idea that it’s impossible to drive after a few drinks.

    “Would you feel any better if the person driving the car that crashed into you was perfectly sober?”

    • The problem is that they have been brainwashed into thinking that Drunk driving will always result in killing someone. So to drive drunk is to kill someone, thank God the police stopped you before you did. Same with Texting or Talking while driving. Most times it is people who don’t feel comfortable so clearing the people that do it are insane and about to kill everyone.

  9. This authoritarian mindset really got its start with the Third Great Awakening. That’s when the Christians (so-called) decided they could use Caesar to enforce their idea of good morals. The fact that Jesus was killed by just such efforts seems to have eluded their consciousness. It led to the WCTU and Carrie Nation along with the efforts to control “health” by enforcing hygiene laws along with establishing the idea of prescriptions for opiates.

    We now have internal checkpoints to prove you are allowed off “your” property since it’s a privilege to be on the roads…not a Right. Anything other than house arrest is considered a privilege by The State.

    And people are fine with it. That’s why they were so easily herded to places like Auschwitz and Buchenwald. Rest assured that’s where this is heading unless and until more people wake up from the United Somnambulists of America.

  10. The “war on drugs” seems to be the biggest cause of shredding our liberties, especially with the totally unconstitutional theft known as “civil asset forfeiture”. Keep boobus americanus – aka soccer moms – scared of those evil drug dealers and they’re ok with probable cause free searches by the roadside. Not carrying drugs? – no worries because occifer buzzcut will gladly plant some on your vehicle so they can steal it for their private slush fund. I guess having SWAT teams bash in your neighbors door is ok if it’s for the children’s saaaaafety. I still maintain that most of this evil can be traced back to Nixon, he started the DEA (and the EPA – how’s that been working out) and your point is well taken Eric, most people now think its always been that way.
    I don’t see the Donald easing off on the police state, best we can hope for is no more escalation but even that is iffy. Glad to be turning 70 this year, maybe by the time we’re all herded into camps I’ll be too senile to realize what’s happening ?.

    • Mike, my old college buds and I had long conversations about this years ago when the grid going down was all the rage and hoarding food, various things including fuels that would see us through…..to something. But my cousin seemed to have a better grip of what it would take for all us old farts, me being the youngest at 67. And let me thrown in how close you are at this age or younger of sprouting wings and heading to heben, jayzus. I broke my leg 4 years ago and you probably remember it. I soon realized when it triggered my MSRA I was walking a fine line between living and not. And what my cousin said of surviving a collapse of most every thing we depend on. He said “I have a half gallon of Scotch and a round of .357, everything I’ll need when it all goes down.” I began to think about that a lot and realize it’s exactly what the powers that be would want for us, get rid of the only generation to remember any semblance of freedom. After that, it would be a cakewalk I have no idea of where they intend to haul me but I can guarantee they’ll only be hauling my carcass. I won’t sit around and lament “what about my chilluns?”. They’ll have to pick up all those other thugee carcasses I make sure go with me. They may get bagpipes and lots of their “brethren” attending their funeral and I won’t get anything. We’ll all be dead and when I’m gone, in the words of an old man our age in the movie Bernie, “They can just roll me off in the barditch and let the coyotes have me”. He didn’t give a damn what happened after he died. That seems to be more the opinion these days of people our age. It seems to be more the opinion of people younger than us too. Screw the establishment.

  11. Another of the extremely egregious examples of this creeping police state was when it became vogue to have “resource officers” in k-12 schools. It was never necessary and was always dangerous from the start. You get a kid comfy being around the smiling cop in school, then they’ll be quite comfy and compliant when the blue lights come on after making a completely safe U-turn. And so on…and so on…and so on…

    Every kid in k-12 should be instilled with a firm distrust of this “resource officer”. You stay away from him. You never talk with him. You never call him for help. He is NOT your friend, and quite easily your enemy.

    And, you go to your school board meetings and demand….loudly…that you want these cops out of your school, and you want them out NOW.

  12. Another great one my comrade !! Thanks!!

    Do I remember right? As a kid there used to be a picture of the “Bud” man on
    the back of beer delivery trucks that said pull me over for a six pack????

    Wasn’t it Texas who who was the last to cave in on open container??

  13. But when did it begin to become acceptable?

    Probably when the Supreme Court gutted the Fourth and Fifth Amendments to placate “moms” who were “mad” about drunk driving.

    While I realize full well that mankind never learns from history, it will one day become too obvious –too late, of course– to ignore the fact that ratifying the 19th Amendment was a very, VERY bad idea.

  14. But you have all these penumbras and emanations of the 4th amendment so you don’t need real privacy, you have a right to contraception, abortion, and gay marriage. Why are you complaining about trivia that would only annoy Thomas Jefferson (/sarc).

    It wasn’t lazyness, it was a deal with the devil. Give us a right to abortion, and we’ll ignore the police state. Originalism would eliminate both but the left wants abortion, and the right wants the police state.

    We’ll see if appointing Scalia clones helps things, but the big thing would be returning authority to the states – it is the Feds that demand states pass DUI laws or they don’t get highway funds. Same with the old double-nickel.

    Oh, and libertarianism would be worse. http://tomwoods.com/ep-824-do-those-7-charts-prove-obamacare-has-been-a-success/a – in there they mention the problem of mud-flaps that only benefits the car behind you, but if we had private roads the owners could insist every car have mud flaps. What if the private roads were all owned by clovers so you couldn’t drive at a reasonable speed and needed more nonsense equipment. Joan Claybrook and Ralph Nader could own all the roads!

  15. And my whole life I can recall countless times I could drive fine, see fine, plenty hand-eye coordination but walking might not be so good and many times that had nothing to do with drinking but allergies that screwed my inner ear. Besides, is it easier to drive….or walk? Nothing to argue there for honest people. Oh, I know people, plenty, who couldn’t drive for shit with no sort of drug in their system. I knew a woman who was constantly getting pulled over and was never under the influence of anything other than sheer incompetence.
    I do consider myself to be my brother’s keeper hence rescuing people who’ve wrecked and I was the first on the scene. If possible I’ll remove them to my house or someplace safe or their house but damned sure where the “authorities” can’t find them. After a car accident people are often dazed but not necessarily drunk but don’t let an LEO get them. They’ll be accused of drinking the contents of the bottles and cans in the barditch you can no longer read the label on. Never mind their vehicle has bent metal on the front along with blood that occurred before they wrecked into something else. They’ll be charged with “failure to control vehicle”, never mind there’s a dead deer somewhere close that will never be found or even looked for.

    I just hate cops no matter what. I’ve been shot at and cut with a knife, in roll-overs and head-ons and beaten blind but at no time did I ever need a cop.

  16. ‘the much-maligned phrase about being “my brother’s keeper.”’
    And the bonobos want to know “Am I my keeper’s brother?”

  17. About perpetual payment to maintain “ownership”, would you rather suffer an occasional total loss than endure the incessant maintenance of the fiction that somehow all losses will be remedied? I think I would. As it stands now insurance is simply a round about payment plan, and yet people still suffer losses, so in spite of all this it is not, nor never will be perfected. I get a kick out of those who suggest without a government or state, ownership wouldn’t exist, when it is precisely the existence of such a extra-legal fiction of a government or state that makes absolute ownership impossible. It is what it does. People with something to lose, originally created governments to protect themselves and by extension their property. As time has progressed the nibbling at the periphery that this fiction consumed was tolerated, now some people find it absolutely necessary to join this class of people to survive. Who will grow grain if the Reds will simply ride in and ship it off to the maw that is Moscow, DC or London.

    What if the people never chose to have a king or after the American revolution, Jefferson, Adams and the other founders were met with an empty gaze at the suggestion of forming a new government, as if to say: “Are you kidding me? We just had a war with a thing we could not control, and here you suggest the beginnings of another one. Why would we want to do such a thing?”

  18. Trump will bring law and order back to the good old United Corporations of America.

    We have been saved!

    Does not matter how we got here (although Sitz would be my guess as well Eric). What matters is (are?) the checkpoints ahead.

    • I may have a seven degrees of separation thing going with Trump… I know people who know people who know the dude… maybe I can get an audience with the new Reichskanzler...

      • It looks like the powers that be are trying to use Trump’s protectionism to back door the beginning of a new way to tax. They will disallow business tax deductions for imported goods that are sold for profit. In other words they will start taxing the value of goods sold, the premise of a VAT. That will be disaster in and of itself but it starts the groundwork for much worse.

  19. And wouldn’t it be cheaper and far less intrusive to just pay people to be designated drivers? Or how about subsidizing taxi cabs? You get “drunk” drivers off the road without resorting to 4th amendment violations. But of course it’s not about drunk driving and accidents. It’s about temperance and morality. Of course the ultimate preference would be civil actions with appropriate damages assessed for harming others, whether under the influence of the demon drink or the dreaded Facebook, but that would mean a rich man could pay off someone instead of doing hard time in jail.

    I would love to see an end to the (mostly ineffective) security theatre at airports. If the TSA were actually doing anything that might make airline travel safer we should just be able to walk right into an airport and to the gate, no frisking or “sterile zone” necessary. After all, Uncle already has all our communications bugged, our movements monitored and thoughts controlled. What good is it to strip search people who aren’t on the radar and not involved in any activity that should already be known? Oh, except that they continuously let the terrorists go. Perhaps because if Uncle actually took care of the problem people who shouldn’t be allowed to play with the rest of us (and I get it, who’s to say who can be part of society and not is one of the fundamental questions I have about my own journey through libertarian anarchy), then we might forget just why they exist in the first place. In a way the TSA checkpoint is the billboard of the DHS (and the Ft Lauderdale shooting was the latest ad campaign).

    Dammit, Eric you have me thinking again, this time about the much-maligned phrase about being “my brother’s keeper.”

      • Well now, we can’t have people being responsible, can we? After all, there’s an arrest quota to be met. Comrade Stalin has gulags that must be filled!

    • DUI is profitable.
      The TSA is a submission exercise. It’s about conditioning americans, not stopping terrorists. It also has a secondary profitability for equipment makers and to a much lesser extent government employees stealing from travelers.

      It’s that simple.

      • Hi Brent,

        Yup. DUI checkpoints generate large sums for the city/county – not just for DUI but also for all the other “violations” discovered during the course of the roadside inspection.

        It defeats me that so many people think it’s ok to have checkpoints in what was once a free country.

        And the TSA thing makes me want to stay home and never leave.

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