Loss of Freedom Archives - Page 32 of 33

Obama & Feds May Ban Pleasure Fishing

What do you think our founding fathers would say if you told them that the government of the United States may prohibit Americans from fishing? When did we change from the land of the free and the home of the brave to the land of big brother and the home of the no we can’ts? How many more freedoms will our government take from us? ESPN is reporting that “The Obama administration will accept no more public input for a federal strategy that could prohibit U.S. citizens from fishing the nation’s oceans, coastal areas, Great Lakes, and even inland waters.” That’s just great. Now we are going to get the fish police.

New Threat to Freedom – the Beer Police

Can there be any more proof that the police have too much time on their hands or maybe there are too manycops enforcing the law than this story of beer busts in Pennsylvania? The Philadelphia Daily News has an incredible story called “Troopers raid popular bars for unlicensed beers” that starts:

IT WAS ELIOT NESS and the Untouchables, as played by the Keystone Kops. More than a dozen armed State Police officers conducted simultaneous raids last week on three popular Philadelphia bars known for their wide beer selections. The cops confiscated hundreds of bottles of expensive ales and lagers, now in State Police custody at an undisclosed location. The alleged offense: Although the bar owners had bought the beer legally from licensed Pennsylvania distributors and had paid all the necessary taxes, the police claimed that nobody had registered the precise names of the beers with the state Liquor Control Board.”

Consider for a moment that “more than a dozen” cops raided the three bars for selling beer that had been legally purchased. TWELVE COPS on a beer bust! The State Police confiscated four kegs and 317 bottles of the illegal contraband aka beer. There must not be any unsolved murders, violent crimes, home burglaries or other serious crimes anywhere in Pennsylvania. TWELVE COPS on a beer bust! Why didn’t one cop or a civil service pencil pusher just go to the bars and ask to inspect the beer inventory and issue a citation if there were a problem?

The Criminalization of Almost Everything

The Cato Institute published an article called “The Criminalization of Almost Everything.” It discusses a subject that important in a free country, but it is ignored by the main stream media that is too busy stalking Tiger Woods and Paris Hilton. The subject is that federal state and local governments have passed so many laws that is it impossible to live a normal life without constantly violating laws of which we are totally unaware.

For example, did you know that there is a federal law (the Lacey Act) that says it is a crime to possess certain types of wood? See “Wood Police Raid Gibson Guitar Plant.” Are you sure your home and office are free of all federally controlled woods such as wood from Madagascar? Check your wood immediately before the feds swat team breaks down your door and arrests you for being a wood perp. Just say no to Madagascar wood! You say you and the rest of the citizens of the United States can’t tell Madagascar wood from Canadian wood, but that’s just tough tennis shoes. The law is the law and ignorance is no excuse. You will go to jail if the frame around the picture of your family is made from an illegal wood.

The Cato article begins:

When laws grow so voluminous and vague that they oppress those who live under them, society can become as unlivable as if it were lawless. Subject to the arbitrary scrutiny of prosecutors overcome by ambition for their own 15 minutes of fame, ordinary citizens face the horrors of becoming criminal defendants. At a Cato Book Forum in October, Harvey Silverglate, author of Three Felonies a Day, and Tim Lynch, editor of In the Name of Justice and director of Cato’s Project on Criminal Justice, discussed the growing threat of federal criminal law.

An average, busy professional gets up in the morning, gets the kids to school, goes to work, uses the telephone or e-mail, has meetings, works on a prospectus or bank loan, goes home, puts the kids to bed, has dinner, reads the newspaper, goes to sleep, and has no idea that, in the course of that day, he or she has very likely committed three felonies. Three felonies that some ambitious, creative prosecutor can pick out from that day’s activities and put into an indictment.

An excellent article on this topic is “Where were you when wood became a felony?” See also “Confronting Big Cereal, unregulated garage sales, and other evils.”

7th Grader Says No to Drugs is Suspended Five Days

A 7th grade girl was suspended from school for five days because a friend put a single prescription drug pill in her hand. The pill was Adderall, an ADHD drug. The girl who said no said no and gave the pill back to her friend. The school supseded the girl for five days for possession of a drug. The girl’s parents said they were proud of her for saying no to drugs just as she had been taught in the school’s DARE (Drug Abuse Resistance Education). The instructors must have forgotten to tell the kids not to touch the drugs when saying no. The Greater Clark County Schools zero tolerance policy says one touch equals a five day suspension.

How do we get educators who don’t have a clue? Where’s the common sense, fairness and justice? Why can’t they realize that punishments like this sends a message that the system is unfair and you will be punished even if you are innocent? If a kid 1 puts a pill in the hand of kid 2, how would kid 2 know what the pill was or that the pill was a legal vs. an illegal drug? To me and to kids, one white round pill looks just like another white round pill.

Is Adderall an illegal drug that cannot be possessed? I don’t know. Do you? Are all pills considered drugs that cannot be possessed? When is a pill legal to possess vs. illegal to possess? If a student touched an aspirin pill, would the student be suspended for possessing a drug? What about possession of a single M & M candy? It looks like a pill. Is an M & M a banned drug because of its pill-like shape? The schools don’t teach the kids reading, writing or arithmetic so my guess is they are not teaching drug recognition. Maybe the school should have a full-time drug counselor to further waste precious funds who is qualified to examine pill-like items and determine if an item is an illegal drug or ok to possess on the school grounds.

Law Professor With Too Much Free Time Writes Scholarly Law Review Article on Middle Finger Law

Finally we have a law review article about a legal issue that might interest lay people. Ira P. Robbins, the Barnard T. Welsh Scholar and a Professor of Law and Justice, at the Washington College of Law of American University published an article in the University of California, Davis Law Review called “Digitus Impudicus: The Middle Finger and the Law.” The 83 page article contains everything you wanted to know and more about the legalities of flipping the bird. I cannot wait until the movie comes out. The preamble to the article says:

“a number of recent cases demonstrate that those who use the middle finger in public run the risk of being stopped, arrested, prosecuted, fined, and even incarcerated under disorderly conduct or breach-of-peace statutes and ordinances. . . . the pursuit of criminal sanctions for use of the middle finger infringes on First Amendment rights, violates fundamental principles of criminal justice, wastes valuable judicial resources, and defies good sense.”

I learn something new everyday. I’ve been worried about the loss of freedom caused by the food police, the toy police, the noise police, the clown mask police, the elementary school sexual harassment police, the snowball police, the elementary school no-touching the opposite sex police, the elementary school doodling police, the light rail police, the elementary school science project police, the advertising police and just today the billboard police. I did not realize that our freedom is also being threatened by the middle finger police.

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