When law enforcement legally steals from people

It's bothered me for years that in the name of the "war on drugs" that some (emphasis on that) law enforcement agencies have engaged in what can only be described as theft of property from many innocent people. Chances are good that's going to continue to get worse as agencies are faced with budget crunches (along with the trend of hiring more and more individuals who have no business wearing a badge to begin with).

The Kingsport Times-News has an article on its website about "How police profit by seizing private property"...

Police and prosecutors’ offices seize private property—often without ever charging the owners with a crime — then keep or sell what they’ve taken and use the profits to fund their budgets. And considering law enforcement officials in most states don’t report the value of what they collect or how that bounty is spent, the issue raises serious questions about both government transparency and accountability.

Under state and federal civil asset forfeiture laws, law enforcement agencies can seize and keep property suspected of involvement in criminal activity. Unlike criminal asset forfeiture, however, with civil forfeiture, a property owner need not be found guilty of a crime—or even charged—to permanently lose her cash, car, home or other property.

According to the Institute for Justice civil asset forfeiture is one of the worst abuses of property rights today. The Institute has released a national study on civil forfeiture abuse. The report—Policing for Profit: The Abuse of Civil Asset Forfeiture - is the most comprehensive national study to examine the use and abuse of civil asset forfeiture and the first study to grade the civil forfeiture laws of all 50 states and the federal government. The report finds that by giving law enforcement a direct financial incentive in pursuing forfeitures and stacking the legal deck against property owners, most state and federal laws encourage policing for profit rather than seeking the neutral administration of justice.

This is one of the biggest reasons why I've come to be against the "war on drugs", and now the "war on terror". When government can declare a cause against something and demand all possible power and authority to wield against it, it is inevitable that the rights and liberties of individuals will suffer. And there's very rarely any going back.

Read More

Government STEALING private land for United 93 memorial

This blog commented about the issue a little over four months ago: how some of the families of passengers aboard United Airlines Flight 93 were petitioning the federal government (and then-President George W. Bush in particular) to seize private property by eminent domain so as to have a memorial to those who died in the 9/11 attack.

Well, those families are getting what they wanted: the federal government is about to CONDEMN land from seven owners so as to build a 2,200 acre "memorial site", and it's planning to rush the proceedings through so that the thing can be ready in time for the tenth anniversary of the hijackings.

I'll probably draw some flack for asking this aloud, but: what the HELL did those innocent people who died on United 93 actually DIE for, if the American government is now STEALING private property?

This is an act of brutal socialism: using force of government to take from those who own a thing, so as to benefit what will number a relatively few.

And I'll go ahead and say this too: this is exactly the kind of thing that the very same Islamic extremists who launched the 9/11 attacks have been doing for centuries to the shrines of other religions: declaring them to be "Islamic holy sites" and denying access to them by those of other faiths. If you own land, all the United States government now has to do is declare it a "historic place" and it can now take it from you.

I said a few months ago: the appropriate use of the land is to let the owners do with it as they see fit. That if "they" seriously "hate us for our freedoms" then let's insult them and show our resolve by displaying 2,200 acres of capitalism at work.

(And as I also said before, isn't 2,200 acres way too much for a memorial anyway?)

There is a right way to honor the lives of those who died on United 93. This is not the way to do that. In fact, what the government is doing in their name is shameful and disgusting. And I hope and pray to God that the rightful owners of the land fight this all the way.

Read More

The bicycle thief

Sometime between Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, someone stole my bicycle. I'd only had it for just less than a year.

That's probably the last I'll ever see of it. When I found that it was missing I called the Reidsville Police Department and they sent an officer over promptly to look into it. He said they'd keep an eye out for it and I don't doubt that they will ... but all the same, by this evening I'm fairly accepting that it's gone for good.

Whatever happened to the thing called "honor"? You know: the concept that you are supposed to do what's right even when there's nobody around to see you doing it. Or does such a thing even matter anymore?

Geez, can you believe how naïve I sound now? I mean, I live in a county where school board members demonstrate to children that it's okay to steal things that don't belong to them. And that's the kind of example that's set all over this country, from small offices to the Oval Office. This sort of thing should not only be expected, it's practically a rule of modern life.

Losing my bicycle bothered me most of this past day. But I realized that there are worse things that could happen. There are people I know who are going through much worse than the loss of a $130 bicycle. A bicycle can always be replaced ... but there are some things in life that can't be.

My friend Johnny helped me remember that tonight on our way to see Transformers: my fourth time seeing it and his very first (he liked it a lot by the way :-).

As for whoever stole the original, I hope that they are happy with it. They probably think themselves as pretty smart for pulling it off, but that is most likely the limit of the satisfaction that they'll ever find in this world. People who steal things from other people like that not only lack honor, they lack conscience. I would even argue that they lack a full and complete soul. They'll probably never demonstrate that they can be fully what God intended them to be.

I'm going to get another bicycle: a better one, even. And I'll be using it as if nothing had happened with the first. I mean, it's just a bicycle: it's not like I'm going to go on some insane cross-country quest to the basement of the Alamo, is it?

Read More