Even More Dangerous DHS

The most dangerous thing, politically speaking, is an unaccountable center of political power. Allegedly the United States government is set up to prevent such a thing from happening. Congress has the power of impeachment of both the President and of Supreme Court justices. The Supreme Court has the power to nullify laws that were passed. The President has both enforcement power and veto power.

It is a nice theory, but does not work so well in practice. As it stands now, the congress has ceded almost all of its power to the other branches. What should be accomplished through legislation is instead accomplished by executive order or by judicial fiat. The only power that still remains with congress is that to pass a budget (or even a continuing resolution) and even that was attacked recently with the idea to mint a high denomination platinum coin.

The Department of Homeland Security, perhaps one of the most dangerous departments in the federal government, no longer submits to any sort of checks of authority. According to Infowars, Janet Napolitano is ignoring requests by members of congress to explain the large ammunition purchases by the Department of Homeland Security.

This follows but a few months after John Pistole, director of the TSA, declined to show at a congressional hearing. And this is not the first time that the leadership of the TSA has declined to show, setting rules for their participation that include not allowing critics of the TSA at the hearings.

There is very little accountability in the United States government. But blatant disregard of this magnitude is startlingly new. Only the quasi-independent Federal Reserve has ever been able to disregard the checks and balances up until this point. Moreover, the TSA has even retaliated against elected officials that dared to criticize the TSA. It is clear that in addition to controlling all entry and exit to the country, the DHA is setting itself far above the law.

Why did they find him?

Recently an absurdity of a film called "Innocence of Muslims" has been making the rounds in the news. Although all the evidence indicates that the attacks on the embassies and consulates had been planned long in advance, the film is being blamed for the attacks.

Although it is understandable that some people are curious about who produced this teaser for a movie that doesn’t even actually exist, and therefore various news media organizations have been trying to find out who it is so that they can satisfy the demand, there is a very disturbing element to the quest for the identity of the producer.

Why is the United States government involved in trying to figure out his identity? Has the producer of this teaser actually broken any laws of the United States or of the fifty states? What law could he have broken that would spur such an investigation? And if he were put on trial, say for incitement, would he not have a solid first amendment defense under freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion?

Having the Associated Press try to find his identity is one thing. If a person thrusts himself into the public eye, then the public has every right to try to find out more. But having the government do the same without any identifiable cause is itself cause for concern.

Yes, people can say things that impede the foreign policy of government officials. People can say things that embarrass government officials to, although far less so than in the past.

This following so closely on the heels of having Brandon Raub committed to a psychiatric hospital for the “crime” of criticizing the government, while having the British "ally" threaten Ecuadorean sovereignty to claim Julian Assange shows that the line has been crossed a long time ago with regards to the lawlessness of the United States regime.

TSA won't molest kids anymore ... maybe

The TSA has recently changed the rules for subjecting minors to the highly invasive pat-down that is given to those who opt out of the Advanced Imaging Technology (formerly Whole Body Imaging.) The problem is, according to the TSA, this doesn't mean anything is actually changing.

Please understand that this isn’t a free pass. TSA will always incorporate random and unpredictable security measures and nobody is guaranteed expedited screening.

The procedure is changing except for when it isn't?

Another problem with this announcement is that it is not the first time the TSA has made this announcement. There seems to be a real recidivism problem with the TSA, their policies, or their agents. The stories about the TSA and the invasiveness of their pat-downs are coming faster and more detailed, with the comments the stories receive showing the public gives more credibility to the passengers than to the TSA.

There is something deeply wrong when an agency has to promise to not molest children. There is something even more deeply wrong when an agency has to promise to not do it anymore. The recent rule change is the TSA promising to stop molesting children - unless the front line agent feels it is absolutely necessary.

Backdoor Forbiddance

One of the ways to know if a government is tyrannical is when the law places demands on the people to not own various goods. Many of these regimes will declare various items to be contraband or forbidden, such as subversive literature or the means of self defense.

There is actually very little in the way of economic interactions in the United States that are actively forbidden for purchase. The list is actually limited to various illegal drugs and, in most states, prostitution. Technically everything else is available for public ownership.

But that is not the whole of the interference in private transactions. There exists a whole second class of goods that can only be acquired with special permits, such as firearms and prescription medication. In order to own any of those goods it is necessary to get special permission from various authorities.

By manipulation of permission various levels of the government have been able to turn de jure legality into de facto forbiddance, such as with the Chicago handgun bans. Anyone in Chicago can own a gun if they have a permit, but nobody can get a permit. It was due to the technicality that guns were not actually forbidden that Chicago tried to defend their ban at the Supreme Court.

The most insidious method by which the United States government says that the people may not own various goods is not through saying that the people may not purchase or own goods, but by forbidding instead the sale or manufacture of those goods.

When the incandescent bulb ban goes into effect, it will be perfectly legal for anyone to own any bulbs already purchased. It will even be legal to buy those bulbs if a store actually has them to sell. What won’t be legal is for the store to sell them. The same is the situation with raw foods, especially raw milk. Anyone can own raw milk, and there are no laws against purchasing raw milk. But nobody can get permission to sell raw milk, and those who do are subject to harsh government action for peaceful, voluntary transactions.

It is even true selling rabbits, or when kids set up lemonade stands, or when people sell rides, flower arrangements, hair care, or interior design services. While it is legal for some people to sell these products, it is not legal for anyone to sell these completely legal products.

It is actually quite clever on the part of the United States government to ban only the production or sale and not the acquisition or ownership. Although the effect is the same in terms of what the people can own, it is not the people who are being restricted and thus the people are not aware of the laws limiting what they can own.

Local tyranny is also the most blatant

If a person is unlucky enough to rent an apartment in the cities of Lancaster, California or Palmdale, California, that person no longer has any fourth amendment protections against searches. It is written in to the law of both cities. The setup is convoluted, but the end result is that no renter has rights.

It starts with code enforcement, as do many of the evils of local government. In order to ensure that apartment complex managers and owners are not mistreating the tenants, code enforcement officials are authorized to enter any rental unit without the permission of or a warrant against the people dwelling there.

So in order to ensure that, for example a fire detector has the batteries installed, agents of the government are allowed in with only the requirement that the property owner, not the renter, be notified. And this only applies to rental properties; homeowners are not subject to these inspections.

The problem is that anything that the renter might be doing is reportable to the police, and the word of the safety code inspector is all the police need to get a warrant. That means that apartment renters are subject to criminal searches under building and safety codes.

Given the vast number of laws that people are subjected to, and nobody knows all the laws that a person must obey, this means that the one guarantee people have to protect them from malicious prosecution – the fourth amendment prohibition against warrantless searches – is null and void for anyone who rents an apartment in Lancaster or Palmdale.

The theory behind the reportability is that since the government agent already has permission to enter the home, anything found is legally reportable. But the search is technically on the property of the lessor, not the dwelling of the lessee. It is a difference without a difference as far as the city governments are concerned.

One could make an argument that this is a coincidental byproduct, an unintended consequence. That would be understandable, except for the wording of the ordinances. Lancaster has the more severe wording.

5.40.020 Purpose

The existence of substandard and unsanitary residential rental properties and residential rental units, the physical conditions and characteristics of which violate applicable state housing, county and local codes and render them unfit or unsafe for human occupancy and habitation, threatens the physical, social, and economic stability of sound residential buildings and areas, and their supporting neighborhood facilities and institutions; necessitates disproportionate expenditures of public funds for remedial action; impairs the efficient and economical exercise of governmental power and functions; and destroys the amenity of residential areas and neighborhoods and the community as a whole. It has been statistically demonstrated that areas with rental housing facilities are responsible for a disproportionate share of police calls for service.

The disproportionate demand upon police services necessitates a disproportionate expenditure of public funds for such properties and impairs the property value of these properties and the surrounding neighborhoods as well as community as a whole.

It is the purpose of this chapter to implement a crime free rental housing program ("LANCAP") to provide a stable, more satisfied tenant base; increase demand for rental units with a reputation for active management; lower maintenance and repair costs; increase property values, and improve the personal safety for tenants, landlords, and managers.

It is also the purpose of this chapter to identify the existence of substandard and unsanitary residential rental properties and rental units and to cause the owner thereof to cure such defects.

For these reasons, it is in the public interest for the protection of the health and safety of the people of Lancaster to protect and promote the existence of sound and wholesome residential rental properties and residential rental units by the adoption of regulations for participants in LANCAP training and the periodic inspection of such structures.

The second paragraph is a key point. Given that the description of how substandard construction drains resources is already in the first paragraph, the second paragraph as a stand-alone describes apartment dwellers alone as being more prone to uncivil behavior.

On the national level, the TSA already has completely dispensed with the fourth amendment, but at least they do so on the refuted claim that they are trying to keep people safe from terrorists. In the case of Lancaster and Palmdale they lack even that much of a justification for eliminating the rights that should belong to every American.

Local tyranny is also the most intense

Local zoning laws, local code enforcement, and local property rights issues are the areas where the government’s tyranny is both the most petty and most oppressive. Petty neighbors will unleash the power of government against those with whom they have a personal dislike.

Such is the case with a man from Littlerock, CA. In a case of selective enforcement, where many properties are undoubtedly in some code violation, the county has chosen to ignore neighbors with those violations and concentrate only on him.

He has the County of Los Angeles threatening him with criminal charges for two reasons. The first is that he collects classic cars. Many of them do not operate, and apparently it is against county code to maintain inoperable vehicles on ones property. It is not a matter of whether or not these cars are properly registered, it is only a matter of these cars being inoperable.

The second is a public service he has been performing for the desert communities in the eastern side of northern Los Angeles County. He collected trash that people dump in the along the sides of the road and sorts through it to separate the recyclables from the trash. There is nothing in county code against doing that, so he thought it was allowed. According to representatives from the county, there is nothing in county code allowing that, so they say it is forbidden.

One would think that cleaning up the illegal dumping would be a valuable public service in the eyes of the county. To add further insult, he has been cited with violation of existing code provisions for home based occupations (022.070.035, which permits home based occupations).

When he first aroused the wrath of the county they merely suggested he put up a privacy fence so that his collection would not be an eyesore. He did that, and thought his ordeal was over. But merely following the advice of county code enforcement was not enough, and they determined that he was engaged in an illegal use of his property.

In a negotiation with representatives of the county, he was given 45 days to remove all inoperable vehicles. His lawyer protested that he would need 90 days. The county threatened him with criminal charges unless he agreed with the 45 day time frame. If he does not complete the removal in 45 days the county will likely press forward with the criminal charges.

Moreover he was threatened with being declared incompetent or a "hoarder," and threatened with having a "receiver" assigned to him at his own expense. This receiver would have the county come in with a crew of workers and trucks to clean everything off the property. To pay for this a special tax would be assessed against him that would try to pay this bill off in three years, and if he is unable to pay the expense then the county would place a lien against his property for unpaid taxes that would authorize the county to sell his property at auction.

There seems to be a definite trend with the county harassing elderly property owners with sanctions that ultimately result in seizing their land. They seek those who have the least resources to fight back and harasses them to the point where they are unable to resist any further, breaking them physically, mentally, and financially.

This fight has drained the meager resources of this man from Littlerock, and he has discovered that there is precious little separation of powers in Los Angeles County. There is little in the way of accountability or appeal. This is local tyranny at its finest and worst.

A second civil war

It comes up every once in a while in libertarian circles, more often in some boards than in others and more often as we near the anniversary of the secession of 1776 - a discussion of a potential future civil war that could theoretically restore liberty in the United States. Although entertaining to think about an uprising can have disastrous consequences, or if it is the wrong uprising can be a disaster itself.

One of the ways it could go horribly wrong is if the conflict is steered into red versus blue, red states versus blue states. Neither the Democrats and their supporters nor the Republicans and their supporters represent greater liberty, but instead offer competing versions of how the government should run the lives of the people. The leadership of both parties believe that they are entitled to rule others. Yet this is a particularly likely form of civil war due to it perpetuating the basic right versus left division that has kept the freedom movement divided against each other instead of the common foe, and kept the people divided so that they do not notice the common foe.

What could undo that possibility is if both a red state and a blue state were to nullify or secede for different reasons at the same time. Supposing California seceded over marijuana legalization while Texas seceded over health care reform, at the same time. By both acts occurring near each other it would prevent those in charge from saying that pulling away is uniquely red or uniquely blue.

Another possibility is a very messy war composed of many factions, both within and outside the government. Although this gives the freedom movement more opportunities, it will take a lot longer to resolve and it will mean many more enemies. This would come about if an over grown government begins to splinter under its own weight. Different areas of the country could come under different rule not by secession but by different agencies or commands declaring different fiefdoms. It is already the case where the military is establishing a command with the special focus of inside the United States, and there are the ever present rumors about FEMA camps.

Then there is the possibility of a groundswell in the form of riots. Some predict that they will be triggered by the depression getting worse, or by a lack of food. Given the success of public education it will take a lot to get to this point. The people have been successfully taught that there are only two respectable sources for answers to political questions, and anything else is fringe and to be ignored. These same people also do not like the answers they are getting from the only two sources they have learned they should listen to. It is a nasty dilemma that the average person is in, and the frustration can lead to chaos. This type of uprising could lead to a revolution more like the French Revolution than either of the American Revolutions.

The only real option for the freedom movement in the face of those possibilities is to try to build strong networks of mutual support. That way if it does come down to people shooting each other the freedom movement will have the advantage of friendly loose organization.

If those in the freedom movement genuinely believe there will be conflict, then the thing that needs to be done is to prepare to ensure it is the right conflict. The wrong conflict could result in a Napoleon or a Lenin seizing control. And even if it is the right conflict, it should be remembered that war is ugly. There may be some opportunity for glory, but there is much more opportunity for gory.