We Gave ‘Em Rope To Hang Us

There is a churlish rebuke of us on the (perceived) right” for not only failing to stand-up against the abuse of power by the Dillon mayor landing his heavy hand on Moorcat’s neck but, more broadly, our willingness to allow such “fascism” due to our concerns of living in the post 9/11 ethos of security before liberty. As offended as the “rebuker” is about our willingness to submit to big brother is, his idea that our silence is a tacit approval of such heavy handed methods mispalced. Since, however, I don’t read Moorcat’s site but once in a great while I’ll assume the legitimate excuse of ignorance on the matter up until now.

But after a lengthy discussion with my Samoan lawyer it seems that what the Mayor did was legal regardless of the petty bullshit ham-handedness he demonstrated. If he were my mayor I would look for any violation of law of regulation on his part (and we all have them) and present it to the appropriate authorities until the priggish little butt was afraid to fart in public lest the EPA be called in.

As for me and other other members of Montana’s Dextra community for assuming any blame, well, I’m not buying it.

Eshenbacher makes the cogent point rather inadvertently that the underlying ability of the King of Dillon to assert his power is a consequence of a law that, perhaps well intended, becomes an arrow in the quiver to screw with life and livelihood by those in positions of authority. Without the draconian “remedy” – to punish deadbeat dads – the incident wouldn’t have taken place. I’m hard pressed to say that the sympathies afforded either by left or right are what make the unintended consequences of any tough on “fill-in-the-blank” legislation a tool of abuse, but there is ample evidence that at least some sympathies have been promoted while under the pressure of jack-boot feminism that has summarily ignored the issue of father’s rights in the current political environment. That issue is one that Moorcat and I have found broad agreement on in the past.

But as a society we continue to not only allow such things but give them full throated approval not seeing that the protection of one cohort’s rights infringes on another’s. This happens, I think, because the perceived need to “react” subsumes a greater discussion of outcomes. The founders understood this pretty well and hence the roadblocks to making laws by checks and balances.

Whatever trade-offs have been made in the name of post 9/11 security the corpus of law that has built over time for either domestic security or justice have armed interested parties to the point that millions of citizens are placed in classifications of the law that impede their abilities to attain a just relationship with society. If you simply threaten a domestic partner verbally you can be charged with domestic violence and have your rights to defend yourself with firearms permanently revoked in most states. If you get convicted of statutory rape at 16 for having sex with your 15 year old girl friend you must register as a sex crimes convict the same as if you were a serial baby molester. If you get busted with an “intent” to distribute” pot charge you’re no longer eligible for federal student aid. If you’re a minor and get three of those suspicious Minor In Possession of Alcohol by Reason Of Consumption tickets – regardless of whether you are no where near an automobile at the time – you lose your driver’s license. If your kid leaves his bag of weed in your car and a cop finds it your car can, in many jurisdictions, be seized under the RICO laws and you have to prove your innocents at great personal expense to get your assets back. If you get shot in a no-knock raid and search of your home from bogus info supplied to the police by a confidential informant you have almost no recourse. We have given our children over to the guardianship of schools so it’s now legal to perform random drug tests while removing any expectation of privacy that kids might have in personal spaces like backpacks and lockers. We have permitted the government, long before 9/11, to have warrentless access to your bank transactions through the Bank Secrecy Act (a misnomer if ever one existed.)

All of these examples predate 9/11 and all of them I have objected to for years. You get the government you deserve and if we are inclined to codify remedies to social ills we have to be willing to accept that they will be abused where they can be abused. You want to get rid of tyrannical behavior stop giving the tools for abuse or stop whining.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 11:05 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.