…with a side of Freedom and Liberty. Common-ish sense in uncommon times.
If Epstein a hoax, then there is a woman who has been wrongfully imprisoned and needs to be released. And, if it’s a hoax, then we need to see it, understand how they were able to fool everyone, and start prosecuting people for it.
So is it a hoax, or is it not? We cannot have it both ways, folks.
As of 2018, the size of federal law was 60,000 pages, and the COVID-19 relief package was 5,000 pages by itself (according to The Atlantic). In 1982 (not a typo) there were more than 3,000 federal crimes — no one knows how many there are today. If it’s not possible, then it’s not possible to follow them, right? In fact, the Heritage Foundation said that they “developed an algorithm to [try to] quantify the number of statutes … that create one or more federal crimes.” They had to create a sophisticated computer search because doing so manually was (presumably) not possible. And they went on to conclude that even their well-designed algorithm “[could not] precisely count [the number of] discrete crimes” but estimated the number at just under 5,200(!!!). It’s so bad that the Heritage Foundation concluded that “federal crimes are too diffuse, too numerous, and too vague for the average citizen to know what the law requires.”
As the now infamous video from the Regent University School of Law demonstrated, it is illegal to “import, export, transport, sell, receive, acquire, possess, or purchase any fish, wildlife, or plant taken, possessed, transported, or sold in violation of any Federal, State, foreign, or Indian tribal law, treaty, or regulation” (Professor Attorney James Duane quoting the Lacey Act, 16 U.S.C. 3370-3378). HOLY COW!! If the fresh meat, fish, or produce you just bought at the grocery store violates a law anywhere in the world, you are guilty of a federal crime. Here’s a simple example: it is illegal to slaughter beef in most places in India but, if the beef you picked up for your barbecue was processed in India (how could you know it’s not legal when you pick it up in the store’s packaging, after all??) then you have possessed it and are guilty, even if you put it back down!!
And that’s one example that someone else looked up — imagine how many others are out there that no one has discovered yet.
Let’s look at another one. If you ‘re in Maine and send an text message to your friend in New Hampshire asking for $20 for gas (when you really need it to pay your bar bill) then, according to the Department of Justice, you’ve likely committed wire fraud — a very serious federal crime — even if your friend says no.
The average size of a bill back in 1948 was 2.5 pages. Today? 18 pages on average, but it is not uncommon to see them in the hundreds (and even thousands) of pages. Hence, you and me cannot possibly read and understand them — and even the representatives who are charged with voting on them often hire “specialists” to read the bills for them.
We have to get back to a place where you and me can understand the law, and a smaller government (that needs fewer laws to do what it is charged with doing) is a decent place to start.
The calls about my car’s warranty expiring, to grandparents that scam them out of their life savings, and now to world leaders that impersonate government officials are pervasive.
How many scammers have you heard of being caught (or even identified)? But you can probably bet that the impersonators of Marco Rubio will be pursued, but what about us little people? Orwell’s words in 1948 turn out to be more and more prescient by the day it seems” “some [] are more equal than others.”
Like many other things in today’s world, “We the People” have become complacent and this scenario is the smallest example of it. It’s how we’ve allowed a government to be run by people who “serve” only to enrich themselves and that its citizens overwhelmingly fear. The Founders feared the British government and started a revolution to free themselves from that tyranny — we, instead, pay more attention to the latest “Real Housewives of _” episodes.
How do we change this? We have to start paying attention to the seemingly silly stuff, the differences in how our would-be rulers act (and are treated) versus the rest of us, and who is benefiting from those laws that are supposed to make all of America better — more often than not, it’s not ‘all of America.’
That’s pretty much it. Stop blocking full disclosure. If there is no list and Ghislaine Maxwell doesn’t have dirt on you or the rest of our would-be rulers, then what’s the problem in hearing her testimony?
Yep, it’s Jeffrey Epstein. His client list was on the Attorney General’s desk back in February, but suddenly it doesn’t exist. So was Bondi lying then or is she lying now?
The suicide tape erased because of an “error”, but now suddenly it does exist. How is that possible?
Both of those are to drive home one conclusion: nothing to see here. Again, how is this possible?? People are crying foul, but that will only last for a few weeks (at least that is the historical trend in circumstances like this). Is it because Epstein’s own words sound like they implicate the person in charge of the people suddenly coming to these magical conclusions — that person being his “closest friend”? Or is it because there actually was/is a list and someone on it paid enough for the list to meet an unfortunate end? Us peasants will probably never know.
As the old saying goes, “[q]uis custodiet ipsos custodes?” [“Who watches the watchers?”] The answer is us, except, it’s become hard for us to watch anything because we’re too busy fighting amongst ourselves, watching the latest “reality” show, or any of the other things out there that are successfully dulling our wits, allowing us to just accept what we’re told without question, and generally distract our attention from the things that actually matter.
It’s how we’ve gotten into $37,077,892,193,371 [as of the time of this writing] of debt without as much as a squeak from the average person — but that’s a topic for a different day.
Benjamin Franklin famously said “[t]hat it is better 100 guilty Persons should escape, than that one innocent Person should suffer”. So vile the concept of injustice was to Franklin that he went on to quote Thoughts that posited that “the very Thought of injured Innocence, and much more that of suffering Innocence, must awaken all our tenderest and most compassionate Feelings, and at the same time raise our highest Indignation against the Instruments of it.”
Yet, we, as a country, are quick to agree to things like the PATRIOT Act, mass detentions (even if innocent Americans get picked up and are eventually released), and a surveillance state that rivals those of countries like China and parts of Europe.
The Cato Institute wrote about this topic and noted that 60% found imprisoing the innocent was unacceptable, while 40% disagreed or had qualified answers. This should terrify you, because it means that 40% of Americans have been conditioned to accept that punishment is more important than protecting liberty.
So how do we fix this? We recondition ourselves to value liberty and freedom above all else. We push back against things like the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty [Enforcement] Act (AEDPA)… wait, I lost you there, didn’t it? AEDPA raises the bar in habeaus petitions for appelate relief, despite some of its provisions being considered “radical” — yet the word “antiterrorism” likely made you take a moment of pause. “Terrorism” is the word that has brainwashed us into accepting the restriction of more civil liberties than any other concept in history. And with that word at the very front of it, what AEDPA has done is raised the bar so high for appelate courts that it has effectively wiped out any habeaus protection at the federal level. Don’t take my word for it, take the words of Duke Law School, Cornell Law School, and Congress’s own words (though theirs is admittedly written in very flowery language). That last one should really and truly terrify you.
If you think about it, the word “terrorism” has become a dog whistle that has gotten people to think more about accepting punishment and government control than of preserving and protecting liberty. After all, those TSA security checks aren’t so invasive, are they? And the “border search” exception to the Fourth Amendment helps keep drugs and terrorists out, right? And you’re innocent, so you have nothing to worry about, right?
Wrong. The ‘if you’re innocent, then you have nothing to hide’ is repulsive — waive your civil rights or we’ll think you’re not innocent because innocent people have nothing to hide — and was precisely what Franklin and the other Founders spoke out against. Yet we accept it because it makes us “more secure.”
Ben Franklin had something to say about that, too, as it happens. Franklin’s quote that “[t]hose who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety” has taken on a different context in the digital age than it’s original. Originally, it was said in the context of taxation and defense, but I would argue that he would accept it in today’s context of government surveillance and intrusion into every aspect of our daily lives.
Bottom line: innocent people being picked up or having their rights violated in pursuit of safety from scary things and punishment of criminals sounds great — until it’s you. Something to think about.
Bacon, Guns & Whiskey 