An Article by:

Russell Cole

The purpose of this essay is to bring scrutiny to an alarming trend in American governance. This growing practice is propounded by differing groups in our society, ranging from the neoconservatives to the quasi-academicians occupying fellowships at the politically moderate Brookings Institute.

In a publication produced by members of the Brookings’ Institute, the emerging practice has been labeled with the following expression, “Governing by Network.” This philosophy of governance looks to institutions and organizations outside of government in order to outsource the work of government; thus, privatizing many of the functions that would, otherwise, be implemented by governmental agencies and the civil professionals who work under their auspices.

The purpose of this brief essay is to refocus this governing philosophy through the lens of an entirely different interpretative framework, in order to bring to the fore some of the alarming outcomes that might result from this practice of outsourcing government. I will make the case that governing by network is tantamount to corporatism, and, therefore, poses a threat to the already compromised democracy that we, as Americans, have historically struggled to enact and, presently, continue to enjoy; although in recent years our democratic system of polity has suffered a flurry of incursions made by the current Imperial Presidency.

At first glance, this might appear to be a sound policy. Looking toward corporations in the economy and NGOs in civil society might provide a means by which to rely upon organizations in society that are already specialized in particular types of operations, making them more efficient and effective agents for carrying out the missions underlying government initiatives. In the language of neoconservatism, privatizing the military, for instance, will make America’s war machinery subservient to the pressures of the market; subsequently, ensuring that America’s mechanisms for carrying out its foreign policies that rely upon militarism are the most fit for that purpose.

This whole arcade of mercenary contractors waging war in Iraq is by no means an ad hoc appendage to the military proper, whose idea and implementation were incited solely from the contingencies of the Iraqi campaign. Rather, the privatization of the military had been, from inception of the Bush Presidency, a guiding-principle for Rumsfield and his efforts to reform the American military complex. From the beginning of his tenure as the Secretary of Defense, Rumsfield had been working with his favored contacts in the private sector in order to facilitate the outsourcing of many of the functions of the military and the Pentagon; thus, increasing the role of private contractors in America’s military affairs. This protracted endeavor to outsource as many military operations as possible was part of a metaphorical war being waged against the military bureaucracy; a complex – according to Rumsfield, and in accord with neoconservative thought patterns – of obsolescent bureaucratic institutions, which burdened the American state with inefficiency, resulting in governmental waste.

There are, of course, manifold examples to cite when it comes to illuminating the concrete manifestations of the emergent doctrine, governing by network. To cite a more seemingly benign example, Bush’s policy of funding faith-based organizations for the purposes of providing social welfare services to the dependent and needy constitutes an instance of governing by network, because it involves integrating organizations that exist in civil society into the operations and functions of government; relieving the state from the encumbrance of constructing the institutional architecture required for it to perform these tasks on its own.

Although, prima facie, these uses of the private sector to facilitate the execution of public policies might appear innocuous and, even, pragmatic. Nevertheless, there is a more sinister dimension to these practices, which reflects a motivation possessed by the adherents of this public policy philosophy that needs to be rendered transparent, so that the full scope of consequences brought about by governing by network is apparent to the American citizen.

In the initial paragraph of this essay, I pointed out that the privatization of governance can alternatively be referenced under the term, corporatism. By this, I am indicating that the privatization of government will have the entailment of creating a political system in which the distinctions between polity and the economy are effectively blurred; resulting of the integration of the economy, along with the elites who control it, with the institutions and decision-making mechanisms of government. I say this because private entities in the economy can just as well affect the policy making processes belonging to the politic sphere of society - and will have a much greater incentive to do so if government is outsourced – through interventions such as their corporate lobbying and the campaign donations extended to politicos by corporate elites – as can the body politic impact upon the firms in the economy through the adoption of government policy.

Therefore, by privatizing governmental services, we run the risk of having corporations influencing what policies will be implemented by affecting political decision-making outcomes in an attempt to ensure revenue through governmental contracts. This networking of polity with the economy and civil society will precipitate working relationships among the agencies in all three of the affected social spheres:  polity, civil society, and economics.  Resultantly, the policies taken up by government might reflect the economic interests that stand to benefit from particular policies; rather than having government policy address the needs and desires of the populace; members of society who do not necessarily possess the wealth and influence to countervail the corporate interests that stand to profiteer through particular types of policy implementations. In short, the government and the economy will merge into a union whereby policy and the motivations that underly it will be identical with interests emanating from the economic sector and from the advocacies associated with NGOs in civil society; a collection of non-governmental agencies that stand to benefit by virtue of the contracts that will ensue from the networked administration of public policies.

There is an even more alarming aspect to the consequences engendered by governing by network: The constitutional protections that restrict governmental interference in the private and civic affairs of citizens can effectively be circumvented by implementing the policies of government through the employment of private institutions that are not beholden to the same limitations imposed upon government by the Constitution. This is what makes the discussion among neoconservatives so disconcerting, in which they are presently entertaining the prospect of outsourcing domestic intelligence gathering to private firms who will then be entrusted with spying upon American citizens.

This plan that is being advanced by the in-member ideologues of the current Administration in conjunction with their sympathizers and consultants occupying positions in various neoconservative think-tanks, if allowed to materialize, will result in more than the “soft fascism,” described by Ron Paul in his warnings about corporatism; it presents the possibility of effectively imposing a rather profound and extensive form of authoritarianism upon the American public. We will be subjected to the unfettered intrusions and spying eyes of private entities outside the constraining parameters that have been, heretofore, erected by Constitutional Rights. We will have to fear with whom we associate and with whom we transact communications – let alone indulgences in vice; or contributions to radicalized political advocacies – because we will have no expectation that we can maintain any seclusion of these activities in the sense that we will not be able to conceal information and curtail knowledge about our engagements, as private citizens, from institutions who might react punitively if presented with such renderings of our social activities. When in the hands of private firms conducting domestic intelligence gathering, what is to stop our employers from purchasing such information in order to assess our interactions outside of the workplace, so the firm can successfully impose a lifestyle – through the threat of occupational termination upon those who deviate – that they deem appropriate for those assuming positions in the ranks of their employment.

Consider, even, the current push to centralize and digitize our health records. Of course, they attempt to assuage our concerns by emphasizing the improvements to the administration of health care that will be actualized through the availability to health care professionals of an archive containing our complete medical histories that can be instantaneously retrieved via information technologies. However, what other possibilities will be enacted through the creation of such a repository of personalized information regarding matters of our biographies that we consider to be, oftentimes, sensitive and highly private? Might we be obliged by potential employers to permit their human resource agents to investigate for what we have received treatment by physicians and when that treatment was administered?  For some us, we risk even having to disclose out relationships with psychiatrists and other practitioners of mental health care. Additionally, through the nexus between the economy and polity that will be formed under the conditions depicted in the not so distant futurism that I am detailing, what recourse could we possibly have to prevent government agencies from obtaining the health records that will already be in the hands of corporations with whom government will have working relations? The rights to privacy that were referenced by the attorneys entrusted with the criminal defense of Rush Limbaugh will not be violated, they will simply be circumvented, bypassed, through the creation of cooperative enterprises involving both law enforcement and private entities in the economy or, perhaps, civil society, which might have access to personal medical records.

It is important to stress that the argument that I am making is not a polemic advancing a position in support of expanded government. However, I am quite explicitly warning against solutions to “Big Government,” that advance an agenda of privatizing government operations by outsourcing their functions to corporations and NGOs. The best remedy for inflated bureaucracy is the diminution of government and the services that it provides. The very worse trajectory in our social development would be pursuing the path followed by the ideologues in the Bush Administration, who are quite actively working to expand the powers of the Presidency; an expansion of authority that is leveled at the peril of civil liberties.

Tags: bill of rights, constitution, corporations, corporatism, democracy, economics, fascism, governing, government, homeland security, liberty, neoconservatism, politics, power, privatization, Russell Coles Blog, self governance
Categories: Commentary, Economics, Democracy, liberty, constitution, bill of rights, government, Russell Cole's Blog, self-governance, Power, Politics, Corporations, Homeland Security, neoconservatism
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An Article by:

Loren Bliss

Even inside the Second Amendment community, too many U.S. voters remain oblivious to the fact the Democrats and the Republicans are now openly collaborating to forcibly disarm as many Americans as possible — especially U.S. military veterans — with an oppressive package of bipartisan Congressional legislation already enacted or pending.

More troubling still is the fact so many of our traditional guardians of other constitutional rights — groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union and its political kindred — are too blinded by their hatred of firearms owners and firearms to see how this newly emerging onslaught portends a final betrayal of American liberty by the very people sworn to protect it.

By far the most egregious of these legislative measures is S1237, a bill I warned about last spring. Requested by President Bush, S1237 would allow the federal government — by secret decree and without any pretense of due process — to permanently deny firearms ownership to anyone it deems politically suspect. It is pending in the judiciary committee, where it has acquired a dozen co-sponsors, among them Hillary Clinton, Dianne Feinstein, Charles Schumer and Edward Kennedy — proof the Democrats remain as committed to forcible disarmament as ever. A companion, HR2074, is in the House Judiciary Committee and is also quickly acquiring sponsors from both parties, thereby proving the Republican pledge to protect Second Amendment rights is merely another of the GOP’s treacherous lies.

Equally dangerous are HR2640 and S2084, new versions of a measure previously titled HR297, the other bill I warned against in May. Growing ranks of critics say either form, HR2640 or S2084, would clear the way for mandatory disarmament of anyone ever diagnosed as having any degree of mental illness, even the most relatively benign. As S2084, the measure has been expanded into unrelated realms and is awaiting final action by the Senate, where its Republican and Democratic sponsors hope to force its passage “as agreed” — a voice vote in which individual positions are not recorded — just as HR2640 was approved by the House.

This mode of enactment is indicative and damning: a common means for dispensing with parliamentary trivia, it is unprecedented for the approval of significant or controversial legislation — as if Congress were to abolish Medicare by a chorus of ayes and nays. The method of HR2640’s passage thus achieves toxic distinction as an all-time nadir of unethical arrogance. It also confirms a fear and contempt for the electorate never before so publicly displayed in U.S. politics: the haughty disdain by which the nation’s politicians have long viewed those of us who elect them — the resurrected aristocratic prejudice we common folk are too ignorant to be allowed any genuine liberty — a worsening malaise that has been carefully documented for at least a decade.(1) More ominously, the craven concealment of the vote on HR2640 proves beyond a scintilla of doubt the dread accuracy of the darkest estimates of the measure’s tyrannical purpose. There is no other reason so many senators are trying so desperately to mimic the representatives in cowering behind procedural sleight-of-hand.

HR327 — the unanimously enacted “Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention Law” recently signed by President Bush — is one of the hammers to the anvil of H2640/S2084. The latter bills would provide the mechanism of forcible disarmament as noted above, while HR327 makes evaluation of one’s mental state a prerequisite for obtaining any medical care through the Department of Veterans Affairs.

This, from HR327’s Section 1720F, paragraph (c), says it all: “the Secretary shall direct that medical staff offer mental health in their overall health assessment when veterans seek medical care at a Department medical facility…and make referrals, at the request of the veteran concerned, to appropriate counseling and treatment programs for veterans who show signs or symptoms of mental health problems.”

Under HR2640/S2084, anyone — veteran or otherwise — whose psychological condition suggests even the faintest risk of self-harm would be permanently denied the right to keep and bear arms. Thus a person seeking self-improvement via counseling could be disarmed as easily as someone afflicted by major mental illness. Since anyone so disarmed is also implicitly deprived all right of self-protection, such a person is literally reduced to statutory prey — a legally defenseless creature any predator can attack at will and with absolute impunity. The possibility an attacker might face subsequent penalties is no deterrent at all, a fact repeatedly confirmed by interviews with street criminals. And whatever consequences eventually obtain, they are in any case invariably diminished once disclosure of psychological status renders the victim subhuman in the eyes of police, judicial authorities and a population internationally notorious for its hateful intolerance of even the slightest mental abnormality.

But one exceptionally bold senator, Tom Coburn (R-OK), saw these dangers from the very beginning and dared put a continuing hold on HR2640/S2084. He also raised the sole objection to HR327, which he recognized as an enabling act for HR2640/S2084.

“The VA’s past failures to protect the privacy of veterans records show that this concern is well-founded,” said Coburn. “The Department of Veterans Affairs, in 1999, shared the private medical records of more than 80,000 veterans with the Department of Justice…to prohibit the purchasing of firearms by veterans who had been diagnosed as having mental health concerns at one point in their lives.”(2)

Coburn’s defense of the right to keep and bear arms predictably made him the target of a nationally orchestrated smear campaign, a vicious attack that included a New York Times editorial denouncing him as “locked, loaded and looney,”(3) and he eventually retreated from his HR327 position, apparently convinced the phrase “at the request of the veteran concerned” makes psychological assessment under HR327 purely voluntary. But anyone familiar with the military and the VA instantly recognizes the Big Lie: the fact “at the request of” is meaningless. In the VA as in the military, one has no choice but to follow the inevitable orders — “you WILL see the shrink” — even if the result is the loss of one’s firearm rights forever.

Moreover, every military veteran in the U.S. — combat vet or not — could be permanently disarmed by this new law. This is because, by the definition of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder in Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-IV or DSM-IV, even basic military training might arguably result in some degree of PTSD, while for actual combat veterans, PTSD is an absolute certainty.(4) And since “suicidal tendencies” are implicit in PTSD,(5) this diagnosis automatically invokes the forcible disarmament provisions of HR2640/S2084 — in the words of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), “any danger, not simply ‘imminent’ or ‘substantial’ danger” — the individual in question might attempt self-harm.(6)

Obviously HR2640/S2084 would also facilitate the forcible and permanent disarmament of many civilians — for example anyone who suffered PTSD as the result of criminal attack, natural disaster, civil disorder, even a serious illness, a residential fire or an injurious traffic accident.

However, to understand the true magnitude of the HR2640/S2084/HR327 forcible-disarmament package, it is necessary to factor in two more findings: the World Health Organization conclusion — already axiomatic among U.S. mental health professionals –that all mental disorders increase the risk of suicide;(7) and the National Institute of Mental Health estimate that at one time or another, nearly 50 percent of the U.S. population will suffer from some form of mental disorder — whether minor or major, temporary or protracted.(8 ) HR2640/S2084 would enable the government to proclaim all these individuals prohibited persons and forcibly disarm any who own firearms.

The equally bipartisan S1237 meanwhile disarms political activists and even apolitical nonconformists. Ostensibly it would “increase public safety by permitting the Attorney General to deny the transfer of firearms or the issuance of firearms and explosives licenses to known or suspected dangerous terrorists.” Authored by Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) in response to a presidential request — Lautenberg is probably the most fanatical forcible-disarmament advocate in Congress — its core feature is nullification of the constitutionally implied principle of presumed innocence.

But the stunningly oppressive intent of the Bush/Lautenberg proposal is found not in the legislation itself but in the federal government’s post-9/11 redefinitions of the term “terrorism.” Critics on both left and right say the definitions are now so broad they potentially criminalize any form of effective political action. In other words, participants in a legitimate labor strike or a picket-line that blocks or merely slows vehicles in a city street could thus be disarmed — permanently and without judicial redress — as “terrorists.” So could people collecting signatures on unapproved petitions or giving unauthorized musical or theatrical performances that delay pedestrian traffic on sidewalks.(9, 10, 11)

No matter the heartfelt appeal such draconian disarmament measures have for the opponents of civilian firearms ownership, the fact remains neither these laws and proposals nor their underlying nullifications of other aspects of the Bill of Rights have any real precedents in U.S. history. Given that the Republicans have until now disguised themselves as valiant defenders of the right to keep and bear arms, the bipartisan nature of the forcible disarmament effort is also an entirely new phenomenon, and its potential for making criminals of law-abiding citizens — not to mention its likelihood for turning the U.S. into Cell Block Nation — would appear to exceed even that of the Volstead Act and national prohibition. The only historical parallel may lie in the most terrifying aspect of the 1942 confinement of Japanese-Americans in concentration camps — the fact that (in upholding the detentions), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the entire Bill of Rights is meaningless — that its guarantees can be abolished whenever there is “pressing public necessity.”

Equally alarming is the unheard-of manner in which both parties have joined hands in singular deviousness — the despotic determination reflected by a Machiavellian scheme obviously designed to succeed no matter the degree of public opposition — a development virulent with disturbing suggestions about our political future.

Like it or not, the only terms and concepts that explain this extraordinary stealth campaign and its unique degree of coordination are phrases many of us have been conditioned to reject instinctively: “ruling class,” “working class” and “class struggle.” Hence a plea for open-mindedness followed by a little bit of the history that justifies the use of these terms in this context:

Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal (1932-1945) was probably the most brilliant socioeconomic and political compromise in human history. It embraced the precept of class struggle — the notion that the chief motivating force of history is eternal war between the reflexively greedy, instinctively oppressive ruling class and all the rest of us — the oppressed, alienated, often legitimately rebellious working class. But instead of using class struggle to justify revolution, as Marxism did, the New Deal wed it to the principles of the U.S. Constitution and constitutional governance. The government would simultaneously encourage capitalist enterprise even as it protected us — the workers — against capitalist savagery. As a result, the vast majority of U.S. workers enjoyed nearly four decades of genuine prosperity — almost certainly the longest such era anywhere on Planet Earth in the past 3400 years.

But all that ended with the 1968 election, after which every U.S. president — Democrat or Republican — worked to destroy the protections the New Deal had granted us. Thus most U.S. workers have not received a genuine raise — an increase in disposable income — since 1973. With the willing collaboration of the Democrats — particularly the presidents Carter and Clinton — the Republicans have restored the ruling class to its former economic omnipotence, have resurrected most of its political autocracy and have destroyed or crippled all remaining vestiges of the laws and programs that formerly protected us from much of the misery inflicted by capitalist greed. And in the name of “free trade,” both parties are methodically subjugating all of us — that is, the working class — into ever-more-degraded servitude to the Global Sweatshop Economy. The Republican Party — demonstrably the core vessel of U.S. fascism even after Pearl Harbor dissolved the 1930s alliance between Big Business and Adolf Hitler’s Axis — has now nearly won its 75-year war against American workers.

Nevertheless some of us have begun to fight back. Union membership is again increasing, and with it, union militancy. We are beginning to re-learn what President Roosevelt and his supporters knew by heart — that capitalism is inherently malignant. Protest movements are growing. With skyrocketing fuel prices — authoritative predictions of $4 and even $5 per gallon before next spring — gas-pump rage at the ongoing collaboration of politicians and oil speculators could explode into disorders comparable to the bread-riots of pre-revolutionary France and 1917 Russia. Total economic collapse — the crash of the dollar to absolute worthlessness and runaway inflation of a sort not experienced in this country since the final years of the Confederacy — now appears at least possible. And terminal climate change worsens by the day if not the hour. Public anger simmers relentlessly toward some unknown boiling point even as potential chaos — truly unimaginable chaos — looms ever closer.

No wonder the ruling class now seeks to forcibly disarm as many U.S. workers as it can.

Yet one of the bloodier lessons of history is that in such desperate times the armed citizen is often the only remaining defense, whether of individual liberty or the collective ethos we call civilization.

Thus it cannot be said too often that the authority implicit in HR2640/S2084, HR327 and S1237 could enable the government to confiscate the guns of every working-class person in the United States — that is, every one of us who is not part of the tiny plutocracy that already controls 90 percent of the planet’s wealth and seeks to perpetuate itself in fortified, despotic opulence through the nightmare decades ahead. Combined, these measures are nearly universal in their reach: they could disarm not just veterans (whom the ruling class deems especially dangerous because of their military training and combat experience), but literally anyone who has suffered or illness or trauma. Simultaneously S1237 could disarm not only political activists but anyone whose opinions or lifestyle invites denunciation by the legions of petty officials, home-entry workers and snoopy or vindictive neighbors the Bush Regime has enrolled as its spies.(12)

However, the implications of this legislative blitz go far beyond the question of firearms ownership. HR1955, the so-called “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007,” has been passed 404-6 by the House and is pending in the Senate, where it has been renamed S1959. Supporters say the bill is essential for national defense, but — once again (and ever more predictably) — the definitions of “violent radicalization” and “terrorism” are so vague they effectively cancel the First, Fourth, Fifth and Sixth amendments. Literally, under HR1955/S1959, a member of a militant labor union could be imprisoned merely for paying dues.(13, 14) And when HR1955/S1959 is viewed in concert with HR2640/S2084, HR327 and S1237, what emerges is undeniable proof of underlying bipartisan malevolence — not just an unprecedented effort to eliminate individual liberty by weasel-wording past the Bill of Rights, but to impose on the nation a climate of fear that has no counterpart in U.S. history: the ultimate ruling-class tactic to guarantee the abject submissiveness of the entire population. Any nation that disarms its firearms owners by sidestepping or suspending due process can just as easily silence its critics by the same methods — clearly the intent of HR1955/S1959.(15)

Meanwhile — if we dare to let ourselves acknowledge the evidence — the grand strategy of the ruling class also comes into sharp focus. Now we see how forcible disarmament through HR2640/S2084, HR327 and S1237 is essential to clear the way for the final destruction of American liberty via HR1955/S1959. Hence the deceitful histrionics of the 2008 presidential campaign: the ruling class feigning anger at Bush and the Republicans for doing precisely as they were ordered to do. Hence too the deliberately deceptive turnabout in which the ruling class lends the unstoppable power of its near-infinite wealth to the Democrats — who are thereby guaranteed control of the federal government (and most local governments as well) for the next four years. The remaining scenario is obvious: the Democrats fulfill their appointed purpose not just by zealously disarming the population but by ruthlessly suppressing dissent. The electorate then reacts as it did to the Clintons’ forcible disarmament campaigns of the 1990s and again votes the Democrats out of public office — this time probably forever. As the Republicans celebrate their restoration, the Democrats retire behind a smokescreen of theatrical bitterness, knowing all the while that because they spoke their lines so well, they will spend the remainder of their lives reaping the lavish rewards of private sinecure — repayment for eliminating the Constitution’s last remaining fail-safe clauses.

But now for us workers there is a very different scenario, one as grim as famine in Cambodia. Disarmed, we cannot even protect ourselves against the thugs and gangsters who increasingly prey on us; the Democrats have left us as utterly defenseless as Blacks shackled aboard an antebellum slave ship. And now in 2012 the Republican victors at last achieve the ultimate triumph they have sought since 1932 — the ruling class returned to absolute power over all government at all levels. With their world so secured, the capitalists jubilantly unleash the full tyrannosauric savagery of their greed, binding us in eternal servitude by every horror their technologies of oppression can produce. They have no need for more elections. Every city is post-Katrina New Orleans; every forest a desolation of clear-cuts and banditry; every job — the few that exist — a drudgery of fear and hopelessness.

Perhaps Old Glory yet waves, and perhaps the nation still labels itself the United States of America. Or perhaps the victorious plutocrats at last publicly acknowledge how the present circumstances grew out of a long succession of treasonous alliances that first united Republicans with Big Business; then united Republicans and Big Business with the ideologies of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco; and finally united Republicans and Big Business with Democrats so that all these diverse elements truly became one — “e pluribus unum”: one Homeland, one Nation, one Decider. Perhaps some even hail their New Order as the Fourth Reich. Whatever; liberty is dead forever. Perhaps also — though by now it is far too late — a few of us finally recognize that Karl Marx spoke prophetic truth when he told us long ago we had nothing to lose but our chains.

Loren Bliss

___________________________
References

1. WASHINGTON LEADERS WARY OF PUBLIC OPINION - The Pew Research Center for the People and the Press
2. Combat veterans need medical care; not forced mental health screenings - U.S. Senator Tom Coburn, M.D.
3. Harkin: Sen. Coburn’s Hold on Veterans’ Suicide Prevention Bill ‘Bogus’
   by: T.M. Lindsey for the Iowa Independent
4. DSM-IV & DSM-IV-TR: Diagnostic criteria for 309.81 Posttraumatic Stress Disorder - behavenet
5. PTSD and Suicide - William Hudenko, Ph.D. - Department of Veteran Affairs website
6. OPEN LETTER TO THE STATES’ ATTORNEYS GENERAL - Michael J. Sullivan, director Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (Scroll down to “Committed to a Mental Institution,” third paragraph.)
7. Making the Connection: Mental Illness and Suicide - The Centre for Suicide Prevention; The Canadian Mental Health Association (PDF file)
8. Half of Americans will suffer mental disorders, study says - Newstarget
9. Documents Obtained by ACLU Expose FBI and Police Targeting of Political Groups - ACLU website
10. PATRIOT ACT II – COMPLETING THE ARCHITECTURE FOR A POLICE STATE? - San Francisco Labor Council (PDF file)
11. The Star Chamber is Back - by Paul Craig Roberts
12. TIPS Domestic Spy Network May Go Too Far for White America - by Francis Beal
13. ‘Thought Crimes,’ HR 1955 Passed With 404 Votes - by Jeff Knaebel
14. H.R. 1955 - (commentary) at the Women of Color blog
15. Don’t Blame Liberals for Gun Control by: Richard Poe

Tags: bill of rights, congress, constitution, homeland security, liberty, politics
Categories: Commentary, liberty, constitution, bill of rights, Politics, Congress, Homeland Security
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Rep. Ron Paul has taking the most unfortunate stance in response to the legislation under consideration, which would extend Federal Hate Crime statutes to instances of hate motivated crimes that are perpetrated against gays and cross-gendered. Reverting to the less intellectually endowed Republican rhetoric - deviating from his more interesting and, often, more reasonable Libertarian slant - he contends that provisioning Federal authority for purposes ensuring the Constitutional Liberties of these historically persecuted groups - in fact - discriminates against those who wish
to discriminate - to extremes where crimes are committed - against these vulnerable identities in our society. Additionally, in the tradition of Liberalism, he contends that laws can only reference individuated agents in society; a monadic conception of of the composite of agents and agencies constituting humanity; a premise upon which Liberal juridical-politico discourse is built.

Link to Paul’s letter:

http://www.populistamerica.com/unconstitutional_legislation_threatens_freedoms

Nevertheless, Liberal individualism conceals the effects of hegemonies, that enforce their own cultural dispositions upon other subcultures as behaviorally demonstrable requisites for participating in the institutions embedded in the social fabric. The form of individualism promoted by Liberalism is not the natural, appropriate state of humanity; rather, it is the product of an historically situated cultural condition that has been naturalized into the ontology by the members of the preemptive discourse in American society, who, in turn, identify those who fail to conform as social deviants, who are the justified targets of the bigotry; the hatred; the exclusion; and, worse, the objects of attack that are committed persistently in order to reinforce the alienated and inferior status of these marginalized groups.

The consideration that makes this legislation so abundantly necessary stems from the failure of states and municipalities to protect these social identities, so they - the sexual minorities who are perceived as deviant - can exercise the freedoms enjoyed by all other members of society.

Nevertheless, I do not want to appear callous toward the plight of bigots who are afraid of losing their privileges to practice bigotry against the most vulnerable and marginalized groups in society. However, we must consider from historical insight the following: If not for Federal intervention, the schools in the South appeared to possess little chance of entering into a state of desegregation. The crucial matter that justifies this legislation revolves around the necessity of expanding the Federal Government’s jurisdiction, allowing for Federal law enforcement to intercede where states and municipalities
turn tail. Remember, in order for Southern schools to abandon the institutional arrangements of Jim Crow South, Eisenhower was compelled to use the Air Force.

The simple fact of the matter is we are not all treated with the same dignity and expectations of negative rights, as if we were only individuals; not latent with any group identifications, such as African American or gay. Consequently, to bring closure to this rather parsimonious analysis, we are left with the task of determining what assumes greater saliency: The rights of bigots to practice their hate against the vulnerable? Or, the rights of minorities to enjoy a life free from fright, humiliation, and negations of social and personal respect?

I, for one, am partial to the latter.

Russell Cole

Tags: bill of rights, constitution, government, history, legislation, society
Categories: Society, constitution, bill of rights, government, Legislation, History
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An article from a new contributor:
Loren Bliss

THERE ARE TWO EXCEPTIONALLY grave dangers to American liberty arising from the present, post-Virginia-Tech forcible-disarmament frenzy. These are:

(1)-The criminalization of even the mildest forms of mental illness, as proposed by Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY), in HR 297.

(2)-The criminalization of political protest and dissent, as proposed by Sen. Frank Lautenberg, (D-NJ), in S 1237.

Each of these measures is enthusiastically supported by the Bush Regime. The Lautenberg bill was written at White House/Justice Department request — a leading Democratic senator serving as the mouthpiece for a despised Republican administration — an unprecedented act of collaboration with the most corrupt regime in U.S. history. Once again, opposition to the Second Amendment is being used as a diversion behind which to conceal an all-out, bipartisan attack on the entire Bill of Rights– including, via S 1237, repeal of the presumption of innocence that is the cornerstone of all English-language jurisprudence.

Meanwhile, welcome to the New American Reich, where (if McCarthy, Lautenberg and Bush have their way), anybody deemed a mental case, an effective labor activist or a disruptive political nonconformist will soon be forcibly disarmed, denied all rational means of self defense and thereby condemned to perpetual victimhood.

*********

Modern efforts to criminalize mental dysfunction have a long history dating back to Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany and are typically part of a broader right-wing agenda of oppression and euthanasia. But in the United States, the primary advocates of criminalization are the forcible disarmament cult and the Communitarian movement, members of which universally (and often vehemently) claim to be leftists and/or “progressives.”

The Communitarians have argued for at least two decades that diagnosis of mental illness should instantly terminate not only all one’s civil rights but also strip one of all privileges as well, driver’s licenses included, after which the victim of such determination could then theoretically earn back the abolished rights and privileges in carefully supervised increments. Toward this end the Communitarians — who despite their leftist disguise and innocuous-sounding name are radical Skinnerian fascists of the harshest sort — are demanding creation of a national registry of mental patients. Deliberately established and maintained as a powerfully oppressive tool of social control, this roster of official pariahdom would include the names of anyone now or ever in any form of mental health treatment, regardless of the relative mildness or severity of the condition for which they are being treated. (Google “communitarians” and scroll at will for additional information.)

Despite its huge contempt for the Constitution, the Communitarian faction is but one small portion of the forcible disarmament cult, but it is probably disproportionately powerful. Its intellectual prowess is considerable, and it often assumes a behind-the-scenes leadership role, focusing on the development of strategy, tactics and ideology. Another venue of profound Communitarian influence is the Hillary Clinton wing of the Democratic Party. It was the Communitarians who provided the Clintons and their cronies with the ideological justification for the Democratic Party’s abandonment of New Deal principles and its subsequent wholesale betrayal of the working class. The Communitarians’ grasp of Orwellian principles is also very evident in the present-day effort to redefine forcible disarmament as “gun safety” and the present tactic of concealing disarmament schemes behind apparently friendly but patently false gestures toward firearms owners.

All this dovetails neatly with the broader forcible-disarmament-cult agenda of reducing legal firearms ownership by any means possible. Since it is credibly estimated as many as 50 percent of all U.S. citizens will at some time require some form of mental health treatment (“treatment” defined in the broadest sense, to include grief counseling, post-divorce therapy and even self-esteem classes or remedial reading for dyslexics), a favorite ploy of forcible disarmament fanatics is to demand closure of “the mental health loophole” in such a way that participation in any treatment process is penalized by automatic forcible disarmament: either turn in your guns before you see the professional caregiver, or the police will soon be there to kick in your front door, shoot your dogs, wreck the interior of your house by violent search and terrorize your spouse and children into lifelong bouts of shivering catatonia.

Typically — and the forcible disarmament advocates make no secret of the fact they are obscenely aroused by the prospect of unleashing such police brutality against firearms owners — this means criminalizing all forms of mental illness or mental dysfunction and thereby forcibly disarming anyone who is or ever has been in any sort of therapy or formalized healing, permanently abolishing their gun rights, no appeal allowed. This is already the law in New York City — if you consult a mental health professional even once in NYC (no matter the nature of your problem), your name is reported to the police and you lose your gun rights forever. Indeed, the Democrats attempted to impose a similar restriction on Washington state residents in 1994, but it was vigorously resisted there by a coalition of mental health professionals, who recognize in such criminalization a huge disincentive to voluntary treatment.

Which brings us to the present “mental health loophole” bill pending in Congress. As originally written, it was called the “Our Lady of Peace Act” (Google for details), and it would have permanently denied firearms ownership to anyone “adjudicated as a mental defective or committed to a mental institution,” which is further defined as occurring whenever “a court, board, commission, or other lawful authority determines that an individual is mentally retarded or of marked subnormal intelligence, mentally ill, or mentally incompetent” (HR 4757, 2002, Sec. 103 and 103:c). By including the phrase “other lawful authority,“ the measure would have empowered any psychiatrist, psychologist or even guidance counselor to deny someone their gun rights forever, merely by declaring that person “mentally ill” — a designation that covers everything from definitively murderous Andrea Yates/Cho Seung Hui psychosis to the mildest cases of neurotic nail-biting and low-self-esteem fidgets.

The generic designation “mentally ill” would also have allowed the forcible disarmament of anyone ever found to be “mentally disabled” — never mind that “mental disability” is a very specifically focused evaluation of one’s employability or lack thereof, typically for purposes of granting welfare stipends or Social Security disability payments. Thus a finding of “mental disability” has absolutely nothing to do with one’s suitability to own firearms, vote or exercise any other Constitutional right.

But the Our Lady of Peace Act, which McCarthy has introduced in every Congress since 2002, would nevertheless require the Social Security Administration and every state welfare agency to add to the federal government’s computerized catalogue of criminals the name and dossier of every individual who had ever been found to be even temporarily “mentally disabled” — resulting in a permanent loss of Second Amendment rights against which there would be no possibility of defense or appeal.

Thus criminalizing “mental disability” (or any other mental disorder in even the mildest forms) would clearly further the forcible disarmament cult’s long range objective of making the requirements for legal firearms ownership increasingly prohibitive — ultimately reducing the number of legal firearms owners by the aforementioned 50 percent. The cult’s triumph would be all the greater for the fact the imposition of “prohibited person” status would allow disarmament by outright seizure, thereby exempting government from any compensatory (buy-back) costs.

Under extreme pressure from mental health professionals, McCarthy has slightly modified her present proposal, HR 297, so that those denied their Second Amendment rights on the basis of mental health considerations would be specifically limited to persons who have been “adjudicated as mentally defective or…committed to mental institutions.” Alas, the term “mental defective” remains undefined — leaving unanswered whether it includes those who have been found to be “mentally disabled.” It also leaves a number of other questions as to its scope, such as whether a child diagnosed as suffering from attention deficit disorder is to be branded “mentally defective” and therefore — after reaching adulthood — denied firearms ownership for life.

Apparently — though this is not clear either — McCarthy has meanwhile broadened the term “committed” to make it as prohibitive as possible: that is, to permanently deny gun rights to anyone formally committed to a mental institution of any kind (including out-patient clinics) regardless of whether the commitment was mandatory (court ordered) or voluntary. (Present federal law allows those who undergo voluntary commitment to retain their Second Amendment rights unless other specific prohibitions apply.)

Furthermore, McCarthy — who formerly made no secret of her froth-at-the-mouth hatred of firearms and firearms owners but now (in service to the Democrats’ new deception policy) speaks much more softly — recently told ABC News that in the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, she would amend the bill back to its original, criminalize-all-mental-disorder wording except for the fact “the NRA…is holding everybody hostage.” Given that the National Rifle Association has supported the Our Lady of Peace Act from the very beginning, HR 297 included, McCarthy’s accusation is not only false but is an especially misleading, hypocritical and even malicious claim: no surprise given the infinite maliciousness that is the forcible disarmament hysteric’s most notorious characteristic.

But on the HR 297 issue, the NRA (to which I have belonged since 1951) is equally treacherous and hypocritical, especially given its demonstrably false claim to be a defender of the entire Bill of Rights. Indeed the NRA’s opposition to the civil rights of mental patients reveals the frustrating extent to which the organization has deteriorated into nothing more than an instrument of the Republican Party. (And the Republican Party — especially since Big Business America’s 1930s alliance with Hitler, Mussolini and Franco — is itself the U.S. equivalent of the fascist parties that formerly dominated Europe.)

Thus the NRA implicitly embraces the right wing position that “mental defectives” should be savagely oppressed if not actually euthanized. Not that the NRA is out of step with American opinion: most U.S. citizens — though they are loathe to admit it — emphatically agree that “mental defectives“ deserve the harshest treatment possible. As a consequence, the U.S. has long been infamous for the industrial world’s most superstitiously ignorant fear of mental affliction and its most violent rejection of anyone so afflicted, attitudes that have been credibly traced to the enduring influence of Abrahamic religion and the grave extent to which our society remains a defacto theocracy. (Anyone who doubts this assessment of our national values need look no further than our officially murderous hatred of those who are homeless.)

Meanwhile other Second Amendment advocacy groups remain stonily silent on the patient-rights implications of forcible disarmament,* understandably (given these selfsame U.S. attitudes) terrified they will be accused of supporting “guns for crazies.” Never mind that study after study proves mental patients are statistically no more dangerous than any other group of Americans — and far less dangerous than some.
_________

*Gun Owners of America has vehemently opposed the Our Lady of Peace Act and HR 297, and it has done so for the very best of reasons: these measures could “bar mentally stable people from buying guns” merely because they had sought mental health treatment, and it is “morally and constitutionally wrong to require law-abiding citizens to first prove their innocence to the government before they can exercise their rights — whether it’s Second Amendment rights, First Amendment rights, or any other right.”

Alas, GOA — which based on its rhetoric seems to be very closely tied to the Christian Theocracy faction of the Republican Party — also opposes such legislation for the very worst of reasons: it echoes the traditional Jewish/Christian/Islamic stance that the husband is god’s representative in the household and, as god’s enforcer, has unlimited god-given right to beat his wife and children. Thus GOA protests that denying guns to family patriarchs convicted of domestic violence is inflicting punishment for “very minor offenses that include pushing, shoving or…merely yelling at a family member” — never mind the bloody testimony of Crystal Brame’s death and far too many other murders just as bad or worse.

*********

The criminalization of labor activism, political agitation and effective dissent is not the stated purpose of Lautenberg’s newly introduced S 1237, which was dropped in the Senate hopper very late Friday 27 April 2007, the introduction obviously timed to minimize public disclosure and avoid press scrutiny. But given that the Republicans now and for a long while have condemned anyone who opposes Führer George Bush and his New American Reich, denouncing each opponent as a “terrorist” or “terrorist sympathizer,” the impact of the measure is made obvious by its stated purpose: “to increase public safety by permitting the Attorney General to deny the transfer of firearms or the issuance of firearms and explosives licenses to known or suspected dangerous terrorists.” Predictably, Bush himself has already demanded S 1237’s immediate enactment. Just as predictably, Lautenberg — perhaps even more fanatical a forcible disarmament advocate than McCarthy — lauds its unprecedented subversion of the Constitutionally implied principle of presumed innocence as “too long” overdue.

Absolute proof of the calculated political malevolence embodied in the Lautenberg proposal — proof too of how the Democrats have finally abandoned any pretense of being civil libertarians and now (in the name of forcible disarmament) fully and even gleefully embrace the Bush Regime’s agenda of totally nullifying the Bill of Rights — is found in the federal government’s post-9/11 redefinition of the term “terrorism” to include any form of political protest that is genuinely disruptive. Participants in a legitimate strike or a protest that blocks or even slows vehicular traffic could thus be persecuted as “terrorists.”

Quoth the American Civil Liberties Union in an analysis disseminated on 6 December 2002: “The definition of domestic terrorism is broad enough to encompass the activities of several prominent activist campaigns and organizations. Greenpeace, Operation Rescue, Vieques Island and World Trade Organization protesters and the Environmental Liberation Front have all recently engaged in activities that could subject them to being investigated as engaging in domestic terrorism.”

Meanwhile Reason magazine, the official journal of the Libertarian Party, has repeatedly noted that in the eyes of the Bush Regime, “terrorist” and “enemy combatant” are synonymous

In other words, any member of any labor union that participated in the Seattle WTO protests could be labeled a “terrorist“ merely based on the union’s presence there and — under Lautenberg‘s S 1237 — he or she could be forcibly disarmed forever. But the reality is far more chilling: given the criteria of disruptiveness, the participants in any effective strike or job action can now be subjugated as “terrorists.”

And given the Third Reich cloak of secrecy that now hides all U.S. security matters from judicial scrutiny, such subjugation could never be appealed. Indeed it is conceivable a labor activist (or any other opponent of the status quo) could be disappeared forever into the gulag of Guantanamo merely on the basis of the spurious argument that the (denied) attempt to purchase a firearm is absolute proof of “enemy combatant” intent.

The law that would enable such outrages should more properly be labeled the Lautenberg/Bush/Alberto Gonzales Bill of Rights Nullification Act of 2007 because it would not only subject all future U.S. firearms ownership to the tyrannical whims of the modern-day incarnation of the dread Reich Security Service (RSHA), but it would but it would repeal the presumption of innocence that is the great wellspring of the American legal system.

Thus, with active Democratic party collaboration, at the very least the Bush Regime is laying the groundwork to forcibly disarm every labor activist in the United States — and anyone else it chooses to put on its (secret) enemies list. Thus too another advance for the modern-day variant of fascism — not marching forward on hobnailed jackboots but sneaking past us on politically correct rubber soles.

Note also how McCarthy’s HR 297 undeniably anticipates enactment of S 1237: “The Secretary of Homeland Security shall make available to the Attorney General…records, updated not less than quarterly, which are relevant to a determination of whether a person is disqualified from possessing or receiving a firearm…”(Sec. 101:b.1.A). Now the relationship between the two measures comes into sharp focus: Lautenberg abolishes the presumption of innocence and grants the government the unprecedented power to rule on our political reliability while McCarthy provides the infrastructure to make sure the secret police get every possible scrap of information.

Suddenly I wonder if closing the alleged “mental health loophole” — though no doubt an egregious blow to our freedom — isn’t maybe just another red herring to distract us from the genuinely fatal wound that would be dealt our liberty by Lautenberg’s coup-de-grace against due process.

*********

Predictions past and future: as some of you may remember, before I was booted off Progressive Independent for speaking tactless truth to tacky tyranny, I predicted that the Democrats would take back Congress in 2006, would founder pathetically in their efforts to accomplish any meaningful socioeconomic change, and would then cut a win-win deal with the Bush Regime to impose forcible disarmament and further subvert the Bill of Rights in general, thereby enabling each side to claim accomplishments dearest to its ideologues’ alleged hearts.

Though the onslaught is not developing exactly the way I imagined it would, there is no doubt such an offensive is underway. But just as I foresaw the betrayal of our electoral hopes for Medicare reform and the restoration of labor rights, I can no longer doubt this new Democrat/Republican collaboration to abolish the presumption of innocence and grant the Homeland Security apparatus the ultimate power of approval or disapproval over all individual civilian firearms purchases is (A) the beginning of the final assault on the Constitution by representatives of the corporate ruling class and (B) the beginning of a Bush Regime effort to co-opt public reaction to the Virginia Tech massacre and thus rehabilitate its public image by launching its own forcible disarmament campaign — not out of the craven hoplophobia that so agitates the Democrats and alienates so many voters, but in the name of the same self-proclaimed robust patriotism that seduced us into cheering the (failed) conquest of Iraq. I can hear it now: “if y’all love your country, you’ll give us the common-sense power to determine who’s politically reliable enough to have a gun.” The last time the politicians said something like that, the language was German.

*********

NOTES:
The text of HR 297 and the unfolding details of S 1237 are available through the excellent and superbly useful Thomas legislative search engine: http://thomas.loc.gov/

I am posting this same essay on my blog, Wolfgang von Skeptik, http://wolfgangvonskeptik.mu.nu/

Tags: 2nd amendment, bill of rights, crimes, goa, gun control, liberty, virginia tech
Categories: Commentary, liberty, bill of rights
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by Russell Cole

What is more dangerous to passenger airplanes, human breastmilk or Dell laptop computers?

It is a good thing that the security measures safeguarding passengers of jet airplanes against threats that are conceived on an ad hoc basis, only after they are learned from the intending terrorists themselves, are finally being implemented.

It is only natural to suspect that terrorists will deploy the exact same techniques that have already been discovered by Homeland Security. Therefore, it is a good thing that our safties are in the hands of officials who are more than capable of ignoring potential threats that might be actualized by terrorists in the future in order to exhaust their energies upon developing measures to guard against terrorist techniques that have already been attempted.

An excellent exemplar of this philosophy of law enforcement is the current security measures being institutionalized at airports. Since terrorists have already attempted to use liquid explosives, we can infer that they are going to use the same technique in furture operations. This is why it is so important that liquids such as human breast milk are being guarded against.

I have never personally seen breast milk explode. Then again, I have had few encounters with breast milk of which I am aware. On the other, the explosion of Dell laptop computers is something that might occur in the present and future, and, therefore, should not consume the precious intellectual resources of those who are commissioned with assuring our security on planes. Consequently, we can thank those in charge of Homeland Security for preventing against plots that have already been foiled while ignoring potential threats, such as the explosion of a Dell Laptop computer during a flight.

Tags: airport security, big brother, bill of rights, empire, flying, homeland security, liberty, National, power, Russell Coles Blog, Terrorism, TSA
Categories: Commentary, National, liberty, bill of rights, Russell Cole's Blog, Power, Homeland Security, Terrorism
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An Article by:

Susan Hutson

Ohio – a state consisting of 21 electoral votes – declares a law that essentially negates the Constitutional Right guaranteeing Due Process.

On September 1, 2006, Ohio’s Attorney General, Jim Petro, and others, including Senator Mike DeWine and other House Representatives, advocated the adoption of an Ohio law, which allows for a person to be classified as a sex offender, and, subsequently, be subjected to government monitoring as well as public humiliation – and, indeed, the possible object of retaliation by vigilantes - via the person’s picture and a name on a Website; all of which can occur without the individual ever being convicted of a crime.

This law has been coined The World’s Worst Idea Ever. People – never convicted of a sex offense – can still end up on a publicly available sex-offender registry provided for by various state agencies belonging to the State of Ohio. The law is, apparently, designed in order to provide for the publication of sex-offenders’ identities, even if the statute of limitations - amended to the criminal statutes – has transpired. It is peculiar that the State Legislature of Ohio would put forth such an initiative, which cuts at the core of Constitutional Liberties, when all that was needed was a modification to the current statutes on the books – prohibiting sexual abuses – that protracts the statute of limitations qualifying these types of criminal offenses and the terms under which they can be prosecuted.

Most alarmingly, apparently, the only indication that someone has committed a sexual offense, allowing for a person to be legally deemed as a sex-offender is an acknowledgement or judgment of punitive or compensatory responsibilities transpiring in a civil action against the party that will, subsequently, be legally defined as a sex-offender.

Editor’s Notes: The aforementioned legislation appears to have been motivated by a deal struck between the State of Ohio and the Catholic Church, where the Church can maintain its one strike and your safe but two strikes and you are out policy while, contemporaneously, providing for some safeguards against future sexual abuses – a provision compelled upon the Church by the State of Ohio – by virtue of the liturgical civil defendants’ classifications as a sex-offenders.

I think it is absurd to pass such legislation when all that needs to be done with respect to this matter is allowing for the extension of the statute of limitations in these types of crimes.

The protraction of time allowed for prosecuting sex-offenders is clearly more sensible than allowing a potentially vindictive individual – acting from motivations of mere spite; emotions not resulting from sexual victimhood – essentially ruin an individual’s reputation and livelihood through recourse to a Constitutional subterfuge, consisting of a civil adjudication – which involve the lofty presumption of innocence; nor, the burden placed upon the plaintiffs, requiring them to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

For purposes of a hypothetical, consider the following: An embittered member of a former romantic relationship pursues – through the unconstitutional legislation described above – revenge in such a profound form that it essentially strips away every life opportunity to which the afflicted individual would normally have had access, if not for an imposed, publicly declared label of a sex-offender.

The upset ex-lover could cause the other to be forbidden from seeing their children (without a liaison); the vindictive party could cause the other to lose their job; he or she could cause the subject of the accusations to be compelled to move, if living within 1,000 ft. of a school (by way the crow flies); and the individual, operating out of vengeful motivations, could inflict insufferable emotional trauma.

In addition, this law would allow an actually convicted offender, or predator, to strike a deal with the prosecution, where he or she falsely attributes guilt to another individual, causing that individual to be bestowed with a prodigious burden, necessitating the practice indefinite practice of stigma management, resulting from his or her affliction with the labeled of a sex-offender.

Do Ohioans need to have a legal document signed by everyone they know that contains a “Hold Harmless” clause, stating that the individuals with whom they have intimate relations are not being forced into sexual acts or being assaulted in a form that constitutes a sex-offence?

In order to protect one’s self from the potential retribution from a vindictive ex-lover seeking revenge through recourse to this Unconstitutional law, it, most likely, would be in everyone’s best interests in Ohio to take such safeguards.

Editor’s Notes: “Hell hast no furry like a woman’s scorn.”

Are the people who conceived of this law from this country, and do they understand America’s tradition of Due Process?

Have they considered that we are still supposed to have a Constitution? Is the legislature in the State of Ohio inept?

Should there be a major overhaul of the people who are running this state? Why has this new law been kept under the covers?

Shouldn’t everyone know they could be a target of harassment and are labeled with this?

Ohio is a very politically corrupt state, as you may well know. I once knew a woman living in Ohio, who had been set up by a disgruntled U.S. Postal Inspector, and was denied Due Process. Needless to say, nobody cared. The Inspector lied to police dispatch and said the woman was suicidal. The police went to the dark back door of the house and the Inspector met them there. When the woman came to the door, the police grabbed her and pulled her out. After the woman was put into the cruiser, the inspector entered the cruiser with the police congregating at another a distance away, and the inspector knocker her out. She was sent to jail without a mug shot and the next morning the Inspector with his business card showing he was an attorney, posed as her attorney, and told the judge to send her to a mental hospital. No Due Process! Nobody cared!

What would you do, if you fall victim to one of these constitutionally subversive provisions provided for in this legislation?

You do have an opportunity 6 years later to ask a judge to have your name removed from the list. Six years after potentially losing your children, job, financial standing, home, and respect of other members of your community, etc.

Please push for your state to protect the Right of Due Process and not allow such a horrible loss to the legal process, which once protected Americans! What is next?

Will a person be implanted with a biometric chip without their knowledge or approval?

Editor’s Notes: Will we begin to implant chips in former sex offenders, in order to guard against them committing future sexual assaults? What if the current policies in Ohio persist, allowing for people to be legally defined – without any protection or recourse provided by Due Process – as sex-offenders? A person only the subject of civil accusations might suffer the same fate as a criminally convicted person - (and I certainly do not endorse implanting a chip transmitting a serialized identification, for the purposes of tracking and surveillance, into anyone).

More ominously, programs are already being introduced to implant these tracking devices into the flesh of infants; a proposal, which would ultimately lead to surveillance by agencies operating in the sphere of law enforcement, that is being promoted under the pretense of providing a means to identify the locations of missing children. The reason I have included these remarks, pertaining to biometric chips, is that they are all interrelated. The implementation of one of these affronts to our privacies and liberties can be used to enhance government or corporate surveillance of our activities in other scenarios; such is the case with the implanted bar code chips and the endless punitions endured by those who have been convicted as sex-offenders.

Furthermore, considering the blurred distinctions between criminality and civil responsibilities, currently taking form in Ohio, we all need to be concerned for our own personhood’s, whether we possess sexual aversions or not. For this reason, we need to challenge any infringement upon the rights we, as a people, have procured, because an assault upon any person’s liberties and rights in this society can have ramifications for all of us.

R Cole

Let’s get rid of the substandard politicians!

Tags: bill of rights, constitution, due process, government, legislation, liberty, microchips, Midwest, ohio, sex offender registry
Categories: Commentary, Midwest, liberty, constitution, bill of rights, government, Legislation, Ohio
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Thomas Jefferson envisioned a state of humanity that was absent of a state impose upon humanity.  He possessed the conviction that humankind instantiated the necessary dispositions for self-governance. We currently live in a society that provides greater grants of funding to the quasi-academic pursuit of criminal justice while providing little or no funding to fields such as political theory, or political philosophy, or even critical theory.  One can draw multiple inferences from this allocation of resources to academia.

The Constitution of the United States has the redeeming quality of explicitly enunciating a Bill of Rights.  However, the rest of the document is designed to mitigate the power of the Demos, so to preserve the extant social structure.  The Document has been improved and expanded - although currently being retracted - regardless, it is insufficient for the purposes of creating a democracy.  The Constitution needs to be drastically reformed.  The watered down version of republicanism needs to be extracted and replace with a system that allows for the direct, deliberative involvement of the populace during the decision-making processes that produce public policy.

Tags: bill of rights, constitution, decentralization, democracy, government, jefferson, liberty, self governance
Categories: Commentary, Democracy, liberty, constitution, bill of rights, government, Decentralization, self-governance
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