Unlike any other Government #5
In 1917, the Congress proposed an amendment to the Constitution. The Amendment was ratified 2 years later and became known as the 18th Amendment, or, "Prohibition". The Amendment reads as follows:
Section. 1. After one year from the ratification of this article the manufacture, sale, or transportation of intoxicating liquors within, the importation thereof into, or the exportation thereof from the United States and all territory subject to the jurisdiction thereof for beverage purposes is hereby prohibited.
Section. 2. The Congress and the several States shall have concurrent power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
Section. 3. This article shall be inoperative unless it shall have been ratified as an amendment to the Constitution by the legislatures of the several States, as provided in the Constitution, within seven years from the date of the submission hereof to the States by the Congress.
It should be noted that the Amendment did not prohibit consumption of alcohol, it only made it difficult to obtain. Congress, back then, knew that they could not pass a law that worked directly on the people -- only on the commerce. The Amendment was needed because there was no other means, under the Constitution, to deny free men access to alcohol, except by an amendment to the Constitution. Meanwhile, cocaine and marijuana were dispensed at the corner drug store, without the need for a prescription from a doctor. Your health was in your own hands.
The Amendment was repealed, in its entirety, by the 21st Amendment on December 5, 1933. During its tenure, a number of things happened in the country that are significant. First was that juries would nullify the law by refusing, in many locations, to convict those who had been charged with alcohol related crimes. This right of "jury nullification" was fundamental to our sense of justice and that the people are the final arbiter of all laws. Just as had occurred after the supreme Court had decided, in the Dred Scott vs. Sandford case (that a slave must be returned to its legal owner), where juries failed to convict those who ran underground railroads. Ultimately, the unpopularity of the Amendment, as attested by the jury nullification resulted in repeal.
During Prohibition, the groundwork was laid for the extraordinary growth of organized crime. The demand for "illegal" alcohol was such that control of the trade yielded millions of dollars of profit. What had been small business had become so large that it covered most of the country and into parts of Canada. The diminishing remains of organized crime are still with us, today, many years after the end of Prohibition.
It also provided groundwork for the proliferation of administrative agencies, and the granting of extraordinary (extra constitutional) powers to these them.
The Great Depression, just a few years later, provided even more means for agencies to begin controlling our lives. Social Security began in 1935, though it was limited, then, only to people who worked for a corporation that had contracts with the government.
Ashwander v. TVA (above) provided the nexus for the proliferation of the police state that has evolved with those agencies.
Prohibition demonstrated that: it would require a Constitutional Amendment to control commercial production, sale, or transportation of a drug; that even with an Amendment, the government could not prohibit you using that drug; and, that an Amendment was required to grant the states the power to enforce federal laws.
With the advent of the police state, and supported by the refusal of the supreme Court to rule on Constitutionality, agencies can now promulgate rules which we are bound by, without recourse to the Constitution.
Local agencies, by virtue of receiving federal funds (yes, your dollars) have been "greenmailed" into obedience to federal law, regardless of the Constitutionality of that law (Ashwander, #5).
Your ability to question a law would require that you first prove that you have not sought a benefit from the agency whose rules you have violated (a very expensive process, to go to the supreme Court).
Because of the foundation laid by Ashwander, we have become subject to bureaucratic rule. Following are just a very few of the inflictions imposed upon us by this police state:
During the morning press conference in Waco, Texas, during the siege of the Branch Davidian Church, Louis Beam asked a question. He asked, "Is what is happening here, in Waco, indicative of the coming police state? The speakers at the press conference (FBI and BATF) never responded to Mr. Beam"s question, though after some whispering, we saw the Waco Police Department remove Mr. Beam from the press conference, at the point of a gun.
Again, at Waco, after the final reports were presented, we found that, perhaps, the BATF was a bit overzealous in conducting the raid that resulted in the deaths of more than a hundred men, women, and children. Yet, no federal agents were ever tried for a crime that cost so many lives.
In Waco, Texas, April 19, 1993, the FBI was armed with tanks, grenade launchers, fully automatic weapons and has its own team of snipers. This would appear to be a violation of the Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the use of the military against the people, but instead is merely the providing of military uniforms, fully automatic rifles, grenade launchers, sniper teams, tanks, and other military equipment to both tax collectors (BATF) and investigators (FBI).
It needs to be understood, also, that the police state provides protection for its agents.
After the Boston Massacre, Captain Preston and seven soldiers were charged with Manslaughter. Preston and five others were acquitted, because they acted to defend their lives. The other two were found guilty, but, through benefit of clergy, were branded and released.
So, the King"s soldiers stood trial for killing civilians. They were acquitted because they had a right to defend their lives. They did not have immunity from prosecution, but they did have a right to defend themselves (a very fundamental right, without which, any other right has no meaning).
Eight of the Branch Davidians stood trial for numerous charges. Though there is no doubt that they were defending their lives, since all, except Paul Fatta, who was not in Mt. Carmel at the time, were charged with use of firearms on February 28, 1993, the day of the initial raid. All of them were convicted of the use of a firearm in the commission of a crime. They were not, however, convicted of a crime in which they used the firearm in the commission of.
The "soldiers (BATF and FBI agents) were never tried to determine, by a jury, whether they had committed any crimes.
Clearly, the police state that exists in this country, today, is far more protective of those who support it (agencies and agents), and far less protective of the people within the country, who were protecting their very lives from an assault by tax collectors (BATF).
On August 21, 1992, 14-year-old Sammy Weaver was shot in the back, and killed by US Marshals who were trespassing on the Weaver property at Ruby Ridge, Idaho. Later, his mother, Vicki Weaver, was assassinated by FBI sniper Lon Horiuchi. Vicki was unarmed and holding her newborn child in her arms. No federal agents were charged with a crime by federal authorities. Later, however, an Idaho Grand Jury indicted Horiuchi for involuntary manslaughter. Horiuchi petitioned to have the case transferred to federal court. US District Judge Edward Lodge ruled that, since Horiuchi was a federal officer acting in his official capacity, he was exempt from prosecution under the supremacy clause of the Constitution.
The supremacy clause (Article VI, paragraph 2) reads:
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.
Further, during the siege, the Hostage Rescue Team Commander, Richard Rogers, amended the FBI standard rules of engagement to:
1. If any adult male is observed with a weapon prior to the announcement, deadly force can and should be employed, if the shot can be taken without endangering any children.
2. If any adult in the compound is observed with a weapon after the surrender announcement is made, and is not attempting to surrender, deadly force can and should be employed to neutralize the individual.
3. If compromised by any animal, particularly the dogs, that animal should be eliminated.
4. Any subjects other than Randall Weaver, Vicki Weaver, Kevin Harris, presenting threats of death or grievous bodily harm, the FBI rules of deadly force are in effect. Deadly force can be utilized to prevent the death or grievous bodily injury to oneself or that of another.
This was not an enactment of law by the Congress of the United States; it was made by a field commander of a bureaucratic agency of government. He authorized his people to KILL Americans for having a firearm on their own property. It does not require that a subject be pointing his weapon in their direction, nor that the agent would have to feel that there was a direct and immediate threat to his life. It was all a charade to give justification, in writing, to kill the Weavers and Kevin Harris, if the opportunity arose.
Weaver and Harris stood trial, but were acquitted of any charges related to the incident at Ruby Ridge. Two of the Sate Attorneys were fined for falsifying evidence (since the case could have had capital consequence, they were actually trying to kill Weaver and Harris, again). Moreover, none of the agents who killed Sammy or Vicki Weaver was brought to trial. They were protected by the same agencies for which they work.
Donald P. Scott, age 61, owned and lived on a 200-acre property known as the Trails End Ranch in the Ventura County portion of Malibu, California. Based upon a sworn affidavit by Los Angeles County Sheriff"s Deputy Gary R. Spencer, stating that with aerial surveillance it was determined that there were between 50 and 100 marijuana plants growing on the property, a search warrant was issued.
On Friday, August 2, 1992, 30 law enforcement officers (13 from Los Angeles Sheriff"s Department, 5 from Los Angeles Police Department. 3 from the National Guard. 3 from the National Park Service. 2 from U.S. Forest Service. 2 from California Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement, and 2 from the federal Drug Enforcement Agency) gathered at the Los Angeles Sheriff"s Malibu Station for briefing.
About 8:30 AM, the team forced entry into the home of Scott. Scott, who was awakened by the commotion, did not have time to dress before the entry was made. Frances Plante, who was already up, was hustled outside to other officers. Scott, responding to the commotion, came to the doorway to the living room with a gun. As described in the official report, "Scott was holding a gun in his right hand, with his palm and fingers around the cylinder rather than the butt. Scott"s elbow was at his side with his forearm straight out or slightly up, his hand turned up with the barrel of the gun pointing at a 45-degree angle toward the ceiling. Scot was holding the gun with the barrel upward, as if he were going to hit someone rather than shoot it."
Spencer, then fearing for his life, he and another deputy fired three shots, at point blank range, killing Donald Scott in his own home. No evidence of marijuana or any other drugs were found in the home or on the property.
Ventura County, although they were never notified of a raid within their jurisdiction, did conduct the final report on the shooting. In their conclusions, the report states that:
... Because it cannot be proven that Spencer knowingly lied in the affidavit, there is an insufficient basis for a perjury prosecution,
It is the District Attorney"s opinion that the Los Angeles County Sheriff"s Department was motivated, at least in part, by a desire to seize and forfeit the ranch for the government. .... This search warrant became Donald Scott"s death warrant.
The evidence does not establish that Donald Scott intended a shoot out with the deputies. Nor is there any evidence to suggest that the deputies went to the ranch with the hope of killing Scott. When Deputy Spencer ordered Scott to lower his gun, Scott did so in a way that Spencer says caused him to fear for his life. ...The invalidity of the warrant does not form a sufficient legal or evidentiary basis for a homicide prosecution.
It becomes apparent that the police state mentality, asset forfeiture, and nearly absolute impunity for law enforcement officers has become detrimental to not only our property, but our lives, as well.
Nobody was charged, to be tested by a jury of people, to determine if Donald Scott"s life was taken as the result of criminal activity.
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