Dressed to defend injustice, Paul Craig Roberts says willy-nilly prosecutions are making the country unsafe.
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People who know Bob realize that he is a Philosopher and a Political Activist.
An article about Bob is currently being written for the Log Home Builders Journal. The article is being written by Susan Roberts, a new member of the Association. To help with her article, Susan asked Bob to write a few comments that might explain his socio/economic/political philosophy.
BOB ANSWERED AS FOLLOWS;
Hi Susan,
This will be just a quick note in response to your request for information concerning my "socio-political-economic" philosophy. Frankly, Susan, I can’t imagine why anyone would be interested in my philosophy about anything except log houses. Therefore, I don’t think that my "other-than-log-house-philosophies" should be included in your log house publication.
At best, if I tell people what my philosophies are, they will probably think that I’m just an eccentric old man.
At worst, my philosophies will probably make a lot of people angry.
However, I promised that I would send you a few comments… so here they are.
As I begin this assignment (Gee, I feel like I’m back in college.), I take solace in the fact that for an old man like myself, the amount of time I spend writing the following political comments will probably be far less harmful to me than an equal amount of time spent with alcohol, fast cars, or wild women.
Regarding POLITICS, SOCIETY, AND ECONOMICS (doesn’t that include almost everything ?), perhaps I should start out by describing a few things that I perceive to be "problems" -- and then describing what I perceive to be the "solutions" to the problems.
As per your request, I will try to write down a few of my thoughts about such things as:
2. Over-regulation in America
3. Loss of freedom in America
4. Some "fool-proof" solutions to the above problems
5. Etc.
PROBLEM #1
"JUSTICE" IN AMERICA:
American attorneys often joke by saying, "In the American legal system a person who is accused of a crime is innocent only until proven penniless."
They also joke by saying, "How much justice can you afford ???"
In truth, these jokes aren’t funny – because they describe a reality that must be faced by almost every American who becomes involved with our current legal system.
It is no secret that rich people, politicians, and prominent members of the community are able to "buy" a different kind of justice (as per the O. J. Simpson trial) than people who are socio-economically disadvantaged.
F. Lee Bailey is one of the most knowledgeable and respected attorneys in America. Believe it or not, Mr. Bailey said,
.
SOLUTIONS TO THE ABOVE PROBLEMS;
Many of the problems could be solved by passing a law that states the following;
Of course you don’t, because you were educated in the American Public School System. For your information, the above paragraph is ARTICLE VII of the Bill Of Rights, which was declared in force on December 15, 1791.
ANOTHER INTERESTING QUESTION;
(We think you will be surprised by the answer to that question.)
PROBLEM #2
GOVERNMENT INTERFERENCE;
American citizens are subjected to too much governmental interference in their daily lives.
In many ways America is turning into a "police state" -- and therefore I think we should reflect upon the following factors;
3. If a government is so desperate that it must rely upon ‘fines’ to generate income, then said government will invariably become an adversary of the people – by creating more and more laws that are designed specifically to generate income.
4. America has over twice as many laws as any other country in the world. [If you think this makes us safer, then you should look at the statistics.]
5. Tacitus said, "Corruplissima republicae, plurimae leges." ["The worse the state, the more laws it has."]
6. The American government has created the illusion of a ‘war on drugs’ only as an excuse to take away our civil liberties. [As clearly shown on Dateline News, on August 22, 1997)
6. In America, there are more people in prison (per capita of population) than in any other country in the world. [Are we safer because of this ? Is this what a ‘free country’ should be like ?]
7. Americans are currently trading their freedom for a false sense of security.
When I told my foreign friends about these laws in America they thought I was joking. They couldn’t believe that ‘true’ Americans would put up with these stupid laws.
When I was visiting Skip in the Philippines, one of the few laws that I encountered was as follows; "A motor-cycle with a passenger side-car shall haul no more than 16 passengers at a time."
Fortunately, no one paid any attention to that law. The home made side-cars that are common in the Philippines often carry as many as 20 passengers. To get one of these over-loaded vehicles moving from a dead stop, two or three of the passengers must run along-side to push it, and then jump on. Once in a while, someone falls off one of these TOTALLY UN-SAFE contraptions and is killed – and this death is one of the prices that the Filipino society gladly pays for being free. Unfortunately, us Americans have forgotten that ‘freedom’ has a price. The only thing worse than paying the price is NOT paying the price – because if we don’t pay it on a continuous basis, then we will eventually lose all of our freedom.
When I was in the Philippines visiting Skip, I met many Americans who live in that country on a full-time basis. The most common thing they talked about was how much more FREEDOM they have in the Philippines than they ever had in America.
In America even your "flesh-and-blood" children are not your own. Believe it or not, your children are WARDS OF THE STATE until they are 18 years of age (If you don’t think so, then ask your attorney the next time you see him – and he will verify this strange fact.).
Do you know how your children became wards of the state ??? [Of course you don’t, because you were educated in a school system that is controlled by your government.]
Do you know that the door to your house must be 6’8" in height, and 3’ wide ??? Have you ever wondered how your government managed to achieve jurisdiction over you regarding how large your door must be ???
Now that there are building codes, the average life expectancy of a frame house is only 30 years.
Do you think it is a coincidence that the average mortgage lasts for 30 years (thereby matching the life expectancy of the house) ???
[Your librarian can verify all of the above facts for you.]
GOVERNMENT REVENUE VIA FINES ???
In Washington State, a land owner was fined $250,000 for cutting 31 Maple and Alder trees on her property above lake Sammamish. This fine was levied against Northstream Development, owned by Linda Nordstrom. There are thousands of examples of sick situations like this. If the government needs another $250,000 then it should get the money through honest means.
Government statistics show that most accidents in America occur in the home.
Maybe this is what it will take to wake us up.
I certainly hope so… because then maybe Americans would wake up.
"More than a third of women slain in this country die at the hands of husbands or boyfriends, and domestic violence is the single largest cause of injury to women in the United States – more common than automobile accidents, muggings and rapes combined, Novello noted."
I sure do hope so… because then maybe Americans will wake up.
DO YOU KNOW:
RIGHTS AND OBLIGATIONS OF A JUROR
Our forefathers felt that in order to have JUSTICE, a defendant must be judged by a JURY OF PEERS – consisting of people who actually know the defendant. Without this first-hand personal knowledge, our forefathers felt it would be impossible for JURORS to judge motive and intent.
IMPORTANT INFORMATION FOR JURORS************
I STRONGLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU SEND FOR THE PAMPHLET, WHICH IS ENTITLED "THE SUPREME LAW OF THE LAND," PUBLISHED BY THE VOICE OF FREEDOM, BOX 1005, YORK, PA. 17405, TELEPHONE (717) 757-2244. THE PUBLICATION IS PRINTED BY WHITTEN PRINTERS, 1001 S. 5TH ST., PHOENIX, ARIZONA, TELEPHONE (602) 258-6406.
THE "TRUE" JURY SYSTEM...
Our forefathers said that in order to have JUSTICE, a defendant must be judged by a JURY OF HIS PEERS – consisting of people who actually know the defendant. Without this first-hand personal knowledge of the defendant, they felt it would be impossible for jurors to judge the defendant’s MOTIVE and INTENT.
For example, Patrick Henry said the following;
"There is another advantage annexed to the trial by jury; the jurors may indeed return a mistaken or ill-founded verdict, but their errors cannot be systematic." (Elliot, 2:516)"
FOR EXAMPLE:
In the February term of 1794, the Supreme Court conducted its first trial, and instructed the jury as follows;
Without the power to decide what fact, law and evidence are applicable, JURIES cannot protect the accused.
If judges acting in the name of government are permitted by JURORS to dictate any law whatever, then they can also unfairly dictate what evidence is admissible or inadmissible – and therefore prevent the WHOLE TRUTH from being considered. Thus, if government can manipulate and control both the law and the evidence, the issue of fact becomes virtually irrelevant. This means that true justice would be denied. This would leave us with a trial by "government" and not a trial by "jury."
History shows (as does the law) that Juries were intended to judge the Spirit, Motive and Intent of both the law and the Accused – whereas prosecutors and judges only represent the letter of the law.
If you are called upon to be a juror, would you value your freedom so little that you would follow the instructions of a judge ? If so, then perhaps you deserve to lose your freedom.
What reason would any judge have for failing to inform a jury of its power ???
If you were a judge, would you conceal the facts outlined above ???
Obviously, a jury has a right to be told of its rights and its power.
"WE THE PEOPLE" must re-learn a desperately needed lesson in civics, as follows;
One juror can stop court-room tyranny by voting in accordance with his or her own conscience. Any juror can nullify a bad law by "HANGING THE JURY."
A judge only has power over a JURY that is ignorant.
The unchecked power of judges is the foundation of tyranny. It is the JUROR’S duty to stem the tide of oppression and tyranny – by peacefully removing power from those who are abusing it.
Conclusion: If used as intended, the JURY is the primary vehicle for protecting the liberty of "we the people."
PROBLEM #5
JURY TAMPERING;
Based upon the above information, it appears that "jury tampering" occurs when the following things happen;
2. When the Judge over-rides (ignores) the Jury’s verdict, and rules contrary to the jury’s verdict.
3. When the Judge makes the Jury leave the room while matters concerning the case are being discussed.
4. When the Judge tells the Jury that they must ignore something they have heard.
5. When the Jurors are allowed to argue with each other in an effort to coerce each other into changing their minds.
6. When the Jurors are not told ALL of the true facts (as indicated by ALL of the above described information) regarding their rights and obligations.
IGNORANCE OF THE LAW;
The general misconception is that any statute passed by legislators bearing the appearance of law constitutes the law of the land. HOWEVER, only the Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and any statute, to be valid, must be in agreement with the Constitution. It is impossible for a law which violates the Constitution to be valid. This is succinctly stated as follows:
"Where rights secured by the Constitution are involved, there can be no rule making or legislation which would abrogate them." Miranda vs. Arizona, 384 US 436 P 491."
"An unconstitutional act is not law; it confers no rights; it imposes no duties; it affords no protection; it creates no office; it is, in legal contemplation, as inoperative as though it had never been passed." Norton Vs. Shelby County, 118 US 425 p. 442."
"The general rule is that an unconstitutional statute, though having the form and name of law, is in reality no law, but is wholly void, and ineffective for any purpose; since unconstitutionality dates from the time of its enactment, and not merely from the date of the decision so branding it. "
"No one is bound to obey an unconstitutional law, and no courts are bound to enforce it." 16 Am Jur 2nd, Sec 177 late 2nd, Sec 256."
For example -- how does the above paragraph effect the "driver’s license" issue, or the "License to Carry Concealed Weapons" issue, or speed limit violations, etc., etc., etc. ???
William Pitt once proclaimed the following; "
In the field of political theory, it is well recognized that the easiest way to control a population is to create a population of law-breakers. If people are afraid of being put in jail (because they are breaking one of the millions of laws that are so complicated that they can’t understand them) then they will not complain about ANYTHING that the government does, because they will not want to call attention to themselves.
The real name of "control" is "bondage."
Americans have been systematically deluded into thinking that they should trade their "rights" for "privileges."
The government tells you that driving a car is a "privilege" not a "right." It tells you that you need a license to get married, or to carry a gun, or to own a business, or to build a house for your family, etc., etc., etc.
The government always tells you that it is for your own good when you give up one of your rights.
If giving up SOME of our rights will produce a BETTER society, then by giving up ALL of our rights we could produce a PERFECT society.
We could completely eliminate crime by putting everyone in jail. However, this would also completely eliminate freedom.
Contrary to what governments would have you believe, the opposite of complete governmental control is not chaos.
It might sound ironic, but having too many laws will eventually result in more chaos than not having enough laws.
Also, it is a proven fact that more laws do NOT reduce the number of criminals. In fact, statistics prove that more laws only produce MORE criminals. This is especially true in America because we allowed the entire basis of our legal system to be destroyed – BY IGNORING THE FACT THAT NO CRIME HAS BEEN COMMITTED UNLESS THERE IS AN INJURED PARTY."
Are there a few inconveniences when one has less government and fewer laws ??? Of course there are – because freedom always has a price tag. However, when all things are taken into consideration, there are fewer inconveniences with less government – because freedom is preserved.
With the gradual proliferation of too many laws, you will eventually lose your freedom – and it will be too late to get it back.
PROBLEM #7
"LOST FREEDOM" IN AMERICA;
The Communist Manifesto represents a misguided philosophy, which teaches citizens to give up their RIGHTS for the sake of the "common good."
The Communist approach to government has always resulted in a police state.
Read carefully...
THE TEN PLANKS OF THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO;
2. A heavy progressive income tax.
3. Abolition of rights of inheritance.
4. Confiscation of property of all emigrants and rebels.
5. The establishment of a Central Bank.
6. Government control of Communication and Transportation.
7. Government ownership of factories and agriculture.
8. Government control of labor.
9. Corporate farms, regional planning.
10. Government control of education.
2. America has a very heavy progressive income tax. Our tax laws have intentionally been made so complicated that it is impossible to understand them. This enables the I.R.S. to confiscate your property (real and personal) without due process of law.
3. Americans are all but "taxed out" of their inheritance.
4. In America, people are being arrested for leaving the country with large amounts of cash. The cash is often confiscated without due process of law. These people with cash are presumed to be drug dealers, and they are considered to be "guilty" until they prove themselves innocent. Rebels are tried in courts where the juries are told that they must obey the judges.
This means that the rebels are denied the "trial by jury" that is guaranteed by our laws.
5. America has a Central Banking system. Even worse, our Central Banking System is dominated and controlled by the Federal Reserve Board. Is the Federal Reserve Board a U.S. Government agency ???
6. The American Government is in total control of our communication and transportation systems. This is accomplished through licenses and fines.
7. The American Government controls our factories and agriculture – via such agencies as W.I.S.H.A., O.S.H.A., E.P.A., W.H.O.O.P.S., farm subsidies, by establishing minimum wages, etc., etc.
8. The American Government has achieved almost total control of our nation's labor pool – by regulating unions, by regulating industrial management, and by the factors listed in #7, above.
9. Small farms in America are almost a thing of the past. Most of our food is being produced, and brought to market, by large corporations that are controlled by the government – through subsidies, regulations, etc. Every region in America has a "Regional Planning" department.
10. Obviously, our Government has almost "total" control of the educational system in our country. Legally, your children are "wards of the state" until they are 18 years of age.
"Our government uses "force" to take money from you – so they can give your money to people who didn’t work for it."
Isn’t this Communism ???
Of course it is Comunism – but many Americans are willing to accept the Communism because it provides them with a false sense of "security."
Are you willing to trade your "freedom" for "security" ???
Samuel Adams said,
MEDICAL CARE IN AMERICA:
The following three facts are generally undisputed;
2. Americans currently spend 1.2 TRILLION dollars per year on medical care.
3. According to the excellent audio-tape called DEAD DOCTORS DON"T LIE, Ralph Nader said that 300,000 Americans are killed in American hospitals every year (by accident, faulty diagnosis, mistakes, neglect, etc.?).
The cost of medical care in America could be reduced to almost nothing, and the quality of care could be improved 1,000%, simply by establishing an abundance of new medical schools that would accept all qualified students. These new schools could be paid for within two years by using only a fraction of the 1.2 trillion dollars per year that Americans are currently spending for medical care. If these schools could produce an additional 10,000 (15,000 ? 20,000 ?) additional medical doctors per year, the marketplace would soon be flooded with them. Medical doctors would be as plentiful as store-clerks. They would be going from door to door asking if people needed treatment, medical advice, or advice on how to stay healthy. This would reduce the cost of medical care to almost "nothing." Medical doctors might be willing to trade medical advice (and treatment) for a Quarter Pounder at McDonald’s. They might even be willing to operate on you (if necessary) for $50. Also (and this is perhaps the most important point), medical doctors would have to be MUCH more honest in their diagnosis and treatment of you – because you could afford to get five or six ‘second’ opinions.
Affordable second opinions (and even third, and fourth opinions) would eliminate almost all of the unnecessary surgeries and treatments we are currently being subjected to.
The above approach would produce medical doctors that would be motivated primarily by a sincere and honest desire to serve mankind."
Medical doctors who are primarily motivated by profit would soon get out of the business.
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WE HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU READ ALL OF PETER BRIMELOW'S WORK -- STARTING
WITH THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE THAT APPEARED IN FORBES MAGAZINE, ON DECEMBER 11,
2000.
VDARE.COM - http://www.vdare.com/pb/death_of_due_process.htm
By Peter Brimelow, Forbes Magazine,
12.11.00
THE LEFT IS RIGHT: AMERICA IS AN UNJUST SOCIETY." Startling words to come
from Paul Craig Roberts, 61, an architect (as assistant secretary of the
Treasury) of the Reagan tax-cut revolution and now a syndicated columnist and
chairman of the Institute for Political Economy. But he's not talking about
discrimination or the unequal distribution of wealth. The problem, he says, is
this: "Americans are no longer secure in law-the justice system no longer seeks
truth and prosecutors are untroubled by wrongful convictions."
Dressed to defend injustice, Paul Craig Roberts says willy-nilly
prosecutions are making the country unsafe.
Recently, with coauthor Lawrence M. Stratton, a lawyer, Roberts published The
Tyranny of Good Intentions: How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the
Constitution in the Name of Justice (Forum, $25). In it he blames the Reagan and
Bush administrations' wars on crime and drugs for institutionalizing many of the
problems he sees developing. In particular he blames the near-sextupling of
assistant U.S. attorneys in the early 1980s for a fatal dilution in
prosecutorial standards. The prosecutions are not making the country safer for
the law-abiding. They are making it more dangerous.
Historically, Roberts argues, Americans enjoyed the protection of what were
termed "the Rights of Englishmen" by 18th-century jurist Sir William Blackstone,
whose Commentaries on the Laws of England was a bestseller in the 13 colonies.
The broadest of these was the right to due process. That meant punishment by
dint of laws and evidence rather than, as has been the case in much of human
history and is still the case in much of the world, by dint of a dictator's
fiat. A related notion is that there should be no bills of attainder,
legislation designed to criminalize a specific individual.
Other rights: to have the confidential assistance of an attorney; to confront
adverse witnesses; to be protected from self-incrimination; to demand that the
prosecution prove not just an evil deed but an evil intention (called mens rea);
and to be protected from retroactive laws. Another English concept was that the
government should not go after people by making arbitrary attacks on their
property.
Most of these protections were enshrined in our Bill of Rights. And yet most
have been subtly but steadily eroded in the U.S., Roberts maintains. "They can
seize anyone, and any property, at any time," he says of today's law enforcement
agencies. For example, civil cases are now often criminalized, through "novel
theories" of the law invented by prosecutors to target specific defendants-very
much like a bill of attainder. Plea bargains, traditionally frowned on by
English courts because of possible coercion, now conclude 90% to 95% of federal
criminal cases, increasing the prosecutors' incentive to pile on indictments-in
effect, torturing the defendant-and, in the absence of a court test, reducing
the incentive for careful, or even honest, police work. You get an idea of what
is going on when you see a newspaper story about a crime (often a white-collar
crime) in which there is a detail like this: "If convicted on all counts,
so-and-so would be subject to a sentence of 120 years." It seems that every
misdeed becomes, in the statute books, a panoply of offenses like money
laundering and racketeering. By throwing a large statute book at a defendant,
the prosecutor can blackmail the culprit (or an innocent person) into a plea
bargain.
In the old days punishments were harsh, but they were not arbitrary. You could
be hanged for stealing a sheep, but you would not also be charged with
conspiracy to commit sheep stealing, willful evasion of taxes on stolen sheep
and diminishing the civil rights of the sheep owner. Attacks on property? Asset
forfeiture, aimed at drug dealers when radically extended by Congress in 1984
but now covering 140 other offenses, allows seizure on "probable cause"-i.e., at
the discretion of police and prosecutors. Proceeds go to the seizing agency,
creating a corrupting motive.
This erosion of Americans' historic protections has already caused some public
scandal. The spectacle of innocents losing homes, boats and other property
because tenants, customers and even passersby were using drugs caused House
Judiciary Chairman Henry Hyde to introduce legislation this year attempting to
rein in forfeiture. Roberts himself got interested when he began writing columns
about the Wenatchee, Wash. child sex-abuse case, one of several curious
Salem-witch-trial episodes in which numbers of adults have been convicted on the
word of children seized and coaxed by investigators into testifying to imagined
events.
But much of the erosion of historic protections is in the area of white-collar
crime-involving hitherto respectable, if less than universally loved,
corporations and businesspeople. Roberts here cites, see
FORBES (Dec. 1, 1997) in calling attention to the extreme punishments meted
out to people involved in essentially civil disputes with the government. What
we have at work is an unholy alliance between business-hating liberals and
crime-hating social conservatives. Roberts says that the Clinton Administration
Justice Department has even introduced a sort of affirmative action to law
enforcement, demanding quotas of white-collar prosecutions.
The results, as laid out by Roberts, are certainly disturbing. Savings and loan
financier Charles H. Keating Jr. was convicted of the crime of employing
fraudulent bond salesmen, even though there was no evidence he knew of their
activities, and the crime was not on the books when he supposedly committed it.
His conviction was overturned on constitutional grounds after he served 4 1/2
years in jail. Washington lawyer Clark Clifford, then in his 80s, was indicted
by the federal government in New York for allegedly accepting bribes in his role
as chairman of First American Bankshares. His personal assets were frozen and
his credit card was rejected when he tried to pay the chauffeur who drove him to
the airport on his way back to Washington, D.C. The case against Clifford was
dropped when his partner was acquitted. Exxon Corp. faced cleanup costs and
civil tort damages after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, but it was also indicted
for intentionally killing migratory birds without a hunting license and dumping
refuse without a permit. This "novel theory" allowed the Bush Administration
Justice Department to bring criminal charges, which carry massively higher
penalties. "Despite the absurdity of the charges," notes Roberts, "Exxon lacked
the confidence in our crumbling justice system to go to trial." It settled for a
$125 million fine.
The conservative establishment has greeted Robert's apostasy with a stricken
silence. His book has not yet been reviewed in the Wall Street Journal or
National Review magazine, despite his long connection with both.
Still, conservatives in the field do concede that Roberts has a point, while
disputing other aspects of his analysis. "This is something that must eventually
surface as an issue with conservatives," says Walter Olson, editor of
Overlawyered.com, a legal-reform Web site. "He's right that criminal law, in
certain narrow areas, has been made a vehicle for extortion," says Edwin R.
Jagels, a famously aggressive district attorney in Kern County, Calif. But
Jagels rejects the idea of widespread prosecutorial misconduct and sees no
alternative to plea bargains, given crowded dockets. Justice Stephen J. Markman
of the Michigan Supreme Court similarly concurs, but adds: "The ultimate
responsibility lies with Congress and its penchant for overly broad criminal
statutes."
Roberts, recently moved from D.C. to the Florida panhandle, is unyielding. "They
may have dented crime," he says of his former allies, "but they've dented
justice, too." With sweeping criminal laws the prosecutor can find some
technical charge to hang on just about anybody.
Paul Craig Roberts is the author with Lawrence M. Stratton of The Tyranny of Good Intentions : How Prosecutors and Bureaucrats Are Trampling the Constitution in the Name of Justice.
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