When Orchids Are Made Illegal, Only Criminals Will Own Orchids.

The Hippo's A** ^ | October 8, 2009 | Portnoy

[Portnoy]

We are all becoming criminals. Here is yet another example of the Government overreaching its authority and criminalizing ordinary citizens who had no intention of breaking the law.

In 2006, Federal Agents burst through the door of the home Kathy and George Norris, 60 and 66 year old Grandparents of six grandchildren. They ransacked the house, overturned drawers, emptied bookshelves, threw the Norris' belongings on the floor and searched their home.

Were these SWAT clothed agents from the FBI? The ATF? Homeland Security?

Nope. They were from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service....and their mission: Looking for illegal orchids.

Read More HERE

[the invisib1e hand]

indeed. and when everything's illegal, only criminals will do anything.

that's deep. I mean, life itself will be criminal...how utterly logical for a culture of death.

wow. sometimes things make sense after all.

[rovenstinez]

Some laws are bad. Maybe the ones who wrote them need to go to prison.

[the invisib1e hand]

now this makes more sense than ever:

There are ways that some think straight, but they lead in the end to death. Prov 14:12

[Jack Hammer]

Madness, utter madness. A SWAT team to chase orchids??? Someone is not only incompetent, but very likely insane.

[Condor51]

We are all becoming criminals

Well, duh. That's the idea of Big Gubmint.
Make enough laws, and/or worse 'regulations', then eventually you are bound to break one.

[Shannon]

I googled this and found an article in the Washington Times from Oct 5th. Two interesting paragraphs from that article:

The judge who sentenced Mr. Norris had some advice for him and his wife: "Life sometimes presents us with lemons." Their job was, yes, to "turn lemons into lemonade."

The judge apparently failed to appreciate how difficult it is to run a successful lemonade stand when you're an elderly diabetic with coronary complications, arthritis and Parkinson's disease serving time in a federal penitentiary. If only Mr. Norris had been a Libyan terrorist, maybe some European official at least would have weighed in on his behalf to secure a health-based mercy release.

[DustyMoment]

We need to reflect on the abundance of laws written by local, state and federal legislative bodies. If every single one of these laws could be enforced, we would not sing about being the “land of the free”, we would sing about being the “land of the oppressed”.

Stop and consider for a moment that there are over 20,000 gun laws actively on the books in this country and not a single one of them will stop the next gun-related crime!!

This is why legislative bodies need to have their own “Cap ‘n Trade” program. They can only write so many laws before they reach their cap. If they want to write more, they will have to trade the new law with one that already exists and the legislative body will not have the ability to increase the cap - only the people will be able to increase the cap.

Abuses such as this by US Fish and Wildlife are beyond outrageous, they are absurd. How much did all of this idiocy by a federal government agency cost the US taxpayer over a paperwork fiasco?? How much did Mr. Norris’ trial and incarceration cost us??

We should be demanding our money back!!

[DustyMoment]

If only Mr. Norris had been a Libyan terrorist, maybe some European official at least would have weighed in on his behalf to secure a health-based mercy release.

Worse, had he been an illegal invader from south America, the taxpayers would have had to pay him tens or thousands of dollars for violating his "rights" and obstructing his ability to earn a(n) (illegal) living.

[Sarajevo]

Geez- and the jury convicted on this case?