Posted on 10/27/2014 4:28:30 AM PDT by Kaslin
I don’t particularly care how people vote, but I do care whether they believe in freedom.
That’s why I periodically share stories that should convince everyone to believe in the libertarian philosophy of small government, individual liberty, and personal responsibility.
The stories that get me most agitated are the ones that involve innocent people being robbed by bureaucrats.
And when I say robbed, I use that word deliberately.
Such as the case of an elderly couple who had their hotel stolen by government.
Such as the case of the family grocer who had his bank account stolen by government.
Such as when the government wanted to steal someone’s truck because a different person was arrested for drunk driving.
Such as when the government tried to steal the bond money a family collected to bail out a relative.
Such as when the government seized nearly $400,000 of a business owner’s money because it was in the possession of an armored car company suspected of wrongdoing.
Such as when the government sought to confiscate an office building from the owner because a tenant was legally selling medical marijuana.
Such as when the government killed a man as part of an anti-gambling investigation undertaken in hopes of using asset forfeiture to steal other people’s cash.
With all this background, you can probably guess I’m going to add to that list.
And you’re right. We have a report from the New York Times that has me frothing at the mouth. I can’t imagine any decent person not being outraged by this example of big government run amok.
For almost 40 years, Carole Hinders has dished out Mexican specialties at her modest cash-only restaurant. For just as long, she deposited the earnings at a small bank branch a block away — until last year, when two tax agents knocked on her door and informed her that they had seized her checking account, almost $33,000. The Internal Revenue Service agents did not accuse Ms. Hinders of money laundering or cheating on her taxes — in fact, she has not been charged with any crime. Instead, the money was seized solely because she had deposited less than $10,000 at a time, which they viewed as an attempt to avoid triggering a required government report.
In other words, this is an example of two evil policies – asset forfeiture laws and money laundering laws – coming together in a vortex of we’ll-screw-you-over-even-if-you’re-law-abiding statism.
And you can forget about the Constitution’s presumption of innocence.
Ms. Hinders said in a recent interview. “Who takes your money before they prove that you’ve done anything wrong with it?” The federal government does. Using a law designed to catch drug traffickers, racketeers and terrorists by tracking their cash, the government has gone after run-of-the-mill business owners and wage earners without so much as an allegation that they have committed serious crimes. The government can take the money without ever filing a criminal complaint, and the owners are left to prove they are innocent. Many give up.
Of course, much of tax code enforcement is based on the upside-down premise that taxpayers are guilty and have to prove themselves innocent.
But that still doesn’t make it right. And the IRS is just the tip of the iceberg. Stealing is now a common practice by all sorts of bureaucracies at all levels of government.
The practice has swept up dairy farmers in Maryland, an Army sergeant in Virginia saving for his children’s college education and Ms. Hinders, 67, who has borrowed money, strained her credit cards and taken out a second mortgage to keep her restaurant going. Their money was seized under an increasingly controversial area of law known as civil asset forfeiture, which allows law enforcement agents to take property they suspect of being tied to crime even if no criminal charges are filed. Law enforcement agencies get to keep a share of whatever is forfeited. Critics say this incentive has led to the creation of a law enforcement dragnet, with more than 100 multiagency task forces combing through bank reports, looking for accounts to seize.
Here’s just one horrifying example of how this process works.
In one Long Island case, the police submitted almost a year’s worth of daily deposits by a business, ranging from $5,550 to $9,910. The officer wrote in his warrant affidavit that based on his training and experience, the pattern “is consistent with structuring.” The government seized $447,000 from the business, a cash-intensive candy and cigarette distributor that has been run by one family for 27 years. …the government seized $447,000, and the brothers have been unable to retrieve it. …Mr. Potashnik said he had spent that time trying, to no avail, to show that the brothers were innocent. They even paid a forensic accounting firm $25,000 to check the books. “I don’t think they’re really interested in anything,” Mr. Potashnik said of the prosecutors. “They just want the money.” …“We’re just hanging on as a family here,” Mr. Hirsch said. “We weren’t going to take a settlement, because I was not guilty.”
Still not convinced about the venality of big government? Here’s another nauseating example.
Army Sgt. Jeff Cortazzo of Arlington, Va., began saving for his daughters’ college costs during the financial crisis, when many banks were failing. He stored cash first in his basement and then in a safe-deposit box. All of the money came from paychecks, he said, but he worried that when he deposited it in a bank, he would be forced to pay taxes on the money again. So he asked the bank teller what to do. “She said: ‘Oh, that’s easy. You just have to deposit less than $10,000.’” The government seized $66,000; settling cost Sergeant Cortazzo $21,000. As a result, the eldest of his three daughters had to delay college by a year. “Why didn’t the teller tell me that was illegal?” he said. “I would have just plopped the whole thing in the account and been done with it.”
By the way, some of you may be thinking that these terrible examples are somehow justifiable because the government is stopping crime in other instances.
But that’s not true. Experts who have looking at money laundering laws have found that there’s no impact on genuine criminal activity. But lots of costs imposed on innocent people.
Which probably explains why the first two directors of the Justice Department’s Asset Forfeiture Officenow say the laws should be repealed.
If you want more information, here’s my video on the government’s costly and failed war on money laundering.
Sigh.
By the way, the government also abuses people in ways that have nothing to do with money laundering or asset forfeiture.
And there are more examples where those came from.
I’ve argued those very points with libertarian friends, and I’ve heard them promoted on the radio by libertarian talk jocks.
Are you a libertarian who does NOT support abortion and does NOT support gay marriage?
Do you also NOT support legalizing recreational drugs?
> Apostle Paul’s summary about good laws in Romans 13
As an exercise, contrast the government in Romans 13 to that in Revelation 13.
Instant run-off elections would break the 2 party monopoly,
which is exactly why we won’t be seeing it.
I have it in mind already. One is a government that strives for proper civil order, and the other is a beast whose power can’t be contested and which tramples everything underfoot.
1. The Constitution gives the Federal government no authority to ban intoxicants. The amendment authorizing it has been repealed. If you want to Constitution to authorize it, amend it or STFU, which is the same think I tell gun control advocates. If you’re too lazy to amend it, you shouldn’t expect the government to violate it.
2. I can’t speak for the state constitutions. I haven’t read any of them.
2. If a libertarian believes that human life begins anytime before birth, he is intellectually dishonest if he supports legalized abortion.
The Libertarian Party also believes in homosexuals getting married, drugs being given to children, sex with children, and many other “Don’t tell me what to do” BS.
The Libertarian Party refuses to acknowledge that there are limits to their desires.
They refuse to accept that children, those under the age of 18, are by our society’s standards not persons capable of making their own decisions.
Libertarians refuse to accept that nature dictates many things for us, such as our gender, and no matter how much you demand to change your gender you cannot do so.
OK, I’ll buy the constitutionality of your intoxicant argument, as long as intoxication cannot be used as an excuse for any violation of the rights and property of others, aka temporary insanity defenses.
What about the LGBTQ agenda? This is the foot in the door that allows the government to force ther rest of us to celebrate queerness and to do business with them in the name of non-discrimination and in spite of any religious convictions.
Your response to the abortion question seems like a dodge to me. Science and medicine prove that the life inside the womb is human. It can be nothing else. I’ve heard some libertarians argue that abortion is a form of legal execution. What they can’t answer is, “For what crime?”
For you to assume that all libertarians think the same was is the same as assuming that all Jews are cheap. The people who engage in the least amount of groupthink would be libertarians, with liberals engaging in the most.
If the writer’s point is the government is full of greedy, immoral gangsters, he is right.
Once again, it’s time for all the supporters of the war on drugs to stand up and take a bow for their part in furthering the destruction of the rule of law and the enabling of a thuggish bureaucracy hell bent on destroying any lingering respect for our government people might otherwise have.
Congratulations, the police state you support is in full swing!
libertarians are anti-moral and anti-decent
I agree with the issues raised in this article but I've actually never met a moral libertarian. Every one I have met has been pro-abortion, pro-homosexual marriage, pro-drug use etc.
What this article actually supports is conservatism.
What do you call a liberal who can add?
A Libertarian!
What do you call a liberal who can add but can't multiply?
A homosexual libertarian!
> For you to assume that all libertarians think the same
You didn’t answer my questions.
The Libertarian Party platform is pretty clear.
Abortion on demand
Marriage Equality
Open Borders
Legalize Dope
The first three are non-starters for me.
The fourth is arguable.
The business aspects of their platform seem sound, but are compromised by the Marriage Equality and Open Borders aspects.
I can only answer for myself. Can you tell me what all conservatives believe, about, say the Islamic threat and what to do about it?
I, myself, have problems with a few of their platforms (and many, IMHO, are people too ignorant to actually READ the platform, but parrot instead); but that doesn’t make it a non-starter.
Do you not vote (R)? Are you one of the lesser-of-two crowd? The same party that has openly defied their base by wishing to pass ‘immigration reform’, had yet to pass a budget, have done NOTHING to reverse Roe vs. Wade.....Which of the plethora of (R) stabbings would finally bring about the ‘one issue voter’/non-starters to open their eyes (IE: Saying to ‘fixed’ their stance on abortion?. Would THAT bring you around, finally?)
1) Abortion - this, IMHO, is their greatest failing. A pregnancy, taken to term (no other intervention or problems - miscarriage/etc.) produces a human child. That same child began at conception of 2 other people (IE: The gene sequence of this new entity is UNIQUE = new Person). ‘Moms’ Rights ended at conception - aka actions have consequences.
2) Marriage Equality - effects nothing in any others’ life. Get gov’t out of the biz and favortism, taxes, etc. Same sex couples, walking down the street, with no sign of affection (EG: holding hands) would not even be noticed vs. ‘the girls/guys on the town’. One wishes to bring up adoption/wills/etc. - those are different debates.
3) Borders - open != free for all. (L) recognize the need to police the border, not turn a blind eye. Here’s where, again MHO, people just parrot w/out reading. With the repeal of the Great Society plans (which (L) harp on, but (R) NEVER talk about anymore) it matters little that ‘visitors’ come across our borders...little else would keep them here for long.
4) Legalization - 9th/10th. What’s the problem here? Either you are for Constitutional limits, or you are not. Either you believe in Free Men, or wards of the State. If not drugs, why alcohol, why tobacco? If your denial is based on ‘price to society’, why not how much you weigh or hobbies you partake. First question I always ask “Whom owns you” - and it seqgues nicely into the repeal of the 16th and a Flat/income tax
Still, I could not vote for any (D), and only limited times for (R), as they but talk about Liberty and Freedom. The (R) have not even ATTEMPTED to roll-back even ONE rule/regulation from the Fed. leviathan....Yet the (L) are branded from the losses of the (R). I would rather ‘throw’ my vote to a party that preaches the return of Independence and Rights of men than to one whom I have seen actively work against the same (DHS, TSA, ‘comprehensive’/open borders, etc.)
Conservatives are a third party. Are you telling us to waste our vote on a third party candidate?
Losertarian
Har!! You made fun of their name.
End domestic spying. A warrant should be required for any domestic surveillance.
Agree
Immigration reform. Peaceful people should be allowed to move freely, with minimal interference.
disagree
End state marriage. Consenting adults do not need permission from government.
agree. It's no business of the state. It's between the parties and God. The original reason for 'marriage licenses' was to allow interracial marriages, which at the time were prohibited by law, thus the need of a 'license' to do that which was otherwise prohibited.
End the drug war. Prohibition is costly, in dollars and in liberty, and unsuccessful.
Absolutely. More evil has come from the "cure" than the initial problem could possibly cause.
Sometimes we have to gNon-intervention. Keep our nose out of the business of other nations.
Agree, for the most part. We should be more careful about where we intervene
Respect other cultures. We would not want other cultures pushed onto us.
Agree externally. Don't really care what they do in Saudi Arabia. Internally, we speak english in our country.
Free trade. Trade is the best way to ensure peaceful international relations.
Agree in theory, but it doesn't work in practice, because we are the only "open" ones.
No bailouts. Companies must live and die by their own merits.
Absolutely agree. At the same time, government regulations shouldn't be so burdensome that they drive businesses into bankrupcy.
No special perks. Whether big or small, the rules should be the same.
Agree, else we're not a nation of laws.
No excessive regulations. Don't strangle our economy with ideology.
Agree. Dump 90% of our laws and regulations, and you'd usher in a new era of prosperity.
No cap on liability. Companies should be responsible for their actions.
Disagree: There have to be limits, else you run afowl of the Constitutional restraints against excessive fines/punishment.
Tax reform. End the income tax.
Agree: A flat 10% sales tax would support all legitimate functions of government. More damage has been done to the Constitution by the income tax than just about anything else.
Industrial hemp. Allow our farmers to grow a versatile, viable crop here in America.
Agree: again, end the drug war. the cure is worse than the disease.
Your post is logically inconsistent. If libertarians are doing the things you claim, then of course somebody would notice if they all dropped dead.
> I can only answer for myself. Can you tell me what all
> conservatives believe, about, say the Islamic threat and
> what to do about it?
As far as I know, there is no Conservative Party, so there is no organized consensus.
As far as the Islamic threat, all I can say is that it’s probably a good thing for the Mohamhead muzzloid world that I’m not in a position of authority to do anything about it.
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