82 Year Old Widow has Home Seized for Son's sins.

Associated Press | 1-11-02 | Associated Press

[LloydofDSS]

Jan 11, 2002 Widow's Home Seized After Son's Arrest for Drug Possession The Associated Press ATHENS, Ga. (AP) - Police have seized the house of an 82-year-old widow because they say she knew her son dealt drugs there and did nothing to stop him. Fannie Gresham's small home was seized Thursday under a state law allowing authorities to confiscate property linked to the illegal drug trade. Authorities also arrested her 50-year-old son, Tommie "Top Dollar" Gresham, on a drug charge after he allegedly dropped several rocks of crack cocaine and fled. Police records show 29 incidents of drug activity at the address since 1992 and authorities say drug dealers were caught numerous times fetching drugs from the house for street sales. Based on that, and police claims that the elder, widowed Gresham was helping her son's alleged operation, Superior Court Judge Stephen Boswell issued a court order in December allowing the seizure. Boswell gave Fannie Gresham 14 days to move her belongings. Her attorney, Jim Smith, likened the seizure to the widespread illegal taking of property and land from blacks that he says tarnishes America's past. "They have never seized any drugs in this house. This lady is not accused of a single thing," he said. Police predicted more such seizures as they crack down on the drug trade in the city's troubled neighborhoods. A hearing on the seizure has been scheduled in February.

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks for your comments on this topic. I appreciate your views and you're welcome to them. I disagree with you. I've participated on these threads only to be called a nazi and everything else. Why bother discussing the issue and putting up with that nonsense realizing up front that neither you, I or anyone else is going to change our minds. Later.

[strela]

Why bother discussing the issue and putting up with that nonsense realizing up front that neither you, I or anyone else is going to change our minds.

Well put. That's why I only lurk on drug war threads these days. One thing about beating yourself over the head with a hammer - it feels ever so much better when you stop doing it.

No matter which side you take on the issue, I firmly believe that this topic is FreeRepublic's third rail and could lead to the destruction of this forum as we know it.

[LloydofDSS]

WOD topic

>>No matter which side you take on the issue, I firmly believe that this topic is FreeRepublic's third rail and could lead to the destruction of this forum as we know it.<<

You have peaked my curiosity. How can discussing this issue lead to the destruction of FreeRepublic? Can you provide a scenario? I have been advocating an end to the War on Drugs in cyberspace for 10 years, and I have never seen any host service damaged by the discussion.

[LloydofDSS]

Very good work. Easily one of the best posts I have seen in a while. Of course I agree completely.

[LloydofDSS]

>>There is no light at the end of the Drug War tunnel.<<

After saying I agree completely, I went back and re-read your post. I do have to disagree with the last statement. In 1931 only two years before Prohibition was ended. President Hoover said we could never go back. Many high level politicians were clamoring to "get tough" on those who disobey the law. Little did they know how soon the sea change was to take place.

In only the last few years, Switzerland, Australia, Spain, Germany, Italy, England, Belgium, Portugal, Jamaica and others have made real changes in their laws to reduce the harm that drugs can cause. These changes have all been in the direction of legalization. Strangely enough, America, so often referred to as the bastion of freedom, seems to be among the last to wake up to the simple fact: Freedom works, oppression doesn't.

We can take heart that due to the initiative process, the American people are sending the message to the politicians that we don't like criminalizing non-violent people who want to use marijuana responsibly.

Take heart, we will win eventually, because we have morality on our side.

[WindMinstrel]

The whole civil forfeiture thing is one of the biggest injustices we've perpetrated on our citizens. It's really scary -- our Constitution gives us the right to be secure in our persons and property, but it's seized on a whim without just cause. Furthermore, the burden of proof for your property is much lower than in a criminal case, because they claim that it's the property that's the defendant, not the owner. Suuuuure it is.

A few months ago I read about a neato little robot they're developing to deal with slugs in your lawn. Evidently it wanders around collecting slugs in a little bag, then drops them into a fermentation tank. It then uses the gasses produced in that fermentation to fuel itself. Pretty neat idea, all-told.

It just struck me that our police agencies are now very much like that robot. They're self-fueling -- they take people's property and sell it to increase their own power. However, they're guided by fallible people, and it's human nature to want to increase their power. At least the damned robot never gets hungry.

[LloydofDSS]

>>I would have to disagree with you. Situating a police department to benefit from it's arrests gives them an incentive to make unsupportable arrests. It's a terrible idea. The police work for the public. <<

I think it would be possible to privatize the police, but they would have to be rated on their impact on the "true" crime rate. That is the rate of crimes where people's rights are damaged. Murder, assault, theft, burglary etc. The vice laws would make this impossible. So until the vice laws are repealed, we are left with the laziness that is bred from the monopoly of government provided services.

Making the police paid for by the public does not remove the huge incentive to corrupt practices that the vice laws produce.

[LloydofDSS]

>>It just struck me that our police agencies are now very much like that robot. They're self-fueling -- they take people's property and sell it to increase their own power. However, they're guided by fallible people, and it's human nature to want to increase their power. At least the damned robot never gets hungry<<

I agree. If you look back into history and study the period when the Catholic Church was taken over by tyrants, they used the term "heretic" to accomplish two things. They silenced their opposition and they provided themselves with a steady source of funds to increase their own power. It was a terrible time, and we are not far from being in the same place on this issue.

[WindMinstrel]

2 very good points. However, I have counterpoints to proffer:

#1.. Because the average age when a kid gets hooked is 12. Is a 12 year old able to make rational decisions that will drive the restof their lives? Is your 12 year old? Were you so qualified at 12?

Well, I'd argue that I was so qualified, but that's because I'm brilliant. In any event, the laws against selling drugs to minors should be strengthened. Nobody should be able to victimize the youth. However, does that mean that adults should be made to suffer? Should this old lady lose her property to protect the kids?

#2 Because after the addict crashes their body, they want the taxpayers to fund their health care for the rest of their lives. Isn't it better to stop the problem in the first place?

Better yet, how 'bout the government gets out of the medical business? Why should anyone have to pay for the vices of anyone else? I certainly don't want my tax dollars to pay for your drug abuse -- or my grandmother's bad driving! That's not the job of the government -- well, it shouldn't be, if they hadn't misread the commerce clause for the last 50 years.

[WindMinstrel]

Does anyone really think that George Washington(a daily opium user), or Thomas Jefferson(who grew acres of marijuanna), would be sentenced to life in prison if we caught them today?

Does everyone???? here really think/believe that we would have been better off if George Washington and Tom Jefferson had spent all of their lives in prison, and lost their homes, instead of starting the United States and becoming presidents?



Another delicious irony: imagine an alternate universe where alcohol and tobacco hadn't been discovered yet. Do you have any doubt that the DEA would immedialy ban both as soon as someone started marketing them?

[southern rock]

Hold on a second: souther rock said 'I believe in doing what is right. Apart from what is right, there are no "solutions".'
As I see it, he is essentially saying that since he doesn't see anything right, he's going to do nothing. That, to my mind, is apathy which is the creed of someone who can't accept that the world doesn't work the way he wants it to. Same thing a fanatic believes, see my earlier post.

Sorry, but I simply cannot accept the logic that says, "well since we live in a socialist country, and that is not likely to change anytime soon or ever, we must therefore curtail rights, because in a socialist country, rights can get expensive".

Not acceptable to me.

[strela]

You have peaked my curiosity. How can discussing this issue lead to the destruction of FreeRepublic?

I see the issue as destructive, both in a real sense and as as a matter of perception, in the following ways:

- Drug war threads chew up bandwidth. One side posts a 5 meg chart supporting its position, the other side replies with a series of flying monkey cartoons supporting its position, et al, over and over again. Pretty soon, you've got a thousand or more posts in one thread, some huge, consisting of a Gordian knot of arguments, charges, and counter-charges, and neither side is budging an inch. If your response is that other topics also chew up bandwidth, I agree completely. But other topics (even the cheese and moose stuff) come and go, and a great deal of the attraction of FR is the variety contained herein.

- Drug war threads are repetitive. Frankly, the DW metadiscussions are becoming just plain old boring to me. If you give me a Freeper name, I can pretty much tell you what side they're on, what methods of rhetoric and argument they will employ in the discussions, and how far they will go before stopping, being throttled back by the moderators, or even booted. With the exception of a few excellent movies, there's really nothing I care to watch over and over again, and I don't wish to do the same thing in FR.

- DW threads almost always seem to contain contentious and downright vicious ad hominem attacks between the combatants (not that other topics don't include the same thing, but the majority of the really nasty attacks seem to come in the DW threads). They get personal in ways that other discussions never seem to do. I've personally seen arguments in Usenet that spill over into real life (and even had a few death threats directed to me personally due to my opinions), and I would not wish that on FR, ever.

Many of us participate in this forum because we generally have a conservative outlook on life and generally agree that liberalism and the welfare state are a cancer and should be resisted in any form. The fact that we seemingly find ourselves so torn by the DW threads and are so ready to go after each other's throats when the topic comes up is instructive and disturbing to me.

- DW threads polarize ideas and idealists to a degree that other topics do not seem to do. Nobody likes to be called a jackbooted nazi or a Cheech and Chong wannabe drug pusher, and I have my doubts that either of these extremes are present in this forum. A wise man once said that "Even the devil doesn't honestly believe himself to be a bad guy." When people find that the unpleasurable aspects of participation in a forum outweigh the pleasurable aspects, they will eventually bail and go to DU (just kidding) :)

I have been advocating an end to the War on Drugs in cyberspace for 10 years, and I have never seen any host service damaged by the discussion.

I really hope you're right when it comes to FR. As I mentioned earlier, I've already voted with my feet by opting out of this facet of FR except in a lurking mode.

[LloydofDSS]

- Drug war threads chew up bandwidth.

So true, but then so what? Bandwidth is what the Internet is all about. Consuming it is virtually free.

- Drug war threads are repetitive.

I agree. I have been doing this for a lot longer than you most likely. The thing that keeps me going is the realization that thousands of Americans rot in prison for years for no good reason. I am trying to stop this insanity. If I give up, I won't be able to live with myself.

- DW threads almost always seem to contain contentious and downright vicious ad hominem attacks between the combatants

When the stakes are high, people get very passionate. I don't really blame them. It is natural. It does little to move the discussion forward however. I think a lot of lurkers are attracted to train wrecks like these WOD threads. Hopefully that is good.

- Many of us participate in this forum because we generally have a conservative outlook on life and generally agree that liberalism and the welfare state are a cancer and should be resisted in any form.

I agree with you. The drug war is classic nanny state liberalism. No real conservative would ever embrace it.

- DW threads polarize ideas and idealists to a degree that other topics do not seem to do.

I think WOD threads polarize the "Live and Let Live" wing of conservativism from the "Control Control Control" wing.

[headsonpikes]

Bump your #173. ;^)