Posted on 03/08/2003 9:29:27 AM PST by forest
[NOTE: This text was first published in the March 7, 1997 newsletter. It was an important message in 1997, but seems even more important today.]
Last week we gave Rep. Ron Paul's toll-free Legislative Update number (1-888-322-1414) and suggested that readers listen to his message "The Coming Police State." We were told by a lot of people that they missed it.
Originally, that message was part of a one hour speech Rep. Paul made on the floor of the House. And, thanks to Jeff in Michigan, we have the complete text. Below is the shortened version of Rep. Paul's speech recorded as the "Legislative Update:"
Centralizing power and consistently expanding the role of the Government requires an army of bureaucrats and a taxing authority upon which a police state thrives. There are over 100 laws on the books permitting private property seizure without due process of law. We have made it easy to seize any property by absurdly claiming the property itself committed the crime. The RICO mentality relating to law enforcement permits even the casual bystander to suffer severely from the police state mentality.
The drug war hysteria and the war on gun ownership started by Roosevelt in 1934 have expanded Federal police power to the point that more than 10 percent of all of our police are Federal. The Constitution names but three Federal crimes, so where is the justification? Talk about swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance. We have hovering over us daily the Federal police from the EPA, OSHA, FBI, CIA, DEA, EEOC, ADA, F&WL, INS, BATF, and worst of all, the IRS. Even criticizing the IRS makes me cringe that it might precipitate an audit. It seems that all administrations, to some degree, used the power of the agencies to reward or punish financial backers or political enemies.
So much [of] that had its origin in the 1930's, it was then that the FBI's role changed from friendly investigator helping local authorities to that of national police force.
We live in an age where the fear of an IRS registered letter bearing news of an audit surpasses the fear of a street mugging. The police are supposed to be our friend and the Federal Government the guarantor of our liberties. Ask the blacks in the inner city of Los Angeles if they trust the police and revere the FBI and the CIA. We should not have to cringe when a Federal agent appears at the door of our business. We should not even see them there.
A Congress sworn to uphold the Constitution ought to be protecting our right to our property, not confiscating it. Congress ought to protect our right to own a weapon of self-defense, not systematically and viciously attacking that right.
Congress ought to guarantee all voluntary association, not regulate and dictate every economic transaction. We should not allow Congress to give credence to inane politically correct rules generated by egalitarian misfits. Setting quotas ought to insult each of us.
We need no more centralized police efforts. We need no more wiretaps that have become epidemic in this last decade. We have had enough Wacos and Ruby Ridges.
The word I would have chosen is authoritarianism. Fascism has a number of economic implications as well as political ones.
I dunno . . . because you've stood with your head too close to a leaky microwave oven door one too many times?
Go build yourself a mininuclear reactor. Have fun. Grow a third eye.
You're not as whacko as you seem at first post. There is hope for you.
Before it falls apart, a nation will seek to survive by imposing controls on behavior externally at the state level that were once controlled internally at the personal level.
You will get no argument from me that state controls are undesirable and ineffective compared to personal behavior controls. But when a society throws morality down the toilet in the selfish pursuit of obsessive libertine pleasure (and to hell with everybody else), state controls inevitably emerge as stop-gap survival mechanism.
I would love to live in a libertarian society of very few laws and a tiny government. Unfortunately, I am surrounded by too many moral relativists, socialists, and self-obsessed libertarians for that to ever happen.
We need a return to the Constitution and we need to get the embedded and corrupt ruling class out of office.
Free Republic has an ignore feature? That is shameful.
That said, if you put TP on ignore before you joined FR did you have a previous ID?
And with that said, you do realize that only a moron would claim to be ignoring someone while pounding the floor with his shoe and turning blue.
Anyway, if you have an issue with TP try to tell the truth and stick to the facts...he and I are about the same age and we get really cross with teeny boppers.
An undefined definition. How libertarian.
Good day sir .
Judging by the thread it means anything you want it to mean. In other words, nothing at all.
Where will they be playing??? Which state??
Do strident self-described "republicans" with no fixed beliefs outnumber Republicans?
They want to legalize: prostitution, hard drugs, assisted suicide, pornography, simulated child pornography; some will even argue for private ownership of nuclear weapons and contractual slavery. You're right that morals matter. And in many cases, those morals must be imposed.
Exactly.
I don't think it's the prerogative of the State to impose morality.
That's precisely the guise under which they've divined rights to Affirmative Action, abortion and punitives for Hate Crimes.
There is but a small body of Natural Law on which the State can rely for guidance in determining matters of justice. Basically, the Ten Commandments ... as found to one extent or another in every human civilization despite proximity in place or time.
By the principle of Subsidiarity, the authority for the Moral is locused always closest to the Family and the father (and mother) whose onus it is to civilize and moralize his children.
While communities may have their blue laws -- which blue laws or lack thereof allow always for the GREATEST possible CHOICE in where one wishes to live -- I don't believe it ever the place of the STate to legislate morality.
Such a proposition destroys all possible chance at Subsidiarity by forcing a top-down Morality which -- given our Democratized tyranny that is the majority -- ends up the absolute specter that is voting on virtue.
Very dangerous ground.
Better that we -- like all Christian throughout time -- live and thrive despite the Dominant Cult's depravity.
Best to ensure always that the authority of the family -- particularly in moral matters -- supercedes absolutely that of the State.
2. Do you think that police searching arrestees is against libertarian principles?
Self-contradiction.
As evidenced herein .. What's Left, What's Right and What's a Value?
Within 30 to 45 seconds after Overdahl entered the room, the officer noticed seeds and a small pipe lying on a desk 8 to 10 feet from where he was standing. From his training and experience, the officer believed the seeds were marihuana and the pipe was of a type used to smoke marihuana. He entered the room and examined the pipe and seeds, confirming that the seeds were marihuana and observing that the pipe smelled of marihuana...Tough luck for the doper.The "plain view" exception to the Fourth Amendment warrant requirement permits a law enforcement officer to seize what clearly is incriminating evidence or contraband when it is discovered in a place where the officer has a right to be. Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403 U.S. 443 (1971); Harris v. United States, 390 U.S. 234 (1968). Here, the officer had placed Overdahl under lawful arrest, and therefore was authorized to accompany him to his room for the purpose of obtaining identification. The officer had a right to remain literally at Overdahl's elbow at all times; nothing in the Fourth Amendment is to the contrary.
U.S. Supreme Court, WASHINGTON v. CHRISMAN, 455 U.S. 1 (1982)
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