What I'm doing, and why

Ladies and gentlemen of the nation, people of all races, colors, sects, religions, and ideals. This morning, I go forth to do the right thing, because it is the right thing. The right thing is never easy to do, nor is it ever simple to contemplate, particularly in matters where the government can take that liberty. But it is still the right thing to do, and conscience compels me to do it.

We talk in this nation glowingly of liberty and rights, but we have forgotten their foundation. We speak of things that we know little of, like parrots. There were four major rights in the beginning, from which all other rights flowed... the right to life, the right to liberty, and the right to property, together with the ability to defend all of the above.

No person was free unless he had all of those things. We are born free, we were guaranteed to live free. In many constitution these rights are enshrined, for instance, in the Idaho Constitution, Article 1, Section 1.Inalienable rights of man. All men are by nature free and equal, and have certain inalienable rights, among which are enjoying and defending life and liberty; acquiring, possessing and protecting property; pursuing happiness and securing safety.

Inalienable means that we have no right to transfer it, control it, regulate it, register it. We have no power to allow the government to control it, nor does the government have the legitimate authority to do so.

I believe in the rights of all people, and my studies of the Constitution, and of the Bill of Rights, the Federalist and Antifederalist papers both, the continental congress, and the Declaration of Independence and the British Common Law upon which it was founded all point to the same thing.

We are not a democracy, and anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you. All of the founding papers spoke of true democracy as the destroyer of freedom. We are a constitutional representative republic, with all that entails. As a republic, we have the voice of the people, the vote, to speak to our representative s. If those representative s fail to represent us, we have the right to remove them by the vote. If that system of voting is subverted, there is another right, the second amendment having been enshrined so all able-bodied persons capable of bearing arms could not only be the voice of their own discontent, but the arm to restrain the government from precipitate action.

Together with the great powers entrusted to the government, were specific guarantees. The greatest of these for liberty were the right to keep and bear, the right to freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom from establishing a religion or religious obligation upon the people, and freedom from the people themselves removing or altering the rights of themselves, or others within the republic.

In any free nation the right to have, exercise, and express civil rights is the same as the right to have, exercise, and express religious rights. The government cannot license the exercise of a civil right, cannot contain it or constrain it, else they are exercising the powers of ownership that were reserved to the people themselves.

Those very powers of ownership, the powers to control those rights, belong in the hands of the people, as a rightful safeguard against tyranny.

Across the centuries, much has been lost, and the excuse that the political right lies in the majority has been advanced, and that the majority's rights exceed that of the minority, but think about it a moment. if the majority's view of 'right' is the only view of right and wrong, is it not within the power of the majority to enslave and to despoil the minority, if they believed that such would advantage them? Could they not then winnow their ranks until no person save the very few were parts of those in power? Is this not tyranny, the bellum omnia in omnia spoken of by the ancients, the war of all against all?

Is it not a more frightful means of destruction of all the constitution stood for, freedom, and liberty, for ourselves and our posterity?

Hence the great gift our nation gave to us, the republican principle. No law could levy itself unequally upon any. If there were any advantage conferred by law, that advantage must be enjoyed by all. If the law conferred any penalty, the penalty must be borne by all.

Otherwise, what happens? False and designing men will make mock of the constitution, and enable laws, to separate the society, one part against another, to enflame them in disputes, to steal property from one and give it to another, and to place under the people under the heel of the law, that very law which should rightfully serve the legitimate interests of the people, and restrain their baser impulses.

It is law that keeps us safe, and free. Without law there is no freedom, for in that state of anarchy, the stronger may easily oppress the weaker, until it fractures and becomes the slaves of those stronger yet. It is in this interest that the republican principle was created, the separation of powers, the checks and balances, and the powers of the people themselves being limited to laws that affect all equally.

It is in that interest that I challenge the Sex Offender Registry. For the law to stand, the rule of law must be maintained and preserved. If that rule of law has fallen, and there is no recourse to laws that are void under the constitution, if there is no right to safety, to preservation of liberty and property, to life itself, then the law has turned itself against the people for whom it was created.

I try the law to prove a far more important law.

Because these rights were preserved to ourselves and our posterity, and that government enshrined that liberty in its foundational documents, our nation was in error from the beginning. No slaves could be kept under that principle. No discrimination by means of law could be legal. No status could be made that separated one part of the people from the other, save through the criminal courts, for the duration of the just sentence, which could not thereafter be altered or redefined, save for a new crime.

No crimes could be levied against a free citizen, save for both the actus and the mens rea, the criminal act, and the criminal mind. No act can be criminal that is within the rights, and preserves the rights of others. No act can assume, nor create any 'greater rights' in any group of citizens than another.

It is the purpose of the courts to dispense justice, and justice can never be just if the nation can alter that judgement to increase the penalty, and the removal of rights is a removal of a property that has no assignable monetary value.

It is necessary in the rule of law for there to be separations from society, when society has been wronged. Indeed, the courts themselves were created to judge the wounds to society, not to the individual victim. Equally, the protection the police assign is to the society, not to the victim. We have no individual right to police protection, nor can we sue the police, even for knowing and deliberate failure to protect, and even.. if the police or law denies you the ability to protect yourself.

At that point, there is no protection, no ability to seek safety, to preserve life or liberty, and any such law must fall.

More heinous yet, however, is a law that simultaneously not only denies the rights of self-protection, but also holds up a citizen or class of citizens to public scrutiny as monsters, simultaneously denying them, and the states, the inherent right to justice.

Justice is balanced, justice is based in truth, and not in emotion. It must consider both the wound to the society, and the nature of the perpetrated act, balancing law with reasonableness and right.

The registry fails this test. Upon the registry, you can be sentenced to a single year, and then spend the rest of your life as a registrant. Even if you are removed from the registry, or even given a full pardon, which by the law eliminated the onus of the crime, moving to another state, for any reason, suddenly somehow reinstates it, and allows the new state to determine what rights you are denied. We are tried, not for the acts we do, but for the acts we may, or may not commit. We are tried, not for a criminal mind, and a criminal act, but tried for the fear which people view us due to the status that the government has imposed upon us, without our assent, calling it a civil matter.

Consider this however. No civil matter can be made, save with consent. If there is coercion involved, there is not consent. If there is fraud involved, in either party, there is not consent. If the person is not free to deny consent, then there is not consent. This is contrary, as well, to the rule of law.

Further, no civil matter could provide any criminal penalty, and simply separating and creating a criminal act for a failure to consent to a civil matter is not within the civil law either. It is a violation of both the original, fundamental contracts with which our states, and our nation was founded, but also of justice itself.

If a law denies the rights of life, liberty, property, and the ability to defend them, applies to only a small group, gives them disadvantages that can be altered at any time, at a whim, without that group's permission or review, then it can never be just. It is only a tool of punishment, and one used only by the greatest tyrants in history.

That is why I go before the court of law. That is why this law must be tried, and why this law must fall. If this law is not tried, and does not fall, there is no longer recourse, no longer a republic, and it is the duty of all of mankind, all patriots, all citizens, to respond to the danger and return the law to its proper place, as a servant of man, and not as a tyrant, by whatever means necessary, from the trial of the law upon a man's own body, or trial of the law by the right of restoring it the service of mankind, by the force of arms.

As is, was, and will remain your right.

Any single man must judge for himself whether circumstances warrant obedience or resistance to the commands of the civil magistrate; we are all qualified, entitled, and morally obliged to evaluate the conduct of our rulers. This political judgment, moreover, is not simply or primarily a right, but like self-preservation, a duty to God. As such it is a judgment that men cannot part with according to the God of Nature. It is the first and foremost of our inalienable rights without which we can preserve no other.
– John Locke
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Alea Iacta Est.

We each of us, have our own journeys, our own trials, our own inner barriers which must be overcome. Tonight, perhaps, the true depth of those trials of conscience hit home.

When a man crosses his Rubicon, and the battles are inevitable, when a man looks into his heart and realizes the dangers that lie in believing, but still chooses to believe, that time, that moment, changes something in him.

The battle will be long, but win or lose, worth it.

I salute you all, of whom I have grown so proud.

Would that I had years to spend with the future, with learning and speaking with each of you, but that is not to be. Each moment of our lives, we sit, and wait, but for what do we wait? Do we wait for a savior to come, to rescue each of us? Is it not said that God helps those who help themselves?

I may not be able to communicate for quite some time. The die, after all, is cast, the game begun, for better, or for worse, for truth or ill. The challenge must be thrown down to achieve a better tomorrow. It is not done in haste, and never could be, but to be true to myself, I could never turn my back on this challenge, not when it has been presented me in such trappings.
I love my nation, my fellow citizens, too much to turn my back on the suffering there.
And so the die is cast... and for better or worse, the game will be played, the Rubicon crossed, and I cannot look back.

People may ask what I mean by saying things such as this, but the law must be tried. There are laws, and there are foundations to law. When the law expands outwards from its foundations, beyond the scope for which it was proposed, the law itself is doomed to fall. It is the duty of men, especially men of conviction and men of conscience, to try the law in the venues available to them, afore more precipitous action is taken. It is my intent, my duty, and my obligation to break the law, in order to uphold the more foundational law.

The doctrine of stare decisis is a curious thing, once a belief that the doctrine must not always be relied upon, but only where based from the foundational principles, to become 'settled law' which must not be examined today. However, today I intend to unsettle the law, to rip up the flagstones and determine if the foundation is still sound.

I intend to break a law, a federal law, and a state law that cannot exist under the constitution. In the Idaho State Constitution, as in many constitutions within the States, there are certain inalienable rights. These rights are supported by others, and by specific limitations placed not only upon the governments, but upon the people. The Constitution states that the federal government must guarantee a republican form of government to the states. This republican form of government was guaranteed to attempt to preserve the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, and to guard that great and arduous task, we preserved the preexisting right to keep and bear arms, under the Magna Carta, and the rights under the writs of William and Mary of Orange.

These rights were enshrined long before the constitution to all, regardless of race, of class, and intended to end tyranny. Slavery itself was in debate, as the end goal of tyranny itself.
If you have rights, inalienable rights, and you are denied the exercise of those rights, do you still have them?

There is a phrase written in many state constitutions, in varying forms, and with varying measures, it reads as: . All men and women are, by nature, free and equal, and have certain inalienable rights--among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining safety and happiness.
It occurs in varying forms, in one case stating the fruits of their labors, in another happiness, or in another going so far as to state the right to keep and bear arms as being directly reserved to the people as an inalienable right.

Such it was considered, after all, in the beginning, and that right to self-defense even got the soldiers in Rowe's Wharf's massacre an innocent verdict, for reasons of self-defense.
The trials of Zenger, Throckmorton, and Bushell are nearly forgotten now, but they also bear a strong and striking purpose in the foundation of the nation. They were talked about as to the nature of the jury, and the very nature of sedition. The greatest defense against sedition is the truth, as it was with Zenger, and Throckmorton.

And the truth is that the American People, and their congressmen and senators, their executives and judges, have for decades, nearly a century, been lied to.

The Federalist Papers are not merely one view of the constitution, they were the view of the constitution by the founders of the constitution, those very federalists, and in response to strong attacks by the antifederalists. The antifederalists brought up opposition to the constitutional plan, problems that may lie within aspects of the plan, and flaws that were perceived, the federalists explained how the plan itself was intended to work to prevent such problems.
They are an explanation of the purpose, the intent, and the meaning of the Constitution itself.
Until a man is willing to stand up for his rights, they are not rights. Until he is willing to insist upon them, they cannot be so called. Until he is willing to exercise them in his own defense, no matter what the law may say, they do not exist.

Men fear the government, but so too the government fears its citizens. Why else would there be so active, so prominent, an attempt to remove the rights of the citizens that were enshrined for their own defense?

And not just defense against the 'Indians' or against each other, but against tyranny from all sources?

If tyranny is allowed to exist, men will ever be only tyrants or slaves. When the law can levy its burden upon one man more heavily than another, or act upon the rights of a group, it can be used to the advantage of others, and the detriment of any group.

So I break the law to sustain the law. I have accepted in full that burden, and do so actively, knowingly, and with the only remorse being for the necessity.

When a nation has fallen so far that the only recourses are trying the law upon your own person, or rebellion, where do we stand?

Give me six lines written by the most honourable of men, and I will find an excuse in them to hang him.

— Cardinal Richelieu (1585-1642)

In the beginning of a change, the patriot is a scarce man; brave, hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, however, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.

— Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain)

The liberties of our country, the freedom of our civil Constitution, are worth defending at all hazards; and it is our duty to defend them against all attacks. We have received them as a fair inheritance from our worthy ancestors: they purchased them for us with toil and danger and expense of treasure and blood, and transmitted them to us with care and diligence. It will bring an everlasting mark of infamy on the present generation, enlightened as it is, if we should suffer them to be wrested from us by violence without a struggle, or to be cheated out of them by the artifices of false and designing men.

– Samuel Adams

Among the natural rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life; secondly, to liberty; thirdly to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can.

– Samuel Adams.

If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of Almighty God, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.

– Samuel Adams

All might be free if they valued freedom, and defended it as they should.

– Samuel Adams

Driven from every other corner of the earth, freedom of thought and the right of private judgment in matters of conscience, direct their course to this happy country as their last asylum.

– Samuel Adams

Are we at last brought to such an humiliating and debasing degradation that we cannot be trusted with arms for our own defense? Where is the difference between having our arms under our own possession and under our own direction, and having them under the management of Congress? If our defense be the real object of having those arms, in whose hands can they be trusted with more propriety, or equal safety

to us, as in our own hands?

– Patrick Henry
The laws of man may bind him in chains or may put him to death, but they never can make him wise, virtuous, or happy.

– John Quincy Adams

The power of the legislative being derived from the people by a positive voluntary grant and institution, can be no other than what that positive grant conveyed, which being only to make laws, and not to make legislators, the legislative can have no power to transfer their authority of making laws, and place it in other hands.

– John Locke

[F]or nothing is to be accounted hostile force, but where it leaves not the remedy of such an appeal; and it is such force alone, that puts him that uses it into a state of war, and makes it lawful to resist him. A man with a sword in his hand demands my purse in the high-way, when perhaps I have not twelve pence in my pocket: this man I may lawfully kill. To another I deliver 100 pounds to hold only whilst I alight, which he refuses to restore me, when I am got up again, but draws his sword to defend the possession of it by force, if I endeavour to retake it. The mischief this man does me is a hundred, or possibly a thousand times more than the other perhaps intended me (whom I killed before he really did me any); and yet I might lawfully kill the one, and cannot so much as hurt the other lawfully. The reason whereof is plain; because the one using force, which threatened my life, I could not have time to appeal to the law to secure it: and when it was gone, it was too late to appeal. The law could not restore life to my dead carcass: the loss was irreparable; which to prevent, the law of nature gave me a right to destroy him, who had put himself into a state of war with me, and threatened my destruction. But in the other case, my life not being in danger, I may have the benefit of appealing to the law, and have reparation for my 100 pounds that way.

– John Locke

There is no further recourse through the voting booth. False and designing men have arranged to make those electronic polls far more easy to rig than even paper ballots, or votes counted 'in secret' behind a screen by the touch of a hand upon another. There is no oversight, and no recourse there. Indeed, the courts themselves may no longer be a recourse. As of this moment men can be dragged from the streets, arrested, and made to disappear, for supposed crimes, dragged beyond the walls of the nation, tortured into compliance and tried for the crimes they 'admit to' to end the torture.

And if they happen to die, it was for the good of the nation.

From your past you'll see the patterns that are coming to your future, in the present. Courage, patriotism, it's all well and good when it's just ideals, but so few are willing to stand up to the law, to stand up for things simply because.. it is the right thing to do. They worry about family, selves, jail time. But injustice is injustice, and I cannot remain free so long as an injust act remains. No man can be free that does not equally strive for the freedom of others. I'd considered running away, leaving this nation and its laws behind, but I cannot be so cowardly, after all, it is rank and arrant cowardice to flee when others make war against you.

Usurpation of the rule of law, destruction of its level and equity, decimation of the court and judicial systems, all are symptoms of the real problem. We do not, many of us, know our rights, or our limitations in a republic. The truth is the greatest power is in us ourselves. We are the masters of our future, so long as we do not deny that right to self-mastery to any other. The rulers forget that the greatest duty is to the people, not to their own power base or the lobbyists or anything else. The duty of the Representatives are to their constituents, and the duty of the senate is to the states, and if they fail at that duty, then they must be removed, and tried. Every ruler is bound in mastery to his people he rules. He is made a servant in chains of propriety, and shackles of service... as Cincinnatus once said, the more I lead, the more I serve.

When you look out the window, you dont' see the real tyranny, it lies hidden. They come in the night, the nacht und nebel, the night and fog. They take away people and they are never heard from again, nor seen, nor spoken of. It is as though they no longer exist.

Such placement of the rule of law under the thumb of the civil magistrate, the legislator, or the executive is naught but treason. Does it matter what they call it, if your right to a fair and speedy trial is gone, your right to a public hearing, gone, your right to hear the accusations against you... gone? If they refuse under national security to reveal the charges and evidence against you, can you defend yourself?

If the law does not apply equally, to kings and emperors as well as serfs and prisoners, if it levies its load more firmly upon the back of any one man than any other, society suffers, bleeds, and dies.

I've applied for help from the ACLU, from the Rutherford Institute, from the Cato institute. I have no money for attorneys, nor means by which to fight this through a civil suit. I have little enough of anything, and if the only asset I have is my life, then that is the asset I shall spend. I've grown to love life again, but what they are offering is not life... it is a never-ending slavery, torture, and subjugation.

Think about this... what happens when a man cannot leave his state without the rules changing, and when he arrives to a new state... they can change the punishment as they see fit, without ever seeing the evidence, the case, the punishment, the crime, or even the judge and jury's notes? Is that just? Can it not be extended however to regulate any other crime, and are you innocent of all crimes? I'm quite certain in that volume of federal codes there is some felony of which you are guilty... and therefore your rights are as empty as my own.

But the law must be tried, before it is set aside to repair and restore the constitution. Failure in this measure is not an option. The law must be tried to the best knowledge of man, and wholly and solely on constitutional issues. No defense attorney in the world is willing to do such.

As of this moment, this is my last recourse.

And if this recourse fails, the final recourse, the one to be avoided at all costs, save when there is no other occurs. Restoration of that constitution by rebellion.
How much more precious than a pence is your life, and rights? How much more valuable can it be than the very things that allow you to be free, that maintain that freedom? Indeed, at this date I cannot guarantee, as I have said, that I shall not simply disappear, a victim of extraordinary rendition. However, if such happens, the recourse is ended.

Under the law, in Idaho, I no longer have a recourse for the restoration of rights, and therefore, the only recourse I have is to challenge the law upon my own body.
May God have mercy upon my soul, and upon those who still yet refuse to help me.

"To bereave a man of life, or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore A MORE DANGEROUS ENGINE of arbitrary government.

– William Blackstone

"It is not only permitted, but it is also equitable and just to slay tyrants. For he who receives the sword deserves to perish by the sword.But 'receives' is to be understood to pertain to he who has rashly usurped that which is not his, now he who receives what he uses from the power of God. He who receives power from God serves the laws and is the slave of justice and right. He who usurps power suppresses justice and places the laws beneath his will. Therefore, justice is deservedly armed against those who disarm the law, and the public power treats harshly those who endeavour to put aside the public hand. And, although there are many forms of high treason, none is of them is so serious as that which is executed against the body of justice itself. Tyranny is, therefore, not only a public crime, but if this can happen, it is more than public. For if all prosecutors may be allowed in the case of high treason, how much more are they allowed when there is oppression of laws which should themselves command emperors? Surely no one will avenge a public enemy, and whoever does not prosecute him transgresses against himself and against the whole body of the earthly republic."

-- John of Salisbury: Policratus

"If the king ceases to govern the kingdom, and begins to act as a tyrant, to destroy justice, to overthrow peace, and to break his faith, the man who has taken the oath is free from it, and the people are entitled to depose the king and to set up another, inasmuch as he has broken the principle upon which their mutual obligation depended."

-- Manegold

Every collectivist revolution rides in on a Trojan horse of "emergency". It was the tactic of Lenin, Hitler, and Mussolini. In the collectivist sweep over a dozen minor countries of Europe, it was the cry of men striving to get on horseback. And "emergency" became the justification of the subsequent steps. This technique of creating emergency is the greatest achievement that demagoguery attains

. — Herbert Hoover.

Any single man must judge for himself whether circumstances warrant obedience or resistance to the commands of the civil magistrate; we are all qualified, entitled, and morally obliged to evaluate the conduct of our rulers. This political judgment, moreover, is not simply or primarily a right, but like self-preservation, a duty to God. As such it is a judgment that men cannot part with according to the God of Nature. It is the first and foremost of our inalienable rights without which we can preserve no other.

– John Locke

If ever a time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin.

– Samuel Adams

Ye darkeners of counsel, who would make the property, lives, and religion of millions depend on the evasive interpretations of musty parchments; who would send us to antiquated charters of uncertain and contradictory meaning, to prove that the present generation are not bound to be victims to cruel and unforgiving despotism,--tell us whether our pious and generous ancestors bequeathed to us the miserable privilege of having the rewards of our honesty, industry, the fruits of those fields which they purchased and bled for, wrested from us at the will of men over whom we have no check. Did they contract for us that, with folded arms, we should expect that justice and mercy from brutal and inflamed invaders which have been denied to our supplications at the foot of the throne? Were we to hear our character as a people ridiculed with indifference? Did they promise for us that our meekness and patience should be insulted, our coasts harassed, our towns demolished and plundered, and our wives and offspring exposed to nakedness, hunger, and death, without our feeling the resentment of men, and exerting those powers of self-preservation which God has given us?

-- Samuel Adams, August 1, 1776

Who among you, my countrymen, that is a father, would take the authority to make your child a slave simply because you had nourished him in his infancy?

It is a strange species of generosity which requires a return infinitely more valuable than anything it could have bestowed; that demands as a reward for the defense of our property a surrender of those inestimable privileges to the arbitrary will of vindictive tyrants, which alone gives value to that very property.

-- Samuel Adams, August 1, 1776

When the spirit of liberty which now animates our hearts and gives success to our arms is extinct, our numbers will accelerate our ruin, and render us easier victims to tyranny. Ye abandoned minions of an infatuated ministry, if peradventure any should yet remain among us! —remember that a Warren and Montgomery are numbered among the dead. Contemplate the mangled bodies of our countrymen, and then say, What should be the reward of such sacrifices? Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship, and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood, and hunt us from the face of the earth? If we 1ove wealth better than liberty, the tranquillity of servitude, than the animating contest of freedom—go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.

-- Samuel Adams, August 1, 1776

Men of passive tempers look somewhat lightly over the offences of Britain, and, still hoping for the best, are apt to call out, "Come, come, we shall be friends again, for all this." But examine the passions and feelings of mankind, Bring the doctrine of reconciliation to the touchstone of nature, and then tell me, whether you can hereafter love, honour, and faithfully serve the power that hath carried fire and sword into your land? If you cannot do all these, then are you only deceiving yourselves, and by your delay bringing ruin upon posterity. Your future connection with Britain, whom you can neither love nor honour, will be forced and unnatural, and being formed only on the plan of present convenience, will in a little time fall into a relapse more wretched than the first. But if you say, you can still pass the violations over, then I ask, Hath your house been burnt? Hath your property been destroyed before your face? Are your wife and children destitute of a bed to lie on, or bread to live on? Have you lost a parent or a child by their hands, and yourself the ruined and wretched survivor? If you have not, then are you not a judge of those who have. But if you have, and still can shake hands with the murderers, then you are unworthy of the name of husband, father, friend, or lover, and whatever may be your rank or title in life, you have the heart of a coward, and the spirit of a sycophant.
This is not inflaming or exaggerating matters, but trying them by those feelings and affections which nature justifies, and without which, we should be incapable of discharging the social duties of life, or enjoying the felicities of it. I mean not to exhibit horror for the purpose of provoking revenge, but to awaken us from fatal and unmanly slumbers, that we may pursue determinately some fixed object. It is not in the power of Britain or of Europe to conquer America, if she do not conquer herself by delay and timidity. The present winter is worth an age if rightly employed, but if lost or neglected, the whole continent will partake of the misfortune; and there is no punishment which that man will not deserve, be he who, or what, or where he will, that may be the means of sacrificing a season so precious and useful.

-- Thomas Paine, Common Sense.
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Unalienable rights, attainder, and law.

How often have you heard from a person, “They did (x) so they have no rights?” Have you really thought about this statement much? Have you said it?

Many people do not know what rights are, or what it means for a right to be inalienable. To explore this, we must look at the term itself. Inalienable and unalienable were used interchangeably by the founding fathers, and the root of the term is a contrary (in or un) and 'alienable', or to make foreign. The term 'alienation' was a specific legal term in property law, following the premise from the 1760s that rights themselves were matters of property. Alienation was a transfer of power over property between parties, as one person would 'alienate' the property from themselves, and the other would fully assume control.

If a man has 'unalienable' rights, and under the law cannot transfer, or have transferred by civil court those rights into the hands of another, what does this mean? Men (used as the term denoting all mankind, i.e. Homo Sapiens and all decendents) have specific rights to live, granted not by government fiat, but by the fact that they are alive. If a man cannot transfer those rights, and others cannot thus legally transfer them, then how can they lose those rights?

We live within a constitutional representative republic based in those rights, not a democracy. The purpose was to limit the power of the government against the people, and the power of the people against each other. It was designed to prevent the needs of the few being outweighed by the needs of the many, or the needs of the many being outweighed by the needs of the few. It did not matter if the tyrants were the majority, or the minority, the government or the people, tyranny was tyranny regardless of the form.

If your rights may be alienated and transferred to the government, who is to say if that government, or the people themselves, may be brought to a point where they deny you your right? Are you going to establish your right to protest the government when you are disarmed, and disabled, in a prison cell without the writ of habeas corpus, or even anyone other than the government knowing you are there?

Are you going to establish your innocence when they have the power to torture, and send you off for torture? Are you going to be remembered for your mewling confession under torture? The right to effective resistance is one of the fundamental rights. Society, itself, has means of dealing with the few who choose to commit crime, and harm others. The whole of society when armed in the cause of liberty can stop any force brought to bear against it. An unarmed society, however, when others who are less willing to abide by law maintain arms, is a society of victims; it is equally capable of being victimized from those outside of that society, as by its own government which believes should protect it.

Rights are for all classes. Attainder was the establishment of new classes by 'taint', that had easy identification, and removal of the rights of that class by edict, punishable by the courts of law without trial. Attainder (attaindere) literally means a taint. Should our government, or the people thereof be able to establish classes with 'less' rights than any other citizen outside of the bounds of the penitentiary or punishment by jury trial... what is to prevent them from other classes, including the class of the whole?

If your unalienable rights are alienated by writ.... so is control over your life, your body, and your beliefs. Think about it.

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Martial law and you.

Friends, I come to you in mourning... Martial law is here, by definition and in truth. I don't know how much longer I will be allowed to write this blog, it does not really matter. There is a great deal more you need to know.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gJd63da5mM0wM8hDw0VkfJjebZbg
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27989275/

Heretofore, this blog has been a set of observations, each proceeding from things I've seen, things I've understood, dug through, and looked through in history.

Let me elucidate: Under martial law, the constitution is suspended, and you have no rights.

It is equally martial law if they do not call it such. It is equally martial law if they simply take your rights away and never tell you... and we are in a state of war. We are slaves to a tyrannical government, a government that was implemented and designed in the interests of a nation being governed by the people, and that government being limited from restricting the rights of others. Our liberties, our freedoms, all of them were founded prior to the government, and extended throughout that period, with the understanding that said government could not, and had no power to infringe upon those rights, those liberties which they guard, and the freedoms and immunities which pre-existed the government itself. The only means by which the government could assume tyrannical power was by its military, which was to be opposed by the militia. The Federalist 26 directly addressed this subject.
http://www.foundingfathers.info/federalistpapers/fed26.htm

"Schemes to subvert the liberties of a great community REQUIRE TIME to mature them for execution. An army, so large as seriously to menace those liberties, could only be formed by progressive augmentations; which would suppose, not merely a temporary combination between the legislature and executive, but a continued conspiracy for a series of time. Is it probable that such a combination would exist at all? Is it probable that it would be persevered in, and transmitted along through all the successive variations in a representative body, which biennial elections would naturally produce in both houses? Is it presumable, that every man, the instant he took his seat in the national Senate or House of Representatives, would commence a traitor to his constituents and to his country? Can it be supposed that there would not be found one man, discerning enough to detect so atrocious a conspiracy, or bold or honest enough to apprise his constituents of their danger? If such presumptions can fairly be made, there ought at once to be an end of all delegated authority. The people should resolve to recall all the powers they have heretofore parted with out of their own hands, and to divide themselves into as many States as there are counties, in order that they may be able to manage their own concerns in person.

If such suppositions could even be reasonably made, still the concealment of the design, for any duration, would be impracticable. It would be announced, by the very circumstance of augmenting the army to so great an extent in time of profound peace. What colorable reason could be assigned, in a country so situated, for such vast augmentations of the military force? It is impossible that the people could be long deceived; and the destruction of the project, and of the projectors, would quickly follow the discovery."

This is, by its very nature, a definition of the right, and the duty, under the Constitution to secede, and/or dissolve the original contract. The rights and immunities under the constitution were not established via the constitution, or the government, they pre-existed the government.

See the Boston Journal of the Times, April 13, 1769

"Instances of the licentious and outrageous behavior of the military conservators of the peace still multiply upon us, some of which are of such nature, and have been carried to such lengths, as must serve fully to evince that a late vote of this town, calling upon its inhabitants to provide themselves with arms for their defense, was a measure as prudent as it was legal: such violences are always to be apprehended from military troops, when quartered in the body of a populous city; but more especially so, when they are led to believe that they are become necessary to awe a spirit of rebellion, injuriously said to be existing therein. It is a natural right which the people have reserved to themselves, confirmed by the Bill of Rights, to keep arms for their own defence; and as Mr. Blackstone observes, it is to be made use of when the sanctions of society and law are found insufficient to restrain the violence of oppression.^"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution#cite_note-20

If, as the government argues, the second amendment was to preserve the militia to the states, how does it excuse the seizure of the National Guard to the Federal Government's control?

The nation has violated the contract which created it, a civil contract bound in tradition, and common law.

At this date, common law falls... and all men are transformed into slaves.

A strong statement? Perhaps. Look, however, at the definition of slavery in the 1956 anti-slavery compact, signed in 1957 by the US government...

http://www2.ohchr.org/english/law/slavetrade.htm#wp1034251


Article 1

Each of the States Parties to this Convention shall take all practicable and necessary legislative and other measures to bring about progressively and as soon as possible the complete abolition or abandonment of the following institutions and practices, where they still exist and whether or not they are covered by the definition of slavery contained in article 1 of the Slavery Convention signed at Geneva on 25 September 1926:

( a ) Debt bondage, that is to say, the status or condition arising from a pledge by a debtor of his personal services or of those of a person under his control as security for a debt, if the value of those services as reasonably assessed is not applied towards the liquidation of the debt or the length and nature of those services are not respectively limited and defined;

( b ) Serfdom, that is to say, the condition or status of a tenant who is by law, custom or agreement bound to live and labour on land belonging to another person and to render some determinate service to such other person, whether for reward or not, and is not free to change his status;

( c ) Any institution or practice whereby:

(i) A woman, without the right to refuse, is promised or given in marriage on payment of a consideration in money or in kind to her parents, guardian, family or any other person or group; or

(ii) The husband of a woman, his family, or his clan, has the right to transfer her to another person for value received or otherwise; or

(iii) A woman on the death of her husband is liable to be inherited by another person;

( d ) Any institution or practice whereby a child or young person under the age of 18 years, is delivered by either or both of his natural parents or by his guardian to another person, whether for reward or not, with a view to the exploitation of the child or young person or of his labour.


Article 7

For the purposes of the present Convention:

( a ) "Slavery" means, as defined in the Slavery Convention of 1926, the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised, and "slave" means a person in such condition or status;

( b ) "A person of servile status" means a person in the condition or status resulting from any of the institutions or practices mentioned in article 1 of this Convention;


Compare this to the federal reserve, a system of debt bondage by which we, as the American Citizens, are placed in a condition of debt bondage, subject to the seizure of our real property, goods, chattel, and person for the failure to pay a debt created not by our own actions, but by the policies of a government that appears inimical to our national and personal wellbeing. Our capital paid in taxes is not applied to the principle, nor the interest of the debt, but used in the creation of further debt. Should we fail to pay the taxes, paid in company scrip, redeemable only with the company itself, we face prison time and loss of all putative assets.

Is this not slavery? Do we not need a passport to leave our country, and to return? Do we not require, by law, the permission of our nation to leave and return, and our return can be barred for any or no reason, as can our leaving.

We can be transported across the seas for prison or trials, without representation.

At this point, within each and every possible measure, we are slaves, and the Federal government is in violation of every possible section of the Declaration of Independence's grievances.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gJd63da5mM0wM8hDw0VkfJjebZbg
And now they move in the troops? Perhaps our nation has forgotten the statements of Patrick Henry:

"Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land. Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation; the last arguments to which kings resort. I ask gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlement assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy, in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us: they can be meant for no other. They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain. Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves. Sir, we have done everything that could be done to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned; we have remonstrated; we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament. Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned, with contempt, from the foot of the throne! In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation.

There is no longer any room for hope. If we wish to be free--if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending--if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained--we must fight! I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms and to the God of hosts is all that is left us! They tell us, sir, that we are weak; unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house? Shall we gather strength but irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs and hugging the delusive phantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot? Sir, we are not weak if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. The millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us. Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged! Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable--and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come.

It is in vain, sir, to extentuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace, Peace--but there is no peace. The war is actually begun! The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!"

We are a nation of patriots, a nation of men and women engaged in the most arduous struggle of all, that struggle for liberty, for freedom from the unjust and impositional government that arbitrarily changes the law, changes the punishments of men, and changes and destroys the rule of law in the mindless seeking of power.

If we mean to be free, if we mean to maintain that freedom for which our forefathers fought and died, we must be true patriots. The war is... already begun, a war created against the citizens of the several states, a war fought on the financial front, on the power of a few men choosing to seize and assert control over a nation by deception and fraud.

We are not taught of our freedoms, nor of the foundations. We are not taught to look at those who are most despised to see how they are treated, nor are we shown, by that, what our government's innermost nature is.

The troops are come, and are training to come to your door, and to remove your means of resistance, and we still sit here idle and prattle on about this and that, as though any of it matters without our freedoms and our rights.

Our rights guard our freedoms... if rights are not equal for all, they exist for none. Any class asserted to be 'less worthy of rights' is easily expanded. Any class of persons deemed to be 'problematic' ultimately leads to an 'ultimate solution'.

If we have learned nothing from the past, should we not at least have learned that it is our most despised people that betoken our own ultimate fate?

But then... we would have to look at ourselves... and realize that we too are slaves, and we strike out at the least liked because they are unprotected, using them as the whipping boy of a government gone mad.

Ask yourselves, gentlemen and ladies, whence the powers they seized came? Ask yourselves what it means to be free... and measure it against a world that would throw you aside in an instant for the seeking of power...

Then ask yourselves what you can do about it. It is laid out in law, in tradition, and in the very arguments used to pass the Constitution, and enforcing the creation of the Bill of Rights.

Then ask yourselves if you can still sit idle, and allow those rights to be torn away from others. it matters not who they are torn from, we are as evil for sitting idly by and doing nothing as for doing the tearing ourselves.

And then look deep into your heart and ask yourself if your comfortable conditions are really comfortable, or just an illusion.

All of your stuff, all of your money, everything... is a sham. It's smoke and mirrors, created by a press and political system.. that intends, and has the power to take it away from you at a whim, and on suspicion, not via due process, not via trial by jury, but on suspicion without any possibility of court action or representation.

Is it so comfortable now?
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The end of the constitution... and nobody blinked.

The nature of habeas corpus was quite clear under the constitution... the Federalist papers were quite clear on the subject.
The federalist 44

Independent of those which relate to the structure of the government, we find the following: Article 1, section 3, clause 7 "Judgment in cases of impeachment shall not extend further than to removal from office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust, or profit under the United States; but the party convicted shall, nevertheless, be liable and subject to indictment, trial, judgment, and punishment according to law." Section 9, of the same article, clause 2 "The privilege of the writ of habeas corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in cases of rebellion or invasion the public safety may require it." Clause 3 "No bill of attainder or ex-post-facto law shall be passed." Clause 7 "No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States; and no person holding any office of profit or trust under them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of any present, emolument, office, or title of any kind whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state." Article 3, section 2, clause 3 "The trial of all crimes, except in cases of impeachment, shall be by jury; and such trial shall be held in the State where the said crimes shall have been committed; but when not committed within any State, the trial shall be at such place or places as the Congress may by law have directed." Section 3, of the same article "Treason against the United States shall consist only in levying war against them, or in adhering to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort. No person shall be convicted of treason, unless on the testimony of two witnesses to the same overt act, or on confession in open court." And clause 3, of the same section "The Congress shall have power to declare the punishment of treason; but no attainder of treason shall work corruption of blood, or forfeiture, except during the life of the person attainted." It may well be a question, whether these are not, upon the whole, of equal importance with any which are to be found in the constitution of this State. The establishment of the writ of habeas corpus, the prohibition of ex-post-facto laws, and of TITLES OF NOBILITY, TO WHICH WE HAVE NO CORRESPONDING PROVISION IN OUR CONSTITUTION, are perhaps greater securities to liberty and republicanism than any it contains. The creation of crimes after the commission of the fact, or, in other words, the subjecting of men to punishment for things which, when they were done, were breaches of no law, and the practice of arbitrary imprisonments, have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny. The observations of the judicious Blackstone,¹ in reference to the latter, are well worthy of recital: "To bereave a man of life, says he, or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore A MORE DANGEROUS ENGINE of arbitrary government." And as a remedy for this fatal evil he is everywhere peculiarly emphatical in his encomiums on the habeas-corpus act, which in one place he calls "the BULWARK of the British Constitution."²





I can say nothing else.
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Freedom, security, and sex offenders and the law

I've been doing a great deal of studing on the registry, and what, in the United States, constitutes civil and criminal law, as well as common law. This document discusses this, in detail.

Our law system is Common Law. It is a system of debates, of finding precedent and law, in all of its imperfections. The cases and precedents date back nearly to the 11th century that we know of, and possibly before. The system evolved, several times going to various swings of conservatism and liberalism, sometimes even going so far as to become oppresive, then brought back to heel by the populace.

During the reign of King John, a number of the lords of the land banded together, and forced him to sign the Magna Carta, a great charter that was designed to limit the powers of the King over people nominally his vassals. it established rules and laws, the ability of freemen to keep arms, and bear them in defense of the king and their land, and lords. It further created a nullification of the 'kings right', the right to enter any property and seize any person and property that they wished.

The trial by jury was tested in 1544, by the trial of Throckmorton for treason and Sedition. The jury was severely punished for freeing him against the legal counsel of the Judge. In 1649, the Lilburne trial was held, under the Cromwell Regeime, for a similar issue, and was the first to argue for juristic nullification of the law.

Later, in Bushnell's Case, the right to jury nullification was upheld again, creating a legal precedent in 1670, that lasted until 1990 in the US.

Currently, the statement of a juror regarding nullification is grounds for removal from the jury, as it is in voir dire, and instruction by the defense, or judge, is considered to be grounds for a mistrial.

Our nation is one of common law. It is, and has thus been, since its inception. Cases were judged, not by the law, but by precedent. Those who were on the prosecution, and those on the defense searched the books of precedent, in order to find the most applicable defenses and crimes, respectively. Common law was based in the rights of the people, the right of the accused to be innocent until proven guilty, and the right of the person to the best possible defense, as well as to appeal.

The reason I raise these points of history is to contrast several things. Civil law has two current definitions which are inextricably linked within the U.S. system. Civil law is the codified laws, the regulations, and structures that provide recourse for parties in a contract, including marriage, incorporation, lawsuits, and other 'private' proceedings. It is a system of agreements between persons, or entities declared as persons for the purpose of the law.

Specifically, civil law is considered 'adversarial' law. It is considered to be law that is inquisitorial, mostly because the rights of the people were ignored, one could testify against oneself, and be compelled to do so, as well as being forced into testimony that could be harmful to one's own case. Further, once the initial claim was passed with merit, the defending party had to prove their own innocence.

There were a few limitations, however. According to tradition and law, civil trials, and civil laws, could not provide punishment in the form of jail time. Civil laws could not even provide for a minute in restraint.

This is where civil and criminal laws differ. Criminal laws deal in punishment. They deal in terms of restraint and imprisonment, and this is the very definition of a criminal law. Criminal laws further are dealt with, at least in theory, from the standpoint of innocence until proven guilty. The burden of proof is on the state or local enforcement agencies, rather than on the person, save in cases of defense by insanity.

In short, any law with a criminal punishment, a punishment for detention, attached, cannot be a civil law or a civil regulation.

The problem before the courts in Smith Vs Doe, 538 US 84 (2003) was a question, not on the legality of the law itself, but on the legality of the release of information. The release of information, by itself, was not a criminal code, as the release itself provided no punishment per se. However, if the law had been applied to the registry, rather than the release of information, I believe it could not have been found as a civil matter. The focus of the case, however, was on the release of information, rather than the registry itself.

In the Connecticut Dept of Public Safety vs Doe, 538 US 1 2003, the procedural due process grounds were nullified. This leaves the substantiative due process grounds, and a test of the Ex Post Facto, rather than on the release, on the inclusion onto the registry. This, I believe, is due to faulty wording on the nature of the substance of the Ex Post Facto claim.

Further, given the following information, historically, I would argue the point that the founding fathers did not intend Ex Post Facto to be attributed to civil laws.

At the time of the founding of the Constitution, civil laws were not in place in the United States. It was not until 1804 that any civil codes were passed. Civil law was designed under common law as a way to mediate the agreements between two private parties. Hence, the judges drew upon their common law knowledge (and common sense) to adjudicate a case where the agreement was in question, or the nature of the penalty of the agreement was. (financial penalties or torts, divorce cases, etc).

The reason the founding fathers did not discuss ex post facto in civil matters during the constitutional arguments was that it could not occur. Who would agree to the creation of a contract where they could be fined for things that occurred before the contract was created? And if they did, was it not their own fault for not reading it more closely?

Ironically, our nation since 1808 has suffered a major shift; we utilize civil law synonymously with Roman Law. Roman law was codified law, adversarial and inquisitorial, and did not include self-protection. Roman law also merged both the civil and the criminal codes.

Roman law is also known as Napoleonic law. Napoleonic law was an outgrowth of the Roman Law, as was a great deal of the law in Europe. The purpose of roman law was threefold; maintaining order, managing the people, and keeping the power in the hands of the Emperor and Senate.

Since 1808, we have had many laws placed on the books. Thousands upon thousands of them in fact, to the point where no man can know all of them, and even the computers have difficulty searching through them to find a meaningful result. Our laws grow more and more powerful, and become more and more punitive, even under the veil of 'civil' law.

But it cannot be 'civil' law, if it provides a punishment, can it?

Only if you mutate 'roman law' into 'Civil law'.

In our nation today, we become more and more interested in keeping control. How better to do this, though, than to legislate everything? We legislate eating, legislate drinking, legislate health and sickness, legislate how we can pay one another, legislate our taxes, legislate our lives.

And the more legislation there is, the more outlawry there is, not because people's behavior changes at first, but there is more to get into trouble for. The more laws we pass, the higher the crime, and eventually, people's behavior changes.

People are strange animals. We apply reason until we are hurt. We often, when hurt, cannot apply reason to prevent another hurt. We live in fear, in injustice, afraid to reach out and change it, but cannot get past the fear enough to realize that we can change it.

Emotions betray reason. They both bring us together, and break us apart. Wisdom falls before lust, falls before anger, falls before fear... but how can we control what we are? Because of reason...

There is no reason, however, to laws designed under the Roman statute. They are black and white, all or nothing, and the punishments as well are all or nothing. mandatory minima, no exceptions. They are systems of punishments designed to keep people in fear and under control, after all, if there is enough law, one can be tried for things that are ephimeral. With ex post facto, one can be tried for crimes that occurred before the law was passed.

Imagine an intersection. You cross it every day.. then someone places a stop sign there, and makes the stop sign retroactive for the past ten years. All the sudden you're guilty of fines for all the time the stop sign 'was there' legally. It is a civl law. it is ex post facto. is it right? No... no it is not. And this is why ex post facto is just as inapplicable under civil law as criminal.

One must agree to civil law, or it is not civil. Are we agreeing to the registry? Aye, we are.. but it is not civil law. It is enforced upon us by extortion, held against us by force, if we do not comply, we go to prison, often for longer than our original sentences. If we do not comply again... in some states we can go away for life.

is this reason? Is a man convicted fourty years ago still a danger? Perhaps... but only in the sense we are all a danger. We are all 'potential predators'. Every man, every woman, every child in the US is a 'potential predator'. Do you still insist on registering the potential problems?

That's the problem with potentials, with perceptions. The problem with definitions is that they change, and understanding them later can be difficult. This is why the constitution and common law worked the way it did. It applied concrete laws in ways that were flexible according to the case.

Mandatory minimum sentences subvert this process. They create a rule by writ of law, that cannot be considered beyond by the judge or jury on the prospective case. They have no oversight, they are a law unto themselves. In any situation where they say 'that is the law, I have no choice', you can bet that the Roman Law, the Napoleonic law, is behind it.

Is this really who we are? The Code Napoleon was used in Russia.. in fascist germany, in France, in Spain. It was embraced with joy by the Bolsheviks, carried by the Fascists in Italy.

It is a tool of subjugation, and war against the very people who give the power to the government.

Yes... People give the power to the government. The citizens cede those powers to the government. The government does not give rights, it can only take them. The people are, in truth, the ultimate arbiters of their rights and privileges. If a right has been given up, it is only by the acquiescence of the people.

We forget who we are, why we are here. It does not matter how few people there are in a group, or if it is even an individual. If it can be done to anyone, it can be done to all. The attack on a single person against their rights is an attack on all rights, converting them into privileges, which will be removed.

This is why we are not a democracy... we are a democratic republic. In a democracy, the only rights one has are those that others vote to give you. They can also, in a true democracy, vote someone out of a vote, and ultimately, only a few control the democracy, until one or more of them die and one takes full control.

Equal protection under the law is not just for those you like... when it fails in any case, and you allow it to fail.. you have slain your own rights on the altar of security. I keep repeating this point.. hoping it will sink in to those who read it.

Benjamin Franklin: Those who trade freedom for security deserve neither and will lose both.


Thomas Paine said it eloquently. in his 'Common Sense' of 1776.

"Some writers have so confounded society with government, as to leave little or no distinction between them; whereas they are not only different, but have different origins. Society is produced by our wants, and government by our wickedness; the former promotes our happiness positively by uniting our affections, the latter negatively by restraining our vices. The one encourages intercourse, the other creates distinctions. The first is a patron, the last a punisher."
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Trial by Travesty

I've researched, and been disturbed by something about which I dare not write... but I cannot remain, even so silent.

The writing of this passage may place me in danger, but again, silence would render me derelict in the duty to the Constitution, and to the people of the United States.

When one cannot speak for a group, cannot speak in their defense without being charged with the same kinds of crimes for which they are accused, then it is ever more vital to speak. To do otherwise would be to encourage both tyranny, and totalitarianism.

I've been watching with concern a number of laws passed by congress, and I propose a new test... a test of reasonableness, and of legality which is, prima facie, a test of what constitutes a civil right, of reasonableness and conscience.

The Wetterling Act provided for a central database of 'sex offenders' and created a system of access that allowed law enforcement to provide possible suspects for sex crimes. It was limited to only the courts, and only the police. This, I feel, was an utterly valid act, insofar as it only affected those whom were adjudicated after the passage of the law.

However, of late, myriad amendments, modifications, and adjustments of the law have passed, creating ever more draconian measures. Upon the opening of the registry (under 'Megan's Law') there have been increasing reports of both abuse, and vigilante 'justice' meted out by individuals. After the 'Adam Walsh Child Safety Act' the restriction on offenders, and the supervision was further increased, at their own expense, without the adjudication process, or a jury trial.

The latest attack comes on the internet. Though earlier references to the internet existed, the latest 'KIDS' act instantiates a ruling that, by nature of the act, substantially limits, and depending on interpretation, completely removes the rights of those judged as 'Sex Offenders' on the registry to be on the internet.

How is this bad, one might ask? It makes our children safer! Does it? Does it really provide any vestige of security?

Ask yourselves this: How common are these crimes, and how are they judged? The truth is, any question about sex, sexuality, or discussion of pregnancy or virginity is, by definition, a sex crime on the internet. Any discussion of responsible activity, the dangers of date rape, questions or surveys about masturbatory habits, and even this particular document, by fiat, are defined as a sex offense, simply because, if a child reads this article, it deals with sex.

Is this wisdom? Is it just or good?

Yes, some sex offenders engage children on the internet by deception. The same proportion equally have the criminal thinking allowing them to attack children, or adults, without regard to the internet. The criminality of the thinking does not change with the internet of without it.

However, in America, we cannot attack someone for what they 'might' do. Without regard for those esteemed congressmen who claim that we 'should' there is no constitutional power to do so, at the county, state, or federal level.

The only way rights can be removed, the only way restrictions can be placed, and the only way attainder can be processed is via the court of law, and trial by jury, including the doctrine of jury nullification that is, since the 13th century, the right by which the jury tries the very 'legality' of the law itself.

In our country, however, since 1990, and the O.J. Simpson case, we have abandoned this doctrine, and the courts are prohibited from speaking on it. The right still exists, but the defense cannot speak of it, nor can the prosecution or the judge, due to sanctions.

Is this a wise, or just course? Is it consistent with the jurisprudence to create a system by which a person is guilty, until they can prove themselves innocent beyond the shadow of a doubt.... and the shadow of a doubt bar is raised high enough that they can never again become innocent?

Were this any other class of persons, shoplifters, persons guilty of assault, identity thieves, persons guilty of banking fraud, or those guilty of gross and deliberate malfeasance of office, would we react the same?

The pertinent sections of the KIDS act (S 431) are as follows:

• 
  

SEC. 2. REGISTRATION OF ONLINE IDENTIFIERS OF SEX OFFENDERS.

(a) In General- Section 114(a) of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification ACT(42 U.S.C. 16914(a)) is amended--

(1) by redesignating paragraphs (4) through (7) as paragraphs (5) through (8); and

(2) by inserting after paragraph (3) the following:

`(4) Any electronic mail address or other designation the sex offender uses or will use for self-identification or routing in Internet communication or posting.'.

(b) Updating of Information- Section 113(c) of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (42 U.S.C. 16913(c)) is amended by adding at the end the following: `The Attorney General shall have the authority to specify the time and manner for reporting of other changes in registration information, including any addition or change of an electronic mail address or other designation used for self-identification or routing in Internet communication or posting.'.

(c) Failure To Register Online Identifiers- Section 2250 of title 18, United States Code, is amended--

(1) in subsection (b), by inserting `or (d)' after `subsection (a)'; and

(2) by adding at the end the following:

`(d) Knowing Failure To Register Online Identifiers- Whoever--

`(1) is required to register under the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act
(42 U.S.C. 16901 et seq.); and

`(2) uses an email address or any other designation used for self-identification or routing in Internet communication or posting which the individual knowingly failed to provide for inclusion in a sex offender registry as required under that Act;

shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.'.

So.... if you are guilty of a misdomeanor sex offense (public urination, exposure 'mooning') due to Adam Walsh, you're on the registry. You may have recieved a one month sentence (or no sentence, but a warning 'not to do it again') but failure to register all online identifiers or routing identifiers is a felony punishable by ten years in prison?

Is this just? Is it reasonable for the purposes for which it is enacted? Will it be effective? Are there any less restrictive measures that could be emplaced?

The term 'other designation for routing' includes the following, off the top of my head that I know of: Anonymous UDP packet headers, DHCP discovery packets, IP addresses (often dynamic, and no notification when they change), email and email server routing systems (which are not under the user's control). MAC addresses (changes on every machine and router)

There is a further requirement to register chat names, defining a 'social networking site' as the following.

SEC. 4. DEFINITIONS.

Section 111 of the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act (42 U.S.C. 16911) is amended by adding at the end the following:

`(15) The term `social networking website' means an Internet website that--

`(A) allows users, through the creation of web pages or profiles or by other means, to provide information about themselves that is available publicly or to other users; and

`(B) offers a mechanism for communication with other users.

End quote.

This defines any system (internet telephony, vocal communications, visual or optical communcations (including assistance devices for the deaf) political commentary sites, morse code via the internet, php scripts, bulletin boards, and any other potential communication systems, including games.

In effect, and in process, by writ, it removes the right to legal use of the internet by persons not convicted of any further crimes.

Let us extend this ruling to its logical ends! Since it is illegal to do any of this on the internet without registration, let us say that there is a greater danger in person. Therefore, no sex offender can go into any place without marking themselves with a tattoo, brand, or distinctive clothing, nor can they speak without first identifying themselves as a sex offender, nor can they write any publication for any newspaper without registering the article, nor can they speak in any assembly. They cannot attend churches, as they are a social networking site, and children may be present.

In effect, the law claims a clear and present danger for which these persons must be regulated, without regard for what their current actions are, and without regard for law, or due process. It creates a system of attainder with no judicial review, by which any new law can alter the original, and create a system of ever-changing laws, which must by complied with, without regard to what the prior amendments were.

In effect, it is a punishment, not for the crimes which the person has committed (For which the onus ended when the sentence did) but a punishment for the crimes which they may possibly commit in the future.

The actual recidivism rate (from the US DOJ, and the Arizona Department of Corrections) for sex offenses in specific is actually lower than for any other crime. The statistics say that sex offenders are more likely to recommit for a sex offense per capita than any other offender is... but still, and even so, other offenders account for over 92% of all new cases of sex offenses.

The specialization level of the small percentage (between 6 and 12%, depending on the population) is extreme. However, does this excuse the attainder of the rest of the population? Does it excuse marking them with a taint as deserving the punishment?

H.R. 4472 was emplaced, in the words of one of those discussing it (I can't call it a debate, as there was no room for amendment under the suspension of the rules) was, in the house:

From the Esteemed Congresswoman:
Quote:

Ms. GINNY BROWN-WAITE of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of the bill that we have before us, the Children's Safety and Violent Crime Reduction Act.

February 23 marked the 1-year anniversary of Jessica Lunsford's death. I knew the family; I knew the grandmother. If Jessica were still with us, she would have been in the fifth grade. She would be learning about decimals and fractions and the solar system. Instead, her life was taken by a sex offender who assaulted and murdered her, and then buried her in his backyard. Tat is what this bill is all about, going after those, as someone once described, pond-scum predators.

End Quote.

The bill was described as legal in its ex-postfacto obligations because it served a regulatory purpose as well as not having any 'punitive intent'.

How is the above not a statement of punitive intent? How is a bill not punitive, when by any measure of the definition of punishment, it clearly creates legal obligations, subjects those obligations to criminal sanctions, requires the payment of fines and fees in regards to those sanctions, opens the person to both abuse and vigilante 'justice', and prevents in any way, form, or measure their self protection, in a time when the Supreme Court has judged that they have no individual right to police protection, and by the legislation, in many cases, have had their civil rights removed already, including the right to vote and the right to keep and bear arms?

If such a legislation is not constitutional in any other case of offender, how is it constitutional in this case?

What makes an act punitive? Is it the intent of the act, or the way the act is used? I would argue that it is both, either, and more.

If such an act, placed up against any other class of persons, with the same penalties in a 'civil' action, can be viewed as punishment... then it is punishment.

If the act would be considered unjustified and cruel applied to congressmen, persons guilty of domestic assault, judges, murderers, city workers, bad check writers, adult kidnappers... how is it somehow not punitive here?

I concur, that the measure with congressmen, judges, city workers, is not the same measure as the others, nor are teachers, counters of the vote, or any other purpose.. but if the law would be considered punitive applied to them, the same standard applies.

In truth, though, I feel that, in spite of the prohibition in the Constitution of the U.S, under Article 1, section 9 against ex post facto laws and bills of attainder being only discussed in criminal cases, it is just as applicable in civil cases which can be no less punitive or wrong.

The attacked rights fall within the freedom of assembly, regardless of the venue. They are no less constitutional for being in a forum.

This is not to say that one cannot be prosecuted for acts done in such a forum. Slander, libel, and the like, are no less valid in an online forum than a real forum.

However, you cannot punish all for the acts of a few.
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