cannabisnews.com: Beware Idiots, Madmen, and Lunatics Beware Idiots, Madmen, and Lunatics Posted by CN Staff on March 23, 2004 at 11:37:58 PT By Harry Goslin Source: LewRockwell.com As any thinking American knows, nothing has done more to destroy Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures than the War on Drugs. Among feeble minds, so long as dope-smoking maggots and crack-snorting dirtbags get their doors kicked in by the authorities, our country will be safer, stronger, and more moral. When the evil elements among us are swept away, the land will surely bathe in the sunshine of righteousness. As the story goes, if you live a good clean life, obey the law, pay your taxes, and don’t say, write, or read too many bad things about the government, you should have no need to fear that your liberties will be violated. Refusing police requests to search your person or property, running from authorities – or through airports, withdrawing or depositing large amounts of money, purchasing or borrowing "subversive" books, nowadays suggests evil intentions. Bad individuals must be made to yield so that the many can be safer, more secure, and lest we forget, more free. Despite these fantasies, violations of the Fourth Amendment to eradicate drugs and fight terrorism attack all Americans. To think that life, liberty, and property are secure because an individual chooses to refrain from such activities is insane. The history of the twentieth century, from Prohibition to the War on Drugs, from World War I to the War on Terrorism, proves that law has been nothing more than a license for government to commit murder and theft in the name of security and safety. "Good" citizenship will never hold up as a defense against government thugs intent on imprisoning, killing, or taking property, all in the name of enforcing "the law." The Founders gave us the Fourth Amendment so our government couldn’t do to us what their government did to them; namely, kick in doors in the middle of the night to search for "smuggled" goods (untaxed), weapons, and other items deemed by authorities to undermine good governance and encourage social disorder. Our government would need much more than a hunch or the hallucinations of a drunken officer to act.The Fourth Amendment protects the "right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures." These protections "shall not be violated . . . but upon probable cause." Warrants, the "permission slip" to conduct searches and seizures, cannot proceed if probable cause is not demonstrated. Exactly what is to be searched, who and what is to be seized, must be specified on the warrant. The probable cause provision should protect us from the same fate as the Founders. Alas, "probable cause" has been muddled by the courts and the legal profession in order to create a monopoly of interpretation so that government almost always prevails against the individual. Find the "right" judge to sign off on a warrant and the police can go just about anywhere and do anything if there are drugs, guns, or suspected terrorists involved. When the Fourth Amendment was added to the Constitution, probable cause was not a legal principle and police forces as we know them did not even exist. Probable cause simply put in place a much higher standard before the government could move against the individual and his property. The police did not mingle about communities like they do now looking for criminals and other evil-doers. The "eyes of the state" were not as prevalent among the people to "find" probable cause so that a judge could issue a warrant to search and seize property and individuals. On the occasion when a judge determines that probable cause was not properly demonstrated, therefore invalidating the claims of the government against the individual, the government can usually count on "law and order" judges in the appellate courts to correct such "misinterpretations" of the law. "Good" American bobble-heads nod with approval as their government protects them from the "bad" guys. It was truly a stroke of genius when the authors of the Fourth Amendment used the word "effects," including it among the list of items to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures. Clearly delineated like "persons, houses, and papers," it also conveys universal application to anything any person can own now or in the future. To deny this is either an admission of idiocy or an indication of despotic tendencies. "Effects" are defined as "property," including "moveable goods." What once applied to saddlebags, now applies to cars and computer hard drives. All are property, moveable goods, and hence, "effects" protected by the Fourth Amendment. Unfortunately, as the "living, breathing Constitution" crackpots preach, we cannot be bound by an archaic document written for a simple agrarian republic. We must allow the Constitution to be revised through interpretation to promote the growth of our increasingly complex, technologically-advanced society. More importantly, we cannot universally respect protections guaranteed to individuals when some individuals might attack our freedom and our way of life. For proper guidance and leadership, we must rely on the proactive forces of local, state, and federal governments, and their senior-citizen facilitators in black robes, to protect us from developing threats made more likely because of the naïveté of the Founders. "Good" citizens fall in line, believing what their masters tell them: don’t engage in "bad" behavior and your life, liberty, and property will be secure.Perhaps more Americans should read The Law by Frédéric Bastiat. Anyone professing to believe in real freedom, not the abridged and regulated freedom government claims is necessary in a complex and dangerous world, should read Bastiat. As Walter E. Williams says in the introduction, "Bastiat’s greatest contribution is that he took the discourse out of the ivory tower and made ideas on liberty so clear that even the unlettered can understand them." Bastiat argues that "the common force," the law, cannot lawfully do what individuals are prohibited from doing; namely, "destroy the person, liberty, or property of individuals or groups." To use the law for such purposes is a "perversion." According to Bastiat, perverted law is legitimized because many believe, "that things are ‘just’ because law makes them so . . . it is only necessary for the law to decree and sanction it." As a result, "under the pretense of organization, regulation, protection, or encouragement, the law takes property from one person and gives it another."Fourth Amendment violations in the name of fighting drugs and terrorism takes the property, liberty, dignity, personal responsibility, and entrepreneurial spirit of all Americans. Contrary to what the self-righteous law-and-order crowd would have us believe, freedom is never defended when individual liberties are curtailed; not even when only maggots and dirtbags are made to feel the wrath of the law.Pretending that an abuse of liberties is legal so long as it’s directed at "bad" people is a recipe for disaster and only leads to the complete destruction of all liberties. As Tim Freeman said, "When they took the fourth amendment, I was silent because I don’t deal drugs. When they took the sixth amendment, I kept quiet because I know I’m innocent. When they took the second amendment, I said nothing because I don’t own a gun. Now they’ve come for the first amendment and I can’t say anything at all." In John Adams’ summary of James Otis’s attack on the Writs of Assistance – the reason why we have Fourth Amendment protections, Adams said Otis "asserted" that the right to life, liberty, and property, "were inherent and inalienable, that they could never be surrendered or alienated, but by idiots or madmen, and all the acts of idiots and lunatics were void, and not obligatory, by all the laws of God and man." Beware. We are awash in idiots, madmen, and lunatics.Harry Goslin lives in the Arizona high country.Newshawk: Paul Armentano - http://www.norml.org/Source: LewRockwell.comAuthor: Harry GoslinPublished: March 22, 2004Copyright: 2004 LewRockwell.comContact: lew lewrockwell.com Website: http://www.lewrockwell.com/CannabisNews Justice Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/justice.shtml Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help Comment #13 posted by BigDawg on March 24, 2004 at 09:44:48 PT A living constitution My understanding is that most of our founding fathers considered the constitution to be a living and ever changing thing. However, the idea of changing it to reduce/inhibit personal freedoms would make them turn in their graves. The idea was that it could be ammended to reduce GOVERNMENT powers... not reduce individual liberties. [ Post Comment ] Comment #12 posted by Max Flowers on March 24, 2004 at 08:40:39 PT Virgil That's exactly right... to even suggest that the Constitution ever needs amending in any way other than to expand the people's rights is a grave insult to the founders and their genius that everyone is always so quick to recognize. They can't have it both ways---either the genius represented in those documents stands as guiding principles, not to be mucked with or edited, or we don't have a Constitution at all and the whole game is over and it's not the country we thought we had. What's it going to be?And by the way, the very idea that the men who are assaulting, ignoring and disrespecting our Constitution are qualified or deserve to create a "Constitution" for Iraq after we invaded and occupied their sovereign country is the pinnacle of hypocrisy and hubris! Who do these people think they are?!? [ Post Comment ] Comment #11 posted by Richard Paul Zuckerm on March 24, 2004 at 08:00:19 PT: ONE MORE NOTE ON REFUSAL TO PRODUCE I.D. Please visit www.hiibel.com, concerning the recent U.S. Supreme Court oral argument on whether we are required to produce identification to demanding police? According to the Web site, a decision by The Court is due around July 2004. [ Post Comment ] Comment #10 posted by Richard Paul Zuckerm on March 24, 2004 at 07:35:08 PT: WHETHER WE ARE REQUIRED TO PRODUCE I.D.. On or around Monday, March 22, 2004, the United States Supreme Court held oral argument to decide the single issue of whether we are required to produce identification, Larry Hiibel v. Sixth Judicial District Court of Nevada, www.supremecourtus.gov, type "Hiibel" into the search option in the upper right hand corner of the Web page, then click the "search." It was in an extensive article in The New York Times newspaper, on Tuesday, March 23, 2004, on page A16, written by Linda Greenhouse. A HOLDING BY THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT REQUIRING US TO PRODUCE IDENTIFICATION [AS A PEDESTRIAN, NOT WHILE DRIVING A MOTOR VEHICLE] WOULD FACILITATE THE NEW WORLD ORDER. This United States Supreme Court case may very well impact my own case, concerning the Highland Park Public Library, (Telephone number)(732) 572-2750, "policy" of a 3 minute time limit on the public pay telephone, even when nobody is waiting to use the same phone, concomitant arrest by 3 Highland Park policemen for refusal to produce identification, and A COMPLETELY FABRICATED "DISORDERLY CONDUCT" charge, entitled Richard Paul Zuckerman, Plaintiff vs. Borough of Highland Park, et al., Defendants, Docket Number MID-L-3743-00, pending with The Honorable Nicholas J. Stroumtsos, Jr., Middlesex County Court House, 1 J.F.K. Plaza, Box 964, New Brunswick, N.J., 08903-0964, (Secretary's telephone number)(732) 981-3081, (Law Clerk's telephone number)(732) 981-3074. Although I was only convicted on the "disorderly conduct" charge, a municipal court conviction is INADMISSIBLE in any civil action, according to Trisuzzi v. Tabatchnik, 285 N.J.Super. 15, 25, 666 A.2d 543 (App. Div. 199 ). A couple of weeks ago, Judge Stroumtsos ordered the attorney representing the police defendants to produce the police personnel files and police department rules and regulations, for an in camera inspection, and for us to brief the discovery issue again. About a month ago, Judge Stroumtsos granted my motion to amend the state constitutional tort complaint to assert FRAUD against these cops. [ Post Comment ] Comment #9 posted by Virgil on March 24, 2004 at 05:55:11 PT On anger and the living Constitution hoax This is a very serious and meaningful article. This is the hammer hitting the nail slam on the head and we should ask ourselves why such material does not come from conglomerate media. This is the first article that mentions the concept of a living Constitution that is modified by laws of Congress as they walk all over the limitations of the federal government outlined in the Constitution. The living Constitution hoax is pure bullshit as any law Congress passes reflects a modernization to an archaic document. Such thinking means that when a president/resident swears to defend the Constitution upon taking office they are in fact admitting they are liars when they take such a pledge as the limits of federal power have long been ignored in the class warfare that has handed the largest budget and military over to plutocratic rule with a hedgemony that would not be possible with a functioning Constitution.The media are making a laughing stock of themselves as people educate themselves through the Internet. People that talk sense can report with blogs and their own website and gain amplification through the promotion of good work.Plaid Adder writes for his/her own website that has gained recognition through articles accepted by DU for their frontpage. She? wrote an excellent piece on Richard Clarke with an excellent side commentary on the media and anger. As the Clarke revelations are extremely important for the American citizens in pursuit of reality, this link is a primer on the 60-minutes interview- http://www.democraticunderground.com/plaidder/04/16.htmlThe article is titled "Anger Management" and contained this paragraph that would have relevance to the cannabis informed.Anger is not necessarily born out of hatred, selfishness, and aggression. It is also born out of our better natures - out of love and compassion for those who are being hurt, out of despair and grief in the face of suffering that is unjust and unnecessary, or in Clarke's case out of a sincere commitment to the country he believes his superiors have betrayed. Anger does not have to be brought into the world as blood and poison. It generates light as well as heat; it can be a beacon instead of a blowtorch. [ Post Comment ] Comment #8 posted by FoM on March 23, 2004 at 20:39:17 PT MPP Announced New Initiative for Arkansas What is the Arkansas Alliance? The Arkansas Alliance for Medical Marijuana (AAMM) is a grassroots organization devoted to passing a medical marijuana initiative in Arkansas in November 2004. Currently, seriously ill individuals who use marijuana for medical purposes face the same penalties as those who use marijuana recreationally. AAMM wants to protect these vulnerable members of our community who cannot find effective treatment elsewhere. The 2004 initiative would create a law protecting medical marijuana patients -- and their doctors and primary caregivers -- from arrest and prosecution. AAMM will be working to collect 64,465 signatures by July 2 and then will be educating voters about medical marijuana. Americans Support Compassion A recent poll found that 58 percent of Arkansas residents support allowing seriously ill patients to use marijuana if recomended by a doctor. Welcome! On November 2, 2004, Arkansans will have a chance to pass an initiative that would protect medical marijuana patients from arrest and prosecution. This initiative, being run by the Arkansas Alliance for Medical Marijuana, will be primarily focused on collecting enough signatures to put on the ballot. Once the initiative is on the ballot, we will be speaking to the media, and talking to voters about the importance of medical marijuana to countless seriously ill individuals across the state. Please check back frequently for updates on the campaign's progress. Arkansas Alliance [ Post Comment ] Comment #7 posted by FoM on March 23, 2004 at 20:09:57 PT 48 Hours: JFK, Jr.: Son Of Camelot I just saw 48 Hours and I didn't know this before seeing the show but I was really surprised. Here is the portion that surprised me and the link to the complete article.***John's mother also encouraged her son's adventurous side in a way that seemed almost risky. "I was sitting at my desk one evening and I get a phone call and the person says, 'Hello, this is Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis,'" recalls John Perry Barlow, a former lyricist for the Grateful Dead. Barlow runs a cattle ranch in Wyoming, and Jackie wanted her son, then 17, to spend a summer on the ranch. "We had an immediate bond," says Barlow. "She wanted her son to grow up to be a man," says Leamer. "Let him take chances. Let him learn and grow. Most mothers wouldn't have done that." http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/03/18/48hours/main607227.shtml GD Radio [ Post Comment ] Comment #6 posted by bongathon on March 23, 2004 at 18:45:30 PT marc emery busted...again check out pot-tv.com today. marc emery got busted again. it was last night, he wasn't even smoking in front of a police station. they got him on possession. tomorrow is his arraignment. peace and pot. marilize legajuana [ Post Comment ] Comment #5 posted by FoM on March 23, 2004 at 18:33:55 PT mayan Yes they did win. Back when 9-11 happened in one of the early tapes from bin Laden he said that no more has to be done by him or them because our leaders will do the rest. From Leave The Driving:And we'll be watching youIn everything you doAnd you can do your partby watching others too [ Post Comment ] Comment #4 posted by mayan on March 23, 2004 at 18:26:53 PT The Terrorists Won The "war on terror" is over. The terrorists won. They tricked our leaders into stealing all of our freedoms. Good article!The way out is the way in...Breakthrough video for 9/11 Truth on C-SPAN! http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0403/S00265.htm"The White House Has Played Cover-Up" - Former 9/11 Commission Member Max Cleland Blasts Bush: http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=04/03/23/1546256Groups call for resignation of 9/11 commission director: http://www.govexec.com/dailyfed/0304/032204c1.htmCitizen Group To Run 9/11 Cover-up Ads in Washington, DC: http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0403/S00250.htmBush's 9/11 myths endanger U.S. http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/ny-vpcoc233719621mar23,0,6669659.column?coll=ny-viewpoints-headlinesTHE COMPLETE 9/11 TIMELINE "Carefully considered, well crafted and very compelling." -- Toronto Star: http://www.911citizenswatch.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=142&mode=thread&order=0&thold=09/11 International Inquiry - San Francisco, March 26-28th: http://www.deceptiondollar.com/Inquiry911.htm [ Post Comment ] Comment #3 posted by agog on March 23, 2004 at 17:53:16 PT: The Tim Freeman Quote Hi Mammawillie,I don't know who Tim Freeman is, but I believe his quote to be based on another longer statement made some 58 years ago, I offer it to you here:I Didn't Speak Up "In Germany they [the Nazis] came first for the Communists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak up because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn't speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me, and by that time no one was left to speak up." -- Pastor Martin Niemoeller, 1946On separate note I watched the news conference about the San Diego DEA bust...... WOW!!! talk about lies, BS and obfuscation!!! Genetically engineered, 20 times more potent, there is no such thing as medical MJ usage..... Quick pass the medicine so I don't puke at the news! The ignorance they spew... selective breeding for desirable traits, stability in seed stock is used with all plants... be it tomatoes from your local CASA DePOT, or the best of the bunch from the bottom of the baggie.No wonder I'm still....Agog [ Post Comment ] Comment #2 posted by mamawillie on March 23, 2004 at 15:38:27 PT Awesome quote ****Tim Freeman said, "When they took the fourth amendment, I was silent because I don’t deal drugs. When they took the sixth amendment, I kept quiet because I know I’m innocent. When they took the second amendment, I said nothing because I don’t own a gun. Now they’ve come for the first amendment and I can’t say anything at all."*****Who is Tim Freeman? That's a great quote. [ Post Comment ] Comment #1 posted by cloud7 on March 23, 2004 at 13:28:29 PT Great site! Glad to see an article from LewRockwell.com, this is another of my favorite sites! [ Post Comment ] Post Comment