Shall We Talk About "Big Gummint"?

It's useful to re-read the Declaration of Independence every few weeks, particularly this excerpt:

"...all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security..."

(Some argue that the original premise--that all powers come FROM 'the people' --is erroneous.  For the time being, we can let that rest.)

Anyhoo....

 ”The government,” wrote 50-year-old Denise Simon, “is too big to fight.” With those words, in a note to her 17-year-old son, Adam, she explained why she was committing suicide (via carbon monoxide) three days after 10 visibly armed IRS agents in bulletproof vests had stormed her home on Nov. 6, 2007, in search of evidence of tax evasion. Her 10-year-old daughter, Rachel, was there with Simon when the agents stormed in.

“I cannot live in terror of being accused of things I did not do,” she wrote to Adam. To the rest of the world, in a separate suicide note, she wrote: “I am currently a danger to my children. I am bringing armed officers into their home. I am compelled to distance myself from them for their safety.”

Thus begins a short but powerful essay.

...Denise Simon’s tragic fate is one of a growing number of horror stories of bureaucrats, enforcing regulations of nonviolent conduct the perpetrator may not have even suspected was illegal, brandishing weapons they arguably don’t need. These two problems - overcriminalization of essentially harmless conduct and overarming of agents in nondangerous circumstances - combine to create a federal government that can be terribly frightening....

Lest you think that this is over-wrought, recall your own understanding of "criminal actions."  If you happen to share the (now-outmoded) thought that "criminal actions" necessarily require "criminal intent", you are wrong, bub.  

"Outta the car, longhair!"

The Regulatory State does not care about "intent."  It takes its often heavily-armed counter-action based only on the deed--no matter how trivial.  Your intent is irrelevant.

Oh, yah, the Declaration has something to say about that, too:

"He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance...."

Huh.

HT:  Bayou RenMan