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
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