>> It's tempting to ask, "Fruit juice: who cares?" But once such a precedent >> has been established, what's to stop a future president from suspending the >> right to trial before a randomly selected jury, the right to be free of >> warrantless searches, even the right to bear arms, of those deemed >> "potentially dangerous to the security of the state"? > >Too late. The provisions of H.R.3164 would suspend the right to a trial let >alone a jury trial. But it's just a bill to provide for sanctions against >foreign drug kingpins through asset seizures, right? Wrong. The bill calls >for criminal penalties against American citizens who neither use nor deal in >controlled substances. Simply conducting a legitimate business transaction >with a "tagged" individual violates the provisions of this bill. According >to the text of the bill "Whoever willfully violates the provisions of this >Act, or any license rule, or regulation issued pursuant to this Act, or >willfully neglects or refuses to comply with any order of the President >issued under this Act shall be-- imprisoned for not more than 10 years, fined >in the amount provided in title 18, United States Code, or, in the case of an >entity, fined not more than $10,000,000, or both. Any officer, director, or >agent of any entity who knowingly participates in a violation of the >provisions of this Act shall be imprisoned for not more than 30 years, fined >not more than $5,000,000, or both." >Failure to "comply with any order of the President" would bring a criminal >penalty of 10 to 30 years in prison. The bill is silent on the availability >of judicial review for those proclaimed guilty and sentenced to 30 years in >prison and a $50,000 fine. >This bill even provides for the executive branch to make such regulations and >rules as it deems necessary to carry out the Act. >A bill that empowers the Executive with the legislative authorities of the >Congress and the judicial power of the courts while cutting off access to >appeal. If this is not an attempt to create an emperor then Julius was a >devoted adherent to the democratic system. And this bill has passed the >House and been referred to the Senate. > >William C Holden >Legaleye Investigations >
Well, duh.
This column is one we classify under "Take the slow-witted child by the hand. Allow the child to dip its fingers into two piles of dark brown go. Now, carefully explain: "THIS pile is called 'Shinola' ..."
See: "If we keep allowing the government to move in this direction, eventually, as unthinkable as it may now seem, some hypothetical far-distant future president MIGHT feel free to send in government tanks and snipers to murder innocent, unarmed women standing in their kitchens with babies in their arms, or to incinerate churches full of women and children not wanted for any crime ..."
-- V.
Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com
"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it." -- John Hay, 1872
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken