Category Archives: Justice

UPDATED: Organized Vs. Disorganized Crime (US Vs. China)

China, Criminal Injustice, Government, Individual Rights, Justice, Law, Liberty, Private Property, Regulation, The State

Statists stateside have come down harshly on me for even suggesting that your average Egyptian under Mubarak or Libyan under Gadhafi was probably less likely than his American counterpart to be jailed, harassed or have a threatening encounter with the state’s emissaries.

Do you think these former dictators retaliated against “Their People” with diabolical efficiency for selling raw milk and homemade lemonade? Or unintentionally violating Honduran law of which the Hondurans themselves were ignorant? Or attempting to erect a structure on their land?

It’s the difference between organized and disorganized crime: Uncle Sam runs an organized criminal syndicate; Third World despots run disorganized criminal endeavors. It is not unreasonable to suggest that it’s easier to live off the grid in those tin-pot dictatorships America is forever overthrowing, than in the USA, the land of the “free.”

“Illegal Everything,” as John Stossel sees it. He “argue that America has become a country where no one can know what is legal.”

Kids who open lemonade stands are now shutdown by police. I tried to open a lemonade stand legally in NYC. That was quite an adventure. It takes 65 days to get permission from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene.
With government adding 80,000 pages of rules and regulations every year, it’s no surprise that regular people break laws without even trying.
A small businessman spent 6 years in federal prison for breaking Honduran regulations (and, to make it worse, the Honduran government said he didn’t). A family in Idaho can’t build a home on their land because the EPA says it’s a wetland-but it only resembles a wetland because a government drain malfunctioned and flooded it.

MORE.

UPDATE: “The US Is More Authoritarian Than China,” writes Lew Rockwell:

China is nowhere near as authoritarian as the US, and where authority is exercised it appears to be with more restraint. There is no TSA at Chinese airports. My son has entered the country when the customs and immigration checks were simply closed (because it was outside normal working hours) and walked off the plane and into Beijing.
On the surface, there are a lot of “rules” in China, but no one pays any attention and the authorities don’t enforce them.

As I’ve written, “US In The Red And Getting Redder”:

It’s time we came clean about our economic system. The Chinese are honest about theirs; they call it “socialism with Chinese characteristic.” We call ours free-market capitalism, when in fact it is a Third Way system too: “Socialism with American characteristics.”
The picture of China to emerge from behind those pretty Chinese screens is complex. The embodiment of feng shui it is not. The trend, however, is unmistakable: China is becoming freer, America less free. The devil is in this detail.

Hispanic Hero

Crime, Criminal Injustice, GUNS, Journalism, Justice, Law, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Racism

Big media’s poster boy for a bad-ass white boy appeared in court yesterday. The tards of TV had nothing but bad things to say about the placid, polite, Hispanic young man called George Zimmerman. Unburdened by brains, CNN’s Erin Burnett entertained a body-language expert to decipher Zimmerman’s demeanor. This Western equivalent of an African shaman threw her ancestor’s bones and concluded that the manifestly demure Zimmerman was seething with rage.

Alan Dershowitz, the famed civil libertarian from Harvard Law School, never ceases to impress in the apolitical stands he takes. Dershowitz denounced the prosecution’s case, which I had found suspect when, a week ago, Special prosecutor Corey opted to dismiss the Grand-Jury option.

“Dershowitz Blasts Zimmerman Prosecution: ‘Not Only Immoral, But Stupid,'” reported Breitbart.com (which continues to do good reporting):

With ABC News’ release of the George Zimmerman photo showing blood flowing freely from his head, the question becomes whether Angela Corey, the prosecutor in the case, had access to the photo before charging Zimmerman with second-degree murder.
The arrest affidavit did not mention the photograph, or the bleeding, gashes, and bruises on Zimmermans’ head. Professor Alan Dershowitz of Harvard Law School stated upon release of the arrest affidavit that it was “so thin that it won’t make it past a judge on a second degree murder charge … everything in the affidavit is completely consistent with a defense of self-defense.”

Bimbo Burnett’s choice of experts countered facts with feelings—and in favor of the cause of Trayvon Martin. One was a black woman with orange hair and peacock-blue eye shadow. She turned out to be a former Florida Judge. The other was the weeping, stammering Judge who presided over the investigation into the death of Anna Nicole Smith.

On March 30, I wrote that “The facts of the case should be reviewed impartially, and the identity of the aggressor in the altercation that left Martin dead determined. The issue, of course, hinges not on who was armed, but on who was first to aggress.”

The image of “Zimmerman’s head bloody, bruised, battered” the media had delayed publishing despite threats to Zimmerman’s life. It is convincing. The neighborhood watchman had been a victim of an assault by Martin, whose memory and innocence the corporate media had cultivated by airing only pictures of an angelic-looking Trayvon, aged 12.

Smacked By A Liberal Girl

Barack Obama, Constitution, Federalism, Healthcare, Justice, Law, The Courts

The Ass had his formidable ears smacked about by Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor. O’Connor, who is not exactly a conservative, “effectively rebutted President Obama’s warning that a ruling against Obamacare would be ‘judicial activism.'” (Washington Examiner)

Recall, President Obama had used the term “judicial activism” “when he described a possible ruling against Obamacare as “an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.” (Washington Examiner)

O’Connor derided such reasoning today, without mentioning the president. “It seemed to me that it was primarily a lack of understanding by many people about the role of the judicial branch [that motivates charges of judicial activism],” O’Connor said today. “I really thought that we needed to enhance the education of young people about how our government works.”

Since federalism is a chimera—it no longer exists in any meaningful way—the level of decision-making is immaterial to me. In this context, what matters is the decision to strike down ObamaCare. Who cares which branch of the hydra-headed monster makes it, so long as it is made, and, once made, it holds.

UPDATED: Legal Low-lives

Crime, Ethics, Etiquette, Justice, Law

The putative attorneys for George Zimmerman (Treyvon Martin’s shooter) demonstrated their professional bona fides by holding a press conference in which these publicity whores—these legal low-lives—impugned a client they have yet to meet in person, and announced to the world they would no longer represent a man who, rumor says, has yet to hire them.

Never seek the services of Hal Uhrig and Craig Sonner; they’re unethical and should probably be disbarred.

Kudos to Natalie Jackson, an attorney for the (Treyvon) Martin family, who condemned this kind of conduct:

“These attorneys continue to make irresponsible statement to the media,’ [and] “now they have throw their own client, George Zimmerman, under the bus by alluding to his possible flight from justice.”

Increasingly—and where they see the opportunity—members of the legal system put media appearances and promotion before the case and the client.

UPDATE (April 11): Florida Special Prosecutor Angela Corey will kick off her publicity campaign with a press conference scheduled for 6:00 p.m. ET in Jacksonville, Fla.

Now it is indeed possible that charging George Zimmerman (will it be man slaughter?), as Corey intends to, in the killing of Treyvon Martin is the right thing to do. Still and all, when the Special prosecutor Corey dismissed the Grand-Jury option, yesterday, it occurred to me then that, like her colleagues discussed in the post above—who’re dancing on a defendant’s grave—we were witnessing a publicity stunt. Or a political move, since state attorneys are always looking for a leg up to the Beltway.