Category Archives: Law

SCOTUS Legalizes ID Theft (While Gun Owner Is Nabbed)

Crime, Criminal Injustice, IMMIGRATION, Individual Rights, Justice, Law, The Courts, The State

The Supreme Court has “ruled in favor of an illegal alien convicted of using false social security numbers, reports BILL TUCKER for CNN’s Lou Dobbs.

“The court said an individual using a false identity cannot be charged unless prosecutors can prove that the individual knew in advance that the identity belonged to a real person. … Do you feel better knowing that it is now legal for an illegal alien to steal your identity if he or she doesn’t know it’s yours?”

“The courts ruled differently in the case of a Wisconsin gun owner, David Olofson remains in prison for something he didn’t know that his malfunctioning rifle would be classified as a machine gun by federal authorities.”

BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT: David Olofson will remain in the federal penitentiary where he’s been for 10 months. He must complete his 10 to 30 month sentence for illegally transferring a machine gun. Olofson lent his AR15 rifle to a neighbor to shoot on a target range, the semiautomatic gun fired a couple of multi-round bursts after firing hundreds of rounds of single shots.
Instead of simply seizing the gun or ordering its repair, Olofson was put on trial, convicted and given a jail sentence. The judge at his trial said he had shown he was ignoring the law and had considerable knowledge of machine guns. The seventh circuit court heard his appeal in January and now has affirmed his conviction. It’s a ruling that gun rights advocates call chilling.

DAVID KOPEL, INDEPENDENCE INSTITUTE: The taking away if the Bureau of Alcohol and Tobacco Firearms wants to enforce the gun laws against you with the utmost stringency the courts are not going to provide any protection.

TUCKER: Part of Olofson’s appeal rested on the argument that his gun malfunctioned, therefore it didn’t fit the definition of a machine gun, but the jury, following the judge’s instructions, convicted Olofson.

PROF. MICHAEL O’HEAR, MARQUETTE UNIV. LAW SCHOOL: There is a very high degree of deference to jury decisions.

TUCKER: The court did not accept Olofson’s argument that he did not know he had a machine gun.

“On the same day, the Supreme Court threw out an illegal immigrant’s conviction for identity theft saying the government had not proved that the man knew the documents he received were false.”

KRIS KOBACH, IMMIGRATION ATTORNEY: It is interesting that the two opinions come down on the same day. The Supreme Court said in the case of the immigration identity theft statute, knowingly means knowingly and you have to know you stole a specific person’s identity.

[SNIP]

As I’ve said, “I know I can always rely on America’s deracinated elites to elevate the interests of the enemy above those of the people. In other words, I trust the government’s untrustworthiness. When it comes to breaching the public’s interests, the government’s track record is better than good.”

Still, the American state takes treason to new heights.

Torturing The 'Torture' Issue II

Democrats, Iraq, Law, Military, Morality, Neoconservatism, The Military, War

In the first installment to the ongoing saga of torture under Bush, I asked:

Ever wonder why the Democrats and their media lapdogs never shut-up about the issue of torture, when Bush’s decision to wage an unjust, illegal war ought to be the focus of their ire? The matter of torture is, after all, subsumed within the broader category of an unjust war. Moreover, one can make the case for torture in desperate, dire situations. (I’m not making the case, I’m saying that one can attempt to justify incidents of torture: you were not thinking clearly, you were desperate to avert another disaster, you wanted to save hostages; you worried you’d be blamed if you didn’t extract crucial information.) But how on earth do you justify lugging an army across the ocean to occupy a third-world country that is no danger to you and has not threatened you? You don’t, you can’t.

Democrats are nearly as culpable as Republicans on the matter of the war on Iraq. So they stick with their limited, safe mandate of torture. MSNBC’s Maddow and Olbermann, and their constitutional scholar, are thus careful to skirt the need to prosecute Bush and his bandits for invading Iraq. Instead, they stick to waterboarding.

The current torture kerfuffle was elicited by Obama’s release of CIA interrogation protocols.

(A note to the neoconservatives who stalk this site, and believe their ill-formulated fulminations vis-a-vis Iraq ought to be featured on my private property: The war against Iraq is not going to be adjudicated again on this site–not ever. That crime I chronicled at great length, applying fact and every ounce of reason in my possession to repudiate and denounce. The case is closed! The lazy neoconservative can read my archive on the topic. While I can imagine these ideologues urgently need to make peace with their makers or consciences for their role in a crime of such moral and material magnitude, they will not do so on my private property!)

Updated: Barack’s Bitches

Barack Obama, Business, Capitalism, Economy, Fascism, Law, The State

Michelle Malkin makes an important, if limited, point when she writes the following about the ponces in Congress. They indeed have some nerve pointing fingers at other parasitical incompetents:

“How nauseating to hear the growing chorus of lawmakers on Capitol Hill inveighing about the AIG bonuses and the rewarding of incompetence. This, after the Senate refused to give up automatic pay increases for themselves and Nancy Pelosi refused to give the measure a hearing. Congress sez: Incompetence bonuses for me, but not for AIG. Spare me.”

Of course, “Congress played major role in AIG mess,” as it has in our credit woes.

But the larger issue here is interventionism. You may be surprised to learn that I am completely indifferent to anything that our Kenyan kleptocrat inflicts on business leaders and their bonuses if they have been bailed out.

Take what you get; you’re Barack’s bitches now.

Economist Ludwig von Mises warned that the road to socializing the means of production is paved with interventionism. Middle of the road interventionism leads directly to socialism.

AIG has made common cause with the State. Now that the State owns a good chunk of the company, it gets to regulate and terrorize its corporate lackeys; take over operations completely, and sink the whole sorry ship with all on board.

And don’t let anyone on the Left try to tell you that this is the culmination of the unfettered free-market. Lies. This is the outcome of fascism, corporate cronyism. Let those who partake in this system suffocate in its deadly embrace.

Capitalism, The Unknown Ideal, would have allowed unviable industries to fail. Under freedom, no one would survive at the expense of another.

Update (March 18): The corrective chaos that’ll come with state takeover is obvious: companies, CEOs especially, will see that it is better to go bankrupt, and look for other, honest employment, than become the state’s bitch. How can anyone suggest that the contracts of those who suck at the state’s teat ought to be sacrosanct? As far as I’m concerned, state employees ought to be denied the vote too. Contract law is a feature of the voluntary free market, not a prerogative of the plundering class.

Heroic Swiss Bankers (UBS AG)

Law, Private Property, Socialism, Taxation, The State

In 2001, I had the unusual occasion to commend the Bush Administration for refusing “to support an attempt by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) to clamp down on tax havens. If the junta of high-tax governments has its way,” I wrote in the Financial Post, “not only will there be no place left to run to, but by eliminating what tax havens offer, these governments will have eliminated tax competition, and with it the imperative to downsize their fiefdoms.”

(The occasion was an unusual one, because I’ve had only two positives things to say about the last band of vandals to have trashed the country: I approved of Bush upholding Terry Schiavo’s negative right to life. And I seconded his refusal to capitulate to the Kyoto-protocol crazies. Great record: mine, that is.)

The obama thugs, however, are adamant to muscle every American who attempts to safeguard his property. Reports the WSJ: “Sen. Carl Levin, chairman of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, which has delved into alleged tax haven abuse for years, said he hopes a bill he is sponsoring, and similar legislation in the House, will stop banks from doing what UBS did.”

What did UBS do?

UBS is honoring its contract with its depositors, and fighting U.S. efforts to obtain the names of another 52,000 of its Swiss account holders.

“Levin expressed frustration that despite treaty obligations Swiss authorities and UBS continue to hold out against U.S. demands. ‘We cannot rely on the Swiss; that’s the bottom line,’ he said.”

Yippee, and let us hope the Swiss continue to hold out against the globe-trotting Obamaites.

Recommended: “The War on Tax Havens”