Category Archives: Natural Law

Ex Post Facto Law’s The Norm … In A Banana Republic

Constitution, Criminal Injustice, Government, Justice, Law, Natural Law, Taxation, The State

The federal and state governments operate increasingly on an unconstitutional, ex post facto basis. What does this mean? It means that despite the U.S. Constitution, Article 1 Section 9, in particular—it states that “No Bill of Attainder or ex post facto Law shall be passed”—actions are often criminalized after they are committed.

In any case, it is unconstitutional to criminalize actions that were legal when committed.

It’s what banana republics do.

But since the US Constitution is a dead-letter law, victims of the state have no way of foreseeing or controlling how vague law will be bent and charges changed in the course of seeking a desired prosecutorial outcome.

What prompts this post today, in particular (you can be sure that every day US prosecutors proceed on dodgy, ex post facto legal grounds)?

The California Franchise Tax Board, the state’s version of the IRS, “[has] determined that a tax break claimed over the past few years by 2,500 entrepreneurs and stockholders of California-based small businesses is no longer valid and sent out notices of payment.”

“How would you feel if you made a decision, which was made four years ago, (and) you absolutely knew was legally correct and four years later a governing body came in and said, ‘no, it’s not correct, now you owe us a bunch more money. And we’re going to charge you interest on money you didn’t even know you owed’,” Brian Overstreet told Fox News from his office north of San Francisco.

Read more.

UPDATED: Independence And The Declaration of Secession

Classical Liberalism, Constitution, Federalism, Founding Fathers, libertarianism, Natural Law, Taxation

“Independence And The Declaration of Secession” is the current column, now on WND. An excerpt:

“Tea party,” “patriot,” “Constitution,” and “Bill of Rights”: these keywords are the very stuff of the American Revolution, which took place during the last half of the 18th century. They are also some of the words that cued the “Infernal Revenue Service” (IRS) to target the philosophical descendants of the Revolutionaries, in 21st century America.

Had they been aware that in 2012 not all Americans are created equal, the targeted not-for-profit organizations, aiming to fly beneath the IRS radar, would have also avoided any references to “The Declaration of Independence,” whose proclamation, on July 4, 1776, we celebrate as Independence Day.

Ordinary Americans of a certain age are already in compliance with the anti-American program carried out by their government, Democratic or Republican. Having been conditioned by our country’s many Orwellian Ministries of Truth, they celebrate July 4th firecrackers, fire-sale prices and cookouts. The Declaration doesn’t feature. As this column once remarked, contemporary Americans are less likely to read The Declaration of Independence now that it is easily available on the Internet, than when it relied on horseback riders for its distribution.

Back in 1776, gallopers carried the Declaration through the country. As historian David Hackett Fischer recounted in “Liberty and Freedom,” printer John Dunlap had worked “through the night” to set the full text on “a handsome folio sheet.” And John Hancock, president of the Continental Congress, urged that the “people be universally informed.”

And so the people were.

“From the beginning,” wrote James McClellan, “American Constitution-makers had the general support of their countrymen. The principles of government they espoused during the Revolution and implemented after the British surrender at Yorktown were widely shared in every town and village. It was on the basis of this remarkable consensus, this serene moment of creation, this fertile ground of American political experience, that the new Constitution was established.” (Page 59) …

The complete column is “Independence And The Declaration of Secession.” Read it on WND.

If you’d like to feature this column, WND’s longest-standing, exclusive paleolibertarian column, in or on your publication (paper or pixels), contact ilana@ilanamercer.com.

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Happy Independence Day.

UPDATE (7/5): LETTERS I LIKE.

The great historian of the South, Dr. Clyde Wilson:

From: Clyde Wilson
Sent: Friday, July 05, 2013 4:37 AM
To: Ilana Mercer
Subject:

Dear Lady, in re your Declaration of Independence column. In my last years of teaching I found that students not only had never read the Declaration (or the Constitution) but that they could not begin to understand them. They could only give canned responses. Sad but true.
Best wishes, Clyde Wilson

WND reader Steve Tanton:

5 hours ago @ WND Comments:

“Other than the short the article on July 1 in the Washington Times by Allen West, this is the most significant article on the true meaning of Independence Day that I have come across this year.”

Beware The Country Of ‘Absurdistan’

Constitution, Foreign Policy, Founding Fathers, History, Liberty, Natural Law, Neoconservatism, Political Philosophy, Propaganda, Reason, Republicans, States' Rights, War

My good friend professor Thomas DiLorenzo is on fire today, at LRC.Com, decrying the actions of the “Biggest Bully in the World.” The strictly anti-bullying US government—its overweening, unconstitutional reach extends to educating kids about bullying, or, as Tom puts it, “putting YOUR money where THEIR mouths are by funding all kinds of anti-bullying programs in schools”—is intercepting airplanes not its own, and bullying sovereign governments, all in an attempt to corner a heroic, powerless young man called Edward Snowden.

Then, “National Neocon Review” has been working overtime to justify the crimes of mass murderer Abe Lincoln. But Tom DiLorenzo will have none of it. He smacks that lot down good and proper with foolproof arguments from natural law and logic:

… Studying and writing about Lincoln and the “Civil War” is not, as National Neocon Review implies, the same as attending a football game where one roots for one team or the other. It is about discovering the truth. Criticizing Lincoln does not make one a supporter of the Confederate government any more than criticizing FDR makes one a supporter of the Nazi government. We are supposed to believe that because the Confederate government suspended habeas corpus it is simply irrelevant that the Lincoln regime was a constitutional nightmare. We are supposed to believe the cartoonish Harry Jaffa, says National Neocon Review, when he says that Lincoln never did a single thing that was unconstitutional, contrary to reality and the writings of several generations of scholars who preceded Jaffa. This is reminiscent of the canned response to Lincoln critics by the last generation of Lincoln cultists: Lincoln wasn’t as bad as Hitler or Stalin, they frequently pointed out. So shut up.

MORE.

UPDATED: Who Is General Keith Alexander? (We Know What Charlie Rose Is)

Barack Obama, Constitution, Homeland Security, Individual Rights, Intelligence, Liberty, Media, Morality, Natural Law, Propaganda, Regulation, Terrorism, The State

Charlie Rose’s little-watched public television tête-à-tête is in the news because little Obama ran scared into Rose’s loving, all-forgiving embrace, to justify his National Security Agency’s unconstitutional, naturally illicit and all-round reprehensible spying programs.

A worthier and more trustworthy guest on Charlie Rose’s show was James Bamford, who appeared days before the despicable Barack Obama put in a cameo.

Do you want to know a thing or two about FOUR-STAR GENERAL KEITH ALEXANDER—“the Spy Chief Leading Us Into Cyberwar”—who dissembled his way through a House hearing today?

Ignore the “Ass with Ears,” aka Obama. Read “The Secret War: INFILTRATION. SABOTAGE. MAYHEM, on WIRED magazine.

“FOR YEARS, FOUR-STAR GENERAL KEITH ALEXANDER HAS BEEN BUILDING A SECRET ARMY CAPABLE OF LAUNCHING DEVASTATING CYBERATTACKS. NOW IT’S READY TO UNLEASH HELL.”

MORE on WIRED magazine.

UPDATE: “No Rose Can Mask the Stench of Obama’s Tyranny,” writes Brother William N. Grigg: “Like a skunk that has grown inured to its own smell, Barack Obama is oblivious to the dense musk of tyrannical arrogance that he customarily emits. As someone who is statist to down to his chromosomes, Mr. Obama considers government’s power to be illimitable, and individual freedom to be a revocable gift conferred by those who presume to rule the rest of us. This was made abundantly – and redundantly – clear in a recent interview Obama gave to the repellently sycophantic PBS host Charlie Rose regarding the totalitarian NSA surveillance program. …”

MORE.

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