We're all criminals...

A forum dedicated to the creative expressions, inspirations, hopes and dreams of fellow Karateka.
Post Reply
User avatar
Panther
Posts: 2807
Joined: Wed May 17, 2000 6:01 am
Location: Massachusetts

We're all criminals...

Post by Panther »

(with due credit to Claire Wolfe... gawd I love that woman!)

You're sitting there, right now, thinking,
"Not me! I'm not a criminal! YOU might be, but not me! Don't put me in that category!"

Are you sure about that?

Really?

Think about it for a minute...

The U.S. Code, which contains all federal statutes, occupies 56,009 single-spaced pages. Its 47 volumes take up nine feet of library shelf space. An annotated version (you know, the one that attempts to bring order out of chaos) is three feet long and has 230 hardcover volumes and 36 paperback supplements. Administrative lawmaking under statutes fill up the 207-volume Code of Federal Regulations, which spans another 21 feet of shelf space and contains more than 134,488 pages of regulatory law. … And Federal law is further augmented by more than 2,756 volumes of judicial precedent, taking up yet another 160 yards of law library shelving!

Are you certain you haven't broken even one of those laws?

James Bovard wrote in his book, Feeling your Pain, that during the Clinton years "Federal agencies issued more than 25,000 new regulations—criminalizing everything from reliable toilets to snuff advertisements on race cars." But wait... that was a full year before Clinton left office and in that final year over 100,000 pages of new regulations were issued by the Federal Government!

But that's just in the Federal world of laws, rules and executive-orders. I haven't even mentioned the States!

Still want to claim you aren't a criminal?

Come on... really?

You've never:

"forgotten" to report a little extra income on your 1040

built an addition or done some work on your house without a permit

driven without a seatbelt (Remember, the SCOTUS says cops can throw you in jail for that)

given a glass of dinner wine to your 17-year-old

smoked a joint

disconnected a pollution control device on your car

cut a friend’s hair without a license

installed an "outlaw" toilet (You know, the ones that are now illegal even though they're the only ones that actually work properly)

carried a pocket knife with a blade longer-than-legal (HA! I bet you don’t even know what legal length is, do you?)

been in a room where friends were talking about doing something illegal (Conspiracy! You're going down under the RICO acts!)

put a dollar in a football pool

patronized a prostitute (in some places having a "sexually suggestive" -not explicit, suggestive- conversation falls into this category!)

taken a tax deduction you really weren’t "entitled" to

lied to a bureaucrat (not even a little bit?)

"willfully" failed to file

put some chemicals together just to see if they'd go boom

carried money with traces of cocaine on it (something on the order of 82 percent of all the paper money in circulation today has traces of cocaine on it!)

put prescription medicine into one of those little daily dispenser containers (yep, that's illegal.)

given one of your own pills (prescription or otherwise) to a sick friend (Take a look at Title 21 of the U.S. Code. See if you can figure out exactly what you can and can’t do with that itty-bitty bottle of medicine you've purchased... be extra careful if it's Zoloft or Prozac you depend on to help you survive this over-regulated modern madness!)

owned chemicals that might be used in bomb making (Ummmm... before you answer ask yourself if you have bleach in the laundry room and ammonia window-cleaner under your kitchen sink)

transposed the digits of your Social Security Number on a government form (even accidentally)

been driven in a car with someone who might have been transporting some form of contraband (do you even know all of the things considered "contraband" in the US... how about your State?).

And while you're still sitting there maintaining your "innocence", remember that these days you can be convicted of "conspiracy" for crimes you don’t even know about, or for buying legal items that might be used for illegal causes. Some acquaintance gets in trouble and needs to snitch on a friend to get his own sentence reduced and...

you’re toast.

The current US tax code takes up dozens of volumes and multiple library shelves. And it has been shown in court by an English professor that much of the code is "goobledy-####". She diagrammed a mega-monster sentence from the tax code and proved the alleged regulation couldn’t be obeyed — because it literally had no meaning in the English language! It was so self-contradictory that it was impossible to comply with! But, people still get arrested for disobeying it.

We haven't even begun to talk about the more esoteric and non-descript laws, rules and regulations that take up a sentence here or a few words there in all those legal volumes...

Wait! Those are things that effect individuals. Heaven forbid you should own a business and try to operate it without committing some crime!

And just recently even more nanny-State laws have been passed. In New York it is now illegal to use your cell-phone while driving and similar legislation is being proposed across the country. (Not to be outdone by New York, a Massachusetts legisTraitor has proposed such a law in the Commonwealth! Image )

OK... Bottom line.

You are no longer a law-abiding citizen. There are too many laws to abide! And it doesn’t matter whether they call them laws, rules, regulations, or something else altogether. You break them every day. Probably more than one.

But don't walk around scared!

As Ayn Rand wrote in Atlas Shrugged:
"There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals, one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible to live without breaking laws."

Perhaps it's time to embrace your newly found freedom and status as a law-breaker?

Think about it...



[This message has been edited by Panther (edited July 19, 2001).]
Alan K
Posts: 493
Joined: Mon Nov 20, 2000 6:01 am
Location: Framingham, MA USA

We're all criminals...

Post by Alan K »

Panther,

Those are man made laws and regulations;

Step on the cracks on a cement sidewalk and you break the Devil's dishes. Now you are really in trouble, with 666 ways of damnation.

Alan K
User avatar
LeeDarrow
Posts: 984
Joined: Wed May 09, 2001 6:01 am
Location: Chicago, IL USA
Contact:

We're all criminals...

Post by LeeDarrow »

"Devil's dishes?!"

Is that what they use to serve a satanic mass? And what kind of sauce do you use?

The wine, of course, would have to be a red...

Not my religion, so I'm making this up as I go along...

Now where DO I go to get my Creative License renewed...?

8)

Lee Darrow, C.Ht.
User avatar
Panther
Posts: 2807
Joined: Wed May 17, 2000 6:01 am
Location: Massachusetts

We're all criminals...

Post by Panther »

Alan,

Physics... It's the LAW! Image

Sorry, had to... Image
Post Reply

Return to “Creative Heart & Soul Forum”