Death of Common Sense

Here are some examples of a lack of common sense in our persecutors   prosecutors. The Wall Street Journal tells us:

In 1998, Dane A. Yirkovsky, a Cedar Rapids, Iowa, man with an extensive criminal record, was back in school pursuing a high-school diploma and working as a drywall installer. While doing some remodeling work, Mr. Yirkovsky found a .22 caliber bullet underneath a carpet, according to court documents. He put it in a box in his room, the records show.

A few months later, local police found the bullet during a search of his apartment. State officials didn't charge him with wrongdoing, but federal officials contended that possessing even one bullet violated a federal law prohibiting felons from having firearms.

Mr. Yirkovsky pleaded guilty to having the bullet. He received a congressionally mandated 15-year prison sentence, which a federal appeals court upheld but called "an extreme penalty under the facts as presented to this court." Mr. Yirkovsky is due to be released in May 2013.

Mr. Yirkovsky was rather unthinking, but 15 years in prison for a bullet?

The laws are vague, on purpose. That way anyone can be persecuted prosecuted. Even the Supreme Court is starting to take notice of this: 

Earlier this year, Justice Antonin Scalia, in a dissent from a Supreme Court decision upholding a firearms-related conviction, wrote that Congress "puts forth an ever-increasing volume" of imprecise criminal laws, and criticized lawmakers for passing too much "fuzzy, leave-the-details-to-be-sorted-out-by-the-courts" legislation.

The courts are being used more and more as a tool to punish people the government does not like, even if the "crime" is so obscure that it is unlikely anyone knew it was a crime. 

But when legislators "criminalize everything under the sun," Ms. Coughlin says, it's unrealistic to expect citizens to be fully informed about the penal code." With reduced intent requirements "suddenly it opens a whole lot of people to being potential violators."

That is the purpose of the law. Even trying to do the "right" thing no longer matters. Here is my concluding example. 

When a humpback whale got tangled in his fishing-boat net in 2008, Robert Eldridge Jr., a commercial fisherman, says he had one overriding thought: free it. He freed the whale, although it swam away with 30 feet of his net still attached.

A few weeks later, he was charged with harassing an endangered species and a marine mammal. Under federal law, Mr. Eldridge was supposed to contact authorities who would send someone trained to rescue the animal. The law is designed to prevent unskilled people from accidentally injuring or killing a whale while trying to release it.

Mr. Eldridge says he was fully aware of the federal Marine Animal Disentanglement Hotline for summoning a rescuer. But "it didn't cross my mind to do anything but keep it alive. I thought I was doing the right thing," the Massachusetts fisherman said.

There were two federal observers aboard his boat that day, performing routine checks, who reported the incident, according to court documents. Mr. Eldridge's potential sentence was one year in jail and a $100,000 fine.

Mr. Eldridge, 42, pleaded guilty and has a misdemeanor on his record. He was fined $500 and ordered to write a warning letter to other fishermen to look out for whales.

It is counterintuitive to let the animal die. But that is exactly what the law demands because of the time it would have taken for the "proper" authorities to respond. 

In our Justice System, common sense in the first casuality. 

Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Our Justice System is corrupted. Guilt or innocence is not important. What is important for the prosecutors is convictions. Here is an example: 

“We now have an incredible concentration of power in the hands of prosecutors,” said Richard E. Myers II, a former assistant United States attorney who is now an associate professor of law at the University of North Carolina. He said that so much influence now resides with prosecutors that “in the wrong hands, the criminal justice system can be held hostage.”

How does this work?  

Cases like Florida v. Shane Guthrie help explain why. After Mr. Guthrie, 24, was arrested here last year, accused of beating his girlfriend and threatening her with a knife, the prosecutor offered him a deal for two years in prison plus probation.

Mr. Guthrie rejected that, and a later offer of five years, because he believed that he was not guilty, his lawyer said. But the prosecutor’s response was severe: he filed a more serious charge that would mean life imprisonment if Mr. Guthrie is convicted later this year.

Because of a state law that increased punishments for people who had recently been in prison, like Mr. Guthrie, the sentence would be mandatory. So what he could have resolved for a two-year term could keep him locked up for 50 years or more.

Of course I have no idea if Guthrie is guilty or not. But let’s say for the sake of a discussion that he is innocent. He knows that if he pleads guilty he gets 2 years. If he fights the system, and loses, he gets 50. When you enter a court room the outcome is not known or knowable. I have been to court a few times and have never been able to predict the outcome.  A prison alumni is not going take the risk. He really has no choice, as guilt or innocence is not important. Even if he has a 90% chance of acquittal, he should take the deal. Looking at it purely from a game theory perspective you get this: 10% of 50 years is 5 years, or twice the plea agreement. 

Surely this is rare?

“How many times is a mandatory sentence used as a chip in order to coerce a plea? They don’t keep records,” said Senior Judge John L. Kane Jr. of United States District Court in Denver, who believes that prosecutors have grown more powerful than judges. But it is very common, he added. “That’s what the public doesn’t see, and where the statistics become meaningless.” 

I think we often do not care what happens to these people. Neither Mr. Guthrie nor his girlfriend are sympathetic figures. The jury may feel that they are safer with this kind of man in jail, and they may be right. Justice takes a back seat—I am not sure it is even in the same car anymore. 

I remember the one time I visited someone in prison. He was really the only person I ever knew who went. (Apart from a guy I would not visit who tried to make a fertilizer bomb.) Often the authorities make it difficult to visit someone by purposefully incarcerating him far away from his friends and family. The trip to see him was several hours. I forget why he was there, but I do remember the second time he was in prison. He got three years for driving without car insurance. 

Lew Rockwell tells us the fate of such people: 

What happens then? Your loved ones cry. They try to move close by to where you are holed up, typically several states away. They are bankrupted and ruined. And what of your coworkers, your friends, your social set? They might want to help. They might feel bad for you. But the fact is that you pleaded guilty, and you have not even a chance to tell your side of the story. For all anyone knows, you got exactly what you deserved. So they do the only thing they can do: they forget about you. 

Matthew 25 tells us about how we as Christian should act.  

⁴¹ “Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. ⁴² For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, ⁴³ I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.’

   ⁴⁴ “They also will answer, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?’

   ⁴⁵ “He will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

   ⁴⁶ “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. 

I think that most Christians are lacking in this area. We tend to be the "put them in prison and throw away the key" types. 

 I used to reason that a man was innocent until proven guilty. Now, I am not so sure-with Babylon the Great guilt and innocence lose their meaning.

Kung Fu Fighting

This is the beginning of a three part series on our western justice system. Did you know that in Canada Britain it is a crime to sing "Kung Fu Fighting"? 

Mark Steyn on Free Speech at the IPA from Institute of Public Affairs on Vimeo.

Should this be illegal? 

9-11

There have always been a number of odd things that occurred on 9-11. The number of the passengers on the planes, the explosions, and especially building seven. But odd things happen all the time. When enough events occur, this is inevitable. I have never felt that anything but the planes was responsible for the tragedy. Now a new theory has emerged that explains the towers’ fall. (But not building 7 of course.) 

Just before the Twin Towers collapsed on 9/11, loud explosions were heard inside, leading conspiracy theorists to believe they were caused by explosives.

But according to Christian Simensen of the Norwegian Research Institute SINTEF, these were actually the result of a chemical reaction which caused both buildings to come down.

His theory is that the aluminium used to make the aeroplanes flown by the terrorists melted in the 2,700f heat and dripped down through the building where it mixed with the hundreds of litres of water from the sprinklers.

The combination of the two caused a chemical reaction similar to dynamite which was strong enough to destroy chunks of the building.

Combined with the ferocious heat, this would have been enough to collapse both buildings.

The explosions heard by witnesses were the explosive hydrogen being fired off by the reaction of the liquid aluminum and water, nothing more. 

This added to the fact that the plan of the towers was intended to use asbestos, but in the middle of construction it was banned and they switched to an inferior product explains almost everything. I am perfectly willing to admit I do not know what happened to building seven, but there is no reason to assume that there was a conspiracy. The fact that there was a huge diesel tank underneath that building may be the explanation for its demise. 

If I see something in the sky, and I do not know what it is, I do not assume it is aliens. I just say, "I wonder what that is," and leave it at that. 

Goldman Sachs Rules the World

I do not wish to sound conspiratorial, but the title of this blog post is a comment in this video:

This fits well with my personal predictions for the next few years. Things are so bad in Europe that the US, by comparison looks good. This means that "hot money" will gravitate toward the dollar for the next year or so. This will make the American economy look artificially good. This will not last. This gives each of us a little time to get ready for the flood. Use the time wisely as 2013 will be brutal.