Thoughts Regarding the Sun Times' Coverage of Thaddeus Jimenez

A few thoughts regarding the Sun Times' coverage of Thaddeus Jimenez (http://chicago.suntimes.com/news-chicago/7/71/400788/even-25-million-couldnt-keep-wrongfully-convicted-chicago-man-trouble), a man who served 16 years, wrongly convicted of murder, who has since been arrested for a series of petty "drug offenses." (This is in quotes for good reason, since a "drug offense" is not really an offense against anyone.)

Upon being released from jail, and paid $25,000,000 in damages, one would think that it might give the Chicago Police Department just a little bit of pause in aggressively prosecuting Jimenez for "victimless crime" offenses. (Let's face it, if drug use and minor anger issues are your only problem after losing 16 years of your life to police misconduct, you're probably a better-balanced person than most people would be in similar circumstances.) And let's face it: possessing plant products (which are almost all safer than alcohol) is technically a non-crime, according to the Bill of Rights. (There will be people who argue this point, so I deal with it more fully in a moment, clarifying the legalese that is designed to obfuscate the issues. How is legalese designed to obfuscate the issues? It makes us dependent on licensed lawyers for legal protection from increasingly more arbitrary laws. There is no "conspiracy," other than that licensed attorneys have shared interests: they realize that if no jury will convict anyone, and the legal language is straight-forward, defendants would have no reason not to represent themselves pro se.)

In 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act was passed, which allowed the government to regulate drug quality without intervening jury trials. The public stupidly (unwittingly self-destructively) and ignorantly (without all the facts) ignored the fact that this law was in direct violation of the property rights of all citizens. By having "gotten away with" passing the 1906 Act, congress essentially received "feedback" from the American public that they weren't paying any attention to what congress was doing. In 1914, the Harrison Narcotics act was passed, illegally, and in direct contradiction to the entire U.S. Constitution (again, they noticed that there were no crowds with pitchforks and torches assembled outside their offices; no literate people to hold them accountable for making laws that criminalized the behaviors of racial minorities and jazz musicians). Over the years, the Harrison law was strengthened by the marijuana stamp act (1937), which was also never successfully challenged. In 1971, Richard Nixon ignored the Shafer Commission's report indicating that marijuana should be legalized, and escalated the drug war via a series of (also totally unlawful) presidential edicts. Ronald Reagan, (who confusingly claimed to favor a "free market"), did the same thing, resulting in grotesque denial of even the most basic property rights (primarily by claiming allegations of drug dealing could result in the confiscation of non-drug property, without any proof or an intervening jury trial).

Every single drug prohibition law flatly ignores the foundation of property rights that the USA was built upon, in multiple ways. (And yes, slavery also ignored that foundation, but ultimately was overturned because of it. Abolitionist Lysander Spooner's famous essay "The Unconstitutionality of Slavery" was adopted by Frederick Douglass as the core argument against slavery. This same argument popularized the Free Soil Party, resulting in bringing multiple western states into the Union as "free states.")

Every single drug law (and presidential edict) was also initially pushed through congress as a means of legalizing bigotry (bigotry against racial minorities, jazz musicians, drug users, Native American churches, etc). This allowed racist police and public to physically assault minorities under the excuse of "looking for contraband." (A free society where all individuals are equal under the law cannot label any private property as contraband, other than human beings, and "weapons of mass destruction." A "WMD" can be defined as any weapon that cannot be targeted purely defensively.)

So what part of the Bill of Rights technically outlaws a drug war? The same part of the Bill of Rights that outlaws prohibitions on "unmarried cohabitation." The 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments.

The "common law" (referred to in the 4th, 5th, and 6th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution) requires that every "crime," in order to be properly considered a "malum in se" (a wrong, in and of itself; an inherent wrong) must possess two elements (as a part of "due process"). The two elements are: "injury" (to a specific, named individual or group of individuals), and "intent to injure" (the same, specific, named individual or group of named individuals). When both elements are present, there is said to be a "corpus delicti" or "body of the crime." When a "malum in se" has occurred, the prosecutor is to determine if there is adequate evidence of a valid "corpus delicti" that can be assigned to an accused. If so, the accused is charged. This is what the term "corpus" in the 4th Amendment refers to.

When the state criminalizes non-criminal actions (actions that lack a valid "corpus delicti"), the state has created a condition of "false crime" known as a "malum prohibitum" (plural: "mala prohibita"). The creation of mala prohibita is, itself, a crime. Why? Because the creation of false laws allows police to use force against innocent people. By definition, those who are not guilty of "malum in se" are innocent. The creation of "mala prohibita" has resulted in the creation of an American police state, where the police powers have become the "standing army" the Founders once warned against.

The "injuria et damnum" ("injury" and "intent") requirement exists precisely to prevent the government from outlawing things that are not inherently criminal. ...Such as the drug possession and gun possession Jimenez was charged with. (No form of gun possession is even considered a crime in AK, AZ, VT, and WY, even under pseudo-law that now governs most of the USA. Further, the 2nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states that "the right to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Putting people in prison for gun possession is an immense infringement, as is escalating other unrelated "mala prohibita" charges.).

By enforcing laws that criminalize non-criminal behavior, the U.S. has become the number one incarcerator in the world. The U.S. has 5% of the world's population, but 25% of the world's prison population. This gives us the highest per-capita prison population, by far. By most counts, there are now 2.4 million people in prison, with over 60% of them incarcerated for victimless non-crimes. The existence of these prisoners is, by many accounts, even worse than the existence of plantation slaves. (This is only meant to compare the rationality of the every day voter who votes for the two faces of "the prison party," but would never consider voting for the two faces of "the slavery party.")

So, America has become an unfree country. It's no longer "The Land of the Free, and The Home of the Brave." It's just another police state that imprisons arbitrarily, unequally (one in three drug offenders is black, in spite of equal drug use in the white population), and unfairly. The unfairness of the laws is largely because police officers can clearly see who is black, enabling their racism and allowing them to respond to perverse incentives favoring the enforcement of unjust laws against populations that are not large enough to defend themselves via the vote. (Former U.S. Marshal and DEA Joint Task Force Agent Matt Fogg has stated in a youtube video that he was told not to plan drug interdiction in white areas, because they'd "arrest a judge or senator's son and they'd pull the plug on this thing.") So, why doesn't the public know this already? Simple: They are taught in government schools by tax-financed educators who have no interest in creating a nation of legally-literate tax-resistors. So, "Civics" class has been substituted with "Social Studies" and "Government" class. At no point in a child's education do they learn about the ideas inherent in the Enlightenment, nor the long battle for security in one's "persons, papers, and effects."

The last State to resist universal "free and compulsory" government-run education model, Vermont, had been operating under government schooling for 14 years, (since 1900). Prior to that time, parents strove to educate their children according to the independent nature of a free society. As free men and women, they had every incentive to educate their children well. Clay Conrad, in his book "Jury Nullification: The Evolution of a Doctrine" indicates that Giles Jacobs' "New Law Dictionary" was the most popularly read law-book in the colonies, with many thousands of copies in circulation. One way that we know that Jacob's intent was to create a society full of free people capable of defending themselves in front of a jury, if they should ever be charged with violating an arbitrary law, was the title of his next book: "Every Man His Own Lawyer."

America has been hijacked by licensed attorneys, and a sociopathic political class. This political class (prosecutors, legislators, cops) doesn't mind putting your sons and daughters in prison for non-crimes. When you hire an attorney, their license prevents them from attacking the legitimacy of the law. They thereby legitimize a system that is totally illegitimate, by attempting, usually unsuccessfully, to dance around the fact that their client clearly broke an unjust law.

This is what makes America unfree. Without property rights, there is no freedom, because we all live in material reality. Your body is material property; you own it. The unconstitutional, unlawful police State disagrees.

Do you mind? Does knowing this make you mad? If you don't mind being unfree, then please, keep voting for Democrats and Republicans, and don't bother to look up the term "libertarian," or "jury nullification of law." Don't bother to find out what you need to do to survive "voir dire" (more legalese!), the unconstitutional and unlawful "jury selection process." (Voir dire was originally used as a means of kicking abolitionists off of juries, so that the Fugitive Slave Act could be enforced in the pre-Civil-War North.)

If you do mind, then "dummy up" when you're called to serve on a jury, so you get seated. The judge will kick you off for answering any differently than "yes your honor" when asked if you can "agree to apply the laws as given to you." Once seated, render a holdout "not guilty" vote, if you serve on a victimless non-crime case, no matter whether it's a billionaire drug cartel on trial, or a teenager with $25 worth of marijuana.

Without a valid "corpus," there is no crime, no matter what any group of legislators has decided. In much the same way that the legislators are not allowed to build concentration camps for Jews (no matter who wins any election, and no matter what percentage of the public is bigoted against Jews), they are also not allowed to make laws that criminalize self-ownership, or private property. In a democratic republic, citizen-jurors limit the power of the government.

We were intended to have "a republic, if we could keep it." We have lost it. Restoring it means taking responsibility for the propriety of our jury verdicts, supporting those who fight the government, and voting "not guilty" in victimless non-crime "cases."

Newt Gingrich, Just One More Unphilosophical Sociopathic Politician

Newt Gingrich is a damned sociopathic idiot, proof below. Starting off, here's a portion of an interview he did last week:

Chris Moody, Interviewing Newt Gingrich for "The Ticket"

CM: Three Republican presidential candidates have shown an openness to handing over control of drugs and medical marijuana to the states. Would you continue the current federal policy making marijuana illegal in all cases or give the states more control?
Newt: I would continue current federal policy, largely because of the confusing signal that steps towards legalization sends to harder drugs.

I think the California experience is that medical marijuana becomes a joke. It becomes marijuana for any use. You find local doctors who will prescribe it for anybody that walks in.


CM: Why shouldn't the states have control over this? Why should this be a federal issue?
Newt: Because I think you guarantee that people will cross state lines if it becomes a state-by-state exemption.

I don't have a comprehensive view. My general belief is that we ought to be much more aggressive about drug policy. And that we should recognize that the Mexican cartels are funded by Americans.

CM: Expand on what you mean by "aggressive."
Newt: In my mind it means having steeper economic penalties and it means having a willingness to do more drug testing.

CM: In 1996, you introduced a bill that would have given the death penalty to drug smugglers. Do you still stand by that?
Newt: I think if you are, for example, the leader of a cartel, sure. Look at the level of violence they've done to society. You can either be in the Ron Paul tradition and say there's nothing wrong with heroin and cocaine or you can be in the tradition that says, 'These kind of addictive drugs are terrible, they deprive you of full citizenship and they lead you to a dependency which is antithetical to being an American.' If you're serious about the latter view, then we need to think through a strategy that makes it radically less likely that we're going to have drugs in this country.

Places like Singapore have been the most successful at doing that. They've been very draconian. And they have communicated with great intention that they intend to stop drugs from coming into their country.

CM: In 1981, you introduced a bill that would allow marijuana to be used for medical purposes. What has changed?
Newt: What has changed was the number of parents I met with who said they did not want their children to get the signal from the government that it was acceptable behavior and that they were prepared to say as a matter of value that it was better to send a clear signal on no drug use at the risk of inconveniencing some people, than it was to be compassionate toward a small group at the risk of telling a much larger group that it was okay to use the drug.

It's a change of information. Within a year of my original support of that bill I withdrew it.

CM: Ron Paul and Barney Frank have introduced a similar bill almost every year since.
Newt: You have to admit, Ron Paul has a coherent position. It's not mine, but it's internally logical.

CM: Speaking of Ron Paul, at the last debate, he said that the war on drugs has been an utter failure. We've spent billions of dollars since President Nixon and we still have rising levels of drug use. Should we continue down the same path given the amount of money we've spent? How can we reform our approach?
Newt: I think that we need to consider taking more explicit steps to make it expensive to be a drug user. It could be through testing before you get any kind of federal aid. Unemployment compensation, food stamps, you name it.

It has always struck me that if you're serious about trying to stop drug use, then you need to find a way to have a fairly easy approach to it and you need to find a way to be pretty aggressive about insisting--I don't think actually locking up users is a very good thing. I think finding ways to sanction them and to give them medical help and to get them to detox is a more logical long-term policy.

Sometime in the next year we'll have a comprehensive proposal on drugs and it will be designed to say that we want to minimize drug use in America and we're very serious about it.

=========================================
My comments on the above:

Gingrich believes in a constitutional republic? That's odd! Jefferson, Madison, and all of the Federalists AND Anti-Federalist republicans believed that ultimate power should be devolved to the states, and then to the individual! That part of their beliefs wasn't in controversy, just how best to achieve that. So, not only is Newt too damned stupid to see that the fourth amendment also applies to "scary negro property" (all of the drug laws have a racist origin, just google "Harry Anslinger" or "Why is marijuana illegal?"), he's also too stupid to favor state nullification, or jury nullification.

Where did this myth arise that Newt Gingrich is intelligent???? He's one of the stupidest, most bellicose, belligerent sociopaths the voters have ever put in office. Al Franken isn't right about much, but he's right about Newt Gingrich. The man is not only NOT an "idea man" --he isn't even fit to share the stage with Ron Paul.

And he even mentions Singapore's drug laws, when he encourages the idea that drug dealers should be put to death! (Newt also introduced a law that would put people to death for importing two ounces of marijuana! He also hypocritically admits to smoking it himself ...I guess he wants the person who sold it to him to be put to death --or, more likely, he wants a double standard that puts poor negroes to death, while allowing white offenders like himself a smack on the wrist! I've held two ounces in my hand before! So have a lot of college kids! ...Newt is a power-hungry psychopath who serves the prison industry!)

Does Newt know that in Singapore there is no freedom of speech, and no trial by jury?! Does he know that our own right to jury trial has been eroded, in order to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law, and the drug laws, and other mala prohibita that most reasonable people disagree with? (At least 1/12 of people on a proper, randomly-selected jury will vote to acquit on mala prohibita, victimless crime, charges, and vote to convict on actual crimes. That's why juries haven't been random in this country since 1850.) PLEASE, YOU IGNORANT REPUBLICAN PRIMARY VOTERS WHO SUPPORT NEWT: BUY A COPY OF THE FEDERALIST PAPERS, AND THE ANTI-FEDERALIST PAPERS, AND LOOK UP "JURY" or "JURIES" IN THE INDEX!!!! The jury is the final bulwark of the people against government tyranny. Newt stands against the power of the jury, of we the people.

And how have Singapore's drug laws (that the once free USA exported to them!) turned out? Poor women smuggle the drugs in their vaginas, and they are sentenced to DEATH without TRIAL BY JURY, while the rich drug kingpins simply view it as a cost of doing business!!! Newt is not in favor of a Republican style of government, unless by "Republican" you mean authoritarian dictatorship. Seriously? He wants the death sentence for the people in all of our families who have smoked marijuana, if they've ever sold any of it to make ends meet? That is murder by government, people! Aren't we as Americans better than that? And what about the puritanical "christians" who gave us the drug war? Are you now willing to say that christians don't turn the other cheek, that we don't forgive? That we MURDER?! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE????

Just because Newt busses in 650 people to a damned bookstore doesn't and shouldn't mean he's a contender! He's just one more power-grasping sociopath.

If you vote for newt, then you totally and completely deserve to get the news tat while your daughter was a college, she started smoking pot, and ran afoul of Oklahoma's drug laws because her roommate is testifying against her for her possession of a quarter-pound, and now she's going to be put to death.

Anyone here who supports Newt Gingrich after reading this interview is sick in the head, and in no way favors a constitutional republic.

Every schedule 1 drug was legal in America before 1910. That's odd! From 1870-1910, the industrial revolution made America the wealthiest, freest, most innovative, most REPUBLICAN nation on earth! Newt stands directly in opposition to enlightenment values, trial by jury, and every other strong institutional limit on government power.

...And I didn't even scratch the surface of his corruption. I just focused on the worst aspects of his core philosophy.

He was a personal recipient of the bailouts ($2 million+). He divorced his wife when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He repeatedly contradicts himself, and yet his arrogance gives conformists the impression he's intelligent (because they've met so many intelligent people who are arrogant). As I listen to his blather on Fox News behind me (interview with Greta Van Sustern), he claims to admire Donald Trump (the bellicose asshole who tried to steal Vera Coking's house using eminent domain).

No candidate in the running is as mindlessly fascist as Newt Gingrich, with the possible exception of Mitt Romney. They both take their marching orders from the central bankers, without question or independent thought.

When you vote for Newt, you're voting for expanding the US prison industry, until there's a cell for everyone.

Governed By Sociopaths - A New Tool In The Battle For A Freedom-Educated Populace

Here is an essay that considers the idea that there might be an economic pressure (strong incentive) towards sociopaths seeking employment in government:

Why Does the World Feel Wrong? --by Wil Groves linked at:
http://www.strike-the-root.com/91/groves/groves1.html

...I think this new explanatory tool is a powerful one, that libertarians could and should use to their immense advantage. I had heard a little of this idea from Marc Stevens, and had --at first-- not thought about it deeply enough. But the DSM-IV defines sociopaths in a rather narrow way: they are not the violent people that hollywood depicts them to be. In fact, many may well be libertarians (a normal percentage of the libertarian population may be very logical sociopaths --there is likely nothing that would prevent a random distribution). However, many, many more sociopaths seem to select government employment for very specific reasons.

And I think this isn't fully explored by the author (although the essay above is very well written): Sociopathy is sub-normal in emotional functioning, and --like virtually all allocations of neurons-- when one functional area is shorted, another is often advanced (as in Temple Grandin, and other autistics and "autistic savants"). Sociopaths are often fairly logical, they exhibit less fear than other people. They take more risks, and are often corporate leaders, as well as politicians.

...But there's a more specific point not covered by the author (although he did a very great job with the essay, and introducing the idea). Sociopaths may also seek positions of authority because, IF they are not in control, THEN they are at a significant disadvantage. Allow me to explain: Recently, a friend of mine loaned $8,000 to a sociopath who was pretending to be his friend. All the typical signs of sociopathy were there (but as R. Preston McAfee notes, the sociopath is typically only unmasked after his damage was done). When this friend of mine got the sociopath a job under his supervision, (so the sociopath could pay him back), the sociopath not only quit the job, but made up a story about being attacked by my friend. Thus, the sociopath obtained what was, in his mind, "a reason to disavow the debt". The sociopath instantly went to public fora online, spreading the story about how he had been assaulted, and therefore didn't need to pay back any of the money.

The people who heard this message made logical inquiries, and the sociopath's story rapidly fell apart under examination.

This is because unintelligent or unskilled sociopaths don't really understand how other peoples' consciences work. This is a huge disadvantage, unless it's compensated for! ...The sociopath in my story seemed to think things were screwy when people didn't feel a ton of sympathy for him, "even after he explained himself!". ...LOL

...But it's not so funny when you think about it in the context of government (and it's not funny if you're the guy who loaned $8,000 he's not going to get back).

The sociopath who is not in a position of power is the object of scorn and ridicule, because they cannot anticipate the emotional responses of the people around them. This would hold them back in life ...UNLESS they are in a position of power! (In short, I am pointing out that there is both a combined incentive to seek power and a severe disincentive in not seeking power in sociopaths. This "carrot and stick" could explain why political jobs and police jobs are sought by sociopaths across a range of intelligence levels. Obviously, the police are at the low end of the intelligence level, such that some of their comrades actually mean well, but simply cannot comprehend concepts such as "property rights". ...This allows them to swear an oath to the constitution's 2nd amendment, and arrest people for gun possession, etc...)

It also goes very far to explain the severe pressure put on police to "protect other police". In fact, without recognizing the tendency of MOST police toward sociopathy, honest and moral police men, such as John Douglas and members of LEAP are "lone voices in the wilderness" squashed both up and down the chain of command.

Ironically, sociopaths tend to be more logical than most people. So they have learned to play on the consciences of those who "care about the poor people" (resulting in welfare programs that do nothing to help the poor, and everything to empower politicians and reward their political patronage with make-work jobs). ...Virtually every government program is similar (useless, dramatically beneficial to the patronage of politicians). This manipulation of conscience by those who lack conscience is obvious and shallow to people like you and I who are smart enough to put it all together. ...But it is death to the victims of democide who cannot "put it together" and continue to vote for the "well meaning politicians" who "have to be good at compromising".

Would most people fall for the sociopaths' acting, if they could see them outside of their flowery speeches? No, I don't think so. (And neither does the guy who shot this video.)

And this is why there is now a "war on cameras". If the sociopaths succeed in eliminating our ability to reveal what they are, then I believe that democide is in our future.

The majority of police, whether sociopathic themselves, or simply stupid, will enforce any law, no matter how evil it is. That's why we must never surrender our firearms or our right to proper jury trials. If we do so, we become completely defenseless against those without consciences (and with the law and the police on their side).

For additional information on jury trials, please visit http://www.jurorsforjustice.com and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4KoXbsPX7I to watch jury rights activists educating the general public about their rights as jury members.

The Brutality Democrats and Republicans Voted For: Why Prohibition Can't Exist Alongside America

As Radley Balko notes, 100-150 of these style of raids occur every day. The state conducts these raids on people it deems to be drug dealers, users, (or anyone else they don't like, or accidentally target, as in the case of Cory Maye). After all, there is no method of holding prohibition police (DEA, BATFE, FDA) accountable, other than the jury box, and now that juries have been completely eviscerated by the US "legal system" (by "voir dire" 1850-present, judicial instruction 1895-present, "contempt of court" threats to remain silent regarding defenses that question the validity of the law 1960s-present, licensing of lawyers 1832-present), this is what voting Democrat and Republicans buys.

Again: if you vote Democrat and Republican, you are responsible for the police terrorism of this innocent family, and the pointless murder of their pets. You are also responsible for the thousands of innocent people murdered --people not guilty of violating anyone else's rights.

And what would be so bad if this man had been allowed to smoke his pot, in his own home, the way his neighbors are allowed to get drunk? Would it be as bad as his children being turned against the police for life? Would it be as bad as the murder of his pets, and violation of his property rights? Would it be as bad as the loss of American freedom? Would it be as bad as the lucrative black market created by prohibition?

Prohibitionists are shallow, unintelligent conformists who vote for violence that has no legitimate justification. They should be universally held in contempt and socially ostracized, their business and friendship boycotted by decent people.

Judge Napolitano and Former Governor Gary Johnson Talk About Marijuana Legalization