Real Asset Forfieture Reform in WA

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sun, 11 Feb 2001 13:00:00 GMT

AP via Yahoo News - Soul Sale Pulled from eBay: A twenty year old University of Washington student received a bid of $400 for his soul before eBay pulled it from their site. Hehe. [script]

"Please realize, I make no warranties as to the condition of the soul. As of now, it is near mint condition, with only minor scratches," he wrote. "Due to difficulties involved with removing my soul, the winning bidder will either have to settle for a night of yummy Thai food and cool indie flicks, or wait until my natural death."

David Postman at the Seattle Times - Bill would end seizure of drug suspects' assets: Wow! A bill in the Washington state senate will end "asset forfeiture" as we know it. If it passes, police in WA will no longer be able to steal property without a conviction. The ACLU is supporting this. Good for them. The local police are strongly against it. Legalized theft is a very lucrative business. Hard to give up. The bill has 10 cosponsors. I don't know how likely that makes its passage. It's in the Judiciary committee at present, according to the bill history page. [market]

"That'd put us out of business," said Tacoma police spokesman Jim Mattheis.

From the text of Washington Senate Bill 5935:

No judgment of forfeiture of property in a civil forfeiture proceeding by the state or any of its political subdivisions shall be allowed or entered until and unless the owner of the property is convicted of a crime in Washington or another jurisdiction and the property is found by clear and convincing evidence to have been instrumental in committing or facilitating the crime or to be proceeds of that crime.

Now that's what I call real asset forfeiture reform. Wish the feds would to do this.

William McGurn of the Wall Street Journal via Free Republic - House Divided: Did Abe Have The Right Stuff? a good freeper rant started by a WSJ article reminding the world at large that not everyone thinks Lincoln did anybody any favors. Mr. McGurn appears to think Lincoln was a good guy. The freepers know better. Lincoln changed the union from a confederation of independent states to a centrally governed empire. And it has gone rapidly downhill since then. I currently call the result the United Amerikan Socialist Republics. [lew]

Thomas J. DiLorenzo at the Ludwig von Mises Institute - Lincoln's Economic Legacy: this is included in the Free Republic discussion above. The straight story on Lincoln's legacy. [lew]

During the war Lincoln established a number of tyrannical precedents, including unconstitutionally conducting a war without the consent of Congress; suspending habeas corpus; conscripting railroads and censoring telegraph lines; imprisoning without trial some 30,000 northern citizens for merely voicing opposition to the war; deporting a member of Congress, Clement L. Vallandigham of Ohio, for opposing Lincoln's income tax proposal at a Democratic Party political rally; shutting down hundreds of Northern newspapers and imprisoning their editors for questioning his war policies; ordering federal troops to intimidate voters into voting Republican; and intentionally waging war against civilians.

Lew Rockwell at the Ludwig von Mises Institute - Business Cycle Primer: Lew reminds us that Ludwig von Mises figured out the reason for recessions way back in 1912. They're caused by government monetary policy. [lew]

When the Fed feeds artificial credit into the economy by lowering interest rates, it spurs investments in projects that don't eventually pan out. In this economic boom, the high-tech and dot com manias resulted from a decade of sustained money growth via lower interest rates. When the Fed stepped on the brakes to prevent prices from rising, it prompted a sell-off, and hence a downturn.
...
There are ways to make recessions easier to endure. Cutting taxes is one of them. Getting rid of regulations that hinder enterprise is another. The purpose of such efforts is not to stimulate demand (as Bush's advisers seem to think) but to unshackle entrepreneurship and permit the consuming public more freedom of choice.

Carl Limbacher at NewsMax - Tripp: Hillary Directed Waco, Bill Abused Monica: according to a "Larry King Live" interview of Linda Tripp, Hillary Clinton pressured Vince Foster and Webb Hubbell to end the standoff at Waco. When the news broke of what they had wrought, Vince Foster was "crushed". Hillary's reaction, on the other hand, was "heartless". Sounds to me like a motive for either suicide or murder. [unknown]

Michael Brown at CNET Gamecenter - IDSA poised to regulate marketing of M-rated games? The Interactive Digital Software Association is about to present a proposal to the Federal Trade Commission that will basically make it impossible to market mature games. This will likely kill that industry. It's for the children of course. No. It's for the tyrants, one of whom has his picture prominently displayed at the top of the article. [/.]

Andrew Leonard at Salon - Hunting the wild hacker: A review of Pekka Himanen's The Hacker Ethic via comparison with a hacker Mr. Leonard knows at Salon. The book and Mr. Leonard use "hacker" properly to describe an adept with computers. [wes]

Keith Dawson's Tasty Bits from the Technology Front - Quick Topic introduces Document Review: Introduces the new Quick Topic Document Review feature, which allows a group of people to annotate an HTML document on-line. Quick Topic is a free internet discussion service. They make money by cobranding and customization of their software. [tbtf]

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Quotes

Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair