End the War on Freedom

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED JUNE 28, 2000
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
Jews, come out

On Saturday, June 17, a city zoning code enforcement officer showed up as Rabbi Moshe Omer was leading an Orthodox prayer meeting at his Las Vegas home, near Sahara Avenue and Durango Drive.

The visit was the latest in a series of attempts by city enforcement officers to deal with neighbors' complaints that Omer is generating too much traffic -- and resulting parking problems -- by operating his Kabbalah Centre in an area zoned exclusively for residential use.

The local Kabbalah Centre is one of 39 operated world-wide by the Los Angeles-based organization of the same name.

In front of a dozen congregants, the city inspector -- accompanied by three Las Vegas police officers -- issued Omer a citation for conducting religious worship in a private home and "creating a public nuisance."

Rabbi Omer refused to sign the citation, explaining he was forbidden to even sign his name on the sabbath, under his religious laws. Treating him as a non-cooperative suspect, police then proceeded to place him under arrest, handcuff him, and lead him to a waiting patrol car.

The rabbi explained his faith forbids him from riding in automobiles during the sabbath, as well. Ignoring that, the cops hauled him downtown and booked him, anyway.

Fortunately, a judge was located to sign the rabbi's citation for him, and he was released that day, though the arrest left him stranded downtown till the sabbath ended at sunset. By Wednesday, Mayor Oscar Goodman was apologizing for what he called his officers' "ignorance and a mistake in judgment."

Some will doubtless say "The law is the law," pointing out that it's standard procedure to haul a suspect down to the station -- even on a misdemeanor matter -- if he or she refuses to sign a citation, which amounts to a "promise to appear."

But they would be wrong. What about suspects who are unable to sign due to illiteracy, or a physical handicap? Are there no provisions for them?

While law enforcement types are fond of saying "We have no choice, we have to enforce the letter of the law," common sense tell us this is not so. Try driving at precisely 55 mph in the center lane of a limited-access highway, sometime. Vehicles will zip past you so fast on both sides you'll feel like a small ship straddled by shellfire. But do police attempt to pull over every driver going 60 in a 55 mph zone? Of course not.

Think the desk sergeant will dispatch squads of men to arrest a dozen of his fellow officers, hauling them down to court in their underwear, if you provide him with a list of those illegally "cohabitating" without benefit of marriage? Fat chance.

In fact, police in a number of cities, unhappy with their contracts, occasionally threaten to enforce every law "to the letter" as a form of job action, knowing this would bring any city to a halt, so profligate have the lawmakers been in churning out their endless, petty edicts.

The first thing that needs to be done here is to amend any city or county ordinance -- if there really is one -- prohibiting "conduct of religious worship in a private home," before the ACLU goes to court and does the job for us. Yes, under current law, someone building a huge church or temple with a 400-space parking lot in a residential area without proper zoning or permits might merit an order to "appear and show cause." But a dozen folks praying quietly in private?

Such a blatant violation of the First Amendment would be laughable, were not Rabbi Omer here to tell us his frightening experience put him in mind of the Nazis and their round-ups -- hardly a topic for merriment.

Second, a local attorney for the Kabbalah Centre says the group is looking for another location. City officials might meet with them and see if a schedule can be arranged which will assure the rabbi's neighbors that strange cars won't be lining their streets indefinitely.

But finally, this is one more example of the simple fact that we now have far too many laws, regulations, and enforcers, in the first place.

Any fan of old Western movies can remember the Ladies Temperance Committee descending on the sheriff and demanding that he evict from town that brazen hussy or gunman drinking alcohol over at the saloon, or playing cards, or whatever the perceived sin of the moment might be.

And what did the sheriff invariably respond? "Sorry, ladies. It's still a free country."

Is it?

We need a lot fewer of these front-line functionaries, and a lot fewer ordinances for them to enforce.

And if an officer finally is sent out, we need men and women with the experience and judgment to calmly say, "If a car is blocking your driveway, we'll go knock and ask for it to be moved. But you want me to arrest the rabbi for conducting religious services on the sabbath? In his private home? Not in my America, pilgrim."

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Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at $24.95 postpaid by dialing 1-800-244-2224; or via web site http://www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.

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Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"The evils of tyranny are rarely seen but by him who resists it." -- John Hay, 1872

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

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