Time: Wed Jun 04 06:17:33 1997
by primenet.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id GAA25956;
Wed, 4 Jun 1997 06:20:19 -0700 (MST)
Date: Wed, 04 Jun 1997 06:17:05 -0700
To: (Recipient list suppressed)
From: Paul Andrew Mitchell [address in tool bar]
Subject: SLS: L&J: Excellent Column: Anarcho-Tyranny (fwd)
<snip>
>
>MULTIPLE RECIPIENTS
>
>Dear M R,
>
>Thought you might enjoy one of Samuel Francis' columns which Chris forwarded.
>
>-- Harvey
> ================================
>
>Date: Tue, 03 Jun 1997 00:35:56 -0700
>From: Chris Sullivan <voxpop@avana.net>
>
>Invasive Laws Create Anarchy and
>Tyranny at the Same Time
>
>By Samuel Francis
>
>If, as Bill Clinton tells us, the "era of Big Government is over,"
>somebody needs to tell the state of Maryland (not to mention Bill
>Clinton). Earlier this month the Maryland legislature had itself a small
>orgy of swelling the powers of the state government, and apparently it
>helped give Mr. Clinton some ideas of his own (orgies seem to have that
>effect on him).
>
>Just before the end of this year's legislative session, the Maryland
>lawmakers passed several new laws that (a) allow policemen to stop
>drivers for not wearing seat belts, (b) authorize hidden cameras at red
>lights to take secret photographs of the license plates of cars that run
>the lights, (c) ban loud car stereos on state roads, (d) forbid minors
>from buying butane lighters because they might inhale the gas, and (e)
>require drivers whose windshield wipers are running to keep their
>headlights on. The lawmakers seem to have missed outlawing cooking
>breakfast in your underwear, but of course there's always another session
>next year.
>
>The citizens of Maryland will no doubt be thrilled to learn that law
>enforcement in their state has now so mastered violent crime that the
>cops have little else to do but round up non-seat-belt wearers and
>butane-sniffers. As a matter of fact, Maryland's Prince George's County
>has just announced that rapes and homicides increased in the first three
>months of 1997. Nevertheless, you can be certain that no one will be
>raped or murdered without wearing a seat belt.
>
>The new Maryland laws are rather perfect instances of what I have
>previously called "anarcho-tyranny" - a form of government that seems to
>be unknown in history until recently. Anarcho-tyranny is a combination
>of the worst features of anarchy and tyranny at the same time.
>
>Under anarchy, crime is permitted and criminals are not apprehended or
>punished. Under tyranny, innocent citizens are punished. Most societies
>in the past have succumbed to either one or the other, but never as far
>as I know to both at once.
>
>In the United States today, lawmakers worry far more about drivers who
>don't wear seat belts, run red lights or play their stereos too loud than
>they do about the thousands of rapists, thieves, and killers who prowl
>about as free as wolves in the woods. If the Maryland legislature spent
>any time this year increasing the. penalties for real crimes, I haven't
>heard about it, nor did it make much effort to improve enforcement of the
>laws it already has.
>
> One danger of the new laws is that, once Maryland starts enforcing
>them, other states will tend to adopt similar ones. The reason
>anarcho-tyranny flourishes is that it gets lawmakers off the hook. The
>legislators can pass such laws and then brag to their constituents about
>how tough they are on crime and how devoted to public safety they are.
> Once a lawmaker gets an anarcho-tyrannical idea under his belt, you can
>be sure the idea is headed for the law books.
>
>But of course such laws do nothing to impede real criminals. The
>anarcho-tyrants create new laws that merely criminalize the innocent and
>ignore real criminals. The result is that law-abiding citizens catch it
>twice: once from the real criminals to whom the state is oblivious and
>once from the laws that criminalize the law-abiding.
>
>Yet Maryland's little adventure in anarcho-tyranny did not spring full
>blown from the legislators' heads this year. A couple of years ago, the
>state government outlawed smoking in most restaurants, an unprecedented
>statewide invasion of privacy. Is it surprising that similar invasive
>laws were passed this year?
>
>And will it be surprising if such laws spread? Well, no. Five days
>after the Maryland lawmakers adjourned from their labors to make their
>state safer from loud radios and lightless windshield wipers, the
>national anarcho-tyrant-in-chief himself unbosomed his own contribution
>to new statecraft.
>
>The Clinton administration announced that it is proposing federal
>legislation to allow police to stop drivers who are not wearing seat
>belts. Big Business, those lovers of liberty, in the form of the
>insurance industry, is all for it, and together with its Siamese twin,
>Big Government, it's busy contriving schemes to enlarge state power yet
>more.
>
>The secret of tyranny - whether anarcho or the plain vanilla version with
>which the world is all too familiar - is that it never sprouts full-blown
>from anything. It always starts small and then gets bigger. So if you
>think these laws are good ideas, you shouldn't be too surprised at the
>arrival of an era when state power has grown so big that it starts
>knocking at your door - if, that is, it bothers to knock at
>all.(04/29/97)
>
>The Samuel Francis Letter
>P. O. Box 19627
>Alexandria, Virginia 22320
>May 1997
>
>
>=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
>Unsub info - send e-mail to majordomo@majordomo.pobox.com, with
>"unsubscribe liberty-and-justice" in the body (not the subject)
>Liberty-and-Justice list-owner is Mike Goldman <whig@pobox.com>
>
>
========================================================================
Paul Andrew, Mitchell, B.A., M.S. : Counselor at Law, federal witness
email: [address in tool bar] : Eudora Pro 3.0.2 on Intel 586 CPU
web site: http://www.supremelaw.com : library & law school registration
ship to: c/o 2509 N. Campbell, #1776 : this is free speech, at its best
Tucson, Arizona state : state zone, not the federal zone
Postal Zone 85719/tdc : USPS delays first class w/o this
========================================================================
Return to Table of Contents for
Supreme Law School: E-mail