Category: Liberty

Social Justice Doesn’t Sound Like Justice to Me

The term ‘social justice’ has been thrown around by collectivists since, probably, forever. Even though I’ve heard the term being thrown around I’ve never been able to understand the definition because, in context, it seems to mean a correction (in their eyes) of anything the speaker is against. Usually I’m quick to pick up a dictionary and look up terms I’m unfamiliar with but the dictionary doesn’t have an entry for ‘social justice’ so I turned to Wikipedia:

Social justice is based on the concepts of human rights and equality and involves a greater degree of economic egalitarianism through progressive taxation, income redistribution, or even property redistribution.

Now I’m even more confused than when I started. How is violent theft justice? Progressive taxation, like any form of taxation, is theft. The same goes for any type of redistribution. Redistribution, by definition, implies the taking of something from one person and giving it to another. Usually those screaming for social justice want to take property from the “rich” and distribute it amongst the “poor.” Their idea seems to be that the “rich” have “too much” and the “poor” “not enough,” so the only way to rectify the situation is to take some from the “rich” and give it to the “poor.” I had to use a lot of quotation marks because the definitions of rich, too much, poor, and not enough are entirely subjective based on the person you’re talking to. In my experience the definition of rich is usually “anybody who has more than the speaker,” too much is “more stuff than the speaker owns,” poor is “the speaker,” and not enough is usually “the amount of stuff the speaker owns.”

If social justice requires the initiation of force to achieve then it is not justice at all. It’s one thing if the advocates of social justice want stolen property return to rightful owners but in my experience most people demanding social justice want property taken from the “rich” and distributed amongst the “poor.” In my book justice is compensating for harm done by the harm doer. If you’ve stolen $100.00 from somebody it is right that the $100.00, plus any recovery costs, be returned to the original victim. I’d even go so far as to say it would be right if an additional $100.00 was then taken from the thief and given to the victim, since the thief really stole the right to $100.00 of property from the victim and fair compensation would be to have the right of $100.00 of property taken from the thief. The latter part is debatable, the former is not. Stolen property should always be returned to its rightful owner unless that rightful owner has said he doesn’t want his property retrieved (for example, if the owner is a pacifist).

Justice is not taking rightfully earned property from one and giving it to another, that’s theft.

Crashing the So-Called Justice System

We live in a police state where every person is actively breaking numerous laws. Between the constant issuance of speeding tickets, verboten substance possession charges, public intoxication charges, parking citations, and numerous other victimless “crimes” being perpetuated by everyday people you would think our court systems would be flooded with so many cases that none of these things would actually get to trail. The dirty little secret of the state is that they’re only able to fine, incarcerate, and otherwise punish people for these petty crimes is because they rarely go to trail. If we want to crash the punishment system (often incorrectly called a justice system in this country) all we need to do is take everything to court:

AFTER years as a civil rights lawyer, I rarely find myself speechless. But some questions a woman I know posed during a phone conversation one recent evening gave me pause: “What would happen if we organized thousands, even hundreds of thousands, of people charged with crimes to refuse to play the game, to refuse to plea out? What if they all insisted on their Sixth Amendment right to trial? Couldn’t we bring the whole system to a halt just like that?”

[…]

“The truth is that government officials have deliberately engineered the system to assure that the jury trial system established by the Constitution is seldom used,” said Timothy Lynch, director of the criminal justice project at the libertarian Cato Institute. In other words: the system is rigged.

In the race to incarcerate, politicians champion stiff sentences for nearly all crimes, including harsh mandatory minimum sentences and three-strikes laws; the result is a dramatic power shift, from judges to prosecutors.

The Supreme Court ruled in 1978 that threatening someone with life imprisonment for a minor crime in an effort to induce him to forfeit a jury trial did not violate his Sixth Amendment right to trial.

[…]

On the phone, Susan said she knew exactly what was involved in asking people who have been charged with crimes to reject plea bargains, and press for trial. “Believe me, I know. I’m asking what we can do. Can we crash the system just by exercising our rights?”

The answer is yes. The system of mass incarceration depends almost entirely on the cooperation of those it seeks to control. If everyone charged with crimes suddenly exercised his constitutional rights, there would not be enough judges, lawyers or prison cells to deal with the ensuing tsunami of litigation. Not everyone would have to join for the revolt to have an impact; as the legal scholar Angela J. Davis noted, “if the number of people exercising their trial rights suddenly doubled or tripled in some jurisdictions, it would create chaos.”

We can grind the police state to a halt by simply exercising the rights that are supposedly guaranteed us by the United States Constitution. In other words we must overcome our fear that the state will toss us in a cage longer unless we surrender our rights. Furthermore we must stop looking at tickets on a purely costs basis. Sure it may cost more to fight a ticket in court than it would to simply pay it off, and the state realizes this, they have engineered the system this way to ensure we simply surrender our money to them.

The current criminalization of everything requires complacency by the people. Were every single citation, ticket, find, and charge taken to trail the court systems would be so flooded with cases that they would be entirely unable to function. In such a scenario they would be forced to make a decision: concentrate on crimes where a victim exists or continue prosecuting victimless crimes and finding it impossible to get through the cases.

Nothing can be changed at the ballot box, but we can change things through other methods. Jury nullification and taking everything to court, in other words exercising your rights, are two great ways to toss monkey wrenches into the state’s works. The state expects us to roll over and pay the money they demand from us because it’s easier than fighting them. In the short run it may be easier to roll over but in the long run it costs us far more as every infraction against our liberty the state wins empowers them, encourages them, and makes them believe they can extract anything they want from us by merely making the cost of fighting seem smaller in the short run. Let us use their own weapon against them, let us gunk up the engine of punishment by exercising our rights.

How To Create an Anti-Statist

How does one go about creating an anti-statist? Make him pay taxes. I was amused to see the following post by one of my friends:

Back to the quote: No taxation without representation.

What does this mean? Loosely, the Colonists did not think it was fair to be taxed by the British Parliament without also having a say in what went on. This makes sense: If someone is going to rob you of your hard-earned money, then you should get something in return.

I don’t think it’s a fair trade. ~23% of every paycheck I make goes right to the government. That’s almost one-fourth. That’s several nice dinners. That’s auto insurance. That’s a chunk of my vacation savings. That’s a lot.

And what do I get in return? I get to check some boxes and hope that my piece of paper changes something.

I say fuck that.

Let it be known on this day, March 7, 2012, that I, azelfrath of azelfrath.wordpress.com, will willingly and knowingly give up my right to vote in all local, state, and federal governmental elections, under the condition that I no longer am forced to pay local, state, or federal taxes. This includes income tax, sales tax, those gift taxes that nobody pays anyway, stamps on letters, and anything else of the sort.

It’s nice holding a philosophical position where the state does all my work for me. I don’t have to perform any crazy mental gymnastics to convince people that taxation is theft, they usually figure it out when they realize only two choices are available to them: pay your taxes or get kidnapped, held in a cage, and have your property stolen from you.

To the state I only ask that you continue doing what you’re already doing because through those actions you’ll create your own worst enemies and bolster the cause of liberty.

It’s Not a Lack of Intelligence

A recent study showing that people are “too stupid” for democracy to flourish has been circulating:

The democratic process relies on the assumption that citizens (the majority of them, at least) can recognize the best political candidate, or best policy idea, when they see it. But a growing body of research has revealed an unfortunate aspect of the human psyche that would seem to disprove this notion, and imply instead that democratic elections produce mediocre leadership and policies.

The research, led by David Dunning, a psychologist at Cornell University, shows that incompetent people are inherently unable to judge the competence of other people, or the quality of those people’s ideas. For example, if people lack expertise on tax reform, it is very difficult for them to identify the candidates who are actual experts. They simply lack the mental tools needed to make meaningful judgments.

Where do I even begin to start with this? First let’s begin with the assumption that people are generally unable to recognize the “best political candidate” or “best policy idea.” This beginning premises is flawed because what constitutes the “best political candidate” or the “best policy idea” is entirely subjective to the individual making the decision. This is an idea collectivists have a very hard time understanding.

Case in point, some people believe that the best policy with regards to taxes is to entirely abolish taxation, which others believe we need to tax more. These two groups oppose one another because the former believes services currently provided by the government should be voluntarily provided by individuals while the second group believes it is just to forcefully take the produce of each person’s labor in order to distribute it for the “greater good” (can you guess which camp I’m in). Another example is that some people believe the best method of preventing violent crime is to make the tools used by violent criminals illegal while other people believe individuals should have access to those tools to counter the violent criminals. The former believes that criminals will actually obey prohibitions while the latter holds no such delusions.

Democracy fails not because people are too stupid but because people have different desires, beliefs, and goals. What is good for one person isn’t necessary good for another. I’ve gone into detail about why democracy isn’t legitimate, nor should it be seen as a desired societal goal. Individuals must be allowed to pursue their own goals and not be beholden to the whims and desires of others. If my goals align with the goals of another then we can certainly work together but nobody should force such cooperation. Democracy is an attempt to force cooperation but claiming a majority agreement justifies an action. Such a belief is a type of logical fallacy known as argumentum ad populum and its falsehood can be easily proven by the following fact: early in human history the common belief was that Earth was flat and through scientific research we learned that Earth is actually spherical. Even though the majority of people believed Earth was flat it wasn’t true.

When a group democratically agrees on something it means some majority agreed to that thing. That majority will almost always use the threat or application of force to make others comply with the demands of the majority. People are too stupid for democracy, democracy is incompatible with species composed of individual creatures capable of reasoning.

The primary failure of this study can be found in the statement that there are best politicians and policy ideas. Such a statement is a gross display of the self-centered nature of those conducting the study. They assume that they know what is best for everybody and based on that false assumption have arrived at an equally false conclusion. Their conclusion is based on other individuals failing to agree with the study conductor’s definition of what is best. It is the epitome of arrogance to believe that you know what is best for another person and any study based on such a premises is doomed to failure. A more accurate title for this story would have been Arrogant Scientists Demonstrate their Arrogance .

Rights Versus the State

So Dayton vetoed HR 1467, and yes I’m still irked by that. Being I rarely like to let a situation go entirely to waste I believe it’s time again for Christopher Burg Explains Why the State is Bad.

Let’s consider a few things. First the state has declare itself the sole proprietor on deciding what rights we individuals hold. The state has decided that we don’t have a constitutional right to police protection as decided by the District of Columbia Court of Appeals in Warren v. District of Columbia and the Supreme Court cases Castle Rock v. Gonzales. Being we have no right to police protection we must resort to taking the responsibility of self-defense into our own hands. There is a slight difficulty with this though, the state has also issued numerous prohibitions against self-defense. No right to carry a firearm exists outside of Vermont, Alaska, Arizona, and Wyoming (every other state requires a permit or offers no legal means of carrying a firearm). Many states, including Minnesota, still hold the common law requirement that one attempt to flee a situation before enacting defensive measures. While such a requirement may seem sensible it’s not since deciding whether or not you made best effort to flee is entirely subjective. Needless to say the state places numerous barriers between individuals and their legal ability to defend themselves.

Where does that leave we the people? Nowhere good. The state has restricted our right to self-defense while offering no guarantee that defense will be provided. We’ve allowed the state to infringe on our rights as self-owners by allowing them to decree that we hold no right to defend ourselves. Because of this we’re required to beg like dogs for laws that protect lawful self-defense and turn a potential bankrupting court case into a legally recognized right of preservation of self. This is why the state should never be given authority over individuals, once that authority is recognized it’s almost impossible to seize it back.

The state is also a masturbatory entity that indulges itself. As I posted last night Dayton’s decision to veto was, supposedly, based on recommendations he received from other state agents:

Dayton made his veto by letter without commenting publicly.

In his veto letter, Dayton said, he had to honor the opposition of law enforcement.

“The MN Police and Peace Officers Association, the MN Chiefs of Police and the MN Sheriffs Association represent the men and woman who risk their lives every day and night to protect the rest of us. When they strongly oppose a measure, because they believe it will increase the dangers to them in the performance of their duties, I cannot support it,” Dayton wrote.

Instead of listening to the people he relied on other agents of the state. Our voice as individuals who are supposedly represented by the governorship was entirely ignored because, according to state agents like the governor, we don’t matter. I can point to numerous cased of this, and have many times on this very site, but for demonstration purposes I’ll bring out the White House’s response to the We The People petitions:

According to scientists at the National Institutes of Health– the world’s largest source of drug abuse research – marijuana use is associated with addiction, respiratory disease, and cognitive impairment. We know from an array of treatment admission information and Federal data that marijuana use is a significant source for voluntary drug treatment admissions and visits to emergency rooms. Studies also reveal that marijuana potency has almost tripled over the past 20 years, raising serious concerns about what this means for public health – especially among young people who use the drug because research shows their brains continue to develop well into their 20’s. Simply put, it is not a benign drug.

For those unaware the National Institute of Health (NIH) is a government agency. In the case of marijuana prohibition the White House based its decision on the statements of another state agency. The vast amount of research that exists countering the findings of the NIH aren’t even mentioned nor were they likely considered.

Letting the state make decisions for us is not only bad because they will strip us of our rights but also because the only authoritative source of knowledge according to the state is the state. When you control the policy and the justification you can make anything appear justifiable.

The bottom line is that your government doesn’t love you. If you’re put at a severe disadvantage to further cement the state’s power so be it, according to the state. You and me don’t matter to the politicians, the only people who matter to them are each other and whatever cronies offer them the best deals. Politicians are only interested in power and share many traits of serial killers, which is why they likely ran for political office in the first place.

Now that I’ve bitched for a while I should present a solution. Many people firmly believe that we merely need to get the right people into office or return to a constitutional government for all to be well again. Both objectives are steps in the right direction but ultimately I believe the only solution is the elimination of the coercive entity we call the state. If my study in Austrian Economics has taught me one thing it is this: the only person qualified to make decisions that affect an individual is the individual the decision will affect. Everybody should have the same attitude as Ron Paul which is, “I don’t want to run your life, I don’t know how to run your life, I don’t have the authority to run your life, and the Constitution doesn’t permit me to run your life!” None of us have the knowledge to run each other’s lives and we shouldn’t be going around acting like we do. Likewise we shouldn’t delegate our rights as self-owners to outside entities as they don’t have the knowledge required to run our lives. The fact that we allow the state to decide whether or not it’s legal for ur to act in self-defense is absurd, we have a right to protect ourselves by the very fact that we are self-owners.

Happy Birthday Murray Rothbard

Today, March 2nd woud be Murray Rothbard’s birthday, were he not dead and all. Rothbard was the man when it came to both austrian economics and libertarian philosophy. The man’s works speak for themselves and I want to take a few seconds to recommend some of his best works (in my opinion).

Man, Economy, and State was his treatise on economics. Originally intended to be a study companion for Ludwig von Mises’s Human Action, it ended up being a full blown economics book where Rothbard even managed to correct some of Mises discoveries. If you want a deep understanding of economics this is the book to read.

On the topic money Rothbard wrong the excellent What Has Government Done to Our Money? In it Rothbard explains monetary theory (in other words how money is nothing more than a commodity to facilitate trade) including how money came into use, why commodity based money is the only valid monetary system, and how the government fucked us all over by forcing us to use their fiat currency that they manipulate in such a fashion as to steal our purchasing power.

Speaking of fiat money we should look into the Federal Reserve and its origins, which Rothbard did in The Origins of the Federal Reserve. In it he explains the history of the Federal Reserve from the fateful meeting of bankers at Jekyll Island to its actual establishment.

When it comes to libertarian philosophy Rothbard had two excellent titles. The first was For a New Liberty: The Libertarian Manifesto and the second was The Ethics of Liberty. For a New Liberty looks at libertarianism as an escape from our current state of tyranny and gives justification. In The Ethics of Liberty Rothbard explained the ethics behind libertarianism. Both books are excellent reads.

Rothbard made great contributions to the libertarian movement and it’s sad that he’s not more well known, even in libertarian circles. I would argue that he was one of the greatest minds to ever contribute to libertarian philosophy and economics. All the material I mentioned is freely available at the links I provided. You would be doing yourself a great service to checking out at least one or two of his books, especially if you consider yourself a libertarian or are curious about libertarians and their beliefs.

We Won’t Pay

People in Greece are finally coming to terms with the abusive relationship they have with their government. While some have opted to riot in the streets others are looking at a far more peaceful, and effective, solution to the problem: starving the beast:

The people who could ultimately give Greece the coup de grace are not the kind to throw stones or Molotov cocktails, and they have yet to torch any cars. Instead, they are people like 60-year-old beverage distributor Angelos Belitsakos, people who might soon turn into a real problem for the economically unstable country. Feeling cornered, he and other private business owners want to go on the offensive. But instead fighting with weapons, they are using something much more dangerous. They are fighting with money.

Belitsakos is a short, slim and alert man who lives in the middle-class Athenian suburb of Holargos. He is also the physical and spiritual leader of a movement of businesspeople in Greece that is recruiting new members with growing speed. While Greece’s government is desperately trying to combat its ballooning budget deficit by raising taxes and imposing new fees, people like Belitsakos are putting their faith in passive resistance.

The group’s slogan is as simple as it is stoic: “We Won’t Pay.”

An elegant solution if I do say so myself. The business owners are pissed and have decide they’re no longer going to pay the state for services that aren’t being delivered. Good on these people. Violent actions against the state seldom succeed because the state specializes in violence. Trying to take on a specialist rarely succeeds unless you are also a specialist. Looking at the riots in Greece, namely the unspecified nature of the rioters’ aggression, allows one to see that the people of Greece are not specialists in the use of violence, they aren’t even capable of targeting the entity that is responsible for the current economic hardships. On the other hand the state can only wield its capacity for violence so long as they can continue paying those it employs as agents. When money is no longer flowing into the state’s coffers they will eventually be unable to pay the military and police, at which point their threats of violence against the people become meaningless as they can’t be backed.

The problem with refusing to pay the state comes in getting a large enough base of taxpayers to sign on; something that can be difficult when the state threatens violence against those who don’t pay the demanded tithe. If these business owners succeed, if they get a large enough percentage of the population refusing to give the state money, they have an opportunity to resist the present austerity measures being imposed upon them. I wish these people luck. The government of Greece violated the coercive contract it foisted upon the populace so there is no argument to be made for the people complying with the government’s demands.

Are You in an Abusive Relationship

Those in abusive relationships often don’t realize it. It’s sad and difficult to bring up when you believe one of your friends is in an abusive relationship because you know the potential for cognitive dissonance is high. I think it’s important for all of us to take a few minutes out of your life and see you’re encountering any of the 10 signs that you’re in an abusive relations… with your government:

When you think of an abusive relationship, what adjectives come to mind? Controlling? Violent? Humiliating? Jealous? Obsessive? Go figure, it doesn’t take a huge stretch of the imagination to apply these same adjectives to many of the world’s governments throughout history and certainly the absolute states that emerged in modernity with their absolute warfare, constant surveillance, and obsessive control of every aspect of their citizens’ lives from cradle to grave– the federal government of the fifty American states being no exception to this unfortunate state of affairs.

[…]

Conclusion

Yeah, we’re in an abusive relationship with our government. The problem with abusive relationships is that it’s hard for the person in them to see that they’re in one. They make excuses for their abuser. They believe that their abuser really loves them and has their best interests at heart. They think a real change is always just around the corner, and the abuser takes advantage of this by perpetually promising to make changes and get better, promises that are never kept– the abuse just keeps going on and getting worse. Of course the first step is acknowledging that there’s a problem, that we’re in an abusive relationship with our government, and while a lot of Americans are starting to reach that point, it seems we’re not yet at a critical mass. We need to keep spreading the message and helping the people in this country to see just how abusive, violent, controlling, and malicious their government is.

I’ve acknowledged the abusive nature of my relationship with the government and have been trying to get out of it. Sadly it’s not easy. For our entire relationship the government has been claiming they only hurt me because they love me. When I ask the government to show me it loves me it will talk about all the people overseas that it’s killing, claiming that those people wanted to harm me. The government will also point to the roads I used every day and tell me it provides them because of its love for me, then reminds me that nobody else could possible provide me with such a luxurious lifestyle. I’ll bring up the fact that the government doesn’t let me leave without permission but it assures me that requiring a passport to leave and come up is absolutely necessary for my protection.

The hartest part is admitting the relationship is abusive. Once you’ve admitted this you can work on getting help. I’ve tried begging, discussion, and counseling to no avail. At this point I think the only option is to entirely end this relationship and send the government packing. Unfortunately the government claims ownership of my home and has friends in the court meaning my chances of kicking the government out of my life are slim at this point. Knowing others are in the same position I’ve started a support group for victims of government abuse and we’re trying to support one another until we can get out of our current predicaments.

If I Disappear the FBI Probably Kidnapped Me

The state’s war on self-ownership is ramping up something fierce:

The Homeland Security Department has ranked the movement [sovereign] as a major threat.

[…]

According to court papers, Rice was involved in the “sovereign citizen” movement, a group that has attracted little national media attention but which the FBI classifies as an “extremist antigovernment group.” So-called sovereign citizens argue that they are not subject to local, state or federal laws, and some refuse to recognize the authority of courts or police.

Since 2000, members of the movement have killed six police officers, and clashes with law enforcement are on the rise, according to the FBI. The deadliest incident came in 2010, when a shootout with a member left four people dead, including two police officers, during what began as a routine traffic stop in West Memphis, Ark.

[…]

In two recent unpublished studies, the Homeland Security Department and the National Counterterrorism Center ranked the sovereign citizen movement as a major threat, along with Islamic extremists and white supremacists. The FBI assigned a supervisor to coordinate investigations of the movement last year.

“This is a movement that has absolutely exploded,” said Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, a nonprofit organization based in Montgomery, Ala., that tracks domestic terrorists and hate groups. More than 100,000 Americans have aligned themselves with the sovereign citizens, the center said.

It’s come to this, those of us who recognized the axiomatic principle of each person being a sovereign are not seen as equal to Islamic extremists in the eyes of the state. If this site goes offline (and it’s not a DNS issue) it probably means I’ve been kidnapped by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents and am being held on fabricated charges. Never mind the fact that out of, supposedly 100,000 people, only six incidents of violence (that’s 0.006%) have been recorded, we’re all apparently violent scumbags.

What I find most hilarious is the fact that this “sovereign” movement supposedly only consists of 100,000 people. Why does this strike me as funny? Because every human being is sovereign. How can I make such a claim? By using Hans-Herman Hoppe’s demonstration of the axiomatic nature of individual sovereignty.

When you choose to persuade somebody that they’re not sovereign using argumentation you’re recognizing the other person’s sovereignty by the fact you recognize their right to use their body in order to argue. The act of arguing demonstrates you’re recognition of another’s free will and that free will is the definition of sovereignty.

Let’s look up the definition of sovereign on Google:

1. A supreme ruler, esp. a monarch

2. A former British gold coin worth one pound sterling, now only minted for commemorative purposes

For this case we’re interested in the first definition, a supreme ruler. By definition having complete control over one’s own actions makes that person a sovereign, or supreme ruler, of him or herself.

There is no “sovereign” movement. Yet most people don’t understand the nature of sovereignty and therefore the state, who doesn’t recognize the sovereign nature of individuals as demonstrated by their use of force instead of arguments to convince, can use it to drum up more fear and therefore justify seizing more power. Looking at the FBI’s presented numbers shows how much of a non-threat the “sovereign” movement is, only 0.006% have demonstrated any capacity for violence.

This is likely because those who recognize their sovereign nature also recognize the sovereign nature of others. Recognition of another person as a sovereign individual usually brings the non-aggression principle into play. That is to say you recognize every other person as a sovereign, recognize that sovereigns coming together to cooperate is more productive than fighting, and therefore find the idea of initiating violence against others distasteful.

Saying one recognizes the value of cooperation by recognizing sovereignty probably sounds like a large assumption but it is one that can be stated with reason. As previously state one recognizes another as sovereign by the very act of using arguments to persuade them of something instead of force. If you desire a property held by another you will likely attempt to persuade him or her to give it to you by offering something to exchange. That is to say you recognize the sovereign nature of the other individual by using something other than force in an attempt to get something they hold, and by not using force you have chosen to use cooperative non-violent methods in your attempt to obtain the object you desire. Therefore those that actually understand and recognize sovereignty also adhere to the non-aggression principle.

What the FBI is claiming is false. They’re applying the title “sovereign” movement to anybody that doesn’t recognize the state’s authority over their person. Basically “sovereign” to them means inconvenient or politically undesirable. Don’t believe the FBI’s lies, these are the same people who create terrorists so they can look like heros when they “stop” them. Their actions are built on lies and deception because that is the only way to drum up fear and fear is the only way they get more funding and power.

Another Locality Nullifying the Indefinite Detention Clause of the NDAA

Virginia isn’t the only locality refusing to enforce the indefinite detention provision of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), a town in Massachusetts is also nullifying the clause:

A small town in Massachusetts says it is “opting out” of a federal law that allows the indefinite detention of U.S. citizens without trial.

The city of Northampton on Thursday passed a strongly worded resolution (PDF) to protest provisions of the federal government’s National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA), which even President Barack Obama said he had “serious reservations” about signing.

“WHEREAS, the indefinite detention of any person without trial violates the 5th and 6th amendments of the Constitution of the United States, Article III of the Constitution of the United States, and the Posse Comitatus Act,” the resolution stated.

The document went to request that public agencies “uphold the Constitution… when requested or authorized to infringe upon those Constitutionally guaranteed rights by federal agencies acting under detention powers granted by the NDAA.”

This is the kind of spine more localities in the United States of America need to grow. Instead of bowing obediently to the demands of the tyrannical federal government, local bodies need to stop up and loudly say, “NO!” I sincerely hope that every town, county, and state tell the federal government where to shove it’s indefinite detainment clause. The Bill of Rights was written in an attempt to protect the American people from an overreaching federal government. While many give the Bill of Rights magical powers the truth is those amendments added to the Constitution that supposedly protect our rights are merely words, words that must be backed up with the courage to oppose any violation of them.