|
October 23, 2009
Killing federalism under a must-pass $680-billion false flag!
Did you think the Matthew Shepard Act is merely about adding sexual orientation to the list of federal hate crimes? If you did (as I did), then you are in for a rude awakening. To back up a bit, over the weekend, I was appalled to discover that the federal government had assumed jurisdiction over and actually criminalized illegal wood. What I found especially disturbing was that the wood regulating provisions (consisting of amendments to the Lacey Act) had gone unreported, and were simply buried in a 663 page atrocity called the Farm Bill. The Farm Bill itself received limited attention, and seemed to be of media interest only because Bush's veto of it was overridden. The latest piece of federal legislation to receive such deceptive attention is called the Matthew Shepard Hate Crimes Prevention Act. The conventional media spin is that this would add sexual orientation to existing hate crimes categories. I had been following the debate, and was so distracted by the arguments pro and con that I missed the bigger picture. OK, let me stop and reiterate that I oppose all hate crimes legislation -- whether for blacks, gays, Jews, Christians, Muslims, the blue-eyed devils, the homeless, or any other conceivable identity group (of which there are many more). What has bothered me the most about this debate is to see a number of Republicans argue that hate crime laws are OK for some identity groups, but not for gays. Whether they realize it or not, such a mindset looks like anti-gay bigotry, and will be perceived that way by gays and their supporters, and thus helps fuel the continuation of identity politics. Anyway, I say this not so much to argue the merits of my position (which finds little support among either Democrats or Republicans), as to illustrate that like most people, I assumed that I at least knew what was being debated and voted on. The issue (so I believed) was a simple one: whether gays should be added to the already long federal hate crimes list. That this was the issue was confirmed in numerous headlines. "Hate crimes bill set to become law" is typical. So is a headline from today's Detroit Free Press -- "Congress extends hate crime protections to gays": WASHINGTON -- Physical attacks on people based on their sexual orientation will join the list of federal hate crimes, in a major expansion of the civil rights-era law that Congress approved Thursday and sent to President Barack Obama.But wait! This was not an up and down vote on the Matthew Shepard Act. They attached it to a huge Defense Policy bill, to force recalcitrant Republicans to vote for it: To assure its passage after years of frustrated efforts, Democratic supporters attached the measure to a must-pass $680-billion defense policy bill the Senate approved 68-29. The House passed the defense bill earlier this month.I'm wondering whether Senator Levin (gad, the man is my senator now!) does not think that the limitations on federal power spelled out in the Constitution are also "values our men and women fight for." Especially in light of this sentence later in the piece: But it does broaden the narrow range of actions that can trigger federal involvement -- such as attending school or voting -- and allows the federal government to step in if the Justice Department certifies that a state is unwilling or unable to follow through on an alleged hate crime.If the bill does that, then I find myself wondering why another apparently dramatic expansion of federal jurisdiction is being spun by nearly everyone as the much narrower issue of adding gays to a list? The whole thing smelled fishy, so I thought it was time to check out the actual bill in its entirety. Once again, I was appalled to find another monster. The Defense Policy bill is 1192 pages long, and is so unreadable that I find myself wondering whether the hate crimes provisions might have been tacked as a way to avoid debate on whatever else might be in the bill. As to what else might be in there, God only knows. However, narrowing my inquiry to the hate crimes provisions was a real eye opener, because there is a lot more involved than simply adding a sexual orientation category to the list. It is no exaggeration to say that this is a whole new law which substantially broadens and expands the definition and federal jurisdiction of hate crimes. The previous law specifically stated that the victim has to be engaged in a federally protected activity. Quite predictably, Senator Kennedy called the requirement that the victim be engaged in a federally protected activity a "loophole." Interestingly, members of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission were so concerned about the potential prosecutorial abuses of the law that they urged a no vote: Four members of the U.S. Civil Rights Commission urged Congress not to pass the federal hate crimes bill (LLEHCPA). In an April 29 letter to Congressional leaders, they point out that it would circumvent Constitutional protections against double jeopardy, giving the federal government the power to reprosecute people in federal court even after they have been found innocent of rape and other "hate crimes" in state court...Great. So now they have a new prosecutorial tool to federally reprosecute the groundless Duke rape case. Are you beginning to see why they spun it the way they did? What I find much more monstrous than the addition of gays to the list is the way federal jurisdiction is being redefined to include anything. Until fairly recently, all federal legislation contained a recital of what gave rise to the federal jurisdiction, and this often took the form of a boilerplate recital along the lines of "of or in or affecting interstate commerce." This act describes interstate commerce in such a way that virtually everything that happens and anything that anyone does in the United States is interstate commerce: Such violence substantially affects interstate commerce in many ways, including the following:Articles that have traveled in interstate commerce? Are there any that haven't? As to "purchasing goods and services," if that now creates federal jurisdiction, then that not only that all hate crime is now federalized, but that federal jurisdiction everywhere is assumed to be a given. The feds could now criminalize all abortion, or all anything. Federalism is gone. This is of course reflected in the new description of the circumstances defining hate crimes: `(B) CIRCUMSTANCES DESCRIBED- For purposes of subparagraph (A), the circumstances described in this subparagraph are that--Get that? If you're about to buy lunch, eating lunch you've just bought, buying a drink, about to get on a bus, doing to or from your place of employment, going to the store, you're engaged in interstate commerce. Say, doesn't paying taxes affect interstate commerce? So doesn't any attack on anyone who has ever paid or will pay any taxes affect interstate commerce for that reason too? Anyway, I think I have made my point, and I don't want to belabor it to death. To say that this grotesque expansion of federal jurisdiction is not what the founders had in mind is extreme understatement. So is the claim that it's all about sexual orientation. Or all about a "must-pass $680-billion defense" bill! I'm getting so tired of all this federal false flag fraud that I thought it was time to unfurl my favorite fake but real "Culture War" flag again. As my earlier photoshop design left a lot to be desired, reader Carl Henderson helped out with a rebel rainbow redesign pretty enough to be the envy of any Tea Party:
posted by Eric on 10.23.09 at 11:53 AM
Comments
John · October 23, 2009 04:04 PM Post a comment
You may use basic HTML for formatting.
|
|
October 2009
WORLD-WIDE CALENDAR
Search the Site
E-mail
Classics To Go
Archives
October 2009
September 2009 August 2009 July 2009 June 2009 May 2009 April 2009 March 2009 February 2009 January 2009 December 2008 November 2008 October 2008 September 2008 August 2008 July 2008 June 2008 May 2008 April 2008 March 2008 February 2008 January 2008 December 2007 November 2007 October 2007 September 2007 August 2007 July 2007 June 2007 May 2007 April 2007 March 2007 February 2007 January 2007 December 2006 November 2006 October 2006 September 2006 August 2006 July 2006 June 2006 May 2006 April 2006 March 2006 February 2006 January 2006 December 2005 November 2005 October 2005 September 2005 August 2005 July 2005 June 2005 May 2005 April 2005 March 2005 February 2005 January 2005 December 2004 November 2004 October 2004 September 2004 August 2004 July 2004 June 2004 May 2004 April 2004 March 2004 February 2004 January 2004 December 2003 November 2003 October 2003 September 2003 August 2003 July 2003 June 2003 May 2003 May 2002 AB 1634 MBAPBSAAGOP Skepticism See more archives here Old (Blogspot) archives
Recent Entries
"outside the Democratic norms of our society"
Herding Junkies Government Finance Reform The past is an ever-persistent now, more than ever! why women are victims and men are suspects The DOD Looks At Energy Security Beauty and death A Three Percenter Speaks Belief In Global Warming Falls Precipitously "the Constitution explicitly forbids it"
Links
Site Credits
|
|