Newsgroups: alt.politics.libertarian,talk.politics.guns,alt.society.civil-liberty,alt.politics.usa.constitution,talk.politics.libertarian
From: [f--s--l] at [netcom.com] (David Feustel)
Subject: British View of Possible 2nd Amer Rev
Date: Tue, 23 May 1995 23:50:53 GMT
A SECOND AMERICAN REVOLUTION?
_________________________________________________________________
By Anthony Furlong
Free Life, London
When I look at the United States, I am filled both with alarm and with
hope. On the one hand, I see the rapid advance of despotism. On the
other, I see a gathering of perhaps all the forces needed to halt that
advance and turn it back. I do not know if there will be an
insurrection, or a revolution, or a civil war. But whatever may be
about to happen in that country will, I am in no doubt, set the course
of mankind for centuries to come.
One: The Threat
The advance of despotism in America is something too plain to require
a long description. The voiding of the Constitution and Bill of Rights
began in the 1860s, if not before; and the progress of the Federal
Government from delegate of the States to its current supremacy has
been the history of the United States. But three modern developments
are worth noting.
Civil Asset Forfeiture
First, there is the "War on Drugs". The attempted prohibition of acts
that do not cause quantifiable harm to third parties is itself a
violation of rights, and should always be protested. But the failure
of all the usual legal means of enforcing the prohibition has led the
Federal Government to other, still more serious, violations. Perhaps
the most obvious of these is civil asset forfeiture. The Purpose of
the Comprehensive Forfeiture Act 1984 was to strengthen existing laws
against "racketeering" - that is, organised crime on a large scale,
usually connected with the supply of drugs. The Act allows the
authorities to freeze the allegedly tainted assets of an accused
person prior to conviction. Such assets can be recovered, but only if
the accused person sues for them and can prove that no illegality was
involved in their acquisition and in the earning of the money with
which they were acquired, and that they were not used for any illegal
purpose.
Since this is a civil interlocutory process, there is no
Constitutional bar to reversing the burden of proof. Moreover, since
all assets may be frozen, it can be difficult for an accused person to
obtain the legal assistance needed to recover them. Even when some
assets are left unfrozen, an American litigant must pay his own costs
regardless of how his case ends. The effect of this is that only a
very wealthy accused person who wants to recover very substantial
assets can be expected to sue the Federal Government. For everyone
else, asset forfeiture is just what it is called - forfeiture. Never
mind that a jury may acquit, nor even that the case may be dropped
before trial, assets frozen are nearly always assets confiscated.
It is, however, the use of asset forfeiture that has transformed it
into a weapon of arbitrary power. It has been extended by court
decisions and further statutes to cover virtually every crime; and
Federal and State agencies empowered to freeze assets now include the
FBI, the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Food and Drug
Administration, the United States Marshals Service, the Coast Guard,
the Internal Revenue Service, The Department of Housing and Urban
Development, the Bureau of Land Management, together with local police
forces and the Highway Patrol. The value of assets frozen per year was
$27 million in 1986, $644 million in 1991, and is now well past $1
billion.1
To see how asset forfeiture works, consider these cases:
* In 1992, in Iowa, "a woman accused of shoplifting a $25 sweater
had her $18,000 car - specially equipped for her handicapped
daughter - seized as the 'getaway vehicle".
* In December 1988, Detroit drug police raided a grocery store, but
failed to find any drugs. After dogs reacted to three $1.00 bills
in the cash register, the police seized $4,384 from cash registers
and the store safe. According to The Pittsburgh, Press, over 90
per cent of all cash circulating in the United States shows some
drug residue.
* In 1994, a Californian farmer accidentally ran his tractor over a
protected rat. The United States Fish and Wildlife Service seized
the tractor, worth $50,000 and bought on credit.
* In United States v 403+ Skyline Drive (a case in which property
was the defendant!), a Los Angeles Court upheld the retrospective
seizure of a home for misrepresentations made to a
Government-insured loan company.2
* There are proposals to extend asset forfeiture still wider, so
that seizures may be made on mere suspicion, and so that the
individual officers making the seizures can receive bonuses based
on the value of what they seize. Armed with these powers, the
authorities will only need bother themselves with due process when
they want to put someone in prison.
Gun Control
Second, there is the gradual abolition of the right to keep arms.
Contrary to received opinion, and any reading of the Second Amendment,
there is no absolute legal right to own guns in the United States.
From a New York Act of 1911 to the Federal Crime Act 1994, there is a
long history of restrictions of access to weapons. Even so, hostility
has become far more active in recent years; and there is evidence that
the Federal authorities are at least planning a very severe further
restriction. Consider:
* In a recent questionnaire given to American soldiers, it was
asked:
The U.S. government declares a ban on the possession, sale,
transportation, and transfer of all non-sporting firearms. A thirty
(30) day amnesty period is permitted for these firearms to be turned
over to the local authorities. At the end of this period, a number
of citizens' groups refuse to turn over their firearms. Consider the
following statement: I would fire upon U.S. citizens who refuse or
resist confiscation of firearms banned by the U.S. government.3
* In May 1994, between 15 and 20 agents of the Federal Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the Internal Revenue Service
entered Pennsylvania the home of Harry and Theresa Lamplugh to
carry out a search. Though the Lamplughs fully cooperated with the
authorities, opening safes and cabinets as asked, they were
repeatedly threatened with a machine gun, and three of their pet
cats were killed - one deliberately crushed. Their furniture was
smashed, and papers and food were mixed and scattered everywhere.
Mr Lamplugh, who is dying from cancer, was refused access to his
prescribed medication throughout the six and a half hour search.
The reason for this search? Mr Lamplugh is a gun show promoter.
These are entirely legal gatherings, but are famous as meeting
places for people who do not like Federal agencies. Among items
seized was a complete list of all gun sales assisted by Mr
Lamplugh since 1988: this gave the names and addresses of 70,000
thousand people. Some of these people have since had their homes
searched. Mr and Mrs Lamplugh have several times received
anonymous telephone calls late at night, threatening them with
death if they did not stop complaining.4
Murder
Third, and following from the above, the Federal Government has
started to murder those who make too public a show of collecting guns.
At Waco, it gassed or burned to death 67 adults and 17 children. This
is one of the most notorious atrocities of recent years committed in a
civilised county. It is, however, worth recalling the most damning
facts:
* That the authorities claimed that they only wanted to question
David Koresh about (anonymous) allegations of child abuse and
weapons stockpiling - he went jogging alone in town almost every
morning;
* That they chose to execute a search warrant on the compound by
sending in more than 200 agents armed with machine guns, grenades,
helicopters and military tanks;
* The reporters were threatened with "tragic consequences" if they
came unaccompanied within two miles of the compound;
* That one of the Davidians was shot by the FBI for trying to get
into the compound, and that his body was left hanging on the fence
for three days while it was eaten by wild dogs;
* That all that remained of the compound after the fire was levelled
by the FBI before the arson investigators were allowed in.
Aside from the above, there are repeated rumours that hardly seem
credible - of Russian tanks and artillery seen driving along country
roads, of foreign troops drilling on American soil, of plans to
abolish cash transactions, of martial law, of concentration camps
ready and waiting to hold up to a million "dissidents". The Internet
is full of speculation about what the Federal Government intends to do
next. Doubtless, Americans are famous for paranoid speculation about
everything from the Kennedy assassination to the Moon landings. But
there is plenty if indubitable evidence of anti-Constitutional
action.5
Two: The Response
During the past few years, there has been an enormous growth of
citizen militias in the United States. Largely rural, middle class
groups, these have the best weapons that can be bought or stolen. They
are trained by veterans who learned everything worth knowing from the
Vietcong about guerilla warfare. They correspond with each other using
the securest new encryption. They have sympathisers in the regular
armed forces; and, in spite of the possibly desired use of the armed
forces against citizens, there is good reason to doubt the loyalty of
many units.
Spokesmen for the militias claim that they are purely defensive
organisations. According to John Turner, a member of the Texas
Constitutional Militia,
We're 90 per cent real Christians. We don't want to start blowing up
bridges or sniping at judges.6
But their purpose is to deter. They will protect people like the
Lamplughs, and journalists who may be threatened for exposing Federal
abuses. The general mood is that the authorities must not be allowed
to get away with another Waco. The long shredding of the American
Constitution must be stopped.
Naturally, the establishment media has portrayed the militia movement
as a front for racists and bigots. The Anti-Defamation League, a
Jewish organisation, has even produced a long smear, claiming that the
militias have been infiltrated, where not set up, by anti-semites.
This report is remarkable for its collection of so many wilful lies
and half-truths into so small a space. But it is apparent that the
Anti-Defamation League is not quite the fearless enemy of
anti-semitism that it used to be: it seems now largely to fabricate
what it cannot provoke. After all, a budget of $30 million would be
rather a lot to spend against a few elderly cranks who believe inter
alia that the blood of gentile children is exported to Israel.7
Denouncing the report, Mark Bowers, a former artillery officer who
commands the Montgomery County Militia near Houston, says:
I'm Jewish and I take offence to that. There's nobody of that ilk in
our unit. We're trying to recruit blacks, Latinos, Jews, women,
anybody who wants to join.8
Probably, the militias do contain the usual fools, who always miss the
point with their talk of white supremacy and homosexual plots. But
increasingly, the members are talking a different language.
Via the Internet, I have just received parts of a magazine called The
Resister. Though produced on a stencil duplicator, photocopies and
electronic uploads give it an immense circulation among the militias.
Fearing for their lives, its authors hide behind pseudonyms. There are
proposals to make distributing it a criminal offence. I will not quote
any of the classified material that it prints. But I will quote from
the Editorial:
The Resister is a response to the altruistic cannibalism which is
consuming the principle of inalienable individual rights upon which
this nation was founded and which have been served up in sacrifice
to the mob god of democracy, the minority god of tribalism, the
nature god of environmentalism, the slave god of collectivism, and
the statist god of socialism.
Do you want to know who we are? We are the individuals who conceive
the ideas the cretinous mob calls "the team effort." We are the
individuals whose excellence is subverted by the racist policy of
"equal opportunity." We are the independent, innovative, and
creative who have been enslaved to serve the "greater good." Without
us you would still be prying roots out of the ground with a pointed
stick....
Every whim based, undefined, un-judicable law it passes; every
unconstitutional gang of armed badge wielding thugs it deploys;
every unconstitutional agency it creates; every incomprehensible
special interest regulation it mandates; every dime extorted through
taxation and redistributed to the incompetent and undeserving; every
American life lost in some altruistic war, humanitarian assistance,
or peacekeeping operation, demonstrates the illegitimacy of the
federal government.
The federal government is not "of the people," it is the instrument
of pull-peddlers. It is not "by the people," it is the toady of
special interests. It is not "for the people," it is the exercise of
force for the sake of force.
Pass laws against us; we will not obey. Regulate our activities; we
will not comply. Legislate our behavior; we will not consent.
We are free men. We will not be subjugated. We have the guns to
prove it.9
As a call to arms, these words are worthy of Jefferson. They are the
manifesto of a second American Revolution. I can imagine how they are
read and reread in the citizen militias; and how before long, they may
be hurled in the faces of a corrupt ruling class that has turned
America into a land of civil asset forfeiture, gun control, and
Waco-style massacres.
Three: Our Own Response
Here, I feel it prudent to address a few words to my own ruling class
- words which, having been prompted and approved by the Editor of this
journal and by my friend and Proprietor Mr Tame, can be regarded as an
official statement of the British libertarian movement.
Neither Free Life nor the Libertarian Alliance advocates armed
insurrection in the United Kingdom. To be justified, it is not by
itself enough for violence to be in a good cause: it must be plain
that violence is the only means by which that cause can be advanced,
and that the alternative to violence is an intolerable despotism. It
is also necessary that the violence should be a reasonably effective
means of advancing the cause. None of these conditions applies in the
United Kingdom.
In the first place, an insurrection here has at the moment no likely
chance of success. Unlike the Americans, we have already been
disarmed; and, except among the Ulstermen, what tradition we have of
armed resistance to the authorities has long since atrophied. Even if
a few of us were to import weapons and train secretly in their use, we
should have no support from any large section of the general public.
It would be easy for the authorities to mobilise opinion against us,
and to keep us as isolated and ineffective as the IRA has usually been
in the mainland United Kingdom.
In the second place, I must admit that, on the whole, the British
Government is rather gentle compared with the American. It does not
murder its opponents on anything like the same scale. It has not to
the same extent sidestepped the restraints of due process by taking
criminal matters into the civil courts.
Nor is it so able to ignore calls for reform. The bureaucracy is
smaller. Ministers are not so isolated from everyday life. The special
interest groups are less completely in charge of policy. Everyone is
less corrupt. Despite the formal veil of secrecy, our system is often
more transparent, and more open to the influence of informed public
opinion.
Yet, though we reject the use of political violence in this country,
we entirely support the citizen militias in their opposition to the
Federal Government. At the same time, we undertake to give that
opposition all help that may be lawfully within our means. The
struggle of any libertarian, anywhere in the world, is the struggle of
all libertarians; and we are aware that the collapse of liberty in the
United States will immeasurably weaken it in other countries.
This being said, what if there is second American revolution, and a
libertarian government takes office in a new American Federation - how
are we as British libertarians to respond? The answer, I suggest, is
simple. When the Bolsheviks took power in 1917, the more extreme
socialists everywhere in the world became accustomed to looking at
least for guidance to Moscow. A British communist in 1935 saw himself
firstly not as a British citizen, but as the agent of a foreign power,
and his first duty as working for the supremacy in this country of
that foreign power's ideology.
And that is how we shall be. My Editor calls himself an English
patriot, who puts his own country and its free traditions first. I
wait to see what he will call himself if ever those traditions have
been obliterated here, but are supreme elsewhere.
For myself, I shall feel no internal conflict; and I invite my readers
to join me in wishing every success to our comrades across the
Atlantic.
Notes
1 Source: Jarret Wollstein, The Looting of America, leaflet
published by the International Society for Individual Liberty,
California, 1992.
2 Sources: ibid.; Jarret Wollstein, "Massive increase in Gun and
Property Seizures", Freedom Network News, California, Sept/Oct
1994.
3 Source: Wollstein, op. cit. (1994).
4 Source: "BATF Thugs Strike Again", The Gun Owner, Vol. 13, No.
6, December 1994.
5 A video record of the Waco seige is available. It uses "footage
from satellite feeds, eye-witness accounts, and the testimony
of forensic experts. American VHS copies can be obtained for
$40 (post included only within the United States) from the
International Society for Individual Liberty, 1800 Market
Street, San Francisco, California 94102, tel: (415) 864 0952,
fax: (415) 864 7506.
6 Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, "Patriot games turn deadly: Illegal US
"militias" threaten rule of Washington", The Sunday Telegraph,
London, 4th December 1994. Though interesting, this article
contains a number of mistakes. In the first place, citizen
militias are not illegal in the United States. In the Second,
Mr Evans-Pritchard claims that the Texas Constitutional
Militia mustered at the Alamo on the 19th April 1994. This was
actually the first anniversary of the Waco massacre. According
to friends of mine who were there, the muster took place on
the 12th November 1994.
7 Armed and Dangerous: Militias Take Aim at the Federal
Government, published in 1994 by the Anti-Defamation League of
B'nai B'rith, Washington DC. The report is probably copyright,
but copies can be obtained via the Internet from Dr Linda D.
Thompson at [71163 1350] at [compuserve.com.]
8 Evans-Pritchard, op. cit..
9 Hard copies of The Resister may be available from Box 1403
Addison, Texas 75001. Readers are advised to send return
postage and to wait a long time. They are also advised to
consider that it may be a front for the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco and Firearms, or any number of the other Federal
Agencies that it purports to attack.
[Free Life] Editor's Note: I wish to confirm that Free Life does not
advocate or support the breach of any British law.
_________________________________________________________________
Article reporoduced in JPJA by permission.
This article first appeared in issue number 22 of "Free Life", which
is the quarterly journal of the London-based Libertarian Alliance. A
subscription costs US$20 - cash or personal checks - and is available
from the following address:
Free Life
c/o The Libertarian Alliance
25 Chapter Chambers
Pimlico
London SW1P 4NN
tel: **44 171 821 5502
fax: **44 171 823 4534
e-mail [cea 01 sig] at [gold.ac.uk]
JPJA Editor's Note: JPJA's reprint of the above footnotes,
including the contact infomation does not represent an endorsement
of Linda Thompson, or the sending of monies to the "Resister" P.O.
box number. If you order a copy of Free Life, be sure to mention
that you read their article in JPJA.
_________________________________________________________________
Text (C) by Free Life. HTML code (C)4/1995 HM3C
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