“It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”
James Madison
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“It will be of little avail to the people, that the laws are made by men of their own choice, if the laws be so voluminous that they cannot be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood.”
James Madison
Interesting thing about Madison is that he wrote for both the Federalists and Anti-Federalists. He was his own enemy concerning the ratification.
I got out my old college books and am doing some research. Like a lot of you, the Q business is at least making me think. Without a bunch of wankers piling on here to diss the idea, why don’t we figure out a way to engage a wide-ranging discussion of the issues to both educate the ignorant masses and, perhaps, to domesticate those who might just be following the crowd without any idea why.
I find myself asking questions about all sorts of narratives, realizing many of the things we do are absolutely irrational. I wonder how the Framers of the Constitution with those first ten amendments (For you Anti Bill of Rights idiots? The Constitution would not BE without those first ten… Jefferson’s army of liberty-minded individuals would not have allowed it.)
Jefferson once said that the common man had the sense to know what was right and wrong without government telling him what he must do. But government must always feel “it” is the boss and that “it” has the final say.
When you are bound to respect Authority for no reason other than its name, you respect nothing.
You defer, call it respect, & disrespect yourself.
Without the current volume of laws, we wouldn’t need the current volume of attorneys and courts to explain them to us.
Then what would we do without all those people we would no longer have need of?
Regarding the quote. We are there.
Should be engraved on every seat of the house and senate. Before limiting laws , we may need to have a common base of citizens who agree on what is right and wrong.
The 2018 Domestic Terrorism Act, introduced February 2, currently in subcommittee, appears to rely (at least heavily) upon FBI input and analysis for supporting evidence.
Since we know the FBI has been weaponized to control elections, why would we use their “evidence” for legislative action? The FBI should be dismantled completely, along with partial dismantling of other bureaucratic agencies existing to destroy the national treasure. The FBI was/is a rogue agency operating along the same lines as the KGB. Consult Solzhenitsyn about what damage a rogue agency can do.
From the “Bill”
(7) In November 2017, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released its annual hate crime incident report, which found that in 2016, hate crimes increased by almost 5 percent, including a 19-percent rise in hate crimes against American Muslims. Similarly, the previous year’s report found that in 2015, hate crimes increased by 6 percent. Much of that increase came from a 66-percent rise in attacks on American Muslims. In both reports, race-based crimes were most numerous; more than 50 percent of those hate crimes targeted African Americans.”
And, a couple of months later, this legislation is introduced, followed by a Valentine’s Day school shooting. Patriot Act kind of timing? Don’t let a good crisis go to waste seems almost to have morphed into something even more sinister.
Don’t let a law restricting civil liberties get away from the lack of a crisis.
Wag the dog.
This is something to think about.. from the bill: This Act makes us all suspects and pretty much eliminates any protection of our personal liberties.
https://www.congress.gov/…/115th-cong…/house-bill/4918/text…
Actual verbiage:
Congress finds the following:
(1) White supremacists and other right-wing extremists are the most significant domestic terrorism threat facing the United States.
(2) An unclassified May 2017 joint intelligence bulletin from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Department of Homeland Security found that “white supremacist extremism poses [a] persistent threat of lethal violence,” and that White supremacists “were responsible for 49 homicides in 26 attacks from 2000 to 2016 … more than any other domestic extremist movement”.
(3) According to the New America Foundation, since September 11, 2001, 77 Americans have died in terrorist attacks by domestic extremists in the United States. Eighty-nine percent were killed by far-right-wing extremists.
(4) The fatal attacks described in paragraph (3) include—
(A) the August 5, 2012, mass shooting at a Sikh gurdwara in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, in which a White supremacist shot and killed 6 members of the gurdwara;
(B) the April 13, 2014, mass shooting at a Jewish community center and a Jewish assisted living facility in Overland Park, Kansas, in which a neo-Nazi shot and killed 3 civilians, including a 14-year-old teenager;
(C) the June 8, 2014, ambush in Las Vegas, Nevada, in which 2 supporters of the far right-wing “patriot” movement shot and killed 2 police officers and a civilian;
(D) the June 17, 2015, mass shooting at the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in which a White supremacist shot and killed 9 members of the church;
(E) the November 27, 2015, mass shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in which an anti-abortion extremist shot and killed a police officer and 2 civilians;
(F) the March 20, 2017, murder of an African-American man in New York City, allegedly committed by a White supremacist who reportedly traveled to New York “for the purpose of killing black men”;
(G) the May 26, 2017, attack in Portland, Oregon, in which a White supremacist allegedly murdered 2 men and injured a third after the men defended 2 young women whom the individual had targeted with anti-Muslim hate speech; and
(H) the August 12, 2017, attack in Charlottesville, Virginia, in which a White supremacist allegedly killed one and injured nineteen after driving his car through a crowd of individuals protesting a neo-Nazi rally, and of which Attorney General Jeff Sessions said, “It does meet the definition of domestic terrorism in our statute.”.
(5) The Anti-Defamation League’s Center on Extremism found that right-wing extremists were responsible for 150 terrorist acts, attempted acts, and plots and conspiracies that took place in the United States between 1993 and 2017. These attacks resulted in the deaths of 255 people and injured more than 600.
(6) According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, in 2015, for the first time in 5 years, the number of hate groups in the United States rose by 14 percent. The increase included a more than twofold rise in the number of Ku Klux Klan chapters. The number of anti-government militias and “patriot” groups also grew by 14 percent in 2015.
(7) In November 2017, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released its annual hate crime incident report, which found that in 2016, hate crimes increased by almost 5 percent, including a 19-percent rise in hate crimes against American Muslims. Similarly, the previous year’s report found that in 2015, hate crimes increased by 6 percent. Much of that increase came from a 66-percent rise in attacks on American Muslims. In both reports, race-based crimes were most numerous; more than 50 percent of those hate crimes targeted African Americans.
(8) In January 2017, a right-wing extremist who had expressed anti-Muslim views was charged with murder for allegedly killing 6 people and injuring nineteen in a shooting rampage at a mosque in Quebec City, Canada. It was the first-ever mass shooting at a mosque in North America, and Prime Minister Trudeau labeled it a terrorist attack.
(9) Between January and July 2017, news reports found 63 incidents in which American mosques were targeted by threats, vandalism, or arson. […]
End excerpt
I came across discussion of this bill in congress and it may be one of those bills that never get out of subcommittee, but it looks a bit ominous, especially coming out of Illinois, that bastion of civil liberty and personal responsibility.
I think Madison’s quote might be a fair to middling space to have a discussion on whether a piece of legislation modelled after the one which I link to above… whether ANY sort of drivel Congress Critters cobble together has any value toward resolving our cultural problems. Especially since their primary job begging for campaign dollars and kissing corporate ass precludes their having time to actually read the legislation before they pass it.
The law fits on the back of an envelope. Onto a cocktail napkin, even. “Voluminous” is alchemy…of your gold into their gold.