For all intents and purposes, it is. Just because someone with large enough resources and time can pursue this to correct it does not mean it is not tyrannical. The fact remains that the average Joe (you know the people that actually need the protections of the law and judicial review) cannot effectively fight this. The 'rules' that govern civil forfeiture are also virtually meaningless. they can and have outright robbed people.
No, it isn't. It can be a difficult process, but its far from impossible or even improbable. Additionally, you're portraying every civil forfeiture as an act of theft against unwitting and innocent people charged with nothing. In many instances Civil Forfeiture is used against organized crime and used only after grand jury indictments have been issued. The problem with the practice isn't the seizures. Its the low threhold of proof necessary for the seizure. Raise the standard of evidence and the issue resolves itself.
The Supreme Court currently uses grand jury indictment as its standard for civil forfeiture. But is far, far higher standard than the 'Tengo mucho mucho dinero in su trucky trailer' standard used by the highway patrol in some rural areas. And requires actual evidence of an actual crime to be presented in an actual court to an actual grand jury before it can be implemented. That's still way to low for forfeiture which is a genuine transfer of ownership. But I'd argue is more than adequate for asset freezes. And in every contested case, that's effectively what it is.
I personally have no problem with civil forfeiture of assets used in criminal activity from a felon convicted of that crime. 'Used in criminal activity' and 'convicted of that crime' being the operative phrases. Asset freezes would be a valid middle ground, but only after indictment.
Yes, perhaps they would BUT I see this type of abuse as inherent in government largess and control. While liberals do not want to see this type of thing occur it is inherent in the type of government that liberals demand.
The obvious problem with that reasoning is that Civil forfeitures occur most often on the State level, both in events and total funds taken. And very frequently in conservative States, with vast support from conservative justices. This has very little to do with a liberal or conservative doctrine, as its opposed by both. The abuse in question is inherent in the low threshold of evidence needed to seize the property. Which is why by simply raising that threshold the entire issue is solved.
Here's a site dedicated civil forfietures. (tab for different states is in the upper right hand corner)
Asset Forfeiture Report Florida The Institute for Justice
You'll find that the States with republican legislatures typically have the least protections for property owners in civil forfeiture law. While democratically held legislatures typically have the most protections for property owners in civil forfeiture law. While implementation of the law follows no particular pattern of liberal or conservative. California for example gets a grade of C in its laws. But an F in implementation for a final grade of D. Arizona has a D in the law and a D in implementation for a final grade of D. One liberal, one conservative, same grade.
I'd argue that the laws better represent what a 'liberal' or 'conservative' would want however. And liberal states average roughly a C. While Conservative States are D to F on average.
Another problem with the 'what liberals demand' argument is that Kaley V. United Staes, the USSC case that defines civil forfeiture rules at the grand indictment level got the vote of every conservative justice but Roberts. When you have both Scalia and Thomas on the side you're condemning, you can hardly call it a 'liberal' vision. Though it was a 6-3 verdict that surprisingly brought in Kagan. Only Sotomayor, Ginsburg and Roberts dissented. An odd grouping on both sides, with Kagen joining the conservative wing and Roberts the liberal.
I would take issue with your last point as well. We have made grate strides in freedom in the modern era, that is true. At the same time though we have made other moves that are clearly backward and some VERY erroneous ones. It is can not 'arguably' be freer still - it CAN be freer still and it needs to be. We should stride ever more for grater freedom. It seems to me that we are only striving for grater control. From the control to what you are allowed to eat to the control of where and what you are allowed to do - the pendulum is starting to shift the other way. The real trick is to catch it BEFORE we are no longer free because the one thing that I am sure of is that if we wait to correct the course after we have lost real freedom then there simply is no correcting it.
And that's where I think you're wrong. The farther you go back in our history, the more egregious the violates of rights are at the state level. Execution for sodomy, Jim Crow laws, mandatory religious participation, felony criminalization of interracial sex or marriage, seizure of property without compensation (or any criminal complaint), mandatory castration of the mentally ill, no suffrage for women or non-property owners. For crying out loud, the Bill of Rights didn't even apply to the States until nearly the beginning of the 20th century. Texas didn't stop criminalizing consensual sexual behavior in adults until 2004.
And then there's Slavery. One of the most brutal, tyrannical, draconian, insane practices in the history of our nation or any other. And it was the beating heart of the economy of most southern states for 3 full generations after the signing of the declaration of independence. Institutionalized and violently protected by the States for just as long.
If tyranny is insanity, then the early nation was batshit crazy. The idyllic, freedom loving utopia that many conservatives imagine the past to be is a cotton candy fantasy based on profound, willful ignorance, or straight up Dinesh D'Soaza historical revisionism. With today being a mere twitches of bipolar disorder in comparison.
Your 'decent into tyranny' fails on three fronts. First, a descent from what? The past was less free than the present. Not by little nibbles here and there. But by enormous blood soaked, ball chopping, race enslaving, gender disenfranchising leaps and bounds. Second, If tyranny is justification for the dissolution of the entire government, and the past was more tyrannical by an absolutely *absurd* degree,
then by your own logic, our nation should have been dissolved the moment it was created. And I would disagree with such an assessment for the third problem with your argument:
This nation is a work in progress on a generally upward trajectory in terms of rights. The founder's America deserved to survive as a government because it was the best they could do with the situation they had. And they were aiming higher than they were able. That upward trajectory resulted in more freedoms, a greater appreciation for actual liberty and the liberalization of laws over time that were undeniably tyrannical and insane. The longer our nation existed, the more liberty abounded. Oh, there were twitches backward, to be sure. Dred Scott, Anti-Chinese laws, Jim Crow, Japanese Internment, Segregatoin, the Patriot Act, and the like. But the overall trajectory has been toward more liberty and more freedom.
Until today, we have more practice choice, more freedom and more liberty than at any point in our nation's history.
And NOW.....NOW is when you argue that our government has lost its right to exist? Not when the USSC upheld State seizures of properties without compensation in Barron V. Baltimore. Not when the Mormon Extermination Act was codified into law. Not when Wallace stood in the school house doors trying to keep blacks out of white colleges. Not when Slavery was a violently defended institution. Not when an entire gender wasn't allowed to vote.
But now when
none of those things are happening. What the fuckity ****, dude?
