TWhat we have now is basically a federal government with another 50 little bureaucracies running around adding more weight and regulation to federal ones. I have also NEVER stated that liberals agreed with this travesty. You argue against that point for several paragraphs yet that was never my point.What we have now is basically a federal government with another 50 little bureaucracies running around adding more weight and regulation to federal ones. I have also NEVER stated that liberals agreed with this travesty. You argue against that point for several paragraphs yet that was never my point.
How does federalism have anything to do with this? There's absolutely nothing in our current system that requires a single state use utilize civil forfeiture law. Nothing. They are *allowed* to. And 50 of 50 times, they *choose* to. How is 50 of 50 states choosing to do something individually a 'failure of federalism'. Its a demonstration of it. What federalist mechanism would have prevented it this choice before the 'complete collapse of federalism'? Nothing.
Federalism is a non-factor in non-mandatory law. Before your 'collapse' or after, the States would have the exact same authority to choose. Nor is there any force 'compelling' them to embrace non-mandatory laws like this after your 'collapse'. The entire argument is DOA out of the gate.
Sure - no one is arguing that the government should not be able to seize assets that are involved in crimes. The establishment of a crime must be the absolute least metric necessary to do such though and we know that is simply not the case.
In the instances where indictments have been issued, there is a threshold of due process of law. I think that threshold is too low and needs to be raised. But there is a process involving a judge, a grand jury, a reviewed standard of evidence, prosecution and an opportunity for defense. This I wouldn't consider meeting any credible definition of 'tyrannical'.
The seizure of money based on the mere suspicion like those seizures done when an officer 'feels a crime has been committed' is bullshit. As if there's enough evidence to seize property, there's enough to arrest someone. And in some civil forfeiture cases the money is taken and the arrest is never made. That's where we are approaching a tyrannical threshold in my opinion. If the USSC were to sign off on such a standard, we'd clearly have to take steps to correct it. An amendment perhaps. The situation would be that egregious. But the SCOTUS never has, and the issue is working its way through the law.
What I did state was that it is an inevitable consequence of an ever increasing and more encroaching government. THAT is where liberals come in. Not that they would support this type of thing but that it is born directly from such concepts. Liberals, IMHO, tend to have this nice vision of compassionate government that cares for the people and fights corruption. I find that idea rather naive. Government looks out for itself. There is nothing wrong with that of course. There is only a problem when you allow government to become so powerful that it no longer needs real support from the people anymore.
Wow....that's like an epic and total abdication of any personal responsibility on the part of the States and conservatism. Your argument breaks in so many ways. First, your 'federalism' argument is crap. There's nothing forcing any state to do this. Its a choice. Its not even like speed limits where the government is withholding funding if the States don't succumb to federal mandates. There is no negative consequence whatsoever if a State refuses to create its own civil forfeiture laws.
Each state is individually responsible for its choice in this matter. With their civil forfeiture laws a reflection of the will of their individual legislatures. And thus the responsibility of their individual legislatures alone (well, the governor obviously has to sign off). Every single conservative state legislature that voted in their civil forfeiture laws are singularly responsible for every portion of them.
If conservativism is such a leaf on the water that the mere OPTION of civil forfeiture laws robs it of any control or responsibility over its own actions, then as a political philosophy its so anemic as to be utterly impotent and void of any principle or utility as a governing ideal.
And I don't credit conservatism with such an impotent, powerless position. Not only did the conservative States embrace civil forfeiture law. They, on average, have civil forfeiture laws that are more severe than that of liberal states or the federal government. Utterly obliterating even the idea that civil forfeiture laws are the product of liberalism. As in every single instance of their passage by conservative legislatures, they have been the direct and singular product of conservatism. Only with the laws being just a little more egregious, with the protection to personal liberty just a little more stripped away on average.
And I would argue that the states represent what a DEMOCRAT and REPUBLICAN would want - not a liberal or conservative.
So Arizona and Texas aren't conservative? California and New York aren't liberal? Really?
Then why don't you give us your personal definitions and we'll see how useful those are.
And that is supposed to make this a conservative measure?
Its yet another example....along with each and every conservative State legislature who carefully crafted and voted in their own civil forfeiture laws that there is nothing in these civil forfeiture laws that conflict with conservatism in practice. And in fact, quite a bit of these laws that conservatives in the court and state legislature have lauded, defended, and implemented.
Leaving you with one of two options. Either the issue transcends conservatism and liberalism....and is instead the natural product of the low threshold of the law. Or civil forfeiture laws are more perfectly aligned with conservatism, as conservatives given the chance tend to vote laws in that are more severe with fewer protections for the individual.
I'd suggest you join me in the former conclusion. As the latter doesn't paint a pretty picture of conservatives and the alignment of their words with their true principles.
You are damn right that the nation was bat shit crazy before - the entire world was. You understand that the problem is not where we are AT but where we are going. Look at it this way, in our nations past we have fought and moved forward with increasing our freedoms. That has always been one of the greatest things about USA. We ended slavery, fought racism and worked to on equality. I see very little of that now. Certainly there are a few examples - gays are finally allowed to marry in much of the nation and I would bet that will be an issue of the past in less than a decade. Yay, we corrected a failure of this nation for 5% of the population. Meanwhile, the government has essentially declared no one, anywhere has any right to privacy.
Yes and no. Every freedom possessed in the past is still retained now. Go back to the 70s.....and the federal government couldn't tap land lines without a warrant, couldn't open your mail without a warrant. The same applies today. The issue is....we have new technologies that didn't exist in the past. And these are subject to a higher degree of scrutiny than the technology was protected in the past and is still protected now.
When it comes to actual policy, you and I are pretty much on the same page. You're not going to get an ounce of argument from me that 'metadata' downloads shouldn't require a warrant, or that my email keywords should be an open book to the NSA. But how is this functionally different that J. Edgar's system of 'files' on people? I'd say its far less egregious as its far less personal. And in our current system, at least a warrant is needed for any real invasion of privacy. The warrants are little more than rubber stamps, with not one ever having been denied. But due process is met...technically. Its a firewall one level deep. But at least its a firewall. In the past the FBI could do pretty much what it wanted with no oversight and no warrants. And were often used as bludgeoning tools to grind political or personal axes. That doesn't appear to be the case today, at least not to anywhere near the same degree.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not saying the current situation is cool. I'm saying that at worst, its on par with the past. And given the rollback of many of these programs (sigh....at least officially), we're seeing a degree of responsiveness that's better than the past. And a degree of transparency (albeit not willingly in every case) that's greater than the past. The same technology that makes it easier to consolidate information also makes it harder to hide. And the Freedom of Information Act offers us a window into government actions that is simply unprecedented in our nation's history. A window that the government can, at its whim, cloud. But a window that is far clearer than anything we've had in the past.
And that's my point. Is our system perfect? **** no. Is it better than anything we've had in the past. Not just yes but HELL yes.
That being said, I can wrap my head around your arguments about our trendline. I acknowledge that if freedom and liberty were graphed, our trendline in say, the 50 and 60s had a far steeper upward slope than it does now. And that since 911....it hasn't been much more than the horizontal. But I still think we're improving. And will continue to improve. Look at McDonald V. Chicago and the limits to government regulation on guns. Your already acknowledged vast progress on gay marriage. Archaic rules regulating consensual sexual behavior being rolled back in Lawrence v. Texas. 'Protest zones' being ruled unconstitutional.
There have also been setbacks. Citizens United was a disaster, standing as a masturbatory fantasy for every politically motivated trust fund kid in our nation. Kelo V. the City of New London was straight up bullshit. But not utterly inconsistent with the practice in early America. But the preponderance of movement on liberty and freedom has been upward. And I don't see that changing.
Another factor to consider is the alternative. Disbanding a government is a ******* chaotic process. And rarely results in more stability, security and practical freedom as what it overthrew. For every US Constitutional Convention there are 20 squabbling, balkanized politically fractured 'nations' barely able to control what happens within their own borders, and 5 more collapses into civil war. A functioning government with the kind of checks and balances we have......is insanely difficult to establish.
Its much easier to improve the system we have than to upend the chess board and try and reassemble the pieces.
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