A Nation Trained to Fear.

I found this on another site and found it to be appropriate for here...

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A Nation Trained to Fear
By kiokwus, published Oct 19, 2008

Rating: 4.0 of 5



Sex Offender. A term that causes the hair on "decent" people to stand on end, bring out the cold sweat of uncontrollable loathing enough to make a person sick with revulsion. A term used by politicians to justify submission of proposals, totally opposite what this country was based upon, to further degrade, chastise, regulate, demoralise, restrain, those labeled sex offenders to a life of abject poverty as well as hopelessness beyond measure.

What constitutes a sex offender? Is it the 5 year old boy who while giving his teacher a hug, moves his face back and forth between her breasts? The 8 year old's "comparing themselves" to each other? The 12 and 13 year old boy/girl friend that are both charged against each other as both being victim and offender when the girl became pregnant? Or the high school teen lovers that are a few years apart and the boy turns 18? What about the girl who takes pictures of herself and sends it to her boyfriend and friends? Or the boys "slapping the rears" of girls while running down the hallway in school? (Girls did the same) How about the people forced to urinate in the bushes after the local DA locked the public rest rooms, to pounce on these unfortunates and charge them with indecent exposure? Or the old man chasing after young girls?

In our world today, they all are labeled as sex offenders.

From the young 5 year old to the old grandfather, a label of sex offender sticks upon them forever. It matters nothing of when the offense took place, the circumstances, how long they "must" register, nothing removes this stigma from their lives. Contrary to when the officials tell you, this stigma affects not only the individual, but every person associated with this person. Entire families are subjected to the painful applications deemed appropriate for the offense committed. The justification? To save the children of course.

There are those who firmly believe that anyone labeled a sex offender, deserves the most horrendous punishment that can be handed down by the courts of law. Stipulations are given, requirements must be fulfilled, restrictions are put in place, rules are to be followed, demands are to be kept, and changes come without notice that extends all of these so there really is no end in sight. The public believes that anything is justified, for the sex offender "destroyed" the life of the victim. When then does punishment end and forgiveness begin? Not all "victims" feel there should be unending punishment.

In many cases, the victim is a family member and over time, the family has worked diligently to be reunited. Once reunited, the family should be able to live life once again without constant harassment's and stipulations. But this is not to be so. Now the horror placed upon the stigma of sex offender, affects all the members of the family including the "victim". What is demanded of the offender, is now demanded of the victim and family. Housing restrictions do not mean just the offender. It also includes the family. The option of the offender again leaving the family unit is undesirable as all the work to reunite to family is for naught.

Many communities have passed laws or ordinances that stipulate just that. Additionally, many children services across the nation now feel they have the right to demand the offender leave, regardless of what the courts and counselors approved. Not doing so may cause the children to be removed from the family unit, the spouse to be charged with child endangerment or a host of other crimes, and the offender ousted into the cold once again.

Many states, in the frenzy of finding anyone who ever had a sex offense, has created laws governing the application, retroactive to 50 or 60 years before or longer. Those who have been caught up in this roundup, may have never done another crime, yet now their lives are to be destroyed as if the offense took place yesterday. The impact of such not only destroys everything this person has ever done in his or her life, causes the community to now fear this person and react according to this fear. Horror enters the persons life, fear that someone will take matters into their own hands becomes a daily fear. What had been punished and satisfied from many years ago, now resurfaces bringing all today's horrendous requirements into play. Why is such to be?

Truth is, there are those who do belong behind bars, to be monitored for life. Those who have committed such horrible crimes that cannot be satisfactorily punished regardless of what the courts dictate. Those who do commit over and over the crimes against children and adults as well, exist. How many? That I cannot answer. What can be stated is the majority of "sex offenses" are well beyond common sense. Not every action is a sex offense, though the elected leaders would have you believe so.

The application of sex crime is out of control and more "offenses" are dreamed up and included daily. When is the public to understand the actions of today may become the crime of tomorrow? The innocent baby pictures that are taken and exist for oh so many years, today could be and would be considered child porn under the standards set by those in power. You could be charged with child pornography without even understanding the why of the charge.

Halloween is once again upon us. Everywhere you look today, the unfounded fear that sex offenders are out in droves to molest or steel your children has brought "restrictions" that sex offenders are mandated to follow. Anything from reporting to jail, probation parole offices, locking their doors, turning off the lights, to placing "pumpkins" in their windows or on their doors exist. Special "visits" by the police are scheduled to insure sex offenders are following the "rules" or be subjected to immediate arrest. Sex Offenders are forbidden to partake in any activities to include those within their own families.

There has never been a case of any child being molested or stolen by a sex offender on Halloween.

Every holiday, this is becoming the "norm" in today's society. From those in power to the media, the standard is to keep the horror of sex offenders alive, to have the public fear for their children, to amass in rallies or other groups, demanding that those officials do something to drive the sex offender and family out of their neighborhoods. What is the justification? Sex offenders can never be changed, they will always commit another crime. Our anger and the safety of our children give us license to do what ever it takes against any sex offender and if they have a family, that family is either stupid, or like the offender and should be punished the same.

November 1st, all this will behind us once again. No one was molested, no child stolen. Things can calm down for a few weeks. Then we can start it all again come Thanksgiving, then Christmas, New Years. New demands will be voiced. New restrictions submitted. Further disenfranchisement of sex offenders and families be put into place. The public is unwilling to learn. The fear ingrained into them is much to powerful to allow opposing views and facts enter. The blinders remain.

Not every offense is a sex crime, not every person is a sex offender, not every person will commit another sex offense. Education works. Counseling works. This travesty must come to an end.

Adjournment Sine Die

Adjournment sine die - The end of a legislative session "without day." These adjournments are used to indicate the final adjournment of an annual or the two-year session of a Congress.


This interestingly bland detail introduced itself to me yesterday. As far as I can understand it (not being a Congressman or a Lawyer), this tool is used to close Congress and stop the ability for Congress to pass laws until the next scheduled session.

In case you didn't pick up the connotation there, if it's not used, then any member of Congress can sneak in, and pass laws using trickery. There are documented cases of this. Many laws that are effectively screwing up America today are caused by this very detail. I would elaborate on which ones, but I'm not ready to present such Nationally destructive info as of yet. (stay tuned as I slowly elaborate and give my evidence)

Under the original intent of the Constitution, Congress was only able to act with a Majority. That came to a screeching halt when the South seceded from the Union. Which meant that the southern states were not in Congress. Therefore, not majority could be reached. So, Lincoln wrote a writ to allow Emergency Powers to Congress so that they could get back to writing laws.

One of those nasty powers granted under the writ Lincoln wrote was a little thing called: Suspension of Rules.

I've written about Suspension of Rules before, but here's a brief synopsis. Suspension of Rules allows for the Congress to set aside the normal rules of making laws and pass laws without the normal checks and balances.

After researching this suspension of rules, I became aware that it's existence is tracked back to the 1870's, which would imply the time of the Lincoln writ. Under the Constitution and on major pieces of legislation, it states a need of a 2/3 majority vote. Congress should not have the ability to use the Suspension of Rules to pass major legislation.

Congress does have the ability to create it's own rules in the passage of laws within each House and Senate, but those rules are to help in the making of laws.

The Suspension of Rules is one of those "house rules" that is supposed to be used only on mundane things like the naming of Post Offices and whatnot. It was not meant to be used on major Constitutional issues.

I bring up the Suspension of Rules to illustrate a problem with not adjourning Congress at the end of the session. If Congress is not "officially" closed for the session, someone can come in and use things like Suspension of Rules to pass legislation while most of Congress is not present.

Adjournment Sine Die is important for keeping Congress honest. We may not even have the ability for Congress to use Adjournment Sine Die because we are at a State of War. We have been at a State of War since September 11th, 2001, because the President keeps renewing this decree. While we are at "war", Congress cannot convene.

So, if a controversial law is passed using a "house rule" and not using the Constitutional Rule, should it still be a valid law? Or, should it be considered unconstitutional because Congress didn't use procedural due process to pass that law? If Congress cannot convene, are we given due process when someone in Congress passes a major legislative piece while the session is supposed to be over?

Human Nature v. Activism

As I delve deeper in to the realm of Constitutional Law and Activism, I am constantly reminded of our human nature and peoples fear of the unknown. I've heard it all over that the greatest fear of man is the fear of change.

Feeling the call of duty that I feel, I continually strive to set an example and push forward in my activism. Knowing as I do that there are those that are so scared that they won't even read information to enlighten themselves, there are those that read but don't respond, and there are those that respond, but don't do anything.

The exceptional few have heeded the call and have stepped forward to fight the fight. At times, these "warriors" get tired and need a break. With so few people joining the ranks of the "warriors", there are gaps left in the wake of someone taking time to recharge their batteries.

Also, after a few of these times of recharge, people begin to question why they continue. I for one, will never stop, but I know of a few people that have grown bitter as time has gone on.

So I sit here pondering how to possibly appeal to peoples sense of impending doom or even their willingness to answer the call...

I'm afraid that people are so inclined to bury their heads in the sand that they are willing to run with the masses and not step out of the crowd to let their voices be heard.

The more people that step out, the more voices heard. The more we get the Government to stop and listen, the more we will get these laws changed.

I pray every day in my heart that people will wake up to the injustices that are happening to us every day. When will we stand up and say "No More Will I Sit Back And Do Nothing"?

I've heard it said that the only way for Evil to win is for enough Good People to do nothing.

Too many good people are doing nothing right now... How can we let the Evils of this world continue by standing by and letting it happen? Are we so scared about people knowing how we really feel that we will succumb to the mob mentality and watch as atrocities are committed in the name of the public good?

Do you feel that you could be doing more but are to scared to stand up and be heard?

Does knowing this allow you to sleep well at night? Or do you have internal struggles plaguing your every waking, and sometimes sleeping, moments?

Can you, and are you going to sit by and watch the world crumble? Or are you going to stand and fight?

I for one, chose to fight.

Judicial and Jury Nullification

I just found this on another blog...

Jury Symposium

The Northern Illinois Law Review recently (Summer 2008) had a symposium, The Modern American Jury:

Paula L. Hannaford-Agor, Judicial Nullification? Judicial Compliance and Non-Compliance with Jury Improvement Efforts, 28 N. Ill. U. L. Rev. 407-424 (2008)

Irwin A. Horowitz, Jury Nullification: An Empirical Perspective, 28 N. Ill. U. L. Rev. 425-451 (2008)

Kirk W. Schuler, In the Vanguard of the American Jury: A Case Study of Jury Innovations in the Northern District of Iowa, 28 N. Ill. U. L. Rev. 453-501 (2008)

Elizabeth Dale, People v. Coughlin and Criticisms of the Criminal Jury in Late Nineteenth-Century Chicago, 28 N. Ill. U. L. Rev. 503-536 (2008)

Frank A. Perrecone & Lisa R. Fabiano, The Federalization of Punitive Damages and the Effect on Illinois Law, 28 N. Ill. U. L. Rev. 537-557 (2008)

I always find good stuff like this after the fact. Murphy's Law I suppose...

A Series on the Loss of Rights: A Right to Vote

With the 2008 Presidential Elections less than a month away, I am getting more and more emails about our Right to Vote. Feeling compelled to clear up some misconceptions Americans have on our "Right to Vote", I find myself giving you yet another article in the series.

Our Right to Vote is a basic Constitutional right as set forth in the Fifteenth Amendment. What most people will miss is the second part. "The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

Appropriate legislation has turned into a "who's allowed to vote and who's not allowed". Even tho the "United States nor any State" can take away that right. Even based on a persons "previous condition of servitude". Interesting how most people with any type of criminal background are excluded from voting.

But I digress.

Here is a basic understanding of the voting process.

The President is elected by Electoral College votes and not by Popular vote. Just like in 2004. Al Gore won the popular vote, but Bush won the electoral vote.

So, why does it do any good to vote anyways? The more votes, the more electoral college points allotted to a state.

Here is another problem most people aren't aware of. We used to have the right to "write in" a candidate. Now with invention of electronic voting, we no longer have the option (at times) to "write in" a candidate. Not to mention all of the voting machine fraud.

So the question at hand remains. If neither candidate in the Presidential Election is worthy of holding office, what is the public to do? With the voting fraud, votes are shuffled from one candidate to another. And if the vote is for a third person, it may not even be counted at all. And not voting just reduces the numbers and therefore raising the percentages that a candidate has...

Then we have Obama busing people to get registered to vote, and vote in the same day. The ACLU is sending out messages both on their blog and in emails trying to get people to vote (their agenda is for the Constitution itself).

And this seasons elections are highly important. We are voting on a man who has acknowledged that he wouldn't mind being a dictator, and another who has close friends that are known terrorists. Who do we vote for to hold the highest office in the land? Who is "best qualified" to lead our Nation? If we write-in a candidate that we feel would do the job right, would our votes even make it.

Is voting a guaranteed right? Or just a motion to be gone through by the people to placate them into believing that everything is ok? Is the outcome of the Vote predetermined by some other group we are unaware of as citizens?

And with the reduction in eligible voters (people with a criminal record), do we really have a correct representation of the public in the voting system?

This years vote will be the most important vote that some will ever make. I pray that those voting do their homework and know who they are voting for.

Now is not the time for mistakes.

A Series on the Loss of Rights: Right to a Jury Trial

In the Constitution, under Amendment #7 (for common law cases) and Amendment #6 (for criminal cases), we as Americans have a right to a jury trial.

A Jury Trial is a group of our peers (12 to be exact) that will hear the facts against us and determine our guilt of the crime or accusation brought against us.

In this trial, the jurors are screened to make sure they are "willing and able to follow the law as instructed by the court". If a potential juror is deemed to be unable, or just plain unacceptable, they are removed from duty. (This removal can happen all the way up to the reading of the verdict)

Jurors are asked to decide based on the law and the facts of the case if the person is guilty, or not guilty. What most people don't know, is that in the beginning of this country, and all the way up until the 1900's, the jurors were also asked to decide if the law itself was just or not. They had the power and the right to decide if a law should be "nullified" or not.

Here are some quotes to get you thinking:

Thomas Jefferson said, "I consider trial by jury as the only anchor ever yet imagined by man, by which government can be held to the principles of its Constitution."

Alexander Hamilton proclaimed, "Jurors should acquit even against the judges instructions . . . if exercising their judgment with discretion and honesty they have a clear conviction that the charge of the court is wrong."

It was designed into the structure of the Constitution for the jury to decide not only guilt or innocence, but also the validity of a law.

But, if the case never makes it to trial, then there will be no jury. No decision by a group of your peers... No justice the way it was designed.

Plea Bargains are the culprits these days. One fact I found is that more than 90% of all cases never make it to trial because of the plea bargaining system.

Here is a quote from the above linked article:

"The rarity of jury trials is not the result of criminals who
come into court to relieve a guilty conscience or save taxpayers
the costs of a trial. The truth is that government officials
have deliberately engineered the system to assure that the jury
trial system established by the Constitution is seldom used. And
plea bargaining is the primary technique used by the government
to bypass the institutional safeguards in trials."

With the Prosecutors and the Public Defenders working hand in hand (so to speak), it's no wonder we have the highest prison rate in the WORLD.

With this erosion of a system meant to continue the belief "innocent until proven guilty", we see more and more people being bullied into accepting plea deals, missing out on their right of a jury, and also the safeguards that are provided by said jury trials.

With fewer jury trials, people are seeing an astronomical rate of imprisonment. Rates of recidivism are blown out of proportion to their "true" figures because of a watering down of the prison system with people who don't really belong there. Legislators are reacting to give the people a feeling of security. And these laws are being passed without the jury having the ability to dictate how they apply to the court cases. Our Judicial System is in danger of losing it's ability to maintain the "innocent until proven guilty" aspect. Without our juries there to decide cases, the Government perpetuates the cycle of corruption of the system.

Do your part. Ask for a jury trial.

Judicial Nullification and It's Implications

Judicial Nullification is a right of the Judges to nullify a law if they feel it is to harsh (even the manditory minimums) for the situtation it is being applied to.

Although it is highly frowned upon, Judicial Nullification is allowed in our Judicial System. There is a test to see if nullification is acceptable in a case:

"Let us deploy this two pronged test, derived from the intuition that the wrongness of any governmental action can always be explained either as a violation of rights or a disservice to the public good. If it is wrong for courts to nullify the law, then nullification must either violate one or more background moral rights held by particular citizens (i.e., rights that are independent of positive law [16]) or else it must have on balance bad consequences for the public weal."

So, if it violates a Civil Right, or it is not in the best interest of the public good, then the nullification is illegal.

Judicial Nullification, just like Jury Nullification, isn't widely practiced in the courts these days. One, because of a lack of knowledge by the lawyers who assume the Honour and responsibility of being a Judge. Two, because these days, we see the courts siding with the legislators more and less with upholding the Constitution as it was written and the intent behind it.

As a Constitution Voter, I find it my duty to try and inform people of their rights in court, no matter what type of court, or for what circumstances they might be there for.

Judicial Nullification, Jury Nullification, two very important rights/powers to help send the legislators that we are tired of laws that steal our civil rights and seperate the Government from the people.