Has the Justice Department & Government in General Exhibited Tyranny?
Question by krollohare2: Has the Justice Department & Government in General Exhibited Tyranny?
A few days ago I read a freshly decided case by the US Supreme Court. The case is ABUELHAWA v. UNITED STATES.
In that case a guy buys 2 grams of cocaine for personal use, on two separate occasions. What separates him from other minor druggies is the fact that he used a cell phone to arrange his purchases and the feds tapped his drug dealer’s phone.
As it turns out there is a statute which prohibits the use of a “communications facility” to traffic in drugs.
The government naturally arrested the drug dealer eventually, but then a few months later, arrested his customers and charged them with felony use of communications facilities to assist in or facilitate drug transactions.
The guy got 24 years in prison for buying 2 grams of coke which according to federal law, amounts to two misdemeanors, but for the use of the cell phone to arrange his own purchase.
The unanimous supreme court in its decision pointed out that Congress would not have essentially decriminalized small quantities of drugs in 1970 and at the same time provided the government with the power to ratchet up the punishment to full bore amplitude and tone so to speak.
The point is they analyzed this as an overzealous case of prosecutorial punishmentitis.
I took great delight in reading footnote 3 of the opinion. It speaks volumes of how, I think, even the most conservative judges on the bench view the government’s abuses of power.
I invite those who read this question to read the opinion of the supreme court and then say whether they think the government has exhibited tyranny.
http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/08pdf/08-192.pdf
Best answer:
Answer by crunch
Tyranny resides in the proper application of improper law as applied by government operating under what either a democratic majority or a despotic individual declares is proper.
I’m pleased the Court ruled against the government and the government was way out of line in where the punishment fit the crime, but I wouldn’t turn to this case of evidence of tyranny.
Not when there are so many improper laws that are deemed proper by so many and so many more improper laws that are deemed necessary.
From my vantage point, the proof of tyranny is visible in the daily declarations by government that we are a democracy subject to the law of a befuddled majority of the moment that is convinced the Constitution says it’s OK, as long a it’s a majority decision.
I’m firmly in Jefferson’s camp in believing that man’s natural “enemies are criminals and government so let us tie down the latter with the Constitution so it won’t become a legal version of the first”.
We have to get away from the majority through government incorrectly using the “necessary and proper” clause by being able to declare what is both necessary and proper.
I’m of the opinion that only the Constitution sets the parameters for what is proper for the majority through government to do.
“Proper” used in the sense of being within the boundaries of enumerated powers and if Congress being the people’s House does not have the authority, then neither do the majority of people.
An example: No individual possesses the right to steal from another and therefore cannot properly delegate that power to government.
How can one discern improper law? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. –Bastiat
If the government has the authority to declare what is both necessary and proper, what then would be the purpose of the Constitution?
That Charter is not open to revision by referendum and for good reason.
The very purpose of a Bill of Rights was to withdraw certain subjects from the vicissitudes of political controversy, to place them beyond the reach of majorities and officials and to establish them as legal principles to be applied by the courts. One’s right to life, liberty, and property, to free speech, a free press, freedom of worship and assembly, and other fundamental rights may not be submitted to vote; they depend on the outcome of no elections.
It is not the function of the government to keep the citizen from falling into error; it is the function of the citizen to keep the government from falling into error.
Civil government cannot let any group ride roughshod over others simply because their consciences tell them to do so.
There is no such thing as an achieved liberty: like electricity, there can be no substantial storage and it must be generated as it is enjoyed, or the lights go out.
Justice Robert H. Jackson
What do you think? Answer below!