Yes, You Are A Criminal…You Just Don’t Know It Yet
This article was written by Mark Nestmann and originally published at LewRockwell.com
How many felonies have you committed today? If you’re like most Americans, you probably violate federal or state law several times each day, without even knowing it.
The “criminalization” of American law is a topic I return to occasionally, most recently in this post. That’s because state and federal governments constantly expand the list of activities deemed criminal offenses. More recently, children attending public schools have been deemed criminals as well.
In Las Vegas, you can be thrown in jail for spilling a drink in a nightclub. That’s what happened to Justin O’Connell last summer. Apparently a bouncer noticed O’Connell spill his drink and then asked him to leave. O’Connell then asked for his $30 cover charge back. The nightclub then called police, who escorted O’Connell to jail. He now faces criminal trespassing charges.
Here are some other criminal offenses in Las Vegas (and many other cities, for that matter):
- Sitting or lying down on public sidewalks in the downtown redevelopment district
- Buying drinks for more than three people within 24 hours
- Feeding the homeless in public. Incidentally, it’s also illegal to feed pigeons
- Pawning your dentures
- Defacing a hamburger, by leaving its contents anywhere in public
- Jaywalking
That’s the tip of the criminalization iceberg. Have you ever purchased sinus medication over the counter? Well, so did Diane Avera, a 45-year-old Mississippi grandmother. Now she faces a year in prison after being convicted of intent to manufacture amphetamine. It’s a long story, but basically, Mississippi law requires a prescription to purchase pseudoephedrine, the active ingredient in many sinus medications. To save time and aggravation, Avera drove to Alabama to purchase her medication, but got caught up in a sting operation.
It’s no wonder the United States has by far the world’s largest prison population per capita anywhere on earth. More people rot in local, county, state, or federal prisons in the United States than in all other developed countries combined.
According to the World Prison Population List. Ninth Edition (2012):
“More than 10.1 million people are held in penal institutions throughout the world, mostly as pretrial detainees/remand prisoners or as sentenced prisoners. Almost half of these are in the United States (2.29 million), Russia (0.81 million) or China (1.65 million sentenced prisoners)…
The U.S. has the highest prison population rate of 743 per 100,000 of its national population followed by Rwanda (595 per 100,000).”
Paraphrasing President Obama, “Yes we can…put you in prison!”
Even more disturbing the criminalization of America is now creeping into high schools, junior high schools…and most recently, even kindergarten classes. Case in point: Last month, a five-year old boy (from Mississippi…again!) wound up in the back of a police car because he didn’t wear the right color shoes to class. His teacher told him he had to wear black shoes.
Unfortunately, the little boy had no black shoes, and his mother apparently didn’t have the money to buy any. So she improvised. She used a marker to cover up his red and white tennis shoes. Unfortunately, she missed a couple spots. When the boy showed up the next day, his teacher called the cops. Shortly thereafter, police escorted him home in a police car and delivered a stern warning to his mother.
Apparently, this is “business as usual” in Mississippi. Indeed, the U.S. Justice Department recently filed a lawsuit against officials in one Mississippi county for running what critics call a school-to-prison pipeline.
You’ll hopefully excuse me from making a couple observations:
- Anyone can inadvertently run afoul of America’s metastasizing network of criminal laws. Spilling a drink in a nightclub is hardly what anyone would consider a criminal offense. Neither is purchasing medication over-the-counter.
- Once you have a criminal record, especially a felony conviction, you’ll find it much more difficult to live outside the United States, or to acquire a second citizenship and passport.
Not to belabor the obvious, but if you have any interest at all in a second nationality, don’t wait until some inadvertent slip-up results in an arrest and possible felony conviction. Contact us today at info@nestmann.com for more information about how to acquire a second passport.
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February 20th, 2013 at 7:25 pm
Exactly how libs want it so no one will be able to buy a gun unless they have been able to get their rights back. Which will be denied of cource because states are now trying to pass laws that will make it harder to get your rights back.
That;s why we shoudl repeal the gun control act of 1968 and not take a felons rights away unless they endevor on treason or something.
February 20th, 2013 at 11:00 pm
How can Congress write a statute to override the US Constitution? The GCA of 1968 is a codification of previous laws. It also set the precident to allow Congress tolegally legislate the entire bill of rights into oblivion.
February 21st, 2013 at 8:08 am
It seems nothing applies to anything anymore. I’m afraid it’s too late. The only way we are getting our country back is by force. I thought I do not want to see happen. I would really like to know what is wrong with the top military leaders that they do not act on all of this treasonous behavior of our government.
February 27th, 2013 at 1:15 pm
ANYONE with more then 7 days worth of food is a criminal according to the nazi high command!if they get your guns, then next they will outlaw gold and silver and wil be able to just comein and take it!