The Law of Unintended Consequences
In the early 1960's a gung-ho Congress enacted something called the Racketeer Influenced & Corrupt Organization Act. It's usually referred to by the acronym "RICO".
The idea was to provide law enforcement with a tool against organized crime: the mob, mafia, the rackets, gangsters, drug runners, loan sharks, illegal betting operations etc.
Here's the way it's supposed to work, if two or more persons form an "enterprise" that commits two crimes in furtherance of a common scheme, then whatever their other crimes, those people will receive an enhanced sentence for violation of RICO. Of course, not every crime is subject to RICO, but wire fraud and mail fraud are (that is, if you make a telephone call, or send a letter in furtherance of the crime, you are subject to RICO).
Okay, not a bad idea at first right?
Okay, law enforcement do use it. They use it all the time. But here's the catch.
What is RICO used for most today? For suing banks, attorney, accountants and other people who plan and manage corporate financing transactions.
Today, hardly a single corporate lawsuit fails to include a RICO claim. Are banks, attorneys and accountants really gangsters? Okay, if you want to get all radical left or radical right on me, yes, otherwise, these are not the kind of "people" that the law was designed to prosecute. However, can you imagine a million dollar financing getting done without two phone calls being made? or two letters being sent?
It's a great deal for lawyers too. If you bring a RICO suit and win, you get whatever you win tripled (and the lawyers take a third).
Every time a company sells stock in the market, everytime a bank makes a loan, there is a risk that someone is going to yell fraud and file a RICO claim. If the stock doesn't go up in value (or goes down), if the loan isn't repaid, you can be sure a RICO claim will follow, it will name every lawyer, every accountant and everyone else in the deal: and most of them will settle out of court because (i) it's a safer bet than going to a jury, and (ii) the insurance company pays for it anyway, and (iii) the insurance company passes the cost back to you, the J.Q. American.
And in the last 40 years has Congress ever tried to stop this? No. Even though it was never supposed to happen.
What's my point? My point is the law of unintend consequences.
In the last session of Congress, actually over the last several sessions of Congress. America has become broken. Broken because the Congress, which is supposed to serve as a check on Presidential prerogatives, has instead expanded them beyond all measure.
Congress has refused to examine any all wrongdoing by the Bush administration. This Republican Congress spent more time investigating whether President Bush lied about getting a blowjob, than it spent investigating proven, undeniable allegations that the United States was torturning prisoners at Abu Ghraib (which, lest we forget is what we allegedly attacked Saddam Hussein for doing).
The President, with Congress' approval, has approved the torturing of prisoners in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the laws of the United States. Undeniably a criminal offense. Congress passed a law, revising the Geneva Conventions and absolving anyone who has in the past, or will in the future, torture a United States prisoner.
The President, with Contress' approval, has done away with over two centuries of civil liberties, declaring that the President, in his sole discretion, can name people who, once named, would no longer be subject to trial by jury, the right to an attorney, the right to confront their accuser, the right to see the evidence against them, and, in some cases even to appear and defend themselves at their own trial.
The President, with Congressional approval, has invaded the privacy of miilions, if not tens of millions, of perfectly innocent people, reading their e-mails and listening to their phone calls with impunity. Without even the rubber stamp of a secret court that has almost never before turned down a request. What did Congress do? It passed a law allowing a secret court to hold a secret trial to consider whether the process was constitutional.
The President, with Congressional approval, has given himself the right to secretly arrest people with little or no reason, and to hold them in secret jails, without notice to anyone.
Two weeks ago, Congress did away with a law, over 100 years old, that prohibited the President from declaring Marshal Law, or using the state National Guard without gubernatorial consent.
Two weeks ago, Congress fired the entire agency that investigated charges of fraude waste and corruption by U.S. Government contractors in Iraq.
Two weeks ago, Congress, at the President's request, did away with the right of Habeas Corpus in any case the President declares it shouldn't apply. Habeas Corpus is the traditional right of a prisoner have a court determine whether he has been lawfully imprisoned. The President though, with Congressional approval, has appointed himself, Prosecutor, Judge, Jury, Jailer, and, of course, executioner.
Let's go back a minute to the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration gave, among other reasons for the American Revolution the following, that King George III had "affected to render the Military independent of and subordinate to the Civil Power"; protected troops from punishment, even for murder, with mock trials; and for depriving people of the right to trial by jury. The United States Constitution also provides that "[t]he Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." Article I. Sec. 9, cl. 2. The U.S. has not been invaded and there is no rebellion in the U.S.
This new regime has given itself dictatorial powers: the right to secretly spy on you, the right to secretly arrest you, to secretly imprison you, secretly torture you, secretly send you out of the country to be tortured, and, if it feels like it, to secretly try you without an attorney, to hide evidence that might be in your favor, and to prevent you from seeing (and thereby perhaps discrediting) evidence against you. That's if you get a trial. The new law says the President never even has to bring you to trial. He can just lock you away, on only his say so. Oh, and they've made it a crime to insult their flag.
Do you really think these powers are not going to be used? Maybe you don't think of George Bush and the Republican Party as National Socialists or Soviet Communists, but you can not deny that these are the kinds of things that the U.S. has always claimed to fight against. These are the powers of the KGB and the Gestapo. They are not intended to sit on the shelf.
And if our experience with the RICO law is any indicator, they will not sit on the shelf.
Oh, I'm not saying George Bush is Stalin and Hitler and Mao combined. Of course he isn't (even if his family fortune does come from the slave mines of Auschwitz). I think he does believe that what he's doing is right, and that he cares about America and all that.
But who is going to come after George Bush? What will that person do with such power? Or the one who comes after?
And let's not forget who is mostly to blame for this. It is not the venal villains hiding behind the Oval Office. It is not George Bush or Karl Rove or Dick Cheney. It is not Tom Delay or Bill Frist. It is not the News Media.
All of America is to blame for this crisis in our Democracy. We went along with the Bush Republicans. We didn't ask the questions, and we didn't want to hear the questions asked. We fell for it hook line and sinker - because falling for it was a lot easier than thinking about whether it was right or humane. Some of us are still falling for it. Just as once upon a time a majority accepted slavery.
Hitler was elected democratically. He was overwhelmingly popular with his people and look what he did when he had total control over the Executive, Legislative and Judicial functions of the German government.
George Bush has that kind of control now. His legislature has passed the same kind of laws, for similarly false reasons. Who is to say what tyranny his successor will commit? But Bush did not do this alone, just as the Germans elected Hitler and filled the Reichstag with National Socialist party members, we have elected George Bush and filled the benches of Congress with Republicans willing to give Bush whatever he wants. The result is the most savage attack on freedom that America has faced since the Civil War.
There is a reason that America's Founding Fathers created three separate branches of Government. There is a reason they erected a structure of checks and balances. They knew that the concentration of too much power in one individualy, unchecked, was the recipe for despotism. This is why we venerate them. Not because they are useful for selling cars on President's day, but because they tried to prevent what is happening today.
It was easier for the Founding Fathers. For them the United States was a federation of former colonies. A Republic of independent States, each pursuing its own interests within the framework of their confederation. The Founding Fathers never conceived that a situation could occur in which a single block could so control all three branches of government. They imagined they had done their job by setting three seperate branches and bifurcating Congress as an extra precaution. They ensured one house would represent the population, and one would represent the States.
The idea that Congress, the President and Judiciary, could all be so beholden to one single point of view that that point of view could run roughshod over the rights of others is as Un-American as anything that has ever been preached in 200 plus years of American history.
The Republican leadership is leading this Country towards tyranny. It is time for that to stop. It is time for a Congress of true representatives of the American People. It is time for a Congress that is going to ask what happened and why? Not a Congress that is going to seek retribution, but a Congress that will not be shy about punishing the guilty. We need a Congress that is not going to impede progress in Iraq, but that is willing to ask the hard questions about what went wrong and how do we fix it? We need a Congress that will work with the President, but not a Congress that will hand up his wish list on a silver platter.
We need a Congress accountable to the American people.
The law of unintended consequences assures us that the dictatorial powers given to this President are going to be used. If not by this President, than maybe by the next one, or the next. Maybe even by a Democrat.
It is not enough if we elect a Democratic Congress on Tuesday. These laws must be abolished. The obscenity that is the Patriot Act must go. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 must be repealed. The laws authorizing presidential wiretaps, torture and other such follies must be undone.
These laws must be repealed for the sake of America. For the sake of our future. For our children's future and for the world's future.
America used to be the land of the free and home of the brave. Today we are neither. Over the last six years we have capitulated to a regime which has given itself the right to deprive us of every one of the freedoms that Americans have died to defend for generations. It is time that we take back what is our birthright.
Any further capitulation is submission to tyranny.
The idea was to provide law enforcement with a tool against organized crime: the mob, mafia, the rackets, gangsters, drug runners, loan sharks, illegal betting operations etc.
Here's the way it's supposed to work, if two or more persons form an "enterprise" that commits two crimes in furtherance of a common scheme, then whatever their other crimes, those people will receive an enhanced sentence for violation of RICO. Of course, not every crime is subject to RICO, but wire fraud and mail fraud are (that is, if you make a telephone call, or send a letter in furtherance of the crime, you are subject to RICO).
Okay, not a bad idea at first right?
Okay, law enforcement do use it. They use it all the time. But here's the catch.
What is RICO used for most today? For suing banks, attorney, accountants and other people who plan and manage corporate financing transactions.
Today, hardly a single corporate lawsuit fails to include a RICO claim. Are banks, attorneys and accountants really gangsters? Okay, if you want to get all radical left or radical right on me, yes, otherwise, these are not the kind of "people" that the law was designed to prosecute. However, can you imagine a million dollar financing getting done without two phone calls being made? or two letters being sent?
It's a great deal for lawyers too. If you bring a RICO suit and win, you get whatever you win tripled (and the lawyers take a third).
Every time a company sells stock in the market, everytime a bank makes a loan, there is a risk that someone is going to yell fraud and file a RICO claim. If the stock doesn't go up in value (or goes down), if the loan isn't repaid, you can be sure a RICO claim will follow, it will name every lawyer, every accountant and everyone else in the deal: and most of them will settle out of court because (i) it's a safer bet than going to a jury, and (ii) the insurance company pays for it anyway, and (iii) the insurance company passes the cost back to you, the J.Q. American.
And in the last 40 years has Congress ever tried to stop this? No. Even though it was never supposed to happen.
What's my point? My point is the law of unintend consequences.
In the last session of Congress, actually over the last several sessions of Congress. America has become broken. Broken because the Congress, which is supposed to serve as a check on Presidential prerogatives, has instead expanded them beyond all measure.
Congress has refused to examine any all wrongdoing by the Bush administration. This Republican Congress spent more time investigating whether President Bush lied about getting a blowjob, than it spent investigating proven, undeniable allegations that the United States was torturning prisoners at Abu Ghraib (which, lest we forget is what we allegedly attacked Saddam Hussein for doing).
The President, with Congress' approval, has approved the torturing of prisoners in violation of the Geneva Conventions and the laws of the United States. Undeniably a criminal offense. Congress passed a law, revising the Geneva Conventions and absolving anyone who has in the past, or will in the future, torture a United States prisoner.
The President, with Contress' approval, has done away with over two centuries of civil liberties, declaring that the President, in his sole discretion, can name people who, once named, would no longer be subject to trial by jury, the right to an attorney, the right to confront their accuser, the right to see the evidence against them, and, in some cases even to appear and defend themselves at their own trial.
The President, with Congressional approval, has invaded the privacy of miilions, if not tens of millions, of perfectly innocent people, reading their e-mails and listening to their phone calls with impunity. Without even the rubber stamp of a secret court that has almost never before turned down a request. What did Congress do? It passed a law allowing a secret court to hold a secret trial to consider whether the process was constitutional.
The President, with Congressional approval, has given himself the right to secretly arrest people with little or no reason, and to hold them in secret jails, without notice to anyone.
Two weeks ago, Congress did away with a law, over 100 years old, that prohibited the President from declaring Marshal Law, or using the state National Guard without gubernatorial consent.
Two weeks ago, Congress fired the entire agency that investigated charges of fraude waste and corruption by U.S. Government contractors in Iraq.
Two weeks ago, Congress, at the President's request, did away with the right of Habeas Corpus in any case the President declares it shouldn't apply. Habeas Corpus is the traditional right of a prisoner have a court determine whether he has been lawfully imprisoned. The President though, with Congressional approval, has appointed himself, Prosecutor, Judge, Jury, Jailer, and, of course, executioner.
Let's go back a minute to the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration gave, among other reasons for the American Revolution the following, that King George III had "affected to render the Military independent of and subordinate to the Civil Power"; protected troops from punishment, even for murder, with mock trials; and for depriving people of the right to trial by jury. The United States Constitution also provides that "[t]he Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it." Article I. Sec. 9, cl. 2. The U.S. has not been invaded and there is no rebellion in the U.S.
This new regime has given itself dictatorial powers: the right to secretly spy on you, the right to secretly arrest you, to secretly imprison you, secretly torture you, secretly send you out of the country to be tortured, and, if it feels like it, to secretly try you without an attorney, to hide evidence that might be in your favor, and to prevent you from seeing (and thereby perhaps discrediting) evidence against you. That's if you get a trial. The new law says the President never even has to bring you to trial. He can just lock you away, on only his say so. Oh, and they've made it a crime to insult their flag.
Do you really think these powers are not going to be used? Maybe you don't think of George Bush and the Republican Party as National Socialists or Soviet Communists, but you can not deny that these are the kinds of things that the U.S. has always claimed to fight against. These are the powers of the KGB and the Gestapo. They are not intended to sit on the shelf.
And if our experience with the RICO law is any indicator, they will not sit on the shelf.
Oh, I'm not saying George Bush is Stalin and Hitler and Mao combined. Of course he isn't (even if his family fortune does come from the slave mines of Auschwitz). I think he does believe that what he's doing is right, and that he cares about America and all that.
But who is going to come after George Bush? What will that person do with such power? Or the one who comes after?
And let's not forget who is mostly to blame for this. It is not the venal villains hiding behind the Oval Office. It is not George Bush or Karl Rove or Dick Cheney. It is not Tom Delay or Bill Frist. It is not the News Media.
All of America is to blame for this crisis in our Democracy. We went along with the Bush Republicans. We didn't ask the questions, and we didn't want to hear the questions asked. We fell for it hook line and sinker - because falling for it was a lot easier than thinking about whether it was right or humane. Some of us are still falling for it. Just as once upon a time a majority accepted slavery.
Hitler was elected democratically. He was overwhelmingly popular with his people and look what he did when he had total control over the Executive, Legislative and Judicial functions of the German government.
George Bush has that kind of control now. His legislature has passed the same kind of laws, for similarly false reasons. Who is to say what tyranny his successor will commit? But Bush did not do this alone, just as the Germans elected Hitler and filled the Reichstag with National Socialist party members, we have elected George Bush and filled the benches of Congress with Republicans willing to give Bush whatever he wants. The result is the most savage attack on freedom that America has faced since the Civil War.
There is a reason that America's Founding Fathers created three separate branches of Government. There is a reason they erected a structure of checks and balances. They knew that the concentration of too much power in one individualy, unchecked, was the recipe for despotism. This is why we venerate them. Not because they are useful for selling cars on President's day, but because they tried to prevent what is happening today.
It was easier for the Founding Fathers. For them the United States was a federation of former colonies. A Republic of independent States, each pursuing its own interests within the framework of their confederation. The Founding Fathers never conceived that a situation could occur in which a single block could so control all three branches of government. They imagined they had done their job by setting three seperate branches and bifurcating Congress as an extra precaution. They ensured one house would represent the population, and one would represent the States.
The idea that Congress, the President and Judiciary, could all be so beholden to one single point of view that that point of view could run roughshod over the rights of others is as Un-American as anything that has ever been preached in 200 plus years of American history.
The Republican leadership is leading this Country towards tyranny. It is time for that to stop. It is time for a Congress of true representatives of the American People. It is time for a Congress that is going to ask what happened and why? Not a Congress that is going to seek retribution, but a Congress that will not be shy about punishing the guilty. We need a Congress that is not going to impede progress in Iraq, but that is willing to ask the hard questions about what went wrong and how do we fix it? We need a Congress that will work with the President, but not a Congress that will hand up his wish list on a silver platter.
We need a Congress accountable to the American people.
The law of unintended consequences assures us that the dictatorial powers given to this President are going to be used. If not by this President, than maybe by the next one, or the next. Maybe even by a Democrat.
It is not enough if we elect a Democratic Congress on Tuesday. These laws must be abolished. The obscenity that is the Patriot Act must go. The Military Commissions Act of 2006 must be repealed. The laws authorizing presidential wiretaps, torture and other such follies must be undone.
These laws must be repealed for the sake of America. For the sake of our future. For our children's future and for the world's future.
America used to be the land of the free and home of the brave. Today we are neither. Over the last six years we have capitulated to a regime which has given itself the right to deprive us of every one of the freedoms that Americans have died to defend for generations. It is time that we take back what is our birthright.
Any further capitulation is submission to tyranny.
posted by BuddhistAttorney | 8:43 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home