The Law is the Devil’s Greatest Harlot.

During the mid 1800s Capitalism in Great Britain was taking off with literally thousands of factories spring up in the towns. Simultaneously, textile factory workers were subject to constant exploitation by supervisors and timekeepers. Heavy fines and fees were levied against workers for every violation, real or imagined, of factory floor private rules and regulations. And yet the factory overseers would routinely ignore the Factory Acts forbidding little children from sweeping under the running machinery that often resulted in gruesome accidents (Marx, Chapter.15, footnote 102.). Cleaning the mill machines while in operation was extremely dangerous. In the worst accidents a worker would get caught in a running mill machine resulting in one quarter of the body mass torn from the torso (Marx, Chapter 15, footnote 214.).

Such abuse of human beings is enough to cause one to revise the 16th Century Protestant Reformer Martin Luther’s famous declaration condemning the theological debates of his time, “Reason is the Devil's greatest whore.... (Martin Luther, Erlangen Edition v. 16, pp. 142-148), for a more contemporary criticism, “The Law is the Devil’s greatest harlot.”

Harsh enforcement of company rules which included women and children, the weakest and lowest paid wager earners, was intended to claw back as much as possible the meager wages paid to its workers. The factory owners bragged of a way, “...to reduce to a minimum the resistance offered by that repellent yet elastic natural barrier, man. This resistance is moreover lessened, by the more pliant and docile character of the women and children employed on it.”(Marx, Chapter 15, footnote 62.).

Cheating workers of their wages was rampant in British factories with the courts upholding any fine the overseer wished to exact from his defenseless victims. Britain, a supposedly Christian nation, ignored its own principles by engaging in every subterfuge to extract money from its poorest citizens. The Christian moral code says, “Thou shalt not have two differing weights in your bag – one heavy, one light. Thou shalt not have two differing measures in your house – one large, one small. You must have accurate and honest weights and measures … For the Lord your God detests … anyone who deals dishonestly.” (Deuteronomy 25:13‑16.). False weights and false clocks were as common on the factory floor as children, devil’s dust (spun fiber waste), and spindles.

English law was even more severe during the 17th Century. A merchant could pursue penalties much more serious than mere fines against an employee or even a customer.

Anthropologist Dr. Graeber recounts an incident in Chelsea England in the year 1660, when Margaret Sharples entered Richard Bennett’s shop and agreed to buy some cloth for 22 shillings on credit. She gave Bennett some goods and four shillings and nine pence as a security deposit. However, Bennett later changed his mind and returned the security to began legal action against her in court. Eventually the court found her guilty of theft and executed her by hanging. (Graeber, David, Debt: The First 5,000 Years, Kindle Loc: 7027. Random House Inc Clients. Kindle Edition).

Going further back in time, the Roman emperor “Caligula” (ruling from 37 AD to 41 AD) nicknamed “little soldier’s boots” was a particularly vicious and corrupt ruler. The Roman historian C. Suetonius Tranquillus wrote a history of “The Lives of the Twelve Caesars” (121 AD) currently published in the Lobe Classical Library, 1913. Tranquillus tells of emperor Caligula who levied taxes at will on all property and persons without exception. Any food brought into Rome was taxed, extra fees and fines were placed on all law-suits and trials. Wages of ordinary workers were taxed including anyone married, or involved in prostitution. When angry Roman citizens finally demanded an accounting of these onerous fees and fines, Caligula responded in a very modern way with obstruction, evasion, and fine print contracts. Tranquillus wrote,

These injustices occurred many centuries ago yet fines and fees charged against employees are still a reality even today. Recently, the mega-media company Sinclair Broadcast Group, which owns some 193 TV stations that reaches about 38% of American households is fining some of its employee for leaving the company before their employment contract expires. Some employees were unaware they were under early release contract clauses. In one case, a former employee must pay 40% of his annual income to the company as compensation. Another employee, James Beaton, worked for Sinclair in West Palm Beach, Florida and is being sued for $5,700 plus other fees for breach of contract after leaving Sinclair three years ago. Sinclair’s motivation doesn’t seem to be pecuniary, but to prevent former employees from revealing Sinclair’s propaganda stratagems. Such lawsuits cause tremendous problems for former employees trying to find new employment. See: Sinclair fines journalists

Many Americans are unaware that their right to a fair trial has been lost to forced arbitration contract clauses. Whenever you are hired for a job, use a cell phone service, get a credit card, or buy a new car there is a fine print contract running pages long that force arbitration in a dispute. In arbitration there is no judge, no jury, no appeal process, nor any public review—the very definition of a rigged system. The arbiter does not even have to follow the law. And if the complainant loses in the arbitration process, they must pay for any administrative costs which could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. The arbiter is often hired by the company itself, which in 94% of the time decides in favor of their employer. See video: Lost in the Fine Print

Fine print laws were only one of Emperor Caligula’s clever legerdemain: the other being accessibility-the law was place up high in a corner. Today, accessibility to the law is obstructed by complexity (250 word sentences), proprietary interpretation, and a mind-boggling multiplicity of laws. How many laws are there? No one has been able to count them all, but some lawyers have attempted this monumental task with limited success.

Retired Justice Department official, Ronald Gainer, reported that in 1982 the criminal code was in 50 different titles amounting to 23,000 pages of federal law. After two years of research, a colleague counted only those statutes that could be prosecuted separately and estimated some 30,000 criminal offenses. The Drug Abuse Prevention and Control section of the code-Title 21 alone is more than 130 pages long! And yet there are even more laws if Federal Regulations to enforce Congressional acts are counted. Only counting laws that have the force of federal criminal penalties there are an estimated 10,000 to 300,000 (that’s right--three hundred thousand) laws. Think about that the next time you speak to a federal agent, or police officer! See: Many Failed Efforts To Count Nation’s Federal Criminal Laws.

Some readers will say, “Hey, but I am a law abiding citizen so I have nothing to worry about.” The problem is you are not the person that decides who is law abiding. Attorney Harvey Silverglate claims that the average American citizen commits three felonies a day. Silverglate has listed eight circumstances in which any American could be charged with a felony. Silverglate then reviews the actual cases Americans were charged and found guilty of a felony for committing the eight acts below.

1. You flush your sister's marijuana down the toilet.

2. You receive an odd package.

3. You take a fake sick day.

4. You get lost in the woods.

5. You're a journalist with an anonymous source.

6. You email your family and friends to tell them not to use the services provided by your old company.

7. You tell a park ranger that you cleaned up your picnic table.

8. You create a website for a religious charity.
Three Felonies A Day

I am well aware there are political factions that want to deregulate all business to avoid accountability in the pursuit of profit. The corporate right-wing which includes the Koch Brothers, the "sovereign citizen" movement, fascists, and some anarchist groups often appropriate populist movements for there own purposes. We recently witnessed how the Republican corporate wing complained of high taxes, but once achieving a full majority in Congress cut taxes only for themselves and left the additional $1.4 trillion deficit for everyone else to pay.

The Koch Brothers want to pollute the environment without restriction or accountability. Sovereign citizens do not want any regulation whatsoever and seek to privatize federal land and other resources that are part of the public commons. And there is a spectrum of Anarchists groups that want to abolish all laws, and some that only want to reform some laws. We must be wary of these political factions that only use the words advocating legal reform, but really only want a monopoly of power to advance their interests alone. Remember, the Law is a harlot.

Too many policemen, no liberty; Too many soldiers, no peace; Too many lawyers, no justice." --Lin Yutang (1895-1976)

 

That's belling the cat.

 

socks?

 

Caligula got belled.

 

The basis of Capitalism demands this though. Yes it can generate wealth quickly, but the side effects are business owners infiltrating and corrupting politics and then everything else. If people gravitated more to working in say co-ops or member-owned businesses, then businesses would have to listen to the demands of the workers and the conditions would obviously be far more favorable for workers and society.

 

Earlier, I couldn’t remember where I read this passage and stumbled across it by accident. I think it goes well with my above critique of American jurisprudence.

The fascist Right-wing is complaining America is an open country with no borders, but corporate interests have long ago abolished national borders with international trade agreements so capital and goods flow uninterrupted.

 

Totalitarian Decisionism And Human Rights: The Re-emergence of Nazi Law.​

Many scholars have written about the characteristics of the totalitarian state. Umberto Eco has listed fourteen attributes of the fascist state and its ideology. I want to focus on two of them: irrationalism and decisionism. Eco has them listed as attributes 2 and 3.

Fascism has an irrational element that rejects modern thought because it conflicts with traditional beliefs of the Christian religion and because fascism views communist ideology as a child of the Age of Reason and Jewish intellectuals. The Nazis were well aware that Karl Marx was a German Jew. Evolution is seen as modernist and is rejected in favor of Christian creationism. This debate is repeating itself today in American society with Christian fundamentalism attempting to gain control of state education.

Very closely related to irrationalism is "decisionism" in which action is seen as a value in itself. This is an existential element in fascism that elevates action over thought. Action is a sign of unambiguous power, and thought is associated with weakness and indecision. Carl Schmitt, a Nazi Law constitutional jurist, wrote that a decision is "(an actual historical event) and not within that of a norm (an ahistoric and transcendent idea)." The a priori is overshadowed by the posteriori. Actions over abstract principles, Fact over Idea, Power over pure thought, Certainty over ambiguity are the values and ideological norms that are primary in a totalitarian state.

After fleeing Germany, Marcuse wrote in 1934 a critique of German fascist society and attempted to identify those beliefs and philosophical themes found within fascist ideology. Marcuse believed that the seeds of fascism could be found in the Capitalist Democratic Liberal State, which over time mutate as Monopoly Capitalism gain control of the State as in the case of Germany. The evolution of Capitalism is also the concealed dialectic of Fascism. Those mutated liberal democratic ideas and values are betrayed by a totalitarianism based on action and force. Using Germany as his example of a fascist society Marcuse writes:

From what social idea in Capitalistic Liberalism did this decisionism evolve? It is none other than the economic hero, the free independent entrepreneur of industrial capitalism. "The idea of the charismatic, authoritarian leader is already preformed in the liberalist celebration of the gifted economic leader, the "born" executive" (Ibid.,p. 1. The total-authoritarian state is born out of the Liberal state and the former concept of the economic leader is transformed into a "Fuhrer." Trump fits this profile perfectly.

We can see this mutation of the concept of the "born" executive into the leader-state (Fuhrerstaat) in with Trump's speech and actions. An uneducated but privileged man, George Bush, has merged the idea of the CEO with that of the State Leader. But society has also made this same concatenation of ideas. He is a president of action and seen as a "strong" president. He is doer and not a thinker and his followers are proud of this persona. His opponents are "feminine" and members of the "reality based community."

Consequently, the Trump is continuing the Bush W. project to engineer the executive branch to be the strongest in American history by claiming "inherent" presidential powers.

It is precisely the concept of "state of emergency" that Bush and Trump have used to grab more and more state power in the name of security. The hyper-surveillance of Americans with the Patriot act, which is based on the same justification Nazi Law used to empower the Fuhrer. A Bush lawyer and advisor, John Yoo wrote law to further empower the president: "Just two weeks after the September 11 attacks, a secret memo to White House counsel Alberto Gonzales" office concluded that President Bush had the power to deploy military force "preemptively" against any terrorist groups or countries that supported them"regardless of whether they had any connection to the attacks on the World Trade Towers or the Pentagon."

The memo, written by Justice Department lawyer John Yoo, argues that there are effectively "no limits" on the president"s authority to wage war"a sweeping assertion of executive power that some constitutional scholars say goes considerably beyond any that had previously been articulated by the department. Carl Schmitt, a Nazi Law constitutional jurist in Hitler"s Third Reich, wrote the same justification of power for the State Leader using the concept of the "exception" in his work "Political Theology,"

We now see the Trump administration pack the American court system with Right-Wing Federalist Fascists. Alex Acosta could be a Supreme Court Judge. Against these ever expanding powers of the State stand the once traditional individual freedoms upheld by the Liberal Democratic State. The theologian and philosopher of the Age of Reason, Immanuel Kant wrote:

 

Trump claims he has presidential power ‘that nobody has ever seen before’
Now how about that! Trump is claiming previously unknown power of the president! He is a genius! And all of this on top of the Bush/Obama repressive legislative legacy.

 

The Copious Laws of Caligula​

When angry Roman citizens finally demanded an accounting of these onerous fees and fines, Caligula responded in a very modern way with obstruction, evasion, and fine print contracts. Tranquillus wrote,

"XLI. These taxes being imposed, but the act by which they were levied never submitted to public inspection, great grievances were experienced from the want of sufficient knowledge of the law. At length, on the urgent demands of the Roman people, he published the law, but it was written in a very small hand, and posted up in a corner, so that no one could make a copy of it. (Roman historian C. Suetonius Tranquillus wrote a history of “The Lives of the Twelve Caesars” 121 AD currently published in the Lobe Classical Library, 1913)."

Just as the Wall Street Socialists still do not have enough bailout money, the US Courts do not have enough laws!

Only counting U.S. laws that have the force of federal criminal penalties there are an estimated 10,000 to 300,000 (that’s right--three hundred thousand) laws! But no human being has been able to count all the laws in the US Judicial System.

But it isn’t enough! The U.S. Torah needs MORE LAWS that require MORE PRIVATE AMERICAN PRISONS!

NYSE: Core Civic Inc., CXW, $9.31 USD: you can check the price of human suffering from home on your computer!

Right-Wing fascist, “…U.S. Rep. Jim Banks has introduced legislation that could require protesters convicted of federal crimes to pay police expenses and give up enhanced unemployment benefits (source: The Hill).

​

 

And I assume that in this format, the workers are prepared to second mortgage their homes, take out loans, and assume the risk of being an owner? If the business is sued or fails, then the workers are prepared to lose their homes and their life savings. Right?

 

And last describes every rank bastard that ever chased after Marx.

 

It's funny that the Marxists on this site blame capitalism for government corruption, yet ignore political factions corrupting the system through vote buying schemes.

Is capitalism perfect, absolutely not. Are there laws in place to prevent this from happening, yes. However, capitalism is the system most related to individualism and barter and trade, and as such most countries are turning towards it, not away from it.

 

Portland, Oregon Lie Enforcement death squad murdered Michael Reinoehl. US Lie Enforcement has no creditability, but must give the media some kind of false BS narrative.

 

The Right-Wing is always complaining about "big govment" violating their freedom such as wearing a medical mask to slow the Covid-19 pandemic and save lives; however, they are the first to push through more repressive and redundant laws at every opportunity. Since the nationwide protests after the broadcasting a snuff video of a human being suffocated to death by the Ferguson police, state legislatures have been passing more punitive fines and longer sentences in private prisons for peaceful protesters.

Since 2015 states have by whim introduced at least 154 bills or executive orders to restrict peaceful protest with 54 now having the force of law. This kind of vindictive legislation has a ratcheting effective to the point it is illegal to stand on the sidewalk, or not to stand on the sidewalk.

States Have Put 54 New Restrictions On Peaceful Protests Since Ferguson:And they’ve tried to pass dozens of other measures raising penalties for non-violent demonstrations​

 

Factually and scientifically incorrect.

Utter horseshit. George Floyd, a habitual addict for years, died of cardiac arrest due to a drug overdose, had been complaining he couldn't breathe long before police restrained him. If he suffocated, it was his own doing, and police had nothing to do with it. I'm not fan of much police action in the U.S., particularly in the South, but the facts are clear in this case and MSM picked the wrong horse as usual.

Riots are not peaceful protests and anyone who conflates as such is a liar. The process for conducting peaceful protests is largely unchanged across the U.S. Get a permit. Have at it, while keeping the peace. Simple. Ironic that someone who inaccurately characterizes "wearing a mask to slow the Covid-19 pandemic and save lives" will be completely unable to demonstrate either slowing the spread of COVID1984 or saving any lives, yet then falsely characterizes reasonable regulation of riots as "peaceful protests."

Batting 0.

​

 

Sounds like capitalism sure has an easier time oppressing folks when its got the law on its side.

 

...or when the law is ignored.

 

Dixie corn pone legal theory let mafia boss Donny Trump keep all the money he took for bribes while in office. The Republican mafia boss could have been prosecuted for this crime "capable of repetition yet evading review." (see video below).

I can think of three reasons why the fascist-mafia Supreme Court of the United States refused to charge Trump: 1.) Punk the courts with endless delays. Trump has proved that violent intimidation of the courts and witnesses works! 2.) The US Congress is so corrupt that the Supreme corrupt court is protecting Washington D.C. politicians for similar crimes. The mafia typically moves in on pre-existing corruptions and takes it over. 3.) Trump could blackmail the Supreme Court for pressuring Justice Kennedy to resign from the court so the Republican mooks could appoint Justice Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. The whole deals smells like **** on ice.

The Son of Former Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy Helped Trump Secure Loans at Deutsche Bank.

The Supreme Court of the United States Lets Trump Get Away With Emoluments

Attorneys General of Maryland and the District of Columbia, as well as the nonprofit organization Citizens for Responsible Ethics in Washington (CREW) sued Donald Trump for his obvious and chronic violations of the emoluments clause of the Constitution (personally profiting from his office). The trial courts refused to dismiss the cases but Trump engaged in endless appeals and delays. When the cases finally made it up to the Supreme Court, the court dismissed the cases as moot because Trump is no longer president.

​

 

Well...I feel a little better.
​

As Trump Golfs in FL, the only Question is WHEN (not IF) he'll be Criminally Charged for his Crimes

​

 

Trump's Impeachment "Attorneys"
​

Trump's "The Loser" attorneys are arguing in court (video 11:11 minutes) that Donnie's statements about an alleged stolen election are true because...

"Insufficient evidence exists upon which a reasonable jurist could conclude that the 45th President's statements were accurate or not, and he therefore denies they were false."

~(Tx v Fx) ⊃ ~Fx
"x is not either true or false; Therefore, x is not false."​

This is a logical fallacy known as the Argument from Ignorance (Argumentum ad Ignorantiam) of the "absence of evidence" variant that claims "x is neither true, or false (accurate/inaccurate), therefore, x is true."

Other examples of this fallacy:

• "...there is nothing in the files to disprove your Communist connections."--Joe McCarthy 1950, Senate Floor
• "This drug is safe because no-one has found any toxic effects."

Definitions of logic symbols:
x = constant
~ = not
T = True
F = False
~F = True
~T = False
v = Either, or
⊃ = If, then conditional proposition

 

Truth-Table for this Informal Fallacy of "Argument from Ignorance."
​

 

The Law is the Devil’s Greatest Harlot.

....and the lack of it is something even worse.

 

Chevron’s Very Own Private New York Court System Prosecuting Human Rights Attorney​

Chevron has destroyed 1,700 square miles of land in the Ecuadorian Amazon, but the company has refused to pay for the damage or clean up the land despite losing a lawsuit 10 years ago, when Ecuador’s Supreme Court ordered the oil giant to pay $18 billion on behalf of 30,000 Amazonian Indigenous people.

Environmental lawyer Steven Donziger, helped bring the landmark case. Donziger has been on house arrest for nearly 600 days, as Chevron’s SLAPP (Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation) attack on him to silence critics and stop other lawsuits against the company for environmental damage.

Chevron launched a campaign to try to drive Donziger out of the case as part of their strategy, and demanded to see his computer and phone. Donziger appealed the case, but New York Judge Kaplan charged Donziger with criminal contempt of court for not complying with the order while the lawfulness of the order was under appeal. Judge Kaplan had Donziger locked up in his home.

This is a misdemeanor charge with a maximum sentence of 180 days in prison; yet, Donziger has been held 585 days on a charge that, if Donziger was even found guilty, the penalty is a maximum penalty of 180 days in jail.

When, FEDERAL prosecutors refused to bring the misdemeanor case against Donziger, New York Judge Kaplan appointed a private law firm, Seward & Kissel, that has financial ties to Chevron to bring Kaplan's contempt charge against Donziger.

So far the US American taxpayer has at least paid $400,000 for legal fees to Seward & Kissel to prosecute a misdemeanor charge against Donziger in a corrupt New York judicial system.

U.S. Lawyer Steven Donziger Speaks from House Arrest in NYC After Suing Chevron for Amazon Oil Spills
​

 

Yet emoluments clause does not refer to common trade. But rather to the sort of BS where a politician or his son is give large somes of money for in essence doing little or nothing save helping a foreign government gain favorable treatment by that politician or bureaucrat.

 

This case demonstrates clearly that in the US, Fascists 'r us. Mussolini would be proud.