The world-government
The US Gets the Boot
 The UN removed the US from two important committees





05/10/2001
The UN has decided that the US is no longer welcome on its Human Rights Committee or on its committee on drug trafficking.

Of Course, America is in a state of disbelief. What the hell is the world thinking? Dick Armey (R-Texas) exclaimed, "It reduces the United Nations to a farce when they expel the champion of human rights." How dare the UN kick us -- the "leader of the free world" - the champion human rights - the pure and virtuous sovereign of all that is good ... how DARE they kick US off the worlds human rights committee! I mean, didn't we invent human rights in the first place?

Well, there is a good answer - and you might want to sit down for this one.


The popular spin on this story is that this whole thing is some sort of underhanded trick played out by the evil dictators of the world. It's all some attempt to silence the noble U.S. in order for the Castros and Pol Pots of the world can get away with murder. There probably is some truth to this. The U.S. is a nation full of busy-bodies, and I'm sure many world leaders are going to rest easier now that it will be more difficult for the U.S. to meddle in their affairs. But to me, it appears that the other states of the world have simply grown tired of the United State's hypocrisy.

I'm sorry to break this to everybody, but the US is NOT the "free-est" country in the world - In fact, it is far from it. I say this because the United States incarcerates a larger percentage of its own citizens than any other nation in the world. Yes, you heard me right. We throw more people behind bars that more than any - I repeat - ANY other nation in the world. More than Red China, Brutal Somalia, Racists Serbia... even more than old Mother Russia. This is not to say that the US is the worst place to live - just that life in this country isn't as rosy most Americans have been led to believe.

Currently, about 705 out of every 100,000 U.S. citizens will spend all or part of this year in a federal, state, or county jail.

At first glance, this may not seem like many. Percentage-wise, that's works out to about 0.705% of the population. But remember, we are talking about almost 2,000,000 people here. You may believe that this level of incarceration is necessary, but a quick look at other nations of the world show that it is not. The US incarcerates its citizens at a rate 5 to 10 times higher than all of the other industrial nations. That's almost twice as much as Ukraine - Six times as high as the U.K. and Canada. Only one industrialized nation even come close to our record, which is Russia (with 0.685% in the gulags).

Bear in mind that this rate only reflects those actually serving time in prison at any given time. Even more will be jailed over the course of their entire lifetime. The average American has a 5% chance of serving prison time at some point in their life, and for black males the odds increase to 1 in 4 (28.5%). It also doesn't reflect the number of persons on probation or parole. 2.9% of the U.S. adult population is incarcerated, on probation or on parole at any given time. That's 5.9 million adults in the 'correctional population'. The United States runs the largest prison system in the entire world.

Now in all fairness, the citizens of this country enjoy some freedoms that that are completely unheard of in other countries. I mean, at least we have a Bill of Rights. At least our founding fathers bothered to jot a few protections down on a little piece of paper to ensure that we have some form of Freedom of Press, Freedom of Religion, Freedom of Association, Freedom from excessive punishments, Right to Jury, etc. etc. Although our government has always found ways to infringe on these rights, they cannot simply be brushed aside. Congress must at least take freedom into consideration before passing new law. (Are any of you European-Socialist-Democracies catching my drift?)

Our Bill of Rights stands as a dam -- guarding us from the overflowing river of "good intentions" and political holier-than-though attitudes which flows out of Washington D.C. Although it is true that some seepage has been allowed by our courts, by and large it has held firm. We can complain and moan about our freedoms being eroded slightly over the years since the revolution, but other countries don't have these protections at all... And it shows.

But America has forgotten the most important freedom of all - plain old freedom. You know, life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and all that. I'm talking about the freedom to not spend your life in a prison cell. Freedom from government harassment. The freedom from having a government agent kicking in your door and carting you off to a prison cell. It is this freedom - possibly the most important freedom of all - that America has chosen to abandon. It's as if we simply decided to lock it up and throw away the key.

The Incarceration rate in most other nations run somewhere between 100 and 300, with about 450 being the most civilized nations can stand. Even a "human rights violator" like China only locks up 0.1%. That's right. China only locks up 0.1% of its citizens. In other words, the US imprisons almost 7 times as many people (per capita) as Communist Red China. So, who is the human rights violator?

Waco.. or is it China? Sure, the Chinese had Tiananmen Square. But then again, the US had Waco. Now, I now people in the US see Tiananmen Square as the ultimate example of oppressive government, and Waco as merely an "accident". But when you really think about, the Chinese government had more of a "right" to put down a potential revolt than the US Government had to burn down a church.

Of course, I'm not trying to say that either incident was "right", I'm just pointing out the United State's hypocrisy in condemning China, at the same time it is burning its own citizens. Our government has no place condemning China, when just a few years after Tiananmen Square the FBI burned 80 cult members in Waco simply because they had a different opinion of the 2nd amendment. And at least the Chinese government takes responsibility for its actions - unlike the US which so far has no idea who gave the order to start that Texan barbecue.

Do you really think that the U.S. government would behave any differently from the Chinese if it was faced with a potential coup d'etat. If the Tiananmen Square protest had occurred in the United States, the protesters would have probably suffered the same fate.

Think about it. Imagine 100,000 people gathering in Washington DC, and demanding that the president and several other high-ranking officials be thrown out of office. Despite repeated peaceful efforts by the state to break up the crowd, the protests continue for 30 days - at which time the government declares martial law. Yet, the protest continues for another full month, despite continuing pleas from the authorities to disperse. Is there any doubt that the US government would have reacted any different from the Chinese? If a crowd of 100,000 people were threatening to storm the White House, you can bet your ass that the Feds would have squashed them like bugs.

For those of you who don't believe that our government is capable of such a thing, lets take a little stroll through history.



You may not equate killing 80 Davidians here and a few militiamen there with China's attack on thousands of protestors, but just remember that these are different times. The last time that the U.S. government faced a real threat of potential revolution was back in the 60's - and I'm sure we all know what happened protestors back in the 60's. The US dealt with their trouble-makers back then in much the same the same way China decided to deal with their protestors now. And you can bet that if American's ever play with the idea of revolution anytime in the future, they will meet with the same fate.

There aren't many governments in the world that wouldn't protect themselves from a revolt - but Waco wasn't even a revolt. It wasn't even close. It was just a group a religious wackos that wanted to build defenses to prepare themselves for the coming fall of society. You can call 'em crazy if you like - but that doesn't mean they don't have the right to prepare themselves for "the end" if that is what they want to do.

I mean after all, you can't blame somebody for fearing the end of society as we know it. In this day and age, a riot can occur at the drop of a pin. It doesn't take much at all - a bad court decision, a bad cop, a good basketball game. If any one of these events can reduce humans into a pack a wild animals, image what a few Islamic terrorists armed with a hand-held nuclear device would do to this country. If a terrorist can destroy a plane, he can destroy a city. A terrorist today could easily Fed-Ex a few nuclear devices and take out half the country. You may not worry about such things, but apparently the Davidians did - and they wanted to be ready.

NOBODY expects the ATF inquisition! So were the Davidians nuts?... I guess the future will decide that. There have been people throughout the ages that went to extreme measure to prepare for "judgment day". Of course, we generally regard them as quacks - but only because the 'end' never came. If it had, history would have no doubt recorded their actions in a different light. (Especially since they would probably be the only ones left to record history.)

But the point isn't whether these people are right or wrong -- the future shall decide that. It is a question of whether these people have a right to believe as they do. Did they deserve to die for taking the "shall not be infringed" part of the 2nd amendment too literally? Did the US government really need to incinerate them for owning a few weapons?... I think not. They hadn't attacked anybody. They weren't planning a military takeover. They just wanted to be ready to defend themselves when society's shit hit the apocalyptic fan. But for this the Feds decided to storm their home in a guerilla-style raid. And then they had the nerve to act surprised when these "survivalist" actually tried to defend themselves. All I can say is, "Duh!"

Yet the US government simply sweeps the ashes of Waco under the rug. They pretend like it never happened, then run around the world condemning similar actions by other governments. If Waco was an isolated incident, it might almost be excusable. Mistakes happen. But it is a story that keeps repeating itself over and over again. The government performs these types of raids every day. Most of them aren't as well-known as the ones just listed, but similar events are played out each and every day all over this country. Police raids, searches and seizures are commonplace today. Such stories are barely even newsworthy anymore. The only reason anybody heard about "Ruby Ridge" was that the government shot the wrong person. If the government had successfully taken out Randy Weaver as it had planned, odds are nobody outside of Idaho would have ever heard of the incident.

This is your incarceration rates on drugs... Any questions? When you look at it, all of these egregious abuses of human rights stem from two things. The federal government's "infringement" of the 2nd Amendment, and Prohibition (a.k.a. "War on drugs"), which one could argue is in apparent violation of the 21st amendment - The end of prohibition.

Now this last statement may require a little explanation. 100 Years ago, people viewed any attempt at alcohol prohibition as unconstitutional. That is why the prohibitionist needed to amend the constitution before they could attempt to dry-up the states. To that end, the 18th amendment was ratified in order to give the prohibitionist in government the power to prohibit the "manufacture, sale, or transportation" of "intoxicating liquors". (Note, there was no law against "possession" of these liquors, a power our government claims today.)

However, the 18th amendment was repealed by the 21st amendment in 1933. If the 18th amendment gave the federal government the power enact prohibitions, the 21st amendment would seem to remove that power. Without the 18th amendment, the federal government lacks the constitutional authority to enact prohibitions. I mean, if the government has always had the power to prohibit, why was the 18th amendment necessary?

Why was it unconstitutional to prohibit the sale of alcohol, but perfectly OK for the state to prohibit marijuana? The constitution does not mention either of these substances by name, so why does the government treat them any differently? Either they should both be legal, or both should be prohibited. No matter which theory prevails, the Supreme Court should show some consistency in their interpretation of our constitution. Either prohibition is constitutional, or it isn’t. And for the reasons I cited above, it would appear that the answer to the question is that prohibitions are not constitutional. If they weren't constitutional before the 18th amendment, they shouldn't be constitutional after the 18th amendment was repealed.

A lot of people see this inconsistency in policy, but some suggest that we go the other way. They acknowledge that the government shouldn't treat alcohol and tobacco any differently from other drugs. But, instead of working to repeal prohibition, they believe those substances should be banned as well. After all, if the state has the power to ban marijuana, why can't it get rid of alcohol and tobacco?

I can only hope that these people never get their way. It is the federal government's enforcement of these unconstitutional policies which leads tragedies such as Ruby Ridge and Waco -- and reminds us of why our forefathers wrote the constitution in the first place! If we followed the constitution, these abuses of power would not occur, and (going back to our original topic) these outrageous incarceration rates would not exist either. If the US government would just stick to the constitution, we wouldn't need to throw so many people behind bars. The only people that would be in prison would be real criminals - people that actually injured somebody else's person or property.

Were it not for prohibition, our incarceration rate would be around 250 or 350 - a much more respectable level than our current rate of 705, and far more in tune with the rest of the "civilized" world. Yet, almost 58% of people sitting in prison today are there because of drug prohibition. Almost 1,000,000 Americans are rotting away in a jail cell in this futile effort to keep people sober. And if you really looked at it, a large percentage of the "real" criminals in prison - actual violent offenders - are in prison for acts of violence that are tied to the drug-gang lifestyle. Were it not for prohibition, we wouldn't have any gangsters terrorizing our streets. There would still be crime of course, but far less of it - and far fewer people sitting in prison because of it.

Just imagine what this country would be like of our government could actually enforce every single law on the books - and catch every single person that broke the law. What if technology ever advanced to the point that this nightmare could become a reality! Imagine if the government invented a drug test that allowed them to tell whether a person had ever used drugs at some point in their life. Hell, there would be at least 100 million people in prison for marijuana usage alone! What the hell are we thinking!? If we are truly a nation "of the people, by the people, and for the people", why did we decide to turn over half of our population into felons?

Before prohibition started, most Americans were law-abiding citizens. Back then, the only way become a criminal was to actually hurt another citizen or mess with another person's property. Most normal people had no problem living within these constraints. As long as you left other people alone, the state had no reason to mess with you. Today, that is no longer the case. It is almost impossible these days to comply with every single law in existence. Hell, if the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act would have passed congress last year, I could be considered a criminal for merely writing this rant, and you would be breaking the law by if you suggested to somebody else that they read it. It's almost impossible to keep up with what is considered 'right', and what is currently deemed to be 'wrong'.

Ten years ago, you could drive a car without wearing a seatbelt. Now if you do, you are a criminal. Six years ago you could drive without car insurance. Now, being late on your insurance payment is a crime. By that same token, if you were caught brewing alcohol back in the 1920's, you could wind up in prison for 10 years. Today, it is perfectly OK. But as I mentioned earlier, there are many people that would like to return us to those glory days.

What makes things worse is, given the trigger-happy nature of some of our boys in blue, breaking one of these trivial laws can get you killed. A good number of police/citizen confrontations start off as 'routine' traffic stops. All it takes is for one misinterpreted move - a threatening action - and you can wind up maced, beaten, or dead. Just today (06/25/01), a St. Louis cop shot some kid because he had a BB gun in his back pocket. The cop claimed that the kid made a threatening motion towards the gun, so he had no choice but to defend himself. There are a lot of paranoid cops out there. Hell, if I were a cop, I'd be paranoid too. There is a good reason for the police to be on the defensive -- I mean, they are surrounded by criminals! 95% of the people driving down the highway a breaking the law by speeding. And every time a cop pulls one of these troublemakers over, he risks having his head blown off.

You can't really fault the cops for these events. They are merely doing what the lawmakers are telling them to do. (Of course, that defense didn't help all those Nazi's who claimed that they were "only following orders", but that's another story). By and large, the police are doing the best job they can. The police have no hope of arresting every criminal out there. Deciding which criminals to harass and which ones to let go must be a exhausting task.

But what if the government actually could punish every single citizen for his or her "crimes". We would all find ourselves jail. Hell, it would be less work to find the 1% or 2% of the population that had never broken the law and lock them up instead -- just to protect them for all of us 'evil do-ers'. If the government was a little more efficient in its enforcement of the law, the country would be just like it was in the movie 'Escape from New York' - except that all the criminals would be kept outside the city walls, and puritans would be kept within.


But, until we do get our incarceration back down to a sane level, why should we expect anyone else in the world to take any "Human Rights" advice from us. What kind of advice could we give the other nations of the world?...


Perhaps the rest of the world was trying to send us a message by kicking us off of two committees on the same day - the human rights committee, and the drug trafficking committee. The two are related. Our obsession with drug trafficking has led us to forget about human rights, and has led the rest of the world to forget about us and look elsewhere for a new "leader of the free world".

Of course, all of this may not have had anything at all to do with the UN's decision. Perhaps other nations just want to be free to beat down their own masses without us getting in the way. Maybe they have their own lofty ideas of how to obtain a "perfect" society, and they don't want us "meddling kids" foiling their plans. I mean, if the US can do this to its own citizens in some insane quest to keep them "sober", why can't China do the same to their commoners to keep them "communist". Why can't Iran do whatever it takes to keep their people "Islamic"? Why couldn't the Nazis keep Germany "German"? And what was wrong with the people of Salem Massachusetts wanting to keep their fellow man "Christian"?

Well, history tells us that these last few events were wrong because the people that suffered were 'innocent' of any real crime - that the only real criminals were the people doing the prosecuting. But, of course, how often does man actually learn anything from history. Drug users are a threat to society and must be stopped. Yeah... I've heard that line before. We already have a legal drug - alcohol - And we seem to get along just fine.

But in any case, neither you nor I will ever know exactly why the UN gave the US the boot. But regardless, it's enough to make me wonder why the US thinks it possesses some inalienable right to be on such a committee while it is so busy destroying the lives of so many of its own citizens.

The incarceration rate is a prime indicator of just how oppressive any regime is, and the US ranks above the worst of them. Of course, it's not the only indicator... sitting in a American prison cell is probably a hell of a lot better than sitting in a Nazi concentration camp or Cuban prison. But, just because we give our prisoners cable and conjugal visits doesn't excuse our behavior. Nobody wants to spend his or her life in a jail cell - no matter how "cozy" it is. Government oppression is still government oppression - no matter how you sugar-coat it. Just because you are "nice" to your prisoners doesn't change what they are - prisoners. It's like saying that slavery would have been OK if only the slave-masters had given their slaves a nice cozy place to live.

Prison should be reserved for criminals - People that actually harm others in society. Prisons exist to punish those that do harm to others - not to lock away people that spend their free time differently from you. Drugs may be bad, but prisons are worse.

Just think about it. Two million of your fellow citizens are behind bars. And when the realization hits you that half the people in jail are there because of some puritanical obsession with sobriety, it's enough to make you want to join some religious cult and prepare for the fall of western civilization.

Just make the Feds don't find out where you live.

The rest of America may find itself scratching its head over the UN's decision, but I'm not one of them. The answer is as plain as the prison walls in front of our face.



     
Sources: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/prison.htm (With additional sources cited within)
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