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Combine the over-reach of the financial Plutocracy ("our contributions to Congress are too big to fail!") with the over-reach of the State ("criminalizing poverty is our game") and you get a Plantation society of debt-serfs ruled by an Elite which holds monopolies on "authorized" violence and theft.

Our first example is from correspondent M.J.:

Yesterday was my day to realize we are now living in a fascist country.

I received no less than four calls from the local (LAUSD) district threatening me to stop homeschooling my son and to drop him off at the local illegal alien dropout school. I tried to explain to the bureaucrat that I had no choice but to pull him out of the public schools because he is two grade levels ahead and needs private tutoring (I hired a licensed former teacher and someone with a masters degree in math to tutor him), and that I would be happy to have the school district test him and put him in an accelerated or gifted program.

She had nothing to offer me, couldn't care less about his academic needs, said she didn't know of any gifted programs offered by the school district, wasn't particularly interested in testing him, and just threatened me that I'm breaking the law and I said I had to put him in my local school, which I told her was impossible because it's a low-income poorly performing school that could not possibly accommodate my boy. Over my dead body were the words I used, actually.

In case you are wondering how she found out I was homeschooling, it all started when we lotteried into a charter school in a wealthy neighborhood near Santa Monica and I ended up having to pull my son out because they use the same mediocre curriculum as every other LAUSD school.

Then I got home and got a letter from the IRS that they "segregated" (seized) 19K from my bank account because I owe 6K in alternative minimum tax. My husband did our taxes and I guess he missed the fact that we owe this on top of all the money they take out of his paycheck.

I am so fed up, I don't even recognize this country anymore.

The next example is provided by correspondent Lawrence:

Just came from another blog reading about Suzette Kelo, who lost her home in the infamous Kelo eminent domain case. After her house was torn down, the development was canceled, and all that remains is a weed and trash filled lot.

What An Astounding Waste.

But the government taking that has always stayed with me occurred here in California. Remember Donald Scott?

Boy, do they ever want Trails End Ranch

"In October of 1992, millionaire recluse Donald Scott and his bride of two months, Frances Plante Scott, lived in a storybook wooded valley in the mountains high above Malibu, Calif. Trails End Ranch is almost completely surrounded by state and Federal park land, and the neighboring government entities had made numerous attempts to buy out Scott and annex his property.

Stymied in their attempt to buy the Scott ranch, government officials hit on an alternative plan. Contending an officer had seen "marijuana plants growing under the trees" during a drug-seeking overflight, agents from various jurisdictions gathered quietly outside the locked gate to the ranch in the morning mists of Oct. 2, 1992. After greedily studying the maps of the 200 acres of prime land they were told they'd be able to grab under federal asset seizure laws should they find as few as 14 marijuana plants, they cut the chain on the gate with bolt-cutters and raced a mile up the dirt drive to the ranch, complete with police dogs.

Frances Scott was in the kitchen, brewing her morning coffee, when dozens of men in plainclothes and brandishing guns -- no badges or warrants in evidence -- came swarming in. Understandably, she screamed for her husband, still asleep upstairs.

Donald Scott, 63, came hurrying down the stairs, a handgun held over his head. The officers shouted for him to lower his weapon. He did. They shot him dead."

Your government in action. I hope you approve. The irony of tragedies like this is that when young Americans faced similar "law enforcement" tactics in the late 1960s and early 1970s via COINTELPRO and other blatant violations of constitutional rights, we were written off as radical hippies who were a threat to something (certainly not democracy, but "something." Like perhaps an illegal war and an out-of-control secret government?)

Now that average citizens are facing similar tactics, they might find it interesting to study the COINTELPRO campaign of the FBI and other "law enforcement" officials against the anti-Vietnam War movement three decades ago.

According to attorney Brian Glick in his book War at Home, the FBI used four main methods during COINTELPRO:

1. Infiltration: Agents and informers did not merely spy on political activists. Their main purpose was to discredit and disrupt. Their very presence served to undermine trust and scare off potential supporters. The FBI and police exploited this fear to smear genuine activists as agents.

2. Psychological Warfare From the Outside: The FBI and police used a myriad of other "dirty tricks" to undermine progressive movements. They planted false media stories and published bogus leaflets and other publications in the name of targeted groups. They forged correspondence, sent anonymous letters, and made anonymous telephone calls. They spread misinformation about meetings and events, set up pseudo movement groups run by government agents, and manipulated or strong-armed parents, employers, landlords, school officials and others to cause trouble for activists.

3. Harassment Through the Legal System: The FBI and police abused the legal system to harass dissidents and make them appear to be criminals. Officers of the law gave perjured testimony and presented fabricated evidence as a pretext for false arrests and wrongful imprisonment. They discriminatorily enforced tax laws and other government regulations and used conspicuous surveillance, "investigative" interviews, and grand jury subpoenas in an effort to intimidate activists and silence their supporters.

4. Extralegal Force and Violence: The FBI conspired with local police departments to threaten dissidents; to conduct illegal break-ins in order to search dissident homes; and to commit vandalism, assaults, beatings and assassinations. The object was to frighten, or eliminate, dissidents and disrupt their movements.

Same old, same old, only now the name of the game for State over-reach at the local level is all about generating cash, via traffic fines and "theft by other means."

Thank you, M.J. and Lawrence, for these reports.

Permanent link: State Over-Reach: Stripmining the Citizenry for Fun and Profit

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