A Facsimile of Law
Democrats have created a world in which they can do something without doing it.
On July 14, 1798, John Adams signed the Sedition Act into law.
This Act made it illegal to make false or malicious statements about the federal government. The act was used to suppress speech critical of the Adams administration, including the prosecution and conviction of many Jeffersonian newspaper owners who disagreed with the Federalist Party. Interestingly, the Sedition Act did not extend enforcement to speech about the Vice President, as then-incumbent Thomas Jefferson was a political opponent of the Federalist-controlled Congress.
Conveniently, it was set to expire in 1801, when Adams was to leave office. The 26 prosecutions carried out under the Act are likely a big reason that Jefferson won the 1800 election.
But the legacy of the Sedition Act lives on - in spirit, if not in letter.
See, there are ways to punish people by creating pseudo crimes applying things that look like law, but they are not really.
In his 2011 book, Three Felonies A Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent, author Harvey Silvergate noted:
“The average professional in this country wakes up in the morning, goes to work, comes home, eats dinner, and then goes to sleep, unaware that he or she has likely committed several federal crimes that day. Why? The answer lies in the very nature of modern federal criminal laws, which have exploded in number but also become impossibly broad and vague.”
It is inarguable that the size and scope of government today could be fairly described as tyrannical. The laws put in place by a government controlled by either a Democrat or a Republican majority and the administrative laws that are issued in support of legislation will, due to the sheer number and reach of them, present themselves to some individuals as cruel and oppressive.
Now imagine how someone in charge, with a specific agenda, could weave together disparate laws and regulations into a weapon – or even use tangential actions to create an environment of lawlessness as a means to secure an advantage.
In the world of modern law, novel approaches to the use of law are not only encouraged, but they are also celebrated. Many lawyers and judges are interested in “making new law” by setting legal precedents rather than going through the legislative process.
“Law” as a concept can also be thought of as a collection of different laws, regulations, and edicts from the Executive Branch, that taken individually may not directly address a specific situation, but when taken in toto, form a reasonable facsimile of a singular law.
Add to the ability to synthesize a “law” and therefore a “crime” out of thin air and then using the unlimited resources and power of government to go after political enemies, Democrats are essentially using your taxes to fund attacks on your liberty.
The process is the punishment, even for the innocent - especially for the innocent.
Think about how Biden has prosecuted his political enemies, pursued censorship in the guise of fighting “disinformation”, having the FBI interview people over social media posts, arrest people who pray in front of abortion clinics, how the government created a partnership with media companies to censor opposition, and how the government fostered cancel culture to shut down conservative voices, and you begin to see these actions having the same intended effect as the Sedition Act of 1798.
It is never about the cause, it is always about the effect.
It's been that way for far too long. I first came to recognize many people could not get through a day without violating some law or punitive regulation in the '80's. Sure, I was living in California at the time, they've only gotten worse over the years.
Nullification is one remedy, but it requires cooperation on a scale far too large in our fractured society. It IS more apparent these days and quite possibly, some day soon, a Bundy Ranch type of situation will occur and all those fractured pieces will adhere in a cohesive and resounding, "Not Today!"
The more we allow, the more they'll push.
We seem now to have only a facsimile of a the country we once had.
And, from back in the day of "fax" machines, we seem also to be becoming a copy of a copy of a copy... once sharp, now very faded an crooked.