Orwell and Kafka Do
America:
How the Government Steals Your
Money--"Legally," Of Course
By Charles Hugh Smith
March 24, 2015
"ICH"
- Did you know that the
government of Iran steals your cash if
they find more than loose change in your
car? They
don't arrest you for any crime, for the
simple reason you didn't commit any
crime; but it isn't about crime and
punishment--it's about"legalizing"
theft by the state.
So the government toadies
don't charge you with a crime or arrest
you--they just steal your money.
Pity the poor Iranian
people--clearly, there is no rule of law
to protect them from their predatory,
rapacious, fake-democracy,
quasi-totalitarian government.
Did you also know that
if you deposit too much money in modest
sums, the government of Iran steals all
your deposits? They
will claim--oh, the twisted logic of
Orwellian, repressive governments--that
you are obviously a drug dealer who is
avoiding laws that require banks to
report large deposits to the government.
Once again, you won't be
charged with a crime--in true Orwellian
fashion the suspicion that you may
have committed a crime is sufficient
reason to steal your cash. Pity the
poor Iranian people, living in such a
banana-republic kleptocracy.
Did you also know that
if you are caught with any drug
paraphernalia in your vehicle, the
government of Iran steals your vehicle? The
crime isn't a drug crime--it's a
property crime: what
are you doing with the government of
Iran's vehicle?
Pity the poor Iranian
people, living in a Kafkaesque nightmare
where suspicion alone justifies the
government stealing from its citizens, and an
unrelated crime (possessing drug
paraphernalia) is used to justify state
theft.
As in a Kafkaesque
nightmare, the state is above the law
when it needs an excuse to steal your
car or cash. There
is no crime, no arrest, no due
process--just the state thugs
threatening that you should shut up and
be happy they don't take everything you
own.
Your car and cash are
guilty--and your house, too.
Alas, dear reader, I
have misled you. It is not the Iranian
government that uses these tricks to
steal from its people--it is the U.S.
government that uses these above-the-law
excuses to blatantly steal from its
citizens. I
presented these Orwellian, Kafkaesque
travesties of the rule of law as being
Iranian so you would see
them for what they are--the actions of
an above-the-law, predatory state which
falsely claims to be a democracy with a
functioning judiciary.
All these forms of civil
forfeiture in America are well
documented:
I strongly recommend
reading every word of these articles
before you start spouting nonsense about
what a great and glorious government and
legal system we have here in America.
After six years of
gorging on the ill-gotten civil
forfeiture gains of kleptocratic local
government mafias, the
Attorney General of the U.S., Eric
Holder, recently announced that the
federal government would no longer be
taking its 20% share of the pounds of
flesh stripped from the bones of U.S.
citizens.
As my old
African-American foreman F.B. would
say: that's awful white of you, Eric,
after feasting on the billions of
dollars stolen from Americans for six
long years. The same can be said of
President Obama, who has ignored the
officially sanctioned thievery by
government thugs and toadies for six
long years.
This is how Orwell and
Kafka do America: each absurd
justification for stealing private
property is more outrageous than the
next.
But wait--there's
More! That
bastion of liberal politics, the state
of California, a state completely
dominated by Democrats claiming the
cherished mantle of Progressive, is
undoubtedly the most
rapacious, thieving, Kafkaesque
government in any nation claiming to be
a democracy.
As I have documented
in detail, the mere suspicion that you might
owe the state of California some tax is
enough for the state to steal all the
money it finds in any of your bank
accounts. And
in a fashion that would have made the
NKVD of the former Soviet Union proud,
you also have to pay the bank a $100 (or
more) fee for stealing your money for
the state of California. (At least in
some accounts, you had to pay for the
bullet the NKVD would put in the back of
your head.)
After they take all your
money, you can call the state tax office
and listen to a recording. If you have
any money left, you can spend it trying
to prove your
own innocence, since the state of
California already declared you guilty
without any evidence or due process.
When the state steals
our cash or car on mere suspicion, you
have no recourse other than horrendously
costly and time-consuming legal actions. So
you no longer have enough money to prove
your innocence now that we've declared
your car and cash guilty?
Tough luck, bucko--be
glad you live in a fake democracy with a
fake rule of law, a
fake judiciary, and a government of
thugs with the officially sanctioned
right to steal your money and
possessions without any due process or
court proceedings.
Be glad we don't have to
torture a confession out of you, like
the NKVD/KGB did in the former Soviet
Union, because your
cash and car are already guilty.
And that's how Orwell and
Kafka work in America--a nation that
once was a democracy and could once
claim to live under rule of law. Wake up
and smell the stench of a gilded gulag,
America; we're living in one whether you
care to admit it or not.
Charles Hugh Smith is an American writer and
blogger. He is the chief writer for the site
"Of Two Minds". Started in 2005, this site
has been listed No. 7 in CNBC's top
alternative financial sites.
http://charleshughsmith.blogspot.com
