If This Goes On-
Sam Aurelius Milam III
I
see dozens of news items about people who are punished by government without
ever having harmed anyone. The leader of the Mountaineer Militia,
for example, was convicted of conspiring to manufacture and deal
in explosives. The conviction wasn't for killing or injuring anyone.
There were no victims. The conviction was for intending to
blow up an FBI fingerprint complex.
WHEELING, W.Va. (AP) - The leader of the Mountaineer
Militia, arrested in an alleged plot to blow up the FBI's fingerprint complex,
was convicted of conspiring to manufacture and deal in explosives ....
— AP NewsBrief by MARCO LEAVITT, Saturday,
Aug. 9, 19971
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Punishing
people before they've caused any harm is a world-wide trend. In Wiesbaden,
Germany, people were arrested recently for being suspected neo-Nazis.
They weren't arrested for doing anything, but because of their suspected
sympathies and plans for a meeting.
WIESBADEN, Germany (AP) - At least 140 suspected
neo-Nazis were arrested in Germany today to prevent banned memorial gatherings
observing the 10th anniversary of the death of Hitler's deputy, Rudolf
Hess, police say. Officials say Hess committed suicide in Berlin's
Spandau prison on Aug. 17, 1987, but his family claims he was murdered.
Hess has become a cult figure among neo-Nazi youths. A police spokeswoman
says controls throughout the country are tight with cars and buses carrying
suspected radical rightists being checked.
AP NewsBrief by DAVID GOODMAN, Saturday,
Aug. 16, 19971
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Israel
routinely launches deadly military attacks against suspected terrorist
strongholds in south Lebanon. The alleged strongholds aren't populated
by proven terrorists, but by suspected terrorists.
TYRE, Lebanon (AP) - Israeli warplanes today fired
at least six missiles on suspected Hezbollah guerrilla bases in south Lebanon,
security officials said. It was the fourth Israeli air strike by
Israel on Lebanon this week amid escalation of fighting that has left 26
people dead, mostly civilians. The raid came a day after guerrillas
detonated a roadside bomb, killing an Israeli-allied militiaman in the
southern enclave that Israeli has occupied since 1985. In today's
raids, two fighter jets led three attacks on the Shiite Muslim villages
of Yatar, Zibquin and Jebal al-Boutom, said the officials, speaking on
customary condition of anonymity. There was no immediate word on
casualties.
AP NewsBrief by MARCO LEAVITT, Saturday,
Aug. 23, 19971
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In
Charleston, South Carolina, a man was condemned to prison for
conspiring
to burn a church. He wasn't convicted of burning the church, but
of conspiring to burn it. The difference is of great importance.
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) - A former Ku Klux Klansman
was sentenced to 15 years in federal prison for conspiring to burn a rural
black church and a migrant labor camp. Hubert Rowell pleaded guilty
last December along with Arthur A. Haley, another former Klan member.
Both admitted conspiring in the 1995 burnings of Macedonia Baptist Church
and a migrant labor camp, both in Clarendon County about 80 miles north
of Charleston. Haley was sentenced earlier this month to 21 1/2 years
in prison.
AP NewsBrief by JEROME MINERVA, Monday,
Aug. 25, 19971
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The
proper test for a conviction is that the accused person actually did some
harm, not that he merely intended to do harm. This follows necessarily
from the concept of presumed innocence. If there is no victim, then
there is no justification for punishment. If the criterion for punishment
can be transferred away from the actual infliction of harm to the mere
intention to do harm, than it can be transferred even further. Once
it is acceptable to condemn a man for merely possessing a bomb, then it
is a small increment in the law to condemn him for having materials or
tools that could be used to make a bomb — for "conspiring to manufacture
and deal in explosives". If that becomes acceptable, then a man can
be condemned for merely learning how to build a bomb. After that,
it can become a crime to even provide information. That is now the
case.
WHEELING, W.Va. (AP) - A firefighter who gave photographed
blueprints of an FBI complex to a militia leader has become the first person
to be convicted under a new federal anti-terrorism law. The 1994
law makes it a crime to provide resources to someone planning a terrorist
attack. It was intended to prevent terrorist acts, U.S. Attorney
William Wilmoth said. Fire Lt. James Rogers, 41, was convicted Monday
and faces up to 10 years in prison when he is sentenced. He was acquitted
of a conspiracy charge.
AP NewsBrief by LISA M. COLLINS, Tuesday,
Aug. 26, 19971
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It appears that today even a librarian could be punished for merely doing
her job — providing a book to someone.
If
guilt can be transferred away from the person who actually does the harm
and imposed upon acts prior the occurrence of actual harm, however threatening
such acts may appear to be, then guilt by association is without limit.
Eventually, no author will dare to write a book that might be construed
as providing any dangerous information at all. No publisher would
dare to publish such a book. No librarian would dare to touch it.
Such power in the hands of government is far more dangerous than a bomb
in the hands of a terrorist.
When
a government seeks the power to punish people for their thoughts, plans,
or sympathies, however threatening those may appear to be, then that government
must be destroyed.![10x5 Page Background GIF Image](../../Images/10x5_Page_Background.gif)
When any government, or any church for that matter, undertakes
to say to its subjects, "This you may not read, this you must not see,
this you are forbidden to know," the end result is tyranny and oppression,
no matter how holy the motives.
— from If this Goes On-, by Robert
A. Heinlein
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October 1997
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