An Open Letter to the LE Community
Enforcing the Bill of Rights is Job One!

Officer, I'm an American citizen, I outrank you.
— Jim Rockford (paraphrasing)

Lately I've been concerned about what I'm seeing as a decline of civil society in the form of a rise in the "enforcement" community. Not too long ago I'm on a road trip on an Interstate somewhere in the Midwest and there's this large complex of buildings over on my right surrounded by walls and fences. I'm thinking a prison or a large government high school, right? No, it's the <state> Federal Law Enforcement Center, Training, and Corrections Services Enhancement Facility or some such... a title that without the word "Law" makes more sense.

Whom do they think they're kidding? The federales and the state boys are popping out prisons like 7-11s; same thing with these police and armed-forces complexes. Is there a relationship? What is it they tell us over at Alex Jones' InfoWars and Prison Planet? The US has the highest incarceration rate of any country, at 726 per 100K, nearly 40% higher than the next highest—with half to three-quarters of America's 2,258,983 prisoners being penned up for nonviolent, consensual crimes. Today with the Military Commissions Act of 2006 and repeal of habeas corpus, opportunities for prison population growth are limited only by the imagination of the executives elected by a Fox-News-crazed public.

Everyone on this side of the grass who's given it a second thought knows we're at a crossroads in the epic conflict between the Grand Imperial Collective (GRIC?) and the rights of the individual. When I see my freedom-loving friends put in jail for protesting eminent domain, when every minute 30-some individuals are arrested for marijuana, when tax resisters' and their property are assaulted with tanks and armored personnel carriers, when FBI agents seize the the property and facilities of the Liberty Dollar, etc., etc.,[1], I keep coming back to the one thing... the only thing, really, that enables the injustices to happen: armed men with badges. Who are these regular guys? I figured the least I can do is reach out and write a letter to them, maybe get them to stop:

To My "Armed-Men-with-Badges" Public Servants:

At ease!

Note: I would address my open letter to the women in LE, as well, but I'm certain any driving force behind the use of arms in any bad official way lies predominantly with men. Further, my comments apply equally to American military personnel[2], as well as to anyone in the general enforcement profession: prosecutors, judges, county executives, overzealous grade-school safety patrollers, what have you.

First, hello neighbor. Each of you lives in a real community of doctors, lawyers, autoworkers, haircutters, teachers, and people with dozens of other occupations and ambitions and hopes of their own. You, too, are a fellow American often raising a family, making it your profession to "protect the life, liberty, and property of 'you and yours' and your neighbors," i.e. us... in accordance with the oath you've taken to uphold the United States Constitution. And I want to thank you, personally, from the bottom of my heart, truly, for all your actions consistent with that mission to protect my liberty, our liberty, and our persons/property from those who would use force to take these precious things away.

Now, let me ask you a perfectly serious question: Have you read the Constitution and, in particular, do you know and comprehend the Bill of Rights? <— I've provided a link here just in case. The incredible thing about these amendments, indeed about the whole Constitution, is the language is crystal clear. The BOR is a unambiguous set of restrictions on government power. Furthermore, the 10th Amendment states that if a government power is not explicitly enumerated in the Constitution, the government does not have that power. And the 9th Amendment states that if a right of the people has not been explicitly identified in the Constitution, THE PEOPLE HAVE THAT RIGHT!

Sorry didn't mean to shout. But you would be astonished to realize how many people, even officers of the law, have never bothered to read the founding and guiding Charter of our great country. But go ahead, read it. You'll be glad you did. It will make you feel a lot better about being in law enforcement when you have that complete confidence that nothing you're doing in the line of duty is violating the fundamental law of the land.

So there we are. Now I'd like each of you to ask yourself whether what you're doing in your routine LE capacity does or does not violate "the Charter." For example, I think you'll see quickly there is nothing in the Constitution that gives the federal government the power to prescribe or proscribe drugs of any kind. (The 18th amendment, which did state the federal government could ban alcohol, was repealed by the 21st amendment.) Hence, no one in the LE community can legally impose or assist in the imposition of federal "laws"[3] prohibiting drugs.

In practice the Bill of Rights has been "federalized," meaning if it's against the law for the federal government to do something, it's also against the law for any state or local government to do that something. For example, the states can't impose a religion on their citizens, say, make people pray on Thursdays to the Great Pumpkin.

The Constitution is a fairly encompassing document, and again, it's quite clear. On the state level, it's in all of our self-interests to make sure that whatever crimes we try to stop are true crimes. I don't have to remind you—especially if you've just read the Constitution and the BOR—that making any consensual act between adults a felony crime is blatantly against your charter. Nope, sorry, you may not like it but you have to be true to our principles. If you try to enforce these consensual crimes[4], then you become the individual who is actually guilty of a felony crime.

And we sure don't want that to happen.

On the federal level, what can I say that hasn't been said. We've known for decades now that the income tax is unconstitutional (for a number of reasons), the 16th amendment was never in fact ratified by the required number of states, that the Federal Reserve System violates the money clauses of the Constitution, that any wars undertaken without a Congressional declaration are unconstitutional, that the Drug War is unconstitutional, that firearms restrictions, and so many other edicts are transgressions of the founding document.

If you're a federal enforcer, you're probably going to have a very difficult time following the orders of your day-to-day bosses and at the same time follow the orders of your real bosses—i.e. us, your neighbors, and the Constitution you have sworn to uphold. But you must follow your conscience and the law. If that entails leaving your LE or military position, you are honor bound to make the separation. Simply refuse to carry out the wrongful orders of your immediate superiors.

If you get fired or if you quit, consider it a positive step forward for you and your family into a benevolent future of liberty. You may even wish to use your enforcement resources banding together with fellow departees, Constitutional advocates, and other freedom activists to resist further acts of tyranny. That would be wonderful, tho not mandatory. Anyway, I'm pretty sure when you've had the time to think things over, read the sacred texts, embrace the Sacred Nonaggression Principle, you'll realize you belong on the side of the people in these matters. And the modern liberty movement will welcome you home with open arms.

Actually, I don't have a lot more today; we'll talk again. Take care.

Live free and flourish,

Brian Wright
The Freedom Rider

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[1] For a complete list of the government aggressions that lay heavily on my mind (and on the minds of most of us who cherish Constitutional liberty), please refer to Day 2 of my article on the 2008 Free State Forum.

[2] In doing some research on the war record of John McCain, I discovered a piece about him in The Nation from 1999. (In it I first became aware that Operation Rolling Thunder—which was the largest aerial bombardment campaign ever undertaken in world history—over a four-year period dropped 7,000,000 tons of bombs and incendiaries on Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos: three times as many as had been dropped in all of World War 2. Robert McNamara estimated that Vietnamese casualties during the operation were one million (human beings) per year. (!!!)) Anyway:

In this Nation article, McCain is quoted as stating in 1967, that he had a moment of truth where "he saw what napalm did to men aboard his ship [in a munitions accident] and wasn't sure he could drop any more of that stuff on North Vietnam." Further, the article goes on to remind us, "In 1972, a significant number of B-52 pilots and crew engaged in exactly that kind of heroic insubordination, refusing orders to fly missions in the midst of President Nixon's carpet-bombing of North Vietnam." (Who's the war hero here?)

[3] Note, unconstitutional acts, transcribed on paper and inhabiting statute books, are commonly referred to as laws. But if these acts are unconstitutional—meaning a reading of the Constitution by any "reasonable man" shows they clearly violate the charter document—they are simply empty edicts. Null and void.

[4] A consensual crime list has been provided by Peter McWilliams in his breathtaking treatise, Ain't Nobody's Business if You Do: "... here are the most popular consensual crimes: gambling, recreational drug use, religious and psychologically therapeutic drug use, prostitution, pornography and obscenity, violations of marriage (adultery, fornication, cohabitation, sodomy, bigamy, polygamy), homosexuality, regenerative drug use, unorthodox medical practices,... suicide and assisted suicide,... jaywalking [and several others]."