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Trump: The Moral Monster Beyond Hope – Post by G. Stolyarov II

Trump: The Moral Monster Beyond Hope – Post by G. Stolyarov II

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The New Renaissance Hat
G. Stolyarov II
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Two excellent recent editorials highlight the unprecedented danger that Donald Trump poses to liberty and basic human decency in America.

Nina Khrushcheva, great-granddaughter of Nikita Khrushchev, writes of how Donald Trump has brought Soviet-Style politics, particularly the sweeping use of the Big Lie, to the United States. (“Trump Through Russian Eyes”. Project Syndicate. September 27, 2016)

Khrushcheva observes,

Indeed, from my perspective, many of the nastiest and most perverse features of Russian politics now seem present in the United States as well. The Big Lie – invented in Nazi Germany, perfected in the Soviet Union, and wielded expertly by Russian President Vladimir Putin – is today a core component of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.

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So far, Trump has been allowed to get away with his lies. The news media have largely been what Lenin called ‘useful idiots,’ so eager to use Trump to boost their own ratings that they did not notice or care that they were also boosting his. No surprise, then, that an emboldened Trump now delivers lies of ever more breathtaking audacity.

Harvard political theorist Danielle Allen likens Donald Trump to Gilgamesh – and not in a flattering manner. (“Donald Trump is a walking, talking example of the tyrannical soul”. The Washington Post. October 8, 2016.) In the early “Epic of Gilgamesh”, the king Gilgamesh (before he journeys on his quest to obtain eternal life) is an arbitrary, capricious tyrant with no regard for any other individuals’ rights or for basic human dignity and decency. Only when Gilgamesh realizes that death is a fundamental problem affecting everyone (him, too), is he impelled away from tyranny and toward wisdom.

But it is too much to hope that Trump would all of a sudden turn from a populist demagogue and would-be tyrant into a life-extension supporter. Instead, Trump should be recognized as completely devoid of moral character, and a completely lost cause for anyone who thought that he might somehow magically transform himself into a reasonable person.

It is time to break free from the spell of the Big Lie and universally denounce Trump for the moral monster he is. All people of good moral character must stand against Trump. Support anyone else you wish (Libertarian, Democrat, Green, Transhumanist, McMullin, none of the above) – but express the conviction that a decent, humane society should not allow such an unseemly, tyrannical brute as Trump to have any degree of power.

This post may be freely reproduced using the Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike International 4.0 License, which requires that credit be given to the author, G. Stolyarov II. Find out about Mr. Stolyarov here.

IJ and Small Business Owner Beat IRS on Civil Asset Forfeiture – Article by Adam Bates

IJ and Small Business Owner Beat IRS on Civil Asset Forfeiture – Article by Adam Bates

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The New Renaissance HatAdam Bates
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The court struck a blow for property rights

Last year I referred readers to the abuse of civil asset forfeiture laws by the IRS in its attempt to take more than $107,000 from North Carolina small business owner Lyndon McLellan without charging him with any crime.

The IRS cleaned out Mr. McLellan’s business account because it suspected him of “structuring,” an offense whereby a person avoids legally-mandated financial reporting requirements by keeping their deposits and withdrawals under $10,000.

Because there are many perfectly legitimate reasons a business owner may deposit less than $10,000 at a time (for instance, if their insurance policy only covers $10,000 cash on hand), and because civil asset forfeiture allows the government to seize cash and property without proving any wrongdoing, IRS structuring seizures are prone to abuse.

Tacitly recognizing the abuse allowed by the law, former Attorney General Eric Holder announced changes to the use of civil forfeiture in structuring offenses last year. The policy changes should have spared innocent business owners like Lyndon McLellan, but it seems some federal prosecutors never got the memo.

In fact, the Assistant U.S. Attorney in charge of the case responded to criticism by sending veiled threats to Lyndon McLellan and his lawyers at the Institute for Justice, warning them against publicizing the case lest it “ratchet up feelings” in the IRS offices.

The publicity worked. After significant public and political pressure, the IRS relented and returned the amount they had taken from Mr. McLellan’s bank account. As I noted last year, however, the IRS refused to reimburse Mr. McLellan for the costs of fighting the seizure or to pay interest on the money it had wrongfully seized.

But this week a federal judge ruled that the IRS must do more to make Mr. McLellan whole, and awarded him legal costs totalling more than $20,000.

The court held:

Certainly, the damage inflicted upon an innocent person or business is immense when, although it has done nothing wrong, its money and property are seized. Congress, acknowledging the harsh realities of civil forfeiture practice, sought to lessen the blow to innocent citizens who have had their property stripped from them by the Government. …

This court will not discard lightly the right of a citizen to seek the relief Congress has afforded.

Fortunately, thanks to the efforts of Mr. McLellan and the Institute for Justice, the good guys won this time. Ultimately, however, the only way to ensure that civil forfeiture abuses stop happening is to abolish civil forfeiture. If the government cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that a person engaged in criminal activity, it should not be able to punish them as if they’re guilty.

As long as Congress and state legislatures allow this practice to continue, more innocent Americans will end up fighting for their livelihoods like Lyndon McLellan had to.

Cross-posted from Cato.org.

Adam Bates is a policy analyst with Cato’s Project on Criminal Justice. His research interests include Constitutional law, the War on Drugs, the War on Terror, police militarization, and overcriminalization.

This article was published by The Foundation for Economic Education and may be freely distributed, subject to a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which requires that credit be given to the author.