The New Fascism
An official with Campaign for Liberty, a group associated with Congress's great dissenter, Ron Paul, was recently detained in the airport of Saint Louis, Missouri because he was carrying too much money, somewhere between 4K and 5K (he was holding the group's funds in his capacity as an official). The official, Steve Bierfeldt, was also harassed by the TSA agents that detained him. Since when did it become illegal to carry too much cash? It probably became de facto illegal around the same time that the government started passing the various unconstitutional forfeiture laws, we believe during the Reagan era of the 1980's, wherein officials can expropriate your property without charging you with a crime. This started as part of the asinine "war on drugs." Bierfeldt was eventually released without charge, and without the group's money being expropriated, after undergoing around 30 minutes of profanity-filled intimidation and detention.
These anti-cash carrying rules are particularly onerous to low income people, not that Bierfeldt is, because on the one hand the corporate elite has made it more difficult or too costly for the poor to even have bank accounts, yet on the other hand the low income are subject to suspicion and harassment if they carry cash (better not have more than a couple hundred dollars on you in the new fascist order of our times), which of course not being able to get a bank account would make it more likely for someone, sometimes, to have to carry fairly large amounts of cash.
It goes against the libertarian grain of our constitutional credo for someone to have to explain to some government official or police officer why she or he is carrying cash, unless a bank around the corner from that person just got robbed of a hundred thousand dollars and it was noticed, by chance, that that person happened to have a hundred thousand dollars in neatly folded stacks with a paper strip around them - in other words, probable cause for the authorities to give anyone the fifth degree. That is, if this is going to continue to be the "Land of the Free."
Copyright 2008 - 2009, Party of Commons TM
These anti-cash carrying rules are particularly onerous to low income people, not that Bierfeldt is, because on the one hand the corporate elite has made it more difficult or too costly for the poor to even have bank accounts, yet on the other hand the low income are subject to suspicion and harassment if they carry cash (better not have more than a couple hundred dollars on you in the new fascist order of our times), which of course not being able to get a bank account would make it more likely for someone, sometimes, to have to carry fairly large amounts of cash.
It goes against the libertarian grain of our constitutional credo for someone to have to explain to some government official or police officer why she or he is carrying cash, unless a bank around the corner from that person just got robbed of a hundred thousand dollars and it was noticed, by chance, that that person happened to have a hundred thousand dollars in neatly folded stacks with a paper strip around them - in other words, probable cause for the authorities to give anyone the fifth degree. That is, if this is going to continue to be the "Land of the Free."
Copyright 2008 - 2009, Party of Commons TM
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