Month: January 2007

New Hampshire Man Will Shoot Tax Collectors; Calls Come for Supporters.

Ed Brown has received multiple felony convictions for income tax evasion. After trying to take up his case in court, he and his wife believe that federal agents will storm their 110 acre home, which is like a fortress complete with watch towers and its own supply of electricity should the government try to cut off the Browns’ power.

According to Lauren Canario,

“In speech Ed Brown takes his ideals seriously. He explains his concepts of good and evil in a confident and patient tone, as if teaching an apprentice. He showed me the realistic paintings decorating his spacious home: a shining medieval knight bowing to be dubbed by a princess; a 19th century man and woman walking together; a mother and child that seemed illuminated by emotion rather than light. He seems to have lived his life believing chivalry, love and honor were possible, but now events have convinced him that he may have to die to uphold his ideals, and he accepts his possible violent fate with composure.”

Others are coming to support Brown. Some with guns, others with cameras or signs in the event of another Waco massacre. Still others are sending letters of support, flags, and are writing the sheriff’s office to ask the local police not to harm him.

It could be months before government agents try to enter his compound, since Brown is determined not to be taken to jail alive.

Here’s a link to the story, which also has information on how to support Brown.

Here’s a link to other developments as they occur.

Let’s hope this all ends non-violently, and that the criminal invaders come to their senses before attacking an old man and his wife who question the legality of the income tax.

[Mises Economics Blog]

This post tends to confirm my initial impression, that Ed Brown is a modern-day Don Quixote. I can’t imagine that there’s any chance he’ll be left in peace, so I can only hope that he manages to die quickly. Nobody deserves to be taken alive by the Evil Empire, but it would be a particularly horrible fate for such an idealistic man.

Humanity many times has had sad experience of superpowerful police forces…. As soon as [the police] slip out from under the firm thumb of a suspicious local tribune, they become arbitrary, merciless, a law unto themselves. They think no more of justice, but only of establishing themselves as a privileged and envied elite. They mistake the attitude of natural caution and uncertainty of the civilian population as admiration and respect, and presently they start to swagger back and forth, jingling their weapons in megalomaniac euphoria. People thereupon become not masters, but servants. Such a police force becomes merely an aggregate of uniformed criminals, the more baneful in that their position is unchallenged and sanctioned by law. The police mentality cannot regard a human being in terms other than as an item or object to be processed as expeditiously as possible. Public convenience or dignity means nothing; police prerogatives assume the status of divine law. Submissiveness is demanded. If a police officer kills a civilian, it is a regrettable circumstance: the officer was possibly overzealous. If a civilian kills a police officer all hell breaks loose. The police foam at the mouth. All other business comes to a standstill until the perpetrator of this most dastardly act is found out. Inevitably, when apprehended, he is beaten or otherwise tortured for his intolerable presumption. The police complain that they cannot function efficiently, that criminals escape them. Better a hundred unchecked criminals than the despotism of one unbridled police force.

Jack Vance, The Star King, 1964 (later included in The Demon Princes)

Are Cops Constitutional? The United States of America was founded without professional police. Its earliest traditions and founding documents evidenced no contemplation that the power of the state would be implemented by omnipresent police forces. On the contrary, America’s constitutional Framers expressed hostility and contempt for the standing armies of the late eighteenth century, which functioned as law enforcement units in American cities. The advent of modern policing has greatly altered the balance of power between the citizen and the state in a way that would have been seen as constitutionally invalid by the Framers. The implications of this altered balance of power are far-reaching, and should invite consideration by judges and legislators who concern themselves with constitutional questions. [Constitution Society]

An interesting, if long-winded, article questioning the Constitutionality of modern police. From the hundreds of footnotes, I’d guess that this started out as some kind of academic paper.