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The Murder and Theft
Committed by Government
on Behalf of Capitalism

An Open Letter By Punkerslut
to the Oregon Republican Party (ORP)

From PeaceLibertad Blog, Edited by Punkerslut
Image: From Peace Libertad Blog, Edited by Punkerslut

Start Date: January 29, 2011
Finish Date: January 29, 2011

"What we are moving towards at this moment is something more like the Spanish Inquisition, and probably far worse, thanks to the radio and the secret police."
          --George Orwell, 1940
          "Notes on the Way"

Greetings,

     I have taken some time to read through your platform and "about" page before thinking about your ideas. There seems to be some contradiction worth pointing out, namely one that appears between "Economy" and "Crime and Justice." In the Economy section, you state "We believe government should not create, own, operate, subsidize or assume control of any private business nor be party to any enterprise which could be operated privately." Yet, on the other hand, for Criminal Justice, you state "We support the highest prioritization of dedicated funding for law enforcement."

     It seems like you believe in completely subsidizing Capitalism, unless you could show police enforcing the law equally before all individuals. This does not happen, though. An individual who steals $0.50 worth of crackers will serve thirty days imprisonment, even if they're a child. Yet, on the other hand, a business making up services and charges at a moment's notice, and using force to take property from customers, is not charged. If you buy bread, you may be charged twice as much as its actual cost, the other part being dubbed "handling costs," without your consent. This has been the case in multiple lawsuits, particularly with Oregon's cell phone companies, such as Verizon (LawyersAndSettlements Link).

     That is the curious thing, though. Verizon was not required to give back the property that it had stolen. It was required to hand out $2 gift cards to those it had stolen from. There was no imprisonment, no jail time, no "minimum sentencing" for millions of acts of larceny "Buy some gift cards, spend some tax-free money on volunteers, and send them out to the people you stole from." This differs wildly from how the police enforce the law against the poor who steal. For example, last year, a shoplifter was strangled to death by a storeowner in Michigan -- no criminal investigation, no charges, no trial, no conviction, and no justice. (ChicagoBreakingNews.com Link)

     Contrast that in your mind: a corporation steals billions from the public, and all they have to do is mail out some gift cards. A poor individual, completely a human being through and through, with flesh and fingernails and hair and a scalp and eyes and hopes and dreams, was strangled to death -- was brought to the point of being blue in the face and chest, for taking a product from a store that was worth maybe two or three dollars. The system of police, it would clearly seem to me, are a private enterprise. They do not serve the public, the common people, but only a few of the rich and wealthy. Otherwise why do Capitalists get away with stealing millions from the public, but a man who took some tubes of toothpaste from CVS was killed for it.

     Your government gives the death penalty for stealing $2 worth of products. Do you know where the word DRACONIAN comes from? It comes from King Draco of Ancient Greece, who was said to write the laws with the blood of the people. Punishment for stealing a head of cabbage? Death. Punishment for stealing anything? Death. It's been 2,500 years, and your government is still executing people for petty theft. Where's the "Criminal Justice" in that? Yes, "mandatory minimum prison sentences for violent offenders" sounds great -- in theory. In practice, it is applied to the poor, spared from the rich.

From PeaceLibertad Blog, Edited by Punkerslut
Image: From Peace Libertad Blog, Edited by Punkerslut

     If the police department is a private institution, serving private ends, and depending on private funding, then let it stand by itself as a company. At least don't lie to the people about what they're paying for and where the loyalty of their guardians really exists. You want an economy where "services and labor shall be determined by the market." In reality, you use police to beat down labor and to ensure the unquestionable domination of the market's owners.

     In the United Kingdom, only 5.7% of rape cases result in convictions. (WashingtonPost Link) In the United States, it's 14%. (Guardian Link) In fact, the representatives of the police have come forward to defen that number, arguing that they had a high conviction rate when they decided to prosecute -- although it was admitted that this was rare altogether. Police don't fight rape, they don't fight murder, they don't fight crime or anything that could possibly resemble a threat to me or you as a human being. But they take my tax money, they've destroyed my property, and they've forced me out of my house.

     They don't have time to do anything for any common person who might need help. Murdering the common people? Acceptable. Getting away with police brutality without investigations? Also acceptable. Police brutality resulting in murder? Again, never a charge for murder in that case, and rarely an investigation.

     I can see through the ploys of Capitalist Statism. Your government uses police and the military to prop up the very few, handful of owners, even murdering people in the street openly without any due process of law. Thousands of videos of Youtube attest to this fact. And, in many ways, it resembles the Soviet system, where a few ruled everything, and the police and military killed anyone who got in the way. Or, as Orwell prophesied, once there was one or two global empires working together, we will drift "not towards anarchy but towards the reimposition of slavery. We may be heading not for general breakdown but for an epoch as horribly stable as the slave empires of antiquity." ("You and the Atomic Bomb," 1945.)

     And your government is the slave empire. The exclusive use of the state's armed aggression is used only by the Capitalists, and always against the common workers.

     If I am mistaken, please, inform me. I've done my best to analyze the materials on your website, and to make an honest critique of them. Thank you, I patiently await your response.

"I have paid no poll tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated me as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up. I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was the best use it could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself of my services in some way. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax."
          --Henry David Thoreau, 1849
          "Civil Disobedience"

Sincerely,
Andy Carloff


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