You do not have an absolute right to possess something simply because you created it, much less because you purchased it from someone else who created it. Such a right is not recognized anywhere in law.
I'm less interested in rights recognized by law than rights
secured by the Constitution...
I'm still not convinced that the Constitution "grants" any right. It may grant "legal recognition" of a right, but this "legal recognition" by the state must also constrain the state from engaging in any activity which would violate such a right.
Property - which we are discussing - is something of which NO ONE can be deprived, for ANY reason, except by due process or just compensation. Possession of property CANNOT be the grounds for the deprivation of the property - as the mere taking of the property as "evidence" of the crime of possession is deprivation prior to due process, without just cause, let alone compensation.
Your contention is equal to that of the U.N.'s proclamation of "human rights" which is a Façade Constitution - one which claims the state will "recognize these rights" except for "compelling reasons of the state" - a clause which renders all "human rights" allegedly recognized by the U.N. entirely invalid and worthless.
The issue here is that there is no limitation of the State's ability to "create compelling reasons" nor to have these "compelling reasons" held in check by anything.
America has no such "compelling interest" clause, and cannot operate LAWFULLY as though it does. No "compelling interest" of "The United States" can serve as a means of dismantling the protections of the Amendments.
Without this "compelling reason" clause in the Constitution itself, no clause can be interpreted through manipulation of the language, nor proclamation by any government agency - as all agencies must adhere to the "rule of law" which the Constitution is...
To create a "compelling reason" for the abrogation of any right protected by the Constitution is to dismantle the Constitution itself - rendering it, and all powers derived from its provisions, invalid.
Show me where this "compelling state interest" clause exists anywhere in the text of the Constitution and I'll yield.
Until then I remain unconvinced.
Indeed, you stated your own belief that there were certain limits to own that which you created, or purchased from another who created it, e.g. nuclear weapons, biological weapons, etc.
No - I didn't.
The limits are not on the ownership of property - only on their improper storage/use which threatens the safety of others without their consent.
The THREAT is the crime, not the possession of the property - and this "THREAT" is not a tangible thing for which standing may be acquired by any civil party.
If a hypothetical injury or harm cannot raise standing for a civil case, how can it be the basis for a criminal case?
If, on the other hand, such injury or harm DOES exist, a civil case - and the requisite due process - can be used to deny the owner of their property.
This due process requirement cannot be bypassed by Congressional mandate.
There can be NO LEGAL LIMIT to the rights of property other than those prescribed in Budd...
The problem here is that you justify the criminality of my act by relying upon law that I question the validity of.
The law must stand by itself if it is to be upheld.
At the point of enactment, no control over the property rights of the people existed.
At the point of enactment, no lawful control existed by which the property of the people could be taken, nor use denied the owners of the property.
Denying one the use of their property is deprivation of that property - and is prohibited from Governmental acts by the 5th Amendment.
Lawful acquisition of property at the time the law was created did not prevent those currently in possession of property from being prosecuted.
Neither, prior to the law, was the engagement in the exercise of this "right to property" subject to the approval (and licensing) by the state...
Which clearly places the CSA into the "Unconstitutional Licensing Law" category...
You cannot claim that "honestly acquired" means "lawfully acquired" when the law is the thing being questioned.
If the law is invalid - or not sustainable as fact in point - what is "honest acquisition" of property?
Under your position, honest and lawful acquisition of property amount to the same thing... And without any constraints upon the legislature, ANY property can be LAWFULLY TAKEN without due process nor compensation by simply making it "illegal" to possess that property, regardless of ownership.
This "lawful" acquisition of property is "honest" acquisition if your reasoning is to be followed - and it is clear that there is nothing honest about a collective overpowering an individual and depriving him of his property he believed he "owned" as he had worked for, acquired, and cared for that property through mutual consent of its previous owners.
If creating something implies no rights to the thing, how can one apply for a patent?
Creation of something DOES create a lawful ownership of that thing. Without having first created the thing in question, no patent can be applied for nor attained.
A patent not only secures rights to the thing created, but to all similar creations, and allows for limited control over other items created by others that are not intended for personal use. This limited control does not allow for the criminalization of another party replicating and producing the product for their own use, it only prohibits replication by a 3rd party (without permission from the patent holder) for monetary gain.
With MDMA, no patent exists granting any party "control" over the creation/reproduction of MDMA for any reason. If one "honestly acquires" through consent of the owners, the materials necessary for the creation of MDMA, no CONTROLLING PARTY with a patent can exist denying him the product of his time, labor, and resources.
No claim to control property one does not OWN can exist without a patent securing "rights of ownership" to something that has yet to be produced or is produced by someone else.
Without a patent, something created is owned by its creator (and all rights associated with ownership are held to exist with him).
If creation does not imply rights of ownership, does a person building a house not own the house?
If you create something - and do not "own" it - who is it that "owns" and has rights to the labor which was used in the production of the item?
If ownership is only derived from "the law" then all "the law" - being Government - must do to deprive anyone of "their property" - is to make a law against its ownership - rendering the 5th Amendment useless.
"The court is to protect against any encroachment of
Constitutionally secured liberties.” Boyd v. United States, U.S.
Supreme Court,[116 U.S. 616,(1886).]
Honest acquisition and Lawful acquisition are not one and the same by my reasoning - as lawful acts are not always honest, and honest acts are not always lawful.
I know what you're saying - and the laws do not recognize any property rights.
That's not a fact in dispute.
The argument being raised is a question of Constitutional law - CAN, under their enumerated powers, Government exercise a power that exceeds the rights of the people themselves - even to the point where a right protected by Amendment can be undone - as denial of use/possession is deprivation of property - without due process, nor just compensation?
Schick v. U.S. states that they cannot.
Common sense dictates that they cannot.
The derivation of governmental power from the inherent rights of the people mandates that the privileges Government derives from those rights must be inferior to those rights.
The 9th amendment secures non-enumerated rights to the people... So the claim that "possession of property you've created" is not a right recognized "by law" is irrelevant, as The Constitution IS law, and as property is both enumerated in the 3rd, 4th, and 5th amendments - as well as the unenumerated protections afforded by the 9th, property rights MUST be acknowledged by any agency of the United States Government, and the courts have upheld this perpetually until the last decade - when Government began claiming that "things in commerce" are not "property" to which one pay acquire any rights.
If the law applies equally to all property, by natural order, a person taking time to refine or better raw materials and convert them into something of higher value is the rightful owner with all rights to control that which they have created.
The claim that "property" can be subject to special control by a non-creating party that has not acquired the RIGHTS to the property in a lawful manner is invalid and a criminal deprivation of property to the victim which created the property in question.
This is criminal racketeering, and I believe you'll find it to be an unlawful deprivation of property - both in the 4th and 5th amendment sense... Backed by federal statutes - Title 18 chapter 13 sections 241, 242, and chapter 95, section 1951.
Unless violations by government officials of these laws somehow does not amount to an "unlawful act" then the deprivation of property for merely possessing that property without consent of Government cannot be a "lawful deprivation" of property.
You gave your own justifications for such limitations on property ownership: but the only legal justification a government needs to regulate property, including the prohibition of owning certain types of property, is easily had and very broad: the public interest (and some additional elements, in the case of Congress and the interstate commerce clause).
Under a totalitarian government, they need not even establish that.
Under the Constitution, more is required before government can exert control over property belonging to anyone that does not wish to relinquish ownership rights, which include the rights to control that property and possess it.
Now, perhaps you're right that this affords government too much power. If so, then we should change the law. But as it currently stands, that's the law. And it's been that way for a very, very long time.
It's been that way less than 100 years.
Prior to the New Deal, the creation of the Federal Reserve, and the Supreme court changing its mind about Contract Rights being "rights" and determining instead that they are "privileges" to be controlled by Government - a higher authority issuing privileges of property, contract, religious freedom, liberal media, and public trials... things which, as originating from Government - the sole "source of authority" for all things - are capable of being taken away by Governmental whim.
It isn't that "the law" affords Government too much power - it's that Government no longer recognizes the Constitution as "the law" - and believes that Government itself IS law... that legislative acts are the Word of Law, and unquestionable - as no "right" exists which government did not issue/originate from the beginning, and no right, therefore, is not subject to complete governmental control.
The 5th Amendment protects you against seizure of property which you lawfully possess. Did you lawfully possess the substances in question? If not, no compensation is due.
4th. And it protects from
unreasonable seizures... Certainly any unlawful seizure would be unreasonable... But the point in fact here is that this is not a "grant of right" but clearly a prohibition on Government...
It does not protect "Lawful ownership" as there is no "right" to something that is "lawful" - lawful grants are privileges, not rights, and are not subject to the same limitations as the rights secured in the Constitution.
Aside - my claim against
Reich
The Constitution, being The Law above all other laws, cannot allow for Government to take property in violation of itself, nor any subordinate law created by the legislature because of the "equal protection" clause prohibiting both Government and Government's Agents from violating any law.
The 5th Amendment protects ALL persons from having ALL property taken from them (denied use/possession/etc) without either due process of law or just compensation.
Legislative fiat is not such due process, and any attempt by Government to deprive anyone of their property via "lawful seizure" when the only crime is the possession of that property (to the detriment of no-one) is NOT a reasonable seizure, as no "probable cause" for the seizure exists.
Touching on our nuclear weapons again - probable cause can exist, via legitimate complaint by an injured party (perceived injury or actual) - and the seizure and subsequent due process can both take place and determine the ability of the owner to possess their property.
That pretty much ends the constitutional argument, as far as I can tell.
If you misconstrue the language of the Constitution so that it reads "lawful" ownership" rather than "unreasonable (lawful) seizure" it does, but there is no protection of "lawful ownership" as such a thing is not questioned by the Constitution, but held to be "self-evident" in any "honest acquisition" of property.
Creation of, or honest acquisition (by consent of the preceding owner) of property is all that is required to obtain full rights of ownership, and no law may diminish nor alter these rights.
Your claim is that "legislative mandate" may serve as grounds for both lawful deprivation of property, seizures of property, and the criminalization of the exercise of one's inherent property rights via a licensing statute.
Before all other law, the Constitution existed.
How can "lawful ownership" exist when there are no LAWS which one may apply to the situation at the time?
If all "ownership" under the constitution requires LAW permitting/licensing that ownership to the people, no property
rights exist at all - and the Constitution makes a mockery of property, liberty, and
rights.
Shuttlesworth v. Birmingham, Miller v. U.S., and "Miranda"
We can certainly have a discussion about property rights, in a moral context, if you'd like. But legally, it's simply not there.
I still don't get your "legal" claims... Habitual practice of Government does not make their actions "legal."
The laws were created after - and are subject to the limitations of - the Constitution.
In order for your arguments to legally be valid, it seems that no property could have existed prior to the creation of the laws, and the Constitution neither granted nor secured any rights of property to anything, because there were no LAWS granting permission for property to exist, nor control its existence through licensing statutes.
If a "right" to property cannot exist without "legal recognition" through "issuance of a license" - 1st there are no property rights, and 2nd there is no purpose in protecting "property rights" in the Constitution, as no "lawful property" exists yet... What's the point in protecting something that "doesn't yet exist"?
And how can this protection be against the historical grievances the Declaration of Independence was written to correct when clearly - as the God-King, absolute Sovereign and Owner of All Things By Right of God - could not violate any "right" that he had licensed to the people, as all such "rights" were but mere privileged grants under his authority to give and revoke such privileges?
Now, whether you'd have some type of appeal based on an error in the scheduling of the substance, I don't know.
That one's tricky.
Can government rely upon false science to come to a conclusion - and after the science is retracted for blatant errors and invalidity, continue to rely upon the conclusions based on that false science?
If so - and the District court contends that they can - I have no appeal based on the scheduling nor the sentencing guidelines (which are advisory only, and therefore not subject to appeal anyway...)
Reason dictates that I must - and that I do.
"The Law" being immutable (unless it wills it), ineffable (in both senses; prohibition as well as complexity), and unquestionable (effectively, anyway), obviously has different ideas about these things...
Regarding prison and education... I don't know what the options are--and it sounds like you may not know what the options are in full either. It's certainly something worth investigating. I can "hear" a tone of defeat in your post when you talk about prison, and I suppose my concern here is that you're letting yourself become so focused on this legal appeal that you're shielding yourself from fully facing, and allowing yourself to adapt to, the reality of a term in prison, and your life ahead.
There's some truth to that.
Prison doesn't necessarily scare me - it's another place to live... to exist...
And that's all I'm managing to do right now.
I don't care about my job, my life, nor my dwelling place (it's not a "home") enough to fight to keep them. After my arrest, I disengaged from the "real world" and have no urgent desire to go back, nor participate in it again.
The whole 9-5 routine boggles my mind and frustrates me.
I don't see the point to any of it.
If this is all there is to life, than I've had enough of it. I really have. So let "them" take these things from me. Let me escape the socially constructed reality that's been created enslaving all of us to activities we don't fully enjoy enough to continue doing without monetary reward.
And even then - what's the point? Money... to acquire more physical things of comfort - to assist in tolerating the intolerable - in order that one may "live another day" in some modicum of comfort...
Without living for any reason - other than that of existing in this world...
If the total purpose of existence is merely that - to exist - and all life is a struggle to merely exist...
If there is no higher purpose... nothing to strive for other than that "one more day on earth"...
Why do any of us persist in anything?
You need to realize that prison is not the end of the road.
But it is.
If my acts are indeed violations against the laws of nature and the rights nature has imparted into every person on this earth, than there is no conceivable way to convince me that a) I'm a free person, b) human rights exist, c) there is a purpose to continue existing in this world.
If my acts violate those "rights" yet I have none, there is a complex paradox which I am incapable of understanding - as I am able to violate that which does not exist. If this paradox persists - and it intensifies as I am "lawfully" stripped of the illusion of my own rights while others retain this illusion under "the law" - in its obviously exclusionary, one sided manner, what purpose have I, the un-righted person, to exist in this world of meager privilege - when even those privileges have been suspended indefinitely?
It isn't just prison - it's the "eternal consequences" of a felony conviction - and not the superficial "getting a job" etc. either - the esoteric meaning behind it - that I am, indeed, no longer a "person" as persons have rights, but I am something else - inferior and outcast.
Prison - at this point - means nothing. I have already been stripped of what rights I believed I had...
I have no right to property. I have no right to liberty. I have no right to "life" as surely my liberty and life go hand in hand - and to be deprived of one is just as surely to be deprived of the other, for existence without liberty is not "life" but a parody of life itself - physical animation and awareness without the need to reason... to think... without the ability to choose nor do anything, should I actually take time to reason or think. The term "limbo" comes to mind - and this is not a "state of the living" but a "state of the dead" - fabled, at any rate - and I see no purpose to existing in "living limbo" which is no more "living" than death anyway.
Of course - I get ahead of myself...
The reason I have no rights is for having possessed property which I believed I owned.
If ownership does not come from creation or consensual contract with the recognized owner, ownership must come from The Law. If ownership comes from a higher authority, it is not a RIGHT but a privilege - and no property rights exist at all.
And if no right to property which one owns exists, I have no right to liberty nor life, as nothing I work for - create or purchase - can ever truly be mine.
With our materialistic society - for the people to own nothing - is a fate worse than death, as surely the absence of consciousness is less painful than deprivation of everything you have worked for, simply because your own works/achievements/purchases are not truly your own.
It is not the "temporary constraint" upon my freedoms and liberties that depresses me, nor that gives rise to this feeling of "defeat" that you interpret from my responses...
It is the principal of what that defeat would mean - that no rights exist at all...
That Government is the only source of "rights" - to include the ability/right to live itself.
At your insistence, Government may as well GOD for all the good pointing out Government's errors can do.
If Government is God - or has all powers as though it were indeed God itself - then I refuse to worship and obey this false God, and as this "God" is the supreme ruler of "this world" - I'm ready to leave it.
I cannot accept that we are all mere slaves of God-verment, and we have no "free will" so to speak - only the privileged grant of "self-judgment" so long as it is only used in compliance with the overall intentions, purposes, and approval of
Godverment. My inability to cope with this stems from the FACT that Godvernment is naught but MEN, equal in rights (allegedly) to myself. If these "men" are subject to no law - and are the sole source of both RIGHT and LAW as they are one and the same, and they disapprove of myself and my actions...
And render me mute through restrictions upon my privileged ability to speak/hold office/vote...
There is nothing left for me to do in this world, as it is lost - both to myself, and to any cause of liberty, which would be the only cause I would be willing to fight for.
If Government is NOT God - then I will gladly place myself at the mercy of God, for Go(d)vernment has shown me none, and refuses to recognize any "right" which even Government claims - in some form - actually exists.
My defeat;
At this time, being "out on bail" I retain freedoms you claim as "rights" solely by privileged consent of Government. For these limited freedoms to be "reduced" by the controlling agency deprives me of nothing at this point - as my "rights" are already gone.
I have no more freedoms which I have any need of protecting, as not even my own life, at this point, is my own.
I can deal with this. I can get past this. A few years of diminished "rights" s not something unbearable which will break me.
What will break me is that if all is as you contend; that rights are derivative from a Totalitarian state...
That all property is inherent in the State, and it may be taken at any time for any reason without regard for the owner of the property.
If property - the fruit of one's labor - is not safe... if it is not one's own... one's labor is not one's own, one's time contributing to that labor is not their own, and if their time is not their own, their life is not their own.
If these things are true - there is no point to my continued existence outside of prison, as I can acquire nothing, achieve nothing, and have no security nor safety should I attempt to acquire or claim anything. There is no point to existing in this material world, as no material is "mine" nor do I have any "right" to use any material in this plane of existence. If I have no ability to effect change in this world - as I have no right to engage in any activity in this world - then I have no reason to exist further, as my privileged grants by Government, even uninhibited by any record of conviction, are not great enough to satisfy my own demands and needs for liberty.
The concept that all "rights" flow from Government; that I exist at their will, limited tolerance, and by grant of privilege, is beyond my ability to cope.
Government is not something I will voluntarily contribute my time and energy to at this point, as it has destroyed my life - mind and soul - and is determined to confine my body so that not even that remains unsullied by its hand.
Would that I could go back to my ignorant existence...
That I could be satisfied with meager "grants of privilege" from a God-King...
But I cannot.
I recognize no sovereignty outside the individual, and as each person is sovereign, no authority capable of granting and revoking rights can exist within my capacity to reason.
Should you be correct - and I lose this battle - my state of mind will be so completely unaligned with the world's that I will surely have no place in it.
It will make some things more difficult. But you will have opportunities, and you will adjust. It is important though that you take time now to start investigating those opportunities, and to try to fit things together for yourself. Having FACTS at your disposal will enable you to build a plan going forward, and THAT will enable you to keep a sense of hope and optimism.
But what hope? What optimism?
If - as you claim - no rights to property exist, only the privileged grants by Government, what "hope" for the future may I maintain?
Even should I reclaim my "liberty" being freed from prison and parole, nothing I achieve will ever be "mine" - and without the ability to look towards the future and plan - as everything is subject to the control of another and can be taken at any moment for any reason - what is the point in even trying?
Even if this power did not exist - what is the purpose of building something in this world... creating something that I can keep - as all is temporary anyway?
If it is not taken by government, anything I acquire or create will be taken by death - and again, the net gain is nothing.
Regarding drug violence and prohibition... yes, if there were no prohibition, there would be much less violence associated with the trafficking and sale of drugs. But there is prohibition. And so the sale and trafficking of drugs does contribute to violence, and misery, in a multitude of ways.
I think you're over reaching here...
The laws contribute to violence and misery. Drug trafficking is an expression of the people's desire to be free from oppression and control by something they cannot approach nor question.
Revolution contributes to violence and misery in the hopes that these things can be overcome.
Drug dealing under prohibition may contribute to violence and misery AT THE FAULT of prohibition - but the aim is that of revolution... Freedom, and escape from the violence and misery caused by both life in general, as well as prohibition.
Prohibition contributes to violence and misery. Drug trafficking is just standing in the bank while Prohibition Agents rob it - creating the unsafe environment while projecting blame at those standing in the bank trying to engage in a mutually beneficial and peaceful transaction.
If government did not engage in armed deprivation of property interests, and instead worked towards fulfilling its purpose of "protecting and securing" the rights of the people, the violence associated with property ownership (without issued license) would not exist.
You forget that prohibition does NOT exist - only a licensing statute which alienates the people from their "right" to property by converting it into a privilege - and condemning those engaging in the exercise of a Constitutionally protected right to be gunned down - or imprisoned - for exercising a right without first obtaining a license from "the issuing authority" with no legitimate authority to issue such a license in the first place.