I am reading R.J. Rushdoony’s book, Larceny in the Heart. Reading this kind of thing increases the disgust I feel for those of the Christian Right who support Huckabee. He is a big spender and government interventionists. He wants to use the federal government to fight in the same manner as have the pro-abortionists and others opposed to Christian values. He will increase the size of the federal government and the larceny it commits by inflation.

Here is an audio made by Rushdoony on the subject:

(HT Chalcedon Blog)

Some fellow members of the Austin Ron Paul Meetup Group and I spent Black Friday convoying from mall to mall for Ron Paul. Note the Democrat for Ron Paul bumper sticker on one of the cars. Kind of reminds me of Democrats for Reagan.

is found here.

The case I wrote about yesterday is not the only case of a Boulder judge claiming adverse possession against a neighbor and winning.

This is repugnant.

Update below:

A Utah Highway Patrolman pulls a guy over for speeding seconds after passing the sign giving notice, won’t answer the motorists questions about this, attempts arrest the guy for refusing to sign the ticket until the officer tells him what he did wrong and shows him the sign prior to the stop, gets tased for it and then the cop lies on the videotape about the circumstances.

And note in the comments that some ditzy broad at the UHP claims to an outraged caller that she’s going to have the video at YouTube pulled if people keep interfering with police work because they are calling to register protests.

Update:

I found this article in which a UHP spokesman says this:

Meanwhile, the Utah Department of Public Safety is trying to answer some questions of its own. Sgt. Jeff Nigbur said, “I do not know what that particular trooper was thinking about, what he was concerned about, whether he felt his life was in danger, whether he was worried about the driver’s life so close to traffic. I don’t know.”

Yeah, he was so concerned about the driver’s life so close to traffic that he tasered him so that the driver’s head was in the road. Then he did it again for good measure so the driver was physically incapable of getting out of the road and out of the way of any oncoming car.

Here is a very good explanation of everything that the cop did wrong.

Update

When you look at the video, I want you to note what the trooper says to his buddy. He says, “He was over there jumping around…I said, ‘naw, not going to play that game.’ I pulled out the taser, ‘turn around right now or I tase you.’ I tased him.”

First, he never gave a warning that he was going to tase him, and the driver thought that this nutjob had pulled a real gun on him. I’d be struggling with the “fight or flight” instinct at that point. Second, tasers aren’t to be used so that officers don’t have to “play the game”. That one sentence tells me that the officer was not in fear for his safety, but was tired of being called on his scam.

Note that the officer refused to answer the driver’s question about how fast he was clocked, refused to explain what sign was at issue. He was essentially preventing the driver from gathering his own evidence to use at any hearing on the ticket.

I think that the officer knew he had jumped the gun on this ticket. I’d like to know if he even filled in the blank on the speed before he demanded that the motorist sign the ticket. Caught in his own dishonesty and confronted by a man instead of a gutless sheep, he resorted to brute force—not to protect himself, but to cover his own sorry butt.

Well, his butt is about to be exposed for all the world to see. The driver is going to file a suit.

Personally, I think this officer should be put in stocks in the town square so that people can spit on him.

In Zimbabwe, we see a President utilizing the legal system to take the lands of white farmers in order to give them to his cronies. Now, in Boulder, we see the legal system used to take land from an airline pilot and his wife to be given to a retired judge without any compensation being given to the victims.

The concept of Adverse Possession is an old one. My recollection from law school is that the public policy behind it is efficient use of land. If someone has, in essence, abandoned their land and another uses it productively for some set period, the latter person acquires title.

In the case of Don and Suzie Kirlin in Boulder, the couple bought a lot in the 80’s with the plan of someday building their dream-retirement home. The couple lived in the same subdivision and walked past their land almost daily, controlled the weeds and repaired fences.

Then, a year ago, they discovered that a retired judge who lived next door was plotting to use adverse possession against them to take part of the lot. The couple contracted with a fence builder, who went to the property to begin the fence when the retired judge chased them off the property saying that he was getting a TRO against the fence. After 5 pm on a Friday night, this judge was able to get a TRO from a former colleague on the bench.

The retired judge and his lawyer wife asserted adverse possession and Judge Klein, not the same judge who granted the TRO, heard the case. According to the Kirlin’s, upon seeing the former judge, Dick McLean, in the courtroom the trial judge told McLean that he was honored to have the man in his court!

The evidence of adverse possession in this case is that the McLean’s dumped yard debris on part of the Kirlin’s lot and wore a path getting from the front of their house to the back yard. They also encroached by planting some landscaping on a very small part of the lot and trimming some limbs. How, when looking at the totality of the circumstances, this fulfills the public policy purpose of productive use of the land, I will never understand.

In fact, what has transpired is that the Kirlin’s have had approximately 1/3rd of their land taken from them. This makes their lot unbuildable due to deed restrictions. Thus, most of the property will continue to lay fallow as the landgrabbers continue to dump debris and wear paths in it. But, the landgrabbers will have achieved their real goal—retention of a view of the mountains.

Needless to say, this case is becoming notorious because the judge found for the landgrabbers. For some stupid reason, the Kirlin’s lawyers talked them into a bench trial, so the order with its findings of facts are available. In this document, you will see that the judge believes the witnesses with something to gain—and disbelieves witnesses who have nothing to gain. The McCleans were believed. Two of their neighbors, who also live adjacent to the lot, testified on their behalf. They will also retain their view of the mountains.

The statute of limitations for a landowner to contest a squatter is 18 years in Colorado. The landgrabbers claimed that they trespassed on the land for 25 years. The judge apparently relied solely on the testimony of the McLeans on that point as the findings do not corroborate the timing via any other witness. In other words, the finding mention no dates, except those given by the McLean family establishing that the 18 year SOL had been exceeded.

Further, the judge actually writes hearsay into his findings of fact. He relies on hearsay testimony by one of the benefiting witnesses that “everyone thought the land belonged to” the landgrabbers. He also goes to the land to view it and writes an opinion that the trails “looked old” to him, whatever that means. It is rare that judges allow juries to go to locations because it is too much intermixing of observation with opinion that juries may not have the expertise to form. One must wonder here what expertise the judge has in determining whether a path was old—or recently created and made to look old. Essentially, he fell back on the seemingly uncorroborated testimony of the McLeans’, otherwise, why didn’t he recited direct testimony of a neighbor that they had seen these paths 25 years ago?!

The Kirlins say that there are satellite photos from 2003 which definitively show that there were no paths at that time. These photos are not mentioned in the judge’s decision, so I can’t tell if they were offered. If the Kirlins are correct, then I would say that the McLean’s may have given false witness in court.

It seems to me that the most that the judge should have done, if anything, is to grant a prescriptive easement allowing the McLean’s to use the path to their backyard. I don’t even support this as the McLean’s have other options for access like getting rid of some of the overplanting they did which motivates use of the alleged paths.

This is a dirty business. It is made even dirtier by the fact that Judge McLean admitted knowingly trespassing while he served on the bench administering justice while on the payroll of the taxpayers.

Will Grigg has 2 wonderful posts about the perfidy of the FBI scumbags who stole the property of the makers of the Liberty Dollar and their customers.

I keep seeing hilarious blog posts claiming that Nothaus was running a scam based on the bloggers’ reading of the affidavit supporting the warrant. Here is an excellent parsing of the affidavit.

As to the question of uttering, the column points out that there are legitimate legal questions already before a Federal judge as to whether or not the coins are similar:

The similarities are all symbols and words, not weight, size, or material composition. These similarities (and the possible violations of Title 18, Section 489) are the subject of a civil suit brought in federal court by Liberty Services for the express purpose of having a neutral magistrate examine the evidence and validate either the DOJ’s claim that ALDs are similar to US Mint coins, or Liberty Services’ claim that they are not.

The guy who wrote this column does an excellent job of parsing this ridiculous affidavit and reveals the Agent to be a tax-eating minion of the government’s who is simply launching a ridiculous attack on our capitalist system.

For instance, the affidavit attacks the business model, which, according to same said affidavit, turns out to be like every franchise in the U.S.:

SA Romagnuolo bases his contention that this is a “scheme” on various facts: – RCOs and LAs purchase franchises – RCOs and LAs pay to attend Liberty University – Liberty Services, Inc. sells the product they produce, warehouse, market, and distribute at a profit – Liberty Services, Inc. sells t-shirts and DVDs – RCOs and LAs sell the product they warehouse, market, and distribute at a profit – RCOs and LAs receive compensation for selling franchises

LOL! Is this jack-booted thug going to go after McDonald’s next?

The column points out that the S.A. can’t do algebra either:

SA Romagnuolo states that the warehouse receipt issued by Liberty Services, Inc. is marketed as “100% backed by silver”. He then goes on to perform some simple math calculations proving, at least in his mind, that this claim is false. SA Romagnuolo, however, only succeeds in proving that he is apparently not a student of high-school algebra, either.

In basic algebra, it is important to consider the units used in calculation. SA Romagnuolo subtracts the spot price of silver on 11/08/07 ($15.34 USD/troy oz of silver) from the MSRP of the warehouse receipt ($20 USD/1 oz silver ALD medallion), to intimate a $4.66 USD shortfall per certificate. The warehouse receipt is not for $20 USD worth of silver at the current New York spot price, however; it is a receipt for a 1 oz silver ALD medallion. So, what SA Romgnuolo really shows is that the MSRP of a 1 oz silver ALD medallion is $4.66 USD more than the price at which the raw materials used to produce the medallion could be purchased IF one held a seat on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

SA Romagnuolo does not contest the monthly independent audits of the warehouse which, in fact, are overly cautious, and add value to the warehouse receipt.

The SA also doesn’t seem to understand that it is not fraud to sell a commodity or product for more than the cost of what makes it up. Does he not understand that it is cheaper to make a McDonald’s hamburger than its sale price?

Under SA Romagnuolo’s theory of violations of the money laundering, mail and wire fraud, and conspiracy statutes of Title 18, then, we can expect the FBI to request seizure warrants on every manufacturer who values finished inventories greater than the total spot price of the raw materials used in the production of those goods (no labor, no design, and no engineering values may be added). Additionally, we can expect the FBI to request seizure warrants on every broker and exchange that buys and sells utilizing a bid-ask spread and any warehouse facility that values the things warehoused any greater than the value of the raw materials used to produce those things.

Go look up the word seignorage

Now can you understand the fact that we are subjugated by dangerous idiots wielding power far beyond their mental capacities—and carrying guns and warrants issued by idiot judges? Moreover, the writer of this column expresses confusion as to why this happened now when the issue of whether or not this is “uttering” is before a Federal Judge via a declaratory action. I’m not confused, the perfidious government is trying to strip the Plaintiffs of the means to continue the case.

May the Feds rot in hell.

Drudge has linked to this article. In the article a tax-eating-government-parasite informs our legislative representatives that we the people will no longer have privacy when it comes to the government receiving our private communications without a warrant. We are just going to have to “trust” the government to do the right thing with the information.

Yeah, right. These government functionaries are suggesting that we adopt pelagiaism. I mean, after all, governments throughout time have been so trustworthy. Just ask the early Christians, or the German Jews or U. S. veterans trying to acess their promised benefits.

(HT Lew Rockwell Blog)

Dr. Tulippe says that it is a war that we can sit out:

While this map casts doubts on the prospects for world peace, it also reveals the central irony of America’s “War on Terror”: The United States of America is the only major world power that is not forced by geography into a conflict with Dar-al Islam.

America does not border the Islamic world. It has a statistically insignificant Muslim population that is better assimilated than that of any other Western nation. America is bounded on its east and west by vast oceans and to the north and south by two militarily weak and predominantly Christian nations.

The irony resides, of course, in the fact that despite these blessings, America is the nation doing most of the fighting against radical Islam.

When analyzing the likely course of these civilizational struggles – and plotting a strategy for America to deal with them – one must also recognize another important fact: The ultimate outcome of Islam’s civilizational wars has already been determined. Radical Islam is not a viable paradigm upon which a modern society can be built. It is destined, like communism before it, to collapse from within. The trajectory of political Islam can already be seen in Iran, where it first came to power. As a governing system, the Islamic Republic has been discredited in the eyes of the masses and survives mostly by repression and manipulation. Economically and culturally, it is an utter failure.

Furthermore, radical Islam is not now, nor will it ever be, a civilizational threat to America. Nor will it conquer the world or overturn modern civilization. These goals are simply beyond its capacity.

When these two ideas are considered together (i.e. the lack of geopolitical conflict between America and Islam, and the inevitable collapse of Islam as a political ideology), America’s most prudent path becomes obvious: The United States should withdraw from the Middle East and declare itself a non-belligerent in Islam’s civilizational wars. In so doing, America can avoid the casualties and ruinous costs of wars which have nothing to do with our national survival.

If Dr. Tulippe’s analysis is correct, it is only hubris which keeps us in this conflict.

Not with Ceasar, as Pastor Chuck Baldwin so aptly explains…

You see, Ron Paul is actually calling on us pastors and Christians to stop seeing the federal government as one “in whom we live and move and have our being.” Jesus Christ is our Savior and Lord, not the federal government. Have we not, in a material way, set up the federal government as our functional Lord and Savior? When we look to the federal government to solve our moral and spiritual problems, that is exactly what we are doing.

Ilana Mercer writes a great column about statist Mike Huckabee.

Phyllis Schlafly, conservatism’s “first lady,” had this to say about presidential candidate and former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee: “He destroyed the conservative movement in Arkansas, and left the Republican Party a shambles, yet some of the same evangelicals who sold us on George W. Bush as a ‘compassionate conservative’ are now trying to sell us on Huckabee.”

“He has zero intellectual underpinnings in the conservative movement,” another of Huckabee’s countless conservative detractors told the Wall Street Journal’s John Fund. “He’s hostile to free trade, hiked sales and grocery taxes, backed sales taxes on Internet purchases, and presided over state spending going up more than twice the inflation rate.”

Go look at the comments about Ilana’s column here.