Matt Gaetz's Accomplice Joel Greenberg Accused of Making Fake I.D.s to Facilitate Commercial Sex Acts

      On March 30th, 2021, the Orlando Sentinel published an article titled "Sex trafficking probe of Rep. Matt Gaetz emerges from Joel Greenberg prosecution: report". That article revealed that Joel Greenberg - described by the British newspaper the Independent as Republican Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz's "tax collector friend" - is under investigation for numerous charges.
     [Note: That article can be viewed at the link below:
     http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/matt-gaetz-joel-greenberg-allegations-b1825263.html]

     These charges include stalking a political opponent, manufacturing fake identification documents, and illegally using a state database in order to create fake IDs and sex-traffic a minor. Allegedly, Greenberg also used a state database to access personal information of minor teenage girls whom he was paying for sex (in what is being described as "sugar daddy relationships"). According to the Orlando Sentinel, the youngest of these girls were somewhere between the ages of 14 and 17.
     [Note: That article can be viewed at the link below:
     http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/breaking-news/os-ne-joel-greenberg-matt-gaetz-investigation-sex-trafficking-20210330-moyyt73tbzhrlmpjcwkqv2oeyq-story.html]

     According to a report from the Sentinel in mid-April, Greenberg had also been charged with identity theft, and embezzling public funds. [Note: That article can be viewed at the link below.
     http://www.orlandosentinel.com/opinion/editorials/os-op-florida-failed-to-investigate-joel-greenberg-20210416-offh4qxo3fde3o2ro4eebjdoie-story.html]
     But perhaps the most serious of all allegations was the claim that Greenberg made the fake identification documents in order to "facilitate his efforts to engage in commercial sex acts". Fake IDs and "Materials necessary for making fake IDs" were reportedly found in his car and office.

     The revelation that this former Seminole County tax collector (Greenberg) could have assisted Matt Gaetz in his alleged trafficking of one or more 17-year-old girls across state lines, is certainly a disturbing and troubling possibility.
     It is even more worrisome when we remember that it is not currently illegal to traffic 17-year-olds across state lines in the United States, which means that Matt Gaetz (if not Greenberg as well) has a chance of getting off.
     As I explained in my article "Don't Shoot the Messenger: Confirming Robby Soave's Observation That it's Legal to Traffic Sixteen- and Seventeen- Year-Olds" - published April 3rd, 2021 - what Matt Gaetz is accused of doing, is not currently illegal.
     That article can be read at the link below.
     http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2021/04/dont-shoot-messenger-affirming-robby.html

     In summary:
     Although Florida's general age of consent is eighteen years old, the federal government's definition of trafficking a minor or ward for sex, effectively creates a 16-year-old age of consent.
     So despite the fact that taking a teenager across state lines in order to have sex with them, should be treated as an aggravating factor, crossing state lines changes the jurisdiction of that sexual activity from state control to federal control. This causes the federal age of consent of 16 to win-out over Florida's age of consent of 18.
     This state of affairs is the outcome of the 2017 U.S. Supreme Court case of Esquivel-Quintana v. Sessions. The aftermath of this case has been that twenty states, including many of the highest-population states in the Union, have had their age of consent laws effectively nullified.

     This is a truly sorry state of affairs for anyone who doubts that sixteen- and seventeen- year-old children can "consent" to - and truly understand all of the potential negative consequences possibly involved in - having sex, traveling across state lines, and potentially even getting married and having children of their own.
     And it is a truly chaotic state of affairs, as far as concern for geographic consistency on statutory rape laws, goes.
     As usual, the only way to truly understand this problem, is to be "radical" about it; that is, to go to the root.
     We must admit that a lax attitude towards 17-year-olds having sex, and running away with other teenagers (or even with adults), is a pervasive and ongoing problem in our society. This attitude is reflected in our music and other forms of entertainment, and the issue of child runaways and homeless children affects children much younger than seventeen.
     But also, we must go to the law.     

     To understand what is going on here - i.e., why it is so easy to get away with raping and kidnapping children in this country, especially if you are a politician or otherwise politically connected person - we must examine the federal law on sex trafficking of a minor or ward.
     The full text of that law - 18 U.S. Code Section 2243 - is available at the link below.
     http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2243
     
     The federal law on sex trafficking of a minor reads as follows:

     "Whoever, in the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States or in a Federal prison, or in any prison, institution, or facility in which persons are held in custody by direction of or pursuant to a contract or agreement with the head of any Federal department or agency, knowingly engages in a sexual act with another person who-
     (1) has attained the age of 12 years but has not attained the age of 16 years; and
     (2) is at least four years younger than the person so engaging;
     or attempts to do so, shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both."

     To put this (somewhat) more simply:
     Whoever, under federal jurisdiction, has sexual contact with (or attempts to have sexual contact with) someone between 12 and 16, is guilty of federal statutory rape and shall be fined and/or imprisoned, provided that they are at least four years older than the "other person" (meaning the child they are raping).
     This means that it is legal to have sex with a 16-year-old - and traffic them for sex - as long as you are not older than 20 years old. If the state from which the child is taken, has an age of consent of 17 or 18 years, then the state cannot apply its age of consent to a child kidnapped from that state, because taking the child across state lines puts the case under federal jurisdiction.
     ...Where the federal government will not prosecute it because the federal government has a 16-year-old age of consent to sex law.

     To any normal person with a conscience, this should be horrifying.
     I attribute the lack of outrage at this law - and Esquivel-Quintana - to the facts that 1) most Americans are simply not aware of the sorry and chaotic state of age of consent and statutory rape laws, and 2) the fact that the federal law on trafficking a minor for sex is complex difficult to understand.

     Especially as it pertains to the status of children the ages of 12, 13, 14, and 15 years old.

     As I explained in a previous article on this topic - titled "Before Fully Legalizing Sex Work, Stop Lowering the Age of Consent" - if you keep reading the federal law on sex trafficking of a minor for sex, you will find a list of acceptable defenses for breaking the law (i.e., for raping a child).
     http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2021/03/before-fully-legalizing-sex-work-stop.html

     Section a of that law reads as follows:

     "(c) Defenses. -
     (1) In a prosecution under subsection (a) of this section, it is a defense, which the defendant must establish by a preponderance of this evidence, that the defendant reasonably believed that the other person had attained the age of 16 years.
     (2) In a prosecution under this section, it is a defense, which the defendant must establish by a preponderance of the evidence, that the persons engaging in the sexual act were at that time married to each other."

     Simply put, the acceptable defenses for raping a child between 12 and 15 years old are: 1) The defendant reasonably thought the child was at least 16; and 2) The people involved were married at the time.
     In case you're wondering, there are fifteen states in which someone who has not yet attained the age of 16 years, can get married. I previously reported that fact in my September 2020 post and infographic titled "Child Marriage is Legal in Ten States, Due to Their Failure to Set Minimum Age of Consent Requirements", which can be viewed at the link below.
     http://www.aquarianagrarian.blogspot.com/2020/09/child-marriage-is-legal-in-ten-states.html
     Those fifteen states certainly need sixteen- or seventeen- year minimums on age of consent to marriage. Especially the ten of them which have declined to set any minimum, effectively making it legal in some states to marry infants as long as its parents and/or a judge are crazy enough to let you.
     But setting aside laws regarding age of consent to marriage, the issue we came here to talk about is the first acceptable defense for raping a child between 12 and 15 years old; i.e., reasonably thinking or believing that the child was at least sixteen years old.

     So here we have it: If a person charged with raping a child who's at least 12 but is not yet 16, establishes, "by a preponderance of this evidence" that they "reasonably believed that the other person had attained the age of 16 years", they can be let off. In fact, they have effectively not committed a crime, in the eyes of the law.
     This is unacceptable, and must change.
     But first, we must understand how this law - which includes a list of two acceptable defenses for breaking it - has enabled people like Matt Gaetz and Joel Greenberg to do what they're accused of doing.

     If you were charged with raping a minor, what do you think would suffice as convincing evidence that you "reasonably" believed, or thought, that your victim was actually at least 16 years old?
     Proof that the victim has an identification document that misrepresents their age - and/or proof that you saw such an I.D. - wouldn't be a bad guess.
     Given that 1) both Matt Gaetz and Joel Greenberg are suspected of having sexual relationships with (i.e., raping) minor girls; 2) Joel Greenberg has been alleged to have made fake identification documents in order to "facilitate his efforts to engage in commercial sex acts"; and 3) both Gaetz and Greenberg are politically well-connected and have access to legal databases, it seems clear what is going on here.
     The possibility that Greenberg used his access to I.D.-making equipment - while Gaetz contributed his legal knowledge regarding how to get away with raping minors under federal jurisdiction - doesn't seem so farfetched.
     It's possible that Gaetz and Greenberg were fully aware of the acceptable defenses for raping a minor, and provided some of those minors with I.D.s falsifying their ages, in order to ensure that at least some of what they did was legal (i.e., trafficking, and what would have been considered statutory rape if it were prosecutable in state courts).

     Despite the lack of concern from America's naive liberal mothers, there is nothing "cute" or "precocious" about children drinking alcohol; nor about getting fake I.D.s (the real object of which is usually obtaining alcohol).
     A child who is given alcohol at a young age, will develop an addiction, and at a time when their brains are fully forming, and moreover alcohol is a neurotoxic sedative. And, of course, a child who becomes dependent on alcohol to socialize or have a good time, will often resort to obtaining a fake I.D. in order to obtain access to alcohol, and possibly even clubs or adults-only shows.
     The revelations about the allegations regarding Congressman Matt Gaetz and Joel Greenberg should give every parent in the country cause to inform themselves, their spouses, their school officials and local politicians, and their children, about the dangers of getting fake I.D.s.

     Despite how the majority of the urbanites in places like New York and New Jersey evidently feel about this issue, juniors and seniors in high school should not be traveling across state lines for the purposes of drinking, driving, sex, and clubbing. Nor should they get tattoos, nor intimate piercings - nor fake I.D.s - which make them easy to mistake for adults (and thus more susceptible to being hit on, and possibly abducted).
     The amount of danger in which teenagers are being put - solely in the name of "sticking it" to prudish conservatives who don't want their children to have "freedom" (i.e., the freedom to be trafficked across state lines for sex) - is as unconscionable for me to ponder, as it is irrational, nihilistic, reactionary, and denialist for liberal parents to actually believe.

     This passive form of parenting must be called out for what it is: reckless endangerment of minors, which is probably illegal. Additionally, it is enabling of children's self-destruction and their own reckless behavior. Enabling a person who is self-destructive can only lead to their doom. To paraphrase a homeless man whom I once heard shouting in Portland, Oregon: That is not raising a child, it is razing a child.

     American parents must wake up to the insane level of legal and moral abandonment which they are committing against their children.
     That is why we must take the first steps towards putting the brakes on the seemingly endless cycle of abuses by one generation against the next, which thus far, regrettably, has been the gist of history.
     These steps must include: 1) creating a federal law on sex trafficking minors which will effectively reverse the decision in Esquivel-Quintana v. Sessions; and 2) treating kids like kids, who deserve protection, instead of club-hopping adults, who deserve freedom. Children's freedom does not lie in the right to travel without restriction; that is the province of adults only. Children's freedom lies in their protection.
     Please make your children aware of the immense dangers, and potential negative consequences, which could result from obtaining a fake I.D. and showing it to adults.

Written and Published on April 21st, 2021

On When Speech Becomes Threatening and Incites Violence

     Maybe the Berkeley riots and fires of 2017 – called “leftists destroying their own communities”, even though only a small area was burned - were in response to people who are known to routinely dox people, demanding the right to surreptitiously out vulnerable people to mobs of angry xenophobia-trendies.

     Milo Yiannopoulos's speech was blockaded by anti-Alt-Right and anti-fascist protesters because Yiannopoulos had become infamous for speaking ill of transgender people, undocumented immigrants, and others. In late 2016 in Milwaukee, Yiannopoulos publicly named a transgender individual, and publicly mocked that person for filing a Title IX complaint about discriminatory bathroom access rules at the University of Wisconsin at Milwaukee. According to The Independent (UK), protesters at Berkeley argued that Yiannopoulos had threatened to out undocumented immigrants.

     Yiannopoulos denied those claims. But whether that accusation is true or not, outing transgender people or undocumented immigrants, and spreading personal information about them, does potentially threaten their safety, especially if done in a mocking way. This behavior not only hints that such people should be targeted; it creates every element of a realistic, credible, and possibly even imminent risk of violence, by giving potential attackers virtually all of the information they will need to successfully target the vulnerable person who has been outed.

     I am not totally convinced of ideas like "fighting words", "suicide by cop", nor even necessarily "hate speech". But I do firmly believe that only speech which does not advocate harm against others should be protected.

     And telling a crowd of people the location and previous name of a transgender person, or telling a crowd of students that an undocumented immigrant attends their school and giving out their name and address, would look like deliberate attempts to provoke and incite people to commit acts of violence to me.

     While Yiannopoulos, Richard Spencer, and others in the Alt-Right have not exactly done that, they have helped to create an environment in which speech that incites violence is being increasingly accepted, and arguably even normalized, and thought of as part of our freedom of speech, and thus deserving of protection by the authorities.

     All of this demonstrates the purposes of the 4^th and 9^th Amendments to the Constitution perfectly; that we are supposed to remain secure in our persons, houses, papers, and effects; that our rights do not come from a piece of paper; that we have the right to live without constantly having to show our papers to the authorities; and that we ought not have the obligation to reveal things about our identity which could endanger us. Especially when we are just trying to use the restroom.


Post-Script:
     Please click the link below to watch Milo Yiannopoulos dox a transgender student in late 2016 in Milwaukee:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CulQgP8JZKs&feature=youtu.be
    Click this link to read about reactions:
   http://www.thecut.com/2016/12/milo-yiannopoulos-harassed-a-trans-student-at-uw-milwaukee.html
    Click this link to watch the full video (the relevant part of the video begins at the 49:52 mark):
     http://youtu.be/-t1ufzttyUM

Originally Written on August 24th, 2018

Edited, and Post-Script Added, on February 15th, 2019

Twenty-Nine-Point Comprehensive Immigration Plan

            1. THE WALL: Do not add fencing on the U.S.-Mexico border, and do not build walls on the borders with Mexico nor Canada.

            2. CIVIL RIGHTS: Do not revoke the civil liberties nor civil rights (such as rights to equal protection of law, and due process of law) on the basis of the suspect's national origin, religion, nor enemy combatant status. All persons have these constitutionally recognized rights; not just American citizens.

            3. BANS: Enforce neither temporary nor permanent bans on immigrants and refugees coming from particular countries; especially not as a way to discriminate against refugees on the basis of the religious majority of the nations from which they come.

            4. REGISTRIES: Pass legislation specifically prohibiting the creation of federal registries, and of lists of Americans' races and religions.

            5. VETTING: If illegal immigration is really the problem, then maybe we shouldn't worry about who is trying to immigrate into the United States legally as much. Either way, relax procedures for the naturalization of legal immigrants and refugees; background checks and health examinations should take up the majority of the procedure.

            6. CRIME: As soon as possible, deport all undocumented immigrants who have been convicted of violent crimes.

            7. ARREST: Do not allow police officers, nor immigration and customs officials, to detain and deport undocumented immigrants for non-violent crimes; not for breaking petty vice laws, nor for having insufficient identification.

            8. HARBORING: Urge all governments (at all levels) to decriminalize harboring and assisting undocumented immigrants and refugees; these actions should not be felonies. State and local governments, the private sector, and charity and religious organizations, should not be punished for providing humanitarian relief (such as housing, education, health services, and food), to undocumented immigrants and refugees.


            9. AMNESTY: Grant permanent or temporary amnesty, temporary work visas, or Green cards, to all non-violent undocumented immigrants, regardless of their religion or national origin.


            10. BIRTHRIGHT CITIZENSHIP: Continue allowing all people who were born on U.S. territory to apply for U.S. citizenship when they turn 18.

            11. CHILD ARRIVALS: Ensure that undocumented immigrants who arrived in the U.S. as children – especially in the last 35 years – are not deported; and ensure that they are not separated from family members who may be undocumented immigrants, unless they have been convicted of violent crimes. Support congressional deferred action for childhood arrivals and their parents; not executive orders which bypass Congress.


            12. TRAVEL: Increase the freedom of movement of labor and capital – and refrain from inhibiting the freedom of locomotion of non-violent undocumented immigrants to other countries – by decriminalizing the act of entry into the United States without going through required naturalization procedures. Urge governments to agree to make monetary settlements with any legal immigrants who feel slighted by the relative ease with which undocumented immigrants become citizens.

            13. NATURALIZATION: Ensure that the federal government retains its authority to establish a uniform rule of naturalization. Oppose and abolish any and all support of immigration quotas as calls for unconstitutional discrimination on the basis of national origin.

            14. WORK: Do not make work a condition for citizenship. Make it easier (for undocumented and documented immigrants alike) to get green cards and temporary work visas; by increasing the number of temporary work visas for immigrants who want to come here to work (especially the number of visas for high-skilled workers). Provide easy paths to legal work, lawful permanent residency, citizenship, and full voting rights.

            15. IDENTIFICATION: Do not establish a national identification card. Do not require businesses to use e-Verify (or similar programs) to confirm citizenship as a condition of hiring. All this does is turn undocumented immigrants who want to work into unemployed second-class citizens, and turn hiring managers into immigration enforcement officials.

            16. VOTING: Allow non-violent undocumented immigrants residing in the U.S. to vote, as long as they are not eligible to vote in any other country.

            17. PURCHASES: Ensure that undocumented immigrants are not expected to show identification documents that would reveal their citizenship status, in order to purchase products that have legally mandated minimum ages of purchase (such as alcohol and tobacco).

            18. DRIVING: Make it easier for immigrants and refugees – and ordinary citizens as well - to obtain drivers' licenses. First, by urging more states to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain drivers' licenses for non-citizens; second, by urging courts to find that charging fees to license drivers amounts to charging people to leave their state, which interferes with the freedom of locomotion. As long as driver's licenses are considered constitutional, and as long as people are expected to carry identification, all levels of government should be urged to issue driver's licenses and identification documents at no charge to the recipient.

            19. WELFARE: Ensure that state and federal welfare agency employees do not violate immigrants' Fifth Amendment freedom from self-incrimination, by using undocumented immigrants' state of need as an excuse to make them state their citizenship status, in order to have them detained and deported (without any evidence of commission of a real crime against person or property having appeared).

            20. SOCIAL DIVIDENDS: Ensure that governments cannot discriminate against undocumented immigrants seeking welfare support in the form of cash payouts from social dividends; if the opportunity arises to choose between a residents' dividend and a citizens' dividend, a proposal of a residents' dividend should be drafted and passed rather than a citizens' dividend.

            21. SAFETY NET: Stay open to the possibility of revoking federal social safety net benefits for undocumented immigrants; but only consider doing so after all structures supporting the corporate welfare system are abolished, and during the same time period that the federal social safety net is being phased out for all residents.

            22. SOCIAL SECURITY: The right to receive social welfare supports (including the entitlements, the S.N.A.P. / Food Stamps program, and others) should not be contingent upon paying taxes and paying into Social Security. There is no enumerated constitutional authority for federal involvement in retirement savings nor welfare; federal involvement in retirement should end; authority for any continued federal involvement in welfare should be passed constitutionally; and all government revenue should derive from fines that penalize waste rather than taxes that penalize productivity. Such a policy on welfare and taxation will provide additional tax relief to low-income undocumented immigrants and refugees; easing the transition to work, without overwhelming the worker with tax forms. Allow immigrant and native-born workers alike to opt-out of the Social Security system.

            23. SANCTUARY: End the federal government's monetary support of so-called “Sanctuary Cities” for undocumented immigrants; but only do so as part of a broader effort to stop these unconstitutional payments from the federal government to community governments.

            24. STATE WELFARE: Allow state and local governments to decide whether to grant undocumented immigrants' requests for social welfare benefits such as housing, education, health, and food assistance.

            25. PRIVATIZATION: Save money, shrink the welfare state, and make ordinary consumer goods more affordable (for immigrants and the native-born alike), by making health, education, and housing easier to purchase on the open market. Phase-out federal involvement in those sectors, and urge state and local governments to decrease regulations and taxes on them. Make purchasing goods like health insurance, medications, and education – and buying or renting housing – as easy and affordable as buying foods and drinks.

            26. EDUCATION: Require all publicly funded universities to offer in-state tuition rates to undocumented immigrants who reside in the state. Do not inhibit private colleges from offering scholarships and grants to undocumented immigrants.

            27. MILITARY: Ensure that acts of Congress concerning immigration allow non-violent undocumented immigrants to serve in the military (and become citizens); rather than giving undocumented immigrants a choice between serving in the military for two years or attending college. Do not make undocumented immigrants, nor anyone else, subject to selective service registration, military drafts, nor civil emergency preparedness service; not as a condition of citizenship, nor for any other reason.

            28. LANGUAGE: Do not interfere with the First Amendment freedom of speech of undocumented immigrants and refugees who speak languages other than English. Do not make English the official language of the United States of America; and pass a constitutional amendment formally prohibiting any state or local government from doing so. Do not require immigrants nor refugees to learn English as a condition of citizenship.

            29. CULTURE: Do not interfere with the freedom of cultural expression. Do not expect, nor require, immigrants and refugees to "assimilate" to American culture; which includes liberal and conservative political cultures, neither of which fully embraces all of the freedoms that make people want to come here. Achieve civic pluralism by respecting ethnic and religious cultures' self-determination rights; while protecting the rights of ethnic, religious, and political minorities, with full civil liberties, and equal protection of law with due process.

Written on January 26^th, 27^th, and 30th, 2017

Edited on February 18th, 2017

Papers, Please!?: Freedom vs. Permission

Based on Posts Written on May 23^rd, 2015

Expanded on December 15^th, 17^th, 22^nd, and 23^rd, 2015, and February 12^th and 13^th, 2016

Edited on January 22^nd and 23^rd, and February 12^th and 13^th, 2016

            American civil society is not based on freedom and liberty; is it based on legality and permission.

The Ninth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution reads, “the enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.”

The majority in the case of Murdock v. Pennsylvania ruled that “no state shall convert a liberty into a license, and charge a fee therefore.” The majority in Shuttlesworth v. City of Birmingham, Alabama ruled that “If the State converts a right (liberty) into a privilege, the citizen can ignore the license and fee and engage in the right (liberty) with impunity.”

Nowhere does the Constitution mention home ownership, car ownership, marriage, sex, drug use, nor commercial activity which does not cross state lines. Since they are not mentioned, the federal government does not have jurisdiction to regulate those activities, so according to the Tenth Amendment, they are rights that are retained by the states, and/or – depending on the content of the various state constitutions – the people.

It would seem that these kinds of property ownership and activities are natural liberties, which existed prior to, and without, government, and therefore they should not, and cannot, be rightfully limited, nor conditioned, by governments.

However, many manners of ownership and types of activities such as these – including ownership and activities which neither harm, nor even affect, anyone else, if properly maintained and undertaken – are routinely, and egregiously, taxed and regulated by governments. Moreover, they have all kinds of permission and licensure requirements imposed on them; requirements that all sorts of documentation be presented to authorities in order to continue.

Proponents of gun control sometimes argue that guns should be treated like cars. As an internet meme on the subject reads, “It’s done for a car, why not a gun? Get a learner’s permit. Take a written test to prove your knowledge of gun laws, usage and safety. Take your weapon for a ‘road test’ to obtain a license. Obtain insurance, pay to register it every few years and have it inspected on a regular basis.”

But is it really necessary to have a driver’s license in order to enjoy the right to drive? No; in fact, between 1868 and 1972, no less than 24 cases in the United States effectively affirmed either 1) that driving is a fundamental right, rather than a privilege; and / or 2) that one’s mode of transportation is a matter of personal choice; and / or 3a) that it is not necessary to obtain a license nor registration in order to drive or travel; and / or 3b) that it is not necessary to pay a licensing fee, nor any other tax or duty; and / or 4a) that the only thing required to drive a vehicle is reasonable care in its operation, and / or 4b) to obey the common law of the road.

The first in these cases was Crandall v. Nevada (1868, Nevada), the ruling in which actually goes so far as to suggest that requirements to pay for drivers’ licenses are taxes which inhibit people from leaving their state.

Twenty-three other cases which affirm the liberties which I mentioned above are: Arthur v. Morgan (1884, U.S.); Swift v. City of Topeka (1890, Kansas); City of Chicago v. Collins (1898, Illinois); Ex Parte Dickey (Dickey v. Davis) (1904, California); Indiana Springs Co. v. Brown (1905, Indiana); Christy v. Elliot (1905, Illinois); Hillhouse v. United States (1907, U.S.); Simeone v. Lindsay (1907, Delaware); Brinkman v. Pacholke (1908, Indiana); Cecchi v. Lindsay (1910, Delaware);vFarnsworth v. Tampa Electric Co. (1911, Florida); State v. Armstead (1913, Mississippi); Escobedo v. California (1914, California); Butler v. Cabe (1914, Arkansas); Chicago Motor Coach Co. v. City of Chicago (1929, Illinois); Thompson v. Smith (1930, Virginia); Teche Lines, Inc. v. Danforth (1943, Mississippi); Berberian v. Lussier (1958, Rhode Island); Schecter v. Killingsworth (1963, Arizona); Adams v. City of Pocatello (1966, Idaho); California v. Farley (1971, California); People v. Horton (1971, California); and Ward v. Meredith (1972, California).

This shows that the gun control proponent’s argument holds no weight, when predicated on the idea that gun licensing requirements can be justified on the grounds that one must be licensed in order to drive a car.

But let us (ahem) shift gears for a moment, from cars and guns, to gay marriage: proponents of gay marriage often argue that homosexual couples should be “free” to marry just like heterosexual couples. However, they often neglect to mention that the legal right to marry is not a freedom, but a privilege; a privilege which is only granted if the civil government deigns to grant permission for the union.

Given that, before 1967, most states in the union had anti-miscegenation laws that prohibited people from different races from intermarrying, isn’t it obvious that a government which has the ability to deny the legal right to marry on the basis of race, is a government which is powerful enough to deny the legal right to marry on the basis of sexual orientation, and moreover, a government powerful enough to reverse its stance on criminalizing marriage across races? And isn't it obvious that a government powerful enough to have once restricted the conditions for blacks to own firearms, is powerful enough to do it again?

Given all this – and the fact that in some states (particularly, Illinois), couples actually have to apply for an application to obtain a marriage license (that’s right, you have to apply in order to apply) – why should marriage be a privilege, but not a freedom? If my spouse and I agree that we are married, and we have a verbal or written agreement between ourselves, and/or mark that fact down in our family Bible (or our copy of Charles Darwin’s On the Origin of Species, or wherever we want to write it down), then what is a government to tell us otherwise? How does our status as an informally married couple interfere with the rights or freedoms of anybody else?

Similarly, the proponents of marijuana legalization have argued in favor of legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana use, sale, and possession, but rarely support making marijuana use a freedom. While it is conducive to increasing personal liberty to reduce criminal penalties for using, selling, and possessing marijuana, to “legalize” marijuana serves only to create new sets of laws which control how, and when, and by whom, marijuana is used. To “legalize” marijuana is not to normalize it – making its use and sale “free” – but to (as I like to say) “legal it up”.

Some states, regrettably, are so eager to make marijuana use more free, that they are willing to tax it, albeit for some arguably good purposes, such as education. But when the State of Oregon considered its own legislation to legalize recreational marijuana use, clever lawmakers were able to hide the fact that nearly half of the funds from legal marijuana taxation went to law enforcement. They did this by breaking up funding for police into three different items, such that the single item appearing to reap the most funding – because it had the highest percentage of funding for a single item – was education and schools, rather than policing.

The result is that, while police may cease enforcing laws against personal marijuana use, the taxes reaped from legal marijuana sales in Oregon, now fund the enforcement of laws, including laws against selling marijuana without the proper business permits (in the case of Oregon, that is, unless the buyer is a medicinal marijuana patient, in which case, they, too, have to go through the proper channels, obtaining diagnoses from doctors, and permits).

Although in some states, obtaining a marriage license entitles couples to some hundreds of legally protected rights (in the case of New York, fourteen hundred), and permits for guns and marijuana protect those who own and use them against unlawful aggression by the police, these are not true protections of already existing freedoms, i.e., liberties, but rather, privileges, which are only gained upon the satisfaction of certain conditions, and which can be altered and taken away through elections and legislation.

Aside from applications, and permits, and licenses, we often use the term “registration” to describe the application process for obtaining such privileges; registering your car, registering your gun, registering to vote, et cetera. But what is really going on here is that the roots of the word “register” are the Latin words regis (“of the king”) and rex (“king”).

We do not own our cars, nor our guns, nor the right to vote, nor the terms of our marriage, nor the substances we use in the privacy of “our own homes”. We register those things with the civil government, and with the aristocrats who run it. They own the titles to those things; we merely rent, or use, or occupy them. They can take those things away from us, when and if we fail to use them, how, and when, and for what purposes, they – the legal owners – would prefer us to. We pay property taxes, and rent, and fees for licenses, permits, and registration, in order to gain and retain possession of those things.

As the liberal supporters of gay marriage and marijuana legalization tell us, we should have to register our guns and obtain permits, and the taxes from legal marijuana sales should go to fund schools, and perhaps law enforcement. But what if we treated gay marriage and gay sex the same way their proponents wish to treat gun ownership and use?

Why, if one must obtain permission from the government in order to own a gun, or marijuana – and own and use them on what is supposedly our own private property – should a gay couple not be obligated to obtain permission from the government in order to do what they do in the privacy of their own homes?

And hey, as long as we’re requiring permission for gay sex and gay marriage, and imposing taxes on marijuana, why don’t we tax gay sex too!? “You don’t want to pay the government a dollar to help build a school, each time you have gay sex? You must hate children!” …Or I just don’t want to help fund the police and the political and bureaucratic classes every time I exercise a basic personal freedom.

Anyway, this may sound ridiculous, and, of course, gay couples should not have to apply for permission to do have sex. But what if they want to call their relationship a marriage? In that case, those same liberals are perfectly happy to fight for a decade or two in order to turn what was already a liberty, into a privilege, granted through government permission, and protected by law.

As 2004 Libertarian Party presidential candidate Michael Badnarik explained, common-law marriage already exists (at least in nine or ten states, but it used to be more prevalent). In some states, you can be in a committed relationship with somebody, live with them, have children together, and call what you have a “marriage”, and the government will, or at least should, recognize it as such. So, then, why, in the push to legalize same-sex marriage, was the debate framed in terms of “government giving or granting us equal rights”, rather than in terms of “government legally recognizing and protecting an equal right that we already have”?

Even more disturbing than the idea that our rights come from government, and that government can deny the privilege to marry on the basis of race or sexual orientation, is the implication of something else that Badnarik explained. Namely, if I have to ask the government for the legal permission to have sex with my spouse and to call that a marriage, and the government has the authority to deny me that privilege, then doesn’t this imply that the government is the legal possessor of the original right to have sex with my spouse, and to call that a marriage?

Furthermore, why should I have to pay sixty dollars to the government for a marriage license, in order to fuck my wife, when this woman has already agreed to let me fuck her, and call her “my wife” (or “Britney Spears”, or “Donald Duck”, or whatever I please) for a mere fifty dollars!? These questions may seem crass, but they beg asking. After all, isn’t it the fault of government that the economy has been so poorly managed that the resulting poverty has driven many people into prostitution?

Simply put, in that we are all potential spouses, isn’t government little more than the abusive marital partner, and the pimp, of us all?

But the fact that privileges masquerade as freedoms, rights, and liberties, does not only apply to guns, marriage, illicit substances, and the other things I mentioned; it also applies to identification documents, and substances which the government does not regard as illicit.

Take, for example, tobacco and alcohol. Suppose that I want to buy a pack of cigarettes or a six-pack of beer. In order to do so, I have to prove that I’m above some age predetermined through government legislation. That is so, even if it is obvious that I am above that age, and whether or not I am an emancipated minor, and/or mature enough to smoke or drink. The transaction between me and the merchant cannot be described as either mutual nor free-market; there is a third party involved that taxes, regulates, and conditions the transaction.

By the way, even if I have the proper identification document – such as a driver’s license or a state-issued photo identification card – there is no guarantee that the merchant will accept it, because state I.D.s and driver’s licenses can look very dissimilar, and because the merchant might not be sure that the I.D. is real. This problem could very well be used as justification for ushering in a National I.D. Card, but I argue that personal privacy would be surrendered in the implementation of such a thing.

Even now, without a National I.D. Card, if you do manage to get your I.D. accepted by the merchant, he or she might not simply read it in order to verify it, they might run it under an electronic scanner, and who knows where that information is going?

Not only are possession, use, and sale of marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol conditioned by government; so too are accessories and paraphernalia. Lighters, rolling papers, keg taps… none of these things will get you high or drunk, but you still – in some circumstances and jurisdictions – have to prove you’re above some legal age in order to buy them.

Say I, to the merchant: “Papers, please?”. Reply he: “Papers, please!?”.

But why should you have to prove that you’re old enough to use tobacco, in order to buy a lighter? What if you don’t smoke, and you’re only buying a lighter because you’re about to go to the woods and light a camp fire? If the answer is because the merchant doesn’t know for what purpose you’re going to use the lighter, why should that matter, if once you buy the lighter, it becomes your property, and thus yours to do with however you wish, as long as your use of it doesn’t harm anyone else’s person or legitimate property?

What is going to happen after a monetary, governmental, and industrial collapse force us into bare subsistence mode? Are we still going to ask for government permission to build fires in order to survive?

Furthermore, where should we draw the line between work, labor, and action? As Hannah Arendt explained in The Human Condition, some forms of action are undertaken solely for the purpose of sustenance of life, while others are undertaken for the purpose of producing some enduring item or artefact (this is Arendt’s distinction between labor and work, respectively). Arendt’s distinction is a philosophical one, but what is the difference between labor and work in legal terms?

As comedian Doug Stanhope noted, “You need a diploma in this country to cut hair.” Cosmetology students are required to take a national examination in order to get licensed and become practicing cosmetologists. Obtaining and renewing licenses range from $30 to $150, and in some jurisdictions they require more hours of training than the medical profession.

If I cut my (hypothetical) child’s hair, or anybody else’s, for free, am I engaged in a form of work and commerce; the kind that warrants being taxed and regulated, and warrants legislation requiring that I must apply for a permit in order to do so? Am I engaging in underground market activity, cheating the taxman, the regulators and bureaucrats, and the permit and licensure systems? Furthermore, if I receive no monetary compensation for doing so, am I engaging in a kind of uncompensated labor which can rightfully be described as involuntary servitude, i.e., slavery?

Am I, by cutting my own hair, or anyone else’s, depriving licensed barbers and cosmetologists of their jobs, and engaging in the kind of behavior which should merit me having my knees crowbarred by the local barbers’ union?

Or, by cutting someone’s hair, am I simply engaging in a basic liberty, which is no business of anybody else, unless I elect to call my enterprise (i.e., an undertaking) an enterprise (i.e., a business), and choose to have any income taxed, and my actions regulated?

What about cooking and washing dishes? If I invite people into “my” home, and feed them, and wash their dishes afterwards, then shouldn’t I be paid for my service, or at least compensated for the cost of the food, and the soap and water? What if I provide the cooking, and the food, and dish washing, for free, but I accept voluntary donations? If I reap income from that service, should that income be taxed? Is that commercial activity, the kind which should get me in trouble with local zoning boards, because I am engaging in business activity in a residential area?

If so, then what’s to stop the government – the pimp of us all – from declaring the sex that I have, to be untaxed, unregulated commercial activity in a non-business residential zone, requiring me to get a government whoring license, obey regulations and pay taxes, and put me out of business and send me to jail for prostitution?

While we’re on the topic of prostitution, why does “legalizing” prostitution involve licensing, permits, regulation, and S.T.D. testing? Why can’t “legalizing” prostitution involve making prostitution a liberty; making it free? Do governments that legalize prostitution expect most prostitutes to have their lives together enough to pay for these permits and tests, join a whores’ union, and fill out reams of government paperwork?

But back to serving food: Should I get in trouble with the local health inspector for serving uninspected food? Again, this may sound ridiculous, but mothers of school children who were involved in bake sales to raise money for their schools, have had their home-made baked goods destroyed because they were made in the home, rather than in places where sanitary conditions could be ensured by the health inspector.

Not only that, but in various states, police have shut down children’s lemonade stands because the children and their parents did not apply for the appropriate vendors’ licenses and permits. Lemonade stands have even been shut down for fear that the drinks sold could be poisonous, like the Kool-Aid served at Jonestown in Guyana, which led to the death of over 900 people in a mass suicide.

Eleven-year-old Madison “Mistletoe Maddie” Root was denied the freedom to walk around and sell hand-picked mistletoe at a street fair in Portland, Oregon – and told to beg for money like a homeless person – because she did not obtain a permit, and also out of concerns for the plant’s psychotropic effects. Again, “it’s poison!” Some people are allergic!

So I guess we need vendors’ permits, and also child labor laws, to stop our children from becoming exploited slaves, and somehow also, at the same time, members of terrorist religious cults. Warren Buffett gets to sell peanuts at the age of eight for five cents here and ten cents here, and now he’s a billionaire, but yeah, our children are terrorists if they can’t learn to respect the police’s goddamn authoritaw.

Clearly the problem is insufficiently enforced child labor laws, and vendors’ licensing standards, not a reckless obedience to authority that leaves us blind to the importance of instilling a work ethic in the next generation, and teaching them the value of a dollar. It’s best to just let the snow pile up on the State of New Jersey day after day, and hope that twelve-year-old boys will figure out a way to raise the $350 necessary to obtain a permit to shovel their neighbors’ driveways. Those neighbors need to get to work to slave away for their employers and the government? Tough shit.

Whether you’re an illegal immigrant buying a six-pack of beer or a pack of cigarettes after a hard day of underground labor; or a kid selling some peanuts or lemonade; or a dude who just lost his wallet and I.D. cards buying a pack of rolling papers; or a gay guy having sex with his boyfriend and wanting to call it a marriage; or a black cohabiting couple with children, trying to get their common-law marriage recognized; or a wannabe hairdresser giving out free samples; or a family baking some cookies to help fund a school; or a dude with glaucoma (or just the munchies) smoking weed in his basement (or his mom’s basement); or a mutual aid society trying to feed a group of homeless people in a public park without being obligated to pay a fine; or a poor person trying to register to vote; or a black farmer in the early 20th century trying to get a gun to fend off crows, or enforcers of Jim Crow laws; or a minor driving their collapsed parent to the hospital; or a lady who wants to possess her car or home in a manner that resembles full ownership (including the right to deny others, including law enforcement officials, the right to search that property); or just a person walking around doing some unspecified thing that could, by some contrived stretch of government imagination, be construed as commercial activity… basically, fuck you, get your Nazi paperwork in order.

So go hit the books. Just don’t read the Ninth or Tenth Amendments to the Constitution, or the part of the Fourth Amendment about the right to be secure in our papers.