WE’RE ALL CRIMINALS NOW
I’m writing this from a place called Mea Culpa City. It’s not a lot of fun being here, but it’s where I have to live until I finish this essay. It turns out that I have wronged a friend. The silver - well, pewter - lining is that in attempting to rectify it I learned how easy it has become for the Federales to turn any of us into criminals.
The Cato Institute in Washington has just published a book on this:
Go Directly To Jail: The Criminalization Of Almost Everything. It documents how the federal government now views its jurisdiction as limitless - which means almost anything you or your business does can be a federal crime. The Cato book paints a frightening picture - but the truth is, it’s much worse.
It’s worse because of the depraved collusion between politicians and their buddies in the media to demonize and criminalize someone on the front pages of newspapers. This of course is not exclusive to Washington. States are on to the game as well. New York’s Elliot Spitzer has turned the State Attorney General’s office into his private Gestapo. But he’s New York’s problem. Federal agents and federal politicians are a problem for all of us.