To legislate against the moral codes of one’s fellows…is to steal their moral codes, to suppress their characters. – R.M. MacIver
Three forays into the bizarre world inhabited by lawheads, and a little good news.
Imaginary Lines (July 7th, 2011)
As this article Grace showed me demonstrates, it’s not only people whom the government subjects to arcane and complex border-crossing regulations, then treats as violent criminals if the paperwork is improperly filled out:
A…supplier of guitar-making parts is ensnared in an international smuggling investigation after federal authorities seized 24 pallets of exotic wood…Luthiers Mercantile International, or LMI, imported the $200,000-worth of Indian rosewood and ebony to sell to Gibson…On Aug. 24, federal agents descended on a Nashville, Tenn., warehouse where LMI’s wood was waiting for Gibson to take possession. They seized the wood along with Gibson computer hard drives and guitars. [Federal officials claim] the wood was “unlawfully imported, purchased and received”…[but] LMI officials say minor paperwork mistakes by their import broker on a separate wood shipment led to the raid…Though LMI has imported rosewood from India for decades, the U.S. government is now saying that Indian rosewood fingerboards are an illegal export…
Many of Sonoma County’s estimated 100 luthiers, who depend on tropical exotic hardwoods that have particular resonant qualities, say their futures are at stake…[Tom] Ribbecke, whose guitars are displayed in the Smithsonian Museum…fears that if authorities decide some of [his stock] is illegal, they will take it. “The Lacey Act…makes all of our material that all of us have been saving and setting aside for our retirement illegal for us to own,” he said…Since 2008, the Lacey Act has made it illegal to bring wood into the United States that was exported illegally from a country of origin…but under World Trade Organization laws…what is legal in one country can appear illegal in another, based on differences in national tariff codes…
In other words, the government is fighting evil wood traffickers, working to rescue innocent boards from being enslaved in guitars, where they are sold to satisfy the sick desires of music lovers. Don’t you feel safer now?
J’accuse (July 21st, 2011)
As I said in my column of October 23rd, most politicians hire whores at least occasionally, therefore reports that any individual politician hired a whore do not constitute news. But this October 17th New York Post story on the continuing Dominique Strauss-Kahn hijinks has other features of interest, so I’ve edited it to remove colorful Post inanities like “bootyguard” and “serial sleazeball”:
A top French cop served as [Dominique Strauss-Kahn’s] personal pimp, organizing orgies for him in both France and New York…The new allegations came to light during an investigation into a ring of prostitutes that included underage teens…Sources…[said] that…DSK is among a group of politicians, lawyers and business leaders whose names were found in the ring’s “black book’’ of clients. The French cop, Jean-Christophe Lagarde, also allegedly escorted ladies of the evening all the way from the French city of Lille, where the ring was headquartered, to New York for DSK. Strauss-Kahn’s personal prostitutes were allegedly selected for him by a…procurer named Dominique “Dodo’’ Alderweireld, who…has since been arrested. Lawyer Frederique Beaulieu says Strauss-Kahn “is asking to be questioned to put an end to these insinuations and extrapolations”…but has not yet been contacted by police…Five men…have been arrested in France and charged with pimping…
Welcome to the Wonderland of legalization. Prostitution is legal in France, but “procuring, aiding or assisting” prostitutes is illegal, as is “living on the avails”. In other words, it’s OK to be a whore as long as you have no friends, family, employees, assistants, managers or other human contact other than customers. As soon as you move in with someone, tour with another girl, or pay someone to arrange travel or book appointments for you, your legal business is instantly transformed into a “ring”, your private affairs are a matter for police “investigation” and you are buried under an avalanche of dysphemisms.
Presumption of Guilt (July 29th, 2011)
How many of y’all enjoy shopping at used book or music stores, flea markets and the like? I sure do. But I’ll bet you didn’t know that every time you walk into such a place you might be surrounded by criminals so dangerous that, according to the Louisiana legislature, the need to catch them justifies outlawing an activity which is literally as old as civilization:
This summer…Louisiana passed a law that bans individuals and businesses from transacting in cash if they are considered a “secondhand dealer”…[which is defined as] “…Anyone, other than a non-profit entity, who buys, sells, trades in or otherwise acquires or disposes of junk or used or secondhand property more frequently than once per month from any other person, other than a non-profit entity…” The law then states that “A secondhand dealer shall not enter into any cash transactions in payment for the purchase of junk or used or secondhand property. Payment shall be made in the form of check, electronic transfers, or money order issued to the seller of the junk or used or secondhand property…” The broad scope of this definition can essentially encompass everyone; from your local flea market vendors and buyers to a housewife purchasing goods on ebay or craigslist, to a group of guys trading baseball cards…Louisiana [has] effectively banned its citizens from freely using United States legal tender.
The law goes further to require secondhand dealers to turn over…their business’ proprietary client information. For every transaction a secondhand dealer must obtain the seller’s personal information such as their name, address, driver’s license number and the license plate number of the vehicle in which the goods were delivered. They must also make a detailed description of the item(s) purchased and submit this with the personal identification information of every transaction to the local policing authorities through electronic daily reports. If a seller cannot or refuses to produce to the secondhand dealer any of the required forms of identification, the secondhand dealer is prohibited from completing the transaction…individuals and businesses are [thus] forced to report routine business activity to the police. Can law enforcement not accomplish its goal of identifying potential thieves and locating stolen items in a far less intrusive manner? And of course, there are already laws that prohibit stealing, buying or selling stolen goods, laws that require businesses to account for transactions and laws that penalize individuals and businesses that transact in stolen property. Why does…Louisiana…need…more laws infringing on personal privacy, liberties and freedom?…Interestingly enough, although Pawnshops are still required to obtain clients’ personal information and transmit their client database information to law enforcement, they are exempt from the restriction of cash payments. A jeweler next door to a pawnshop cannot offer clients the same payment method offered by its competing pawnshop neighbor…
The excuse used to justify this blatant tax grab and surveillance method was a recent increase in copper robberies. The pillage of cables for their copper always increases during periods of high metal prices and/or high unemployment, but somehow government has always managed to deal with it before without requiring merchants to record the license plate numbers of little old ladies trading in romance novels or university students selling CDs they’re tired of. But that’s because we used to have this thing called “presumption of innocence”; well, it was nice while it lasted.
Sea Change (November 4th, 2010)
My column of one year ago today discussed examples of the way that public opinion is slowly changing in our favor, and here’s a new one; on August 20th the 60-year-old Society for the Study of Social Problems adopted a resolution stating that it supports decriminalization:
WHEREAS the criminalization of prostitution and other forms of sex work negotiated between consenting adults perpetuates violence and social stigma against sex workers, including by law enforcement…WHEREAS the criminalization of prostitution and other forms of sex work denies sex workers basic human and civil rights, including healthcare and housing, extended to workers in other trades, occupations, callings, or professions; WHEREAS the decriminalization of prostitution would lead to safer working conditions and better health for both the worker and client, and allow workers to report nonconsensual activities to law enforcement without fear of being arrested…BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that the SSSP supports: (1) bipartisan legislation to decriminalize prostitution (2) public education regarding the costs of policing sex workers and (3) normalization of the occupation.
You can read the full text at the link; it was written by Jenny Heineman, co-coordinator of SWOP Las Vegas, which was also honored by the SSSP at a banquet. This is a small change, but it has to start somewhere; the ACLU is pro-decriminalization as well (though they rarely say anything about it), and every professional organization we can win to the cause gives us that much more credibility in the eyes of the public and politicians.
Just some more info on the guitar stuff (playing guitar is the only beta male activity I engage in – but I’m a fanatic, especially for Gibson Les Pauls – playing guitar never got me laid though dammit – like it did Ted Nugent) …
Guitars that are manufactured in Korea, by Korean workers – can be imported without the slightest problem into the United States even if they are made with these “rare” woods that Gibson is getting raped over. This is due to a loophole in the “Lacey Act” … and the government even told the CEO of Gibson that if he just “outsourced” his manufacturing to India – the problem would be solved.
Heh … right … we’ve got almost 10 percent unemployment in this country and we’re willing to kill more jobs even though these woods are going to come into the country anyway – just in fully assembled guitars – assembled by Indian workers?
And … that’s not the half of it. I go out of the country for months at a time and I’m in some remote places – I usually take a guitar with me. But … when I bring it BACK through customs – I have to prove my guitar is not made from these illegal woods – and it takes PAPERWORK to prove that. It’s not a case of “innocent” until proven guilty – it’s a case of “well this looks like illegal rosewood to my untrained custom’s official eye, so it is … where’s your paperwork?”
If you don’t have it – they confiscate the guitar and this, has American musicians going nuts! It also extends to other instruments. One concert pianist who travels worldwide with an antique piano had the LEGAL ivory keys removed to put plastic ones on. The reason? The piano was manufactured in the 20’s or 30’s when there was no documentation on ivory. He can’t PROVE the ivory is legal and was on that piano when it was manufactured in the first part of the last century!
My solution to the problem going overseas and returning was to just bring a Fender Telecaster – with a plain white maple fretboard. The beauty of the telecaster is that it’s all “bolt up” – so if the customs guy THINKS some part of it is made of illegal wood – I can just unbolt that part and hand it to him – then go buy a replacement.
And yeah – I did have one customs guy stop me once and examined my tele and questioned me if the body (which was painted) was made of legal woods. I wanted to CHOKE the guy … because no guitar manufacturer uses rare wood and then paints over it – that’s always the low grade stuff like poplar and ash. However, if you lose your cool with these guys – they’ll just take your damn guitar with no questions asked. So I flipped it over and showed him a belt buckle “rash” on the back of it where the paint was worn away and you could see the wood underneath – it was white. I said … “No this is a poplar body … see??”
This sucks … it really sucks. I mean yeah – it’s just a guitar … it’s not cure for cancer – but it’s something that shouldn’t be this big a deal.
Krulac, how is playing guitar a “beta male activity”?
Most guitar players have no upper body strength. And … a lot of them were kind of “androgenous” when I was growing up (like PRINCE – who a lot of people wouldn’t say so – but IS the most talented guitar player in history in my opinion) 😀
But forget that – here’s an AMAZING story and it appears that Maggie is right about male prostitutes! This guy couldn’t get a gig even when he offered to “waive” a $7,000 loan a gal owed him. He ended up in the slammer though – poor guy. 🙁
http://www.nbcchicago.com/news/weird/83-Year-Old-Man-Charged-as-Male-Prostitute-133177598.html
That story is outrageous – why was HE charged with prostitution for offering to let her repay part of her debt to him by performing sex acts with him? The money would have gone in effect from him to her. He was offering to be the client, not the prostitute. Aren’t these stupid cops capable of basic logic?
Funny as hell huh? That’s what I said. I have turned my brain in a pretzel trying to figure that one out. The $7,000 is HIS money and he’s offering to let her keep some of it for a little action. That seems to be him paying her.
Hell that’s stupider even than the Swedish model! 😛
How the HELL would an 83-YEAR-OLD MAN possibly get anyone to offer him money for sex?!
I thought guitarists had upper body strength. I guess it depends on the definition of ‘upper body’. My brother developed Popeye arms back when he was playing frequently. But I’ve seen plenty of guitarists with muscular shoulders.
“In other words, the government is fighting evil wood traffickers, working to rescue innocent boards from being enslaved in guitars, where they are sold to satisfy the sick desires of music lovers. Don’t you feel safer now?”
Plato. “When the tyrant comes he always comes first as protector, never anything else.”
And it is always the same. Some segment of the community needs to be “protected” from some other segment of the community by………oppressing the perceived evil segment of the community. Its been fathers and prostitutes of late…..and it will be guitar players and card players next….
I am amazed to see the silence from most people in cases of blatant criminal activity by government agents.
Maggie….just in case you do not know how bad the police state is in the UK…..this is coming to a town near you real soon now…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2057336/Big-brothers-3-million-targets-Massive-surge-intrusive-surveillance-state-snoopers.html
Not only is the ridiculous story about the cash-only businesses a tax-grab, but think of how much more money credit card companies and banks will make now. The owner of a corner greasy spoon near my parents old house was cash only until two years ago because of the cost of maintaining the cc swipe box-thingy and the percentage charged per swipe. They kept their prices low in accordance with the average income in the area as well as the diner’s main patrons (high school kids and their teachers).
I was under the impression that “This bill is legal tender for all debts, public and private” had the force of federal law behind it; specifically, that “I’ll pay in cash” is always an option.* Apparently not?
*Certain exceptions about practicality (eg, paying with hundreds of thousands of pennies) may apply.
“Welcome to the Wonderland of legalization. Prostitution is legal in France, but “procuring, aiding or assisting” prostitutes is illegal, as is “living on the avails”. In other words, it’s OK to be a whore as long as you have no friends, family, employees, assistants, managers or other human contact other than customers.”
This is the same in the UK, where just about everything around selling sex is illegal – except for the act of buying or selling sex, or at least it used to be until the Government passed laws criminalizing men who purchase sex from trafficked or controlled women (ignorance of this being no defence in this law) and including rape charges if the man was aware of women had been trafficked or controlled. The consultation document they produced stated that the only reason they didn’t go for unconditional criminalisation was that the size of the sex industry in the UK it would be “difficult to enforce”.
Given the typically loose definition of what constitutes trafficking or controlling this restriction is almost meaningless.
RE: Presumption of Guilt
Wow… I guess it would be too much to hope that if the police are arranging stings on Grandma’s garage sale, they’ll be too busy to play stupid tricks on prostitutes? >.>
Most prostitutes (especially independents in my experience) are cash-only folks; this may give them more ammunition.
Hi Maggie,
Louisiana isn’t the only place that is cuckoo for cops.
From the Institute for Justice.
Even in this age of Amazon.com and impersonal
warehouse bookstores, many people still appreciate the
intimacy and service of a local and independent used
bookshop. Unfortunately, they are a dying breed, and Los
Angeles is doing everything in its power to make them extinct.
Used bookshops—or “secondhand book dealers,” as
they are referred to in the municipal code—are among the
53 categories of business that require a police permit.
109
In addition to complying with the general police permit
regulations—e.g., submitting to fingerprinting, paying the
applicable permit fee ($263), etc.—they must comply with
occupation-specific regulations that create administrative
nightmares for purveyors of used
paperbacks.
110
For example, every time a used
bookshop purchases or receives
books in exchange, it is required to
“ascertain that the person selling or
. . . exchang[ing]” the books “has a
legal right to do so,” then execute a
consecutively numbered bill of sale for
the purchase or exchange. The bill of
sale must contain, among other things,
the date the books were purchased or
received, the name and address of the
person selling or exchanging them, the
name and address of the bookshop, and
a description of the books “sufficient
in all respect to clearly identify” them.
The bookshop must immediately
“stamp, write, print, or otherwise
permanently affix” to each book the
number of the bill of sale covering it,
and the bills of sale must be kept on file
and open to inspection by any police
officer or representative of the Board of
Police Commissioners.
111
The Police Commission, in turn,
has its own set of rules governing used
bookshops. Amazingly, they require
that bookshops thumbprint every
person from whom they receive a book
and file a daily report with the Police
Department describing all books taken in.
Stamping or ‘otherwise permanently affixing’ a number on a rare, valuable book is going to severely reduce the value.
I was just saying that to my husband as I read that comment aloud to him.
Is it true that the Louisiana law was passed unanimously? I seem to recall reading that somewhere (I assume it was on Reason).
Thank you for finding a happy story to end with.
I’ve read that a lot of this nonsense in re. rare woods in Gibson instruments is because the Gibson company, or its corporate parent (I’m not clear on this) was a big Republican donor and gave nothing to the Democrats in the last election. If true, this is clearly extortion and corruption, and should be severely punished pour decourager les autres.
As the Republicans have the majority in the House and have shown no reluctance to use the filibuster in the Senate, I doubt that any such punitive legislation would make it to the President’s desk. If it did, the Republicans could forget about any future donations from Gibson.
The fundamental issue isn’t prostitution or bizarre anti-environmental logging practices or whatever.
The issue is this: Does the government have the right to be your arbitrary, oppressive master?
I’m of the opinion that the law should be obliged to justify every action it takes all the time; it’s not an obligation for me to own up to anything.
Unfortunately, what we have is the opposite mindset: We have no rights but what we can enforce or get away with. If some customs officer wants to take something, he can, and there’s nothing you can do about it, so suffer.
The entire philosophy of government we endure has been corrupted – what we have is King George’s government all over again.
In fact, I’m sure it’s much worse. There isn’t even the concept of “English Freedom” any more – now, public officials, especially petty officers of the law, act like tyrants and feel like kings.
Despite my comparison last July 4th, our present government is much more like that of the French in 1776 than that of the English. And we all know what happened to that government 13 years later.
The king may have been ousted, but the French had to suffer through the Reign of Terror and an unnecessary world war before becoming somewhat free upon Napoleon’s death.
And from what I’m seeing in our “Occupied” cities, today’s mob is every bit as ignorant of the important facts (mostly economics) as the French were then.
By the way, what do you mean by decriminalization as opposed to legalization?
The terms “decriminalization” and “legalization” are used in almost the opposite way in regard to prostitution as they are to marijuana, for the simple reason that sex in and of itself isn’t criminal. “Decriminalization” means the recognition that prostitution cannot readily be distinguished from other female sexual behavior and is therefore not a proper subject for legislation. “Legalization” is the pretense that women are moral retards who require governmental “guidance” and “protection” over our sex lives. In a legalization regime, prostitution itself is legal but many activities associated with it are not, which often gives police carte blanche to harass prostitutes (as happens often in the U.K, Canada, France and India) by simply accusing them of one of the prohibited activities. That’s why Canada and India are both moving toward full decriminalization.
I’ll go for that when it comes to individual citizens. If I buy a guitar from Gibson or whoever, I have no way of knowing where their rosewood came from. If they tell me it’s legal, that should be good enough for me, and for any cop. I didn’t import the rosewood, so how the hell would I know if they are lying to me about it? If it turns out the rosewood was illegal, I shouldn’t be punished for having been duped by a dishonest company.
Gibson (or any other guitar manufacturer) has a responsibility to know where their rosewood is coming from. It isn’t like they don’t know about this sort of thing. Gibson (or any other guitar manufacturer) isn’t an individual citizen taking a company’s word for it; they are a company.
That said, Gibson and anybody else should be presumed innocent until proven guilty, if guilty they are.
The whole thing with the used books is related to the insane power media companies have, via copyright and the “dread scourge of piracy.” Media companies are insisting on powers far above other businesses, and in some cases against the Constitution. And they are getting those powers, because in our capitalist society everything, even basic rights are for sale.
To a politician in any society, everything (including rights and the politician’s soul) is always for sale. This hasn’t changed since ancient Athens.
It applies to all human activity of any kind. I know that there’s a “deal” when it comes to interacting with any human I ever meet; only the terms of the deal change.
Prostitution is simply honest about it. It doesn’t couch it in vermilion words of silken obscurity.
This is its greatest crime.
Those who would tell the truth would best have a saddled horse.
There is no greater enemy than one whose cherished illusions are threatened.
Apparently this law in LA is not recent – I believe it was put into place back in the 1930’s. I have not been able to track down any rationale for why the law was enacted – mass thefts of paperback books, Communist spies using book ciphers to pass secret information – nothing.
Not that there haven’t been attempts by publishers to repress the sale of used books. I’ll have to see if I still have the article – it was pre-internet and a clipping from a newspaper – where some publishers around mid-century were making the argument that used bookstores were violating copyright by reselling the books.
The CPSIA ( http://overlawyered.com/?s=CPSIA ) has already mostly destroyed the used-book business in the US.
You know, I’ve been to Half-Priced Books several times in the last few years, and most of the books I buy on Amazon.com are used. Even my copy of The Scapegoat Generation: America’s War on Adolescents is a used copy, with highlighter on some of the pages.
I strongly recommend this book, BTW. It is somewhat out of date, though: 1995. I had to keep reminding myself that all the teenagers in that book are now in their thirties.