Posted on 01/10/2011 10:26:43 PM PST by dagogo redux
The news and discussions flowing out of the AZ killings has raised a question for me, one I hope some of you can help me answer.
I saw repeated references to a special set of laws pertaining to the murder or the attempted murder of Federal Officials and Federal Employees. I am wondering how this status as a "protected" class got started, and how deeply it has spread.
Is a drive-by shooting a different sort of crime, with different legal proceedings and different sentencing guidelines, if an "innocent bystander" victim happens to be an off-duty mail clerk working for the Forestry Service, compared to, say, an off-duty stock boy working for Albertsons?
Do Federal "public servants" get security guards paid for with tax-payer money, as opposed to other non-government "public servants" - say, those in the very dangerous mental health field - who must pay for their own security?
Is this another example of a two class system of citizens, where the murder of those in the privileged class counts for more than those in the other class? Is this a violation of the Equal Protection Clause?
I hope some of you in the know can answer this for me.
I can’t remember the name of the Old Greek nor qoute him corectly but the jist of what he said is .................................... “Your laws are like fine spider webs, they will catch the small fry and do them unto death but the large and powerful will pass through them as if they do not exist.” .......... It’s several thousand years later and things haven’t changed.
I believe that these laws date from after the Civil War when the Klan and other unreconciled Southerners carried out numerous attacks on federal officials and employees.
It’s important to note that these charges simply reflect the jurisdictional difference between federal employees and others. He will later be charged by the state for murder and attempted murder, it’s just going to be split that way to ensure conviction in one of the venues. They could have charged him federally for all the crimes, but splitting it up gives them virtual certainty of conviction on a murder charge.
Some people have more equal protection under the law then others. You wouldn’t understand. It’s a vocabulary thing. You must be under the impression that some unknowable document written 200 years ago applies. This is why you are not a member of the bar, or a lawyer.
/sarcasm
In the 80s and 90s there was a push to apply the death penalty to as many crimes as possible. The federal government has no jurisdiction over the murder of ordinary folks so they applied the death penalty to murders where they had jurisdiction.
So while there are indeed two different sets of laws it is not the result of a conspiracy, just the result of the lobbying of death penalty advocates.
The underlying "compelling state interest," long ago ruled by the federal judiciary as equivalent to "clear and present danger," is given the same weight as murder of law enforcement personnel.
Unless someone successfully challenges something as exceeding the equal protection clause, to cite one hypothetical situation, the courts don't strike down such protections.
I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, so it may be someone with standing did challenge such protections after all, perhaps long ago and on more than one occasion, and the courts acquiesced.
They aren’t subject to the health insurance laws they’ve pressed upon the taxpayer, they are exempted from TSA sexual assault, when caught committing crimes they get a slap on the wrist...
IMO, anyone who questions whether or not the political class live under a different set of rules than the rest of us hasn’t been paying attention lately. I think laws that make it somehow more of a crime to kill a cop than a taxi driver are obscene.
“The federal government has no jurisdiction over the murder of ordinary folks...”
No there is actually. It’s 18 USC Section 1111.
The state charges will come years from now. In the meanwhile, the prosecution will be PR gold for the Justice Department and an opportunity for preening by Holder, Obama, and their media allies.
Yes, that still applies only in particular circumstances like on a military base, in a post office, a national park or a crime that crosses state borders.
Americans are all represented by their government and have a vested interest in protecting its employees from anti-government violence. There are crazy people who believe that by attacking the employee they are exercising their political rights. Hence such laws.
Most of your response is not applicable to this issue and seems to be more taking an opportunity to misunderstand and rhetoricize than clarify.
Perhaps I’m still missing something here: There is clearly a division under the law between Federal officials & employees on the one hand, and the common citizens on the other.
The former are referred to as “Public Servants,” a moniker that is far beyond euphemism these days. This country was founded, if it’s not too strident in tone to say so, with We The People as the ultimate head of the government, “government of the people, by the people, for the people,” and all that silly, quaint old jazz.
If We The People are those for whom this government exists, and if the Federal officials and employees are our “servants,” how has it come to pass that the murder of the servant is more grievous than that of the master?
Your screen name is certainly appropriate given your tone. Must be great to be you.
Yes you are missing something. There are lunatics who believe that fighting the government is equivalent to attacking some random employee. So these laws are intended to curb that urge. These attacks are not directed at any particular person but the government as symbolized by said person.
Mixing political soundbites or euphemism with the original philosophy at the Founding won’t take you very far in supplying the missing either.
And yes my life has been blessed in many respects and for that I am thankful.
Your argument is silly, and does nothing to establish a special case for Federal employees. There are all sorts of lunatics.
For instance, by analogy (though I would have reversed the order of the sentence to make the argument more coherent): There may be lunatics who believe that fighting the Capitalists is equivalent to attacking some random employee, therefore the need to enact a whole separate set of laws “intended to curb that urge.”
Or: There may be lunatics who believe that fighting the Church is equivalent to attacking some random parishioner, hence the need for a whole separate set of laws “intended to curb that urge.”
Or: There may also be lunatics who believe that fighting the Steelers is equivalent to attaching some random fan, hence the need for laws “intended to curb that urge.”
Please curb yourself if you can't present better “soundbites and euphemisms.”
I expect better at FR. Sheesh.
The Federalist Papers comes as close as it gets as to the philosophy of the Founders. It has none of the rhetorical devices you quoted or political slogans.
Capitalism does not represent the American People as the federal government does so your analogy is, once again, vacuous. Neither does a Church. The government is a unique institution and engenders unique hatreds and obsessions.
Your expectations appear to be satisfied by random ravings.
The Federalist Papers was not a unified “philosophy” from the Founders, but represented disparate views, and those disparate views were then strongly opposed by the Anti-Federalists in their own papers. Do you not know this, or are you simply leaving it out?
But even if I accept your lame counter about what the Holy Federalist Papers have none of, tell me what specific citation they DO have that postulates a separate status and set of laws protecting Federal employees. Quote the Founding Fathers’ original declaration supporting the view that, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.” I’d like chapter and verse from the Federalist papers, and then I’d like to know if this was universally held amongst the other Founders, and some writings from all the major players backing that up.
Actually two thirds of the Federalist were written by Hamilton with the vast majority of the rest by Madison. Jay only wrote a few. And it does represent the unified philosophy of the Founders and is the definitive exposition of the meaning of the Constitution. Madison, at that time, was even more Hamiltonian than Hamilton and Jay was always a close ally to Hamilton.
There was no need to reference the Antis since they were the LOSERS and it was because of their lies and misrepresentations as to what the Constitution meant that the Federalist had to be written in the first place.
You seem to mistake a political philosophy with law making. There is nothing within the Constitution which prohibits the federal government from passing the laws you object to nor in the Federalist. Certainly the authority to pass laws regarding federal property and/or employees is there.
As far the quote from Animal Farm which you misuse probably because you don’t understand that the Constitution actually was passed only because the Slavers demanded that it treat “some animals as more equal than others”. Had it treated their slaves as equal Slavers would have defeated it. That is where most of the Antis came from anyway. The others were generally crooks like George Clinton whose power within the state governments was to be reduced by a central government. There isn’t one paper in the bunch worth wasting your time with.
Your arrogance grows more tiresome the more you disclose the biases behind it. It perfectly mimics the arrogance of the bloated, increasingly tyrannical Federal government you admire so, having grown from the flaws in Hamilton’s and Madison’s vision. We have nothing more to say together.
Wow, you are an absolute idiot. Must be a Fed.
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