The 4th Amendment is Toast

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."  

—4th Amendment of the Constitution

The court of supreme jerks ruled that cops can knock down your door "if they smell burning marijuana, knock loudly, announce themselves and hear what they think is the sound of evidence being destroyed." The court made this ruling after cops chased down a drug dealer and broke into the wrong apartment (from the nytimes).

"You have the right to remain silent and suck my balls." -Samuel A. Alito Jr.
(Edited by Double Birds)

A monopoly in anything creates an inferior product at a higher cost, while a free market accomplishes the opposite.  For example, a competitive market in computers and phones has led to better and more affordable gadgets.  A monopoly in law has led to a bloated and inefficient bureaucracy, that seems to exist solely to harass us and violate our rights.  We need to re-establish competition in law-making and enforcement.

Wrenching the law out of the hands of the centralized authority, and giving it back to the states, or to the free market, scares people.  What will then be our standard? Who will then enforce it?

Most of our rights stem from common law: centuries of decentralized law-finding helped to create the freedoms that we now enjoy.  Ironically, when law is monopolized, the rule of law goes the way of the dodo.

A stark flaw in our current set-up occurs when the government acts as the criminal; how is the victim to seek redress?  When a cop breaks into your home and shoots your dad or your sleeping daughter, there is usually no way to obtain justice.

The Bush administration took full advantage of this monopoly.  Bush ignored the constitution (the highest law of the land, which he took an oath to uphold) and started a war which has killed over a hundred thousand innocent civilians.  He got rid of the centuries old right of habeas corpus, locked people up without trial, and tortured them.  Obama has continued these above-the-law criminal acts.

If you fear what would happen to the law were we to decentralize it, do you not fear what is happening to it now?

An adult can no longer own or consume what he wishes.  The state will break into his home, point their guns at him (shoot him if he resists), and throw him in prison; for not taking care of himself like they want him to.  That same state will kill whomever they wish, imprison whomever they wish, steal from whomever they wish, without trial, and without recourse.

Our rights came from decentralized common law.  Centralizing legal authority has gnawed away our rights.  If we want them back, we need to wrest the authority that has been taken from us.

The system we have now is not inevitable.  It is not the best of all possible systems.  And there is no reason why we should not change it.  Decentralized law has worked.  Hypothetical blueprints of decentralized law have been made (see chapter 12).  If we had the freedom, we, the American people, would rise to the occasion, and create the best of all possible legal systems, as our founders did before us.