[Prev| Next| Index] 2/21/96, vanhorn@excite.com, Sunnyvale, CA USA

Who Are the Real Criminals?

     By Kevin S. Van Horn, vanhorn@excite.com.

     In the early days of 1996, there gathered together 509 crime
     lords -- officers of the greatest criminal organization in the
     Western Hemisphere -- who conspired to organize a campaign of
     violence and intimidation against the residents of the
     territories they controlled. A week later the plan was approved
     by the head crime boss.

     The 509 crime lords are commonly known as Senators and
     Congressmen; the head crime boss goes by the title of President;
     and their plan is sometimes known as the Communications
     Disempowerment Act. Like Mafia chieftains, they do not take upon
     themselves the risk of personally carrying out their criminal
     plot; yet by planning, organizing, and ordering the foul deed,
     they are every bit as guilty as their underworld counterparts.

     To some it may seem extreme to call those who passed the CDA
     criminals, but if one applies to Congress and the President the
     same standards by which ordinary mortals are judged, there is no
     other word for them. For how is this mandate to be enforced?
     Those who refuse to buckle under -- though they be the most
     peaceful and honest of persons, guilty only of writing a few
     words -- will be fined (robbed of) a quarter of a million
     dollars, and imprisoned (kidnapped) for two years; and if they
     are young, male, and slightly built, they can expect to be
     repeatedly raped during their imprisonment. If they should refuse
     to submit to punishment, the threat of lethal force -- a gun in
     the face -- will be used to make them submit. And if they attempt
     to defend themselves against this violence, they can expect to be
     gunned down mercilessly.

     Thus the CDA amounts to a campaign of violence and intimidation
     waged against even honest and peaceful people. If this is not
     criminal behavior, what is? And if those who ordered this
     campaign of violence cannot properly be called dangerous and
     violent criminals, who can?