My Independence Day post triggered this odd response from Kip Equire over in the comments section of To the People:

Balko’s piece is pure anti-history. Independence was declared, and the Revolution was fought, over taxes and money — see the Stamp Act and the Intolerable Acts. “Police state” issues were generally not the problem.

Well first, my post didn’t say the Revolution was fought over the police state. It said the founders wouldn’t have tolerated the erosion of civil liberties and creepign police state we face today.

But even if that had been what I wrote, Kip’s dismissal is as dead wrong as it is flippant. But don’t take my word for it. Consult the Declaration of Independence. Among the greivances the signers aired against King George:

He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.

He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.

He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.

He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.

[...]

For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:

For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States…

For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:

For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:

[...]

He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

Let’s see. By my count, you’ve got your “military tribunals,” your “indefinite detentions,” your “black sites,” and your “militarization of police” all neatly tucked into that passage, the whole of which sounds as if it goes quite a bit further than mere “money and taxes,” no?

Moreover, you could make a strong case that one of the three or four British policies most responsible for motivating the American Revolution were the crown’s writs of assistance — think of them as limitless, transferable, never-expiring search warrants. It’s true that the writs were primarily issued to combat tariff-ducking smugglers. But the principle underlying the opposition to such broad warrants is universal. The state shouldn’t have the power to conduct boundless, limitless searches without cause, be it for untaxed tea or illicit marijuana.

The practice so offended the founders that they explicitly forbade them by including the Fourth Amendment in the Bill of Rights. That would be the same amendment that today serves our last — though crippled — defense against the encroaching police state.

Now, I suppose you could argue that despite their objections to general warrants when it comes to the smuggling of mercantiles, Madison, Jefferson, Washington, and the gang would’ve been hunky-dory with issuing such writs to fight the scourge of drugs. But I think you’d have a hard time arguing that the same men who thought the Stamp Act to be tyrannical would have no problem with cops kicking down the doors of civilians in the middle of the night. And given that a good many of the founders grew hemp and smoked cannabis, I have my doubts that they’d have been amenable to a “drug exception” to the Bill of Rights.

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 6th, 2006 at 6:36 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.