>Jim,
>
>>SNIP
>>>
>>>(In the USA we have property rights, as long as we pay taxes. You could say, in effect, that we rent from Uncle SAM!)
>>
>>Are you sure that you have property rights there Jerry? I thought I'd read, when that debate resurfaced here a few years back, that 'even the U.S.A. does not have property rights in its constitution'.
>
>We do, but as Jerry pointed out, that has pretty much been superceeded by the government being able to confiscate property at will via non-payment of taxes.

And, through the use of the "RICO" laws. These laws were made to combat rackettering by the Mafia. It allows prosecutors to sieze assest of defendents so such assests cannot be used to defend the accused against such charges. Mobsters were able to buy such powerful, high priced attorneys, that the run of the mill prosecutor wasn't a match for them. You saw something like this take place in the O.J. Simpson trial, where the ex-stripper turned prosecutor couldn't hold her own against O.J's defense team.

Today, RICO is more commanly used about 10,000 times a year against ordinary citizens. The primary use is as a source of revenue for underfunded police departments. Police get a jail-house snitch-drug-dealer to 'turn' on someone, in return for a reduced sentence or freedom. The 'someone' is usually a citizen with an expensive home, car, truck and other possessions of high market value or usability. The police make an early moring raid, arrest the occupants of the home and jail them on charges of distributing drugs. They confescate the property (The RICO law uses the old King George concept of "guilty property" to circumvent the 5th Amendment) and then keep or sell it. One of the provisions of the RICO law is that property confescated under its provisions do NOT have to be returned, even when the property owner proves their innocence later on. That Congress allows such a law to remain on the books, and that police will use it in such an anti-democratic manner is proof of how useless the Bill of Rights has become.

The First Amendment is under equal pressure and has fallen considereable in its power to protect freedom of religion and speech.

JLK