Defining Tyranny

Suppose you are walking down the street in some big city and get rapped on the head by a mugger who takes your watch, cell phone, and wallet.  A law has been broken, and a crime has been committed. 

You are a law-abiding citizen.  You don't shoot or stab people.  You don't rob liquor stores.  You don't even take illegal drugs.  A law-breaker doesn't really break the law.  He just don't abide by it.  When it comes to what he wants to do or what he (or she) needs, the law is ignored. 

I was not always as law-abiding as I am today.  Forty years ago, roughly, well over the statute of limitations, I used to smoke marijuana.  I liked it.  Back then you could buy an ounce bag for fifteen or twenty bucks.  Of course, to do that, you had to know someone who sold it and have a reasonable amount of trust in them.  As it happened, I made the acquaintance of an ol' boy who had gotten some good South American seeds and was growing quite potent reefer in large quantities.  He liked being circumspect and was careful about who he sold to.   He would sell me a pound for, I think (I was stoned a lot), $120.  I would divide out eight one-ounce bags and sell them to people I knew and trusted for $15 each.  I would have half a pound of dope to smoke -- free.  I was stoned a lot.  I did this a number of times -- the number escapes me.   

The trouble is that sometimes my "friends" would bring by their "friends" looking to score some dope.   One weekend I came back to the cheap little apartment I kept in town to find it had been broken into, my stereo equipment stolen along with around eighty albums.  And my stash of reefer.   No one except someone who had smoked with me would have known to look for the dope.  They didn't tear up the place to find it.  They had a good idea where to look -- went right to it.

I reported the theft to the local police -- except for the part about the dope.  They came, took the report, shrugged and left. 

I was a law-breaker.  I ignored the law that I did not think ought to apply to me.  I would not have stolen from anyone or done harm to anyone.  I just wanted to smoke cheap dope.  One of my "friends" or friends' "friends" had decided that the law didn't apply to them and had broken in and taken stuff that I had paid for.

That's what crime is. 

The government -- our current government, says that certain laws apply to us but not to them.  If I point a gun at somebody, I will be charged with assault unless I am defending my life or property against aggression.  Cops point guns at people all the time and suffer no consequences.  Some of that is understandable -- if a person is a suspect in a crime, for example, or if someone reasonably appears to be a threat. 

The cops in Ferguson pointed guns at protesters and threatened them.  We're not talking about rioters, looters, and arsonists but lawful protesters.  That is assault, and those officers should be charged with the crime.  They won't be.  They won't even be disciplined because they are agents of the government and can ignore the laws.

When police search without warrants and seize the property of allegedly criminals without due process, they are ignoring the law.

When Obama starts bombing people without Congressional approval, he is ignoring the law.  When he threatens to enable and encourage illegal border crossing by executive order, he is saying he is above the law.

Nobody is above the law.  The definition of tyranny is having one set of laws for the subjects and another set of laws for the ruling class.  We have that in America today.  Congress exempts themselves from many of the laws they pass.  The regime has issued exemptions from the Obamacare requirements, delayed implementation of certain aspects, and changed the rules, all in violation of a law Congress passed and the president signed.  The law does not apply to them.  They don't have to enforce any law, and they can ignore a law if they so choose.

That's tyranny.  If a private citizen were doing it, it would be called a crime.