If the answer is, “No,” why not?  Don’t human traffickers and international drug cartels depend upon a supply of paper currency that they can move back and forth across borders and launder through unrelated businesses for future use?  If there were no money except for the digital ones and zeroes created and monitored by national governments, surely major criminal organizations would have no way to operate and nowhere to hide.

How could prostitution and corner drug sales survive within a system that traces all digital transactions in real time?  How could black market trades in illicit commerce or between sanctioned nations continue if Western central banks actively surveil each digital dollar that changes hands?  Surely the imposition of government-mandated digital currencies would usher in a more peaceful planet that is relatively free of crime…right?

If you’re still not convinced, let me suggest what might be tripping you up: your instincts tell you that criminals will find a way to skirt any future digital surveillance.  Somehow, human ingenuity will succeed in creating effective workarounds to government-imposed central bank digital currencies.  The sale of illegal narcotics, weapons, and other banned materials will continue around the world because, at the end of the day, humans adapt and overcome whatever obstacles stand in their way.  Crime will continue to exist because criminals will continue to exist, and criminals will continue to exist because in every generation some faction of the human race behaves immorally, disregards social mores, or flat out refuses to obey.

If this is your conclusion — and I think it is the correct one — then don’t ordinary, non-criminal citizens also have a choice about what the future holds?  If you believe that criminals are wily enough to fashion workarounds to totalitarian government, then shouldn’t you expect defenders of liberty to be similarly inventive?  If so, then perhaps our worries about the future do not revolve around the idea that ordinary citizens will have no way to evade and overcome government tyranny but rather that the path to doing so might make many of us “criminals,” too.

An immoral law is no law at all — which is to say, whenever governments use the force of law to coerce citizens to do immoral things, moral citizens will choose to become “criminals.”  This is more difficult than it sounds.

It is natural for people to overestimate their willingness to stand up to the State in matters of conscience.  From the comfort of our armchairs, we often judge too harshly those who yielded to tyrants in the past because we cannot step faithfully into our ancestors’ shoes.  We cannot accurately feel what they experienced as the coercive machinery of the State operated in their day.  Would we have hidden Jews in our cellars while the Nazis were rounding them up to be murdered in camps?  Would we have taken a strong stance against Japanese internment during WWII?  Would we have opposed racial segregation laws in Brazil and the United States, caste oppression in India, or ethnic cleansing in Africa, the Balkans, and the Middle East?  Many people would proudly say, “Yes.”  Most would be sorely mistaken.  Standing up to evil when it is backed by the authority of government offices and enforced by real human beings with guns and badges is no easy thing.  Moral people too often balance an abundance of conviction with a scarcity of courage.

The question of moral courage becomes even more difficult when we ask ourselves what we would do in situations that don’t rise to the level of evil we associate with persecution and genocide.  In 1933 President Roosevelt ordered Americans to hand over their gold savings.  Although justified as a policy for fighting the worsening depression, critics warned that the action was nothing short of government-sanctioned robbery and would only increase inflation and exacerbate economic suffering.  The critics were right, and a substantial number of Americans denounced the president’s order as entirely immoral.  Still, most complied.

What would we do if the government came for our greenbacks, gold, silver, or bitcoin today?  If the Federal Reserve and the Department of Treasury joined other Western central banks in making all digital currencies illegal except their own, would you comply?  What if the FBI claimed that uncontrolled, decentralized currencies are used only by criminals who are most likely narco-terrorists and child sex-slavers?  Would federal officials’ concerted efforts to use your morality and sense of shame as psychological weapons ultimately succeed?  If the U.S. government used those same moral arguments to trash the Second Amendment and confiscate Americans’ firearms, would you hand over your weapons?  What if all your favorite athletes, movie stars, and musicians told you 24/7 that we must disarm ourselves in order to “save the children”?  Would you allow others to shame you into compliance?

Many Americans might do their best Charlton Heston impression here and declare, “From my cold, dead hands.”  But how many of those same Americans quickly submitted to the government because of a virus not too dissimilar from the common cold?  How many wore masks in Walmart in order to avoid accusatory stares from strangers?  How many sat in cordoned-off stadium seats at empty ballparks or paid full tuition for college classes taught entirely online?  How many did what they were told when faceless bureaucrats demanded that they stand six feet apart or isolate inside their homes?  How many ultimately took at least one injection of an experimental “vaccine” because employers threatened their jobs, hospitals threatened not to treat their unrelated health conditions, or police officers threatened them with arrests and fines?  As Hannah Arendt so insightfully observed, crimes against humanity usually come not from the hands of monsters but from those of ordinary people.  Because they are ordinary, we too often disregard our worries, avoid conflict, and comply.

Every act of compliance comes with two costs: we lose whatever liberty we freely hand over, and we invite further encroachment upon our liberty in the future.  Loss of personal freedom is like a loose thread that gets only longer with time.  Before you can repair the damage, you must make sure that your rights and liberties stop unraveling.  There has to be a moment when people say, “Enough.”

In other words, there has to be a moment when citizens accept that the State sees them as common criminals.  The price for speaking our minds will not stop with censorship.  It will not stop with de-banking.  It will not stop with professional blacklisting.  It will not stop with the J6 political prisoners.  It will not stop with all the Republican attorneys who have been disbarred and prosecuted for fighting election fraud.  It will not stop with the DOJ’s efforts to imprison President Trump.  It will not stop with all the servicemembers whose military careers came to an end because they refused to submit to the government’s experimental “vaccines.”  Like a loose thread coming undone, the State will continue to yank at our freedoms until we are left naked.  Only we can decide whether to remain so.

Because we have a choice, we don’t really fear that there is nothing that can be done about growing totalitarianism in the West.  We are apprehensive about what will be required to thwart it.  That’s a fine and prudent feeling to have, but it’s altogether different from the miserable dread of acquiescence.  Knowing that a fight is coming and worrying about its costs do not reflect weakness.  Nor does it matter whether an immoral government calls moral people, “criminals.”  We’ll have to get over that.

Manhattan prosecutors reportedly agreed to set them loose back on the streets without bail after both were arrested on Sunday for fighting with traffic cops on Eighth Avenue.

Police confronted suspects outside the Row NYC Hotel at 700 Eighth Ave. after allegedly spotting one of them recklessly riding a moped without ID.

One migrant allegedly bit an officer while another “hurled a moped” at another officer, the report says.

The Post report says that when they were brought into court on Monday morning, prosecutors let them walk without bail.

The DA’s office said it “would be consenting to the defendant’s release on his own recognizance.”

One NYPD cop furiously told The Post: “What kind of message is this sending to the public? They are basically saying anyone in a blue uniform is a human piñata.”

Another officer called it “open war” on police, stating: “Today they bite and kick a cop and tomorrow they take a shot at cops. If there are no consequences they are only encouraging people to attack cops.”

A spokesman for the state Office of Court Administration said: “We don’t comment on bail decisions except to say that in cases like these in New York, Judges have discretion in making bail decisions in accordance with the law and based solely on an individualized assessment of a defendant’s risk of flight.”

Police Benevolent Association President Patrick Hendry responded: “We’ve seen dozens of significant assaults on police officers in Manhattan this year, and there’s a clear pattern in those cases — prosecutors and judges are only doing their job when they’re in the spotlight. We will keep turning out in court to show the entire justice system that their actions are getting cops hurt and putting all New Yorkers at risk.”

The ACLU filed a lawsuit against the Indiana Department of Corrections (IDOC) on behalf of Jonathan C. Richardson, claiming that the state violated the 14th and Eighth Amendments by denying “medical procedures” to inmates based on gender identity, AP reported. Richardson is currently serving 55 years in prison for murdering his 11-month-old step-daughter in 2001, according to court records.

“Indiana Code § 11-10-3-3.5(a), denies medically necessary surgical care, including vaginoplasties and orchiectomies, to transgender prisoners because of their status as transgender persons,” ACLU said in the lawsuit. “This unwarranted and intentional discrimination against Plaintiff and other transgender prisoners, because of their transgender status, violates equal protection.”

The lawsuit claimed that sex reassignment surgery is “lifesaving” for those who experience gender dysphoria, according to the AP. The ACLU asserted that individuals with gender dysphoria who do not receive surgery will succumb to anxiety and depression, and may eventually commit suicide because of their emotional distress.

Indiana prosecutors charged Richardson with the murder of his 11-month-old stepdaughter in October 2002, after police discovered evidence that he had strangled her to death when he was left to watch her alone in September 2001, according to court documents. He initially claimed that he had found the girl dead in her crib, but later told an officer that, “well all I know is I killed the little f***ing b***h.”

Richardson has been in a men’s incarceration prison since 2002 and is set to have a clemency hearing with the Indiana Paroles Department in Septembe, according to court documents. He currently goes by the name “Autumn Cordellioné,” and began receiving medicine for hormone replacement in 2020 when he first claimed to be experiencing gender dysphoria, the IndyStar reported.

Richardson applied for sex-change documents in August 2022, but the court denied his request after he failed to appear for a hearing regarding the case, according to court records. He allegedly attempted suicide, engages in self-harm and experiences severe emotional distress because he cannot transition, the lawsuit claimed.

Indiana law prohibits the state from funding surgeries, but does not prevent inmates from receiving hormone-replacement medicine.

The IDOC declined to comment further on the matter. The ACLU did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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That was a long time ago. Today, we have social media and an occasional member of law enforcement who doesn’t mind having a little fun at criminals’ expense.

Case-in-point: This “love letter” published on the official Wheat Ridge Police Department’s Facebook page:

MISSED CONNECTIONS: It was May 28th and the three of you walked into the local Ulta looking like the Wheat Ridge Kardashians. What do you need cosmetics for– your makeup game is clearly already on point.

You took your time browsing, picking your products carefully and loading them into bags. Your grand total came to $1,443– you girls have expensive taste! Which would have been absolutely fine, had you not forgotten to swing by the register on your way out.

You hopped into a silver BMW SUV with your inadvertent freebies. We wish we had been there at the same time and could have connected in the moment, but we are confident you’ll be back as the Ulta employees say you are regulars.

If you see this and are interested in a little meet-up at the police department where we can take some pics and take our relationship to the next level with a finger-painting(printing) date, please email Detective Smith at [email protected]. But we have a feeling that more than likely it will be someone who knows you who decides to reach out.

Looking forward to a face-to-face soon in our booking area

XOXO,
WRPD

The Denver suburban police department wasn’t shy about posting images of the women and have been rewarded with the post going viral; as of the time of this article it had over 21K likes and 31K shares.

But they weren’t done with the fun by just dropping the post and letting it sit there. They engaged with the community and some of the replies were awesome.

Faye Loera commented, “Will you be sharing pics from your first date!? So excited for you guys! I Can’t wait!”

WRDP replied, “Faye Loera, not trying to be kinky or presumptuous here but we are confident the first date may involve handcuffs.”

It seems safe to assume if the girls are from the area — and Ulta noted they were regulars — then this case should be wrapped up pretty quickly.

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