Congressman Proposes Bill to Ban Laws with the Purpose of Generating Revenue

Free Thought Project – by Matt Agorist

A Congressman from Missouri has just proposed a bombshell piece of legislation that is detrimental to the growth and expansion of the police state.

Monday, Congressman Emanuel Cleaver, II (MO-05) introduced The Fair Justice Act.

The Fair Justice Act ” would make it a civil rights violation to enforce criminal or traffic laws for the purpose of raising revenue.”

You read that correctly. Petty drug “offenses,” idiotic traffic laws, and other such victimless crimes could be brought to a halt with the passage of this bill.

Announcing the introduction of the Fair Justice Act, Congressman Cleaver stated,

“The time has come to end the practice of using law enforcement as a cash register, a practice that has impacted too many Americans and has disproportionately affected minority and low-income communities. No American should have to face arbitrary police enforcement, the sole purpose of which is to raise revenue for a town, city, or state.”

While many people may not see it as such, this congressman’s bold move, if passed, would eliminate most police work.

As the Free Thought Project reported Monday, the fact that police act primarily as revenue collection agents for the state, has become quite apparent.

Since there is no money in solving murders or preventing rapes, police departments in America have focused their duties on traffic citations and the drug war. Both of these venues are highly profitable for departments.

City and state governments have become so addicted to these revenue streams that we are now seeing full-on military raids on people in fruitless attempts to find drugs and money. Along with the drug raids, we are seeing police officers forced to collect a certain amount of revenue through traffic enforcement, or risk losing their jobs.

Cops are actually being disciplined on a large scale as they blow the whistle on their revenue addicted department heads who force them to write tickets or face consequences.

While this congressman’s bill doesn’t specifically mention the war on drugs, he does state that the bill,

“would make it a civil rights violation, punishable by up to five years in prison, to enforce criminal or traffic laws solely to raise revenue. Thus, no official or agency of a state or a county, city, town or other political subdivision may adopt a policy or engage in any activity that authorizes, promotes, or executes the enforcement of criminal, civil, or traffic laws for the purpose of raising revenue.”

Citing Ferguson as the primary driver behind this bill, Cleaver points out that this Missouri city’s second largest source of income is revenue generated by cops; cops who shake down otherwise completely innocent people for victimless crimes in an attempt to fill their coffers.

This move by a lawmaker is entirely atypical of the state, as decreasing the amount of money government takes in, is counterproductive to those on the receiving end of these funds. However, Cleaver apparently sees the overt reality of the American police state and is taking pro-active measures to stop it.

“It is a common practice of certain law enforcement officials of state and local municipalities to target communities solely for profit,” said Congressman Cleaver. “Americans of all stripes have faced this, but there can be no doubt that minorities and low-income residents have faced the brunt of this. Make no mistake, the Fair Justice Act is needed now more than ever, in order to finally put an end to criminal and traffic law enforcement activities motivated solely by raising revenue,” said Congressman Cleaver.

At the end of last year, the NYPD inadvertently showed the rest of the world that when cops stop shaking people down for victimless crimes, aka generating revenue, the world does not descend into chaos.

In fact, what it did illustrate was that people do not have to be extorted in order to be policed.

Regardless of party affiliation, the notion to stop harassing, kidnapping and locking people in cages for victimless crimes, is a benefit for all.

It is important to point out that such a bill is going to be incredibly difficult to write. It will stir up debate not only over seat belts, speeding, and window tint tickets, but also over the drug war, prostitution and other more controversial victimless crimes designed to prey on the less fortunate.

This bill is hopeful, not because it creates new laws, but because it gets rid of old ones. For too long, Americans have sat back in complacency and spouted out ridiculous idioms such as, “there oughta be a law against that,” without giving any thought to the lives these laws ruin.

Well, finally, we are moving in the right direction. For once, someone is saying, “you know what, there shouldn’t be a law against that, and I’m going to do something about it.”