Georgia retiree raided after growing suspicious okra plants
“Then they come to my house strapped with weapons for no reason. It ain’t right.”
CARTERSVILLE, GA — A retired man was awoken to his property being invaded by a swarm of police officers — accompanied by drug-sniffing dogs and a police helicopter — interested in the plants in his garden.
The early-morning raid occurred on October 1st, 2014, at the home of Dwane Perry. The first thing he remembers hearing was the whirring of the copter blades and strange men banging on his door.
“I was scared actually, at first, because I didn’t know what was happening,” said Mr. Perry to WSB-TV.
Agents from the Governor’s Task Force for drug suppression had apparently been trolling the skies over the area and observed plants on his property that they deemed suspicious. Based on that intel, a team of Broward County deputies trespassed on Mr. Perry’s land to harass and potentially arrest the retiree because of the contents of his garden.
After confronting Mr. Perry, deputies sheepishly realized that the tree-growing plant was actually okra — not cannabis. It has five leaves instead of seven, and produces a vegetable that is popular in southern cooking.
“Here I am, at home and retired and, you know, I do the right thing,” Mr. Perry explained. “Then they come to my house strapped with weapons for no reason. It ain’t right.”
“The more I thought about it, what could have happened?” Mr. Perry wondered, sensing the danger of having armed cops violating his privacy and property. “Anything could have happened.”
See Mr. Perry’s reaction to the raid via WSB-TV:
Whims/Whim-Worship
A “whim” is a desire experienced by a person who does not know and does not care to discover its cause.
Automatic omniscience is what a whim-worshiper ascribes to his emotions.
What does it mean, to act on whim? It means that a man acts like a zombie, without any knowledge of what he deals with, what he wants to accomplish, or what motivates him. It means that a man acts in a state of temporary insanity. In the long run, the outcome of such a situation is blood. To act against the facts of reality can result only in destruction.
What is the nature of that superior world to which they sacrifice the world that exists? The mystics of spirit curse matter, the mystics of muscle curse profit. The first wish men to profit by renouncing the earth, the second wish men to inherit the earth by renouncing all profit.
Their non-material, non-profit worlds are realms where rivers run with milk and coffee, where wine spurts from rocks at their command, where pastry drops on them from clouds at the price of opening their mouth.
On this material, profit-chasing earth, an enormous investment of virtue—of intelligence, integrity, energy, skill—is required to construct a railroad to carry them the distance of one mile; in their non-material, nonprofit world, they travel from planet to planet at the cost of a wish.
If an honest person asks them: “How?”—they answer with righteous scorn that a “how” is the concept of vulgar realists; the concept of superior spirits is “Somehow.” On this earth restricted by matter and profit, rewards are achieved by thought; in a world set free of such restrictions, rewards are achieved by wishing.
And that is the whole of their shabby secret. The secret of all their esoteric philosophies, of all their dialectics and super-senses, of their evasive eyes and snarling words, the secret for which they destroy civilization, language, industries and lives, the secret for which they pierce their own eyes and eardrums, grind out their senses, blank out their minds, the purpose for which they dissolve the absolutes of reason, logic, matter, existence, reality—is to erect upon that plastic fog a single holy absolute: their Wish.
Mystics of Spirit and of Muscle
As products of the split between man’s soul and body, there are two kinds of teachers of the Morality of Death: the mystics of spirit and the mystics of muscle, whom you call the spiritualists and the materialists, those who believe in consciousness without existence and those who believe in existence without consciousness.
Both demand the surrender of your mind, one to their revelations, the other to their reflexes. No matter how loudly they posture in the roles of irreconcilable antagonists, their moral codes are alike, and so are their aims: in matter—the enslavement of man’s body, in spirit—the destruction of his mind.
The good, say the mystics of spirit, is God, a being whose only definition is that he is beyond man’s power to conceive—a definition that invalidates man’s consciousness and nullifies his concepts of existence.
The good, say the mystics of muscle, is Society—a thing which they define as an organism that possesses no physical form, a super-being embodied in no one in particular and everyone in general except yourself. Man’s mind, say the mystics of spirit, must be subordinated to the will of God. Man’s mind, say the mystics of muscle, must be subordinated to the will of Society.
Man’s standard of value, say the mystics of spirit, is the pleasure of God, whose standards are beyond man’s power of comprehension and must be accepted on faith. Man’s standard of value, say the mystics of muscle, is the pleasure of Society, whose standards are beyond man’s right of judgment and must be obeyed as a primary absolute. The purpose of man’s life, say both, is to become an abject zombie who serves a purpose he does not know, for reasons he is not to question. His reward, say the mystics of spirit, will be given to him beyond the grave. His reward, say the mystics of muscle, will be given on earth—to his great-grandchildren.
Selfishness—say both—is man’s evil. Man’s good—say both—is to give up his personal desires, to deny himself, renounce himself, surrender; man’s good is to negate the life he lives. Sacrifice—cry both—is the essence of morality, the highest virtue within man’s reach.
The mystics of spirit declare that they possess an extra sense you lack: this special sixth sense consists of contradicting the whole of the knowledge of your five. The mystics of muscle do not bother to assert any claim to extrasensory perception: they merely declare that your senses are not valid, and that their wisdom consists of perceiving your blindness by some manner of unspecified means.
Both kinds demand that you invalidate your own consciousness and surrender yourself into their power. They offer you, as proof of their superior knowledge, the fact that they assert the opposite of everything you know, and as proof of their superior ability to deal with existence, the fact that they lead you to misery, self-sacrifice, starvation, destruction.
They claim that they perceive a mode of being superior to your existence on this earth. The mystics of spirit call it “another dimension,” which consists of denying dimensions. The mystics of muscle call it “the future,” which consists of denying the present.
For centuries, the mystics of spirit have proclaimed that faith is superior to reason, but have not dared deny the existence of reason. Their heirs and product, the mystics of muscle, have completed their job and achieved their dream: they proclaim that everything is faith, and call it a revolt against believing. As revolt against unproved assertions, they proclaim that nothing can be proved; as revolt against supernatural knowledge, they proclaim that no knowledge is possible; as revolt against the enemies of science, they proclaim that science is superstition; as revolt against the enslavement of the mind, they proclaim that there is no mind.
This is what being an american is, not pants pissing cry baby social welfare faggotry of governments and corporations.
Oil!, by Upton Sinclair, at The Ralph Nader Library
Fortunate that Mr. Perry lived to tell the tale. Perhaps these thugs should learn to identify vegetables and fruits in addition to their other responsibilities.
At some point without permits, licenses, and a users agreement with a corporate agra-giant having a garden will be illegal.
In principle, this is already the case. Literally.
The courts have “ruled” that a farmer whose crops contain any “patented” plants – even if these plants resulted from seeds that drifted onto his property, as via being blown by the wind from a passing truck, etc. – owes Monsanto (or whomever) money because the plants are not “his.” Or that he did not pay royalties for the privilege of growing them.
I parted ways years ago with conservatives Republicans over (among other things) their incessant gawd talk.
I may be the only Libertarian writer who views corporations in the same light as government.
I would think that the corp (or whomever) should be responsible for damages to the farmer for changing the genetic make up of crops without consent or at the least do nothing. (Since plants are pollinated by insects and/or he wind)
By that ruling, M (or whomever) could go around the countryside spreading pollen from GM plants and spread their plants across the country. Once the plants take over he can go and “claim damages”.
Monsanto claims all their spices are sterile, so the pollen can’t fertilize other plants. This is so that farmers aren’t able to store seed for the next year’s crop. This flies in the face of 10,000 years of agriculture, since figuring out how to store seed for next year is one of the fundamental differences between hunter-gatherers and farmers.
Remember not every corporation is saintly, Eric. The socialization of the US agriculture industry is every bit as terrible as the direct payouts from the Pentagon. Monsanto is every bit a fascist origination as Northrop Grumman.
The self-regulating market depends on informed consumers. This implies corporations remain small and stay out of other industries (like GE owning NBC Universal, controlling the news). I’ve never heard a good Libertarian argument as to why this won’t happen in a Lib. society. The usual answer is “competition,” and ultimately I agree competition will win out, but an incumbent can easily suppress tech for a very long time if they control the market. The competition had better be ready to have a long burn rate before they can get enough share to survive.
Eric, I believe the main reason why control by large corporations would not happen in a truly free market is that they could not erect artificial barriers to market entry. Ludwig von Mises has a lengthy explanation in Human Action, IIRC. He maintains that a coercive monopoly cannot exist in under conditions of true competition. If a corporation gains a dominant market share, it can keep that share only by providing customers products they want at a price they are willing to pay. As soon as they compromise on quality or increase prices beyond a certain level, they automatically lower the natural business barrier to potential competitors; i.e., they make new investment by other companies more likely to be profitable. The only way a monopoly can screw its customers and remain in business over the long term is through coercion….through government privilege enforced from the barrel of many guns.
Seems to me he should consider an improved change in his outlook to: “I view fascist corporations in the same light as government.”?
Or, “I view corporations operating under an oligarchy and using a relationship with government in the same light as government.”?
Something along those lines.
What’s a corporation, but a group of people, working together? That – in itself – is not a bad thing.
Agreed. Oddly enough, I was responding to Eric_G, but your comment makes me realize that the analysis applies equally to Eric P’s position on corporations. My belief: Take away government, and corporations have influence only to the extent that their products/services and prices persuade people to do business with them.
Hi Helot,
People working together is – of course – not the problem.
The problem – as I see it – is this idea that a corporation has rights; that it is a “person” (under the law). Which is preposterous as well as pernicious.
The way it is constructed, a corporation is a dodge. A way for individuals to avoid personal responsibility for their actions as individuals.
It is also immensely dangerous in that it is set up specifically and principally for the purpose of making money. Not things (goods and services). But money.
By whatever means, however shady (and shoddy).
A corporation is an inherently sociopathic construct, in my view. It is a Frankenstein’s monster that exists to pursue profit, period.
RE: “It is also immensely dangerous in that it is set up specifically and principally for the purpose of making money. Not things (goods and services). But money.”
But wait. Isn’t that the reasoning for just about every business endeavor? I mean, why make things if you have no chance of making money?
Especially if there’s really no such thing as altruism.
Anyway, from your reply it seems that you do not have a problem with corporations per se, rather, just the way they are treated in an oligarchy, under fascist rule, and via the treatment goobernmint now gives it.
Can there currently be an ethically acceptable corporation? One which does not utilize the strong arm of the law to get ahead and such? I think, maybe. But, I cannot think of one at the moment.
I would posit that no one means a company shouldn’t be able to profit.
We are more concerned with HOW the corporation profits.
Example:
Safe making corporation.
In order to boost profits, they start off with a proper steel shell, case-hardened, and make a special locking mechanism, booby traps, etc, etc, etc.
That’s the show verion, the Demo.
The final product is made of an alloy of aluminum and steel (Premise: Aluminum is cheaper than steel), the intricate countermeasures are omitted (reduces manufacture costs), and the lock is not an intricate tumbler design, but a series of baffles that lock together with the right combination – think of comparing a skeleton key warded lock to a modern round pin & tumbler, I believe it’s called – see them on vending machines. They deliver the warded lock quality, but charge the roatary pin price…
The problem is selling shoddy goods and services to maximize profit, using immoral and (what should be) illegal methods – and then charging people with crimes should those people complain about the shoddy workmanship and sub-standard materials and operations.
Another example: Should you pay a worker a full day’s wages, if you sent him to the field in late afternoon? (This one’s a biblical reference, bear with me.)
The farmer sent men to the fields at morning, day laborers on contract.
Again later in the day; again in mid afternoon.
The laborers of the morning were upset to see the later arrivals paid the same as they were, to which the response was: WHY? You got the wages agreed upon. The others got what they were promised. Why is there a conflict?
Greed, really….
The idea that you did half the work, but deserve the same pay, is erroneous. But if the contract says you get paid “X”? You agreed to the contract? You get paid “X”?
There is no conflict, except what’s in YOUR heart.
There’s an echo of the GMO seeds here, too. The claim that the farmer owes Monsanto (whomever) for the contamination of his crop by their GMO seeds…. And they can check whenever they want, no search warrant needed, and under cover of law?
So, you send agents to farms who won’t “get with the program” and plant some GMO seeds there….
a month or two later, you send search agents, find the GMO contamination, and sue the farmer out of existence for “stealing” your GMO plants.
Same sort of thing, theft of value without consequences.
Need to correct the cause/effect relationship.
If there’s only ONE source of entertainment, or food, or water, or cars… And all things MUST come the bounteous spigot of Uncle Sam (let the visual roll in your mind…)
Wait – that’s what we’ve got, and we have NO RECOURSE – we’re not even ALLOWED to live off the grid. It’s been decided in court that you MUST have city water, city electric; you CANNOT catch water for your own use, on your own land; you CANNOT use your land as you see fit – building where you want; to what standards suit you, instead of a bureacrat a million miles away who doesn’t care that it’ll cost you $50K to make it the way HE thnks it should bo, to ensure no wallabees get trapped in your walls – in Alberta, Canada! instead of the $10K you can afford which will keep out racoons… Which are abundant, but the code makes no mention of RACOONS… Only Wallabees.
THAT is the sticking point. You are told to bend over and fellate Uncle Sam to get your “daily bread” … while some sicko lubes up to “Handle” your other end, regardless of costs TO YOU, or reasonableness of the laws – and there’s no alternative, because the Gov’t can spend infinite resources, but you have $10K available for the addition… And that’s it! Can’t afford the courts, which will tell you to do it Gov’t’s way anyway… And can’t afford to make it wallabee-proof – nor can you really afford to NOT make it Raccoon-proof, nor can you appeal to any “higher reason”…
Making more sense now? 😉
Not to me.
I write because I enjoy it, and hopefully, have something to offer. The making a living is a part of it. But I don’t write primarily to make money.
Just as – I would hope – a doctor is in medicine because he wants to treat people; an engineer to design things… and so on.
Quick thoughts on the fly, pardon the mess:
You don’t write primarily to make money, however; would it be safe to say you would not have initially pursued it as a career or a job if no one was willing to pay you for doing so? If you would not, that kind of indicates money was the primary reason to write.
If you were willing to write for no pay, then perhaps you value the result higher than money? How is that different from people in a corporation valuing and pursing money over that of some other goal?
RE: “a doctor is in medicine because he wants to treat people”.
Is that altruism? Is that the motivation? Or is it because the doctor hopes to get paid or to gain something the doctor values greater than money?
Are there doctors who spend their lifetime treating people for no pay of any kind?
Altruism: True or False?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2007/08/wilton-alston/does-altruism-exist/
Altruism Is a Myth
http://www.lewrockwell.com/2011/03/wilton-alston/altruism-is-a-myth/
“all volitional action is self-interest motivated; that we act for the purpose of being better off after we act than if we hadn’t acted at all.”
Hi Helot,
I wouldn’t say it’s altruism; quite opposite!
Per Rand, it is profoundly selfish to do what one enjoys doing – because one is good at it. The money is secondary.
I’ve found this to be true of anyone who has real talent, or at least, genuinely cares about doing a good job.
I admire Henry Ford much more so than the modern-day corporate officers who run Ford. He was a guy who was fascinated by engines and machinery generally. Yes, he wanted to make money doing it. But that was not his core dive. At heart, he was a tinkerer, a lover of moving gears and motive power.
Helot –
the doctor must support himself and any dependent family members. He has chosen medicine rather than some other occupation because it has other benefits (to him) in addition to monetary gain. He might have made more money had he gone to law school rather than med school, e.g.
Or he might have been able to support himself and have more leisure time had he taken a blue collar ‘tradesman’ job.
Q.V. Westinghouse vs. Edison General Electric.
Westinghouse was Tesla’s baby, but Tesla was focused on the good of mankind.
Edison was after ego fulfillment, which is part of why we now have GE instead of EdisonGE. Edison worked so hard to discredit Tesla’s AC that he almost bankrupted GE. He would electrocute animals, such as elephants, to show the “dangers.” Worst effort (final straw), was – he turned to the Electric Chair as a publicity stunt, trying to execute a prisoner using Tesla’s AC.
It took a while… Hours….. to kill the man. He was basically cooked, like a pot roast, and died of internal burning, IIRC. DC worked well for killing people…. But DC couldn’t be transmitted over distance. AC could be. Hence the conflicts….
And of course, in the course of matters, Tesla had to forgo his ownership of the Westinghouse IP. IE, he tore up his patents and the agreements with the company, so the company would survive.
Shortly afterwards was the electric chair fiasco, which allowed (IIRC) JP Morgan to take over & rename GE, kicking Edison into a back-room role. And shortly after that, JP Morgan’s unethical practices allowed him to bury Westinghouse – he filed frivolous lawsuits of patent infringement on Tesla’s inventions. The costs of fighting the lawsuits would’ve bankrupted westinghouse and Morgan was willing to make it “go away” if (some other conditions were met, which I don’t recall – look up the “robber Barons” specials on PBS, I think it was.)
We cannot assume others are angels, we MUST assume they are devils. Let the man prove himself, THEN treat him as more than an animal.
Digusting, but cynicism rarely lets you down…. Optimism usually does. 😛
Shit, this is depressing. I worked part time for NASS(National Agricultural Statistic Service), part of the USDA, for a couple years. I hated it, plain and simple. I liked most of the people but they were so brainwashed for the most part but those who weren’t collecting big govt. checks could tell you exactly why and were those people who were like me, hell on govt. programs. I stupidly thought I could do some good but there’s nothing to be done except the govt. mandate.
I could write a book about this entire subject, and probably should. My private forum is et up with those who give me hell for not liking corporations, hell, every damned lawyer in the country would be suing every shareholder if it weren’t for corporations. Yep, you’re right, and what goes around comes around. If it wasn’t for the special laws to allow corporations to screw everyone else no lawyers would be involved. So you get what you give and I have no respect for corporate law. We have all kinds of special corporate gimme’s specifically so they don’t have to follow the same bad laws everyone else has to conform to. Big pharm, big ag, and big weapons are hand in hand as is big welfare, with Republican company owners of suppliers being in the forefront, all the while, blaming it all on Democrats. I shit on them all. Excuse me for blunt talk.
“I may be the only Libertarian writer who views corporations in the same light as government. ”
Possibly, Eric.
Which is surpirising, as they BOTH aspire to the same thing – PROFITS UBER ALLES.
The government is, IIRC, incorporated – mostly to take advantage of the “zero personal liability” loopholes of law.
This is one reason I sound the “call to arms” so frequently and loudly. The system IS NOT BROKEN. It is WORKING AS DESIGNED, AS INTENDED.
The oligarchy (whom the Founders had meant to be intelligent, educated, God-fearing men who owned property; by men I mean humans, though the founders were thinking in terms of males) is REAL, and they are predmoninantly social weasels, even the GOOD ones we would consider “Honest Men.” Most “Honest Men” – AREN’T. They’ll negotiate you into cutting your own throat (a la “demos cracy”) and “console” your widow before you’ve bled out…. But they’re the “Honest” ones, and we’re the scum of the earth, for wanting to be left alone, for wanting consequences to our actions.
They have removed themselves from consequences, insulated themselves from costs (with layers of bureacracy and laws that sanction their behavior while villifying us for the same), so whether they work for State Street, State Farm, ADP, Schering-Plough, or USSA, Inc. is irrelevant: it’s the same mind, the same animal, only it’s removed any negative feedback.
Without negative feedback, it cannot understand it’s doing something wrong.
So we need to insert negative feedback, the hard way.
Protests, burnings, “accidents”, all work, all valid, from my POV.
I don’t think they’d respond to protests or to boycotts….
But burn a family member? Empty their bank accounts? Cost them status and wealth? Find ways to send them to prison? Sic the system on them?
There’s your accountability, enforced, with or without legal methods…
Might make them remove their head from their anal sphincter, I don’t know… But if we do nothing, we lose, guaranteed, and most Amoronicons don’t care – they’ve got their bread and circuses, and who cares about Mañana? Apres moi, le deluge….
RE: “The system IS NOT BROKEN. It is WORKING AS DESIGNED, AS INTENDED.”
One name for an aspect of that system is, “Conduit Scheme”.
I fail to see how any of your proposed solutions would effect or affect the scheme. Seems to me Humpty has to fall off The Wall all on his own.
Check out the flow chart of the Conduit Scheme halfway down, here
Let Slip the Useful Idiots of War
Mostly just puts the fear of God back into them….
If there are no consequences, why behave?
If we impose consequences, then there’s at least a natural law in place…. No hiding between, “It was HIS fault! HE MADE ME…!”
We find you guilty.
We fix that problem.
Next one won’t be guilty of the same failing….
Might make me a useful idiot – I can’t claim innocence on that – but working within the system only makes us worse off.