The Law Is A Lie

Yea, verily, the "sanctity of the law" doth operate most mightily to preserve -- let us praise all who rule us, by my sacred troth! -- the American Way:

The piracy, counterfeit and copyright battle has moved to the Super Bowl.

Speaking [at] a National Football League press conference ahead of this weekend's Super Bowl the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said special agents this week seized a total of 307 websites and snatched up 42,692 items of phony Super Bowl-related memorabilia along with other counterfeit items for a total take of more than $4.8 million - up from $3.72 million last year.

Sixteen of the sites the agency shut down during this operation known as Fake Sweep, were illegally streaming live sporting telecasts over the Internet, including NFL games. Two hundred ninety-one website domain names were illegally selling and distributing counterfeit merchandise, ICE stated.

Behold the triumph of the law-worshippers! Sixteen sites were illegally streaming sports events. Two hundred ninety-one website domain names were illegally used to sell and distribute counterfeit merchandise. (As for seizing and shutting down all these websites -- even though SOPA/PIPA are now obliterated exposed as profoundly dangerous and authoritarian postponed and, in any case, essentially irrelevant -- told ya. And I told ya before the Megaupload story broke. Yes, God is my bunkmate. Fantastic sex. And He always wants it.)

The targets were bad people engaged in illegal activities. The law-worshippers tell us that is the beginning and end of the argument. All right, perhaps they weren't bad people, at least not altogether. But they were certainly doing bad things. Illegal means bad according to these religious rites.

Moreover, it is wondrous to behold the manner in which the State uses "the law" to protect innocent, helpless victims who would otherwise be exploited in deeply horrifying ways. Here we have the NFL, a weak, mewling waif being brutalized by brazen, thuggish criminals. Who would not rush to the NFL's aid? Have you no heart? Are you devoid of compassion? After all, the NFL is merely a public cartel, public in that its power and wealth is only made possible and enforced by the State itself. What the State creates, the State will protect. Oh, sisters and brothers, ain't that the bleedin' truth. The NFL enjoys annual revenues of approximately $9 billion. Still, the starving, helpless wastrel must turn to the State for succor! In recent years and continuing at present, the bailouts, the winks and nods in place of prosecution, the consolidation and extension of criminality within those companies and and financial institutions favored and reinforced by the State have surely instructed us thoroughly on this question. Criminality exists only for those who have failed to receive the State's approving nod. If you do not pay off the State in one form or another, do not expect the State to protect you.

Ah, but these particular targets were behaving illegally and thus doing bad things. Even though many people regard this as the end of the inquiry, it properly should serve only as the starting point for analysis. I've made this argument before with regard to the evergreen controversy over "illegal" immigration. You can start with "The Triumph of Racism," in which I vivisected the nauseating Ann Coulter, as well as sanctimonious liberal idiots like Eric Alterman. As I said, after detailing some of the disgusting U.S. history regarding immigrants:

Despite all this, the myth of an inclusive America, one that opens its arms to all, continues. During the past week, I heard and read any number of comments that insist we affirmatively welcome immigrants. We welcome them so long as they are "legal" -- disregarding the hugely and incomprehensibly arbitrary nature of our immigration laws, and that those laws are crafted by already vested interests, those who also possess immense political power; we welcome them so long as they are willing to be fully "assimilated," that is, they are willing to be "Americanized," self-reliant, and independent in the mode adopted specifically by the ruling class in America -- which is to say, by affluent, white (and until very recently, exclusively male) Americans, who have always determined the particular content of the term, "American."

The issue of "illegal" immigration is one that particularly infuriates me. Almost no other subject reveals in quite so blatant and sickening a manner the vicious manipulations of power in the name of "the rule of law." I wrote a number of pieces on the subject, including:

Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor -- But Not Too Many Jews, and Not Too Many Iraqis

A Nation of Lepers, Criminals and Parasites

The United States: Now a Private and Exclusive Country Club, Run by Monsters

The War on the Unique and the Unexpected -- and on Tall Top Hats (a personal favorite)

One other subject that also powerfully reveals the sham of appeals to "the law" is, of course, the abominable War on Drugs, which I discussed in "Concerning the State, the Law, and Show Trials." I wrote:

In the case of the Drug War, the State has been utilized to punish an entire class and an entire race over several generations in a hugely disproportionate way, to a degree that is eternally unforgivable.

The Drug War may be a prototypical example and indisputably repellent proof of one of my opening observations about show trials, but it is far from the only such example: "The major value of a show trial to the State is its usefulness as propaganda; more specifically, the major value is the utility of the proceeding to the enhancement of the perception of the State as legimate and/or to the demonizing of the State's chosen enemies." In this sense, the Drug War is nothing but an unending, detestable show trial from beginning to end.

Well. All that may be of some academic interest, but doesn't your soul positively ache for the awful plight of the weak, helpless, impoverished NFL? We can only be grateful that a merciful fate has provided The Law to protect such a deserving and terribly abused victim.

Now perhaps you have a better idea of why I say that I shit on The Law. "Aw, gee, Arthur, why do you have to be so rude, crude and profane? Why cancha be nicer and more civilized in your manner of presentation? You aren't going to persuade anyone this way."

Hell, I dunno. Maybe it's because most people seem to be in an irreversible coma, and I don't know any other to WAKE THEM THE FUCK UP.

Did that wake you up? That's fucking great! Now maybe we can get somewhere.