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"Of course an Employee of the United States does not secure a general immunity from State Law while acting in the course of his Employment. That was decided long ago by Mr. Justice Washington in United States vs. Hart [Pet. C.C. 390; 5 Opinions of the Attorney General, at 554]. It very well may be that, when the United States has not spoken [here is the Ratification Doctrine surfacing again: That silence is sometimes very significant], the subjection to local law would extend to general rules that might affect incidentally the mode of carrying out the Employment -- as, for instance, a statute or ordinance regulating the mode of turning at the corners of streets. Commonwealth vs. Closson, 229 Massachusetts 329. This might stand on much the same footing as liability under the Common Law of a State to a Person injured by the driver's negligence. But even the most unquestionable and most universally applicable of state laws, such as those concerning murder, will not be allowed to control the conduct of a Marshal of the United States acting under and in pursuance of the Laws of the United States. In re Neagle, 135 U.S. 1." - Johnson vs. Maryland, 254 U.S. 51, at 56 (1920).
Here in Johnson, a Federal Employee was prosecuted for not having a driver's permit, and the Supreme Court annulled the application of that State statute to this Federal Employee. Yes, working for the King does have some peripheral benefits. And as for State statutes not controlling the conduct of the United States Marshal, boy I can just hear some sophomoric Tax Protester, having won perhaps the Governorship of a state, announcing to the world that Residents of that State won't need to concern themselves with the IRS anymore; boy does the King have a few surprises up his sleeve for that clown.
Just how does a person prove Failure of Consideration when he was caught accepting a benefit by driving down a state highway? The Right to Travel Cases really don't support the position of you Protesters very well; however, there is some merit in your harmless expression of political dissent, even if the dissent is technically improper (addressing the argument specifically). There is simply no statement anywhere in the Right to Travel Cases that bluntly restrains the States:
"No state shall require licensing as a condition of use of public thoroughfares."
And since our Founding Fathers never restrained the States in this area, then snickering at judges today who are writing on a record that does not restrain expectations of reciprocity is improvident: That somewhat tranquil era of horse and buggies no longer dominates the highways, where in its place today lies the high-powered automotive technology making its appearance; and also gone from the scene is our Father's old Common Law on basic Property Rights [the right to clean air uncontaminated by automotive exhaust], which has also taken the back seat.
Federal Judge David Bazelon once write a piece touching on an aspect of Technology and of its effect on our Law [Coping with Technology Through the Legal Process, 62 Cornell Law Review 817 (1977)]; despite Judge Bazelon's elevated sensitivity to the big environmental picture with the long-term declension seminally originating with Technology, he misses the boat in not defining solutions along re-establishing clean Property Rights lines that our Fathers once possessed.
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But... remember that the question of damages or no damages is a Tort Law factual setting question and it not relevant when you are out on those state highways: Because a contract is in effect whenever you use those highways, by your acceptance of benefits offered for your use conditionally. When you operate a motor vehicle over those state highways, you have accepted special benefits created and offered by the state, and so when accepting juristic benefits, in the context of reciprocity being expected back in return, then there lies a contract -- quietly, invisible, automatic, and rather strong. The relational non-Commercial, non-Resident, and non-Citizen status of the operator off of the highway is irrelevant in attaching contract liability by accepting the use of the benefit of Government highways. A specific, on-point adjudication on this Driver's License Question is going to involve this question:
Whether the States have the standing jurisdiction required to force, under penal statutes, a regulatory jurisdiction such a contract creates, when tension is in effect between the existence of that contract, and the substantive Right to Travel interests discussed in appellate rulings.
In every recent state court ruling that I have examined (post 1930 era) where a Quo Warranto type of question was being addressed, ( Quo Warranto asks the question: By what Jurisdiction? )
all courts forced a regulatory jurisdiction over the operator of a motor vehicle, and pleas and cries for restrainments based on Right to Travel and Right to Work tensions and the like, have all universally fallen on deaf ears with state judges in this era, and also by Federal Judges when addressing questions of Civil Rights violations relief when Highway Contract Protesters throw vindictive Section 1983 actions at some traffic cop.
Yet despite this predominate skew towards contract priority in judicial Right to Travel doctrinal reasoning, annulment by the Supreme Court of criminal liability for the innocent use of public highways under circumstances where no collaborating damages were caused, would be appropriate; an honest assessment of the total factual picture by a sophisticated judge would result in the conclusion that merely driving a car down a street without a license does not ascend to the minimum threshold requirements that characterize legitimate criminal incarceration standards -- compelled contract or no compelled contract; those penal highway statutes exist by virtue of Special Interest Group sponsorship and pressure, and judges are diminishing their own stature and violate the restraining mandates inherent in the Republican Form of Government Clause, by letting clever and politically ambitious Special Interest Groups get away with whatever they can buy in Legislatures to damage innocent behavior under circumstances where unnecessary covenants within adhesive contracts are being asserted in tension with Substantive Natural Rights in the Locomotion area; other highway drivers have no assurance that another approaching car is not being driven by an unlicensed Citizen of France, who by virtue of his political status would not have an unlicensed motor vehicle operation penal statute thrown at him. Therefore, there is an inherent Assumption of Risk among all highway users that some drivers will necessarily have to be unlicensed,[48] since it is literally legally impossible, and also unattractive for Foreign Relations reasons not related to preventing vehicular accidents, to maintain a perfect expectation of motorist licensing compliance.
This is just another example of Government's modus operandi: If they can grab the tax and get away with it politically, they will -- while remaining silent on the exceptions. If Government can force a licensing environment over you, they will and if they cannot, they will not; and then they will remain silent on their legal and practical disabilities. Criminals too operate in similar ways: Imagine yourself being at a ski resort; there are 60 pairs of skis and poles leaning against a rack; and along comes a criminal casing the place over. Fifty pairs of the skis are locked down, and 10 of them are not. If you were a criminal, what would you do? Criminals take what they can take, and leave behind that which is relatively too difficult to grab and make off with.
"The only object we have here in view in presenting this [graduated income tax] amendment is to rake in where there is something to rake in, not to throw out the dragnet where there is nothing to catch." - Senator William Peffer, June 21, 1894 [as quoted by Frank Chodorov in The Income Tax, page 37 (Devin-Adair, 1954)].
These risk elements on using highways are judgment factors that all motorists evaluate and consider, even though this process is often invisible by operating in the psychological strata of the subconscious; the actual judgment process involved when a composite profile confluence of such risk elements are blended together and evaluated, is called risk assessment.
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