STAFF NEWS & ANALYSIS
Directed History of Modern Debtors' Prisons?
By Joe Jarvis - December 27, 2013

Local courts reviving "debtors' prison" for overdue fines, fees … As if out of a Charles Dickens novel, people struggling to pay overdue fines and fees associated with court costs for even the simplest traffic infractions are being thrown in jail across the United States. Critics are calling the practice the new "debtors' prison" – referring to the jails that flourished in the U.S. and Western Europe over 150 years ago. Before the time of bankruptcy laws and social safety nets, poor folks and ruined business owners were locked up until their debts were paid off. Reforms eventually outlawed the practice. But groups like the Brennan Center for Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union say it's been reborn in local courts … – Fox News

Dominant Social Theme: What a surprise this is. Imagine!

Free-Market Analysis: We wrote about this over a year and a half ago, but are not amazed to see Fox presenting it. After all, what is the use of a meme if it is not blasted through the airwaves?

If people are not intimidated, then those involved in the propagation of these dominant social themes aren't doing their jobs. Here's what we wrote about this particular theme:

Tax Bill Is Beginning of Formal Debt Criminalization

April 07, 2012 – The United States Congress is steadily headed to a place where those who owe money to the US government shall be treated criminally.

This phenomenon is advancing domestically and now, increasingly, internationally. The first shot in this latest campaign took place in 2010 when US President Barack Obama signed into law The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. It demanded, basically, that foreign banks withhold up to 30 percent of the income that an American abroad might earn.

This bill isn't working so well because overseas banks are not cooperating (a state of affairs that was certainly expected). Thus, there is a need for something else: Senate Bill 1813, recently introduced by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA). This bill, in part, states that taxpayers with unpaid taxes over US$50,000 may find their passports confiscated.

This isn't criminal per se, but the IRS has recently made noises about "sharing" information with police authorities. The last time it was an institutionalized crime to owe money within the context of the Anglosphere was during the British industrial revolution when there were such things as debtors prisons. Those were eventually disbanded as it was seen as counterproductive (and even inhuman) to put a man in prison for a debt he could not pay.

But both in the US and in Europe, the concept of imprisoning an individual over debt is making a comeback. In the US it is especially clear. There are plenty of people, mostly men, who are behind bars for falling behind on their child support payments.

Current US incarceration for debts takes place mostly at the state level. But the IRS – and other taxing facilities throughout the Western world – are increasingly putting people in prison for falling behind on their taxes.

… The arguments over just why the US instituted its controversial income tax back in 1913 is gradually fading away as the lineaments of the New World Order are becoming increasingly evident. Taxes are a method of government control. They force people to reveal intimate details of their personal lives and make it difficult for entrepreneurial activity as well.

This conclusion is only available to those who discern, as we do, a malign intelligence behind the world's woes, one gathering a coming storm that is supposed to transform the West and the rest of the world into a globalist plantation.

What's going on can't be overemphasized for those who have long given up on the idea that the nefarious trends now afflicting our life and times are mere coincidence, however grim.

We have no reason to change our conclusion about the malignancy of this particular development. As usual, this kind of abiding evil is being positioned as stemming from ignorance and avarice. Local communities are involved in these actions because they want funds and don't know any better.

That seems suspiciously simplistic to us. So we went looking for other evidence that 18th century tools were being introduced into the 20th century for purposes of middle class intimidation.

Sure enough, we discovered a UK Mirror article on Sept. 30, 2013 entitled, "Forced labour: Conservative party to force the jobless to work for nothing or lose their dole"…

Chancellor George Osborne will today finally destroy his party's claim to be compassionate Conservatives with a cruel assault on the most needy.

In one of the meanest shake-ups of the welfare state, the heartless Chancellor is to announce plans to force the jobless to work for nothing or face having their benefit payments slashed. And, as his right-hand man revived the days of the workhouse, David Cameron yesterday ruled out tax rises for his rich cronies while ordinary families continue to be hit by rising living costs, a failure to create jobs and cuts to public services.

Mr Osborne plans to make the 200,000 long-term jobless cook for the elderly, clean up litter or help out in charities for free as part of a 30-hour-a-week community scheme. The £300million Help to Work project will also target those with drug or literacy problems with Mandatory Intensive Regime to get them off the dole.

If they do not comply, they will lose money. But critics warned the move was a cynical Tory ploy to exploit the jobless and avoid paying for dedicated public service staff – while also stigmatising the poor.

Labour MP Ian Lavery said: "This is an outrage. We have a failed economy and there's not enough jobs. This is a throwback to the days of the workhouse of the last century. We should be looking at creating more jobs and paying a living wage."

What next? We're on the lookout for a poorhouse. These have yet to be reestablished but they would seem to be the most logical next step.

All this is, in fact, predictable. It's why we wrote the initial article nearly two years ago. Globalists like to intimidate: Workhouses and debtors' prisons fit the bill.

From a polarization standpoint, the advent of forced labor for the poor is tremendously divisive and can further fracture whatever is left of modern sociopolitical comity. From the standpoint of intimidation, poorhouses, workhouses and debtors' prisons certainly concentrate one's mind.

These are not abstract issues, obviously. And for men, especially, issues having to do with the dangerous ramifications of modern debt are never further away than a protracted and divisive divorce.

It may appear that these sorts of mechanisms are the results of increasingly stressed government finances in the West. But we are more cynical than that these days.

After Thoughts

The establishment of these facilities is likely pre-planned and municipal economic difficulties are merely a justification. Call it Directed History …

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