The Morning Roar: Pakistani Baby Charged With Attempted Murder, Feds Vs. Nevada Cattle Rancher, and The Ultimate Warrior Dead at 54
Welcome to the Wednesday edition of The Morning Roar!Pakistani Baby Charged With Attempted MurderI was certain this headline was from The Onion or some sort of satire website when I first saw it. But no, it's true, it's true - in Pakistan, a nine-month-old baby has been charged with attempted murder. If that weren't enough, the baby has gone into hiding. NBC reports:
At his first appearance in court last week, Musa cried while his fingerprints were taken by a court official. Later, the baby sucked on a bottle of milk and tried to grab journalists' microphones as his grandfather spoke to the media."He does not even know how to pick up his milk bottle properly, how can he stone the police?" Yasin asked journalists at the court last Thursday.The baby was apparently charged because an assistant sub-inspector complained in a crime report that Musa's whole family had beaten him up and injured his head.
The idea of a 9 month-old being charged with murder is, of course, absurd. A child's mind is not fully developed, and in any reasonable legal system could not be charged with a crime - any crime - at such a young age when there is no way the child could make the cognizant decision to commit a crime.This does raise any interesting question, however: At what age should a person be held responsible for their actions?In the United States a person is generally considered a "minor" - and therefore judged for crimes on a different legal level than adults - until they reach a certain age. Generally this age is 18, but there is no federal law regarding this, and it tends to vary by state.It's clear that, even if this Pakistani child was "involved" in the alleged beating by his "whole family", that he is not of an appropriate age to be charged by the crime. But what if he were 9 years old and had participated in a beating? What if he were 12? 15? 17?The line is seemingly arbitrary. How can one determine the exact amount of time a human being must be alive before they can be held accountable for their actions?Ladies and gentlemen, mark your calendars. For once, your humble editor-in-chief doesn't have an answer on this one.So what do you think, dear readers? Head over to our Facebook page and leave a comment!Nevada Cattle Rancher Prepares For a Standoff With the FedsNevada cattle rancher Cliven Bundy is preparing for a possible standoff with Federal agents, and has reportedly rallied hundreds of supporters to stand with him. So what's all the fuss about? The LA Times is nice enough to let us know:Bundy is battling with federal officials over his cattle's grazing on 150 square miles of scrub desert overseen by the Bureau of Land Management. He has refused to pay BLM grazing fees since 1993, arguing in court filings that his Mormon ancestors worked the land long before the BLM was formed, giving him rights that predate federal involvement. His back fees exceed $300,000, he says.Officials say Bundy is illegally running cattle in the 600,000-acre Gold Butte area, habitat of the federally protected desert tortoise. Last year, a federal court judge ruled that if the 68-year-old veteran rancher did not remove his cattle, they could be seized by the BLM. That seizure began Saturday.Your typical right-wing dialogue will likely rally behind Bundy as he battles against the "lefties" who wish to protect the desert tortoise. But this misses the real issue at hand, which is "who is the proper user of the land?"Only the proper owner of land can determine its use, but how is the "proper owner" determined? The only fair method is through the concept of homesteading - essentially, he who is the first to utilize and transform a specific area of land is its rightful owner. This ownership lasts until the user sells or leases the land through contract, passes it down to his heirs, or abandons the land so that it becomes unowned until a new user homesteads it.While Bundy owns his own land, the area that his cattle are grazing on in question is not part of that property. In a free society where land was properly acquired through homesteading, whoever's land that Bundy's cattle were grazing on would have a legitimate claim against Bundy for any damage his cattle may have caused, including if they were hurting his cherished tortoises.However, the issue gets fuzzy when we are talking about "Federal" land, ownership of which is claimed by the United States government. The U.S. government has not homesteaded this land, it has simply claimed the area as its own, and makes arbitrary rules about its use. The government has no reasonable claim to this area; if anything it should be considered "wild" land until a proper owner were established under the homesteading principle.For more on the concept of homesteading and how a free market could deal with issues involving property and the environment, check out my interview with Timothy Terrell from a recent episode of the Lions of Liberty Podcast.
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