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France’s Answer To Terrorism: The "Law Of Suspects"
Submitted by Simon Black from Sovereign Man
France’s answer to terrorism: The Law of Suspects
On April 5, 1793, decorated French military commander Charles Dumouriez caused a sensational panic in Paris when he fled the country and defected to Austria.
It had been nearly four years since French peasants stormed the Bastille, the event that historians generally regard as the start of the French Revolution.
And hardly a week had gone by since without some major crisis, emergency, or tragedy in France.
There were regular violent riots across the country– in Paris, other major cities, and even the rural countryside. Widespread massacres were commonplace.
And given that one of the key goals of France’s new revolutionary government was to eliminate Christianity from the nation, civil war between religious factions broke out as well.
To cap things off, France was under constant threat of foreign invasion.
Austria and Prussia were not only waging conventional war against France, but both nations had sent highly trained agents to infiltrate French borders to pursue violence and chaos from within.
It was exhausting. French people were living in perpetual fear, and the wanton death of innocents had become an unfortunately normal part of life.
So when it was found that Dumouriez (a French citizen) had defected to the enemy, people hit their breaking points. Enough was enough. And they cried out to the government to save them.
The government listened.
The very next day, on April 6, 1793, the new French government established the Committee of Public Safety (though it was originally known as the Danton Committee).
The Committee was given broad, emergency powers since it was a time of such crisis.
And under the leadership Maximilien Robespierre, the French people got their protection.
Robespierre passed the ‘Law of Suspects’, allowing the government to essentially imprison anyone they wanted for any reason.
It was impossible to tell friend from foe back then; you never knew if someone was a loyalist, or a Christian, or an Austrian spy, or any number of counter-revolutionaries.
So people were required to carry special certificates indicating that they were good and dutiful citizens. Those without would be imprisoned, and potentially executed.
The University of Chicago estimates that nearly 30,000 either died in prison or were executed as a result of this law.
Then there was the Law of the Maximum, which attempted to stabilize an ongoing financial crisis by fixing the prices of goods and services in the country. The law also imposed the death penalty on those who did not follow the rules.
They also passed the Law of 22 Prairial, which awarded the Committee even more power to arrest, try, and execute anyone deemed to be suspicious or disloyal.
The law also prevented anyone accused of a crime from being able to call witnesses or have defense counsel.
Plus it required that ALL citizens report potentially suspicious or disloyal neighbors to the Committee. If you see something, say something.
As you are likely well aware, this period in French history became known as the Reign of Terror, or often simply ‘the Terror’.
Coincidentally, this is where the first modern use of the word ‘terrorist’ is found.
Except that it wasn’t used to describe the counter-revolutionaries. Or the rebels. Or the foreign agents.
It turns out that “terrorist” was originally a term used to describe the government officials who created and executed these oppressive tactics under the guise of keeping people safe from their enemies.
Governments have a dangerous tendency to never let a serious crisis go to waste.
The US government spent trillions of taxpayer dollars to fight a War on Terror that made the world less safe and Americans less free, all to protect them from a threat that has a statistical likelihood of 0.0%.
(You’re far more likely to be shot by a police officer than to ever even see a terrorist.)
Yes, the desire for revenge runs deep. And that’s understandable.
But the greatest thing to fear is not men in caves. It is the consequent loss of freedom and the never-ending cycle of costly, destructive war.
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Enough with the saber rattling, France, indict Obama and Netanyahu as war criminals.
And the Saudi's!
And Sarkozi and Hollande. Lets not forget who armed the "moderates" in Libya and Syria. Now you know why no one is going to be indicted over anything.
Note to Simon: Countrysides are always rural.
Pretty obvious France lost their best and brightest in WWI.
Don't forget Hillary.
They shouldn't even take a phone call from the Saudis now. What credibility do they have?
Newspaper accuses pro-France Facebook users of ‘white supremacy’http://tinyurl.com/pcy35ml
Wow. So, no sympathy for the murdered innocents because they are white? Thats raycist.
Frances answer to terrorism , if bombing them caused it in the first place then lets bomb them again.
Well it's worked great for the last 15 years...
Excellent article, Simon.
A fine fictional illustration is The Committee in the film, A Boy and His Dog.
The blueprint for the NSA...
See something say something? Where have I heard that before? Can't remember if it was DHS or Nazi Germany...
Btw ZH - this youtube vid needs some views, Gearoid O Colmain drops some troof on RT, worth a watch, righteous rant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7GAbVhjTSw#t=561
Yea Colmain shitted on them.
"Robespierre passed the ‘Law of Suspects’, allowing the government to essentially imprison anyone they wanted for any reason."
Sounds a lot like the USA
Patriot Act and/or NDAA?
Said Laws will Travel.
NATO funds ISIS, but the FRENCH want to victimize Islam & Muslims because they don't have what it takes to stop NATO from making the world a place of militarism, and mass murder.
Israel is rolling on the ground laughing at all the ignorant French people from France for falling for another of their false flag events.
I think the people who post here about "false flags" and the "Zio's" actually work for the Zionist Conspiracy, in that their scenarios are so laughably stupid that their effect is to convince more and more people every day that there is no Zionist Conspiracy, hence, allowing the Zionist Conspiracy to operate even more effectively from even further in the shadows. Them jooz be wily critters fo sho...
I think the educated French people are from France too.
On the upside, in the heat of emotion of Paris's outrageous gratuitous violence imposed by a bunch of obscurantist "assholes"; sons of ignorance fed on the Wahhabism mantra of Petromonarchies' war chests; the French government surfs on the indignation created by the actions of an obscurantist cabal that is surrogate to Sunni Islam's Salafist march to intra-religious regional implosion under Fitna.
But on the downside, the "presumption of culpability" meme which risks to be Constitutionalised in France, so similar to Patriot Act, is the bastard impulse of France's own inglorious past imposed on its own citizens: similar to neo-colonial Guy Molletism, as in Algeria when the army took over the "policing" function of state with the consequences we know as it played out then to the eternal shame of France and its army; coupled with the "cut and paste" hubris of GWB's mantra of "clash of civilization" that led to the Imperial dystopia breeding the creation by the West of Al-Qaeda and then ISIS, in its Afghan and Iraq Crusades. The West creates its own monsters, like Rome created the Barbarian at its own gates!
For the french government to risk falling, in the coming years, into that fatal trap of becoming the prolongation of the Libyan neo-colonial play, as follow on to Pax Americana and Françafrique economic criminality around Oil/RM pilfering practiced over 50 years, that feeds the rage of obscurantism amongst the destitute people, would be a tragedy that would compound, in an unending spiral over decades, the American neo-colonial crusade into a neo-European militarist rampage reminiscent of its colonial past. It would compound the "crime of the West" in its incomparable thirst to expropriate the resources of the world, by risking to make the West the shadow of its past glory and the junior partner of a NWO where the East would lead the West in the subsequent reset.
This short term reasoning of obliterating the proxy army of ISIS; aka going for the shadow power instead of the true enemy incarnated by current regime of Saudian state ideology; will be check mated by the longer term fall out of "aping" the Pax Americana beast in its unbridled hubris. This enfamished beast of western concoction that has created the fiat debt conundrum that finances all these asymmetric war games to ensure its hold on king commodity Oil, (along with its freefall into Capitalism's demise in the shadow banking casino fed on unlimited fiat print under QE/ZIRP), is going to create Hell on earth. It will bring down the legacy of 500 years of Western pre-eminence.
We are in tipping times where the gamekeepers are also the poachers; like in ancient Rome or in Renaissance empire of Habsburgs. The fate of Empires depends on avoiding these pitfalls.
When the Byzantines talked about angels and pin heads !
falak, can't get enough of your style that is original and thought-provoking. the fate of the world is looking so dark, it's difficult to muster disgust. instead, laughing and holding out for a glimmer of hope seems to be the antidote to despair.
are there any more safe spaces left besides billionaire doomsday bunkers?
or shall we not be afraid of the fate that awaits and rage, RAGE against the dying of the light.
round up the usual suspects (casablanca 1942)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXuBnz6vtuI
Sounds like the patriot act...
I sure hope we'll never get this over here.
Oh that would never happen in America. lol....
The greatest current fear that this French Government had was Dieudonne.
That is the merger of the former Catholic peasantry with the Arab and black street.
If that was allowed to happen then the hypercentrslised French state created 400~ years ago now was funked.
dieudonne dynamics creates Magna Carter like moments.
The Paris elite will never allow the return of power to the region's, freedom from usury, in particular Jewish usury or anything else which empowers the rights of the peasantry and local business class.
All power must flow into the corporate black hole that is the modern French state / nightmare
Now that is the essence of irony - terrorism refers to bureaucratis who use fear to further thier agenda. Incredibly on target.
Beautiful ain't it? Simon Black making real sense for once. Can't last....
1.5 million Turks were welcomed into Germany during the economic boom of the 60's and 70's. Hod carriers and other manual labour too shoddy for the middle-classes. Turks are around 3 million now, not including naturalised citizens and assimilated fairly well.
They slotted in and run the massage parlours , gambling dens and the Kebobbi Shoops.
Point of this drivel i'm writing is that if NATO and Uncle Sam dropped Kebabs and not surface-to-airs in/on to the Middle-East we could nip all this Kabuki in the bud.
You are naive. All infidels have only two options, convert or be converted to dust.
There is at least one more option...
I just heard the commercial if you see something say something with respect to Isis. I wonder how serious they can be knowing this president and his foreign policies have been supporting Isis in Syria and Iraq from the beginning? How stupid can the American public be to still react to this president in the same manner as eight years ago?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N7V9qe8BHp8
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N7V9qe8BHp8
Ok but Robespierre was eventually disposed off and lost his head. After that Napoleon entered the scene and created a French European Empire. That didn't last long because he took on Russia. Big mistake. A guy with a funny moustach would make the same mistake 130 years later.
Current day Sarkozy and Hollande had/have their illusions of grandeur. This is Hollande's Falkland Island moment. His chance to save his presidency. Sarkozy is already lying in the waiting and posing himself as the guy that will deal with it.
KEEL EM ALL
And all because Louis XVI was a shy, dimwitted boob utterly unfit to wear a crown. A strong king would have executed Voltaire and a few other pen-wielding troublemakers, forced the government to tax and spend less, and not supported the American rebellion. A little Terror applied early obviates a big Terror later.
Sadly for France, it's already "later", and a full-blown civil war, with atrocities far beyond the mere Patriot Act, is pretty much inevitable.