America is becoming unrecognizable. The landscape is still familiar; the flag looks the same. But it is a changed placed.
And some places are more changed than others.
In New Jersey, the state Supreme Court has just ruled that a cop can search your vehicle if you are pulled over for any reason – and without a warrant.
A defective turn signal, for instance.
Or a seatbelt “violation.”
Basically, the NJ court has ruled that once a cop turns on his emergency lights, your Fourth Amendment rights have been forfeited.
It used to be (and still is, in other states) that more in the way of evidence or at least, “reasonable suspicion” that the car’s driver or occupants had done something else (besides the alleged traffic infraction) was necessary before the cop could – legally – search the vehicle.
Not buckling up for “safety,” for instance, was insufficient, by itself, to legally justify searching either the driver or his vehicle.
The cop needed a warrant.
“I do not consent to any searches.”
“Am I free to go?”
Not anymore.
It used to be that the cop was empowered to check the driver’s papers (license, registration, proof of insurance) but – absent some additional grounds for suspicion – that was as far as he could take it.
Which of course frustrates cops – who view any restriction of their power over us as an intolerable affront.
The NJ ruling (5-2 in favor) affirms this viewpoint.
Keep in mind that there is almost no legal impediment standing in the way of a cop lighting up his flashers and pulling you over. You were (he will later say) driving “erratically.” Your headlights are “too bright.” The tint of your windows “too dark.” The cop says you tossed a cigarette butt out of the window. Gave him a hard stare. Didn’t stare.
And so on.
It can be almost anything – which means, it can be nothing at all.
What prevents a cop from pulling you over at whim? Is there any circumstance, any mechanism, anything at all that a motorist has in the way of immunity from being pulled over at random? There is none such. The cop turns on his lights, you are required to pull over.
And now – in NJ – you’re required to submit to a search, too.
Of a piece with TSA searches, which are also random and arbitrary, requiring nothing more than a TSA cretin’s decision to single you out. Frown at the blue-suited clown and it is sufficient warrant to proceed without a warrant.
Don’t forget that even driving the speed limit is now grounds for a pull-over. Cops take the position that this is “suspicious” behavior because – after all – everyone speeds. If you’re not speeding, then – clearly – you must be trying to hide something.
And then, if you’re “too polite” once actually pulled over… well, that’s “suspicious” as well.
The court says bully.
That the previous requirement that a cop had to have a warrant based on probable cause – something more than a mere traffic infraction – in order to have the legal authority to search the vehicle “…place(s) on law enforcement unrealistic and impractical burdens.”
Naturlich.
Justice (sic) Barry Albin elaborated:
“The current approach to roadside searches premised on probable cause – ‘get a warrant’ – places significant burdens on law enforcement.”
Italics added.
Precisely as the Constitution (RIP) intended.
It’s the whole point of the thing. It – the Bill of Rights – was written specifically to make it harder for “law enforcement” (an odious modern term that fits our age; of a piece with “troops” rather than soldiers and, of course, the “homeland”) to defenestrate the people.
This approach certainly makes it easier for guilty individuals to “get away with it” – everything from driving drunk to much worse things. But the upside is (well, was) that it also made it much harder for the most dangerous entity on this earth – the government – to “get away” with abuses on an industrial scale.
Think about this a little.
Even the worst of us, as individuals, can only do so much damage. How many did Ted Bundy kill?
How many did George W. Bush have killed?
Bundy had only two hands. The government has millions of hands.
Bundy acted outside the law.
The government acts under color of law.
You can (legally) defend yourself against a Bundy.
You cannot (legally) defend yourself against the government.
Resistance is not merely futile – it is illegal.
The Bill of Rights – tacked on to the Constitution by in retrospect justly suspicious anti-federalists such as Madison and Mason (and supported by men like Jefferson) was meant to be a kind of warranty against tyranny. Which was defined by them as something governments – not individuals – did.
The King. Parliament. And later, the infant federal colossus shaking its rattle in the dismal swampland near the Potomac River. The anti-federalists saw what was coming and tried to hedge against it. Tried to bind the infant colossus. Check Food Lovers Specials and Game Specials. On the view that once unbound, the damage such a creature is capable of causing is almost without limit.
They should have strangled it in its crib. The human capacity for harming other humans is directly proportionate to the power wielded by some humans over other humans.
This is the crux of the matter – which (benign view) either the NJ “justices” did not grok or (cynical view) they do grok – and ruled as they did precisely for that reason.
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Not sure how this will play out in the courts but US Supreme court ruled several years ago in Arizona v Gant that police need reasonable suspicion to believe evidence (related to the charge pursuant the traffic stop) of a crime will be found in the vehicle in order to search the vehicle. I am no fan of the supreme court but New Jersey will probably lose this one
No one should be shocked by New Jersey..they are one of two states that makes it illegal to pump your own gas.
The non-libertarian history of the US.
http://www.garynorth.com/public/14384.cfm
I know some of you don’t care for Gary’ Christian point of view, but he does have a PhD in history.
Well, I permanently quit flying once the TSA security theater got into full swing in the USSA.
Now that I know this about NJ, I will make sure that I never drive in that state for any reason whatsoever.
Something I probably should have mentioned earlier. Always learn the laws of the state you’re driving in. For DUI there is big money so that means lots of lawyers with websites and they’ll have articles on the law for the state they are in. All levels of government will lie about the law to ensnare more people into the traps. The lawyers are of course fine with that, they want the business, but also to get the business they tell people how to defend themselves. It also allows a person to better find the relevant passages in the law itself.
That roadside test a cop wants you to do, says you must do, you may legally refuse depending on the state laws and court decisions. The cop will always lie about what the law is if it gives him an advantage to. Always research.
About a year ago I was coming home from work late one Friday evening. About one block before I could turn onto my residential street there was a massive DUI roadblock. The cop asked, “Have you ingested anything that might impair your ability to drive?” Now, just how the hell are you supposed to answer that? Even drinking too much water can impair your abilities, for God’s sake. I answered “No” and continued on but the implications of that question bothered me for a long time. The operative construction is “…MIGHT impair your ability to drive.” Let’s face it – it’s almost an article of faith these days that anyone over the age of fifty is on at least one prescription pharmaceutical. Had I answered, “Yes, I take BP and cholesterol meds” I would probably have been pulled over for further investigation…because I MIGHT be driving impaired because I take a prescription med (which, my doctor assures me, will NOT impair my ability to operate machinery if taken as prescribed).
Hi Frank,
Yup. And if you dare to decline to participate in what amounts to self-incrimination by (politely) stating, “I prefer not to answer your questions; am I free to go?” you can bet the porker will snort and stomp its cloven feet into the earth and the proceed to put you through the third degree.
People say 9/11 was the end of America. There are many points along the way. One of them was back in the ’80s, when the courts legalized random checkpoints.
Seriously – can you think of anything more fundamentally at odds with the idea of America?
Legally you can DECLINE to answer that question…it’s called the FIFTH AMENDMENT, and even an esteemed legal figure as Justice Robert H Jackson, himself the Chief Prosecutor for the Allies at the International Military Tribunal (aka “Nuremburg” Trial), said that “any attorney ‘worth his salt’ will advise his clients at all times, when confronted by the police, to remain SILENT, to not divulge ANYTHING, until they have an attorney present to represent them and give advice. Hell, “legally”, one can utter the phrase that comes to mind at such an intrusive and open-ended question:
OFFICER: Sir, have you ingested anything which MIGHT impair you ability to drive?
ME: Officer, per standing advice of counsel, I decline to give an answer.
OFFICER: Hey, Pal, you really ought to ‘cooperate’, I’m just doing my job, to get ‘drunks’ off the road!
ME: Tell you what, Ossifer…I’ll tell you what’s recently gone down MY gullet when you tell me how many dicks you’ve sucked on with that piehole or had shoved up your fat ass, OK?
Any guesses as to what the officer would do NEXT? My response would be quite ‘legal’, and hell, CONSTITUTIONALLY protected…small consolation for that ride in an ambulance, or in the back of his ‘squid car’, or…not contemplate ANYTHING at all, save from the “clouds” as the EMTs zip the body bag over my bloodied and battered corpse.
No, I’d stick with the first response, and then just stay, “And now I invoke my 5A right to remain silent…”. No point in provoking an AGW with powers of arrest, use of force, even to DEADLY violence, confiscation of what property I have on hand, including my ride, and the likelihood of getting away with it!
“They should have strangled it in its crib. The human capacity for harming other humans is directly proportionate to the power wielded by some humans over other humans.”
That statement says it all. If only people had listened back then…
Just 1 more reason not to go to NJ if you dont have to. For many many years I went to Atlantic City once or twice a year for a weekend. As we all know AC is in a mess now with several of the casinos going bankrupt. I have a VA legal conceal carry. To get to the boardwalk you need to drive through the ghetto, in fact you cant even wonder 2 blocks from the oceanfront and feel safe. Its been 4 years now since I have been to AC simply because of all the articles I was reading about legal conceal carry folks from other states who were thrown in jail on the spot for announcing they had a firearm as is required when you get stopped. Now I know that what I spent on my weekends there wont make much difference to the casinos ect, but if there are others like me who dont go to AC just because we are scared of the cops then collectively there is a lot of revenue a bankrupt city is not receiving. Now this is just one more reason not to go to NJ. KF
I guess I have to swim against the current here.
I welcome this court action. One could argue that what it really does is to strip away the fig leaf of liberty, letting people look tyranny in the face. Let ’em see reality. I never was that impressed by that magic piece of paper, the warrant, in the first place. What, is a warrant supposed to make tyranny more acceptable? A warrant makes submission more tolerable?
I can see the point that a warrant makes bullying by cops harder to do, but really, I’m thinking that benefit was always more theoretical than real – or at least it had to eventually end up that way.
“What prevents a cop from pulling you over at whim? Is there any circumstance, any mechanism, anything at all that a motorist has in the way of immunity from being pulled over at random? There is none such.”
Well, there is one: lots of dead cops. Cops respond to incentives just like everybody else. All these statist outrages will be washed away in the coming revolution.
“Well, there is one: lots of dead cops. Cops respond to incentives just like everybody else. All these statist outrages will be washed away in the coming revolution.”
This, right here ^ . If it’s wrong to talk about how it’s good for cops to die, it’s wrong to talk about how it’s wrong that the cops do the things they do. At this point who cares anymore? Wake me up when it’s time to fight, otherwise this whining is worthless.
J. Junkin: I second what you said. Lots of sites and conservative groups expose all kinds of corruption, yet nothing is done. This country, as many other first world countries is evolving into a third world hell hole for many reasons, what you stated along with corruption on all levels, open borders, gmo foods forced on the masses, supreme ct making laws instead of congress, etc. I gave up on so called patriot groups which only end up being rap sessions and swapping web sites. It’s time to get into a survival mode and wait for the signal to fight and the line is drawn when gov declares guns to be turned in. Voting on any level is useless, the ship has sailed.
Hi Laura,
I sympathize with this view at a gut level, but I’d also trot out the notion that unless a viable core of the population is awakened, there will be little chance for free times in the future. It is always a relatively small nucleus of people who determine the drift of a society. Right now, Clovers are dominant. But that can change. My purpose is to help that process along, to the extent I can by writing and speaking.
PS: Nice to know there are some females on this site!
It is always a relatively small nucleus of people who determine the drift of a society.
We are part of what Albert J. Nock called ‘the Remnant.’
Eric and Philip: American Thinker website wrote last week: a few of us were discussing this over the phone. Few can think critically/common sense logic now days. Most of humanity thru history has lacked certain brain cells for this type thinking which has nothing to do with status, education or even IQ. We sometimes refer to them as ” morons” “dumbed down” in conversation. It is either genetic or ordained as one man said. It is scary, will there be enough people to turn the tide? Many of the old timer patriots have died off in the last decade or so. Look at the E.U. now invaded by riff raff from mainly Muslim nations unabated. (ref. to: gatesofvienna.net and refugeeresettlementwatch.wordpress.com) We are also being invaded. (jihadwatch.org, etc) Qatar is paying for mosques being built here and overseas, also involved are rich Saudi’s. Mainline news is being blacked out here and elsewhere. The elitists agenda seems to be using jihadist terrorist acts and civil unrest to take control (order out of chaos) here and elsewhere .
Well said. Things are getting worse as education becomes lengthier and more important for financial success.
education becomes lengthier and more important for financial success
But neither the GIC’s nor today’s colleges (except maybe Schools of Engineering) is translating into financial success.
There are plenty of blue-collar jobs available: plumber, electrician, HVAC, small engine repair, etc. And even if you can’t start out that way, these can lead to owning your own business.
Engineering is constantly being undermined wage wise and professionally the amount of stuff being dumped on engineers to handle. When I look at the staff engineers had back in the day… we do all that stuff ourselves now. Then there is the bidding down of wages via H1-B visas and all these programs to try and dupe american kids into the field.
Engineers are holding on, but that’s about it. It certainly is financially impaired by today’s college costs and student loans.
But if you go to where the good paying engineering jobs having a place to live means being a debt slave. Only 1.5 million for the typical three bedroom house.
I hear you Brett, but it’s still better odds than the typical Liberal Arts major, esp. Women’s Studies, etc.
BTW – is lengthier a Colbert word. I always say ‘longer.’
Yup. This is happening in other professions as well.
At one time, reporters and columnists wrote; copy editors checked the piece before it went out, asking for clarifications, helping to massage/improve the piece. Graphic designers laid the pages out; formatted everything. Now reporters and columnist write their stuff, copy edit their stuff, format their stuff and then market and publicize their stuff. They are expected to do the job of several people – and for less money than they formerly made doing the one job.
The other day, a well-meaning person posted here advising me to add several additional jobs to my day. Hawking products, doing podcasts. The assumption, apparently, is that I have time enough to do this – and the mental energy to do what I am currently doing plus two or three additional jobs that require brain sweat.
Genug, already.
Even if I were 25, this would be too much. But I’m pushing twice that and I just don’t have the reserves anymore. There is also the realization that there are only so many good years left. I’m not really interested in 12 hour days, six days a week anymore.
Well, they do say the advantage to owning your own business is that you get to choose which 70 hours a week you work.
Brent, one of the main reasons i blew off finishing an engineering degree was the lack of pay. Hell, farming paid ten times what engineering did. Working in the patch, making a good hand and being intelligent paid a great deal more than any engineer I knew of and that includes those guys in the Skunk Works who would have paid to do that work. Therein lies one of the problems. People with a passion for engineering are always WAY underpaid while those who just use some podunk engineering degree(civil….comes to mind)to climb the ladder of “management” make much more than those who actually understand and make things. To this day I don’t understand it.
I’ve been more entertained and felt more accomplishment doing the very things engineers should have done but were paid to do things I’m not sure I understand. Hell, I have a friend’s son who is a young engineer and from what I’ve seen, I could do what he does much better. He designs plows and that’s fine, but he doesn’t understand what they need to do as I do. I suspect he doesn’t know em dead in the pay dept., like nearly all engineers. It really makes no sense I can see and fewer and fewer people can and do become engineers……and it’s not like we don’t need them either. I’m sure you’ve seen it and experienced it but it doesn’t make it any easier to take. Your local insurance agent is knocking back millions just being a duplicitous asshole.
PtB, yep, we’re getting by. We can still live like regular blue collar middle class of the 1950s on a cash basis. But considering this was once a profession that made a lot more than doctors it’s fallen a long long way. That blue collar middle class of yesteryear is pretty much gone, except for the ones with the highly inflated union pay which make as much or more than the engineers.
Eric, yep, The great jobs recruiters have for me… less pay, more work, same title, no growth prospects but empty promises. Well unless I move out to Si Valley/SF and work myself to death and be a debt slave. Um no.
The goal is to get more done by concentration of experience and higher value tasks instead of being mired in the mundane. That’s why companies used to hire for all these tasks. But now the cost of having another employee (thanks government) is more than the wasted efficiency. So those people are even worse off, they are unemployed or working at Target or something.
As to web stuff, monetizing it is the problem. If I knew how I wouldn’t be working as an engineer. I am from the preweb days. I had my first stuff running online in 1991. Yes, years before the web. But I am terrible at figuring out how to turn something into money.
eight, engineering promotions seem to be to the level of one’s incompetence at actual engineering. I know of few good ‘knack’ engineers that got promoted. Almost all were good at school engineers.
The problem with designing equipment is that end users all have different priorities but that one product has to satisfy them all well enough. And engineers have pressures that have nothing to do with them. Especially as the government invades everything. Uncle becomes number one customer. Because if uncle isn’t happy there is no product at all.
An end user will say that if only I change it this way… real simple. Yes very simple for him to modify his own, very difficult and expensive to do in mass production. If I had to up the price $5 to make it by the time it got to him he’d have to pay $20 and then it’s better for him to just do it himself.
There’s just a lot to it that you don’t pick up until you have to do it.
Hi Laura,
Yes, indeed.
The defining characteristic of the Clover is his (and her) inability to think in terms of concept (and principles). These people react, like an animal. Their feelings are paramount. Everything for them is a disconnected subjective, subject to their arbitrary feelings about it.
Example: Clover feels that the speed he drives (usually, somewhat faster than the speed limit) is “safe” and “reasonable.” But anyone drives faster than he is “dangerous.”
Paraphrasing here, but Napoleon wrote that only a select minority of humanity is even capable of comprehending liberty. Rand touched on the same theme in her books.
The majority of the population is by nature collectivist and coercive.
The majority of the population is by nature collectivist and coercive.
That’s why ‘democracy’ is so dangerous, and the founding fathers abhorred it.
I think that you already know the Phillip, but it needs to be said anyway. The so-called founding fathers only abhorred democracy because it would have meant a reduction of power for themselves. They illegally replaced the Articles of Confederation with the toothless CONstitution, and then promptly started violating it with near impunity. We are also still stuck with this collectivist system of forced compliance to political rule.
The “founding fathers” revolted against sharing their authority with their king.
Well, I don’t really wish for cops to die at all, but I understand the sentiment.
Trouble is, anyone that posts that on the Internet, especially in easily monitored Social Media, is just TROLLING (pun intended) for TROUBLE with the “porkers”! If EVER any allegation of resisting arrest and/or assault and/or battery of a police officer were levied against you, all the Deputy DA has to do is search your social media and other posts, and present them to court as to your state of mind and whether you’d premeditated violence against a “peace officer”. And that’s IF they bother to let such a thing be done through the (kangaroo) courts! The gang in blue has less qualms about finding you and giving you a beat down, or simply making you disappear, provided they have the hole in the desert already dug (else, if they have to dig with your body in the trunk, and someone ELSE comes along, they’ll have dig another hole, and so on, you could be there all “effin’ ” night!). Even Gotti in his heyday in the 1980s might have ignored a blowhard that made online threats, had such a facility existed at the time.
New Jersey has long been the topmost anti-liberty State in America.
Recall that New Jersey’s State Constitution didn’t even include the privilege against self-incrimination. (The U.S. Supreme Court upheld this around 1908 in the Twining case, which was correctly decided–this was before the Incorporation Doctrine was invented. But it doesn’t make NJ any less a piece of dirt.)
Their gun laws would please Comrade Stalin. And this latest train wreck of a court decision only codifies what has been standard practice on the NJ Turnpike for decades.
New Jersey is a complete embarrassment to the Magna Carta ethos and a disgrace to American republicanism.
What an irony that “Joisy’s” biggest airport is named Newark LIBERTY International Airport, after its impressive views of the Statue of Liberty.
Maybe the Jersey folk are pissed off that “New Yawk” grabbed both Liberty Island and Staten Island even though the original 1664 land grant clearly assigned them to NJ…probably a matter of the “golden” rule (e..g, he that hath the gold…)
Bla bla bla … Bla bla bla … Bla bla bla …
Oops ohpra’s on. Gotta go.
That is the only response we get from the impotent American who says “oh well”! And that is all Americans today! You worthless Fs! All generations before you are disgusted with your apathy and cowardice! Wars have been fought over less! Your military loved one wasted their time and lives fighting for you!
” Your military loved one wasted their time and lives fighting for you!”
Worse yet, they weren’t fighting for you (or me), they were fighting for the gunvermin and the military-industrial complex.
If they were fighting for me, they would not have gone half way around the world.
Resistance is not merely futile – it is illegal.
Illegal, yes. But not futile. The government has defined any independent act as lawbreaking. We can’t (immediately) fix that, but we CAN accept our role. Lawbreakers For America: today’s underground.
Break the laws against the rulers orderly society. They are different than crimes against persons and crimes against property.
Are you having a fuk the gawd damn cops moment too?
“Cop” is a gawd damn mental illness…..
I’ve come to despise them as a class. Because no one other than an asshole could do do such “work.” A person with any decency left in him would feel uneasy and ill and soon awful – and then, quit.
Imagine it. You spend your day literally stealing people’s money at gunpoint for your boss (the government) just like a mafia enforcer. Only you pretend to yourself that you’re “keeping them safe” by doing such.
Eric, over at Bionic Mosquito’s blog, a couple of posters, including me, praised you on your VW emissions article.
Just thought I would let you know.
Thanks, Mike!
A Clover by the name of The Voice has been trying to rabbit pellet these pages all morning.
Must be “The Voice of Mental Diarrhea.”
Check out the trash….
Take my love.
Take my land.
Take me where I cannot stand.
I don’t care,
I’m still free.
You can’t take the sky from me.
Take me out to the black.
Tell them I ain’t comin’ back.
Burn the land
And boil the sea.
You can’t take the sky from me.
Have no place I can be
Since I found Serenity.
But you can’t take the sky from me. -Lyrics from Firefly theme-
No wonder I like the Firefly theme so much. Perhaps a Mayflower II to establish a New World on Mars might be the answer.
Wash is my co-pilot.
But Mars may be farther than we need to go. Once there are small fusion reactors available, we may be able to colonize Antarctica. That could happen before it is feasible to get to Mars.
agree – but a flaw in the “bug-out” plan is that even if we are able to establish a “galt’s gulch” somewhere and peaceably leave our current politico-socio system far behind – those running the system will never let us live in peace. they are the type that cannot leave others alone. they are clover and they are minion. I believe this is why Rand had Galt’s Gulch as a hidden enclave. She knew how clover thinks.
they will simply propagandize the sheep and send in the gestapo (nicely pictured above – holy smokes – who thought those uniforms were a good idea … ? lol … ok, on second thought, nevermind, I know exactly who … )
and then suddenly they will be at war with west asia … or no, maybe oceana this time … or … you get the picture. either way, they’ll send “the troops” to come and kill us for believing in liberty and freedom and the most ironic (or sad?) part of all is that they will kill us for wanting to live in peace and simply be left to our own devices – and clover will cheer them on and happily send forth his progeny for the murderous “patriotism.”
The Bill of Rights is there to protect the police as much as it is to protect the public.
What applies to me today applies to the police tomorrow.
It is only a matter of time.
That we have a court that would support warrantless arrests is what should concern the police and the public.
Perhaps Eric or one of the posters here has mentioned it, but Iast month the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held, in a 5-2 decision, that neither the aroma of ganja emanating from a an automobile nor an officer’s view of a blunt constitute probable cause for searching the car.
One of my clients is a loveable drunk who, in light of the decision, says that he will now start smoking pot in the car after his bouts at the pub and other fine establishments, licensed or otherwise.
Man disables red light camera, posts how-to video using painter’s pole to re-aim them skyward
http://www.autoblog.com/2015/08/26/man-disables-red-light-camera-posts-how-to-video/
“To do this successfully, all you’ll need is a pair of balls, and a painter’s extension rod…”
too bad the supply of balls is at an all time low.
Mine have scooched back up into my guts. Maybe one day they’ll drop again. Right now, all I want to do is take a nap and… forget.
He should have concealed his identity like the guy in London a few years back, who was releasing peoples cars from the Denver boot. He would pop out of seemingly no where, masked, with a huge gas powered grinder, cut the lock, knock the thing off the wheel in ten seconds flat and be gone like a fart in the wind. Don’t know if the bobbies ever caught up with him.
“Mine have scooched back up into my guts.”
Cold weather can have that effect. Chilling political circumstances likewise.
c(uck)lover’s posts are still there for any registered site member’s enjoyment. feel free to head on over to pending, trash, and spam and have at them.
I recall a cartoon from that obscene screed, “Penthouse”, which depicted the alley-way of a courthouse, with an open window, and an open 55 gallon drum, filled with severed and bloody testicles, flies a-buzzing, and another, spewing blood, being tossed onto the heap. The sign on the door? “DIVORCE COURT”.
I find the Brit method of hanging an old tire filled with gasoline on it, and setting it on fire, to be more amusing. I bet a .17 HMR rifle will work too…
This gives new meaning to an old quote: “Speak softly, but carry a big stick!”
There’s a reason some of us refer to New Jersey as “The Garbage State”.
What does the flocks say?
https://i.imgur.com/gwOqVer.jpg
Take it from me, there’s nothing like a job well done. Except the quiet enveloping darkness at the bottom of a bottle of Jim Beam after a job done any way at all.
The press is a gang of cruel faggots. Journalism is not a profession or a trade. It is a cheap catch-all for fuckoffs and misfits- a false doorway to the backside of life, a filthy piss-ridden little hole nailed off by the building inspector, but just deep enough for a wino to curl up from the sidewalk and masturbate like a chimp in a zoo-cage.
No cop was ever born who isn’t a sucker for a finely-executed hi-speed Controlled Drift all the way around one of those clover-leaf freeway interchanges. Few people understand the psychology of dealing with a highway traffic cop.
Your normal speeder will panic and immediately pull over to the side when he sees the big red light behind him; and then he will start apologizing, begging for mercy.
This is wrong. It arouses contempt in the cop-heart. The thing to do when you’re running along about a hundred or so and you suddenly find a red-flashing CHP-tracker on your trail what you want to do then is accelerate.
In a closed society where everybody’s guilty, the only crime is getting caught. In a world of thieves, the only final sin is stupidity.
We must ride this strange torpedo out until the end.
HST. Buy the Ticket, Take the Ride. Documentary.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlAZV_EsSSE
7 timeless life tips from HST’s Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas
http://inktank.fi/7-timeless-life-tips-from-hunter-s-thompsons-fear-and-loathing-in-las-vegas/
Hunter and I never got proper journalistic accreditation to go anywhere. Nobody was giving us passes to go in here or there. We always had to somehow talk our way in. – R. Steadman
Moral authority has been laid to rest, world opinion is no more than a game show and the difference between good and evil is about as relevant as changing channels. – R.S.
America is ripe for lies and lethargy. The pure mountain air is going and gone. – R.S.
The Fuck-Up. – Arthur Nersesian.
An unforgettable slice of gritty New York City life and the darkly hilarious odyssey of an anonymous slacker. A perennial couch-surfer, an aspiring writer searching for himself in spite of himself, just trying to survive.
But life has other things in store for the fuck-up. From being dumped by his girlfriend to getting fired for asking for a raise, from falling into a robbery to posing as a gay man to keep his job at a porno theater.
The fuck-up’s tragi-comedy is perfectly realized by Arthur Nersesian, who manages to create humor and suspense out of urban desperation. Read it and howl, and be glad it didn’t happen to you.
Quotes by A. Nersesian:
The masses – I love em – they rush for red lights, risking everything to capture a few seconds, only to get home and waste their lives.
Finally life becomes a very specific thing–and that’s what we are. Ultimately, looking back, I’m beginning to believe that we need to always be fucked up. We need to always have some reason to hate ourselves, something to make us feel eternally incomplete.
Nowadays the standards had plummeted so far that I failed even at being a failure. I silently packed up. Nothing else was left. They had even robbed me of self-pity.
HST. The Crazy Never Die.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6PPihUQ_2TY
First let me say this is indeed another sad evolution of state power. I also think that these goddamn courts have strayed so far from the plain language of the 4th Amendment that indeed the Const. (the portion used as a defense against the state) is truly a dead letter. It boggles my mind how a court can just create an “automobile exception” to obtaining a warrant when the supposed highest law (i.e. Const.) specifically states that “no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
That being said, and after puking in my own mouth with the court’s justifications, I think there is still a small protection remaining that should be exploited if at all possible. The NJ case you cited is State v. Witt (https://www.judiciary.state.nj.us/opinions/supreme/A914StatevWilliam.pdf) and is similar to many other states. While I share your outrage, I don’t read that case as permitting a search of a vehicle for any traffic stop whatsoever. Rather, the court states that a warrant is not necessary “only when the police have probable cause to believe that the vehicle contains contraband or evidence of an offense. . .”
Now, if you (the driver) smells of alcohol or pot, the cop will just say I had probably cause to believe the driver was intoxicated (i.e. “committed an offense”) and I therefore could lawfully search the car for intoxicants (and of course other stuff that he happens to find during the now “lawful” search). In other words, as a matter of practicality if you drink a beer or smoke pot in the car, you have virtually no right not to be searched and are screwed.
Additionally (putting aside alcohol and pot), if the cop searches without “probable cause” and finds “contraband,” you can bet the cop will then lie to justify the search. If he finds a gun under the seat, he’ll just say that he shined his light in the car and saw what looked to be a gun on the floor and that’s why he searched the car for the gun. Magically, he will manufacture the requisite probable cause after the fact.
Therefore, the only way I can see to exploit this sliver of a protection remaining is to video the cop during the stop and when he shows any sign of intending to search the car state that you do not consent to any search and demand that he specifically articulate (before the search) the facts that he claims give rise to his belief that the vehicle contains contraband or evidence of an offense. In other words, make him commit on video as to what his “probable cause” is. Of course if he’s silent as to that issue, you will also have evidence that he had no probable cause whatsoever (and that’s why he couldn’t articulate it when asked).
To do this I think I would say the following:
“Officer, I do not consent to any search of my vehicle or person. You may not conduct any such searches.”
If he’s insistent on conducting a search, I’d then say:
“Officer, please specifically articulate the facts that you claim give rise to your belief that probable cause exists for you to conduct a warrant-less search without my consent.”
The notion that the Bill of Rights or any other promise by the rulers will treat the underclass with justice is an elaborate hoax. Rights come from a willingness of the underclass to defy their overlords.
The U.S.A., more than ever before, is populated by people who have been educated to please their overlords. It all started with that gold star on your school work.
The author SM Stirling, in writing out his Drakaverse series of novels, came up with what the fictional Domination of the Draka did once they won it all (think of them as the Union of South Africa, back when it was under some semblance of government with Apartheid, on STEROIDS). With control of the entire Earth, but millions of dead and significant radioactive contamination from the nuclear warfare employed, the “Citizen” class of the Domination, about 10 percent of the entire world’s peoples, with their advances in biological engineering, re-sequence their own DNA into a sort of Uber-mensch, Homo Drakensis, and the remainder of humanity, their serfs, are revamped to inherently be docile and with a built-in desire to please the Drakensis. By this bioengineering, they’re able to lessen the control infrastructure, aka the “Security” Directorate, and give their serf class higher order work and actually permit greater “Freedom” – save to question the order of things, which they’re not disposed to do anyway. The funny part is that the serfs actually BELIEVE they’re better off under their Draka masters and will more vigorously stifle any dissent and/or repress any “criminal” activity BEFORE any “Ubermensch” gets involved!a
There’s actually a large community of Internet folks dedicated to “debunking” Stirling and his Drakaverse, for several reasons: (1) The WHITE BOYS win and (2) perhaps he’s uncomfortably close to the TRUTH. Stirling’s word for such types? IDIOT.
I didn’t get those gold stars and instead, got S’s. So my parents are concerned and go to school to find out the main malfunction. From everything they’ve seen, it would seem I’m a good student since I can do all those meaningless bullshit things they put in front of me. The teacher said I gave him S’s because he doesn’t interact properly with his classmates. Translation, I could give a shit about her and her curriculum and just did things and went on. When everyone else was doing one thing, I’d be doing something else. This would piss off the teacher and then piss her off more when she found I had scored a 100% on what she’d given everyone to do and was doing something else. I was a straight S student. S was simply a “political” score…..according to some peabrain woman who had a teaching certificate. They weren’t all that way when I was in school. Some were very old school and they really taught you something. I shed my straight S in their class.
In high school I had an English teacher who got pissed off by my immediate answers and lack of enthusiasm for the “team spirit”. At the end of a semester my score was well behind many of those I had outscored every test.
So I ask her how she came up with my score. She said….and I quote “I gave you what I thought you deserved”. I didn’t give her what I though she deserved.
Is it true that they are not allowed to search locked compartments without a warrant? Is the trunk considered a locked compartment?
Not only can they make you unlock the trunk and/or glovebox or other compartments, in California and many states, even the EXISTENCE of a “secret” compartment, whether factory original or aftermarket, can be charged as a FELONY. Never mind that one might have a LAWFUL reason to secure one’s PROPERTY within his ride, it’s supposed to be to curb the “Drug” trade, but if it keeps them from, as Eric puts it, “mulcting” your property, like a wad of cash (gotten legitimately, like a good night at the blackjack tables at Thunder Valley), I guess the PTB want to make it easier for the coppers to get it AND punish YOU for DARING to conceal it!
This got started in 1925, when during Prohibition, the cops made a case to conduct a warrantless search of an automobile, declaring that its very mobility, by nature, was itself an “exigent circumstance” that negated a need for a search warrant otherwise demanded by the Fourth Amendment. This became known as the “Carroll” doctrine, (mis)used by law enforcement to justify warrantless searches of automobiles, often at whim, even though the SCOTUS explicitly stated at the time that though there was a “lowered expectation of privacy” in an automobile versus a home (funny, I guess that means that if I travel and sleep in a hotel room that the 4A is supposed to protect me, but if travel with my camper on my truck and sleep in the back in a rest stop, that I have less protection? It would appear so…) that the police still needed the SAME probable cause that would be necessary to get a warrant from a judge. In practical measure, it means the cops can and will disregard the 4A where your ride is concerned.
This is why, if I have to carry significant amounts of cash, that I keep the wad on my PERSON, and never in my ride. That way, the cops have to get a warrant and/or ARREST me in order to get the money out of my pockets. Of course, I still record, Record, RECORD the encounter, since I want to establish that I did NOT consent to any searches, and that the police should not have had probable cause to seize the money.
My old pickup had a huge console. They even went so far as to install a rubber mat in the bottom, something you needn’t worry about these days.
When I had to carry a lot of cash, I’d removed that mat and then place Benjy’s in rows of a certain thickness. I’d put some gasket maker on it in certain places so it couldn’t easily be pulled up and it appeared to be where it was supposed to be. It was never put to the test but take nothing for granted. Under the (93 Chevy pickup)cup holders, you could take that whole cupholder thing off and reveal a huge stash place. I carried all my electrical meters there so even if they wanted to look under it there would only be things “they” didn’t understand.
Game Warden Water Survival – Texas Parks and Wildlife – Official Vid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=synT64AdSNA
My uncle retired from one of the big ad agencies in NYC a few years ago. Since at one time NJ was the place to commute from, that’s where he and my aunt lived. He retired on a Friday, and they moved out of state the following Monday. That’s how bad they wanted out of there!
He was making really good money, but the taxes and expenses of living there, holy moley. And there HOA was hellish too.
New Jersey is a highly regulated state all-around, scoring 48th out of 50 states in freedom.
New Jersey is ranked dead last for travel freedom, with primary seat belt enforcement, motorcycle and bicycle helmet laws, a cell phone driving ban with primary enforcement, a federally compliant open container law, sobriety checkpoints, and mandatory under-insured motorist coverage for drivers.
Fireworks and raw milk are prohibited. Cigarette taxes are high, and smoking bans are as draconian as any in the country. There is a happy hour ban on alcohol.
Taxes are 11.2 percent of income. State debt is at 22.1 percent of income. New Jersey’s most significant flaw is real property rights. Local zoning laws are extremely strict, rent control is authorized, eminent domain is used at whim, and private malls and homeowners’ associations must allow political speech on their property.
Labor laws costly, with a strict workers’ compensation mandate, short-term disability and paid family leave programs, a “smoker protection” law in employment, and no right-to-work law.
New Jersey’s gun control laws are among the most restrictive in the country, and its marijuana laws are not liberal even though it is a left-leaning state.
http://freedominthe50states.org/overall/new-jersey
2012 World Rankings
Personal, Economic, Overall, Freedom By Country
1 Denmark 9.58 7.66 8.62
30 France 8.72 7.21 7.97
31 USA 8.71 7.81 8.26
America is the 31st ranked nation in personal, which includes UN guaranteed freedom of travel.
http://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/human-freedom-index-files/human-freedom-index-2015.pdf
NJ is 48, but my current residence of Maryland, the so-called Free State, is 44. Hate to think where it would rank were it not the ‘Free State.’
The cops in NJ literally look like Nazis. They wear those WWII German Wehrmacht-style pants with the side bulges and general staff stripe down the sides, SS-esque belts and caps.
Anyone who puts that uniform on is an asshole by definition.
I don’t believe that it has escaped anyone’s attention that the more blue (Democratic) and green (environmently concerned) the place is, the more the rulers have been empowered with ruthlessness. Egalitarianism does not apply to the underclass and its overlords.
One of my heroes – Hunter Thompson – believed (like Napoleon) that liberty was something only a minority of the human population could either understand or deal with. He called such people snow leopards. Solitary, retiring beasts that are found only in isolated and high altitude areas.
Massachusetts State Schutzstaffel wear the same uniform, but only in a dashing periwinkle blue. When trying to look super-douchey, they wear the ‘campaign hat’, trying to put on the drill instructor persona. When wanting to go with the butch look, they wear this crushed hat that is 100% reminiscent of their goose stepping brethren.
Happy-hour BAN on alcohol? Talk about missing the POINT! I’d call it UNHAPPY hour, which I though only pertained, cynically, when Sonic Drive In has half-price drinks and slushes (2 to 5 pm, every day) and seems to put the most nit-witted of their crew at the drive-thru windows.
It appears that things are quite as bad as thought. NJ is reverting back to modern norm. Seems NJ had stronger protections in place due to a 2009 decision. This one erases those.
http://newbrunswicktoday.com/article/nj-supreme-court-decision-makes-it-easier-police-justify-warrantless-vehicle-searches
Make your car a dangerous place to search. Use your imagination.
“Make your car a dangerous place to search. Use your imagination.”
A few years back while out fishing I had an a-hole game warden go and run his paws through my fishing backpack while his buddy was checking my license.
Of course he didn’t even ask first, or say what he might have been looking for — I suppose he was hoping to find something non-fishing related that he could jack me up for. It’s not like I’d be keeping under-sized fish in a small backpack on a 100-degree day.
From that point on I have since made sure to always have one compartment in that backpack filled with loose treble hooks to perhaps one day teach one of these a-holes some manners … “well, if maybe you would have told me first I could have warned you that those were there, tsk tsk … ”
Luckily though I haven’t even encountered any of these tax ticks since then, which was about three years ago. Hopefully their budget was cut …
The floating tax feeders here locally have taken to locking their boats up indoors at night. It seems they were springing multiple .22″ holes below the water line when parked outside and left unattended…
Similarly, the City Of now has a full time staffer dedicated to cleaning the lenses of red-light cameras. It seems some dastardly youths have been shooting them with paintball guns, rendering them useless…
We live in strange times.
When I was a kid (I’m 41 now), game wardens were virtually non-existent on the lake my family has a cottage on. The only time I can remember one back then, was when the warden returned our rowboat when it had gotten loose and floated away during a storm. Did he lecture my dad about letting it get loose? Of course not. He was more interested in talking about his new bass fishing boat. It was the only time I remember seeing the guy.
He was just a person with a job where he had little to do, so he tried to be helpful to the residents on the lake. Most people liked the guy, he didn’t seem like a cop, and he never had a sidearm, since he didn’t want to ruin a gun if he had to go in the water when he was working. I have heard from long time neighbors he rarely wrote people up on stuff he he could have, as he hated being inside, and having to take people to court meant a day not being outside on one of the lakes.
Today there are several wardens on that one lake alone. They never seem to have time to be helpful to residents, too busy nitpicking every little thing. The water level is high this year, and they thought they could order all boaters off the lake for some reason for the first time ever. One of the residents had to get an injunction against the state opening it back up.
They no longer return loose items (boats, toys, pier pieces) anymore (for free anyway). On the lakes facebook page residents will now post they are holding loose items that wash up on their beach for others to get back so the wardens doesn’t hold it for ransom.
Now you get tickets for life vests that they don’t like, going too fast, and hassling you being out at night (still legal, though probably not much longer) Now kids can’t drive boats (I piloted a boat myself at ten), and they have to have licenses like driving a car and have to wait until age 15. Those of us born before 1988 are grandfathered (at the moment anyway).
Seems to me we had far fewer problems on that lake when we didn’t have cops on it.
YOu’re STILL a “Kid” to me (I’m sixty,and you’re probably 45 now…), and veritable “Yute”…enjoy it while it lasts.
I guess I should have included my location — Texas is where this took place, specifically Lubbock. I don’t mind having my licensed checked, being asked if I’m keeping any fish (I don’t, I catch and release bass) — but I don’t appreciate game wardens going out of their way to dig through my belongings and try and bust me when I’m following the laws and regulations. I really wish the 4th Amendment applied to these creeps, but I guess there are some Supreme Court rulings that give them the god-like power they seem to have (and abuse).
If I had my way most game wardens would be laid off and the savings would be put towards restocking the lakes — that would probably more than make up for any “poaching” that goes on. Of course, the game wardens don’t give a damn about preserving the fisheries or promoting the sport, they just want to either write tickets or slap on handcuffs — they always seem so disappointed when they find out there is nothing to bust me for. You used to be able to chat with them, but they won’t even do that anymore — once they figure out they have nothing on you they just move on to find their next potential victim.
“I don’t mind having my licensed checked”
Why, Sean? Why should you need permission from the gunvermin to go fishing? Do they own the lake? If so, why? Because they used eminent domain to steal the property and tax money to build the dam? What gave them the right to do that?
Funny you say that about “owning” the lake. When my great grandpa bought the cottage back in the 1920’s, since it is a non navigable lake (meaning no one used it commercially, only recreational), the deed showed that you owned a kind of pie shaped section of the bottom of the lake to the middle touching the pie slice of the property owner on the other side of the lake.
All lake property owners had an easement over the entire lake surface, you generally stay 25 feet offshore (for privacy and to keep down the wake) when using a boat. The original land developer owned the entire lake (lake is about 700 acres) and all the land around it before subdividing it.
The state (Michigan in this case) claimed no property rights at all. Even the roads around the lake are privately owned (laid out and built by the first developer) and still are technically closed to the general public, and still are not maintained by any government agency. Each property owner is responsible for the section crossing their property and the only rule is that it is passable. There is an property owners association, that is voluntary, instead of a HOA. It cannot create or enforce rules of any kind.
But as time went on, the state claimed ownership of all the lake bottom past the 25 foot mark. That happened sometime in the 1950’s or 60’s when more people started to live out there full time. That’s when the game warden (and public access) showed up for the first time. The state bought the only lot that touched the public road, and that’s when non residents started to use the lake. You all know what happens when you introduce people who own nothing to a place. So more people, you “need” police. Funny how that works.
Now, the state claims ownership up to the high level waterline now (this is happening in just about every state). They are attempting to take “ownership” of the actual shoreline all the way around the lake.
It’s finally made people wake up to this land grab. Most people didn’t do anything about the bottom of the lake, as the state promised to “maintain” the lake (they haven’t). But they do know if the state takes ownership, there will be more rules and regulations. What I think got people attention, was when it was pointed out, that the state could and eventually would ban private piers (since they would be on “public” property) making the use of the lake much harder.
This stuff has been going on much longer then the Kelo case back in 2005.
Sounds like a return from Allen Henry to me. Hell, there’s so many there they probably had your license number sent to them. The one in Post musta been busy.
I hate the sons a bitches. We had a couple in a row here after the first we’d had in a long time(a guy close to my age…at the time, 50 or so)and they were both barely old enough to qualify but both were totally abusive. They’d tell you how much power they had and want to have you shaking in your boots. That approach didn’t work too well in this county. And now they’ve taken to hiring the huge ones, no doubt for intimidation. I could tell some terrible stories about some within 60 miles of me.
The one that works Lake Stamford had to start keeping his boat inside when he wasn’t using it. And they have no compunction whatsoever about banging hell out of your new $40,000 boat with their disposable govt. supplied boat. I have no good thing to say about any living game warden…..except the guy who used to be here in that he wasn’t the true asshole they are now.
“Sounds like a return from Allen Henry to me.”
Nah, I’ve never fished at Alan Henry, this happened at Mackenzie Park, in Lubbock. Which was actually a good little bass lake at one time, they actually bothered to do a good stocking of it back in 2004, but nothing since then, or any other lakes here, I suppose because all of the $$$ are going to pay game warden salaries.
I used to encounter them on a regular basis, but haven’t been checked for a license since that time about three years ago. The person who asked me why I didn’t mind being checked for a license, I guess I was talking about my attitude back a few years ago really. I guess the backpack rummaging thing changed my attitude, that and earlier seeing a guy hauled off to jail in front of his kids for not having a fishing license (and he wasn’t even fishing, just casting the bait out then handing the rod to his kid). Also, when I realized that 98% of what I paid for the license wasn’t going for re-stocking the lakes, but was most likely going to pay admin costs (game warden salaries and benefits, etc).
I had no idea they ever stocked that little pond. When I went to Tech in the 60’s that was a good place to go to get away from cotton fields and for the most part, cops. We always considered fishing it, never considered a license back then but figured it was just perch and trash fish. I can think of plenty times though I would have killed for a string of perch. I didn’t do much but hunt and fish through high school when I had my druthers which was quite a bit of the time. We had a zillion tanks we could fish back then, some with good bass fishing. My best friend and I may have been the only bass fishermen in the country. We bought some of the first rubber worms, Wacky Worms, pre-rigged with hooks, easy to hang up and lose.
I can imagine getting a ticket for no license but hauled off to jail is just over the top.
Speaking of getting searched, I recall living on the high plains and finally getting a day off from corn harvest. My wife and a friend decided to go to the liquor store, 45 miles away but closer than Lubbock or Amarillo(120 miles). So we drove to Nazareth, the only place to buy alcohol semi-locally. We see a DPS sitting on the side of the road about a mile from the store so we’re taking bets on getting stopped being the long haired hippies we were. We get a case of beer, a bottle of bourbon and a bottle of wine that we put in the trunk. We get maybe half a mile from the store and sure enough, the piggos stop us. This one big one comes up to my window and wants to see my license. You could hear the little gears turning in his big fat head, probably wondering why a hippie would have a commercial license. So he hands it back and says ‘Do you have a trunk key?’ BTW, my car is perfect inside and out, not even a finger smudge to see and smelled like lemon pledge. Yep, I replied. So I sat there and he stood there and finally said in a really sarcastic voice, “well….open it”. Ok, you didn’t ask me to open it so inquiring about the key was a puzzler for me but I didn’t say that. I walk back there with his partner back there looking on too. I open the trunk and there’s a case of beer and two sacks with bottles in them with the trunk looking like it was just driven off the showroom floor, the way I kept my cars back then. They both just stood and stared. I almost went back and got the ashtray for them, clean as every other part too. Then he told me to “keep it down” as if I’d been speeding and walked away in a huff. I drove off as quietly as possible since it was a radical engine. Once he was half a mile away or so I nailed it and rattled the cotton stalks and we all had a good laugh. We crossed into the next county and it was party time. I hate them bumbitches.
God bless the seditionists.
…”Silly string” works good on red-light cameras. It can be applied from a distance and is a mess to clean up…
I have two words for you, Gamo Whisper.
If they get hurt searching you it’s a terrorist(booby trap) move on Your part and you’ll be treated as such. The have all bases covered. I was once asked if I had any booby traps. I never got around to replying. There were SO many answers I simply couldn’t choose the one I liked best. I have a hate/hate relationship with LEO’s.
“Don’t forget that even driving the speed limit is now grounds for a pull-over. Cops take the position that this is “suspicious” behavior because – after all – everyone speeds. If you’re not speeding, then – clearly – you must be trying to hide something.”
Better watch out, BrentP.
I haven’t been pulled over in recent years, just followed until the cop got bored.