Sometimes, we get a lucky break. The same Supreme Court that routinely tramples the Constitution once in awhile stops mid-stomp, as if by dint of some atavistic recollection of the liberty it was charged to uphold – kind of like a wife beater who realizes he maybe hit the old gal once too much this time. 
So, here’s what happened:
The Nine ruled on Monday in U.S. v. Jones (PDF here) that planting a GPS tracking device on a person’s car without a valid court order constitutes an illegal search and therefore violates the Fourth Amendment. Which is wonderful – and right – except it’s the exception that violates the rule.
This same Supreme Court has also ruled that’s it’s a-ok to stop motorists without a warrant or court order or even the thinnest pretext of probable cause and subject them to searches. Literally. Their actual bodies. By declining to even hear the case of Wisconsin v. Faust back in 2005, a case challenging the constitutionality of non-consensual blood draws at roadside sobriety checkpoints, the court affirmed this odious practice. On top of the equally odious prior precedent legalizing random stops on the basis of “compelling state interest” and something called “implied consent.”
The reason being the Talmudic process of judicial review, which deals not in broad principles applied to particulars but with pedantic legalisms defined by the purposeful absence of any reference to an over-riding principle.
Consider: In Monday’s case, U.S. v. Jones, the Court over-turned the conviction of Jones – a DC drug dealer – because someone forgot to have the original search warrant renewed and that became the basis for tossing out the subsequent evidence against Jones gathered by the GPS device attached to his car.
In other words, the broader Fourth Amendment issues were side-stepped. Thus, it’s still ok for our Fourth (and Fifth) Amendment rights to be snipped here, qualified there – even nullified outright – provided the necessary legalisms are upheld. Right and wrong are irrelevant and immaterial.
This is strategically essential, because it precludes even a discussion of the rightness or wrongness of the Leviathan state as such and replaces it with debates about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. It is why a copy of the Constitution can comfortably fit in a standard envelope and be carried in your vest pocket while the volumes of case law fill libraries and require hand trucks to move around.
The law cannot deal in principle because it would render 90 percent of the legal profession unemployed by rendering the law a simple matter of Does it (or Does it not) conform to the simple, clearly stated principles articulated by the language of the Constitution? And of course, evaluating what the government does in terms of principle would immediately expose the con by awakening the average man to what is being done to him – and that simply cannot be allowed.
Instead, there’s jargon and cant and ratiocination.
There is Justice (sic) Sotomayor prattling on about the constitutional impropriety of non-physical searches (e.g., searches conducted by accessing electronically available data) while embracing all manner of physical searches, such as searches of your person and effects at the airport.And Justice (sic) Scalia characterizing as “unwise” the application of “18th century tort law” to 21st century technology. Whatever that is supposed to mean.
To the hair-splitting mind of a Supreme, establishing these differences without a distinction is the pinnacle of legal reasoning. 
And they are praised for it.
Now imagine, a non-Talmudic reading of the Fourth Amendment. Bear with me. It requires perhaps the reading comprehension we expect of standard-issue 8th Graders:
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and 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.
How can anyone who hasn’t been fed a steady diet of lead paint chips from infancy onward come up with exceptions to the principle enunciated above? There is no mention or even innuendo in the direction of a “compelling state interest” or “exigent circumstances.” And “implied consent”? Really? How can any normal brain come up with that one?
The answer is simple: Spend three years in law school.
Throw it in the Woods?
All the above arguments & claims made about the two major vague parts of the amendment, “unreasonable searches and seizures” and “probable cause,” ignore the fact that these are in fact the two ripest aspects leading to judiciary, executive, and legislative shenanigans. There is nothing in these two aspects well defined in the amendment itself or anywhere else in the Constitution or in documents from which the principles were derived that prevents wild and even contradictory interpretations and applications. No Cloverian percentage is defensible — especially when considering that one of the primary principles espoused in the Constitution is the defense against Tyranny of the Majority as well as Tyranny of the Minority. The very problem is that “reasonable” and “probable” are open to freedom-destroying definitions.
As I see it, if individual freedom is sacrosanct — especially in rights guaranteed by the Constitution in general & this amendment & other amendments in particular — each & every search’s reasonableness must be decided and defined distinctly and identified separately in each warrant along with the probable cause for the issuance of the warrant as required by the amendment. Furthermore, no general class of warrant affecting groups can be issued without identifying that group because the amendment expressly states, “particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” Therefore, if it is to be applied to a group, the place of the search and the persons to be seized or (inclusive OR exclusive?) the things to be seized must be described. Thus, to have a highway search requires identifying the particular location on the highway of the search and the particular type of persons on the highway to be searched and the particular items to be seized. If there is no such specification in the warrant, the searching and seizing is unconstitutional. The idea that having a driver’s license, for example, allows the possessor to sign away fundamental rights is bogus.
Excellent points all LarryR. The trouble is that the United States (corporate entity headquartered in Washington D.C., proper noun, “s” on the end not necessarily plural; as distinct from *these* states, united) won that little dispute over states rights and sovereignty about 1865 or so as I recall. At that point, to the victor went the spoils. One of those things plundered was the Constitution (they have it under glass at their H.Q. to prove that they captured it).
So let’s break this down to its lowest common denominator. The federal government enlisted (mainly conscripted) the people of several states to go forth, kill, pillage and plunder in those states that wished to withdraw from what they believed to be a voluntary compact. It looked like the dissenting states might get some support from England and France. The federal dictator (who had gone on record as pro-slavery in his own inaugural address) unleashed a propaganda campaign to shame the dissenters’ potential allies into backing away on the basis of slavery. He had already shutdown newspapers, suspended Habeaus Corpus, printed fiat currency, shot draft dissenters and imprisoned over 13,000 of his political opponents, et cetera. So, all of his pro-Constitutional blather was proven to be bovine hyperbole by his actions.
Once the war was over and the Constitutional Republic was effectively dead, the federal victors took property, installed puppet governments and ran roughshod over the former dissenters, which was clearly in violation of the Constitution (as well as contrary basic human decency and Christian morals). This was the groundwork, the foundation if you will, for the Hamiltonian federal leviathan upon whose welfare / warfare plantation we all labor on now.
Don’t believe it? Name for me if you will any one of the several states that doesn’t have a military base on it today. How about a U.S. territory? A state with an independent militia perhaps? (Hint: the National Guard and Reserves are nationalized “select militias” no different than the standing army). The de facto Law of War applies to us now, the de jure Supreme Law of the Land notwithstanding. Most notably one particular provision applies in stark contrast to the Constitution: When a sovereign occupies a territory with its military, that territory is subject to the will of the sovereign. In layman’s terms, if one has men with guns on our land, they get to tell us what to do. Maybe this explains the militarization of “our” police? It’s so simple any five year old can understand and accept it. It’s truly pathetic that most Amerikan adults are so brainwashed and herded that they cannot.
No preaching to the choir required. Lincoln trashed the Constitution repeatedly during the War to Prevent Southern Independence, but he didn’t obviate the Constitution. That was a war of attrition taking all the years since his time. He did, however, bring to fruition the mercantilist American System, as advocated by his mentor, Henry Clay. To bring that about he had to turn the United States — plural, as used by the founders — into the fully-centralized singular form. As the Great Centralizer he laid the groundwork and many have labored on completing that work since.
That doesn’t mean we capitulate. Our very discussions here and elsewhere represent the beginnings of the 3rd fight for independence, just as the discussions and debates of centuries ago preceded the 1st. They had to deal with their sovereign’s military, too. Remember that it was a minority of well-read and thinking men who put their livelihoods, their families, and their lives in danger for principles that would outlive them.
Nicely (and rightly) said, Larry.
We still have time – and there is still hope. It’s easy to get depressed; the situation is indeed bleak. But I’m certain Jefferson and Washington felt bleak, too, in 1778.
The Clovers don’t matter precisely because they are Clovers. They are dead weight. They do nothing other than accept. And when the current dynamic changes, they will be obliged to accept something different.
Here’s to the 3rd fight for Independence! I have people question why it is important to understand what really happened during the war of federal aggression. I tell them the same thing about history I heard my dad tell a woman who asked him why archaeology was important: History is like a map. In order to know where you’re headed, you must first know where you’ve been.
When the powers that be want us to believe we’ve come from somewhere that we haven’t, then we will invariably end up where they want us to go (and as Eric pointed out, the Clovers will “go along to get along”). Larry, you’re quite right that Lincoln didnt’ obivate the Constitution, he just ignored it as do our current crop of federal thugs. Where the head goes the body will follow, so our state and local authorities routinely follow suite.
The local level is where we will make the most headway at changing things first. It’s taken time, but through gently educating people around me, I am now hearing markedly Libertarian thoughts come from former “conservatives”. The one thing we do need to attack is SOPA / PIPA. I waited a few days after the blackouts to write to my congresswoman and pointed remind her to keep her hands off the Internet. I would encourage everyone else to write to theirs as well. Let ’em know we’re watching.
On Lincoln:
Everyone who hasn’t ought to read his First Inaugural Address. Doing so will throw water on all the Happy Talk about The Great Emancipator and his (cough) determination to “help” the black slaves as the causus belli for the War of Federal Aggression.
The ugly – and extremely politically incorrect – fact is that Lincoln was prepared to make slavery perpetual and irrevocable in the states where it existed, by so amending the Constitution.
He didn’t give a flip about blacks – other than as a political cudgel. What he did give a flip about was federal supremacy uber alles.
That was what the war was about.
But generations of publik skook raised cattle see Lincoln as a great humanist and liberator; the freer of the slaves.
Cue barfing sounds now.
We now have at least four “Gils” :
[email protected]
124.171.202.252
Gil
[email protected]
202.173.172.209
Gil
[email protected]
124.150.68.242
[email protected]
124.150.84.125
“The local level is where we will make the most headway at changing things first.”
Virginia has become the first state to introduce a bill that enables its law enforcement to refuse to act under NDAA, or to act as support for fed troops to do so.
It has come out of committee (Yea-6, Nay-3). No word on when or if it will come to a floor vote. Yay, Virginia!
The Tenth Amendment Center has provided suggested bill language to forward to other state legislatures also.
Flushed.
Look bozo you aren’t even an Amuricun so I suppose we can excuse your gross ignorance of our history, but if the Emancipation Proclamation were really about emancipation, why didn’t it emancipate any slaves in territories that were still under the jurisdiction of the Lincoln Administration that issued it?
Do they teach at Aussie Idiot Academy that Dred Scott was actually freed by a jury in Missouri, a slave state, before the case was overturned on appeal by the federal Supreme Court you find so indispensable?
Do they teach that some of the New England states openly discussed secession at the Hartford Convention over lost commerce with England on account of the War of 1812?
No because that can’t be tarred with the slavery brush so they just ignore that one.
Gil slavery was just one more excuse to wage total war on the people who were against total government. America was unique in the fact that slavery did not end peacefully as in Europe, England and even the Northern United States. One key item precipitating the war was the onerous Morill tariff which benefited northern workers and industrialists to the detriment of the Southern agrarian economy.
In addition to this was the fact that the Republicans (progeny of the Henry Clay Whigs) wished to insinuate themselves evermore into the internal affairs of the individual states (which were essentially sovereign countries, not federal “satellites”) to establish Hamilton’s mercantilist wet dream once and for all.
Slavery most certainly was an issue. Southern plantation owners (credible estimates are that no more than 1 in 15 Confederate soldiers actually owned any slaves though) saw the slaves as property that they paid for. In other more “civilized” countries, compensated emancipation prevailed and ended slavery peacefully. But here the Northern Puritans (many of whom were the progeny of the very slave traders that profited from this repugnant practice) wanted the slave owners (of whom Lincoln’s wife’s family, the Todds, were included) to free what they condidered to be their chattel property without any compensation. The people of that day saw slaves, from an economic perspective, to be the same as horses or cattle. They were necessary to carry out the day to day activities on a plantation. But more than that, blacks and whites worked cheek to jowl with each other and were often as close as family.
When the union troops ran the slaves off many plantations, they hid in the woods, waited for the yankees to leave and went home when the invaders moved on. My God man, that was their home too and they had no where else to go!
The real irony of it is that when the federal government won the war and the 13th and 14th Amendments passed, every American now fell under the wings of the federal government. Now Gil, everyone in the United States is on the federal plantation. Last year they took damned near a third of the fruits of my labor against my will (I could resist, but they’d try to cage me and if I resisted that they would shoot me). If the purpose of the war was to end slavery once and for all, then why are all of us (productive people) conscripted into federal involuntary servitude?
Gil’s a turd, Boothe. He’s been flushed, accordingly.
Emancipation proclamation is to Lincoln as Weapons of mass destruction is to Bush Jr.
In other words, both were BS to trick people into supporting a war.
If you want Lincoln’s real feelings on Slavery see his first inaugural address and many other statements to bring the southern states back into the union.
The one thing Lincoln would not let go of were tariffs that those in the southern states mostly paid and corporate welfare to his backers paid from those tariffs.
BTW, another telling aspect of Lincoln was that he opposed slavery in new states and territories because he didn’t want blacks living in there.
“BTW, another telling aspect of Lincoln was that he opposed slavery in new states and territories because he didn’t want blacks living in there.”
Yup. Another history lesson most Ahhhmerikuns never learned. The “free soil” movement was not about being generous to blacks. It was about protecting white labor from being undercut by cheaper (slave) black labor. Tom DiLorenzo wrote about this at length in his books – and also about the virulence of Northern attitudes toward blacks.
Clover, go read Lincoln’s Inaugural Address. About his re-affirmation of the Fugitive Slave Law. Of his support for a constitutional amendment enshrining slavery where it existed. I’m tired of dealing with your belligerent ignorance. I’m flushing your post and all future posts. By now.
Speaking of Tom DiLorenzo, here’s a recent article on some these very topics,
http://mises.org/daily/5883/Freedom-and-Federalism
and another, by Clyde Wilson, on strict constructionism and interpretation and the troubles associated with Conservative hero-worship of Madison, Hamilton, and “The Federalist Papers.”
Consider the voluntary association of the several states to create the federal government, that the word voluntary expressly means the association is withdrawable, and that a people’s association to establish a governing agency is so withdrawable was drawn attention to by the Declaration of Independence. Just exactly how many dead letters from founding documents can we have and still have a republic?
Excellent stuff, Larry – thanks for posting!
“Just exactly how many dead letters from founding documents can we have and still have a republic?”
There isn’t even lip service paid to the idea of a republic any longer. We are a democracy – the form of government that always precedes tyranny and which is often its essential precursor. And hence, the form of government most reviled by the founders – even more so than monarchy.
Clyde Wilson’s review is at http://lewrockwell.com/wilson/wilson34.1.html.
Although the language in the Constitution and Bill of Rights is crystal clear to you and me, it’s apparently murky to the point of being unintelligible to the courts and legal scholars.
As a rule of thumb the Supremes have more narrowly defined our rights so as not to appear as an obvious impediment to the state’s unquenchable thirst for more powers. In this way the document is being slowly turned on its head and transformed into a government deed of ownership of we the sheeple.
TOG sez: “Hold up the comments of Eric, Brent, Meth, Boothe, and others who post here regularly against the drivel of the Clover Legion and there’s no comparison. I don’t know how these guys keep coming back …”
This is a mystery to me, too. If I visited a forum and for months on end got the abuse heaped on my head that the Clovers do, I believe I would conclude that it wasn’t the right venue for me, and go elsewhere. It’s like they don’t quite get that they’re being insulted.
There’s a kind of doggedness to their continued return, like it’s a mission they’ve set for themselves. Like it’s on their daily must-do list:
1. Get up.
2. Brush teeth.
3. Walk dog.
4. Eat breakfast.
5. Attend day job.
6. Eat dinner.
7. Watch Hannity.
8. Goto epautos.com and get the crap kicked out of myself.
Unless they get so little validation that abusive attention is better than none at all. Otherwise, I don’t get it.
Gail, it seems there have been several different *Clover* writing styles (and varying literacy levels) over the past few months. There is also an androgynous, if not outright gender shifting, feel to their posts. I think Clover is a generic screen name for whatever government (or possibly insurance company?) bureaucRat that happens to walk by the dedicated terminal they monitor and troll EPAutos.com with. So we probably slam one Clover for a while and then they tag team another one into the cage. I think this may be why Dom has reported that they hail from multiple IP addresses. It makes you wonder just how many statist thugs are out there trying to prevent that nasty old message of individual Liberty from rearing its ugly head unopposed. Our tax dollars at work….
Back in the day it was relatively easy to check things by IP. But now with people traveling and wi-fi and so on IPs aren’t as reliable for tracking, although the bulk of the posts should come back with traceroutes to the same geographical area.
Because of all these different ways a person could connect old fashioned analysis used as it was in the days of multi-user systems (pre-web) must be used. This is mostly looking at patterns of writings and so on.
While I do see some of the same things you guys do there is one principle of cloverism that isn’t being accounted for IMO. The clover is only as good as the information that it was fed. Clover is as lucid as any particular subject is explained by government schools, TV news and mainstream newspapers. Clover’s abilities break down when pushed beyond the range of knowledge imparted by these sources.
Gil on the other hand is often trolling, the more subtle way of doing it, but doing it none the less.
What I would look for is government addresses in the web server logs. (never mind me being bored at the computer checking this site too many times in a day 🙂 ) As I understand it government is rather hamfisted about their internet activities and can’t do even the simple things required to actually hide one’s identity.
Here are this morning’s two “Gils” –
[email protected]
124.171.202.252
[email protected]
202.173.172.209
Just looking at it in cursory sense, both IPs trace back such that I would consider it the same person.
Looking at the same IP, probably not too far from Syndey.
He just tried to post again using a third IP:
[email protected]
124.150.68.242
All of them come from the same broadband ISP. He’s probably got ADSL that drops out frequently with hyperactive DHCP that won’t let you keep the same IP between drop outs. I’ve experienced it with AT&T, lucky to have the same IP for an hour on some days.
Or he’s purposely screwing with you by releasing the DHCP lease and getting a new IP.
Ah-ha! I bet you’re right, B&B. That explains everything.
Yup, your civil servants at work. What to do with incompetent and/or dysfunctional employees you can’t fire? Put ’em where they can’t do any damage and let them think they’re doing actual work. “Okay, Carol, your turn in the barrel. Read these dangerous rabble-rousing troublemakers and report back on … oh, say, St. Patrick’s Day. Attagirl.”
I am humbled by your superior observational and analytical skills.
I want to say the quality of discourse here is just spectacular. Hold up the comments of Eric, Brent, Meth, Boothe, and others who post here regularly against the drivel of the Clover Legion and there’s no comparison. I don’t know how these guys keep coming back; they get points for dogged determination if nothing else.
I can just picture when these guys go home at night from the NSA or whatever government hole they troll from they kick their dogs and beat their wives to take out the aggression that must build up from getting drubbed on this site all day every day.
Thanks – and, let’s hope so!
PS: Clover is going to love our pending new feature here…
Ooh suspense!
By the way I caught my first clover on video today! It was the garden variety type. The typical pull out in front of you and drag ass.
Road clovers. I don’t think another type was mentioned in the road clover article. In fairness to Eric, an entire book could be dedicated to the subject.
This type is the school bus clover. This clover stops whenever a school bus is sighted, or is merely slowing down – EVEN WHEN THE FLASHING RED LIGHTS AND STOP SIGN ARE NOT ACTIVATED.
The chiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiidren!
Ran into one today (not literally).
Too bad. Don’t miss the opportunity again! Running into the clover, I mean; the children might still be saved.
lol
I was behind a school bus driver clover, or maybe that is a clover school bus driver? well anyway.
This was a narrow mountain road and the driver would go speed limit all the way between stops. Approaching a stop the red lights and sign would come out well before stopping the bus and stay on until he got it rolling again.
Me right behind and a string of folks behind me. I can only imagine his thinking.
Gotta be safe… think of the children!
Easy – the word “unreasonable” – the Constitution allows for “reasonable searches and seizures”. So what “reasonable” – only what a Libertarian believes to be “reasonable”? No, because Libertarians believes the individual is “sovereign” and as such the government has no right to ever intrude onto private premises, period.
And of course Gil has no qualms with an omnipotent and unaccountable bureaucracy deciding just what is and is not “unreasonable.” He’ll cheer from his mom’s basement when the US government stops beating around the bush and just comes right out and declares those of us who post here as “terrorists” and renders us to Guantanamo for reeducation, so he and Clover can turn it into a self-congratulatory echo chamber of circle-jerking.
I may accept the tyranny of the budding police state if only it would find silencing the voices of those who flood comments sections of websites with drivel then take their balls and go home when pressed to explain themselves, as “reasonable.”
So you would argue the word “unreasonable” should not have appeared in the Consitution and private property is off-limits and Government can stick to policing public property?
My argument is that the institution of suffrage should have remained a limited privilege. There are far too many out there that can’t handle the responsiblity.
pretty simple That One Guy. Reasonable is what 80 percent, or there about, of the people would classify as reasonable. Not what the 5 percent or whatever believe. You know, the kind of people that say it is unreasonable to have a policeman TALK to you to see if you are safe to drive.
Is there a legal and/or scientific basis for this 80 percent or is this another one or your rectal productions?
Guy, no that is why I said there about. You always have people with their own agenda that would disagree and many of those get thrown in jail.
“Guy, no that is why I said there about.”
Yes, Clover. That is what “there” all about.
And where, in that clever and reasonable-sounding emanation, is there room for principle, benighted clover?
Because we’re a Republic*–or at least, we were. And in a constitutional Republic we have something called the “Rule of Law”. That is, we’ve enunciated ab initio the limits of government; THAT befuddled one is “The Law”.
So rather than your democratic two-wolves-and-a-lamb-voting-on-whats-for-dinner, we have a system of principle**. No matter what the pitchfork-and-torches 80% mob thinks, you may not deprive a man of his innate rights.
And thus, we come to the underlying purpose of The Law***: to protect person and property from harm and theft. Fuck the 80% who voted to institute sobriety checkpoints, or license-plate readers, or red-light cameras, or stop-and-frisk laws….they violate the Constitution, and they violate my unalienable rights innate to me as a human being.
* Republic, from the Latin res publica, a thing of the public; i.e., “We the People”
** Principle–the forgotten idea that there exist philosophical and legal absolutes which dare not be breached
*** The Law: properly, common law aka “Do unto others”, or “No victim, no crime”, or “Live and let live”.
No one should have the right to define “reasonable” right? No one has the same defintion of “reasonable” as another. If you polled people as to whether the police should the right to enter private premises because it houses a meth lab most people would think it’s “reasonable” for the police to enter but Libertarians would that people have a right to their private property as long as they haven’t caused harm to others.
You consider it “reasonable” to search people at random, for no specific reason, without even the suggestion that they may have committed some crime or be about to?
Methyl, as usual excellent and valid points. Clover and Gil are all for a “reasonable” form of “democracy” as long as the mob is espousing what they believe. But let the mob decide that Cloverian behavior is a vice and they will cry foul in a New York minute. They would immediately switch over to parroting that the Constitution affords them equal protection under the law despite their minority status, I assure you.
One of my family members was a dyed in the wool liberal journalist and the greenest of green Clovers. Between his staunch anti-gun position and his determination to shut down every coal and nuclear power plant in the nation, he would have had us all defenseless and in the dark…to save the planet…for our own good of course.
Just after my wife shot the serial rapist in our house, Mr. Liberal ran right out and bought a .357 Mag and a Winchester 94. Since we’d had numerous heated debates over private firearms ownership I couldn’t wait to confront him. When I told him it appeared that his position had changed, his snarky response was “Well it’s my right!”. Wow…a religious transformation over night.
That’s the problem with Clovers, no principles; only what is expedient, advantagious and convenient for them. So trying to explain that “principle thingy” to them will bear as much fruit as explaining The Supreme Law of the Land, individual Liberty or anything else they don’t agree with. If 80% of the people believe the world is flat, for Clover it apparently must be so.
Yes Eric. A search would seem reasonable to millions of people when the alternative is 911 which would be 100% probable without any security. I know it is kind of like how Ron Paul states it. Let a lot of people be killed and then let the people decide for themselves if they want to keep flying. Millions would decide not to fly and then what would happen to your right to fly without security on a plane when the airlines go bust.
Clover, the TSA assaults on the 4th Amendment are of a piece with the assaults on the Second Amendment. In both cases, the stated purpose (essentially the same, “keeping us safe”) is a mirage. No worse, than a mirage. Because in fact we’re less safe when we allow the government to treat us like prison inmates and prospective inmates. Not only that, we’re literally – physically – less safe. Helpless, disarmed people are easy meat for the bad guys.
Which includes you, of course. Because like airline hijackers, you’re a thug – and you like disarmed, cowed, helpless people. The hijackers do it themselves. You get the government to do it for you.
Clover, the TSA does nothing to stop 9/11 style hijackings. It is a total and complete farce in that regard. All you need to do is go to a major airport and pay attention to your environment once you are past the checkpoint.
The 9-11 hijackers according to the government narrative were armed with box cutters. Box cutters are very simple tools and poor weapons. Men locked up in maximum security prisons make weapons just as good or better every day with far less at their disposal.
I don’t see the environment after the TSA checkpoint being as barren as a maximum security prison any time soon. When it gets that way, TSA still won’t be preventing a 9/11 hijacking. It has to do better than a maximum security prison to achieve this stated goal.
Since this goal is effectively impossible, the TSA must exist for some other purpose.
Hey Clover, what if 80 percent decide it’s reasonable to keep slaves? Or throw people into “protective custody”?
What small-minded Clovers like you just don’t get is that right is not a question of majority vote.
Words – concepts – have meaning.
Reasonable does not include randomly detaining and searching people without even the pretext of probable cause.
80% it is. 4 out of 5 (80%) dentists recommend Crest. Therefore, all other toothpastes are unecessary.
Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for dinner. We all know the rest.
Apparently, four wolves against the same lamb makes it OK.
gps trackers on select cars is an obsolete method. What will be employed are number plate scanners. This best I can tell has been the plan for vehicle tracking due to the long lead time of vehicle retirement. (government has never successfully forced a big brother retrofit) These will be considered legal because they record everyone’s movements by driving. This IMO is just a safe (for the government) ruling to make it look like the court system still functions.
The Constitution is a great historical document, but it’s a piece of parchment under glass at the National Archives. It does not now nor has it ever held any power. It granted power to the people. Sadly the biggest conclusion to be drawn from our noble experiment of self-rule is that most people don’t want it.
Jefferson said our rights stem from our Creator, not from any governing body of man. Civil rights crusaders love to trot this one out. But what this means in the real world is that men only have the rights for which they are willing to fight. We may be “endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights,” but “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance.”
And the conclusion that we must draw is “the Tree of Liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” Unfortunately this will not happen in a country that holds up the murdering dictator Lincoln as its greatest president.
I was making it a point to try optimism a little more this year but it’s hard in light of articles like this. A great one to be sure, just sad that it’s noteworthy when the Supreme Court rules on the side of liberty. It should go without saying.
Did you hear the Rand Paul story today where he was detained at the airport for an alarm going off for him when he went through a security machine? He said it happened to him in Minnesota also. Smells like fish to me. To think that millions of people are able to go through the machines with no alarms going off and Rand Paul seems to be the person that it does? Has anyone heard of a setup before? What did he put on his body to trigger the machine? We will never know because he did not allow himself to be checked. He later removes the object and goes back through the machine. Funny no alarm. If we could only verify it. If we could I would bet someone a million bucks that he caused it on purpose so his dad minutes later could bring it up as a political item which he did.
Or it could be that the thousands of mere Mundanes to whom this has happened don’t rate a news story like a US Senator does.
You are right, this is fishy for sure. Matter of fact I think I might even take a gander on what it could have been. He probably put a belt on (yes on purpose) to hold his pants up. Shit, maybe he even had a watch on, or change in his pockets. All of which I am willing to bet you are right, he did it on purpose. Nobody carries change, or another metal objects on them on purpose. Why would anyone have metal stuff on them? The thought of him forgetting he had something metal on him is completely far fetched, eh?
He needs to be investigated for any past knee surgeries had with the intent of undermining the national security of the United States.
Agreed. And IF he has an implant that causes false alarms, it must be removed–whether or not he can walk without it–because his false alarms are a distraction to the Exalted Ones who are looking after our Secuuuuuuuuurity and Saaaaaaaafety.
How dare a Mundane undermine the blessed Heimat?
dom, do you think that a person that flies all the time would know what could cause alarms to go off and eliminate those from happening? Maybe are congressmen are not that bright.
A programmed false positive is what he is saying now on the news.
“Maybe are congressmen are not that bright.”
Just like some Clovers I know.
Clover, that and worse happens to countless americans repeatedly. Some of them are reported. They rarely get any play.
Clover, I know this will seem impossible to you but did you ever consider that the TSA people may have made a mistake? That their equipment was malfunctioning, not correctly calibrated, or was being operated incorrectly?
I understand that the notion that the government could make a mistake would shatter your world but that’s actually a more likely explanation than yours. Perhaps your tinfoil hat slipped.
TOG, once again you come to the point–the only way to win this thing peacefully is education.
Specifically, teaching the Sheeple to once again say, emphatically, with steel in their voices and flint in their eyes, the most anti-tyrannical word in the language:
When they can muster the courage to do that for just one tenth of the Almighty State’s outrageous intrusions, THEN they may call themselves “Americans” again. Until then–they must stop abusing the word. It’s too precious an appellation for timorous lumpen-proles.
Real freedom-loving young Americans need to be identified and stopped at all costs from joining the military. I think this is where the real damage is done to freedom. The government identifies these kids before they leave the school system and gets them into the armed forces before they get a chance to start thinking for themselves, and then it’s all over.
And still these folks are some of the biggest contributors to the Paul campaign. We need to get them before Uncle Sam makes them part of the “honorable defenders of freedom” that are a cut above the rest of us and all those discounts and free meals make them start believing it.
Young people with a general desire to serve are identified and spirited away into the service of the state, where these pure motivations are perverted and manipulated. Then they’re given an “enemy of freedom” to hate, by the biggest enemy of freedom on the face of the earth, and sent overseas to kill and die for the state. This is not by accident; Rome kept the legions on the frontier and away from the seat of power for the same reason. The moderns and ancients both understood that their warrior classes were the biggest threat to their shenanigans.
TOG–absolutely, on all counts! And BTW, the military supports Ron Paul with twice as much in donations as the other candidates combined!.
Fortunately many of the military come back completely disillusioned and awakened.
In fact, the State fears them most of all because what you REALLY don’t want as a tyrant is a well-trained and awakened populace. This is why the Stasi is targeting returning veterans. In the MIAC report, ex-military were listed as potential threats.
Of course they’re a threat! They’re a threat to the traitorous tyrants who risked those kids’ lives for profit and empire…and the empire is terrified of them.
Have ya’ll seen the sailor holding up a Constitution to the thug-scrum of balaclava-clad Stasi at Oakland OWS? Here’s the video
There are many like him.
Unfortunately, there are just as many or more who either started as psychopaths or became psychopaths during their multiple tours; those are being selected for domestic “law enforcement”–and enforce, they will.
I’d like to hear the Fox News twits go on the air and say all of those RP supporters from the armed forces are “nutjobs” like they do about the rest of us.
@That One Guy: Fox has, AFAIK, avoided doing that so far. What they’ve done instead is try to plant the idea that military voters don’t really support Paul. One morning they drug up three vets, one for each of Paul’s opponents, to explain why they didn’t support Paul. They didn’t have a Paul supporter in the mix.
While I would encourage this, it won’t be successful. No, those that are driven by fear will panic and look for someone to “take charge”. There are more sheep than sheep dogs.
This will end in one of 3 ways I think. 1) Exodus: Like the Romans who fled to the barbarians because they offered the POTENTIAL for a better life than the crushing taxes of the Empire, there will be a mass exodus from America. 2) Chaos: Internal domestic civil war / anarchy / unrest with various secession movements, military occupation and such. Think “Red Dawn” meets American Civil War. 3) Gestapo America meets “minority report” with 100% surveillance 24/7/365 including lisc. plate scanning, retinal scanning, electronic tracking, etc.
What will happen AFTER each of these scenarios I can say, but I think 3 is the most likely in the shortest term.
I’m inclined to agree.
The Reeeeepublican primary being Exhibit A.
These “conservatives” prefer a vulture capitalist corporatist slimeball, a narcissist (possibly psychopathic) influence-peddler and a shrieking warmonger to a principled, honest man like Ron Paul – who actually does believe in liberty.
Americans, mostly, don’t.
They want to be led. Or they have a lust to lead. Millions of them are small-minded Clover types who will eagerly clap when people like most of us here are led off in chains to Gitmo.
If I were 20 today, I’d probably grab a backpack and head for someplace like Argentina. Not that the government is any better there, but it’s more disorganized and the land is vast and mostly empty. One could live one’s life out there in reasonable peace, I suspect.
I doubt we’ll have that luxury here.
Eric,
Encourage the kids to learn a productive skill before setting off. Something that will be of great value as compared to what their competition will have to offer. For your “if I was 20” analogy, I’d get a degree in mining engineering and catch the first flight to Mongolia.
Why not just go to the darkside if you had to do it all over again?
It’s pretty clear the cloverite masses practically worship their “authorities”. Besides political office and government jobs, they consider the cartel businesses of doctoring and banking and lawyering and “professional” athletics to be supreme. It’s what this society rewards. These people love to be manipulated. They love social games. Only in a few rare cases do they even recognize creativity. Mostly they attack it.
If I understood what this society rewards when I was teenager I may have chosen an entirely different path. Probably as a hermit or a bankster. 🙂
@freedserf:
You and I get the same emails from Simon Black and Jeff Berwick.
But remember, the NWO will follow you there, too. They’re focused on Amerika now because they must pull it down first; it’s the keystone. Then they’ll consolidate the global government everywhere else it’s not already de facto in place.
In reality it’s in place here; they just haven’t gotten around to announcing it yet.
On getting a useful skill–AMEN! I’m going to have both my kids apprentice in something useful, like plumbing, electrical work, A/C repair, etc….BEFORE they go to college, if that’s even a viable option in 15 years. I think the four-year college degree paradigm is in for a major shift, too.
Speaking of exodus, did you see Romney’s proposal for solving the illegal alien problem? “Self-deportation”; that if they couldn’t get jobs here, they would voluntarily return to where they came from because their chances would be better. Honest to God.
Every time I think these guys can’t break their own record for saying something stupid …
@Eric: Thanks for tellin it like it is re Santorum. Even Perry knew when to quit. Well, no, he didn’t, or he’d have quit in shame right after he fluffed his *own platform* in the debate. But he got it eventually. (And he was a little crazy, too. Like George Carlin would say, ‘The cheese fell off HIS cracker a looonng time ago.’)
I so share your frustration re Paul and the voters. This decent man, who runs rings around the others with his intelligence and education, stands up there time after time, offering the voters WHAT THEY WANT, and they can’t see it. They can’t see the gem they have in this man because they haven’t been given permission to see it by the MSM. It is truly heartbreaking.
Somebody said that in a democracy the populace get the leaders they deserve. Maybe Paul is too good for us.
Ron Paul can’t be reduced to sound bites and most people won’t or can’t digest more than that and won’t look beyond the mainstream media to get the whole thing.
Of those who can and will, many are conditioned such that they don’t have a open mind to learn.
Of those who have a mind open enough that will listen to the entire rationality, come the converts. But most people think socially. They feel. So they vote on feelings. Character and rationality don’t have any part in feelings. Watch what people do when someone they feel is a good person is found to have committed some horrible crime. It doesn’t matter what these slime balls do because people ‘feel’ instead of ‘think’.
But look on the bright side, we are watching team R commit suicide. We are watching it reject Paul and with him all the new blood. Meanwhile team D isn’t doing much better.
The other day, I had a conversation with a guy I know. This guy is smart and successful; also a Marine veteran of Vietnam. Overall, a good guy.
We got to talking politics. He is a Republican “conservative.” He explained how much he dislikes “big government” and the “waste and fraud.” I pointed out to him that the entire system is premised on theft and violence. He agreed – but then contradicted himself by stating that he supports SS and other forms of government “help.” My rejoinder was the while I sympathize with anyone who as a result of bad luck or even well-intended but poor choices ends up needing “help,” no one’s misfortune or bad luck ever gives them the right to point guns at other people (via the government) and force them to “help.” Because that’s not “help” – it’s theft at gunpoint. He could not summon a logical, moral counterargument. He just felt differently.
We’re doomed.
Doing my best to look on the bright side. 15 percent for Paul in South Carolina was disappointing … wasn’t there mention in the MSM somewhere that Gingrich is thought not to have the resources for the long haul? Not sure if that means anything; not having it now doesn’t mean he won’t get it.
Ron Paul wrote in an e-mail to me personally along with thousands of others that he has allocated his money over the long fight, and what’s more, he envisions Virginia as a two-man fight.
So maybe your R suicide scenario will come to pass. Hope so. God knows it richly deserves to.
PS. Speaking of Ron Paul, here is a must-see little video that Lew posted in his Political Theater. Goto http://www.lewrockwell/politicaltheatre.com and scroll down about a third; look for the entry titled “Grassroots Spectacular”. It is so FINE!
The whole set of ideas behind the Constitution and the Bill of Rights is still revolutionary. Basic principles are timeless. Two and two is still and always will be four.
“Two and two is still and always will be four.”
Provided, of course, people can still count.
The problem we face is similar: Many people can’t think.
Instead, they feel.
I couldn’t agree with you more Eric. My theory is that thinking is too difficult or at least requires more effort than most people are willing to expend. It’s easier to let the pundits, commentators or even a singer or some movie star give them their opinions and political positions. After all if Leo DiCaprio appears on a magazine cover holding a Polar Bear cub, anthropogenic global warming must be real, right? Or if some Hollywood actor or director comes out in favor of gun control, guns must be bad (never mind that they’ve made a killing glorifying gun violence on the big screen). Or that violent crime has steadily gone down as firearms ownership has gone up.
I was trained at an early age to ignore circular logic, sophistry and obfuscation; then reduce everything to its lowest common denominator and make my evaluations logically, based on fact. When you practice this, disillusion occurs regularly. “Feeling” is much easier than coping with the continual state of cognitive dissonance most Amerikans would be in if they started to use logic and reason in their daily wordview.