One word – no. 
It used to be a word that carried a lot of weight. Not just morally but also – and critically – legally. You could say no to cop and, provided he didn’t have a warrant issued by a judge – or at the least, some specific probable cause that would stand up before a judge – he had no choice, legally speaking, but to back off. If he did not – if he say forced his way into your house or forced you out of your car or forced you onto the ground – the odds were pretty good that down the road, any charges leveled against you would be dropped ( “fruit of the poisoned tree” doctrine) and – even more significantly – the cop himself would likely find himself looking for a new line of work. Or at least chastened.
But that was the past, alas.
One of the greatest freedoms we have lost since 911 is that we have been deprived of the power of no. Instead, we are told we must immediately Submit and Obey – and failure to do so immediately now constitutes “probable cause” in our Brave New World. If one says no to a cop demanding ID, one can expect to be put in cuffs and thrown face down over the hood of a cruiser. If one declines to open the door to one’s home for a cop, it is entirely likely that the cop will force his way in and if you do so much as put your hands up to ward off the blows, you will very likely find yourself charged with “resisting” and possibly “assault upon a police officer.”
Much worse, the law will back him up, not you.
Even if the door kick-down at 2 in the morning and subsequent ransacking of your home are later declared an “administrative mistake” (they meant to bash in the door of the house across the street, not yours) but you, in your fear and absolute innocence took steps to defend yourself/your family and in the process shot a “law enforcer,” guess who’ll be up on murder or attempted murder charges? 
This has actually happened already. For instance, there’s the case of Ryan Frederick of Chesapeake, Va.. He was charged with first degree murder for shooting a cop who broke into his home on a trumped-up drug warrant. Frederick, 28 at the time, had no criminal record and the warrant was the result of a supposed police informant who claimed that Frederick was growing pot plants. In fact, Frederick – an avid gardener – was growing a Japanese Maple. On the basis of this, a no-knock warrant was executed – just afew days after Frederick’s home had been invaded by burglars. When Frederick’s dogs began barking and he heard someone breaking through his front door, he grabbed his gun and – quite reasonably- fired at the intruder. The intruder happened to be a cop and now Frederick awaits life in prison – or a needle in the arm. (See here for more.)
He was not able to say no.
More recently (Feb. 7) a diabetic man, Adam Greene, was beaten to a bloody pulp by several costumed Nevada Highway Patrol thugs – including multiple kicks to the head while he was supine on the ground. The provocation for this near-fatal assault? Low-speed erratic driving (caused by diabetic shock). See here for the brutal video, recorded by the dash cam of the costumed thugs’ vehicle.
He never had the chance to say no, either.
Instead, Greene was roughly dragged out of his car – at gunpoint – thrown to the pavement and given the Clockwork Orange treatment. He never in any way resisted, unless you count attempting to ward off the blows as “resisting”- which of course is precisely how the costumed cretins look at it. “Get on the ground! Stop resisting, (expletive), stop resisting (expletive)!” they screech at the prone and clearly not-resisting figure, landing blows and kicks all the while.
Eventually, and thanks only to the publicity generated by the video evidence, Greene received a small cash settlement ($158,000 for a beat-down that puts you in the hospital with life-threatening injuries is a small settlement). According to the Las Vegas Sun, one of the thugs-in-costume was “disciplined.” Not fired. Let alone charged with what he – what they – clearly did: Nearly beat to death a helpless – and innocent – man. 
I was thinking about all this just the other day when I was stopped by a cop for specious reasons. We live near the Blue Ridge Parkway and use it often to travel “down the mountain” and back. Last Sunday, we were headed back home after a morning outing. It was a warm day – sunny and in the mid-high 50s. Well, we get to the entrance and a cop is there, closing the gates – because of a possible snowstorm the next day. I stop to ask why they are closing the gates now given there’s not a flake (or even a cloud) in the sky and it’s at least 20 degrees too warm to worry about snow. This was a mistake because he spied me not “buckled up” for safety. He – a 26-year-old kid – peremptorily barks at me to put on your seatbelt. I do not immediately Submit and Obey like a good serf – and this immediately incites the fury of the cop. I have questioned his Authoritay. So I get the license and registration drill. I also have to give him my gun (I have a CHP). I also have to sit by the side of the road for 10 minutes while this dude runs his Power Trip. My wife advises me to be quiet and polite, to shut up and behave. I do not have the option of saying no, either.
None of us do anymore.
I got away without a ticket – or a Tazering – but probably only by dint of the fact that I have some media “cred” and the cop may have figured I wasn’t worth a beat down.
I wonder what might have happened to someone without any “cred” – on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, just him and the costumed cretin…. .
Throw it in the Woods?
This is precisely why I don’t shed a tear when I hear of a cop being killed “in the line of duty”.
They’re thugs.
They serve themselves and protect themselves, they eschew their “duty” at seemingly every turn.
Entitled ex high school jocks, mostly.
I giggle a little when someone talks about the “good cops”.
Show me one.
People who talk about “good cops” are one interaction with an irritated, above the law, looking to displace his (or her, for that matter, which is a whole different case) anger on someone who can’t legally fight back (all legal bs aside, a lot of us would kick the shit out of them if there were no repercussions from their fellow gang members ).
It doesn’t even matter if they’re found to be in the wrong, their union just gives them a paid vacation.
Best case scenario is don’t interact with them and if you’re forced to, do everything you can to make it as brief as possible.
When I have my kid in the car, that amounts to not offending their “authoritah”, but when I’m solo it’s all sorts of not answering any questions, which is your right and is how everyone should deal with a LEO.
Never incriminate yourself. Keep your mouth shut.
Give me the ticket and let me be on my way, I’m disappointed that these road pirates, paid by me and fleecing me twice, get away with it but I’d just rather pay off the bully in the interest of not being annoyed/ possibly inured/ possible jailed.
If everyone were honest, they would say that they don’t actually fear the armed thug, but the legions of other thugs that would take his (or her) place if you were to deal with the LEO in the way they instigate.
This is why people killed the Sheriff in the Old West. If it were just the one, no problem, but who can defend themselves against the never ending onslaught of (“brother officer”) LEO’s?
My view is that it’s the 98% of cops who are insufferable assholes who give the other 2% a bad name.
Here’s a story for ya:
http://southtownstar.suntimes.com/news/crime/12029801-418/ex-tinley-park-cop-who-drove-drunk-and-fled-accident-scene-gets-probation.html
The real special part is how he behaved towards the other cops. A mundane with a gun in his lap behaving like that would be lucky to live through the experience.
By the Politicians get away with sordid behavior because nearly always its guaranteed that the party machine will protect their own ! and then the Police Commissioner ( which is a political position in itself )gets told ” hands off ” to booking and prosecuting the miscreant Pollie who gets caught with /boozing/groping the office secretary at the office party/ child molestation/ etc etc.
Yet the idiots ( voting public ) tolerate this !. you can name any country on the planet at the moment , the accent may change but I can assure you, the Hegelian Dialectic operates so well where ever you go. I would just love to see more grass roots action by good decent strong willed moral people stand up to this garbage , but I fear its too late for most, for most prefer the ” bread and circuses ” .
Guys, this article might shed some light on why some of our “peace officers” act this way.
http://www.caseyresearch.com/cdd/rise-praetorian-class
Hi Chuck,
Yup – good stuff.
We’re at the Nero stage… probably well past it. Obama may turn out to be our Elagabalus.
I heard a case on the news this morning that illustrates that you CAN talk back…if you’re a member of the royalty–in this country we call them “politicians”.
A car was spotted doing 105 mph on the DC beltway (a speed which I recall exceeds the posted limit by a comfortable margin). The car didn’t immediately stop for the cops but was eventually pulled over. The driver turned out to be a MD county councilwoman who was quite indignant and belligerent. She repeatedly pointed out who she was. She was not arrested, tazered, or clubbed. She got a $90 ticket for illegal lane changes. For doing 105 mph in a 55 mph zone? She got a warning.
Who among us mere citizens would have gotten off so lightly?
If we did that we’d be dead, or in jail!
Here is the entire article:
http://washington.cbslocal.com/2012/02/28/reports-pg-county-councilwoman-karen-toles-pulled-over-for-driving-more-than-100-mph-on-beltway/
“The issuance of a warning citation for the speed is consistent with the typical discretion applied by police officers to speeding motorists,” PG County Police said in a statement.
I call BS on this comment. I think it would be as Dom suggests.
Toles, D-District 7, is a real winner. She found out how to beat the system. All she needs to do now is stay elected. >:
A very similar incident happened in Colorado. A state senator was stopped for weaving in traffic. It turns out that she was returning home from a lobbyist fnction where alcohol was served. She smelled of booze,had slurred speech, and failed the field test.
She was allowed to continue home and as far as I know received no penalties for her actions. It was reported in the local media but was considerably downplayed.
I don’t think I would have been given the same “courtesy” (sarc off)
Yup – I wrote about that a few weeks back; see here:
http://epautos.com/2012/01/31/one-for-them-one-for-us/
I do not say cops never cross the line. They do. People in all professions cross lines. Yet you don’t see people writing about how we should take our kids out of public schools because a teacher molested a student. It’s all about what image people keep associating with a generalized group of people. Not all cops abuse power, just like not all teachers abuse students.
Police officers work long hours, holidays, midnights, and sacrifice time with their families. That being said, what is unjust is how few people actually recognize that. If you’ve ever been in trouble with the law, or just in the wrong place at the wrong time, your experience with cops was probably not the most positive. However, MOST OF THEM do great things that really help the community. (My own mother would not be alive if a cop had not helped her get away from her abusive ex-husband.)
So, yes, the state of the world sucks. People are scared and on edge about every little thing. If you have a problem with the way the cops in your area behave, contact the head of the department. Don’t just post defaming things on the internet. Go accomplish something.
I think it is quite possible that your opinion is colored by your mother’s experience as related by her to you. You seem to be very pro-cop.
Ashli, some folks do advocate removing their children from public schools to prevent molestation as well as bullying, exposure to sex and drugs, indoctrination / outright brainwashing and a general lack of comprehensive education. Although I am a strong proponent of home-schooling, I would go one step farther and do away with the Department of Education and abolish public schools altogether. The free market will provide I assure you. Those who would be educated will find a way. Those who would not be educated cannot be educated by parking their little fannies in a mandatory classroom setting. I doubt you will comprehend this line of reasoning, as you were probably publicly educated (i.e. at my expense). I hope and pray that the day comes when you educate your children at home; as much for the expansion of your mind as theirs.
With respect to the police, I’ve known many good officers. I’ve had family members and close friends that were police. Most quit because of the way the system works. The one that remains learned how to work the system and moved way up. Based on some of the things we did together when we were young, I have serious doubts about his integrity. For the most part, my experience with the police has been negative. When I have needed them, they weren’t anywhere to be found. When I didn’t need them, they were pulling me over “for driving too good” (yeah, that really happened). Or writing me a ticket to make their quota after they couldn’t catch the guy that passed me (uh-huh, that happened to me in Chester, Virginia).
When my wife shot a serial rapist in our bedroom, the Va. State Police investigator didn’t bring anything to remove the bullet from the door frame and asked if I had any tools. I grabbed a large pair of hemostats off my jewelry bench and handed them to him. The first thing he looked at was the tips to see if they’d been used as a roach clip. I called him on it and told him he could take them and have them analyzed; all they’d find was sodium bisulfate and borax. He laughed and said no, that’s all right. My wife’s been traumatized, shot her assailant, she’s freaking out and this asshole is more concerned about whether or not we were smoking pot. Give me a break.
Ashli, cops are imperfect creatures just like the rest of humanity. The difference is their cartel or guild deals in death and violence. Watch the movie Blade Runner some time and pay close attention to what Bryant tells Dekard “You know the score pal. If you ain’t cop, you’re little people.” That is very true in real life as well. Years ago, a cop that often came in my dad’s gun shop, told him this: “There’s no cop so stupid, that if he shoots someone, he can’t find a brick, a bottle or something to put in his hand.” It goes on all the time. And when one of us “mundanes” gets caught in the crossfire, it’s usually swept under the rug. That’s hardly the equal protection under the law we are guaranteed in this Constitutional Republic (FYI, this is not a democracy).
Police presence, like the rest of government is best in the smallest practical doses. Otherwise, you end up with a police state and that my dear, is where we are now.
The problem is the nature of the work more so than the people doing the work. If the job itself is illegitimate (evil, even) then the best “good men” can do is somewhat soften its impact. But what happens more often is that bad people are attracted to bad jobs – and bad jobs turn good people into bad people.
Spending your days threatening people with guns unless they “buckle up” – or subjecting them to warrantless, probable cause-free stops and searches – or putting them in cages because they refuse to show you their “papers” – or violating the home of a person because he has an arbitrarily illegal “drug” in his possession (even as you keep a ‘fridge full of legal drugs back in your home) is not a cool way to spend your days. You almost have to be a dick to do it – and will turn into one if you keep on doing it.
Eric, it has been my experience that a lot of the “good guys” get fed up with police work, after what they’ve seen on the job and quit. Which leaves the not-so-good-guys on the street. A few years ago I had a neighbor that was making meth, stalking my wife and stealing from me. I have no problem with someone doing recreational drugs, but once you become psychotic and infringe others’ rights that’s going over the line. I invited a couple of the local drug task force guys over to see what could be done about this freak.
It turned out they could do nothing. But one of the narcs (a rather large former Marine) did inform me as to how much he enjoyed kicking in doors. Shortly thereafter I found out he’d moved on to the DEA because he “wasn’t getting enough action.” The asshole next door turned out to be (along with his “‘ol lady”) a confidential informant! They never had any intention of busting him because he was working for them.
Before this four year nightmare was over (we finally moved), the county investigator was convicted of stealing, one man who had been falsely imprisoned was released and we learned that there’s no situation in life so bad that the cops can’t make it worse. Now I understand why the last thing our neighbors down south will do is call the federales.
Boothe/Eric
Nothing much changes, about 1988 I think it was, where my ex wife and I were living , we were living in a good middle class suburb , you know the type manicured lawns, two car garage, Mc mansions, anyway we lived along a busy two lane road which went down to a river ferry, at the end of our road was a pub , that did a healthy trade on weekends, popular with the city tourists because of the ferry.
One night though , a young gal got a lift with some guy who offered her a lift home, anyway it so happened that as he was driving along the road, he casually leans over and asks the tanked 16 year girl if ” she has ever been raped ” , of course she freaked out and opened the car door while it was rolling at about 40k and hour, sh did a runner screaming across to my yard, counldn’t get in because of the low locked gate and so proceeded to then launch her self at the next door neighbors door !, in the meantime the dude stops his car about 20 meters up the road, gets out and then makes a beeline for the hysterical teen banging frantically on the door pleading to be let in, now at 3 in the morning she is screaming like a banshee, I woke up when I heard the car stop for some reason, anyway, I had enough time to race out to my gunrack and grab my trusty Mossberg 870 , no time to load any shells though, just as he jumped my fence to cross to the girl I met him from the corner of my house with Shotgun from about 10 feet away, he dropped the broken beer bottle he was holding ,when I told him if he took one more step I would blow his head off.
slowly he backed away, and I could see he pissed his pants, he got shakily back in his car and drove off, I got hold of his plate number, the cops turned up 2 hours later, what did they do ?they laughed at how lucky I was, they didn’t even make an effort to catch the guy.
in the meantime, during my run in with the arsehole, the girl took off, never saw either again , could the guy have called my bluff ? sure he could ! then the 870 would have been a great club !
would I have shot the scumbag ? if I had a shell in there and he moved to go get her ? darn sure !
However I learn’t some very very important lessons, no other schmuck was willing to take action but me ! my wife said she could see curtains on houses near moving where people were watching in the dark to see what happened.
All were chicken shit scared to actually DO something .
Most people are gutless when it comes to stopping the vermin of society from doing what they do, secondly I would say to Ashli that the cops won’t step up to the plate either without no or little risk to their skins.
So I say , screw the cops…….they WON’T help you unless they outnumber the miscreant .
This is far from the first such story I’ve read about or been told about. The classic comes from New York (I think) circa 1960s when a woman was killed with numerous neighbors turning a blind eye. Horrible.
Frederick got 10 years for involuntary manslaughter
http://hamptonroads.com/2009/05/ryan-frederick-sentenced-10-years-killing-detective
“The highly charged trial included a special prosecutor, testimony from several jailhouse snitches, tearful family members, and a parade of police officers. A jury rejected a capital murder charge and found Frederick guilty of voluntary manslaughter in February.”
It appears That Fredericks “peers” almost, but quite got the idea.
K-
10 year = ruined life.
There goes his career; there goes his family. There goes his youth. There goes his life.
What a choice we have in this country. To try and make a split second decision if an on going home invasion is done by criminals with or without a government license. The rest of your life and if you have a rest of your life depends on making the right call.
In all likelihood, even killing a “dick” (wow, how some professional nicknames are so apt) he’ll get out sooner than 10 if he behaves (and actually lives. The cops may have someone waiting for him with a shiv in the big house). Of course his firearms rights will be shot, so next time he’ll have to use a golf club. We can only hope that he hooks up with a nice woman that is also a good shot when he gets out. He made the right split second decision, because now none of the rest of us have to worry about that particular officious asshole getting the wrong house.
In our system of jurisprudence, the presumption (until recently) was that it is better for 10 guilty men to walk free than for one innocent man to be undeservedly punished. When you get your door kicked in, in the middle of the night, for supposedly possessing a weed that grows wild worldwide, the system has gone off the cliff.
Like the guy that shot that sick son-uva-bitch that bragged that he’d been responsible for the untimely deaths of 60,000 babies (George Tiller, Kansas), some folks have just got it coming, regardless of whether what they’re doing is “legal” or not. Live by the sword you die by the sword. The law of “what comes around goes around” doesn’t honor man’s B.S. laws to justify doing things that clearly aren’t right. One way or the other, the bill always comes due.
Hopefully this fella gets another day in court, or whatever it takes to get his ass out sooner. Someone decides to enter my house illegally I’ll kill’em. Whether it’s with one of my guns, or my bare hands, the end result will be fatal.
Let’s discuss the sins of Dr. Tiller vs. the sins of his killer some time. I don’t want to go that OT on this thread.
As a fellow permit holder, and a skeptic, I have to say that without reading statements or testimony, this one could fall either way.
I know that I’m required to be able to articulate the threat I face and positively know what I’m shooting at.
I also know that bad info or not, a no knock warrant team typically comes through the door yelling “POLICE SEARCH WARRANT!” or words to that effect. That would tend toswing the pendulum against him. Granted he did nothing to bring this on himself prior to being woken by someone coming thru his door.
K-
The bottom line problem, as I see it, is the “war” on (some) drugs. SWAT teams kicking in doors, weapons drawn, in the dead of night… because some dude is maybe growing plants? It’s demented – as well as tyrannical. It is the epitome of authoritarian over-reaction. If a person has committed some violent act – or is thought (with good reason) to be contemplating violent acts, then I get the need for a violent response. But just because someone has an arbitrarily “illegal” substance in their possession? C’mon! Most people today rightly scratch their heads at the ridiculous Prohibition-era raids; at the idea of G-Men busting open barrels of booze – and busting people at speak-easies. But it’s no more absurd than what goes on today. Some kid next door is bonging it up in front of his TV? Well, so? “The law” doesn’t bother the guy across the street drinking a twelve pack while he watches fuuuuuhhhhhhhhhttttttttttttball. It’s legal to brew your own beer, make your own wine… and it’s not criminal (yet) to be merely drunk. So long as you’re not driving or doing something else, in addition to being drunk, that can at least plausibly be argued constitutes an actual threat to actual victims… you’re free to do as you please. That drinking excessively kills your liver, makes you obese, etc. – well, that’s your business (for now). As it ought to be.
But at the same time, we treat people who do precisely the same things with other – but arbitrarily “illegal” drugs very differently. Mere use or possession is criminal. It’s demented – and despicably hypocritical.
Exactly Jdl! We treat them the same way they treat us EXCEPT with more respect for their rights and educate them on how they are violating ours. After we disarm him that is.
That is nothing more than defending our rights. It’s not aggressive, we need to hold ourselves to the same standards that we are trying to instill in the cops.
We approach a traffic stop the same way they do: ID, surrender your weapons – and radio so he can’t call for a thug scrum – pat down, ask him his purpose and then explain the error of his ways. I still want to take his pants though that would be a violation of his rights so we can forget that. 😉
First offense, he keeps his pants. Second offense, same procedure, but pants forfeited. Third offense, TBD.
We could call this the Citizens’ Ongoing Patrol Service. No, maybe that doesn’t lend itself to a good acronym… 😉
I’d rather not have what we do associated in any way with any kind of “policing” or “cops” context.
Community Protection Agency (CPA). And the people involved would be CPA’s (accountants) keeping the gov’t “accountable”. Huh? Huh? How about that?
Even “Agency” might not be the right word but I like the CPA thing, keeping gov’t accountable.
Our uniforms will be bright colored and positve, not militarized like the cops. No badges, no rank, no marine haircuts. We’ll be seen as “the good guys”.
When someone sees us in their rear-view they get a feeling of security not a shot of adrenaline and fear like when they see a cop. We’ll take care of business but with respect for the cops rights and show people that there is an alternative to force.
We simply have the responsibility to change the culture in this country. It’s no one else’s. Dr. Paul is working from the top down but we have to work from the bottom up and meet him in the middle.
I’m convinced that only bottom-up changes will be effective. Ron Paul has almost zero chance of being elected, and if he did get into office, and didn’t get offed mysteriously by persons unknown, I’m not confident he could do much good. Stefan Molyneux, who I respect highly, even argues that his election could do more harm than good:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=McNo62gpw6M&playnext=1&list=PLADDEC1E9BDF4ECE0
(A little slow starting, but at 28:43 he arrives at “That’s why you can’t break the power of the state using politics.”)
I agree. It just doesn’t make any sense to put the hopes of a nation on one man’s shoulders. It’s not only not possible it’s not fair.
Dr. Paul talks a lot in his books about civil disobedience and everyone choosing their own form of it.
Policing the police is nothing more than good old fashioned civil disobedience, 21st century style.
“I’m convinced that only bottom-up changes will be effective.”
Even better, we work to meet in the middle. Ron Paul’s national megaphone and the attention he focuses on some very important principles have not only helped to spread the word. People who believe in liberty now know there are a lot of like-minded people out there. Not a majority, of course – but certainly a large number. This is extremely encouraging.
My own belief is that the US as a single country is untenable; it hasn’t been a nation in a long time and it is only held together by force and commercial interests. Take away the commercial interests and you’re left with force only and that won’t endure for the same reasons that every tyranny eventually falls apart from within – there’s not much in it for the average guy.
So, the questions seems to me to be one of preparation. We lay the groundwork for something better, in the future that’s very nearly here.
@BrentP and Eric – agreed. Violence never solves anything. Look how well it hasn’t worked for the gov’t in Iraq and Afghanistan and the “war” on drugs.
I want to do just that Brent: spoil the gov’t’s illusion. Pull back the curtain. Lead by example. Show others that those thugs are just people who put their pants on one leg at a time and can be subdued just like they subdue us. Show them that their authority is an illusion.
Hell we do it every day as it is don’t we? When we heard together on the highway you can go 80 mph right by a cop and you’re protected. The cop’s abilities are literally nullified by the shear number of people speeding. Same principle just applied to other contexts.
But we have to be prepared. We have to organize. How do we do it Eric? We engineer it. We have to decide what the requirements are. Then design the solution. Implement it, field test it and then deploy it. I’m convinced we have the intelligence, the conviction and the resolve to do it.
I’ve said before: I’m willing to come to Virginia and sit down at the kitchen table over a glass of Jack and discuss taking our country back one town at a time. Just lemme know when.
I may be performing in Roanoke in March. Maybe we can kill two birds with one stone.
I may be performing in Roanoke in March.
Ah, you’re a musician then? I’d like to ask more about your musical identity, but a certain anonymity is probably desirable when discussing the issues we’re addressing here.
(The thugs can probably figure out who we are with a little effort, since they apparently intercept everything we send electronically. Still, there’s no need to make their repressive actions any easier than necessary.)
Re safety in numbers: I’ve not experienced this myself, but a friend says he’s seen cop swarms in which they’re able to stop and ticket every car in a large group for “speeding”. In the usual case, with one or two cops playing the radar game, they can pick off at most one car in a fast-moving group.
No, I’m not talented enough to be a musician. I’m a comedian.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKxEeBs33ok&list=LLUa_Cl0J9r9TkpVD1T0_1gw&feature=mh_lolz
Cool!
You’re good!
But I will never think of Donald Duck the same way again …
Eric, better people than you and I have gone to jail for far less because they had the courage to do the right thing even though the gov’t said it was wrong. Remember, I’m talking to myself here as much as you.
We aren’t getting any younger. When are we finally going to have the resolve to do the right thing? To actually do something that matters before it gets – if it’s not already – too late to do anything.
If we have the ability to do something then we have the responsibility to do something. Yet we stay safe and warm behind our computers, bitching and complaining.
I honestly believe that if you do not have your freedom, then you have nothing, and so nothing to lose and you know you are not a free man. You’ve said it yourself.
What point is served by these better people taking themselves out of the equation by going to the mattresses over something trivial, in the grand scheme of things?
Would it not serve our cause better to pick our battles?
You or I refusing to cooperate (to submit and obey, I concede) over a seatbelt violation and coming to blows (or shots) with the cop will lead to one thing – us dead or in jail. A Pyrrhic victory, that. We’ll be labeled as violent crazies, locked up and thrown down the memory hole. No one will give a shit.
Far better – because far more effective – would be to use our ability to communicate ideas, to try to get people thinking – because when enough people begin to see the absurdity (the evil) of these petty tyrannies, we will have taken the essential first step in getting rid of these tyrannies.
As I see it, that is doing something. And as I see it, is doing something more productive than going nuclear over the first minor slight.
Yes, of course you have to pick your battles, but first you have to be in war.
My whole life, and yours too I would imagine, people have been talking, educating, protesting “civily” and what has happened? The gov’t has grown larger more abusive, and more tyranical.
And now that so many people are so educated, and so informed and so fed up, what happens next?
You asked what point is served by doing the right thing? Leading by example. Showing people that it can be done. Showing them that they can stand up for their rights AND win! I’m not talking about taking anybody out of the equation except those in gov’t.
As I’ve said before: local law enforcement is nothing more than an organized band of armed men. Are you saying that we cannot organize ourselves in the same fashion to protect ourselves? If not then shame on us. And if not now then when?
I think everyone, including yourself, is waiting for someone else to get the revolution started and you tell youself that if they do, and it seems winnable then I’ll join in. But if everybody thinks like that from the comfort of their homes, then it’ll never get started and everyone who tries to get it started will be seen as violent crazy because no one will support them.
Don’t kid yourself, if this happens in our lifetime there will be bloodshed. There’s no avoiding that, but using our computers as sheilds – in my opinion – serves no point either.
No one knows exactly when the “moment” will arrive. Perhaps it will not be necessary to fight violence with violence. As bad as things are, as bad as they have gotten, in some ways they are much better now than they were. For example, Libertarian discussion is now fairly mainstream; people – large numbers – are openly questioning the fundamentals of the status quo. Ron Paul has gone from being an easily dismissed “fringe” whacko to a mainstream (or nearly so) political force that they must recon with. That is tremendous.
So, don’t get too discouraged; don’t accept that violent resistance is the only means left to us. It’s not.
Not yet, anyhow.
You are correct about Ron Paul and it does my heart good to see that, but even in small countries like Romania, there was bloodshed before the communists relinquished power. Eventually, it was a political coup, but not before the commies made it clear they weren’t going down w/o a fight and they were no where near as powerful as the U.S. gov’t.
PS: There is also evasion and subterfuge (as per Sun Tzu). Example: I just stopped renewing the registration for several of my little used vehicles. There is very little chance I’ll get caught and if I do get caught, the consequences are trivial (as opposed to not abiding by the mandatory insurance requirement). Meanwhile, I have just deprived the stinking government of $50-something bucks per annum per vehicle!
I also use a radar detector – even though they’re “illegal” here in VA. As a result, I have not had a ticket in years. Win for me!
In other words, I kick the man in the balls when I have the drop on him; when the advantage is mine. To pick a direct fight with a superior foe may be brave, but it’s also arguably stupid – because you will lose.
Right?
Agreed, and I’m a student of Sun Tzu’s Art of War as well, that’s why I don’t advocate direct violence with a superior foe but rather fighting smarter not harder, but fight none-the-less. And fight morally in order to get others drawn to our cause.
I don’t advocate violence at all. I wish the cops would just stop abusing us, but when you’ve exhausted all other means and the cop(s) insist on forcing you to do what they want, you have two choices: be a victim or be a survivor. Stand up for your rights, or submit like a slave.
The power really lies with you. It’s like losing weight: there’s no magical formula. You simply have to want to change your lifestyle. Same with culture change: there’s no magical formula. You simply have to want to change your lifestyle.
And don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about violence, but rather standing up for your rights. Using diplomacy and reason at first and hoping that the person you’re talking to is a reasonable person. Using your intelligence to outwit him if possible – and really how hard can that be with a cop?
But if diplomacy fails, and the cop insists on escalating the situation for no reason other than he has no respect for your rights then you must defend youself. And by defend I don’t mean kill a cop, but use whatever means necessary to defend yourself.
In my mind that means – if possible – subduing and disarming the cop and then giving him an education in civil liberties. Handcuffing him and maybe taking his pants to teach him some humility and then send him scurring on his way like the rat that he is.
We don’t have to lower ourselves to their level to defend our rights and lead by example.
I actually do that – have done that. Talk to them, that is. Unfortunately, that was in the past and today it is virtually impossible to have a discussion with one (in my experience) without the Inner Bully coming out fast and hard.
Disarming the cop? Taking his pants? Great idea – hilarious to imagine it. 30 years ago, you might have been able to do it and not become the object of a SWAT raid that would end with you very much full of holes and absolutely no freedom left at all.
That’s why we have to work together. Imagine this: a cop pulls someone over, and the victim calls a number and relays all the info about the situation (just like 911 does for the cops ) location, how many cops etc…
Then a few minutes later enough men show up, armed exactly like the cops, to interrogate the cop about what he’s doing and try to “convince” him that he is violating this persons rights and he needs to move along peacefully. Of course they take his radio, gun, taser, mace and club first.
Simply put: a police force to police the police. Once cops realize that everytime they pull someone over this may happen to them, they’ll start thinking twice about pulling people over. Isnt’ that the whole purpose of the law? To deter crime? Unfortunately, the law is usually the biggest violator of our rights so we have to defend them ourselves.
Now that’s a damn fine idea! How do we do it?
Don, I’m thinking the same thing. I would add to the list of things to do with the cop:
. Get his ID. Name, address, etc.
. Get his fingerprints.
. Get his photo.
. Warn him that further violations of citizens’ rights will be met with a less friendly response.
. Let him go. Assuming he’s not already a repeat offender, that is.
Don.
taking his pants ? sorry wont work, the mindset would be its payback time, its the little boy mindset, the school yard bully , the hulking husband who beats on the 100lb wife, the Cops wont let you do that to their own !
I hear you. You know, no matter how you slice it, you have to admit that the gov’t is better organized than we are. They are nothing special. Just a bunch of people who’s sole purpose in life is to abuse and we let them. You cannot justify letting them when we so grossley outnumber them AND have access to just about all the “tools” that they have. The only conclusion you can draw is that we don’t mind their abuse, otherwise no rational person would allow it to continue to grow like it is.
“we” the people grossly outnumber them. “we” the liberty minded people are much much smaller in number and separated and isolated. Those problems need to be corrected and they are being corrected.
When it’s no longer the government gang vs. an individual, that’s when it changes. Taking on the government gang solo, especially violently doesn’t usually turn out well. Worse it reinforces those who empower the government, the vast numbers of people who outnumber the liberty minded.
Spoil the government gang’s illusion and they fall apart overnight. Direct confrontation is where it is most strong. So long as it has its illusion it can get more people. Spoil the illusion and government has nothing.
Those who operate government are like the Wizard of Oz. No illusion. No power.
Don, you hit the nail on the head; they’re better organized than we are. In fact, for the most part the anarcho / minarcho / libertarian front is sufficiently individualistic and disparate that the PTB don’t need to divide us in order to conquer; we’ve taken care of that for them.
I used to work with a fellow that was on a job site up in one of the Dakotas. There was a very persuasive tax protestor there and he convinced everyone to organize and submit their W-4s as “exempt”. My compadre said the IRS showed up with a bus and some U.S. Marshals to round up all the “illegal tax protestors” shortly thereafter. He said the workers banded together in the parking lot and ran the federales off, throwing rocks at them as they scampered back to their bus. He said one of the IRS thugs yelled that once the guys left that job site, they would be “taken care of” one by one. My friend said that was exactly how it went down too. Everyone that participated was hit with hefty fines and penalties, bank accounts frozen, assets seized, etc., one by one. This is how they steal the money they use to oppress us; individually. You either hand it over peacefully under threat of coercive force or you stand a good chance of becoming a public example.
In another case I heard about in North Carolina, the “illegal tax protestor” who had been traveling around giving talks on the Constitution, the 16th Amendment and related issues received a federal SWAT raid in the middle of the night, with the local sheriff’s assistance. When one (and only one) of his neighbors came out to question the authorities on what they were doing, “his” sheriff told him to go back inside and mind his own business or he could be next. What do you suppose he did?
The “ITP” in this case had his home ransacked. His computers, papers and about $300 cash were stolen. He got free room and board for the next two weeks at the Hotel Graybar (his wife got 5 days), pending their “confessions”. When neither of them would “confess”, so they were released with no charges. When he asked for his possessions back, he was told “Sue us.”
Of course he had no means to do that. Worse yet, his wife lamented that she was shunned at church, none of their “friends” would come near them and the neighbors would look the other way and go inside when she went out to rake leaves or get the mail. It kind of brings a scene to mind from a movie I once saw where the nice lady sat playing the piano in her apartment as the Nazi’s dragged her neighbors off to the camp.
I love your idea of having a “119” number (the reverse of 911) to dial and assemble a group of armed citizens to “educate” the “oath-breaker” about Creator endowed rights and such. First, we will all have to move to one region, assemble and…yes…that’s right….form our own government (sorry ’bout dat, all you anarchists but you have to fight fire with fire). Think Free State Project here.
Then we would have to acquire a sufficient number of “porcupine quills” to be effective, be trained and willing to use them (i.e. “well regulated”) and then actually drop whatever we’re doing and go “bristle up” whenever some officious thug molests one of our own. Should the officious thug call us out on our resolve by drawing a weapon, we would then have to either zip up our flies and go home or deliver the final message to him. Should this actually happen, expect our group’s “leaders” to get the Predator Drone reeducation (or would that be reduction?) program; think Afghanistan here. Then the rest of us would be rounded up as a new employment pool for Unicor. Those who resisted would be seen by the few who are “in the know” as martyrs and by the mainstream as a bunch of wacked out, right-wing, paramilitary crazies that were “lifestyle terrorists” and “hated our American freedom”.
There have been plenty of folks who had the balls, the horsepower and the resolve to stand up to “the man” (whether you agree with their purported politics or philosophies or not). Like the Randy Weaver family, the Branch Davidians as well as various “Sovereign Citizens” and “Militia” types around the nation.
Here’s how they are portrayed: http://www.dtanalytics.org/blog/category/law-enforcement-fatalities/ Almost invariably “White Supremacist” is inserted into the label whenever possible.
This is what “the opposition” says about people who even discuss this sort of thing seriously: http://www.rickross.com/reference/militia/militia57.html (Note the emphasis on the Second Amendment not being a fundamental right). They even go so far as to throw home-schoolers into the mix; wouldn’t want to miss anyone, would we?
The fact is Don, this long and distinguished list of folks that resisted the system for whatever reason, is populated by the deceased, the orphaned, the incarcerated and fugitives. When we’re standing shoulder to shoulder, waiting to “see the whites of their eyes” (I would prefer to be behind trees, stones and ditch banks) because there is no longer any possibility of recourse without bloodshed, so be it. But in the meantime, I’ll leave you with this: “Beware the man who urges action in which he incurs no risk.”
First, we will all have to move to one region, assemble and…yes…that’s right….form our own government (sorry ’bout dat, all you anarchists but you have to fight fire with fire).
This is the only part of your long and excellent post that I disagree with.
Religion: any or none is fine, as long as each person is committed to claiming his own human rights and to respecting the human rights of others.
Government vs. anarchy. Anarchists can form voluntary associations, and can choose to join organizations with very specific rules of do’s and don’t’s. They can also, of course, choose NOT to join any given organization for reasons of their own choosing. Perhaps there would be many “119” organizations. Or perhaps not: on the problem of dealing with out-of-control cops, there is a clear advantage to bonding together into as few large groups as possible.
I share concerns over the practicability of anarchy in the real world. Yet we live most hours of our lives in a state of anarchy (where shall I eat lunch, which lane shall I get into, etc. etc.) and when governments form, they invariably grow and become oppressive.
“Beware the man who urges action in which he incurs no risk.”
He’s probably an agent-provocateur. Beware, as well, the man who urges violence and claims that he’ll stand beside you; he may be far away when the violence begins.
The virtuous road is very narrow; it avoids both capitulation and the seduction of becoming as depraved in spirit as the person opposed.
JdL, I wrote and meant “region” as in Montana, Arlington or Sussex County, not “religion”. By assemble, I didn’t intend any religious connotations, merely that we’d have to have meeting and hash things out on the what, when, who and why of what we would do. I think you misunderstood my intent. Sorry I wasn’t clearer. I am a firm believer in letting each individual decide about his relationship with our Creator (or not to have one, as the case may be).
I agree with your assessment that we would be free to form voluntary associations in this case. But we would all have to agree to ONE overarching organization that respected the founding principle of individual liberty and no use of coercive / aggressive force. Even in it’s most rudimentary and vestigial form, this would still meet the definition of government. Like the very useful light and heat of fire, you’re still stuck with the potential for an uncontrolled oxidation event of momentous purportions; the same as when dealing with any form of government. I truly wish it were otherwise, but human nature being such as it is, I fear this is the best we can do.
“region” as in Montana, Arlington or Sussex.
Wow, I read that many times and saw it wrong every time! But now that I’ve got the right word …
For most aspects of life, like sharing views on a list such as this, physical proximity doesn’t matter much. But, I agree, for things like “119”, a concentration of liberty-minded people is probably a must.
“”The only conclusion you can draw is that we don’t mind their abuse, otherwise no rational person would allow it to continue to grow like it is”
OK gentleman
one big question for you to consider ,to paraphrase Don “we” must like being victimized…..slight play on words , essentially my question remains the same, which is namely: What percetange of the actual population will fight ? oh sure lots of armchair Generals around and mall ninjas , but how many really ? I would suggest not that many , many talk big and brag , for example , I subscribe to being a long term prepper ! ( shock , horror, indignation ) as I see the world going to crap in a hand basket, but I have read that is at best 2 million people in the US who think like I do and are quietly being as self sufficient as they can, but when you break the figures down 2 million out of 310 million ain’t that big !.
doesn’t say much for the other living zombies out there who are looking for the Government to fix their problems or worse bury their heads in the sand, sadly that also relates to the issue at hand WHY people don’t ACT now on brutality from above, be it TSA or anyone other annoying uniform that gets in yer face.
I haven’t yet worked out ifs its the water……..or the electronic child minder, but certainly is why I WOULDN’T throw my life away uselessly .
in balance , its a judgement call that can only be made to stand up at the correct time ! any thoughts ???
oh and by the way, what is the goal of eliminating freedoms worldwide especially in the US ? the real aim I think is a new order, there is no other logical explanation for brutalizing and using thuggery on such a large scale , is there ?, sorry to say too many brain dead people rather watch Idol or Kim Kardashian than get up of their backside write to their local rep.
Eric
By the way I think if you legalized all the illicit drugs, over night the huge money profits would disappear, then the vast sums spent by armies and Police forces around the world would no longer be justified, would schmucks die from overdose ? sure they would, I think every generation produces a new crop of cannon fodder for the elites who have a agenda of power for power sake at their nasty evil beings.
I think if you have half a brain you don’t take heroin or LSD or any other mind altering crap.
Buts that’s just me.
like Forrest Gump said ” Stupid is…….as stupid does ”
That could be a whole new thread wouldn’t you say ?
Just last night I was having dinner over at a friend’s house and this friend and I debated precisely this – he taking the position that legalization would encourage drug abuse; I pointing out that such already exists but which is compounded by abuse of our rights on top of that.
There will always be people who abuse drugs, just as there will always be people who eat too much or drive irresponsibly (and so on). Turning society into a police state by assuming that everyone who uses drugs necessarily abuses them (and becomes violent or otherwise criminal) in consequence is as silly as saying that we should “control” fast food because some people eat far too much and become grossly obese, or that we should “control” guns because a relative handful of assholes abuse them.
I pointed out to this friend that literally everyone I went to college with; all my contemporaries, smoked pot and tried other drugs too without ever harming anyone. My point being, we all know it’s a fraud; i.e., that fooling around with drugs (legal and not) does not necessarily or even likely lead to criminal problems any more than having a gun on your hip transforms you into a violent criminal. Unless of course you are already so inclined – in which case, “legal” or “illegal” matters not at all.
I am tired of being treated as a presumptive criminal because some people – a generic “someone” out there – might do this, or could do that – even though I haven’t done a god-damn thing! (As far as harming anyone, that is.)
Deal with people as individuals. If an individual’s drug abuse results in some direct harm to a real victim, that individual should be punished. But don’t tell me that another individual’s mere use constitutes sufficient warrant to point guns his way, to cage him like an animal and call him a “criminal.”
Eric
I agree with your summation , how ever there is just too much money to be made by the military industrial complex to make drugs legit, by the way in late 19th century London there were Opium dens all through the east end of London, in fact Sherlock Holmes the fictional character uses opium frequently to meditate….the Chinese brought the practice with them from the orient when they were brought to London as coolies to wash the rich men’s clothing, so whats new !suddenly opium is a crime ? give me a break !
more like government shill decided he had a plan to make a untold sum of money,anyway how the the crop of poppies in Afghanistan is getting bigger each year ? and yet if you believe the figures put out, the users world wide is shrinking ?I smell a rat , its called CIA
Found this by chance today. Thought you guys would like it. :))
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAaUhgQV6hs&feature=share
Eric
I did read a lengthy article some years back , from some big name university in the US that did a pilot study of personality types who join the Police, a psych Professor stated that the job attracted bully’s and sociopaths and those who had serious personality disorders.
Nothing I have seen to date mitigates that in my opinion , by the way my wife had 14 years working with the cops and saw first hand the corruption and outright lies within the system.
to give you an idea where I live the city has nearly 4.6 million people , in this state there are over 17,000 cops, sounds like a lot, in truth the population outnumbers them, but here in Australia, you would be well aware that the people have been disarmed, which of course was deliberate.
So like the UK people won’t fight back against the system, where I am there have been over 17 Royal Commissions into the Police forces here since their foundings in the early 1800s,
So what changes ? seems nothing much, I see the hard won freedoms in the past eroding in the Western world. Sadly most people don’t have the spine to stand up to the jackbooted thugs who wear blue uniforms.
“…a pilot study of personality types who join the Police, a psych Professor stated that the job attracted bullys and sociopaths and those who had serious personality disorders.”
I don’t like to generalize, but I think this is a case where it’s warranted. Just think: Would you like to spend your days doing things like arresting and jailing people because they are found to have a plant in their possession? Issuing costly fines to people whom you know haven’t done anything criminal, or which constitutes a “threat” to anyone? Etc?
Not me. I could not do it. Hence, I could never be a cop. Those who volunteer to do it (and being a cop is voluntary) therefore strike me as defectives.
There are certainly good men within the system who try to be decent, who try to do the right thing. The problem is the system won’t let them; quite the reverse. If they are to “do their job,” they must bully people; they must enforce absurd, even evil, laws. So, either they realize what it’s all about – and quit in disgust – or they rationalize what they do, and adopt an “us vs. them” mentality not unlike that of WW II-era Nazi camp guards or Soviet NKVD men.
It’s a tough pill for most Americans to swallow – but it’s the reality.
Eric
I have worked in the security / bodyguard protection field for about 30 years, I am able to train the trainer qualified in most small arms, so I guess I can say I have a bit of knowledge of the way humans operate under pressure and what they do, that said, I have found yes there are honest Cops in nearly all Police forces world wide, however finding them in very hard, I agree with your summation, a few examples in point, I see that most people who join Police , join with good intention , few are outright malicious and out to do evil things when joining, but what I note happens, is that those people with a degree of morality and good conscience will very quickly learn to keep their mouth shut when they see their more experienced partners , take that bribe, not pay for that meal, or use their badge to get free rides on the public transport system, they reason its only small and of course the further you go within the old boys network , well very soon you are hooked.
No one likes to rock the boat do they ?
To stay truly honest , yes , you either turn a blind eye or get out. Then add to that the various Police Masonic lodges and other secret orders ( trust me ALL cops have their circles within circles )and you have a deadly mix , then along comes the grab bag of affirmative action and hiring less than ideal physical types.
For example, my background is from German blood line, so at 6’3″ and 260 lbs and big boned, I respect a Cop who is 6’4″ and bigger,otherwise to me its just a unfair wrestling match !, law of the jungle so to speak, having a man or woman for that matter going into a club to break up a brawl is just a joke, I would pick up anyone smaller and throw them over the other side of the room just for fun.
I am not saying I do that you understand, merely saying to me it makes actual sense to employ people in doing a hard job who can physicaly do the job, I suspect many shootings could be avoided if these principals were followed, its almost like the recruiters across the world all read from the same PC manual.
Another illustration a few months I was driving along a main road and here there is a 40klm speed limit when driving in zones where there are schools, no problem !, but I got busted for doing 5klms over the speed limit, the jackboot who jumped out of his concealed hidy hole by the side of the road, couldn’t wait to book me for being over the limit,considering most cars will have a variance in the speedometer of at least that much, I think that sort of behavior stinks, that’s just pure revenue raising and same with all the speed cameras.
Cops are too lazy to go and catch the crooks like rapists, murderers and thieves so they pick the soft option the motoring public, I felt like arguing with the uniformed fool , but kept my mouth shut, my wife said that was a wise move !
What sort of mental capabilities to these morons have ?
are people that stupid ? most likely they are ! and yet if I shoot some psychopath who is trying to break into my house, then watch what the bully boys in blue will do to me .
Is there a ready and easy answer ? even to what you did ? no, but it certainly means that more than likely one day , someone will start saying no more and others will follow when that person loses their life, for assuredly
that’s the way I see it happening.
Hey Chris,
Agreed. As far as “what to do,” I think the answer’s the same as when it comes to dealing with our political problems. People’s minds have to be changed. They’ve got to be made to see that violence begets violence and that a society based on violence will become ever more violent while one that tries to keep violence to a minimum by using it (officially) only to keep the peace will be more peaceful – and thus, more free.
Eric
Here is something you and everyone else does NOT know:
Did you know in the small nation of New Zealand , you can legally own a suppressor and fit to ALL arms ? its even encouraged by the Constabulary ! saves hearing suites apparently.
Also there are 1.25 Million gun owners in a country of a bit over 4 million people , think about the ratio of gun ownership here, you can legally buy M16s, AR15s, and of course all the variants that go with it, also MP5s, HK SL rifles and so on…..they over there do the reverse of most countries, the firearms owner gets licensed, NOT the firearm !, so you can buy as many as you want, I know one guy who has 150 assorted rifles, pistols and shotguns in his 20foot shipping container ( that’s his gun room )
You can also get without much diffculty Thompsons, Grease guns, MP40s, Stens, Brens and just about anything else, sure you pay more, but no snakes, no spiders, no nasty things in the scrub.
checkout :
http://www.guncity.co.nz
ps I have hi jacked the thread here but what the heck
Interesting!
I’d heard that most guns (handguns of “law enforcement” caliber and above; “assault” rifles, etc.) had effectively been banned in Australia. So NZ is different? I’m not hip to the legal/political situation over there…
Here, it varies – depending on which state you happen to live in.
I’m in Virginia, which is pretty good when it comes to gun rights. One can buy any sort of handgun and open and concealed carry are allowed. No restrictions on rifles based on their appearance or magazine capacity. The only major restrictions are full-automatic fire (you need a special license for that), suppressors and barrel length (shortness).
Cops go after the motoring public in the USA because of how their performance objectives are set up and the relative ease of it.
The benefit to their annual review score can be the same for a speeding ticket as catching a burgler or a violent criminal. Guess how they are going to make their objectives? Of course that was the intent of the government doing it that way. The government wants violent crime. It wants property crime. Both expand government power. It also wants revenue. Hence the concentration of police on revenue generating activities including the drug war but a ‘you’re on your own’ attitude towards property and violent crime. They’ll take a report and that’s about it.
Eric
Probably no one has noticed that world wide the trend is among the Police forces that they ALL look militaristic , you know the macho lace up black boots, wide blouse blue/black pants, the belt with the Glock/taser/cuffs/mag pouches/pepper spray/baton, it is MEANT to look intimidating, you don’t need to look too hard to see pretty much all the other countries in the world took a leaf out of what the cops in the USA were dressing like and actually doing !
What truly bothers me, is so many migrants come from countries that had despotic rule and freedom was crushed by a hard cold black boot at the hand of a Government paid thug, my own parents came from a crushed Germany at the end of the second world war, my , they fled from men who dressed the same as the cops in the USA/Britain/Australia/ etc etc, does it bother no one that these people dress like that ? seems like a minor issue , maybe it is, but I believe it contributes to the WHY of people not resisting, it good psych warfare of the social programmers part, the masses won’t actually interfere with cops dressed aggressively.
I
History is cyclical because human nature is eternal. People in one generation may learn a hard lesson – like your parents. But subsequent generations forget (or were never taught about) what happened. They only hear the siren song – “security,” “defending the homeland,” etc.
Are you familiar with this quote?
“Naturally the common people don’t want war; neither in Russia, nor in England, nor in America, nor in Germany. That is understood. But after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy, or a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country.”
– Reichsmarschall Herman Goering, after the war.
yes I had read similiar
have read these ?
To walk through the ruined cities of Germany is to feel actual doubt about the continuity of civilization.
– George pseudonym of Eric Arthur Blair Orwell
In the Observer, 8 Apr.
Joseph Paul Goebbels:
“It is the absolute right of the state to supervise the formation of public opinion”
Adolf Hitler :
“The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of a nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies, but would be ashamed to tell big lies ”
and lastly…..
Harry S. Truman:
“I never would have agreed to the formulation of the Central Intelligence Agency back in forty-seven, if I had known it would become the American Gestapo.”
Maryland is making easier to say yes to leaving:
http://www.wakeupforliberty.com/blog/2012/02/23/Total-Tyranny-Tyrannical-Activities-by-Maryland-State-Officials.aspx
As of June 1, 2011, the State of Maryland has passed a law, which was passed as part of the Budget Reconciliation and Financing Act of 2011, that effectively exposes the mindset of government, wherein no individual is entitled to have; personal liberty, equal protection, due process of law, or individual ownership of property. This law states that if the State government determines a resident to have not paid all undisputed Taxes or Unemployment Insurance Contributions they will prohibit the Maryland Department of Transportation[1], under which is the Motor Vehicle Administration (MVA), from issuing or renewing the applicant’s Driver’s License, Vehicle Registration, and, if that wasn’t enough, will prohibit the person in question from selling “their” vehicle, by disallowing the transfer of said registration. In implementing their tyrannical plan, Maryland officials are now threatening the residents with the confiscation of their right to possess a valid driver’s license, their right and ability to operate “their” automobile, and a person’s right to sell their interest in their own property, the vehicle in this case. This will be implemented in spite of the fact the resident is current on his or her registration, has a current valid driver’s license, and may have the need to sell his or her vehicle. The consequences of the State’s action are dire to say the least….
—————-
Wonder how long before their fellow parasites in the rest of the country implement such a policy.
Maryland is one of the most obnoxious states in the country in this respect.
Indeed. Having lived in that Marxist shit hole for over a decade, it was interesting to see how much more of my money remained in my bank account once I moved out and no longer had to pay their confiscatory taxes. Sadly, however, the rest of the UFSA’s oblasts are rapidly sinking to Maryland’s level in that respect, so the advantage has largely been lost.
Fellow defenders of liberty have covered most of the ground I wanted to, leaving me with little to say.
That’s a good thing incidentally. It means we’re on the same page.
Allow me to offer one observation from New Age psychology.
Our outer world reflects our inner world.
If we are sheeple in our hearts and minds, then we will inevitably manifest a world in which we find ourselves preyed upon by wolves in the outer world.
America has degenerated as far as it has because enough people think like “slade.”
The first step toward genuine liberty is individual awareness.
A society in which most people are as aware as Eric, would never have permitted America to degenerate this far in the first place.
The land is no longer the land of the free, because it is no longer the home of the brave.
Ideas, as the saying goes, have consequences.
From wikipedia; The democratic-republican party was founded in the early 1790s by Thomas Jefferson and James Madison.
Political scientists prefer to call it the Democratic party even though this name was unknown in the 1790s. They consider Abraham Lincoln the first solely Republican president.
Historians prefer to call it the Republican party from this point onward.
So from the get go, it looks like the old two sides of a Janus coin I saw mentioned in another post.
Flip Obama once, he’s a democrat. Flip him again he’s a republican.
Heads? You lose. Tails? They win.
Over the river and through the woods, all roads lead to Rome?
These meanings got twisted completely over time. In Jefferson’s time, when one spoke of “republican” government, one meant a limited constitutional republic, the antithesis of democracy. By the time of Lincoln, a Republican was one who favored a consolidated central government and mercantilism – the old Whig agenda.
The terms, “democrat and “republican” have no meaning today.
Ok. I’m ignorant of many things and naive in some. I’d like to think that I’m not stupid. I’ve been fascinated by reading this thread. I have questions though. Eric, you said that Republicans were culpable here. But aren’t I understanding correctly that Republicans are pro-business while Democrats are pro-government? If correct, then why would Republicans be the enemy in this scenario? By the way, did I mention that I’m ignorant? That includes politics also. I believe in our right to carry firearms and was keenly interested in the discussion about giving into the privilege license versus the rightful and silent possession (this is how I live). Also, I’m fascinated by all of the opinions of personal violations by all of these men. I’ve always hated the pat-down rights that the TSA have but always believed my distaste to be due to being a woman. As men, I doubt that most of you live in constant fear of physical abuse and/or rape. Most of my opinions are based on the daily fear that men in a position of authority will and often do look at my very existence as an object of entertainment or a means to overcome a suspected lack of manhood. What do you think would have happened to a solitary woman in your story? What would that cop have done? Would he have acted like a “gentleman” and waved me away? Or would a pat-down have been documented as necessary to investigate a possible terrorist threat? As a woman, I must confess that I often will put my head down, clutch my pistol, and ask no questions. I’m outraged at the abuse of law but must constantly force myself to remain silent out of fear that a coward will attempt to take the frustrations of his shortcomings out on me. Like you, I loathe the idea of killing someone but will if necessary. So, in order to avoid trouble, I would not have questioned the closing of that road. I love/hate being a woman. You have all stated how horrible it is to have your rights violated. But a woman has to worry about more than just her rights being violated. I vote my conscience and pay my taxes. And fear the very ones that are supposed to serve and protect.
Hey Jady, I know you are waiting on Eric, here’s what I encountered.
By not adequately securing the streets for women, the official protectors enjoy job security.
I can’t say its intentional or just a case of oh well, I’m not perfect, but at least I’m always in demand.
I do know anecdotally that places like Paris, Tokyo, Jedda, and anywhere in Scandinavia is drop dead safe 24 hours and 7 days a week for the most part.
Public servants there end up staying popular by cleaning up after sidewalk dog mess and what not.
The constant fear for the weaker sex and the elderly is almost totally absent in many places.
If they can catch every illegal parking violation and meter expiration fairly quickly, how can they not secure those same streets for the actual citizens who need their protection.
It doesn’t add up.
Yes Tor, thank you. I’d never considered the “job security” angle before and, quite frankly, the thought of that has spun me off into a whole new dimension of pissed off.
Democrats and republicans are both pro-government and pro-business that does deals with republicans and democrats. They are fascists, corporatists. Rs and Ds both believe in welfare and warfare but sometimes disagree with which one goes first.
As to safety? The safety that they are working towards is that of the government and those operating it. To keep the money rolling in and keep all the power while working to increase both.
“But aren’t I understanding correctly that Republicans are pro-business while Democrats are pro-government?”
This is the false dichotomy they want you to believe. In fact, both “wings” of the Authoritarian Party combine the same elements of corporatism (i.e., government force used to “help” large, politically powerful big business interests) and socialist wealth redistribution (albeit to slightly different favored groups). The differences, if you can call them that, are trivial. Neither respects individual rights; both are determined to control every aspect of the individual’s life. It’s just the pretexts and excuses which differ.
On the TSA: Any self-respecting person, in my opinion, should object to the invasion of their personal space. The broader point, man or woman, is simply this: If you accept a government agent’s hands down your pants, what won’t you accept?
On being female: Women, like men, have their advantages and disadvantages. I suspect a woman is less likely to experience the increasingly immediate over-the-top escalation that male cops often direct at male citizens. However, consider the reverse. Female cops are among the most belligerent. Especially toward men. Perhaps because they perceive the obvious physical disadvantage. They tend to rely on their Tazer or gun sooner because after all, what is the average 140-160 pound female cop going to do, physically, against a 200 pound male who is probably three or four times as strong as she?
I encourage all women to learn to handle a gun and to be armed at all times. A gun is the great equalizer.
I have wanted for some time to attend a city counsel meeting and ask the chief of police under what circumstances it is okay to shoot and kill a police officer. Obviously there are some, they are not totally immune from being stopped with lethal force when they are raping someone, beating someone etc. outside the realm of their official duty. Is there any precedent-making case law explaining when it is okay to kill a cop?
There is both common and statutory law precedent for killing a cop in self-defense. Will Grigg points that out here.
BTW, on the subject of cops and their depredations that we’ve been discussing here, check out Will’s latest.
My nephew Jack decided to become a police officer about five years ago when he left the military. Now, mind you, Jack’s a pretty decent kid. He has always cared about others and he would give you the shirt off his back if the situation warranted it.
He worked hard to get through the police academy and really thought that by becoming a police officer he would have an opportunity to serve the community, help his fellow citizens, and play a role in getting serious bad guys off the street.
Guess what? He HATED it from day one. He was shocked by the level of contempt that the average cop had for the average citizen. He told me that his partner would stop at the local 7/11, walk in and smirk at the clerk, then take whatever he wanted without paying for it. This guy would then justify engaging in the same behavior he took people to jail for by saying “I’m the f***ing police.”
His visions of being a knight in shining armor were replaced by the reality of being essentially a revenue agent for the state. He spent most of his time writing citations and shaking down street addicts. He witnessed a fair amount of brutality and corruption during his tenure.
Jack quit the police force about 18 months after joining and started working for a contractor. He couldn’t stand it, and couldn’t stand himself. That’s the crux of the problem right there. The decent people are marginalized by their peers or wind up quitting. The jerks with a bully mentality who enjoy pushing other people around stay, and spend their whole careers doing just that.
Hey Dan,
Thanks for posting about your nephew; maybe invite him to join this discussion. I am extremely sympathetic to the plight good men such as your nephew find themselves in when they encounter the reality of “law enforcement” in modern America.
Ever watch COPS on TV? It is very revealing. I call it fascist porn. And that’s with the cameras on.
God help us.
Yep… “Cops,” “48 hours,” the various reality shows shot in penitentiaries and lockups are all heavily edited to cast the police in the best possible light and make the “suspects” look like either dangerous criminals or clueless buffoons.
I just sent my nephew a link to your website. He likes cars too, and has been working on restoring a ’69 Camaro from the ground up. I think the chances of his checking out the site are pretty good.
Excellent – thanks, Dan!
I have always wanted a first-gen F car (prefer Firebirds; I know… I know). I’ve had five second gens, including two Camaros (one a Z28). Lots of fun! I still have the Great Pumpkin – my Carousel Red ’76 Trans-Am. It has a mild-street 455, the honeycomb rims and factory 8-track!
COPs because it has been on for so very long is an excellent documentation of how things have change. It does not matter that the cops are on their best behavior or the content edited in their favor. We know that the presentation is held constant and to the best benefit of the police officers. This makes it all the more damning to compare an episode from one of the first couple seasons to one from last year.
It is a dramatic difference. Watch an episode from 1989 and from 2011 back to back.
The early episodes consist of calm cops, difused situations, things being worked out, confidence (especially about guns) etc and so forth. The recent episodes have screaming, escalation, officer safety, and paranoia.
Winston Smith is going to have push that TV series into the memory hole.
The drug thing especially annoys me. Watching the cops berate or talk down to someone they catch with a bag of pot. Now, I haven’t touched the stuff since college 20 years ago. But just as I know people can and do drink alcohol responsibly – including many police, I suspect – so also many people can, do and have smoked pot, etc., without causing harm to anyone. The idea that it should be a criminal offense to put anything one wishes to put into one’s own body – as such – is evil and asinine.
Come on Eric. That’s easy money bro! Goobermint nubs easy money. What the hell are you looking for anyway? Cops to do real work? They don’t get hazard pay. They’re tax feeders and that’s all they’re liable for.
Yup!
The “war” on (some) drugs makes perfect sense once you understand its true motives. Just like the “war” on terra.
Got a buddy that was caught with a roach in his ashtray at a safety check. He was tied up in the legal system for a couple years and paid out the ass for it. What would Clover say? “Righteous Bust” I bet.
Dan, tell your nephew not to give up hope. It sounds like he’d make the ideal police chief for a locality where the residents actually cared about liberty and prefer a peace officer to a “law enforcer.”
Take a cop’s gun away and you will expose the coward.
Power tripping sums it up. It’s hilarious to hear an “authority figure” like a cop flip out about small things like jaywalking, seat belts, or supposedly running yellow lights. Their loss of composure exposes their sorry failure at mimicking TRUE kings of confidence and ACTUAL figures of authority, people calm and composed, people we actually admire. No wonder they no longer earn the honest citizen’s respect… and nor do they really care to…
Trying to think honestly about this. I’m 35 and pretty much every encounter I’ve ever had with a cop has been negative. When I see I cop I see a piece of shit (for the most part).
I’ve had a few that were “ok” – but only in the sense that they didn’t actually beat/shoot/arrest me. Still, in all these cases, I hadn’t been doing anything to breach the peace; I was causing no harm to anyone. Just happened to run afoul of a radar gun and a stupid “technical foul” law. So the fact that a few were “ok” doesn’t negate the fact it’s not ok to harass people for no legitimate reason – and yes, Slade, being stopped by a cop and made to go through the “Your papers, please” drill is harassing people for no legitimate reason.
Take a cop’s gun away and you will expose the coward.
Very true, and it takes even less than that. Point a camera at a cop and that cop is very likely to go completely bonkers. He’s still holding his gun and his privileges under the “law”, yet he’s wetting his pants. Very pathetic.
Dammit Eric. Please get a memory card for your camera and record this type of stuff! It would have been an instant classic.
As a temporary work-around for flying I read on LRC some group is trying to sell seats on unused private jets flying out of General Aviation airfields. I imagine the goberment will shut them down someday soon, but until then it might be useful? It seems expensive, but I don’t know.
https://www.socialflights.com/
My, haven’t we set off a storm here.
Every law that was put in for “my own good” is probably unconstitutional.
That includes safety belts, which may or may not save a life.
It includes a silly law that you have to have lights on when you use your windshield wipers. It goes on and on. Prohibition anyone?
Jesus said it best. Those who live by the sword, die by the sword.
That includes the cop out there enforcing the silly laws. The right to have a gun, was meant to keep those people from becoming dictators. There was a time when having a gun was the difference between being scalped by native Indians or defending your home.
Any cop silly enough to break down the door to one’s home deserves to die.
Any cop that does not identify himself and present a warrant is also going to die eventually from his silly behavior. I say this because all the above behavior is considered “conduct unbecoming a police officer”. It says so in their own union manuals. They have a code of conduct believe it or not. Too bad it is not enforced.
The rules of conduct are not those of a labor union. They are the rules of a professional guild. Just as doctors have a guild called the AMA, cops have one too.
The code of conduct is designed to keep cowboys off the force. People that go on wild rampages and hiding behind their badges. Internal Affairs is supposed to keep these people in check. That means time off without pay. Firings if it is necessary. Psychological evaluations are also given and recommendations given to the chief of police as to whether an officer is fit for duty.
The chief weapon of a professional is politeness. Not aggressive behavior.
Every incident I have seen described here is a violation of that code of behavior. The question we should be asking the police department is why is this behavior is tolerated in a professional group of officers?
That is also what should be brought before our legislative bodies. The chief weapon of the public is funding. No funding, no police department.
If you have an obnoxious group of security officers then fire them. Take away their funding with your representative in congress leading the charge. I don’t see that happening.
Maybe it is time for a new representative in Congress when this term ends?
Maybe it is time to quit playing politics with major corporations at the helm. Maybe we need to go back to a time when a lot of this stuff is not funded.
Lawyers spend 3 years of law school learning how to make problems that earn them a living. They spend 1 year learning how to resolve problems. It is so evident in the court system that the 3 years takes priority over the 1 year.
I think we all feel violated by laws telling us what is good for us. Never mind the laws that attend to victim crimes. If the same people that make these laws could get away with it. They would put cigarettes on the drug list and make them illegal. (I do not smoke. My entire family of smokers dies in their early 70s. I’d like to live a little longer than that.) Why do something like this? Because it causes problems that need a legal person to solve.
If I had been Eric, I would have told the police officer this: “Gee, I guess you have had a hundred people you had turn away today because someone forgot to tell the news media you were closed. Sure do not envy you the job you got stuck with. Sorry about the seatbelt. Will put it on immediately(and do so).”
If you want the seat belt law changed, Eric, you need to successfully challenge it on a different level than that poor guy on the gate. He is just doing what he is told, just like his NAZI predecessors did before him.
He is just the dumb jerk stuck with the grunt work. A lot of police people are in the same boat. They are forced by their bosses to enforce stupid laws.
Personally, I would like see a whole bunch of do-gooder laws thrown completely off the books. They make life hard for the victims and the police. The police have a lot more to do than just enforce chicken laws.
Ask any cop, sent out on a domestic dispute if you do not believe me.
As for alcohol enforcement, you are looking at a lot of tragedy here. Innocent victims of accidents caused by a bunch of jerks that feel they can still drive with 6 to 10 beers in them. I say close the bars that served them without taking away their keys to drive. Set up taxi service to send them home. Then if they get out on the road, they deserve anything they get. Including a nice jail sentence that takes them off the roads permanently.
We are no angels. When I see a police officer doing his job I think of him and his victim. There but for the grace of God go I.
We are a nation of unequal treatment under the law. The law is often held completely in contempt. For every traffic ticket issued by the law 100 people are out there speeding along. The problem is enforcement. There are only so many cops to go around.
Then you have engineered traffic violations. I know many a street engineered to make sure you violate the traffic laws. Cops sit on those streets waiting to herd in their enforcement quotas for the month. State laws that say a certain section of town is 25 miles an hour on a four lane highway is a good example.
Or how about the vanishing yellow light. Lights set to 3.5 seconds or less so that if you are on top of a changing light you have to run it or risk a rear end collision from the guy behind you. So just how do you not have contempt when the law itself is contemptable?
Chumchingee, here’s some links which refute a portion of your position, if you’re so inclined to read them and understand,… I wish everyone would:
“Consider: You are liable to arrest for “drunk driving” in America today even if you aren’t driving at all. You merely have to be in your car – even if you’re in the passenger seat and the car is parked.”
http://epautos.com/2011/01/14/drunk-driving-and-pre-crime/
The Pathetic Argument for Prohibiting Drunk Driving
http://www.lewrockwell.com/crovelli/crovelli33.1.html
Drunk Driving vs. Sober Driving: What’s the Difference?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/crovelli/crovelli27.html
Drunk Driving Laws Cause Drunk Driving Accidents
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig7/crovelli5.html
Prohibiting Drunk Driving Is Not Self-Defense
“One of the main reasons why so many Americans continue to support ruthless drunk-driving prohibitions in the United States is that they are deeply confused about the notion of legitimate self-defense.”
http://www.lewrockwell.com/crovelli/crovelli41.1.html
“Consider: You are liable to arrest for “drunk driving” in America today even if you aren’t driving at all. You merely have to be in your car – even if you’re in the passenger seat and the car is parked.”
This is particularly outrageous because it discourages responsible behavior while encouraging irresponsible behavior. When I was in college (’80s) I “slept it off” in my car several times; I felt I was a bit too much in the bag to drive, but the car was safe/warm and a good enough place to sack out. You’d think the law would reward that. But, no.
Now, the law gives you every incentive to try to make it home. After all – why not? You’re as much a “drunk driver” in your parked car – even in the passenger seat – as you are out on the road, in the driver’s seat.
The bullshit reason given is that someone might try to evade a drunk driving rap by quickly parking and claiming they were just “sleeping it off.”
Notice, though, the immediate presumption of guilt absent any proof of guilt. If the cop sees the car being driven erratically – then, hey, ok, probable cause. No problem there. Not for me anyhow.
But just sitting in your car? Without the slightest evidence that you were driving? That’s enough to earn you a “drunk driving” charge?
Welcome to the Clover States of America!
Yes folks. WE live in a FASCIST country. I am convinced cops can essentially do whatever they want. I witness this quite frequently as I travel: Cops speeding the left lane at 100 mph, tailgating everyone that wont pull over in time. Everyone just GETS IN LINE and pulls over for the criminal in a uniform that is going 100-120 mph in the left lane with no emergency lights on. People get arrested at checkpoints who simply will not talk…it just goes ON and ON.
This is what the state does. They steal your money, live off you money and stick a gun to your head, beat you to a bloody pulp, invade you home without warrant, put you in jail and possibly kill you.
Whatever happened to, ‘no justice, no peace’?
“Whatever happened to, ‘no justice, no peace’?”
I am hoping it makes a comeback… my Spider Sense tells me a lot of people are really fed up. It’s close to critical mass.
They’ve been putting up a lot of huge electrical signs on the highways lately around here. So far all they’ve displayed has been stupid shit that makes no sense like “Senior Saturday” or other randomness. I think they’re making preparations for FEMA camp notifications to be displayed on them. When I get caught up in traffic jams in off hours my mind races straight to “it has begun.”
This reminds me of a story in my local paper this very week.
A bridge near the outskirts of town is undergoing repair work. Virginia Dept of Transportation put up an electronic sign telling motorists to merge right in a quarter mile, to accommodate the road crew. It is set up right next to a sign posting 25mph.
Somebody hacked the sign and caused it to read alternately DRIVE FAST and TAKE CHANCES. Needless to say, VDOT has been having a cow.
I’m still laughing about it.
That made my day!
V
They live somewhere.
They sleep somewhere.
They have families.
No one is untouchable.
3 Gregorian Calendar years ago I got a seat belt ticket and I memorized the officers id number, name, and squad car number. He was a highway patrolman. I didn’t see any other complaints about him on copblock dot org and other sites so I didn’t do anything with the info.
I paid a service to pay it for $72 and never visited anyone official.
The power of pluribus, the many, is indeed stronger than the power of unum, the enforced one.
Even in 95% Muslim Egypt, there is over a million Gypsies/Romani who are births and names are utterly undocumented and not even dealt with or included in “official” counts.
America has over 1 million Romani. They have a slave name and an official “cover story” about themselves, and then a separate actual name they go by.
The blasted inner city heath is de facto ruled by various street people with their street names and reputations.
I supposed I sound unhinged and overly alarmed, but is not our tongue a unique unhinged muscle itself.
24 Gregorian Calendar years ago, I made a cloverish decision and called the official gang to recover an old Porsche 924 I used to drive in high school.
It wasn’t even that important to me, but I was forced to make an unscheduled donation by a diminuitive raving skinhead who claimed he was part of a Nazi group and was holding a 9mm Ruger in a shaky hand as evidence of his membership.
I guess he was run off the road by 4 off duty cops into a ditch and jumped and beaten beyond recognition.
The officials claimed he had earlier spray painted my church on one occassion and been part of a suicide call by his mother for slitting his wrists on another occassion.
I foolishly believed these officials and he was sentenced to 5 years for this crime and got out in 2 1/2 years, the maximum he could serve without good behavior.
A week after that, his name came up in the local paper’s obituary column as driving off the road in a one car fatality where he hit a telephone pole at a high rate of speed.
All those years of following Jesus the anarchist didn’t prepare me for what I should have done. Put a kill switch in my cars so if someone takes them, they only get a few miles before the car siezes up and the fuel lines go dry, no matter what’s in the tank.
One time, I was talking to someone in another church who claims to have gone to public school with this kid. He was from a rich family that lived next to a country club, and the guy was amazed that he would become violent and do anything like this.
Talk is cheap, and its easy to see what should be done from a post hoc vantage point.
I have never said a single word to any official since that tense incident in the church. It also caused me to leave the Catholic faith because of their collusion with state force.
I have made 3 more small unscheduled donations since then, and I blame myself for leaving myself vulnerable.
I am in no place to judge anyone else, but there are few scenarios where I will ask for outside assistance from people I don’t even know, no matter what official titles they hold.
The solution:
Shun the LEOs. Do not acknowledge their supposed authority. Pretend they do not exist. Do not invite them to your bar-b-ques or whatever. Do not engage in conversation with them.
Boycott flying. Join together and hire a pilot, rent private planes instead. Rent buses. Or drive everywhere.
Accept nothing from gubmint benefactors who steal from your neighbor to give to others. Governments of men are not charitable.
Homeschool or form small community schools like the Amish. Public schools are social engineering citizen indoctrination centers.
Boycott large corporations. They work together with the gubmint to ensure your dependence on them. They have lobbyists to represent their interests. You do not.
Form communities with as many like-minded individuals and families as you possibly can. You are establishing a new kingdom independent of the NWO beast kingdom.
Become as independent of “the system” as you possibly can. In effect, you must be separate and let the system FALL. As a very wise book states: Come out from among THEM. The empire must die.
Excellent –
I’m trying to do all the things you mention – and encourage everyone here (and elsewhere) who is frustrated and disgusted to do the same.
It’s a damn good start.
You’re describing my favorite school of libertarianism, Wiseman–Agorism
Vow to prosper separately. As Solzhenitsyn said, ask nothing from the state…
Give them as little as possible while remaining “free”. Prosper on your own terms. Divorce yourself from their machinations to the greatest extent possible.
Make it your goal to prosper; any entanglement with the state is counterproductive to that goal, even campaigning the state for freedom. They don’t care. Just take care of yourself and your family; the state will whither of its own diseases.
To roll out a blunt argument. If your 17 year old daughter is caught smoking a cigarette or driving while on her cell phone, she is state property and now another unwilling contestant of the endless brutal and deadly reaping games of the District Capitol.
For me its not being in a republic or monarchy that gripes me. It’s the closing and fencing of all frontiers everywhere, forever.
Gort and Piggy have decreed everything a public resource, wetland, forest, park, seashore, radio spectrum, and internet resource under his unending domain and subjugation.
I want to find away to live on the rails, on the lakes. Under th lakes, in a stealth tree house village. In a hidden mountain lair. Out on an ocean, underneath on an ocean floor. Deep in the ground.
Live free and let live in what the masses call society. I don’t care about them one whit for good or ill. I’ll live deep in the ground. At the North or South pole. High in the sky. Far out in orbit. On our sister/lover/mother sister world Venus/Ishtar. With my own technology and entertainments in separate glorious fashion.
I’m willing to fight to a vicotry the energy war began in 1973, but only for me and mine. I’ll keep that victory hidden and proprietary. Develop new webs and circles of knowledge and expertise unimpeded with the brutish terrestrial powers of the our age.
This apparently drunk woman who was involved in an accident, refused arrest, and slapped a policeman in Hong Kong. It’s in Chinese but you can hear the woman yell, “I want to leave now.”
Imagine if this happens anywhere in the U.S. of beautiful A.
But at least we know we’re freeeeeeeeee!
LMAO. The last person who was able to do that in the U$A was Zza Za Gabor.
A timely article. I was arrested last weekend for drunk in public. I was checking on a friend who went outside the bar, and 3 cops confronted us and asked for id. I asked if I was required by law to show id, and we were cuffed without an answer to that question. so disappointing.
Sounds about right. Cops inventing a crime and executing an arrest. Sorry to hear about that!
And of course, the question: How does it harm others (i.e., how is it a crime, properly speaking) to merely be “drunk” (that is, to have consumed “x” arbitrary amount of alcohol) in public?
If you were belligerent or threatening people – ok. I get that. But then we have a separate issue. Being “drunk” in public is no more criminal, as such, than being stupid in public.
Exactly. No danger to ourselves or others. Minding our own business, I wish the police would do the same.
Being “drunk” in public is no more criminal, as such, than being stupid in public.
Since being stupid in public is what cops do best, they should thank God that legislatures haven’t made that an actual crime. They’d ALL be locked up then.
Ha! Second post o’ the day!
A self-directed man speaks wordlessly to a cop. The few remaining semi-lucid cops know and appreciate a calm seren man with holstered tools and well-tuned machines of locomotion and industry.
They understand it is only the skill and beneficience of this type who builds and installs the lids on all the barrels of monkeys that we call society.
Deep inside, cops know their claims of superiority of a planet of apes and pigs is dubious at best and most likely uninhabitable for him in the long run.
I agree with everyone’s take on the National Socialists Enforcement Arm (eg. Modern Day Police Officers). I have had experiences similar to some mentioned where it was not the time to stand against rude injustices due to where it likely would have escalated. Yes, that time may come, but it wasn’t then.
However, moving to a small town on the prarie, I have a very pleasant story to tell. This town has like a total of 5 officers. It is a very peaceful and pleasant town. One of the officers came in from elsewhere, and immediately started his whole act of bullying, things like writing tickets for not coming to a complete stop at a stop sign when there are no other moving vehicles within 2 blocks and taking away a kids pellet gun for shooting rabbits in his backyard (telling his mother that that is a precursor to much greater violent evils).
Happy ending… the townsfolk banded together and ran him off. It made me feel good that I live in a town where people still enjoy and defend at least a little liberty.
Hey Skip,
Welcome – and, great story!
One of the things VA does, apparently, is relocate a new state cop to a part of the state far away from where he lived – in order (as I see it) to make it easier for him to be rule-spouting dickhead.
I’ve heard that it’s done to ensure “fair” law enforcement. It eliminates the friend factor that results in special treatment for them.
It also protects the cop’s family from reprisal to a degree.
There’s that – but the flip side is it disconnects them from the community. If the cop knows Joe, let’s say – and knows he’s good guy even though he may look rough, he won’t immediately escalate the situation. Etc.
The real problem is that we have “law enforcers” rather than peace officers.
I’ve got no issue with the latter – and support them fully. But I do have an issue with “law enforcers” – whom I look upon as essentially no different than camp guards and Gestapo thug types.
Agreed. Enforcing the law, to the letter, not with the intent it was written and w/o question as to the constitutional or moral validity of it.
If a law violates ones rights, then it is not a law but a crime.
So you agree that the police state today is tantamount to Gestapo thugs. So what are we waiting for? Wasn’t it too late when the Germans finally figured out what was going on? Should we repeat the same mistakes?
Lets circle the wagons and mount up!
It’s an old tool of empire use troops from B to control A, use troops from A to control C and so on. Police are an occupying force now, by and large. The hiring of those who have experience occupying areas at the edge of the empire as cops is a telling sign.
Here’s a cute little quiz to see if you can tell one group of occupying GUNvernment thugs from the other: http://www.theagitator.com/2012/01/16/take-the-quiz/
Pen and hat cams are a great resource. I sure do wish there was a way to economically broadcast what is captured on video immediately to the internet “cloud” so WHEN the cops find the video and delete it, it’s too late…
There is something like that offered for smart phones. I forget the name of the website, but it streams and automatically uploads to the site. Think this is one of them: http://qik.com/
I don’t think shooting video and posting online are effective options. In too many cases there are no consequences for abuse even if the abuse is well documented.
People are afraid of cops. Cops are not afraid of people.
Videos are the best way of helping the clueless understand what’s going on, I believe. And cops ARE afraid of people with cameras; if they weren’t, there wouldn’t be so many examples of citizens being harassed by cops just for videoing them. See, for example, Carlos Miller’s blog:
http://www.pixiq.com/contributors/248
It’s true that cops are seldom held to account for their misdeeds today, but with enough awareness among the population, that must change.
Once in Blue Wall Moon, the Washington Generals still get a victory of sorts against the 700 wins 2 losses Harlem Globetrotters that we once knew and loved.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=XIad1JAnEkI
If the fuzz would ratchet it back to say 1975 rules instead of the 9-11 prison rules they are now playing under, count me back in.
I’ll even commit to paying double taxes and fees. But when I can’t make a payment for a legitimate reason, put it on my tab. Don’t throw me in debtor’s prison and make my family wards of the state.
Hey Marc,
I’ve thought about that, too. As a freedom-fighting tool, having the ability to instantly or real-time upload videos would be tremendous. Does such technology exist? Apologies for being un-hip. I don’t even own a sail fawn.
Dom’s reply is the best I know of: qik.com
Uploads live video from your sail fawn. Works with most smart phones.
They can confiscate/destroy your phone–but the video’s safely saved on your passworded account, ready for the jury.
And they ARE scared of video. A friend of mine, a criminal defense lawyer, LOVES video. He recently got a man’s case dismissed when the man attacked a pig who was roughing up his wife; the video evidence (which the pigs tried to erase) acquitted him.
They hate video. But it’s 100% legal–1st Amendment.
Ya’ll have seen my clover cam rig right?
I’ve been meaning to ask, Eric, did you make a recording of your encounter with the cop? Video is best, but could provoke the cop; audio can be done without him having a clue what you’re doing. Depending upon how the situation unfolds, the resulting evidence could save your bacon in court.
No, but I plan to figure out how to for the future. I need to get hip… I’m still stuck in the ’80s!
Here’s a good start:
http://www.amazon.com/Olympus-VN-8100PC-Digital-Recorder-142600/dp/B000NPKO4E/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1320274065&sr=8-1
It takes only a moment to pull out of my pocket, turn on, start recording, and stick into my shirt front pocket, where it can’t be seen but records audio, if necessary for many hours in .mp3 format.
For video, here’s an option:
http://www.amazon.com/Canon-PowerShot-ELPH-100-HS/dp/B004J3V7RO/ref=sr_1_4?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1330105355&sr=1-4
Takes stills AND 1080p HD video, and is small enough to fit in pants pocket.
Thanks, JdL – Looking into it now…
You need something that will record real time to a location online like http://qik.com
That way, if they confiscate your device for ‘evidence’ you have a permanent record of the encounter.
Yeah, it’s funny how evidence in cops’ hands tends to disappear. They have so many creative ways of making that happen:
. Smash the camera/cell_phone at the scene of their crime.
. Confiscate it; later, what camera?
. What memory card?
. Here’s your camera back, with your memory card. Blank memory card, that is.
BTW, if the cops do erase your memory card, you may be able to recover some or all information. DON’T re-use such a card without trying to recover the data.
I agree that uploading in real-time is highly desirable. I don’t own a “smart phone” which would be required, but might some day.
I keep a camera running in my car the entire time I’m driving. Have two actually. One is running all the time and the other is only turned on when I think something is about to happen. I fear one day I’ll catch myself in an incident and a cop might want to destroy my camera. If this were to happen the only option would be to haul ass and hope for the best?
Don’t do it unless the consequences of stopping are serious (example, you’re running over 80, which in VA is statutory “reckless” driving) and you are extremely confident you can get out of the cop’s sight within 30 seconds or so and then know you either have a place you can hide or know a safe way to put real distance between you and your porcine pursuer. I say this as a veteran. I’ve done it several times. It’ll get your adrenalin pumping!
Dom, your set up is way too obvious. Mine doesn’t even get noticed. Least not yet. It’s not even visible to someone standing at the driver’s side window.
I wonder how a general opt out would be received by the state apparatus and elected drones? Opt out of flying (I refuse to fly, drive only and I can influence where I do business, I know others don’t have this luxury). Say no thank you to,unreasonable,state power plays.
Robot is right. Programmed 235 years ago, with 3 basic laws. First Law: A robot must not injure a citizen, or permit a citizen to come to harm through inaction. Second Law: A robot must obey orders given by a citizen, except where orders conflict with First Law. Third Law: A robot must protect his existance, except where such protection violates First Law and Second Law.
Obviously, his programming is corrupt. His new FIRST LAW is to protect his existance, no matter what. His new SECOND LAW is to protect only those who maintain or manufacture him and his brother robots. His new THIRD LAW is to prevent citizen’s action of any sort unless these actions serve to conscript citizens into obeying and submitting to the first two laws.
This entry comes to you from Australia, but I wanted to add my say
Eric’s response was the only real correct one at this time, I say correct one at this time because the only other option would be to resist and then either a) be a fugitive b) or end up in the morgue.
case in point, I was near my home about 2 months ago , it was about 11pm at night, the area I live in is well to do, with apartments down by the river where I live and was minding my own business looking at my laptop and reading my e mails, when I decide to get out and stretch my legs, where I was parked was reasonable street lighting, but a cruising cop car on a routine patrol saw me and guess what? they stopped their car and asked me what I was doing there !.
I didn’t really feel like explaining to a couple of idiots what I was doing, they asked for ID and when I showed reluctance, they asked ( demanded ) that I come to them sitting in the car, I didn’t go to them, after all I felt I didn’t need to justify to them what I was doing, I don’t have tattoos on my arms, have long unkempt hair or look like a scumbag from the rough end of town, so where do they get these cretins from ???
So they get out from the car and come over, I pull out my ID and they do the one aggresive posturing approach, one talks while the other one stands way of to my weak side in a acute angle where it makes it hard for me to ward off a approach, but you know what I mean.
What is my point ? my point is simply this, that if I resisted I would be arrested for no good reason, or shot or beaten, its not only the US where this stuff happens, I lived in Carrollton GA for many years, so I know how the cops behave there, I used to carry a EAA nine mil with me discretely ( as the law allowed me legally )but I didn’t advertise it.
I digress somewhat, I see the cops have world wide become a menace and yes even here they scrape the bottom of the barrel in the recruitment process, I believe that MOST cops have a sub standard IQ and will enforce the law at all costs.
I see 99% off people will do whats told of them, whether its the USA, Australia or England or Canada, even with 150 million plus guns in the USA, nothing much will change, are people angry ? sure ! are they sick of the bullying and harassment ? sure !, but the psychology by those who run the directed program, know, that people will be compliant and not fight back, anyone think I am wrong ? look at Dunblane , look at Waco, look at Ruby Ridge, look at Port Arthur.
the compliant news media control what is said, with all the news media controlled into the hands of just 9 corporations in the USA, what does the stand up for your rights person expect will happen ?.
till it changes at ground level locally, notationally and world wide the only real option is to breathe in slowly , breathe out slowly and pick your battles, losing cause I am mad and a hot head is just plain dumb, picking my fight having a cool head is common sense.
Hi Chris,
Thanks for taking the time to post this thoughtful reply!
It’s depressing that even “Down Under” is afflicted by the police state zeitgeist.
But, what to do – and when? I think most of us know in our gut when it will be necessary to cross the Rubicon. The time may be different for everyone, but I suspect it will become more uniform in the future. It will be less and less isolated cases of individuals backed into a corner with no option but fight or literally lose everything. I think soon a lot of us are going to find ourselves backed into that corner.
God knows, I don’t want that. As bad as things are, they are still pretty good. Speaking just for me, I have a wife and friends; I have a nice place. I enjoy my classic cars and bikes. I’d like very much – desperately – to just live my damn life and “drive on.” I am certain most people feel the same way.
What I fear is that even the relative peace and freedom we’re still allowed now won’t last. That they are going to keep on pushing – and keep on taking – until our lives no longer have much value. Until we are backed into that corner.
And that day will a horrible one for all concerned.
I would like a quiet life, I have pets and a lovely wife, who I love very much , I am at the stage in life where I am happy with who I am , I don’t take drugs of any sort and keep myself from from any trouble, but I am not a weak person mentally or physically , I am a peaceful kind of guy , but I feel that I am getting pushed to accept a totalitarian mindset from the top imposed down,most can sit idly by like the Jews in the Warsaw ghettos, because of what my parents went through, I cannot sit idly by and accept what lies ahead down the road, so there are a few in Australia and New Zealand who will stand up and not go quietly , please understand I do not look for trouble, but sometimes trouble comes looking for you !
Hey Chris,
This sums up my attitude exactly. I’d dearly like to be able to just live – and let live. To go about my business, to enjoy my work, my wife, our place, our friends, my hobbies – etc. But they just keep pushing.
I dread the day we’ll be forced to push back.
The message I get after reading cop abuse stories where the innocent victim of thuggery is charged with bogus felonies is quite different. The message I get is if I am going to be charges with several felonies, make it worth it.
The first example given in the article is a terrible tragedy made worse by what appear to be People with evil intent in positions of power. So … sad.
I’m reminded of a preacher type of guy who was video taped being tasered at a Check Point Charlie in the Southwest for refusing to submit and obey by rolling down his car window… I wonder how that case turned out as it’s been several years and it was a fairly high profile case. The, “camera as a gun” didn’t work, or what?
I’m trying not to post comments these days, but stuff like this makes it difficult.
This comment seems about right for the moment:
“Recently, we’ve indicated that we don’t think there is a pro-active solution outside of mass civil disobedience. We think the sooner the current system collapses the better. The ultimate solution is devolution. Small communities interlinked voluntarily within the context of private commerce, private money, private education, private justice, personal spirituality, etc. Nothing fancy. Just smallness rather than bigness. Local power. Human action.” – DB
http://thedailybell.com/3641/No-Retirement-Misled-Baby-Boomers-May-Die-at-The-Office
One last thought, the state uses what a Person loves against them,… the words and such of Eric’s wife were powerful weapons turned against him, imho.
What a messed up world we live in.
That was Pastor Steven Anderson. The charges were later dismissed:
https://www.checkpointusa.org/blog/index.php/2009/12/16/p199
Eric, I think you stated the reason that this happened without realizing it, when you said “I have a CHP.”
When you accepted that CHP, you accepted the state’s power to make firearms into a PRIVILEGE rather than a right– an ELITE privilege which is denied to those that don’t fit the state’s arbitrary criteria or stigmas.
I am currently denied a CHP by y state, since I suffer from PTSD due to being a victim of crimes that occurred when I wasn’t allowed to APPLY for a CHP. So it’s a Catch-22.
Even though I’m not a threat to myself or others, and have never committed a crime or any type of court-order etc, I simply can’t work, and so am on disability; and because of that, the state gun-lobby threw people like me “under a bus” in order to get the CHP law passed.
In short, we were sold out by the majority, sacrificed to calm public hysteria over “people with mental illness having guns.”
And I didn’t hear you protest on my behalf.
People who enjoy rights which are taken from others, ultimately lose them; since those rights become privileges.
Simply put, when they took away my gun, you didn’t speak up because you had yours.
Then when they took away YOUR rights, there’s nobody left to speak up.
Hey Chris,
I agree completely. In fact, for many years I refused to get a CHP for just the reason you mention – it is my right (and yours) to carry arms; no permission is required – morally. But eventually, I gave in and got the permit because I feared a felony charge if caught carrying without the CHP. Or worse.
Now, you’re right that by doing so I have played the government’s game. Would I also “obey the law” if the law demanded I give up my guns? The answer is no. You may argue there’s a contradiction. And you may be right. But the way I reasoned it out, the CHP can also be viewed as n affirmation of my right to carry a gun; at least, I am still able to carry without far of being arrested and jailed. If “the law” decided I must give up my guns, then my rights are violated in extreme by being taken away entirely.
So, that the explanation.
well said mr. rooney.
at a time and place of my choosing.
no stickers on the car, no Gadsden flags.
no ruger ball caps and i always carry concealed.
i won’t be baited on unfamiliar ground. if it ever happens i want to have as many high cards in my hand as possible.
Are you familiar with the reservation of rights under UCC1-308? Anything without a warrant is strictly commercial and one must volunteer to grant acceptance of the offer and confer jurisdiction upon the privateers flying the flag of admiralty in their so called courts of commerce.
Always put them on notice of the reservation of rights and then return all paperwork for cause. They have none.
Hey Vinnie,
I have had a lot of mail about this. I like the idea – but I have yet to hear about it being effectively practiced. Meaning, if you assert sovereign personhood/freeman status, that you are not bound by contract, etc. – they are still going to cart you off to jail – and maybe even the nuthouse, where they’ll certify you as a mentally deranged. Not saying I support that (far from it). I’m just saying that appears to be what happens. Thoughts?
The more people know and the more they hold the thugs accountable for their own statutes and regulations, the harder it will be for them to disguise their sheer use of force against those wishing to uphold the peace.
Please take a look at the UCC I cited. It is the recourse and remedy against what they’re doing.
You’re right that this is the letter of the law. However, as we’ve seen on far too many recent occasions, when the law fails to serve the interests and goals of the Ruling Establishment, they simply toss the law out the window and resort to fraud and raw force to impose their will (think NDAA).
An excellent example of this double standard is video/audio recording by police. They record us with impunity and use what they record as evidence against us. But they get their panties in a bunch whenever we record them.
The Police State reigns supreme.
The entity of Organized Crime known as our “government” engages in
Eternal Warfare through the utilization of the Police State for its own aggrandizement.
The minions of Organized Crime AKA “government” in the media and
police, along with its corporate cronies in the military-industrial complex, are devoted to the principle of an OMNIPOTENT UNIVERSAL STATE OF ORGANIZED CRIME THROUGH COERCION.
They wish to leave you homeless on the continent conquered by your forefathers for the sake of the blessings of Liberty.
For this purpose, the Organized Crime of Government & The Police State will erode ALL of our civil freedoms until they are left defunct and meaningless. The Constitution protects us against the mere threat of such evil, yet it could not make the world we know immune from ignorance, cruelty, and indifference.
War is Murder. Taxation is Theft. And they constantly, never fail
to give you the offer you can’t refuse to coerce you in this
manner. There is no Mafia on this Earth that can dare match
“government” in its machine like efficiency of ruthlessness and
corruption.
The sheeple are blind, dumb, and inured to having increasingly authoritarian rulers devoted to this seemingly implacable resolution.
The treacherous “government” that deems itself Zeus has swallowed
us whole to digest and destroy us like a blood sucking vampire.
Now, we MUST tear out his entrails with our sword, leaving him
bleeding and dying in the ugly mess of his own making.
Sic Semper Tyrannis.
A few years back I heard an interview with a former Soviet security chief or some such who was basically the head of the secret police in the years leading up to the collapse. He gave the interview after he lost his job when the wall came down. He said that what always amazed him was how easy it would have been to completely take down his entire secret police operation and all that entailed if only people had had the means and courage to kill him or just a couple of his henchmen. In total there were only about a dozen or so guy running the entire network of SS cops, so targeted violence, in his opinion, would have been the end to it all. So the question is, How can 12 guys keep an entire country of millions living in fear? It boggles the mind, doesn’t it? This is Hume’s paradox, I guess. The people always outnumber the rulers and yet the people go along most of the time, even when it’s clear that the rulers have gotten out of hand.
The key word being “targeted”. A single person standing up to an assault just means that single person being killed by secret police. It has to be just as fearsome as the secret police themselves. Targeted attacks out of nowhere by persons unknown. Just like the secret police come for people in the middle of the night, the people could come for the secret police.
Gangs, police, secret police, etc know how to handle people who resist. The threat from the community at large, where it could be anyone, where everyone hates them, that would drive people from the ranks.
But what was the actual condition? Millions of people who supported the secret police. Used the government as a tool against their neighbors or anyone else they didn’t like. Nobody could trust anyone else. Anyone could be a government informant. Anyone who might take action will need help, but he can’t trust anyone not to turn him in.
And that’s why now we have crap like ‘see something, say something’. It’s about using the government as tool in petty social disputes / attitudes / prejudices / etc. Never know who might turn in who for what. Break everyone up into individual units. 12 guys can certainly handle one guy at a time.
I read some research recently that indicated that the reason the German secret police were so feared was because of informants (neighbors) who turned on neighbors. Such neighbors turned on their fellow men to get even or simply because they disliked them. But what really fueled the fire were when there were rewards offered for turning in your neighbors. The “If you see something, say something” campaign is only the beginning. When government begins offering rewards for such “information”, then it gets really ugly. Of course, some of that is already happening: offering criminals lighter sentences in return for testifying against others certainly qualifies. All too often such criminals make false accusations, which lead to horrendous results–home invasions of innocent people, etc. The efforts of Homeland Security to “notify” certain businesses of “terrorist activities” (what have been in the past perfectly normal activities) to be on the lookout for and report is a major move in the direction of fascism. As business and government and greedy neighbors combine into this fascist government, we are indeed in very deep trouble.
Absolutely. And we are approaching the same critical mass here.
If most people did not want “Homeland” security… if most people objected to the rape of their rights embodied by random checkpoints on the road and inescapable checkpoints at airports, etc. – such would not exist. We are only descending into tyranny because that is what most people want.
Even when this approach is targeted, it’s still not that reliably effective. Consider how things worked out when Michael Collins did precisely this in Ireland just after the First World War:-
– It needed highly placed, covert republicans in the police and in Dublin Castle to provide the information needed for targeting. The equivalent might not always be available.
– The British could still replace all the policemen etc. shot with recruits drawn from elsewhere, indefinitely, albeit with a fall off in efficiency and effectiveness from both the quality of the replacements and their initial lack of knowledge of the local situation. But that could be and was made up with numbers, for so long as the political will held out.
– The campaign levied its own toll of attrition of men and materiel on those carrying it out, so much so that it was on its last legs by the time peace negotiations were undertaken.
– Although the campaign worked out in the end, it only did so through its effects on the opposing political will, not through making police work impossible. A regime with its back to the wall would keep going regardless in such circumstances (note that Michael Collins only got the south of Ireland, and only on terms that, as he himself acknowledged, signed his own death warrant at the hands of other Irishmen). As against that, a regime would only have its back to the wall if its whole region were in play, and then it might not have enough recruiting grounds to keep feeding replacements into the fight – but history shows that that’s not the way to bet, as the regime can always improve its numbers and ratios by resorting to reconcentrado methods etc. The only thing that can stop those working, given the political will, is outside intervention.
Read the book “The Manipulated Mind: Brainwashing, Conditioning and Indoctrination” by Denise Winn and you may begin to comprehend how that could be.
About 450 years ago, in a small treatise by Etienne De La Boetie called “The Discourse of Voluntary Servitude,” he counsels his readers to overthrow a tyrant by withholding obedience.
“It is therefore the inhabitants themselves who permit, or rather, bring about, their own subjection, since by ceasing to submit they would put an end to their servitude. A people enslaves itself, cuts its own throat, when, having a choice between being vassals and being free men, it deserts its liberties and takes on the yoke, gives consent to its own misery, or rather, apparently welcomes it…..What could he do to you if you yourselves did not connive with the thief who plunders you, if you were not accomplices of the murderer who kills you, if you were not traitors to yourselves?….From all these indignities, such as the very beasts of the field would not endure, you can deliver yourselves if you try, not by taking action, but merely by willing to be free.
Resolve to serve no more, and you are at once freed. I do not ask that you place hands upon the tyrant to topple him over, but simply that you support him no longer; then you will behold him, like a great Colossus whose pedestal has been pulled away, fall of his own weight and break into pieces.”
An excellent and easy to read short study of why people follow orders is “Obedience To Authority” by Stanley Milgram.
I think that people are slowly realizing that the cops are a menace. Back in 1999 I was talking to some people at church about a cop named Robbie Bishop who was murdered in Villa Rica, Georgia a few days before. EVERYONE I spoke to thought he probably was a no-good even though they didn’t approve of somebody murdering him. I would have been surprised at the consensus even had it been at a shopping center, but it was really surprising to find it at church, even though I thought the same thing.
The Milgram study… I read something recently that said some of that is left off, at least what’s presented to the public. That when one Person stood up and said no, others would follow and do likewise.
I imagine that is left out of every mention of the Milgram study for the same reason Ron Paul is often ignored by the media.
That’s exactly right.
If the subjects were allowed to see another subject performing the test, and only 10% of the subjects doing the testing said “No more”–then 65% of the other subjects would refuse to escalate, too.
If just 10% of us say “NO!”, 2/3 of the sheeple will balk.
That is why I do everything I can to recruit my family, friends, neighbors, and coworkers to become part of that 10%.
I don’t know if we’re going to make it.
But I don’t want my children living in the evil, twisted, hellish dystopia the Elites are planning.
Sorry to hear about your treatment at the hands of a thug cop, Eric. I agree, shooting the guy would probably be an over-reaction, though morally you have the right to resist illegal [1] actions by government goons by whatever means are necessary.
However, why not publish his name? I’d like to see every action by every petty-tyrant cop published online.
[1] In case anybody wants to claim that the cop was following the law: any “law” that violates the natural rights of free people is illegitimate, and by that standard, illegal. The U.S. has in the past prosecuted and executed people who “followed the law”, and the same rules must apply to any U.S. government agents who do the same.
“Would it have been reasonable or right for me to draw my weapon on that cop ” – No, he hadn’t threatened your safety ( a violation of your rights ) If you had done that, you would have been the aggressor which is a violation of his rights.
By not flying, you are abandoning your rights, not standing up for them. Standing up for them would dictate you fly, and walk right through the TSA checkpoint and defend yourself if assaulted for doing so.
Writing about liberty is not standing up for your rights. It’s complaining about the gov’t, of which I too am guilty.
You are avoiding my point. You would not kill a man for merely trespassing on your property, BUT you would stand up for your property rights and tell him to beat it. Something you DID NOT do with the cop! Would you comply with the demands of a trespasser? Would you surrender your gun to a trespasser? Why the double standard?
I’m ready. Are you?
By not flying, you are abandoning your rights, not standing up for them. Standing up for them would dictate you fly, and walk right through the TSA checkpoint and defend yourself if assaulted for doing so.
Is that what you do?
Yes. I was kicked out of the Pittsburgh airport for trying to do just that. I opted out of the imaging machine AND the patdown. I told them that unless they had probable cause or a warrant they had no right to search me. They wrote me up and tossed me out.
One man cannot do it alone. We need to work together. What part of “we out number them 1000:1” do you not understand?
Don, both Eric and I have written before about not flying. Our method does not involve risking life, limb and/or liberty…and then not flying. We cut to the chase by simply boycotting commercial aviation and urging many, many others to do so.
I suspect our method is more likely to inspire people of good will who seek to end the TSA than your riskier MO. If enough others follow suit, the airlines’ shareholders will take notice as their investments go into the tank, and storm government to save their bacon by pulling out the gatekeeping molesters.
It’s non-violent and non-confrontational–and worth a try.
I suspect our method is more likely to inspire people of good will who seek to end the TSA than your riskier MO. If enough others follow suit, the airlines’ shareholders will take notice as their investments go into the tank, and storm government to save their bacon by pulling out the gatekeeping molesters.
Sorry, but that ain’t gonna happen. Ever. Given that Clovers are the clear majority, at least here in the UFSA, there will NEVER be a sufficient number of us liberty lovers to make the airlines wake up and throw off their state shackles – not to mention that too many of these airlines are rent seekers from that very State.
As for refusing to fly, while that doesn’t really constitute a surrender of one’s rights (at least as long as other means of travel to one’s intended destination are available), the inconvenience one suffers by standing up for one’s freedom has the practical effect of curtailing that right.
That’s admirable, Don. I agree “if only” … if only more people would do the same. Unfortunately, you and I and others like us are in the Catch-22 of doing as you did to assert a principle to no effect, other than a negative one (for us).
I am currently practicing avoidance and evasion to the extent that’s possible. I realize it may soon no longer be a feasible strategy. I hope that doesn’t happen. But I expect that it will, for just the reasons we’ve been discussing.
On flying…
band together and hire a private plane. Could be an interesting business for someone to serve as coordinator of such flights. Or, if convenient, take a train or bus to Canada or Mexico and fly from those non-TSA countries. Soon, I’m certain, there will be TSA-like installations in every country with an elite run central bank. Great article – sad but true.
What part of “we out number them 1000:1″ do you not understand?
http://epautos.com/2012/01/02/cop-types/#comment-11562
http://epautos.com/2012/01/27/alex-jones-confirms-lax-fema-camp/#comment-13667
I’ll give you a C for Courage, but until more people are aware of what’s going on, actions such as yours cause trouble for the actor but not the thugs.
The majority of people still automatically side with the cops.
The majority is still manipulated by the media.
Other than personal satisfaction standing up to a cop at the side of the road beyond a certain degree is futile and throwing your life away under present circumstances. It won’t change anything. The PTB will have control of the narrative and it will just be another extremist killed/arrested by the ‘heros’ who “protect” us all. People won’t be sparked into action. Everything will go on as it did before.
The PTB have to lose control over the narrative. People need to see cops for what they really are. They have to feel that the bad guys are the cops.
Because of this, the most dangerous weapon against a cop is not a gun. It is a camera. The camera will spoil the illusion they rely upon to feed off the population. No illusion means no pension. Maybe no food on the table. Only the camera can do that. The gun most often just means some paperwork and some spin.
The illusion is the most important thing the cops and the government in general has.
Follow the yellow brick road 😉
Because of this, the most dangerous weapon against a cop is not a gun. It is a camera. The camera will spoil the illusion they rely upon to feed off the population. No illusion means no pension. Maybe no food on the table. Only the camera can do that.
That’s very true. Porky is terrified of cameras, particularly video cameras, as they are the instruments that most effectively expose him and his crimes for all the world to see. This explains why Porky and his pals all across the UFSA in recent years have being going to extraordinary lengths to stop people from capturing their depredations on camera. Porky and his allies in the judiciary and the media have had some temporary successes in stopping us mere unwashed mundanes from holding them accountable through film and digits, but most of these successes have been ephemeral. AFAIK, both several state supreme courts and the SCOTUS have essentially ruled that citizens have every right to film Porky and friends in public places doing their “duties” as long as they do not interfere with those “duties.” Sadly, Porky and pals have only grown more violent in the face of this legal precedent and will do anything and everything in their power, legal or otherwise, to circumvent it.
All of that said, even with oceans of digital video evidence of Porky’s crimes (just Google “police brutality” and be prepared to be overwhelmed by the millions of hits it turns up), the sheeple still choose to see and treat him as a hero rather than the psychopathic, murderous, authoritarian thug that he is. It is going to take a lot more Clovers finding themselves on the wrong end of Porky’s nightstick or taser, Clovers from the non-poodle* classes, before this perception changes.
(*Poodle: the phonetic rendering of the acronym PWDL, for “People ‘We’ Don’t Like.” The term is used to describe members of ethnic, racial, or cultural minority groups not in favor with the white, upper and middle-class majority that holds power and whom the powers of the State, including Porky, most represent. Examples of “poodles” include African-Americans, Hispanics [especially illegal immigrants], Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgenered [GBLT] people, anti-war protestors, “unapproved” drug users, and liberty lovers like the majority who read this web site, to name just a few.)
The WW2 and baby boomers who don’t use the internet significantly are dying off. Those that most worship the state will pass from the earth.
Each day more their base dies and some of it sees the truth and turns on them. Their candle is burning at both ends.
Hold them off long enough, keep the door open long enough, and they will lose. It’s race for hearts and minds.
If everyone refused to fly the airlines and government would have to loosen up and change to more common sense policies. I think people should boycott the airlines. If no one flew where would their profits come from?!
They’re hurtin’, alright. I recently read that TSA is going to come up with a ‘Speed Pass’ for travellers. That means the airlines are kicking and screaming behind the scenes.
I haven’t flown since Jan. ’09, the very same day that B. Hussein Obama was illegally installed, and just a few weeks before they started ‘Patdowns’. I even let free tickets expire. I’m not going to be illegally searched, possibly get into a fight and kill or be killed, by a ‘Rent-a-Cop’ moron.
About 6 years ago, I was in Charlotte Douglas Intl. and saw Rep. Sue Myrick (R) taking her shoes off to go through the checkpoint. What a disgustingly stupid spectacle that was! I’m glad she’s not running for re-election. It’s idiots like her that have put us over the barrel !
Republicans are the most culpable here. They bray about freedom the most – while either taking our freedoms away or begging for them to be taken away.
No flying for me again, either. Not until this scheisse is done away with.
Last Decemeber I drove my ’96 Honda Civic from Asheville North Carolina to Costa Rica rather than fly. I did get a shake down for not having a front plate on my car by an Honduran Federal Cop. He said either a ticket of $100 or $50 bucks for him. I left my guns at home. Glad I did. I was so mad I would have shot him.
That sucks, but at least it’s honest corruption. I have always liked that about Mexico.
This is exactly what frustrates me so much. We have right in front of us the peaceful option to get rid of the TSA. All that’s necessary is for a large enough number of people to refuse to fly until Gate Rape is retired. But no, the masses will just Submit and Obey, forcing us all down the road some more, to the point that it will no longer be possible to peacefully do away with this stuff.
I don’t fly for pleasure at all anymore, but, unfortunately, still have to do so fairly frequently for business. Given the nature of my line of work, there’s really no practical way around it. I do think, however, that my days in this line of work are numbered. If the nonsense keeps up, I will find myself handcuffed and escorted out of an airport somewhere. I’ll probably wind up taking a non-airborne Greyhound Bus home.
Hopefully the execrable TSA won’t have invaded Greyhound by then. They’ve already got their paws into railway travel.
I would almost certainly be arrested if I had to travel by air in Amerika today. Or fined. Or …
That’s me. I stay away from airports on principle as well as out of practical considerations. I’m no “tough guy,” but I have a problem with bullies and mindless authoritay. The odds of me losing my cool and saying or doing something – and getting in trouble – are pretty high. Hence, I avoid the situation.
What if the government wants to bankrupt the airlines such that it becomes the sole provider of air line travel?
Aeroflot USSA….
I actually flew Aeroflot on an intra-European trip not long after the Soviet Union collapsed. Believe it or not, the service and staff weren’t significantly worse than what we’re putting up with from Amerika’s domestic airlines today. I’d be elated to learn that Aeroflot (or its successor) has managed to adapt itself over the last two decades to the free market pressures of commercial air travel and has turned itself into an operation that actually caters to its customers’ needs. Again, it certainly couldn’t be any worse than what passes for “service” from Amerika’s domestic airlines.
One thing about the Russians – they’re not mewling safety Nazis.
I see the situation much differently. Many seem to see it as: the state has its rules and we need to play within those rules so as not to have problems AND the only way I’m ever going to stand up for my rights is if my life is actually threatened.
I believe that’s exactly the culture that has gotten us where we are. We cannot solve the problem by doing what got us here. Every single ticket written, random stop made and order to present papers is a violation of our rights. Every unreasonable and unwarranted search and detention, every threat made by a LEO. Every registration and license demanded.
And until someone, for fuck’s sake ANYONE, is finally willing to organize the sheep and design a plan to change the culture in this country nothing is going to change and there’s no need to carry a gun if you aint planning on using it.
It’s not going to be easy. It’s not going to be pretty. It’s not going to be nice. But it can be done. We are smarter than they are, we outnumber them and I’m certain we have more courage.
It’s funny because everyone talks about changing the way of life in this country in the context of the gov’t, but what they are not willing to do is change their way of life in order to change the gov’t’s way of life.
Everyone seems to want to bring down the leviathon from their arm chair. T’ain’t gonna happen.
There are gradations. Would it have been reasonable or right for me to draw my weapon on that cop – an action that very likely would lead to me killing him? And even if not, of placing him in that position – and putting me in the position of killing him? And of becoming a fugitive? A prisoner for life? A dead man? Throwing away my life… and his… over that?
I do stand up for my rights, in a number of ways. I do not fly, for example – and I openly say why I will not fly. I encourage civil disobedience. I work professionally writing about liberty; I have sacrificed more than you may realize professionally and financially for having done so.
But I am not a maniac – or a murderer. Just as I would not kill a man merely for trespassing on my property (certainly a violation of my rights) I also will not threaten lethal violence over a traffic beef.
That would be grossly disproportionate, savage and depraved – which means, count me out.
I’m afraid we will be reading about don in the back pages of the paper. Killed a cop at a traffic stop and put in prison for life possibly on death row. He is all too willing to pull that gun!
I think the question is was an arbitrary escalation of force justified. In this event it was not. Frankly, I’ve reacted the same way in similar circumstances. I did not feel like being a nail to the cop’s hammer. Basically, that’s the only tool in an LEO’s kit.
All decisions have consequences. It is up to the individual to decide whether the action warrants the associated action by others that precedes from the decision.
I do not open carry although I can. I don’t have a Gadsden Flag in front of my house. However I do have it on a T-shirt (Hah..).
I choose to keep my inner Mr. Hyde hidden. Dr. Jeckyll is a much better face to present to most people.
Mr. Hyde DOES exist, however…and I pray that I never find myself provoked to the point where I allow him out.
Exactly. Well-said, sir!
There is NO FREEDOM without the ability to say no.
The day is coming when the gestapo thug routine is going to be used on someone who is prepared, and unwilling to take another iota of crap, and it is going to end very badly for the cop. In America, the government does not have a “monoply of force”, we the people do. Look at the gun and ammunition sales volumes in the last few years….It is only a matter of time before someone gets pushed to the point of proving that.
Jesse in Occupied DC
I agree; the situation is percolating – and one day, it is going to boil over. But that day hasn’t yet come for me, at least. I’m not prepared to shoot a man over an annoyance. But as you say, they keep on pushing… and inevitably, someone – many someones – are going to push back.
When the time comes, it will be a deluge of lead; because people are pissed, and their anger is barely repressed.
The first few will “give permission” to the next wave, and the cycle will self-propagate into a fusillade.
Unfortunately I think this is the very situation the Elites want most–a descent into barbarism, because an America at war with itself internally will be much easier to induct into world government.
The banksters will sit offshore laughing and counting the money while America burns itself out.
That said–I’ll not shed a tear for the thugs and miscreants who call themselves “LEO” instead of “peace officer”.
Eric,
Percolating indeed. The long train of abuses and usurpations boils now a hot and bitter brew.
Once the pot does boil over, only the “many someones” will restore the liberty and freedom secured by our many long dead ancestors.
I tremble just a bit reading here the angry bombast of the rugged pistolero ready to stand his ground; each prepared to defend hearth and home, his spirit is great, his means are weak.
While I fancy myself skilled with a rifle, alone I am weak and ineffective. I cannot defeat the leviathan state Audie Murphy style anymore than William Wallace could slay the English by his lonesome.
When the day indeed does come, I pray to be among an army of kinsmen, skilled with a rifle, true of aim, and blessed with a common embrace of liberty.
The isolated rage of a pistol shot at the government thug in my kitchen makes me only a red stain on the floor; the volley of 10,000 rifles cuts the tyrant’s jugular and richly nourishes the tree of liberty.
To all, remember: Ex unitate vires
Well-said, Tom – amen!
Yes that time will come and does already however the gistapo doesn’t care. Just gives them an excuse to create more laws and gives the cops more leeway to assault your person. What is a cop after all? The lowest and most expendable cog in the beurocracy.
EXACTLY!
Eric, my advice to you is to better control your circumstances so that you can pick your battles with greater discretion. Or, better, to avoid any situation where you might have to pick a battle at all. Apparently there would have been no kind of confrontation if you had refrained from questioning the road closing in the first place. But if you chose to do so, it would have been smarter to have your seat belt on.
Instead, you wound up having to reveal and then surrender your firearm: a potentially lethal situation. In previous posts, we have shared thoughts as to how driving while armed serves to heighten our sensibilities and focus on the circumstances we are in. Because one of the last things I ever want to have to do is tell a police officer that I am armed, I take all necessary measures to avoid that situation. No matter how hard I might have to swallow in order to “behave.” So far, I have succeeded.
Don’t get me wrong. My sentiments are entirely in line with yours re the USSA. But it is where we live, and we must deal with its sucky circumstances as cannily as we can. There will be times when we must stand our ground. In this case–IMO–you “opened the door” unnecessarily.
Agree. Good advice. I made the mistake of trying to deal with the cop on a human level. But they’re robots. “The Law” is all that matters to their pea brains.
I’d have dearly liked to ask him if he’d be ok with me fucking his wife (pardon my French) if “The Law” said I was entitled….
“Robots”? I disagree. Indeed, they are all too human. I’m sure you have noticed, as have I, that many of the people being deployed in LE costume over the past couple of decades are precisely the kind of flawed humans who used to be screened out during the application process in the more distant past.
Thus, these days we face more gangsta types of all complexions, along with individuals whose character inadequacies make them susceptible to blindly following idiotic and dangerous orders, and more likely to quickly use force–with impunity–than to exercise restrained, logical and decent judgment.
I’d rather deal with robots. I remember how the malevolent robotic computer in the old Star Trek episode was destroyed when its own logic was turned against it. That kind of tactic does not work on moronic sociopathic humans.
Jay, you are correct re: the current crop of LEO’s. The ones whose actions are now described routinely here and at Will Griggs site were formerly winnowed out by the recruiting and training processes. We now have a situation where most agencies are faced with affirmative action hiring and promotion practices. Couple that with political correctness and the increasing use of fines and penalties as revenue stream and we have arrived at the worst of all possible National Socialist worlds.
I always use the term National Socialist in lieu of the acronym NAZI.
Worst of all, veterans, especially COMBAT veterans, get top-of-the-list hiring priority. As Will Grigg also pointed out, these are THE VERY LAST people that should be hired for civilian “law enforcement,” let alone “peace officer” positions.
Of course, given the purpose of “law enforcement,” that being muscle for the Reigning Establishment, the PTSD-addled combat veteran with hair-trigger violent tendencies is exactly the sort they’re looking for.
Does the hammer and nail analogy fit in these situations? When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Unfortunately, to the state, we are all nails, waiting to be hammered.
Way back in the early 90’s I was pulled over in the middle of nowhere, trooper asked to search the car for drugs. Being ignorant, not to mention knowing I was speeding, I said sure. After his inspection, I asked him why he wanted to look. He said that I fit the profile. Ok, fair enough, what is the profile and how did I fit it. His response floored me. He said he can make anyone “fit” the profile. After time in the military, college, life in general, and realizing that if we don’t have liberty, we have nothing, that statement and what it means to we the people still sticks all these years later.
Great article Eric, thanks for sharing your thoughts.
Thanks, Tomas – good to have you with us!
I had a similar experience, also in the early ’90s. At the time I was in my young 20s and had just begun writing about cars full-time. I got a brand-new Benz SL roadster with the AMG body kit, in bright red, to test out for a week. So naturally I took it on a road trip – to see friends in Richmond, about an hour away from DC (where I was living at the time). I partied with them all weekend, then got up early Sunday morning, looking homeless and smelly, and jumped in the Benz for the ride back home. Naturally, I drove the thing 90 MPH – in a pack of traffic also doing 90. But I was the only red Mercedes “drug lord special” in the group – so the state cop picked me to pull over. Now, picture it: $100k red Mercedes doing 90 being driven by a shaggy-looking 20-something-year-old kid. So I was not surprised when the cop performed a “felony stop” – gun drawn, barking commands. I quickly – in calm tones and using my best English – explained the situation, showed him the paperwork proving I was a journalist and the car was a loaner… and he relaxed. But today, a scene like that could easily go horribly wrong. Which is why I try to keep a low profile and among other things, avoid “fitting the profile.”
Weird times, eh?
Eric is a cop-hater obviously looking for trouble – and will evantually find it.
A lowly park policeman or state trooper has orders to close a road because of projected hazardous conditions and Eric the Jerk challenges him.
The patrolman has orders. He has no power NOT to close the road, even if there is little or no basis for the order. ANy idiot should know that.
Perhaps self-important Eric should have gone to the Governor, his “equal”, to complain – and gotten his sorry ass thrown out of the State Capital Building.
It’s people like Eric who give courageous, law-abiding citizens a bad name.
Nicely put! Spoken like a true Clover. The ole “Just doing my job!” All time classic. Love it!
Shut the fuck up, you statist cunt.
I have an idea, Slade. How about organizing a Jerry Sandusky charity for cops.
Just saying that talk about shooting cops is CRAZY, whatever your political philosophy. Those guys are grunts just like us and they are the first you’d call for help if someone shot you. Wise up!
You might be interested in the following:
When law enforcement officers cross the line
By Joe Johnson
http://onlineathens.com/stories/082111/new_874205101.shtml
Geoffrey Asher just returned home from buying auto parts, and after coming out of a shed where he stored the parts, a sheriff’s deputy was pointing a gun at him.
He didn’t know the deputy had followed him for speeding, and officers didn’t have the right to arrest him, then break into his home to search for evidence of crimes they had no reason to believe he even committed.
That’s what a federal jury decided this month when they awarded the Lumpkin County man $58,000 in a civil rights lawsuit.
“The damages included $45,000 in punitive awards, which is almost unheard of in a civil rights case involving law enforcement officers,” said Athens attorney Matt Karzen, who represented Asher.
“It was a loud and clear message from the jury that what happened to my client was a gross violation of his rights,” he said.
Judges routinely dismiss cases or suppress evidence because officers didn’t follow the law, mostly because they made honest mistakes, Karzen said. Authorities who trampled over Asher’s rights were exceptions, he said.
“It is heartbreaking to me, especially as a former prosecutor, when law enforcement officers break the law the way these defendants did,” Karzen said. “In addition to attacking the foundations of our personal liberties, that kind of behavior makes it difficult for the vast majority of law enforcement officers who follow the rules to do their jobs effectively.”
Karzen served nearly a dozen years as a prosecutor in Colorado and in Clarke and Oconee counties, and has been a criminal defense attorney the past five years.
The Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guarantees “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures,” and 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.”
There are exceptions, however, and police can search without warrants if they believe a crime is actively being committed, fear for someone’s safety, or get consent from the property owner.
But Asher never agreed to a search, and the Lumpkin County sheriff and his deputies spent seven hours rummaging though his home before they got a judge to sign a warrant, according to documents filed in U.S. District Court in Gainesville.
Asher, a former U.S. Army Ranger and military police officer wasn’t defiant, but held his ground even at the point of a gun because he knew his rights, Karzen said; his steadfastness made deputies think Asher was “anti-government.”
He told the deputy to holster his gun if all he wanted was to write a speeding ticket, and when the deputy threatened to shoot him in the head, Asher told him to calm down and “wait for adult supervision,” according to Karzen.
Deputies searched Asher’s pickup and found handguns, all legally owned and which he used for target shooting, the attorney said.
Lumpkin County Sheriff Mark McLure soon arrived and used a credit card to slip the lock of Asher’s front door, according to court documents.
McLure and several deputies found things inside — like drugs Asher retained from when he was a medical intern, and the sizeable collection of a firearms enthusiast — and concluded that he might be a “militia nut,” according to documents.
He was arrested and charged with several felonies, including possession of an illegal firearm, but that charge stemmed from a deputy removing a barrel extension from a rifle, making the barrel shorter than what the law allows, Karzen said.
A judge later dismissed all charges.
“Never in the thousands of criminal cases I’ve handled as a prosecutor and a defense attorney have I ever seen violations of someone’s rights this egregious,” Karzen said.
“Most of what I’ve seen were reasonable, honest mistakes by good cops,” he said. “This was the first time I was involved in a situation where law enforcement officers knowingly violated someone’s rights and lied about it in court.”
Officers sometimes conduct searches without consent or warrants, and judges often rule the searches were legal if the constitutional violation was a “reasonable mistake,” Karzen said.
But judges also cite such mistakes as grounds for dismissing cases or suppressing evidence.
For example, Karzen said, an officer might stop a car with a broken tag light then smell alcohol while speaking with the driver.
“He might have had just one beer an hour ago, and gets arrested for having the odor of beer,” Karzen said. “The judge later drops the charge because of a typical, innocuous Fourth Amendment violation.”
Anyone who has been stopped by a traffic cop or questioned by an officer was in a Fourth Amendment situation, University of Georgia law professor Donald E. Wilkes Jr. said.
“The primary purpose of the Fourth Amendment is to preserve a healthy balance between the individual and the state, to prevent the government from engaging in activities which might catch more criminals but nonetheless are unacceptable in a free society,” Wilkes said.
“At the most basic levels, the police are the most coercive force in America,” Wilkes said. “They carry guns, they have the power to arrest and to conduct searches and seizures, and the purpose behind the Fourth Amendment is to prevent police from over-awing the citizenry.
“The Fourth Amendment is there so we don’t end up with a police state.”
Athens attorney Jeff Rothman, who specializes in DUI cases, looks for Fourth Amendment violations in every case he handles.
“With the ever-increasing use of roadblocks, it’s very difficult to drive anywhere in Athens without the possibility of being stopped by police without some suspicion of wrongdoing,” Rothman said.
“We battle the Fourth Amendment war every day, arguing whether it’s reasonable to stop people without suspicion of criminal activity,” he said.
State and local police conducted a massive DUI crackdown on St. Patrick’s Day in 2009, arresting more than 140 people at checkpoints in Clarke and Oconee counties.
Rothman convinced a judge to drop charges against a couple of clients who were arrested that night because police had no legal basis for stopping their cars, he said.
“The reason they were stopped was because the officers told them they thought they were trying to avoid the roadblock, but they made legal, proper U-turns, and that does not count as sufficient reason to believe a crime was committed,” he said.
“People don’t realize how important their Fourth Amendment protections are until they are intruded upon.”
Oh, and actually, no, I would not call them. You know why? We live in the rural country and the response time is in the 15-30 minute range. Whether I live or die depends on me because when seconds count, a cop is only minutes away.
“Those guys are grunts just like us”
Not when they are bullies; not when they are thugs. I don’t spend my day harassing people who have done absolutely nothing to threaten anyone else; who are just going about their business – merely because they have violated some “law” (and even when they’ve not even done that).
Your treasured “grunts” do so routinely, as a matter of policy.
If it looks like a clover, smells like a clover, and even talks like a clover…
Check these guys out on youtube. They just stand around next to corpses and bleeding dying women who they disregard as perps and calmly joke to themselves and take pictures.
Don’t be so sure you don’t need to wise up. No one in Joco or anywhere Mexico calls on a Federale, ever. Thats just an invitation to get looted and victimized again.
Hospitals are bankrupted because they can’t turn anyone away ever. Go ahead and try that in Japan sometime. Sorry, you are not a member here, we are closed to you and still a solvent medical facility.
Even if you are John Deere or Samuel Colt, it matters not. In the eyes of the costumed plantation house slaves you are a lowly field slave or someone who has violated one of the 10 million codicils of the fugitive slave acts.
A house slave in regalia is incapable of not feeling superior to the lowly field hands and slaves he encounters, arrests, detains, and conscripts as part of HIS JOB.
You don’t want to saddle up to a game of District Capitol Hold Em. Your aces get confiscated for safety. Your face cards are redistributed to the other players.
If you are about to win, your chips are taken by a pit boss, you get tased or shot for some rule enacted after the cards were dealt. The cards are marked. They deal from the bottom to their cronies. The only way to win this force game is not be forced to play.
Only “crazy” in that not enough of the sheeple have awoken to what you and your porky pals are really all about or are aware of what their natural law/common law rights are. Once they do, however unlikely that event is to occur, you and your pals might want to quickly consider a new line of work.
If only that were true. If only.
The Patty Roller Patrollers have conflicting unresolvable orders. Eventually they settle for identifying and grabbing yet another a clover in a woodpile and driving onward like Zombie eyed Christian soldiers with a Fugitive Slave Complex Mandate.
These patrol bots run the gamut from Gort to Piggy. If you’re lucky, you deal with a Piggy. Go ahead and disable or facilitate someone stealing his specs if you safely and peacefully can. We all know smashing an official person or their property does not get us off Lord of the Flies Island. It earns you a visit from Gort.
Gort is impregnible HAL 9000 hell on wheels. What are you doing, clover? this is highly irregular. Unless you’re a savant R2D2 or your family is the defense contractor that built Gort’s death star. It’s game over. Hand me your light sabre.
Gort is a cannibal C3PO who killed Smokey the Bear and wears his bloody hat. He’s a pitiless hydraulic fuel leaking cyborg replica who stole GI Joe’s helmet, outfit, and weapons. You better run, run, outrun his bullets – All you little tricks with your pumped up kicks.
Your metaphorical third person rhetoric is absolutely and awesomely correct in this instance and your previous posts Tor. Superbly delivered to an irreverent audience whom will probably not realize the ironic meaning of your well selected words.
I am a hate of “law enforcers” – but not peace officers. There is a big difference. Look into it (and a dictionary) sometime.
Eric, you proved my point in your 4:14 comment. Follow the legal procedures and a judge will most often correct the violation of your rights.
If only. Only. Well over 90% plead out and waive their supposed right to a trial. Those who don’t play this game, see a prosecutor go for max penalty. Usually in front of only a judge, not a jury of peers.
In actual trials, I believe the accused is found guilty in 211 out of 212 cases. Maybe No. Korea and Iran are worse, but not many other nations are.
Wake up and smell the clover. The clover is good for the land and domain of the public land owners and corporate farm platers. The clover and clover laws are not for the actual mundanes who toil upon the lands and want to grow crops for their own sustenance and enjoyment.
If only that were the case.
How does a judge “correct” for the person who has been beaten to a pulp by thug cops? Or killed?
Except when “the law” itself is a violation of my (and your) rights. Seatbelt laws and random “safety” stops, for example. These are deemed “legal” but represent a profound violation of individual rights as well the Bill of Rights.
I’m going to hazard a guess that you support the war on (some) drugs. Another egregious example of “it’s the law” – but also a gross violation of human rights. What I or anyone else puts into our bodies – be it beer, pot or Angus Thickburgers – is no one else’s business; certainly not the government’s business, much less a “crime.”
Yet the same cop who has a sixpack cooling in his ‘fridge will cuff and stuff some poor bastard who he found to have a bag of pot in his pocket. It is despicable – and please, spare me the “they don’t write the laws” bullshit.
We hanged people – rightly – after Nuremburg who used that same pitiful excuse. If you voluntarily choose to enforce morally repellent laws, you’ve lost any claim to moral innocence.
Are you kidding me??? Depending on the charge, your car could be towed, you could be arrested, then you have to go to court. So the judge exonerates you & everything’s suppose to be all better? What about the tow bill, what if you had to post bail? And whose going to reimburse you for the time off work you had to take to go to court?
I’m considering looking up Slade IP Address. Starting to think he may be Clover Mark I.
I’m missing something here. I do not understand your use of the word “clover”. Honestly.
The Clover Test
Are you a clover?
Conversations w/clover
Dealing with clovers
Return of clover
Clover hate mail
Aviod being a clover
Clover Clues
See Dom’s links above.
Basically, Clovers are authoritarians. They like to control other people. But typically, they’re cowards in that they get the government to do it for them. Or they use guns and badges to do it.
Help us understand, Slade:
Why do you defend anyone – cops or otherwise – who bullies/abuses people who are harming no one?
The problem is you conflate peace officers with law enforcers. Peace officers do what the term implies. They intervene to prevent someone from being bullied/abused. Law enforcers are the bullies and abusers.
Think about it. What sort of person would willingly want to be threatening people at gunpoint to “buckle up for safety”? Or stopping them for absolutely no reason having to do with any suspicious action on the person’s part, in order to conduct a warrantless and probable cause-free search and interrogation – again, at gunpoint?
I don’t know you Slade. I’m responding to who I what I perceive you to be, Slade Runner.
I have a funny looking name, when Officer Friendly, Handsy, Racist Profiley is considering me as a tribute to the next Police State prom, I start talking in a halting slavic accent and tell Gort: Klaatu Barada Nikto. It doesnt work though. The safeword is changed and deeply encrypted. There no limit to what Piggy and Gort might do. Piggy might take everything you own back to his pig pen, or throw it in the mud.
Gort can destroy the Earth. He can destroy your car, body, home, family, entire neighborhood, and village infrastructure.
When I see a flash of lights, hear a wail of siren, get a robo call from the school district, see a letter from the health district, DMV, IRS, or Child Support Enforcement, I have know doubt I am again drafted into a cruel deadly blood game of District Capitol Hold’Em.
These table games are in session everywhere now. Jet Fuel Soma fills the skies, and we’re all breathing the contrail fumes that stop both global warming and global arming.
I don’t even begin to understand your metaphors which, I assume, come from childish games, movies, etc.
I have, however, learned the new definition of the word “clover”. Thanks for that.
Seems like it’s now Road Ragers vs. Clovers.
Lord, deliver me from both.
No, it’s competent drivers vs. inept, passive-aggressive ones who resent the competent ones!
Clover wants you to buy into the ridiculous “road rage” smear, which is of a piece with smearing anti-authoritarians as “liberals” or “unpatriotic” and so on.
Let me give you a specific example:
Clover resents people like me who “speed” – that is, people who drive faster than an arbitrarily posted number on a sign, which may (and typically doesn’t) have any bearing on a reasonable (and safe) rates of travel. Clover demands literally mindless obedience; “it’s the law”! Whether a person’s actual driving is safe or not is, to Clover, purely a question of whether that person is obeying the law. The law and “right” are synonymous in the Clover mind.
Thus, Clover refuses to move over – because after all, those “speeders” are “breaking the law.”
Me? I always yield to faster-moving traffic. And if I am at a red light waiting to turn right and the way is obviously clear, I will turn right even if “the law” says I must wait until I have a green arrow.
That’s what a non-Clover does. I mind my business and expect others to do the same.
Clover can’t stand that idea.
Do you see?
Basically, I mean to use hypothetical mass culture topology and theoretical fantasy maths.
I am glad you wish to be in the unbounded VennDiagram area C, a region not part of road rage area A or clover cooing area B.
Where unstoppable forces meet immovable objects, that is where life begins.
I like all words in your above post except the word “Lord.”
That is a word unknown by babies and toddlers. That is a word unknown to myself.
A lucky man who was never broken during the terrible twos, where Y chromosones begin their supposed resequencing and repair process to become newly healed and shiny new X chromosones.
PS: “looking for trouble” –
No criminal record; no traffic tickets in years. Taxpaying serf; never on the dole. Advocate of live – and let live.
What I object to, Slade, is authoritarianism and those who bleat that we should – are obligated to – Submit and Obey. People that is, like you.
That’s right he is just following orders and hopefully slade they never have orders to take you to the ovens.
Sure, the cop has orders. But he doesn’t have to be a prick about it. If they could just remember that they exist to serve the people rather than rule them it would defuse a lot of the hostility.
Slade is a Liberty-hater obviously looking for a dictatorship. A lowly park policeman or state trooper didn’t have to take the job in the first place, thereby avoiding the violation of our Creator endowed rights secured by the Supreme Law of the Land: The Constitution. Rights such as our privacy, freedom of travel, equal protection under the law and excessive taxation.
The Nazi death camp soldiers had orders. They had no power NOT to gas, shoot and molest the concentration camp victims. They had no right NOT march into the ghettos, round up the “weed people” and load them into cattle cares. ANy idiot should know that.
Perhaps self-important, officious and fallaciously opinionated tax-feeding parasites like Slade should just move to North Korea where they can live under the police state “utopia” they pine for on a daily basis.
It’s people like Slade that lend credence to the elitists’ arguments for contraceptives in drinking water, forced sterilization and parental licensing. It’s also people like Slade that allow and even encourage the incremental development of totalitarian fascist police states and the democide that inevitably follows.
“Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose”-Janis Joplin (Me and Bobby McGee)
Excuse me, but that was written by Kris Kristofferson. Janis was awesome, but Kris was “awesomer”.
I actually prefer the Grateful Dead’s version from their album Skull and Roses. Their keyboard player Ron “Pigpen” McKernan and Janis actually lived the song out when they hitch hiked from TX to CA before either was famous. The Dead’s version is slower.
I have to wonder Eric: why do you carry a gun if you readily surrender it and don’t plan to use it when your rights are violated and/or assaulted by a cretin? Seems to me that “the side of the road in the middle of nowhere, just you and the costumed cretin” benefits you just as much as it benefits him. 😉
This is what I don’t understand: what is a cop? A man with a gun. What are armed citizens? People with guns. The cops use their guns on us, so why do we not defend ourselves and use ours on them? That is the culture and until that culture changes and cops realize that if they fuck with someone they’d better have their ducks in a row, then we can bitch and moan and complain all we want but it’s meaningless.
“I have to wonder Eric: why do you carry a gun if you readily surrender it and don’t plan to use it when your rights are violated and/or assaulted by a cretin?”
The situation didn’t warrant it – I hope, obviously.
The day may come when the situation does warrant it. I hope not; I have no desire to ever draw down on another person. But if it’s necessary, if that’s my only option, then I will.
Agreed. I hope I never have to fire on another human being either. That’s probably why the largest caliber gun I have is a .38. Unlike the state thugs, I don’t want to kill anyone ever.
But isn’t being required to have state papers a violation of your rights? Being told to buckle up? Being detained at all?
What if you had stood up for your rights and told him that as a free and sovereign individual you had the god given right to drive your own car in your own country and without a seatbelt if you choose? And this provoked a negative reaction in him and he told you to step out of your car and you refused. And he tried to forcibly open your door and drag you out? Would you use your gun to defend yourself if you thought your safety was in danger?
But that didn’t happen because you didn’t stand up for your rights. I think that is precisely my point: no need having a gun to defend yourself, if you’re never going to stand up and defend your rights.
And I’m not refering to you Eric in particular. I’ve watched video after video of people who are so proud that they open carry and as soon as a cop confronts them they surrender their weapon and acquiesce to every command barked at them.
Maybe I drink too much, but that makes about as much sense as a merry-go-round on Mars.
Right now, I carry gun in case I need to defend myself against unofficial thugs. That is a very real danger. In time, I may need to defend myself against the official variety. This was not the time – as I’m sure you’d agree. Or would you have followed the sequence of events you lay out to their inevitable conclusion?
I have never found myself in a situation where I had to defend myself against an unofficial thug. Mostly because I don’t looking for that kind of trouble. I use common sense when in public: don’t go down dark allies, don’t hang out in bad neighborhoods etc…
The official thugs, however, come looking for you and the only time in my life I’ve ever had a gun pointed at me was by a cop, years ago.
I don’t believe that unofficial thugs are a credible threat in my life whatsoever. The official ones are every day!
I’m talking to myself Eric as much as anyone. I’m just so, so tired of bitching and moaning. We know what the problem is so what the hell are we waiting for?
We’re too smart to just let it go and metastasize further until it’s out of our scope of possibility.
I was once fishing about 10 miles outside of city limits and found myself between a very large man with a six-foot tree branch in his hands tweaking on God-knows-what, and the river.
Said gentleman was quite upset that I was about to “put a hook in the mouth of his kings” and was letting me know about it.
Said gentleman decided not to descend the bank of the river with the tree branch in his hands, which was the best decision he’d ever made in his life because the hand that was in my tackle box was resting on my .357.
Moral of the story? This rural stretch of trophy trout and salmon stream was the absolute last place in the world I expected something like this would happen to me. Trouble exists outside dark alleys and bad neighborhoods. It has a way of looking for you.
And if you aren’t prepared to take someone’s life you should just put the guns down because your hesitation can result in your own gun taking your life. A .38 will still cause a guy to bleed out, but not fast enough to stop him from finishing his work on you. Chooose .45 ACP and put him down for good.
My one story’s not as dramatic – but same point involved.
My wife and I enjoy taking walks along the Blue Ridge Parkway. It is very isolated; usually no one is around – other than us. A car might pass by once every 15 minutes or so.
One day, we had just gotten to our favorite overlook; at the time, our black lab was still with us and the three of us were enjoying the view. An older, crappy-looking car pulls up. Inside are two guys and something about them just doesn’t feel right. Our dog, who like most labs loved just about everyone, did not like these two. His hair was up and he was tense. These two start a conversation with us, asking questions that seemed odd. You know? As this is going on, I have my hand on my Sig .45 which is tucked inside my waistband. Well, after a minute or so (seemed much longer) these two just rolled off kind of slowly. Both my wife and I felt the same bad vibe; as if they had been sizing us up and thinking about doing something – god only knows what.
And I can tell you, I was extremely glad I had that gun with me. Nothing happened, but the thought that it might have or could have – and if it had, and I’d been unarmed, it probably would have gone badly for my wife and I – is a thought I don’t enjoy entertaining.
I carry a gun for the same reason I have a high quality fire-extinguisher in my garage.
Eric,
I know this is a private issue that many gun-toters decline to divulge, but can you tell us what you carry? I’ve been debating buying something to carry on my own property but I’m up in the air about it.
If you’d rather not, no worries.
I have two “carry” guns – a .45 ACP Sig P220 (small frame for a .45) and Bersa Thunder .380 (Walther PPK knock-off). I carry the .45 when I go in the woods, as when hiking – and also when clothing permits. When I’m wearing shorts/T-shirts I prefer the physically smaller and more concealable Bersa.
I also have a .38 S&W “airweight” that could be a good carry gun. It is small and light and packs more punch than the .380 – with the downside being just five shots. But on the other hand, I doubt there are many real-world defense situations where that would matter. Two or three ought to be enough.
Then again, the .45 has the intimidation factor – and of all three, it is by far the most accurate. Of course, accuracy is a non-issue or small issue in terms of close-quarters defensive guns. Pretty much anything will get you center mass from five or ten feet away!
That’s what I was thinking.
Now, with ‘indefinite detention’ under Federal Law, a person might as well shoot, if he thinks he’s never coming back. It means a life sentence, anyway, and is similar to the way Communists operate. Next, will be Gulags to spend your ‘indefinite detention’.
If I were Eric, I’d at least complain to the Cop’s District Manager, not his immediate boss, if he worked for the state police. The Sheriff and County Commissioners, if he was a Deputy.
“complain to the Cop’s District Manager”
To borrow a line from a very ugly woman, “Are you serious?”
Dammit… you just made me spill my coffee!
@Clark
She is ugly but we have to pass the bill to find out all the wonderful things it contains.
That’s pointless. The cop was just “enforcing the law.”
The worst part is you can’t even make comments without risking escalation. I don’t mean cursing or raising your voice, either. If I had, for example, explained that I don;t wear my seatbelt, and won’t wear my seat belt because it’s my choice to do so or not just as it’s the cop’s choice to eat his veggies (or not), the odds are good I would have had to deal with much more and worse.
You have to pick your battles. This was not the time to go tot Defcon 1.
“The worst part is you can.t even make comments without risking escalation. ”
You can’t even -look- at them without risking escalation. I’ve been pulled over because cops didn’t like how I looked at them.
I’ve got you beat BrentP: I’ve been pulled over for “driving too good”. Ha!
I’ve only been followed home for that.
I think following BrentP’s lead, getting a camera and keeping it running in the car at all times will put a large dent in this problem. If you want to give the cop dirty looks, go for it! Just make sure he can see you have a camera.
The day may come when the situation does warrant it. I hope not; I have no desire to ever draw down on another person. But if it’s necessary, if that’s my only option, then I will.
I think you know that such a day is already here; it arrived at least ten years ago. The only reason that these thugtards get away with what they do is that not enough of us who do pack heat have put enough of THEM into pine boxes when they commit violent felonies such as those agents Mssrs. Frederick and Greene.
Maybe it’s because I live in a state where open carry is the norm that you see fewer incidents of gratuitous porcine violence against citizens than in most other states. Still, I cannot help but believe that if more of us shed our wool and started bearing fangs and claws, Officer Oinky would think twice, thrice, four times or more before playing Big Billy Badass (or conveniently having an Iraqghanistan War-induced PTSD flashback) during a traffic stop.
I tend to agree – though it’s a tragedy. For all concerned – because it’s so needless.
I mentioned (and others have, too) TSA gate rape. It is still possible to deal with this civilly – peacefully. Just a mass opt-out is all it would take. No more buying plane tickets until one can fly without being demeaned and molested. So simple, so easy.
A peace officer who goes after thugs – that is, people who violate the rights of others – has my full support.
“Law enforcers” have my contempt. Most of what they do amounts to harassing and threatening people for no legitimate reason – because these people are not breaching the peace.
It’s such a simple concept, yet so many Americans no longer seem to be capable of understanding it.
Yes Eric, we can deal with it civily, but what sense does it make to deal with it civily and then still be subjected to their abuses? You’ve solved nothing except to show them that you are a civil slave which is EXACTLY what they want. They don’t want slaves prone to unrest.
See my previous post.
There are gradations. Der tag kommt….
Fighting against the system alone is futile. One needs other people to join him. That’s not going to happen from a roadside shoot out. It just isn’t.
There will be those of us who will know there has to be more to the story. There will be those of us who find out what it is. But 999 out of 1000 or better will just see the headline ‘local anti-government kook dies in traffic stop shoot out. Legislators call for stronger gun control’. Nothing will be accomplished at best, it could be used to get more government power too.
Nothing can be won without changing people’s fundamental views of government. Violent resistance over small things doesn’t do that.
“The only reason that these thugtards get away with what they do is that not enough of us who do pack heat have put enough of THEM into pine boxes when they commit violent felonies …”
No. You have the right to your position in this as in all things, but committing unjust violence against those who commit it against us, only worse, is a bad solution strategy, for many reasons.
Someone pointed out in this thread that there was a time when police officers were more peace officers than the latent-violent dull-normal thugs that litter the ranks today. If such was true once, it can be made true again. These are young men and some women who are captured for police training at an early age; the right mind set can be established in the academy, just as it was in earlier times. Standards can be established and enforced, and psych evaluations can be designed and administered to eliminate the, shall we say, misguided types at the beginning.
We make a grave mistake when we watch a few videos and run away with the idea that all police are lawless psychopathic sadists.
That is obviously not true. Think about the poster (Dan?) whose relative joined the force and left it, disillusioned. He likely would have made a good police officer; he was a casualty, and it’s too bad.
Why should we embrace the belief that men with an honest intention to serve and protect for a living are in the minority? Where does such a belief get us? How does that help?
I spent some years serving as an EMT with my local rescue squad, and had plenty of opportunity to interact with police. They ranged from bored and indifferent to kind, sometimes very kind, going out of their way to defuse a situation supportively rather than going all COPS batshit. I saw it myself up close many times.
The bad kid gets the attention; you won’t see a lot of YouTubes of trained, disciplined and well-intentioned police doing their jobs — men who derive satisfaction from wearing the uniform and helping their communities.
The bad cops create a problem for them as well.
Not saying there aren’t plenty of bad cops, especially in places like LA and New Orleans — vicious, corrupt and terrifying. Despite my experience on the rescue squad, I’ve seen deputies around my area whom I would not like to cross: the big belly, the crewcut and the flat reptilian eyes. They’re around, for sure.
But bad cops haven’t taken over the force yet. Maybe they will. Conditions are getting crazy enough that they might. But it’s premature and wrong to go all OK Corral over it. That just leads to unnecessary death, and further escalation. Let’s try to keep some perspective.
Perfectly said, Gail – thanks for dealing with that one so well!
Gail, I think you demonstrate my point: ANY attempted violation of Eric’s rights by ANYONE other than a state thug would be delt with by Eric with the appropriate (lack of) force. Eric would not escalate the situation, but by defending his rights, the situation could escalate and Eric wouldn’t hesitate to pull his gun if he felt it warranted.
Same situation, but it’s a gov’t thug, Eric would not defend his rights, of which being unreasonably and unwarrantedly detained, proving gov’t permission to drive his own car are such, and he would surrender his gun as instructed.
Bottom line is that there still exists, even in the minds of the most liberty minded people, a separation between gov’t thugs, and non-gov’t thugs and until we break down that wall and accept the truth that a thug is a thug, nothing will change.
To refine this a little:
One can readily defend oneself against an ordinary thug and the law will support you (usually). Hence it is reasonable to immediately and forcefully defend oneself against even a slight imposition (as by saying, “hey, fuck off asshole” and proceeding from there as need be).
But say that to a cop and you’re going to jail. Or worse. Is it worth it? What have you achieved?
You seem to be taking an all-or-nothing position; i.e ., one is a coward or a defeatist or supine by tolerating any imposition by anyone, cop or not-cop.
That’s nice in theory but the reality is most of us have a lot to lose by acting that way and for now, it makes sense to not lose everything over nothing (or something small in the grand scheme of things) just to make a point.
Pick your battles.
Not so much the law siding with you but your neighbors. Kill a home intruder and your neighbors will side with you. Kill a cop busting in and it’s doubtful. That’s the core problem. The law may fault you either way, but the law is ineffectual if your neighbors believe you in the right. Until the jury system breaks down entirely anyway.
Amen! Not really rocket science is it?
Good point about picking your battles. I’m reminded of the “young bull–old bull”joke.
On that note do not mess with my children…ever. I won’t care what clothes you wear and collateral damage will result.
Oh..and please don’t shoot my dog. I’ll have to get even and it annoys the dog.
I’ll try to stay away from you Clovers. You have nothing to contribute to my life and I generally don’t want to bother with yours. Cranial-rectal insertion coupled with vehement verbal assertion of same seems to be endemic to your sub-species. There is a cure but you won’t like it.
Thanks for listening…..
It’s interesting, isn’t it, that most of us here just want to be left the hell alone – not impose ourselves, our values or anything else on anyone. But Clovers can’t abide live – and let live. They just have to impose their “right way” on everyone. They can’t stand it when anyone does something they personally don’t like – irrespective of whether any harm is done to them. All that matters is how they feel about it. That they see “risk.” That “someone” might get hurt… theoretically… and if anyone might get hurt, or some other negative effect could conceivably occur (no matter how abstract or remote) then everyone must be prohibited, regulated or otherwise controlled.
That is the Cloveronian vision of the USSA.
In North Carolina, a CCW explicitly requires the carrier to notify any police officer that “approaches”, that is requires contact such as doing the “license, registration and proof of insurance NOW” drill, be notified that the CCW carrier inform the uniformed individual of the CCW and that the person is carrying.
If Eric had not surrendered his sidearm immediately upon being told to, he would not have gone home that night.
Yup –
Also, I’ve found it’s good policy in terms of de-escalating the situation. I don’t want a ticket – and much more, I don’t want to get shot. So as soon as the cop gets up to my window, I present my fold-out thingie that has both my DL and my CHP; I then verbally advise the cop that I am armed and ask him how he wants to proceed.
I’ve so far had to do this twice. The first time, the cop was pretty cool. I was on my bike and could have just split (and he knew this; told me so, in fact). But I pulled over and did the above. He and I talked guns for a minute or two and then he let me go, no ticket.
The second time was the time discussed in the article, this past weekend. Given the cop was being an asshole, I didn’t want to give him any pretext for escalation. It turned out reasonably ok.
What if that cop had decided to shoot you right then and there?
Well, the answer then should be obvious. But as that was not the case I responded appropriately – at least as I see it.
Sorry, but I don’t get it. I’m not advocating an all or nothing strategy, or using aggressive, unwarranted violence, but why the double standard?
One for a civilian criminal and one for a gov’t criminal? Makes no sense.
And saying things like: pick your battles, I have too much to lose etc… are EXACTLY the things that has allowed the gov’t to grow so large and oppressive that we spend so much of our time bitching and complaining about the oppressive gov’t.
You have nothing to lose Eric. You don’t own your land, or your car, or your money. You don’t even own your own life. You’ve said it yourself many times.
By saying you have too much to lose, what you’re saying is that you’d rather continue living under the illusion. That the illusion is more valuable to you than the civil liberties the gov’t has blatently taken from you and which you spend so much time railing against.
As if, one day, it will become clear – like the second coming of christ – that the time is right, you are prepared and then and only then will it be the right time to act. But as they crucified christ the first time, they’ll crucify christ again.
Because rather than seeing the situation for what it is, they see it for what they want it to be. That christ will come riding down on a white horse and take the faithful away to heaven for eternity rather than him being just a slob like one of us, trying to make his way home. So they’ll miss the opportunity.
As for the cop deciding to shoot you right then and there: there was no choice for you except to die since you had surrendered your gun.
I just don’t get it.
“but why the double standard?
One for a civilian criminal and one for a gov’t criminal? Makes no sense.”
C’mon, Don – you’re kidding… right?
You know as well as I do that different rules apply (like them or not). We still have the legally recognized right to ward off a street thug. But even to talk back to a cop risks legal repercussions best avoided if possible. You call this a double standard – and in an abstract political-moral philosophy sense, you’re right.
But does it make sense (your word) to go to the wall over say a seatbelt law hassle? Really? To potentially kill or be killed – with all the associated repercussions?
That is the very definition of “all or nothing,” unless I have misunderstood you.
Are you ready to lose everything – your life – over a seatbelt ticket?
Not me. I will do what’s necessary if and when the situation demands it – and when the alternative is worse than acting.
Pick your battles!