Trigger-happy, over-aggressive cops are – unfortunately – a reality. Which is why it’s probably a good idea to get your concealed handgun permit (CHP) if you carry a gun with you in a car. 
Even in – especially in – states where open carry is legal.
Let me explain… .
In my own state of Virginia, for example, it is perfectly legal to have a gun lying openly on the seat beside you – even if you don’t have a permit. It is also a perfectly good way to end up getting shot – the cop who shoots you uttering the magic words – officer safety – to justify his actions.
Bear in mind the fact that a cop’s testimony is almost always taken as presumptively truthful while the testimony of a non-cop is considered presumptively untruthful. Or not considered at all. You – assuming you are still alive – will have to support your testimony for it to be given any weight in court. Let alone equal weight.
Absent video or audio corroboration, in court, the cop’s word wins over yours every time. He says, ” I saw a gun” – and it’s all over before you can get in a word edgewise.
But let’s rewind a little bit and consider a traffic stop scenario:
You are stopped by police for some reason (or no reason at all, if it’s one of those egregious Fourth Amendment-free zones they call “safety” checkpoints). You have your handgun with you in the car. The law says this is legal, provided the weapon is in plain sight – and not “concealed,” for which you’d need a permit. Remember: If you don’t have a CHP – and the gun is not plainly visible – you are setting yourself up for a felony bust. Since you don’t want that, you put the gun on the seat beside you, all nice and legal – and wait for Officer Unfriendly to approach.
Technically, this is what you are supposed to do – according to the law. But you probably know what will happen – or what’s likely to happen – when the cop walks up to your vehicle and spots a gun in plain view. 
Legal open carry or not, the situation is going to get tense – real quick. Cops have been given a thorough course in Authoritarian Over-Reaction 101. Some are just looking for a reason to release their Inner Chimp. If you have bad luck and have to deal with such a cop, the mere sight of your gun may set him off – and before you have a chance to say anything, it’s very possible you’ll be staring down the barrel of his gun.
And that – being able to say something before he sees something – is the key thing here.
If you have a CHP, you have the opportunity to say something – specifically, that you are a CHP holder – before the cop sees your gun.
It could very well save your life.
Because the first thing the cop sees will not be a handgun. Because as a CHP permit holder, your handgun is legally concealed – in your waistband, on your hip, in the glovebox – wherever. The point is – it’s out of plain sight.
And more to the point, legally out of plain sight.
This will give you that possibly precious moment or three to advise the cop that you are a CHP holder. He’ll know about the permit before he knows you have a gun.
And the fact that you are a CHP holder may defuse the tension all by itself – even though you may have a loaded gun on you. Why? Because the fact that you are a permit holder tells the cop right away that you’ve got no felony convictions in your background. Ergo, you are probably not a threat to “officer safety.” At least, it will be harder for him to so claim, in the event of an unjustified escalation. 
Most cops, in my experience, will settle down once you’ve told them you are a CHP holder. You should tell them immediately, in a calm voice – the very first words out of your mouth: “Officer, here’s my driver’s license and CHP.” I keep both together in a small fold-out carrying case so that I don’t have to root around for either – and can present both at the same time.
Then I tell the cop I have (or don’t have) a gun on me. And ask how he’d like to proceed. All the while keeping both my hands on the steering wheel – and in plain sight. The cop will probably want to know where the gun is – and may demand its surrender for the duration of the stop. Let the cop take the lead. If wants to see the gun, tell him where the gun is. If he wants to hold the gun, let him get it. Don’t reach for the glovebox – or your waistband. Make no move that could be construed as “threatening officer safety.”
Legally, you may or may not be required to inform the cop you are a CHP holder (state laws vary, be sure to check yours) but it is smart to do so because it will probably de-escalate the situation. Most especially if you are carrying a gun.
In this scenario, it is less likely the cop will go Rambo on you – and he’ll have a much harder time, later on, citing “officer safety” in the event that he does go Rambo on you.
Never forget that the law is one thing – the reality out on the streets something else. Legally, you may have every right to open carry – and have that gun sitting beside you on the seat in your car. But accept that if you’re forced to deal with a cop – a cop who has already targeted you for some “violation” – and the first thing he sees is your gun, escalation is likely. You do not want escalation at this weird and dangerous time in America’s history – when the deck is so disproportionately stacked against us Mundanes. The more you can do to de-escalate the situation, the better it will likely be for you.
It may even help you get out of a ticket. At least, it’s helped me get out of a couple.
Once, while riding one of my motorcycles at a speed somewhat higher than legal, I passed a state cop going the other way. He lit ’em up, turned around and came after me. I had already pulled off to the side of the road and was waiting for him when he pulled up – which may also have helped my case, I concede. I took off my helmet, handed him my little folder that holds my DL and CHP. His demeanor relaxed noticeably. I told him I was not armed. (My .45 doesn’t fit well when I’m wearing leathers!) We ended up talking guns for a few minutes. He let me go without issuing a piece of payin’ paper. Something like this happened another time, too.
Bottom line: Having that CHP isn’t a guarantee you won’t get a ticket, but it may significantly improve your odds of not ending up another casualty of “officer safety.”
Throw it in the Woods?
@BrentP – agreed. Education is the key to intellectual awarness. But after one is educated, actions need to be taken. Every student has to eventually go to work otherwise, what good is the education? If every student becomes a teacher and never works, then everything comes to a screaching halt and that’s exactly what we’re seeing right now: everybody’s “educating”, nobody’s working.
You know that bad people exist and you could be robbed, or car jacked or assaulted so you take defensive measures – even violent ones if you feel it’s necessary – to protect yourself and your family and you have no problem with that. But substitute the word “government” for “people” and you voluntarily allow yourself to be robbed, have your car impounded or assaulted and say “not the right battle to fight” Pft!
Ok, so which battle is the right one then? The one you know with 100% certainty that you can win? Then you’ll never fight, ’cause there are no such battles.
I grew up when board games had reached their peak. There was one called “Victory in Pacific” or something like that. I could win as the Japanese by not fighting battles I was sure to lose.
It’s not that victory isn’t 100%, but defeat is 100% assured.
That’s why it’s called a battle and not a “sure thing”: you don’t know the outcome. It depends on the size of the fight in the dog, it depends on the preperation and intelligence.
Goat herders in Afghanistan and Iraq regularly defeat U.S. troops and yet everyone’s afraid to take on some high school educated, fat-ass, arrogant cops here.
Shame on you. You guys let me know when you’re done bitching and complaining and moaning like a bunch of old ladies and you want to organize the people to do something that makes a real difference.
Until then, write Dear Abby. She can offer advice on your dilema with the gov’t. Sorrry, couldn’t resist that. :)))
Uh, Don, et tu?
Been in any knock-down, drag-out fights with a pig lately?
You’re doing the same thing we are; agitating, educating, and pontificating. It’s valuable and necessary.
The fat-assed arrogant pigs are just a symptom of the disease. Eliminate one and three more pop up.
Fight the power behind them though; and THAT power is terrified most of one thing: knowledge.
So you’re saying instead of arguing with the next cop that harasses me while I am bicycling I should shoot it out with him?
What is that going to achieve?
I’ve won the arguments. They leave me alone now.
What is the shoot out going to do better?
Seriously, tell me what solo physical violence is going to achieve? I see three results: 1) My death. 2) My imprisonment. 3) Loss of everything I’ve earned and life as a fugitive. Which one of those is me winning? Which one of those advances liberty? Is there a fourth?
I don’t see how I (or anyone else) comes out ahead if I follow your recommendations.
So if you do not like shootouts, how is road rage with cars doing for you? Do you think that is more satisfying?
Always with the violence – and hysterics… Clover, can you conceptualize life on any other basis?
It’s not “road rage” to drive faster than you drive – or to expect slower moving drivers to yield to faster-moving drivers.
It is roads rage to deliberately impede other drivers – which appears (based on all your posts) to be your idea of a good time.
Clover, you’re a troll on the road and off. You drive to piss people off. The road is no place for your sociopathic animal level games of dominance and submission.
I’m still waiting for Clover to:
– Tell us his profession
– Pay Eric and Brent the millions he owes
– Show up to the race he challenged Eric to
This is a great video and well worth watching. He does a great job of outlining the all powerful belief in the political cult called the State. I like to call it Godvernment.
Message to the Voting Cattle – Larken Rose
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t5FNDRgPOLs&feature=player_embedded#!
“Some of us are finished with trying to save you”.
That was a “take home message”. I work in Search and Rescue. I’m tired.
Banging your head against a brick walls does get old after a while. For some reason I keep doing it anyway.
This is an AWESOME video. I’ve sent out emails to my clover relatives and acquaintances with the link to it – not that many of them will ever watch it (and even fewer be influenced by it).
“Godvernment” – great one, Brad!
Thanks, liberranter.
Commenting on languages: I suck! Seriously, I have tried to pick up a number of languages and have never gotten beyond some basic phrases and cuss words. This includes languages spoken by family members. The written language is a little easier to at least kind of figure out, but not write. Russian in it’s written form is not that hard because of how it was created. Many of the words are basically English just written in Cyrillic.
My grasp of English is not exactly stellar either. It was always my hardest subject. Reading comprehension wad no problem. Spelling and grammar? Forget about it. C- student at best.
Math was and still is my subject. I can and do think in numbers or often in chords. It’s how I put myself to sleep at night. Not counting sheep, but doing math in my head or writing music. Music is as close to mathematical perfection as you can get.
Cold, Bleed. (I need music)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkbQDChgmX8
I’m feeling crossed
I take it inside
Burn up the pain
My thoughts are strange
Just like the things
I used to love
Just like the tree that fell
I heard it
If art is still inside
I feel it
I wanna bleed
Show the world all that I have inside
I wanna scream
Let the blood flow that keeps me alive
Take all these strings
They call my veins
Wrap them around
Every fucking thing
Presence of people
Not for me
Well I must remain in tune
Forever
My love is music
I will marry melody
I wanna bleed
Show the world all that I have inside
I wanna scream
Let the blood flow that keeps me alive
Won’t you let me take you
For a ride
You can stop the world
Try to change my mind
Won’t you let me show you
How it feels
You can stop the world
But you won’t change me
I need music
I need music
I need music to set me free
To let me bleed
Dear Brad,
English was always my best subject. Sounds funny what with me being Chinese!
Math was always my worst. I wanted to go into science when I was younger. I did pretty well in physics and chemistry. But my poor higher math skills doomed me to something else other than the hard sciences.
Actually I haven’t noticed any serious grammatical or spelling mistakes in your posts.
Certainly nothing like clover’s “have you went for the mental help yet?”
Thanks, Bevin. I do actually work on my spelling and grammar because I know it’s a weak point of mine.
When it comes to language vs math it might all come back down to Jung’s theories.
My Son is trying to learn Japanese right now. I’m afraid he has my gifts. He can keep ten beats in his head at once, but can’t seem to pick up the Japanese language.
I speak fairly often with sales reps from China. I import guitars and all my parts for making electronic cigarettes and the liquids, which I re-manufacture. I am always amazed at their grasp of the English language.
One of the most annoying things was that I had to register with homeland security because of the various electrical parts,etc. I suppose the 99% pure nicotine was the most dangerous. It is a deadly poison.
“Register with Homeland Security.”
If you’d told me 20 years ago that Americans would have to do such a thing – or that an entity called “Homeland Security” would exist one day – I’d have laughed…
I’m not laughing now.
It’s not funny or even free. It was Fed Ex that turned me in. I had no problem with any of the other shipping companies. I ordered 500 AA battery boxes and I received an e-mail from Fed Ex with customs paperwork and forms to fill out from Homeland insecurity. So I get stuck paying the Duty, no big deal, but also a $50 charge for the Homeland Insecurity paperwork. After I got my package I canceled my account with Fed Ex and refused to pay. Fuck them.
Now I go with China post or EMS.
Fed Ex is the epicenter of evil!
I had a set of exhaust pipes shipped to me from the UK. The seller arranged to ship via Fed Ex; I paid $150 for the shipping. A few weeks later, I get an additional bill from Fed Ex claiming I owe them appx. $88 for “customs” and “other fees.” WTF?
I wrote and told them I never contracted with them to receive any service – and therefore do not acknowledge the amount they claim I “owe” them.
Brad, we just can’t have people ordering nicotine from China. We make the stuff in Virginia. You understand now, right?
Dear Eric. I have shipped thousands of guitars and amps all over the world. Customs are a real bitch and picking the correct shipper is very important. I always give my customers the choice and tell them what their options will cost them. Although it’s often rather fucked up. It’s hard to tell what the customs costs will be. Or even if they will need to bribe the customs guy to get their guitar.
As for Fed Ex you are 100% correct to tell them to pound sand. There was no contract, because there was no meeting of the minds.
I have eaten customs costs a few times because I didn’t have my numbers correct. For some reason Canada and UPS has the same problem. But at least they have never called up homeland insecurity on me.
I often fill out the customs forms (stacks of them) and claim it’s a gift, when I ship out. But then you can forget about any insurance claim. Oh well the insurance claims are crap anyway. Most of the time they won’t pay up. I take the money I would pay for insurance and put it in an escrow account.
I flunked English in the tenth grade. Hell, I still play it by ear.
After age 12 it is difficult to learn and speak a language accent free. I was introduced to German when I arrived in Bremerhaven in 1948 at age 12. I do not profess fluency but German co-workers have told me that I speak German with a Norwegian accent. That’s understandable if Norwegian sounds anything like Danish.
With effort I can speak accent free English but I will surely take my relaxed Redneck drawl to the crematorium.
“Grammar” is largely a matter of consensus anyway. It’s not that I care for poor grammar or sentence structure in my professional life or my fan fiction (I’ve just about rewritten the Star Wars hexology that Lucas SHOULD have produced, heh hee…with plenty of gratutious sex and violence, but that’s for another forum….). At times I do a “Dizzy Dean” (contrary to his image as a ‘hick’ when he announced baseball games, Mr Dean was a well-educated and erudite man) just to be “real”. Life’s too short to go through it with a cork up your ass all night.
Language interests me. How old were you when began a serious effort to master spoken English . . . and when did you begin to read and write English?
For precision of expression how do English and Chinese compare?
Have you any theory as to why so many Chinese and Vietnamese excel academically?
tgsam
English is easier than other languages in some respects, notably the lack of masculine/feminine tenses. Der Fuhrer, die frau, das tisch – etc. That is no easy thing!
Ja, ziemlich schwer, aber Uebung macht den Meister.
Stimmt Tinsley. Und ‘den’ ist ein gutes Beispiel nach was Eric schon gesagt hat. ‘Den’ ist das Masculin Akusativ (direkt Objekt) oder?
Having at one time been fluent in three languages and at least functional in three more*, I actually feel sorry for anyone who learns English as a second language. The phonetics and orthography, not to mention the various exceptions to rules and irregularities, would drive me NUTS if I were a foreigner whose native tongue was based on complete regular and structured rules (this is why I found Standard Arabic relatively easy to master; it’s rules and patterns are perfectly structured and regular, meaning that there is no mystery to putting sentences and phrases together. Colloquial [regional dialectical, or conversational] Arabic, on the other hand, is another story).
(*I’ve found that unless it’s Spanish [or perhaps Korean] in which you’re trying to maintain fluency, staying fluent in any foreign language while living in monoglot America is a losing proposition. Unless one lives within an aberrational enclave of speakers of a particular language, such as a Chinatown in San Francisco or New York, it’s rare that you can find anyone with whom to converse or correspond.)
Ahh, but English has such an enormous vocabulary and is so expressive. It is also widely spoken for both imperial and economic reasons. Furthermore the profanity is unsurpassed and I excel in creative cursing.
tgsam
Good point about the profanity! I can’t think of any language that I’m familiar with other than English where the speaker can get so creative and has so much latitude with idiom.
Actually, both Greek and Russian are far more regular than English, but since even Chinese, Japanese, and Hindu speakers commonly learn ESL, there’s no excuse for us ‘native speakers’ to at least have a functional command of grammar and sentence structure!
In Romanian – very old Latin based – the definite article is suffixed to the end of the noun and it has to match in gender:
The Boy = Baiatul
‘Baiat’ means ‘boy’ and ‘ul’ is the masculine for ‘the’.
Also, adjectives have to match in tense and gender.
Stick that shit in your pipe and smoke it boys.
Eric – I fully agree. PICK YOUR BATTLES.
There are cops that are good Joes(or Janes) who will (albeit secretly) sympathize with the Libertarian position. Definitely no point in antagonizing a potential ally.
Then there are those who are not your friend, but, being an overweight, donut-scarfing bureaucrat with a badge and sidearm, give only what info is demanded but don’t lie your way out. If his discovery of your CCW permit and “packing” is inevitable, then, yes, be upfront. Else shut your Gawd-damned mouth.
Against a corrupt or psychotic cop, however, it may come to a choice of being judged by twelve or carried by six. Prepare yourself for which alternative you prefer. As the gay, gold-plated droid pointed out, surrender can be a viable option.
There are cops that are good Joes(or Janes) who will (albeit secretly) sympathize with the Libertarian position. Definitely no point in antagonizing a potential ally.
Where are these cops, Douglas? I have yet to encounter a single active one on any force.
I have, but they aren’t enough (anything less than 100% is unacceptable, but the present system will ensure that it’s not even close…). What Eric is pointing out, and we shouldn’t lose sight of, is that it’s unwise to UNNECESSARILY provoke a confrontation with a badged one that may be well-inclined to just wave you along. Part of the game is “attitude”…e.g., “Don’t start nuthin’, and they won’t be nuthin’…”
It’s been more decades than I really care to think about since I was in drivers ed. I’ve probably forgotten most of what they tried to teach us, but one class still sticks in my mind. The instructor said. “Never forget, the pedestrian has the right of way… everywhere… always. But while you’re out walking around also remember this. Anyone who puts his one and only body in front of a ton and a half of moving steel while expecting a legal technicality to keep him alive, isn’t going to live very long.
Dear Joe,
“Anyone who puts his one and only body in front of a ton and a half of moving steel while expecting a legal technicality to keep him alive, isn’t going to live very long.”
Amen to that. Especially here on Taiwan.
Most of the time drivers in the US and Canada yield to pedestrians in the crosswalk.
Most of the time drivers on Taiwan do NOT. They are accustomed to pedestrians yielding the right of way to them, the traffic laws be damned. They will angrily honk their horns if you assert your legal right. They are surprised if you actually assert your right of way. If they realize it too late, and are unable to brake in time, you will be killed or crippled. Tort law on Taiwan is far less generous to victims. You will receive a pittance compared to in the US.
In short, the law, which clovers claim protects us, really doesn’t. Not enough anyway.
What’s worse, its existence displaces free market solutions that would have made possible greater social order and safety, including traffic order and traffic safety.
For example, the greater order that exists on a race track, even though everyone is driving at the limit of adhesion.
Apparently lawyers and career office holders do not rule in Taiwan like they do in America.
Slimy bastards! What the hell is wrong with my fellow Americans? Are they that much less perceptive than this old Redneck fart with his tenth grade education? Or are they just plain fucking stupid!? Jesus Fuckin’ Christ, most of the lawyers I know couldn’t think their way through through a mirrored maze with arrows painted on the floor yet our legislatures continue to be infested with them.
Dear Tinsley,
The out of control tort law system in the USSA is definitely not something I would ever want the Taiwan Region of China to ever adopt.
My comment was directed at “clover laws” vs. free market conventions and common law traditions that would make for a more orderly, safer, not to mention freer world.
Dear Tinsley,
Also, to avoid misunderstanding, Taiwan is no better in the area of your concern.
The lawyers ARE the career office holders here as well.
As the old Chinese saying goes, “tian xia wu ya yi ban hei,” or “Crows are equally black everywhere under the sun.”
Politicians are just as corrupt, East or West. North or South.
A political office holder isn’t worth the sweat in a Plumber’s Crack. -Tinsley Grey Sammons
What the hell is wrong with my fellow Americans? Are they that much less perceptive than this old Redneck fart with his tenth grade education? Or are they just plain fucking stupid!?
I know your questions here are rhetorical. Although I am tempted the answer the last one with a resounding YES, the correct answer is, no, they’re lazy and dumbed down, never having removed the organ between their ears from its packaging or turned its switch to the O-N position.
Critical thinking has been all but eradicated from the Amerikan population, the inevitable result of 150-plus years of regime indoctrination via the (misnamed) public “schools” and other equally insidious institutions that are the inevitable fruit of the majority agreeing to a devil’s bargain. That “devil’s bargain” is best summarized as “my liberty in exchange for the illusion of security [both economic and physical].”
Unfortunately, the devil, in making this bargain, had no intention of making it binding only upon those who consciously and willingly agreed to it. No, he made it binding upon the entire society, using as his enforcement weapon the same weapon he has always used throughout human history – the State. This explains why dissidents of the type who regularly visit this site find themselves not only having to constantly navigate the pseudo-legal minefield that is “the law” as laid down by the State to enforce the devil’s bargain, but must also contend with hostility and ostracism by the Clover majority who are not about to let themselves be pulled out of the Soma-induced stupor in which they’ve existed for all of their lives.
BTW, Tinsley, your self-description and experience serves as the best endorsement of autodidacticism that I’ve encountered in a long time. The tenth grade education you received over six decades ago was probably equivalent to a four-year bachelor’s degree from today’s enstupidated, watered-down “college” curricula. I’m growing especially annoyed at the barrage of government propaganda that is appearing in the media, with increasing frequency, that urges everyone with a pulse to incur hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt to get a college “education.” The clear message of this insulting garbage is that it is impossible to succeed in Amerika without possessing a piece of paper from a corrupt, politicized, intellectually bankrupt, structurally obsolete institution of post-adolescent indoctrination (full disclosure: I have such a piece of paper, though I credit its possession with NONE of my successes in adult life). I would like to think that daily life in today’s UFSA, with its rampant structural unemployment characterized by people with these all-enabling college degrees working “menial” jobs, would open some clover eyes. I’m not holding my breath; count on Einstein’s definition of insanity remaining the norm.
Eric,
It’s ALL ROOTED IN SOCIALISM/COMMUNISM
–this growing antagonism between the citizenry and citizen-police,
as explained in this list of leftists’/liberals’/proggressives’ secret plans
TO SUBDUE the West for universal socialism/communism
(( Note: Snopes.Com is either lying or ignorant,
to claim that that list is a hoax; IT IS REALITY,
folks! )):
http://www.snopes.com/language/document/commrule.asp
Don’t forget, Soros funds Snopes.
On neutral issues–like debunking the retarded rumor that microwaving destroys the molecular structure of food–it’s fine.
But if it’s politics, it’s suspect.
Jungian, Jung’s UNDISCOVERED SELF* is more than fifty years old and I have it on my HDD and on DVDs. I first purchased and studied a copy when I was in the Air Force back when both the US and the Soviet Union were deadly serious about the Cold War.
I still refer to it often and consider it to be Jung’s** most important work from the viewpoint of history.
[email protected]
*I recall that, in 1958 it was less than a buck for the paperback version. How times have changed thanks to a criminal government and its office holders and associates.
**When it comes to having figured out what goes on in the mind of the Naked Ape, the old Warlock of Zurich still has no peer.
Ok so let me get this straight: you advocate exercising our constitutionally protected right to bear arms BUT when confronted by the only credible threat to our personal safety that exists in this society, you believe we immediately tell him we’re armed (taking away any element of surprise) and should surrender our arms if told to. Is that about right?
So carrying a gun is really just a Dirty Harry thing? Playing cowboy? I don’t get it man. And all this talk about getting a CHP. Why? It’s concealed. He can’t see it and you tell him immediately you do not consent to any searches of your person our your vehicle. Why do you need a permit to carry a gun when he has no idea you have a gun?
Hey Don,
I advocate picking your battles –
This isn’t one of them, as I see it.
If the law forbids me from carrying a gun for self-defense I will not obey (and have not obeyed; I’ll tell you about that sometime).
But this is different. This is about de-escalating a situation that could easily escalate – and doesn’t need to escalate. I’m not talking “the law.” Or principles. I’m talking practical common sense. Cop sees openly displayed gun as he walks up to your car – and the odds are very good you’ll be facing a cop with his gun drawn on you. Ridiculous? Excessive? All beside the point. The cop – in this environment we live in – is going to take it as a provocative act and will react accordingly. Is that worth “standing your ground” on a principle?
Meanwhile, if the gun is not in plain sight and you lack the CC permit – and (as Brent pointed out) for whatever reason, the cop finds it – you are now facing a felony arrest and extremely serious, life-altering repercussions. Is that smart?
Ok, so you have the CC permit and the gun is concealed. Why say anything? Again – to de-escalate the situation. I mentioned to another poster that:
A. In some states, you’re legally required to advise the cop you have a CC permit – and are (or not) armed. Failure to do that is itself a felony (IIRC).
B. Even if not legally required, the cop is going to know you are a CC permit holder once he runs your driver’s license. Or he may already know, having run your plates. If you don’t tell him first, you’ve arguably increased the tension for no good reason. By telling him, you de-escalate. I agree, you shouldn’t need to. But that’s neither here nor there.
We’ve had similar discussions before. I’m not ready to throw everything away over something minor like a traffic stop.
Are you?
Don’t start any shit and there won’t be any. -Old Redneck Saying
This hard partying old Redneck has used this clause to successfully defuse many confrontations.
Agreed!
What was it that Hank Williams, Jr. said?
If you don’t like the way I’m living, you just leave this long-haired country boy alone….
Clovers, of course, can’t abide that.
No, that was from the Charlie Daniels Band “Long Haired Country Boy”.
In 1950 E.J. Kitchens was Childersburg Alabama’s only cop. One day the town Grouch, a Geezer known only as Uncle Bob jaywalked at the little town’s main intersection while Kitchens was watching. A genuinely concerned Kitchens kindly stopped and informed Uncle Bob that he could get his “aiss run over by doing what he had just done”. As he turned to walk away, Uncle Bob spat a gob of tobacco juice that surely would have dented a cuspidor and responded with, “Well, it’s MY goddamned aiss ain’t it?”
And that was the end of it.
I would not be shocked today to discover that simple jaywalking in some jurisdictions is fined $100 or more.
tgsam
Sigh. I remember those days, too…
In fact, it’s probably more than $100 fine – and if you said what Uncle Bob said to the cop, probably you’d end up Tazed.
“…, life-altering repercussions. ”
Isn’t that the whole point of everything you stand for Eric: changing the way of life in this country? And isn’t the way of life in this country just the sum of every individuals way of life?
So many seem to rail against the man, and then obey the man’s every command. The man aint gonna stop issuing commands until we stop obeying them. Until we are the change we want.
I’m afraid friend until you – and enough others – are in fact prepared and willing to “alter your way of life”, nothing will ever, ever change so why continue bitching about it?
“I’m not ready to throw everything away”. You have nothing Eric. Your land does not belong to you and you know this. Your wages do not belong to you and you know this. The state can confiscate every asset you own if they want and you know this. You’ve written about it.
So what do you have to lose except your servitude?
出る杭は打たれる。
“The stake that sticks up gets hammered down.”
Now if all the stakes stand up it works. Wack a mole is easy game if only one mole comes out of the hole. That’s why writing, spreading ideas is important. I could just stick my head up and be killed. What is accomplished? Nothing. The quest is not to be the one mole but one of many moles.
That’s the reason “the man” is more afraid of the spread of ideas than a single disobedient slave.
Hi Don,
There’s nothing to be gained by being a martyr before it would even register as that in the minds of most people (who would dismiss your death or mine as the justifiable killing of another “kook” or “terrorist”).
But if we can change minds – or at least, open them up a little – there is so much to be gained. So much that martyrdom may not even be necessary. And if it is, the few who do put their lives on the line will have bought something for the rest of us.
That is what I am trying to achieve with my writing – and this web site.
I understand what you’re saying Eric, but that’s what people have been saying our entire lives haven’t they? And our entire lives things have just gotten worse and worse and worse while everyong keeps talking, and talking and talking. How many lifetimes have to pass before somebody actually stops talking and actually starts doing?
The issue at hand is bigger than Don Cooper or Eric Peters. And it’s not about an oppressive gov’t either. It’s about our humanity. Who we are as people and a culture. Are we people of charachter and courage? Or are we just intellectuals, astounding others with our verbal proclivity so we can one day say: “never let it be said that I did nothing. I wrote the hell out of that shit every day!”
It’s really irrelevant what happens to us because we all die, but how we die will define us. Did you live a “good” life with wealth and means and die comfortably at a ripe old age or were you a man of principle who defended his principles? Who did the right thing even though others said it was wrong? Did you instill such character and courage in others?
That kind of education is what is needed for real culture change. Active, not passive.
What good does it do to die one by one when the masses think us nothing better than kooks whom the government protects them from?
Why does the government almost always go after those who are socially isolated and/or considered strange? Why does it so rarely go after those whom are well-liked and have social support? And then when it does it has to fabricate crimes or something of that order. Social support makes things much more difficult for government. This is why knowledge is what they most fear. They don’t fear people standing up to them with guns. They’ll just call in an air strike.
Taking a stand beyond a certain point, at the side of the road, alone, is not going to turn out well.Violence is their game. They want it. They want it so bad they do false-flag violence to get to that point.
They fear intellectuals. Every regime fears peaceful intellectuals far more than physical resistance.
There’s already a de facto gun ban in this country (see the mountain of “laws”, regulations, permits, licensing, taxes, restrictions, etc..) so why bother following the rules? And even if you keep the gun locked up and unused to avoid breaking the “law”, you still don’t own it (see Katrina gun confiscation). Your best option would be to carry “illegaly” and just don’t get caught with it. This could mean a secret compartment in your car, or not standing out and acting like a typical American moron to blend in with the crowd.
Exactly! Just common sense isn’t it? What’s the purpose of having the gun for self-defense if you don’t use it for self-defense? Which would you rather have? A felony conviction for concealed carry or be dead because you obeyed the law and didn’t conceal carry into that movie theater?
Of course avoiding the felony charge is really just a matter of being smarter than the bureaucrats. How hard is that really?
Hi Brody,
I don’t see it that way; if anything, tremendous progress has been made 2A-wise. Many states are “shall issue” CC states; open carry is legal in more areas than ever. The “assault weapons” ban is gone. Also restrictions (in most areas) on high capacity magazines.
I agree that we ought not to need a permission slip of any kind to exercise our right to armed self-defense. Granted. But given that (in my state, at least) it is now “within the law” to possess/carry a gun I don’t see it as being reasonable or common-sensical to push it over what – to me – is a fairly small thing.
See my longer post to Don…
Eric,
This is probably the craziest advice that I have ever seen you give. If I am pulled over its hand over the license, registration, yes, no or I decline to answer the question. Hell that’s not even true, before they even get a chance to ask me a question I start questioning them. Such as “Am I free to go” and “Why am I being detained in my travels”. This automatically changes the dynamics of the situation and the cop is forced to begin justifying in their minds why they pulled you over.
I never provide any more information than absolutely necessary because anything you say will be used against use. If you refuse to answer any of their questions the most they can document in their report is “suspect remained silent”. There is no sense in volunteering any addition information and one should adamantly refuse to allow them to search their vehicle if so asked.
I also think that you went off on the deep end by saying that if you are a concealed weapons holder you should volunteer that information when they approach you. If you are a concealed weapons holder than they already know that the moment they ran your license plate… so there is no need to volunteer such information. Of course, the whole concealed weapons permit is false on its face since the state has no lawful reason to prevent the people from carrying concealed weapons… those type of legislation often exceed the duties and powers the people granted the state in the state constitution.
Knowles V Iowa State has already clearly issued a ruling that an officer has no authority to search your person or vehicle in the instances of issuing a citation. Doing so dissolves their (and the state’s) right to sovereign immunity and makes them liable in civil court under US code 42 1983 “Colour of Law”. So as long as you have nothing illegal in plain sight than they have no business knowing what you have on your person or vehicle in the advent of a traffic citation.
He Chad,
See my post to Don.
I sympathize – and agree, in principle.
But there are other factors to consider, which I wrote about in my reply to Don.
“I never provide any more information than absolutely necessary ”
I’m with you. I treat every one of the preliminary questions such as ‘Do you know how fast you were going?,’ etc. as rhetorical questions, no answer, just a polite smile. After handing over license and registration, anything else a cop wants to know he can find out without my help.
I never consent to a search and never volunteer any information. The best advice I ever got came from a friend who is a criminal attorney. She said that the answer to any question past identifying oneself should be, “What can I tell you?”. That answer should be alternated with the reply,”I want to call my lawyer”.
Let them use those two answers against you if they can.
BTW there’s also the option of simply not putting up with any crap. I know this sounds radical but if you’re old enough and have already lived your life and are just looking for a good exit, this might be it. With luck you can take the bastard with you. One of the few advantages of getting old…
Eric, it’s plain to see you don’t live in Wyoming. Your advice is excessively subservient for that state. I carry openly all the time; cops don’t care. They don’t need to hold your gun either.
Eric, how do you defuse a situation where you have no permit and the gun is sitting there. I kept expecting to read something more about that. It seems to me that if you jump the gun on it, pun intended and tell him before he sees it that it is next to you that he may feel like you are threatening him. “Officer, I have a gun”. Thanks, Hank.
One of the guys I was locked up with was in for having a loaded pistol on his front seat. He was from Alaska and had no idea that in Mi. it’s illegal. The State boys pulled him over and when they saw the gun they pulled him out of the car and broke his nose when they dropped him on the pavement. He also had a QP in the trunk. He got 364 days. They took his weed and his gun and probably would have taken his truck but it wasn’t in his name. He is back in Alaska now. I keep in touch as he really was a good guy. He sent me a cooler full of king crap claws and some halibut a few months back.
Great guy, minding his own business, married, two kids and no record before this. Then bang broken nose and a year in county.
It could have been worse. He could have been in Canada. An old gummer I know was across the bridge gambling, he had been mugged the last time he went so this time he took a pistol with him. There was a high speed car chase on the freeway. The cop hit his car, he went to the hospital and then got five years for bringing an illegal firearm into the country. Yep, totaled his car, put him in the hospital, took his gun and locked him up.
He could have been in Canada. An old gummer I know was across the bridge gambling, he had been mugged the last time he went so this time he took a pistol with him. There was a high speed car chase on the freeway. The cop hit his car, he went to the hospital and then got five years for bringing an illegal firearm into the country. Yep, totaled his car, put him in the hospital, took his gun and locked him up.
A good case example for people who insist, for God only knows what hallucinatory reason, that Canada is a viable bug-out option (and yes, I’ve actually met such people).
I have a bug out spot in Canada. But it’s only for use if nukes are used and governments are gone.
I have a bug out spot in Wyoming, but it’s only for use as a rental.
off-topic, but:
If you have not done so, read Gore Vidal’s “obituary” for Buckley, great.
He definitely does not follow the mantra: don’t speak ill of the dead.
Very refreshing…
How can you let him get the gun out of the glovebox without thereby consenting to a search of your vehicle?
I was wondering this exact thing.
That is a good question. One of my buddies, Mojo Montana (his DJ name) did that and then they searched the car and found his weed. Although I don’t really know all the details. I think his girlfriend might have been the one to give permission, she was the “sober” driver. He was lucky because he had his permit so they only busted him for the pot.
The reason they get heavy handed is people like the guy who wrote this article. WIMP AMERICAN SLAVE! Our Constitution is dead because people rolled over to government authority and now fear them!
It’s not because of people who choose to use words and figure out how to survive in the conditions as they exist. It is because the great mass of people put “authority” into power in the first place.
出る杭は打たれる。 (“The stake that sticks up gets hammered down.”)
While it is about conformity, it plays a role here as well. A single person cannot stand up violently to the state and expect to live. The individual must use other means to survive.
The last time I defended myself from the thugscum I spent 4 and a half months in county waiting for trial. I won, but I was looking at life in prison and it cost me an arm and a leg plus my business. The ironic part was that it was the cops video that saved my ass. They did everything they could to not let that video into evidence.
This is the reason more people don’t stand up. If I had it to do over again I would have let them beat the hell out of me and then sued them. As it stands none of them even got suspended. The persecuter/prosecutor did eventually lose his job and the assistant prosecutor left during the trial (out of disgust according to the papers).
Let me tell you something, fighting back is not for everyone and it’s not always in your best interest. I am still somewhat of a pariah in my small town and my semi-retirement would be full retirement if not for this.
The People every jurisdiction in America ought to take control of and use their grand jury. A so called runaway grand jury is the only lawful grand jury.
The Colonists in 1776 actually had less cause for revolution than Americans have today.
tgsam
TGS–I love the idea, but one of my best friends–a true libertarian, an honest man, and a criminal defense lawyer–can’t find hide nor hair of citizen-seated Grand Juries here in Texas.
It seems to be an elusive animal.
Can you point us to examples of its use?
I know it’s common law. But common law has become uncommon in the USSA.
Linda Goldthorpe is one of my friends and a true libertarian as well. She is also a defense attorney and has done great work. She tried to convene a grand jury and although it didn’t happen they did stop a gun law ban.
“I wholeheartedly endorse Linda Goldthorpe in the race for the Republican Nomination in Michigan’s First Congressional District. Linda is a unique candidate who understands the need to limit government, restore the economy, and reduce federal spending. Linda recognizes that truly limited government secures our nation, protects our liberties and leaves us with the financial resources necessary for prosperity. I believe we need Linda Goldthorpe in Congress to help move forward with the fight for freedom.”
— Ron Paul
Even though I don’t vote, I did work on her campaign. The sad fact was that we were simply outspent. She was running for Bart Stupak’s seat.
Dear Tinsley,
You are right about “ought to.”
The problem is they don’t. Worse, they don’t want to. They don’t agree with you. They don’t agree with me.
They more or less like the thing way things are now. Oh, they may gripe about this or that. But the mainstream Democrat and Republican voters think that basically everything is fine and dandy.
That’s why the “ought to” won’t happen any time soon.
That’s why I concentrate on undermining the ideology of statism at its conceptual foundations. It’s a long term project. We may not live to see the Promised Land.
Dear Brad,
Wow. Grim scene. Really glad you survived and are still here to tell the tale.
That really is the reason more people do not resist even though they know they’re in the right. It’s not that people are necessarily afraid of the cops per se. It’s that they’re afraid of the entire “justice system.” It’s rigged against the innocent person who calls the system on its bullshit. It’s straight out of Kafka’s “The Trial.”
It would be different if when an outrage like this happened people gathered outside the courthouse.
But if anything, the sheeple assume the innocent person “must have done something wrong or he wouldn’t be where he is.”
Given that kind of rigged system, that kind of stacked deck, going up against it is like charging a machine gun nest across an open field.
Exactly.
Hence the advice I gave in the column.
Given the way things are (irrespective of the law) it is wise to avoid “giving them a reason.”
I absolutely concur with those who argue, as a matter of principle, that we have every right to be armed without a permission slip – and that our being armed should not be the pretext for a violent, unprovoked reaction by a (supposed) peace keeper.
Unfortunately, it is.
Hence, my advice.
Similarly, I will pretend to obey the seatbelt fuhrer when he demands I “buckle up.” Then I’ll promptly un-buckle up as soon as I am out of his sight!
Dear Eric,
This is the reason financial expert Peter Schiff, son of tax protestor Irwin Schiff, is not using the same legal tactics against the IRS.
Irwin Schiff is serving a 13 year sentence for “tax crimes.”
He is innocent of course. The real “tax crimes” are the crimes Big Brother commits when it robs people at gunpoint.
But that doesn’t change the fact that given the abusive power Big Brother has, it is premature to go to the mattresses at this point in time.
Again, I refer everyone to Chinese military strategist Sunzi and leader of the American Revolution John Adams, both of whom advised that one must always wait until the time is right.
Dear Bevin –
I’m constantly challenged by the “de-anglicization” of Chinese words.
I know Sunzi as Sun Tzu, the world famous strategist and author of “The Art of War”, which inspired Musashi’s “The Book of Five Rings”. I know Beiging as Peking. The complexity of philosophy pales in comparison with the complexities of language. It becomes difficult to know who the players are 🙂
Dear Scott,
Fret not. It’s a one time deal.
I too grew up with the old Wade-Giles system of transliteration/Romanization of Chinese words. Wade and Giles were two 19th century British diplomats Thomas Wade and Herbert Giles who invented the system.
My own surname “Chu” is an example of a Wade-Giles transliteration.
The new system is better. It’s known as Hanyu Pinyin or “Han Language Phoneticization.” It was invented by Russians linguists at the behest of the Chinese Communists. I consider it probably the only good thing the CCP ever did.
My surname would be “Zhu” under Hanyu Pinyin, and much closer to the way it actually sounds in Mandarin Chinese.
Wade-Giles has a serious problem. It uses Roman letters according to its own rules. You are expected to understand these rules.
The problem is, most people don’t. They don’t understand that “kung fu” (martial arts) is supposed to pronounced “gong fu.” So they pronounce “kung” as if it rhymed with “hung” or “rung.”
Hanyu Pinyin also does this to some degree, but much less. Martial arts in Hanyu Pinyin is rendered as “gong fu,” which looks much closer to the way it actually sounds in Mandarin Chinese.
Recently even street names on Taiwan have gone the Hanyu Pinyin route.
Dear Bevin,
Thank you for explaining that, it’s been a mystery to me for several years. I don’t speak Mandarin though it’s on my list. I do understand sukoshi Nihongo ga, nur ein bisschien Deutsch, poco Castellano and a little Czech but I’m really now just working on Spanish.
Dear Scott,
If you
“understand sukoshi Nihongo ga, nur ein bisschien Deutsch, poco Castellano and a little Czech”
then you’re way ahead of me! My hat is off to you.
The discussion of transliteration from Mandarin to English is fascinating. My daughter was already quite conversant in Mandarin and just finished a year in China, so I assume she is reasonably fluent now.
From what you explained, Bevin, I think I now understand why the “Peking” of my childhood is now “Beijing”. The sounds of any language only approximate the sounds of another, hence the concept of foreign accents. It seems that Asian languages tend to be very difficult to pronounce for us non-Asians.
Dear Mike,
You put your finger on two problems. One is the discrepancies between the actual sounds. The other is a misleading transliteration system that worsens the problem.
Together they lead to more than enough confusion to go around!
Dear Bevin,
(dreamed (I have) LISP)
I’m a polyglot. It’s sort of a life goal thing.
Dear Scott,
Some individuals are unusually gifted. They can pick up foreign languages in mind-bogglingly short order. Even as adults.
I’m not one of them. I have two “first languages” only because I learned both while growing up.
@Scott–
OMG, casting Lisp* code on a forum has to be some variation of Godwin’s Rule!
Kudos to you, polyglot. I’m almost pure C# nowadays but love to play with the languages of my youth…including Lisp.
What’s true in the computer language world is much more true in human languages; there are concepts in other languages that are almost inexpressible in English, and vice versa.
Language is the very essence of thought–which is why tyrants work so hard to debase language, an idea Orwell nailed perfectly. Destroying language destroys the ability to describe the very nature of reality–and perpetuates the tyrant’s illusions.
I miss my native Afrikaans. It’s a wonderfully pithy language and words like leker and jislyk have parallels in English–but they’re pale substitutes.
* For non-geeks–Lisp is an old computer language that still holds tremendous influence. Stands for “list processing” language, and it was the “it” language for AI back when we thought we’d have it in ten years. In the 1970’s. And we’re still nowhere close. 🙂
Methyl, as the length of a conversation approaches infinity, so does the probability of someone mentioning LISP.
Dear, Bevin. I can tell you that I was scared shitless. (worse than combat) They offered me a plea bargain and I damn near took it too. If not for my wife standing firmly by my side I probably would have. The jury was deadlocked at one point and ask to see the video again and then acquitted me all all counts. Four hours of pure hell waiting for them to decide. then tears of joy all around. Followed by walking back in and clearing out my cell and saying goodbye to other prisoners and some of the guards who were actually rooting for me. Walking back in the front door of my house and hugging my kids was the sweetest moment of my life.
I honestly believe that the jury system is the last vestige of power the people have. I know for a fact the judge would have sent me away. I absolutely despise plea bargains, yet I almost took one. The thought of not being able to raise my children was terrifying.
Dear Brad,
What a harrowing experience that must have been.
You said it was worse than combat. I have no trouble believing that. In combat, you at least have the collective backing you in case everything goes south.
In a situation like this, the system which ought to have your back, is instead stabbing you in the back. In a situation like this, the classic scenario depicted in Franz Kafka’s nightmarish novel “The Trial” plays out.
Thank god for the common law based jury system as the last line of defense against getting railroaded.
Even if one is vindicated, the unjust financial toll on an innocent victim of this meat grinder “justice system” is bad enough.
The clovers prattle on about “compassion.” Where is their compassion for victims of this sort of all too common travesties of justice?
Here I think an important distinction must be made. It is unfair to blame the minority of libertarians who are forced to compromise when they are caught in mouth of this meat-grinder. It is inaccurate to say that they co-created this monstrosity.
This monstrosity was co-created by the vast majority who are NOT libertarians, who support the two wings of the Demopublican One Party System, who are actually naive enough to believe in empty promises of “change we can believe in.”
Libertarians would have co-created a just system. The reason they have not been able to do so, is that their numbers are too few. So do not blame them when they are forced to make “Sophie’s Choice” type decisions.
@ Brad: “I honestly believe that the jury system is the last vestige of power the people have.” This is unfortunately true. Even more unfortunate is that the system is set up to pack as many clovers on the jury as possible. You were very, very lucky, my friend. And I’m very, very glad you were.
Dear Bevin,
I would disagree:
“The reason they have not been able to do so, is that their numbers are too few”
On the contrary, the reason we have not been able to is that we are not organized. And the tragedy is we will *never be* organized, because organization, in and of itself, is an anathema to libertarian thought.
We don’t join groups.
Dear Scott,
“On the contrary, the reason we have not been able to is that we are not organized. And the tragedy is we will *never be* organized, because organization, in and of itself, is an anathema to libertarian thought.”
Fortunately that is not the way things actually lay out in reality. If it were, we who love liberty would be fucked, for good.
Fortunately there are actually two kinds of “organization” that are too often conflated, but should never be.
The first is political organization. The second is the spontaneous order of the market place, which looks chaotic, but is actually a more complex, less obvious form of order.
The first appears more potent than the latter. But as Hayek knew, and Laozi and Zhuangzi before him knew, the leaderless organization of the market place is actually vastly more powerful than the top down pyramidal organization of any political entity.
This is why the market anarchist Icelandic Republic lasted for three centuries, while the “highly organized” Thousand Year Reich lasted only twelve years.
This is why futurists are talking about the world being “flat.”
Right on, Bevin!
Coercion (or its absence) being the key. Think of a group of people getting together to raise a barn (or similar). If you’ve ever been involved in such an effort, you’ll probably agree with me that it’s great fun – even if it is hard work. The exertion is never an issue when there’s no coercion involved.
Dear Eric,
Right!
I often complain to others on Taiwan about the chaotic infrastructure.
For example, I complain about the lack of respect motorists show pedestrians on Taiwan, when they refuse to yield the right of way.
Many clovers will probably assume I am one of them. That I am a “MADD” type who wants the cops to get tough and crack down on “lawless” motorists.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
The lack of order represents the failure of “law and order.” Why would I want more of a failed “solution?”
Conventional government is the culprit. It makes a more orderly and safer traffic infrastructure impossible, because it prevents creative solutions from spontaneously emerging through market processes.
All these problems, such as clovers hogging the passing lane, could be solved in short order with privatized road systems.
The problem, as always, is other clovers. They insist that “somebody’s got to do something.”
Of course the first thing clovers do is to pass laws preventing anyone else from doing something to actually solve the problem.
Dear Bevin & Eric –
OK, I suppose you have me. I’ll roll over and expose the belly 🙂
I’m a great believer in spontaneous order, what the great Chemist Ilya Prigogine called “Order out of Chaos”. I have been a student of John J. Hopfield’s work on self-organizing systems.
You caught me out. Two points.
That was a mixed metaphor wasn’t it? Caught out, two points? Oh, the shame.
Dear Scott,
I really don’t think of it that way.
We are dealing with a phenomenon that is true and proven in other contexts. But historically it has been given little opportunity to manifest in a political context.
Medieval Iceland was one of the vanishingly rare instances in which market anarchism was actually implemented.
As a result, it is easy even for us converts to have our confidence shaken from time to time.
You know all this. I was not telling you anything you didn’t already know. You merely had a case of pre-game jitters.
I was merely giving a fellow team member the “Win one for the Old Gipper” pep talk.
The “police” is the standing army the generation of 1776 warned us against.
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
Eric, check this one out:
Jefferson Parish officials’ outrage over traffic camera deal is convenient: James Gill
Published: Wednesday, July 25, 2012, 8:13 AM
http://www.nola.com/opinions/index.ssf/2012/07/jefferson_parish_officials_out.html
I have an audio/video setup visible on my dashboard. As soon as a cop approaches, I point to it and say everything’s being transmitted live, via wireless. You’d be amazed at how polite and careful authority figures become when they know they’re being watched.
That’s a top drawer idea, TS – I plan to adopt it myself and will recommend others do the same!
I think everyone should have a camera in their car, period.
I’ve had my camera since not too long after I was pulled over by crazed cop who was upset because I shrugged when he forced me to stop via his left turn in front of me when I had the green signal.
I should upgrade the system, but in the two times I’ve been pulled over with it, the cops did not notice it. Now the second one was unusually polite and didn’t take my license or bond card for the ticket. A first for me. Maybe he saw the camera, but I think he saw the FOID card in my wallet now that I’ve read Eric’s article above.
Dear Brent,
You were heading straight on through an intersection. The cop was coming toward you, but made an illegal, and more importantly, improper left turn in front of you, and forced you to brake even though you had the right of way?
He then got pissed at you because you indicated your dissatisfaction with a shrug?
Wonderful.
The clovers claim to be such sticklers for the rule of law. They make a special point of demanding that libertarians “obey the law.” But how come we never hear the clovers demand that those who enforce the law, obey the law?
Ironic. Because if the rule of law had been strictly enforced before, and applied to all, many of us would have remained “limited government” advocates. We would never have felt compelled to become market anarchists in the first place.
I am going southbound and stop at red signal. The cross street signal goes red and the left turn arrows come on. Then my signal goes green and a straggler goes through in front of me. I start moving and a cop pulls right in front of me turning westbound from northbound. I stop and shrug at the cop who has a cell phone to his ear.
He goes by and I get moving again… next thing I see is the cop coming after me at 70mph in a 40mph zone. He lights me up and I pull over. He demands I go into the sub division so I do. He then starts screaming at me about how I can’t see his signal, how I have to yield to him, yadda yadda yadda. screaming. This guy was in full rage mode. He takes my license and comes back with a warning for ‘failure to yield’ Huh? I had the green signal and I yielded. Anyway he’s a bit calmer and what I am saying starts to seep through. I am then allowed to go on my way.
The result of this experience was to use a camera.
And there’s something for the NSA database. (listening to coasttocoastam atm on this.
Brent,
Could you give me some pointers/recommendations on cameras? I’m interested in small, inexpensive, concealable and easy to take from vehicle to vehicle….
BrentP has the DL on cheap cameras. I’m using the Contour Roam which I got (with a 14 gig card) for a bit under $200.
Thanks, mang – I’m looking into it now….
I found in car camera systems to be expensive and not portable.
So what I did was buy a cheap RCA little wonder camera and make my own bracket that slips under the passenger side headrest. The camera sits there. Cops do not notice it. least so far. but it is right out in the open and rather obvious to observant people.
I put this rig together in 2007. There’s a pic of it on the epautos forums in the clovercam thread. It’s real simple. Bent up pipe hanger dipped in tool dip.
I think am going to start looking for something smaller with a wider angle lens.
Although you may know this: one caution about wide angle lenses. If it too wide, the lens will distort your image. Everything will still be visible, but the center will appear further away and the edges will appear closer together. The edges also can make straight lines appear curved.
I know. I want to get a better view but not to the point of distortion.
A good idea, although I’d be very, VERY careful. Most of today’s thugscum HATE being photographed, filmed, or otherwise held accountable for their actions and are likely to turn violent upon being informed that they’re “on Candid Camera.” Others don’t give a damn that they’re being filmed; after all, the web is teeming with videos and photos of pig brutality, yet swine all over the nation still continue to engage in unchecked violence against citizens without any consequence whatsoever.
Just as an aside, it’s interesting to note the difference in traditions around the carrying of firearms. The USA has always been stricter about concealed carry than open carry. The opposite has traditionally applied in South Africa: if one carries a weapon one is expected to keep it concealed.
I find the cultural subtexts interesting. The traditional emphasis on personal liberty in American culture is consistent with the idea that one ought to be quite clear about one’s potential for violent reaction, and that it is improper to misrepresent oneself as less heavily armed than one is. In the authoritarian environment of Apartheid-era South Africa it was, by contrast, considered provocative to carry a weapon where everyone could see it. Citizens were required to be seen to be vulnerable before the State, lest others get ideas. Even today open carry is not tolerated as readily as concealed carry, socially if not officially.
That is a very interesting point. I also find it interesting to see the reaction that people have to those who openly carry a firearm. I found it particularly interesting to note the reaction of liberals to people who had holstered pistols at protests or rallies. They honestly believed that simply having a weapon in view meant that you were advocating violence. In most states it’s legal to carry a pistol in a holster yet it’s rarely done. Why? because of the known reaction you will get from clovers. They will call the cops on you and you will be questioned.
Here in Arizona, one sees ordinary citizens openly carrying all the time (the only reason I don’t do it regularly is because I have yet to find the ideal, comfortable holster for my vintage 9mm pistol). What’s really funny is to hear Clover transplants from the liberal Northeast, Midwest, and Kalifornia, most of whom have been here for years or even decades, whining hysterically about the local population’s exercise of open carry. It’s equally hilarious when I pose to them the following questions:
In all of the years that you’ve lived here, how many incidents of violent crime have you witnessed, experienced, or heard about in your own neighborhood?
To the few honest ones who answer “none,” I then ask:
Would you have been able to give the same answer my previous question if you still lived in [insert name of liberal Northeastern or Midwestern State here] where the local regime makes gun ownership by individual citizens difficult or impossible?
At this point the Clovers usually either walk away or change the subject.
I grew up in Communist Kalifornia and spent my summers in Mi. In East Salinas, the only people who had guns were gang bangers and cops. I listened to gun fire all night long. They used to keep a running tally at my school that showed how many kids had been shot that year. In Michigan I lived in the country (like I do now) and just about everyone has guns and yet almost nobody is shooting each other. One of my friends (school custodian) did shoot someone close to two years ago. The nut job was banging on their door then broke out a window then finally kicked in his door. His wife and kids were hiding in the basement when he shot the guy. The dude went to the hospital and then jail. Turns out he was off his meds. The only other shooting that I know of was a murder suicide that took place around 30 years ago.
In 1966 I was a seaman aboard the Twin Falls Victory*. While strolling through downtown Capetown one evening I was attracted to sounds that made me think that some unfortunate animal was being butchered. Rounding a corner I came upon a crowd of mostly Blacks and Coloreds and two White Policemen calmly watching one Black man apparently beating and kicking another Black man to death. When I asked the White cops why they did not stop the bloody mess, one of them told me that they do not interfere in Black and Tribal affairs unless a White is involved. Apparently the two Blacks were members of different tribes. Sickened by the savage scene I turned and left, thankful that I did not live in such a place.
tgsam
*A satellite tracking Victory ship with a civilian crew.
And now, you do! Me, too….
This has nothing to do with anything we are talking about. Except it’s a libertarian show for red necks. 15 seasons long, that makes fun of everything. The Red Green show, a true classic.
You can watch just about any series for free from start to finish. For the “Red Green” shows hit Youtube.
http://watchseries.eu/
Brad Smith,
That was a riot. I remember seeing one or two bits of that series over the years.
Now I know the name. Thanks. 🙂
You’re welcome, mithrandir. I used to watch it fairly often. No cable, it came in on an antenna out of Canada.
One of many fine things from Canada.
Open Letter to Peace Officers
Re: St. Bernard Parish Town Hall (Admin)
Date: Thu, 06 Sep 2001 11:01:10 GMT
From: Tinsley Grey Sammons
An Open Letter to America’s Peace Officers
by
Tinsley Grey Sammons
[email protected]
The more corrupt the State, the more numerous the laws
— Cornelius Tacitus (c. 55-117 A.D.)
The more numerous the laws, the more corrupt the state.
— Tinsley Grey Sammons (1936-)
Few acknowledge that the Declaration of Independence is America’s philosophical bedrock upon which our Constitution stands – having never read it, how could they? Even those who have read it have not concluded that laws repugnant thereto have no lawful authority. The worst of these laws were created by fraudulent employment of our Constitution’s commerce clause. If it can be rightly said that the Constitution has an Achilles’ heel, it is surely the commerce clause. In spite of the philosophical clarity of the Declaration upon which our Constitution relies for its lawfulness, subsequent “interpretations” by politicians called judges support and perpetuate the “legal” fraud that is now being imposed on the American People for the financial benefit of opportunists and parasites on both sides of the law.
Since fraud and its consequences are intrinsically criminal and ought to be legally criminal as well, it is unfortunate that peace officers are called upon to participate in legislated and judicially approved crimes. Compelled by legal fraud, peace officers must face the outraged, and sometimes enraged, victims of unjust laws — laws that are created and underwritten by career politicians, legislating lawyers, and politicians called judges. These “servants of the People” systematically violate their oath to defend the Constitution.
More than anyone, peace officers should despise the legislating looters and judicial deceivers who create and underwrite unlawful powers. It is the peace officers who must do the dirty work of enforcing the laws that politicians create and “interpret.” It is peace officers who must be the highly visible “bad guy” in this evil drama. It is peace officers who must put their lives on the line, while those responsible for the many unjust laws safely reap financial benefits far in excess of a cop’s modest pay. It is cops, and not politicians themselves who must face their fellow Citizens with the consequences of political and judicial dishonesty. Where are the self-styled elites, while the lowly cop patrols real life’s frequently ugly arena?
Officer, you too are a Citizen of our Republic. As such, you should carefully consider the incremental growth of the increasingly evil Judicial Empire that you now serve at the expense of ordinary working folks – mostly good folks who once trusted you to protect their unalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Your modest income is much less than that of the legislators, judges and other lawyers who are the major benefactors of the unjust laws now routinely imposed on your fellow Citizens. Today, unjust laws support an enormous Judicial Extortion Racket, but it is YOU who must make and retrieve the “kills” for the law-privileged parasites to devour. They prosper by sacrificing your honor and respect.
[email protected]
Arabi, Louisiana
Beautifully written, TGS. Of course I’m sure you know that there probably are no “peace officers” in St. Bernard Parish, no probably has there been for decades, if ever. As for the “law enforcement officers” that have taken their place, I’m sure you’re also aware that none are even remotely literate or educated enough to even begin to comprehend the wisdom and truth of your letter.
Yes, I do know. For some reason, people tell me things that they do not tell others.
Many of my customers were lawyers and Public Sector people.
When the loathsome thieving swine of a Sheriff retired after about thirty years one of his Gestapo Captains took his place. The Gestapo Captain enjoyed using nonexistent Confidential Informers and roughing up people for possession.
For one of the greatest legal crimes of the century Google: The Meraux Fortune
And it looks like the sons of bitches are going to get away with it.
Unfortunately, I live in the only state that has no legal concealed carry law. Only criminals may have a gun when they need it.
Arizona, Alaska, and Montana welcome you with open arms (literally). Somehow we remnants have to converge somewhere if we have a chance of actually living free somewhere in this God forsaken world of losers.
I’m constantly asking myself what will be my reaction when they come for all guns. I say “when” as I think its nearly certain that it will happen. Should I die fighting my last breath standing on two feet, or should I resign temporarily to the disarming to arm in a much more reliable method. Its very clear that guns aren’t as effective as they once were (especially close combat and a pussy world of lawyers), though they are still a hell of a detterent and make a freedom statement like no other. I can think of a hell of a lot of ways to extract retribution of the criminal class without guns. Starting with a can of wasp spray. It also makes one hell of a dog repellent if you are on a motorcycle or bicycle. You spray a little of that stuff in the air and miss them by 20 feet and the biggest pit bull will smell death and go packing and running. Then there is let me see poison darts, tasers, pepper spray (not too inventive), a good club which you can carry anywhere without suspicion like a oversized wrench or hammer. Finally every man should carry a switchblade and possible ankle sheath with knife for those just in case things close combats like dog/hoodlum attacks. Billions of other options that I’m not going to even discuss because someone would call me a loco terrorist, but the point is that human kind is more inventive than ever at disbursing pain if need it be to the deserving. This is why gun control advocates totally miss the point, they can disarm me but it won’t work long haul. As I will either fight to death or adapt. I think which of the fight or fight sydrome will have to do whether we had our coffee that morning or not. Anyway I hope you leave Illinois.
Best Regards
I will say that the one problem I see with Arizona, has nothing to do with the people of Arizona. I was amazed how Arizona is a freedom state. DMV gives drivers licenses for 30+ years. The residents and police are generally pro-freedom. Want to ride your motorcycle without a helmet in Arizona? No problem. And then there is the Federal Government. You’ll see more Fed border patrol cars than highway state patrol, sheriff or local police. Do they work on the border? Heck no they harass American’s 250 miles north of the border. Red and blue lights to show they are FEDS they sit there everywhere acting like state cops at highway junctions, glaring at all passing by motorist. Creating random road blocks on busy highways, pretending they are fighting Charlie in Vietnam. Stopping motorist with their fist clenched as if I’m some kind of terrorist and they are at an Iraqi border patrol. Crotch sniffing dogs and again that same look of dare you in their spiffy halloween costume. So I guess this is the new trend as the Feds assume local law enforcement to shunt off the state nullification laws and those officers actually interested in serving and protecting their residents. No perfect utopia there is alway some losers…
I’ve been an Arizona resident for six years, and while it’s definitely more free in some respects than most other states (respect for the 2nd Amendment being key among these), it is NOT a freedom lover’s paradise by ANY stretch of the imagination. Government at all levels here is just as oppressive and confiscatory as it is anywhere else in the nation – in fact, a disproportionate percentage of what this state calls an economy (it’s really pathetic by any measure) consists of make-work “jobs” created by Washington, D.C. in such forms as the US Customs and Border Patrol/DHS and the Prison-Industrial Complex (the town of Florence, northeast of Phoenix, is ONE BIG PRISON, home to both state AND federal detention centers). That’s probably largely due to 1) the fact that the State of Arizona has put in place a maddeningly bureaucratic obstacle course in the form of regulations and taxes that makes launching a new business highly unappealing and non-cost effective (here Arizona’s state government takes its cue from states like California, New York, and Illinois; in fact, part of Arizona’s problem is that refuse from neighboring California, having made their own state uninhabitable, are streaming over the state line and settling here, their goal being to make this state just as uninhabitable), and 2) the majority of the residents of this state are either retirees or are people so poorly educated and so thoroughly corrupted by substance abuse as to make gainful employment in the private sector a non-starter. This is why I laugh at our walking-blonde-joke of a governor, Jan Brewer, when she postures about standing up to Washington. That’s pretty goddamned hard to take seriously when your state is dependent on Washington’s handouts for its survival.
Arizonans have sold their souls to the devil, in more ways than one. When TSHTF, while this state might suffer the impact less severely in the immediate term than other areas of the country, I have no doubt that in the end the majority here will be BEGGING for Rome-on-the-Potomac to step in and save them from themselves. Like the sheeple majority infesting the rest of the nation, they have neither the resources nor the collective will to live as free people.
Rod, yep. Effective weapons are as limitless as the imagination. This is a government that can’t stop people from having weapons in their maximum security prisons. Weapons can be made from just about anything. Which is why the TSA is such a joke. Box cutter level weapon? A low IQ prison inmate can easily achieve that with what he can get once past the checkpoint at any major US airport. The security is a joke.
liberranter, Arizona I think is poor choice for one factor. It’s an unsustainable place to live. Desert living is for very low population density. The environment can’t support more than that.
BrentP said:
liberranter, Arizona I think is poor choice for one factor. It’s an unsustainable place to live. Desert living is for very low population density. The environment can’t support more than that.
Yep, that’s true too; indeed, that probably is the biggest reason not to consider this place as a long-term option if you’re not already here. I’ve had people counsel me on the wisdom of my decision to remain here based on the one thing that is this state’s Achilles Heel: water. Once the dollar collapses and subsidies end, the diversion of water from the Colorado River and other limited sources that supply the entire state with its potable and irrigation water will end too. That’s when life here is gonna get VERY interesting, to put it charitably.
Yeah I’m not in contention with any of things you guys brought up against Arizona. Brain dead druggies, hot, lack of water, over Fed institutions. Oh yeah, the surplus of California wash outs. If I were to advocate Arizona though it would be a great place to be in the winter, as for example Illinois or Montana suck for being too cold and just like water cold sucks too if you can’t cut a forest to keep warm. So I’d say that a better position is to stay capable of leaving any place. Nuclear Fukushima in Arizona, don’t be stuck on an island like those on Japan you need good wheels and a supply of fuel and a alternate place to go. I’ve concluded that the real problem is that people think too permanent. This might have some place like if you are a farmer, but if you are living in a city the best thing is to not settle in or get to comfy and be a traveler that knows and likes several places far away from one another. This way you can call alternate places home in disaster. A couple barrels of diesel fuel might be a really good investment or better yet an alternative fuel source to get from Arizona to Montana. Sadly freedom is an ideal in this world that doesn’t exist, but some places are relatively better for individuals than others. Bearing arms is a pretty large contention for me and thus helps me narrow down states that I can call home.
Has weapons prohibition ever prevented a revolution?
Has having two sides heavily armed ever stop a war?
No – but it has prevented the war from starting (the obvious example being the Cold War between the Soviet Union and the West).
And it has prevented an aggressive – evil – system from coming to dominate another (see: WW II).
In the case of the Cold War with the Soviet Union it is very likely.
When I was an Automatic Tracking Radar Specialist serving with the Strategic Air Command in 1958-59 the thing I feared most was that an accident – even a cosmic phenomenon – might trigger all out war.
In view of the potential consequences, I never thought for a moment that either side would launch an attack other than in response to an attack. The Cuban Missile Crisis proved my supposition accurate. When President Kennedy made his statement, Khruschev backed down and the missiles were removed from Cuba.
Really, the first half of the 20th century doesn’t support that notion.
Then again, what of WW2 where evil U.S.A. started a war with innocent Japan, won and forced a treaty on them?
FWIW: President Yeltsin had his finger on The Button for a while when a Euro test rocket started to deviate toward Russia . . .
Your original argument was thoroughly shot to pieces; now, rather than admit it and drive on, you come up with this weak business:
“Really, the first half of the 20th century doesn’t support that notion.”
I’m not even going to bother. The point’s already been made.
There also idiots who believe murder and battery should be crimes yet criminals use violence in spite of that. So why ban violence when it only means only the outlaws get to use violence?
Gil,
‘Murder’ and ‘battery’ are acts with an actual victim.
Possessing a weapon does not have an actual victim.
What a person does with a gun could be a crime.
Would you ban water? People die from it every year.
Dear mithrandir,
Again, very well put.
Few things expose the clover’s pathological obsession with controlling other peoples’ behavior than “gun control,” the clovers’ Orwellian term for victim disarmament.
Their pathological compulsion to exercise prior restraint, i.e,, preemptive force, knows no limits.
For example, the Chinese martial arts weapon that Bruce Lee used was known as a 兩節棍, pronounced “liang jie gun” in Mandarin Chinese and “nunchaku” in Ryukyuan. It means “two-sectioned staff.”
The clovers have even made this illegal in many “jurisdictions.”
But a “nunchaku” is nothing more than two wooden sticks connected with a short piece of rope or chain!
It is legal to have two wooden sticks. It is legal to have a short piece of rope or chain. But it is illegal to connect the two wooden sticks with a short piece of rope or chain.
Isn’t it obvious that this is not the rule of law, and even less about justice.
It’s about control. It’s all about controlling other peoples’ behavior. It’s all about bending other people to the clover’s will.
This is why one must never do what the NRA did, “compromise” on victim disarmament legislation.
In other words, why have laws at all when some will break them anyway? Let people shoot it out just as in the movies. When there’s no law stopping someone shooting you dead you’ll make sure you’re well-trained in the art of personal protection instead of waiting for the police.
More Cloverite hysterics and demagoguery – childish arguments from a childish mentality.
“People just shoot it out” – implies both parties are acting morally – or immorally. In fact, the situation is almost invariably one party is acting immorally – using aggressive violence – while the other is merely defending against the initiator of the aggressive violence.
What you and your fellow gun-grabbers hate is the idea that a person – an ordinary person – be able to defend himself with a gun. You want ordinary people to defer to state-anointed “law enforcers.” In other words, you want ordinary people to be passive and helpless in the face of violent (and often, armed) assault. Because state-sanctioned law-enforcers cannot be there, every time – or even most of the time. You’d rather people submit and obey – and be raped, robbed and killed – than leave them free to defend themselves. That’s the ultimate distillation of your position.
Well, screw you. I have the right as a human being to defend my life and my property. So does every other human being. You have no right to take away that right – on the basis of “prior restraint.”
On laws:
Legitimate laws – that is, laws proscribing murder, theft, assault, etc. – merely codify the moral (natural) law that people intuitively understand, provided they are not sociopaths. They are monuments to civilization – society’s affirmation that it is wrong to harm people who have not harmed you first.
Do they prevent murders and so on from happening? Of course not.
But they make it clear – objectively – what “shall not be done” – and provide an objective basis for meting out appropriate punishment.
More hysterics from your side. If Libertarians are opposed to hurting the right of criminals to access firearms then they have to oppose all punishments for criminals. If a criminal is sent to prison then before long everyone will deemed a criminal and be sent to prison and everyone will be a trapped slave working for the State. And so forth. Hence you may as well have no laws and let people shoot at anyone who they feel threatens them.
Hysterics, Clover?
Who’s the one shrieking – like a ranting woman – about the supposed advocacy of “criminals to possess firearms”? Not me. Not anyone else here.
Just you.
You invent a straw man – and I’ll knock it down.
Vermont is the original open/ccw with no permit required. It’s been years since I lived there. May be contaminated by NY now.
Eric I think you’re logic is sound, but I personally would rather live in a state that allows concealed weapon without a permit. Arizona and Alaska soon to be followed by Montana would be good candidates. I think the one thing that concerns me about concealed weapons laws is the same thing that makes me decline owning military weapons. The licensing thing will lead the police to be first responders to those who legally register if they are ever confiscated. Given Obama UN treaty I’m not sure anyone should convey openly that they even own one gun, as then the cat is out of the bag. Its true though there is no difference if you get pulled over with open carry as the first thing they will always do is take the gun and check its serail # status along with your felony record. Another thing that makes me opt more to live in freer states is the idea that since gun ownership is a right not a priviledge, there should be no taxation on it period. I’m afraid that concealed carry might be a clever method to get registration (taxation) in the minds of people and then remove the open carry as an option whatsoever. Another thing that makes open carry important is that when enough citizens do it at say Walmart it teaches a valuable lesson to the thinking impaired. I had a particular dumbshit argue with me that I couldn’t carry my open carry on my hip that I had to conceal it to be legal, he threatened me to call the sheriff which I replied go ahead dumbshit…He did and then learned the real state law. If no one carries open then simpler people get to thinking its wrong to do and that only agents of the state can perform such acts by defacto terrorist fearing snitchy society.
Still I agree with all the risks of open carry you stated, another risk I’ll mention about open carry is that certain lawless types are more apt to try to fight a man wearing one. I don’t know what it is about carrying open but you’ll meet the dumbest shits who will actually be tempted to try to grab for your gun as I think they like the challenge even if they can’t compute the odds or risk to themself.
In Arizona where concealed is allowed without a permit, I actually had a convict minded asshole plan a near assault and back down at the last moment. Beings the weapon was concealed I had the advantage of knowing I held a final trump card if his aggression turned to attempted assault. Having the gun hidden I think kept me from not having to use it as I was able to talk reasoning with the guy before he was packed away in a coffin. The interesting thing about the incident is he did not know how close to death he was coming, and it was more concerning to me that I was put in the position of knowing that I might have to kill the guy. The hardship of thinking of having to be tied down to courts for 5-10 yeas really doesn’t appeal to a guy even if you are in the right to kill such an aggressor. I suppose however one could also argue that if the gun had been openly carried that would have dettered the agresson before it got to a punch situation, again my observation though is that these simpletons don’t think logic and they actually take it as a challenge to see if they can fight you for a gun.
+1000.
It is still relatively easy to obtain firearms here in the South without ever having to fill out s Form 4473.
I’d rather not be in an easily obtained database of person who own (at least one) gun.
Hi Eric,
I hope you are well. Your post is about cops so I feel the need to weigh in. I think that your decision to get the permit is a good one. Your logic is sound. If the officer knows from your registration that you may be carrying and in most states he/she will, it alleviates some tension. It’s much better from a police perspective to walk up on a driver and not see a gun rather than see one that could be used against you in an instant. I agree with you that the second ammendment should give all citizens the right to carry concealed or open without a permitting process. However we have what we have.
Officer Safety is a complicated thing. I’d ask of your readers to consider that we all are to some degree products of our environment. Please try and put yourself in the officers perspective. On a daily basis you stop multiple cars for a variety of reasons. Traffic, warrants, broadcasts of a car used in a crime and sometimes you only have a make and color or make, year and color. In other words you are stopping cars that may be driven by an individual determined not to go to jail and if that means hurting or killing you then they’ll do that to evade arrest. Police Officers deal with this every day so it can become their norm.
Consequently each stop, even when it’s you going to the store for a gallon of milk can end up with you being treated like an armed felon. I don’t think the average citizen deserves this treatment but it happens. I’m asking all of you to consider that when you’re in a daily environment where someone may try and kill you, you begin to see everything as a nail and you have a hammer. I don’t think it’s the way P.D.’s should operate but it’s a fact of life in our society.
I don’t know what the answer to this dilemma is but I know that honest discussion and consideration of the opposing viewpoint is a start. I can say that reading Eric’s blog has opened my eyes to some things that I never would have seen. I hope all of you are well and keep up your discussion, it’s worth the fight.
Hi Carl. I appreciate your thoughtful commentary and your perspective as a former police officer. (I think it’s former, as in retired?)
The changes in society bother me greatly. At one time within my memory, churches weren’t even locked at night, in case a worshiper felt the need to come in and pray. When my family went downtown, we didn’t bother to lock the house, and my father left the keys in the car while we were shopping. Such things would be unthinkable today.
At the same time, in the old days the “us versus them” attitude on the part of the police was good folks and the police versus criminals. Today, I really get the feeling that it is instead police versus everyone else. I get what you are saying about how your experience as an officer can lead to that situation. In an environment where people have no compunction about robbing churches, beating up priests, and stealing from toddlers and grannies, you as a policeman can’t know what is waiting for you in any encounter.
I think there was a sea change in the relationship of the police and the other citizens with Nixon’s “war on drugs”. The general decline in moral standards — on the part of both — has played a big role also. Throw in the militarization of police departments as a result of the “war on terror”, and you have a recipe for mutual suspicion and constant tension.
I don’t know the answer either, and I doubt that we will figure it out here, but thank you for engaging in a conversation about it.
Dear Mike,
Actually I think you already put your finger on some of the underlying causes.
The War on Drugs at home, and the War on Terror abroad. These are major factors in making society violent and the police militarized.
But beneath these underlying causes, is an even deeper underlying cause. Our old friend physical coercion, specifically, legal coercion.
Physical coercion by The Government, in the form of legal coercion, is fundamentally wrong. No good can ever come of something fundamentally wrong. Good intentions to the contrary notwithstanding. The road to hell is paved with good intentions.
Physical coercion by The Government, in the form of legal coercion, invariably sets off a long, far-reaching chain of events with increasingly negative repercussions.
The quasi-religious compulsion to forcibly prevent other individuals from ingesting certain “objectionable” substances, leads to the War on Drugs.
This criminalization of a health problem turns patients into violent criminals. The rampant crimes they commit lead to police paranoia. The police paranoia leads to the Thin Blue Line “us vs. them” mentality. The us vs. them mentality leads to “officer safety” uber alles, to a blow them away and plant a throw down policy. And so on and so forth.
As the great Daoist/anarchist philosopher Laozi put it: “The more laws and edicts proclaimed, the more thieves and bandits there will be.”
When the clovers criminalize everything, everything will be a crime, and everyone will be a criminal.
This is why principled adherence to the non-aggression axiom is essential. This is why the initiation of force, however indirect and seemingly innocent, such as in the creation of a “limited government,” eventually leads to absolutism and atrocities.
This is why a constitutional republic degenerated into a liberal democracy, and a liberal democracy is degenerating into a democratic dictatorship.
The truth is, the distinctions between the three is artificial. It is merely a matter of degree. Therefore they invariably morph from one to the other, and bring us to what we have today.
Once one accedes to the violation of the non-aggression axiom, it is only a matter of time before the violations become all-pervasive.
Meh – another example of First World Problems. You have to pay a few taxes, obey a few laws and can’t wave your gun in peoples’ faces and suddenly you’re the most oppressed person in the world. I’m sure Third Worlders who lived through real tyrannies, wars and massacres aren’t exactly going to feel your pain.
I think you are either ignoring the point or do not grasp its meaning.
Coercion is coercion. Whether it is done by a light touch or a heavy fist, one is forced to act to the whims of another.
It is similar to the Bernard Shaw joke:
Dear mithrandir,
Well put.
Gil says “Meh … You have to pay a few taxes, obey a few laws and can’t wave your gun in peoples’ faces.”
“A few?” “wave your gun in peoples’ faces?”
Is it even necessary to rebut such an “argument?”
I think I’ll let its utter lack of intellectual seriousness stand as its own rebuttal.
Gil,
You say “wave your gun in people’s faces” – as if any of us here defend or advocate that. You – and those like you, who favor taking away people’s right to possess firearms – use hysterical (and dishonest) language like that because you instinctively know you can’t intelligently defend your position.
A better way of saying it: why do Libertarian and gun nuts insist on making sure the most dangerous people in society are heavily armed? The real reason Libertarians hate the thought of criminals and the mentally “challenged” being unable to own guns is because they’d fall into one of the two groups.
On the other hand, you regularly defend dangerous driving habits. Oh wait, driving isn’t dangerous unless someone has been injured or killed and not before, right? Hence why can’t a gun owner proudly declares he owns a gun and carry it openly? It’s not like guns are as dangerous as cars.
More childish emoting and package-dealing:
“Libertarians and gun nuts” – implying that anyone who owns a gun or demands his right to armed self-defense be respected is a “nut.” An irrational – and dangerous person.
Sad. That’s all you’ve got?
“The most dangerous people are heavily armed…”
Quite the opposite, Clover. For example, here in my county, the average person – who is a decent, peaceful person – is very heavily armed indeed. Most people have at least one pistol and a high-powered hunting rifle. Yet “gun crime” is nil. According to your logic, all these “heavily armed” people ought to be “dangerous.” And yet, they are not. Except, of course, to those who would try to harm them first.
I “regularly defend dangerous driving habits.”
Pure Clover!
Nope. I have no problem with down-to-earth non-criminal, sane people owning guns. Rather it’s about the gun nuts like Libertarians who assert that the right for criminals to get firearms be protected at all costs. It’s the old “if a criminal can be banned from owning a gun soon everyone will be branded a criminal” canard. But by that reasoning you may as well get rid of all laws.
“Good men do not need laws while bad men will find ways around laws” – Plato.
What Libertarian asserts the “right” of criminals to get firearms, Clover? Please, show me.
In fact, criminals – those convicted of a felony – are prohibited by law from acquiring firearms. It is a separate felony for a felon to possess a gun.
What more do you want?
I know what you want. You want all people to be treated as presumptive criminals. To be denied the absolute right to possess firearms – the right replaced by a conditional privilege; by heavy regulations and restrictions. By “one gun a month,” or no “assault rifles” or high capacity magazines or guns over a certain caliber or “shall issue” CC – let alone constitutional carry.
What you want is prior restraint.
Not respect for the rights of free people.
Really? All anti-gun control follow the same script: if crims get guns in a store then they’ll buy guns in the backstreets, and failing that they’ll manufacture their own guns because it’s easy enough to someone with competent machanical knowledge. Then the same people will mention how there were no gun restrictions 50+ years ago where anyone could buy guns & ammo with no questions asked and yet gun crimes far fewer and farer between than today.
Clover, you lost the argument – you’ve been show to be either ignorant or disingenuous. Libertarians don’t advocate for criminal possession of firearms – as you asserted. Only that people not be treated as presumptively criminal – which is the essence of your position.
Very well stated, Bevin. And your conclusion: “Once one accedes to the violation of the non-aggression axiom, it is only a matter of time before the violations become all-pervasive”, describes precisely why “limited government” can’t work. In the final analysis, it’s either anarcho-capitalism or totalinarianism. There is no sustainable middle ground.
Dear Mike,
I used to believe the “Government is an evil, but a necessary evil” argument.
Not any more.
That argument is logically self-contradictory and has been proven empirically unworkable.
In retrospect, I’m amazed that Ayn Rand never saw that.
She was the one who talked about no compromise between food and poison after all.
Yet her “rebuttal” to free market anarchism was a rhetorical question about Private Defense Agencies at loggerheads with each other, and a “You figure it out for yourself” non-answer.
She rightly opposed taxation as slavery, yet defended a monopoly on the use of force.
She failed to see that any entity with a monopoly on the use of force is hardly going to refrain from imposing taxes on those subject to its monopoly power.
Yes, Bevin, Rand did get quite a bit wrong. It is ironic that she led many, like me, on the beginnings of the path to understanding liberty. She was brilliant, even if flawed.
I fully agree that the “government is a necessary evil” position is untenable, logically and practically.
I am still learning, and lewrockwell.com is an essential element in that process. Lew’s web site led me to this site, for which I am forever grateful. I also owe LRC a great debt for introducing me to Murray Rothbard. I once considered Rand to be the greatest intellect of the 20th century, but now Rothbard occupies that place in my estimation. By the way, his “For a New Liberty” explains in detail how private security arrangements would work.
Dear Mike,
I learned a lot from Rand.
But as the late Wiliiam Brugh Joy, a very wise Jungian psychologist I knew told me, our gurus are merely scaffolding.
They get us to where we need to be. But they are not our spiritual journey per se.
Yikes…I really do know there’s no such thing as “totalinarianism.” Must have been my keyboard’s fault.
In what way have morals declined over the years? I hear this a lot, but, unless you kill, rape, or rob somebody, the issue isn’t morality, but merely preference.
Hi Steve,
The most obvious, as I see it, is the way so many people feel no compunction about using force to interfere with other people, take their property – and indeed, view the property of others as their entitlement.
Well said, Eric. That’s really what all of it ultimately comes down to.
I know what the answer is. Increase the pay to police officers, and accordingly, start demanding a lot more from them. Officers shouldn’t be such cowards that they are afraid of the shadow of every citizen they see. They should have enough intelligence and judgement to think rationally, to assess the odds as to whether or not the perceived threat is real or not, before they start treating everyone they meet like a movie massacre perp.
Yes, these standards would disqualify probably about 40% of the people currently wearing a badge. So be it. Get rid of them. And start paying enough to attract individuals who meet the higher standards. America’s citizens deserve more….and they are going to have to be willing to pay enough to get it.
And once we have these higher paid, higher quality officers, they should be willing to take an increased, though still only a reasonable amount of risk, before they start pulling the trigger on probably innocent citizens. In their own minds they view themselves as “heroes.” It’s time they started acting like it…at least a little bit.
Cops already make six figures with OT, some without. Then there are cops who use that fact to make extra money working private security while off duty (and somehow having their full police powers while off duty and working for a private employer. And that’s just what they get directly above board. Some are getting supplemental income on top of that from other sources.
On top of this these guys get to retire way early compared to those of us working in the productive sector with much better pensions. All for a job which really isn’t all that dangerous and where paranoia and fear can excuse practically any action.
I really don’t see how better pay is going to attract better people, because the pay is already far and beyond what many people can make working the same hours with a lot more education.
The problem is the job itself. “Law enforcement” attracts the kind of people we are seeing as cops. They are programmed with a mentality that there are cops and there is us, the indigs. They are trained as an occupying force with all the paranoia that goes along with that role. Then there are the laws they go around enforcing most of the time.
Much of the time they aren’t going around catching actual bad guys. That’s just a little part of their job and it doesn’t count much towards their career advancement. What counts towards career advancement and what they spend most of their time doing is revenue generation and baby sitting. Baby sitting because the schools, media, and so on have reduced the population to a constant juvenile state. Baby sitting because of all the control freak laws regarding personal decisions such as the war on some drugs. Baby sitting because of laws to economically favor a politically connected few.
Then there is the revenue generation. Tickets, fines, etc for mostly people who aren’t a bother to anyone.
Good people don’t want to do that. No amount of money is going to attract good people to that job. The good people who become cops today do so because of an illusion they have regarding the job. Either the job changes them or the culture drives them out.
Pay and standards just won’t do it. The fundamental nature of the job has to be changed.
Dear Brent,
“The good people who become cops today do so because of an illusion they have regarding the job. Either the job changes them or the culture drives them out.”
Yeah. One of the high profile examples was Frank Serpico. Boy did he go through hell.
I doubt he was the only one forced out of the system because he tried to live up to the ideal of an honest cop.
But he was definitely in the minority. Otherwise things would not have turned out as they did for him. He would still be on the inside, and the crooked cops would be on the outside.
Morning, Bevin!
Here in my little county, it’s Floydfest time – an annual music concert/three day event. The local cops are all over – conducting “safety” checks of people whose only “crime” (cough, hack) is coming – and going – from the concert. It is sickening. And I have had to impose a curfew on myself – I’m staying home this weekend – in order to avoid encountering the American version of Goring’s Gestapo. I am at the point of not being able to sit there quietly, submitting and obeying. I know myself enough to know that I might say something un-PC. Or get into trouble for refusing to “buckle up” like a good little boy ordered to do so by some buzz-cut punk in his 20s .
So, I stay home. There’s still a little bit of liberty left on the 16 acres of Eric’s Redneck Graceland…
Dear Eric,
The local cops are all over – conducting “safety” checks of people whose only “crime” (cough, hack) is coming – and going – from the concert. It is sickening.
Cold War era spy thrillers always had tense scenes in which the protagonists would have to get through checkpoints manned by the secret police of some “Iron Curtain” country.
The hero and the refugees he was helping escape to freedom, usually to “America!” would breath a huge sigh of relief when they finally got through.
Who knew that in our lifetimes, such scenes from Communist police states would be enacted all over the Land of the Free, Home of the Brave? Who knew that people seeking freedom would one day be fleeing FROM America?
I certainly never expected it to happen this fast. I knew the forces were in place, but I never guessed they would take effect so soon.
I remember a woman friend of mine with a loft in SOHO, near the WTC, telling me the day after 9/11 that “This changes everything.”
I guess she was right, although maybe not quite in the way she meant it.
Good morning, Eric, and good evening, Bevin. I recently came across another chilling example of the US gone way wrong while re-reading Thomas Sowell’s 1993 book, “Inside American Education”. In describing the use of isolation as a means of softening children up for indoctrination, he relates the following anecdote from Maoist China:
“The victim would be given a preliminary interrogation and then released with a ‘warning that it is a criminal offense to tell anybody–his friends, his relatives, or even his wife–that he is under examination by the police.’ Any individual who violated this warning was subject to a long prison sentence, even if he was never convicted of the offense for which he was being investigated.”
Now we know where the “Patriot” Act got its inspiration.
Dear Mike,
Interesting example!
In the SF saga Star Wars, the underlying theme was that the end does not justify the means. If one forgets this, and proceeds to violate the non-aggression axiom, then one becomes the very thing one fought.
This was how Anakin Skywalker became Darth Vader. This is how he unwittingly went over to the Dark Side.
This is how America fought terrorists and has now become the world’s biggest terrorist.
As George Lucas astutely noted:
“All democracies turn into dictatorships — but not by coup. The people give their democracy to a dictator, whether it’s Julius Caesar or Napoleon or Adolf Hitler. Ultimately, the general population goes along with the idea… How did the Republic turn into the Empire? …How did Anakin turn into Darth Vader? How does a good person go bad, and how does a democracy become a dictatorship? It isn’t that the Empire conquered the Republic, it’s that the Empire is the Republic. One day Princess Leia and her friends woke up and said, ‘This isn’t the Republic anymore, it’s the Empire. We are the bad guys… This democracy is a sham…'”
— George Lucas, creator of “Star Wars”
Anakin turned into Vader because he was forced to recite the awful dialogue Lucas wrote.
I’ve gotta say it: The acting in the original Star Wars is more wooden than an Al Gore doing the tango.
Dear Bill, Eric,
Point taken!
In Lucas’ behalf however, his dialogue in Star Wars was better than Ayn Rand’s dialogue in Atlas Shrugged.
That’s probably a left-handed compliment, I know.
Oh, yes!
Atlas was almost unreadable – or rather, you needed to really force yourself to wade through some of those seemingly endless monologues. The Fountainhead was, in my opinion, a much better novel. It had pretty good character development – and much better dialogue.
I agree with those who characterize Atlas as primarily a political tract rather than a novel.
Dear Eric,
“I agree with those who characterize Atlas as primarily a political tract rather than a novel.”
Exactly. Ever notice the way she structured the novel?
The novel is divided into three parts consisting of ten chapters each. The three parts are named after Aristotle’s laws of logic: Non-Contradiction, Either-Or, and A Is A.
Exactly the way one would structure and title a non-fiction book on philosophy.
Yes, these standards would disqualify probably about 40% of the people currently wearing a badge.
Forty percent? WAAAAAAAAY too low-ball of an estimate. Try 99.999 percent!
So be it. Get rid of them. And start paying enough to attract individuals who meet the higher standards. America’s citizens deserve more….and they are going to have to be willing to pay enough to get it.
As I, TGSam, and I’m sure others have pointed out on this site before, the profession of “law enforcement” –heck, even “peace officer,” when such a thing still existed– by its very nature attracts the type of person that should NEVER be allowed anywhere near a state-conferred position of authority. The State, by the very nature of its being an organization that rules through a monopoly on coercive violence, cannot afford to have anyone other than the undesirable and inappropriate type of personality that I mentioned above in charge of “law and order.” To allow critical thinkers who care about the lives and property of citizens above all else into the ranks of what Will Grigg so aptly refers to as “the punitive priesthood” of the State would be undermine the State’s very authority. Needless to say, the Powers That Be will NEVER allow that to happen. This is why “good cops” who actually do enter the field of “law enforcement” with the very best and noblest of intentions never last long. They’re either devoured by the predators that make up the majority, co-opted into become part of the problem, or, once they see what “the job” is REALLY all about, quit in revulsion and disillusionment.
And once we have these higher paid, higher quality officers, they should be willing to take an increased, though still only a reasonable amount of risk, before they start pulling the trigger on probably innocent citizens. In their own minds they view themselves as “heroes.” It’s time they started acting like it…at least a little bit.
It’s not a question of money, Mike. Contrary to popular myth, the average cop today, even in the poorest and most economically depressed localities, is making a very decent salary; in fact, very often one it’s disproportionately higher than the average wage of a citizen working in (what little remains of) the private sector in that same locality.
No, the ONLY way to solve the problem is to do away with “law enforcement” altogether and resurrect the role of peace officer – and remove the State’s hands from that. Unless/until this happens, NOTHING will change – no matter how “highly paid” or “highly qualified” the candidates for the position might be. Unless/until these people are made to serve the Citizen rather than the State, the status quo will continue.
Hey Mike,
I agree with Brent and some of the other posters: It’s not the money that’s the problem. It’s that the job attracts bullies and Clovers (redundant, I know). Who but a bully or a Clover would willingly decide to spend his days manning “safety” checkpoints and radar traps – threatening his fellow men and women with violence while belittling them and treating them like idiot children? Putting people in cages for non-crimes such as having arbitrarily illegal “drugs” in their possession? Acting as enforces for the local gunvernment.
Imagine what an asshole you’d have to be to that sort of thing.
If we had peace officers, that’d be one thing. But what have are law enforcers – quite a different thing.
” Please try and put yourself in the officers perspective.”
Sorry, but I’m unable to identify at any level with the kind of person who will actively seek out a job which requires slavish submission to the will of politicians, along with the power to take away or ruin the lives of everyone else in society.
Cops aren’t like the rest of us. They resent being characterized as being like the rest of us.
I instantly understood the line from the movie “The Departed” where the character, Billy Costigan, explained how he could tell that the other patients of his court-ordered shrink were cops:
“Bad haircuts, no dress sense, and a scumbag air of entitlement.”
Whoever wrote that line for the script really knew cops. “Officer safety” is a necessity, isn’t it?
“‘Necessity’ is the plea for every infringement of human liberty; it is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.” ~ William Pitt
Carl seems to be an ok guy – reasonable and polite. He also admits some of the problems we’ve been discussing. He’s also retired – which says a lot, I think.
Police work – that is, law enforcement – has changed a great deal over the past several years. While far from being the idealized peace-keepers many of us here would like to see, in the not-too-distant past, cops were (generally) more reasonable – to a great extent because the culture was different and also because we didn’t have all these henpecky laws (e.g., “buckle up for safety”).
Cops were – in general – less aggressive and could at least be talked to without risking a beating. There was still this idea of citizenship; that people were not cattle or the vanquished proletariat of an occupied country.
Now, in their defense (to be fair) today’s cops also have to deal with more maggotry than they did in the past. Thuggery is more widespread than it used to be, for example. It is probably true that a cop stands a higher chance of being shot during a traffic stop than he would have say 25 years ago. I grant that.
The real problem, as I see it, is that the system has criminalized almost everything – and so given cops the pretext to hassle people who, in the past, would never or very rarely have to deal with cops. We’ve gone from a system based on the idea of post facto restraint (and punishment)… that is, the idea that you’ve got to commit some overt act before the law intervenes – to a system based on the idea of prior restraint. The idea that people must be treated as presumptively criminal. That if someone – anyone – might do something, then everyone must be dealt with (restrained) as if they had, in fact, done something.
This – along with the Supreme Court’s despicable negation of the Fourth and Fifth Amendments – have resulted in the state of affairs we’re facing today.
For example, I wrote previously that we no longer have the legal right to say no. We must submit to random “safety” stops – even though we (as individuals) have in no way given reason to suspect that we’re drunk or otherwise guilty of some crime. Decline to present your “papers” or respond to the cop’s interrogation – and you will be arrested.
In not-so-long-ago America, cops had to have a specific reason to detain a person. If they did not, they were legally powerless to interfere with you. That is gone – and as a result, we are to a far greater extent at the mercy of arbitrary authority. And of course, arbitrary authority attracts a certain personality type – the not-Carl type.
I didn’t use to sweat cops much because I knew that as someone who doesn’t commit crimes – that is, attack people, steal things and so on – I had very little reason to fear them. To a great extent, because they had no reason to interact with me. The cop goes his way – and I went mine. I could say no. I could just walk away. I could even tell him to piss off – imagine that! – and not risk a beating and a felony charge for “resisting” his blows.
Dear Eric,
I think that’s an accurate assessment of the ecosystem (the larger society) and the ecological niche (the individual cop).
It seems hard to believe now. But there actually was a time when “To protect and serve” was a reassuring mission statement and not a cynical punch line.
When I was very young, I think it was in the second grade, I got separated from my parents at the movies, and a couple of cops drove me home. It was almost a scene out of Norman Rockwell.
As the ecosystem changes, so do those who occupy the ecological niches.
Which of course is not intended to excuse what today’s thuggish cops do to us, their victims.
But it does help understand how we got here, and what must be done to get us the hell out of here.
Hi Eric,
I appreciate your defense of me. I have learned a lot from your blog and I’ve found that Libertarianism is much more than I ever considered.
I can tell you that I couldn’t begin to count the times people told me to “Piss Off” and I ignored it and went on my way. Extra thick skin should be an absolute requirement for police work. You absolutely cannot allow personalities to enter into the equation. Any citizen of this country should have the right to resist any unlawful intrusion on their liberty. At one time we did have the greatest country in the world and I’d like to see that return. Keep up the good fight gentlemen.
Sorry if I came off as being rude to Carl. Carl asked us to try to see things from a cop’s perspective. I simply can’t do that because I don’t view humanity as a herd of cattle to be controlled and monitored. Cops do see the rest of us as just that, cattle to be herded and thus cops do things for reasons that wouldn’t even occur to a normal human being. They consider themselves a closed society apart from the society that productive citizens inhabit.
That’s fine with me, because I also consider them to be apart from the rest of the citizenry. The difference is that I don’t view them as heroes, or as people doing a necessary job. I see them as sociopaths and want nothing to do with them whether they’re on duty or off.
Even handing the permit, or shall issue license in my state, over to the police is asking for trouble. That’s why I always keep it out of sight and do not inform of the weapon in the car. I don’t have to inform in my state. It’s none of their business!
Dear Jeremy, Eric,
This really is a tough call.
The problem of course, is not with the ordinary citizen minding his own business.
The problem is with the arbitrary power wielded by Big Brother. The individual is placed in a Kafkaesque “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” double bind.
In short, there is no right answer to this question.
Because only the whims of the particular Storm Trooper you ran afoul of will determine whether your decision was “right” in retrospect.
He could decide he likes the fact that you’re an automotive journalist, and want to talk cars with you. Or he could decide he doesn’t care for the length of your hair, or the bumper sticker on your rear bumper.
Who knew it would come to this, in America?
So be proud to be an American, cause at least you know you’re free.
So you LET the cop take your legal-to-possess firearm?? Then why bother carrying in the first place? Why, why WHY does ‘officer safety’ ALWAYS trump law-abiding citizen safety?
Land of the Free my a$$.
Jim,
I understand where you’re coming from – and agree, in principle. But is it worth “going to the mattresses” over a minor traffic infraction?
“I understand where you’re coming from – and agree, in principle. But is it worth “going to the mattresses” over a minor traffic infraction?”
It would be foolish to do so.
tgsam
This is where the issue of “tipping point” and “critical mass” apply. It’s a game of timing and numbers.
As John Adams put it:
“The Revolution was effected before the War commenced. The Revolution was in the minds and hearts of the people; a change in their religious sentiments of their duties and obligations. This radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections of the people, was the real American Revolution.”
If a lone individual moves against Big Brother before “this radical change in the principles, opinions, sentiments, and affections,” his sacrifice will be noble, but probably for naught.
He winds up like someone who openly defied the Stasi BEFORE 1989. Murdered and forgotten.
Or, if high profile enough, he winds up like the Branch Davidians at Waco.
As Adams noted, we have to effect the revolution BEFORE the war commences.
It is not yet the time for Lexington and Concord. It’s coming. But not yet.
I should add, if the revolution in minds and hearts is as successful as I hope, the revolution could well be bloodless.
Most of the Warsaw Pact governments simply gave up the ghost, and threw in the towel. Romania was the most prominent exception.
Ceasceau (sp?) was dealt with nicely, though.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OY_cWGmfOrg
Dear Eric,
What’s galling is how so many other criminals far worse have gotten away with their crimes against humanity.
If justice actually prevailed, more than one “Leader of the Free World” would have been convicted of mass murder and prosecuted accordingly.
Yes, wouldn’t it be grand?
As vile a person as Herman Goring was, he was very clear-sighted. And brave, in his own way. He derided Nuremburg – rightly – as hypocritical “victor’s justice.” He quite correctly observed that in fact, the only thing he and his fellows were truly guilty of was losing the war. He mocked the unctuous sermonizing of the Allies – the effrontery of the inventors of the concentration camp lecturing him about concentration camps; of the practitioners of racial genocide and disposition lecturing him about the same; of countries with race codes braying about Germany’s maltreatment of Jews. Of the masters of aggressive war and “lebensraum” denouncing Germany for attempting to do the same.
Dear Eric,
Criminals in high enough office literally get away with murder.
Lower echelon clovers such as Gil and scottindallas babble on about “respect for the law.”
But these lower echelon clovers really don’t care that upper echelon clovers at the highest levels of the US federal government routinely demonstrate far greater contempt for the law than us libertarians.
As far as these upper echelon clovers are concerned, THEY ARE THE LAW. MSM media martinet David Brinkley once said “The news is whatever I say is the news.”
This is the way upper echelon clovers see the law. To them, the law is whatever they say it is. The law does not apply to them. It only applies to us plebes.
Bill Clinton, Janet Reno, and Madeline Albright will never be prosecuted for the massacre at Waco and the deaths resulting from his his “Wag the Dog” military campaign in the Balkans.
Dubya and Dick Cheney will never be prosecuted for the hundreds of thousands who died as a direct result of Gulf War II.
Obomber and Hilary Clinton will never be prosecuted for the thousands murdered by their drone war in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and Allah knows where.
Dear Eric,
“Yes, wouldn’t it be grand?” (if all those guilty of war crimes could be prosecuted?”
Just the other day, I finished watching Season One of “Homeland,” a “24” style spy thriller TV series.
In it, a Marine sniper held captive by Al Qaeda in Iraq for eight years, is “turned” into a “Manchurian Candidate.”
When he returns to America, he attempts to suicide bomb the Vice President, a former CIA Chief, clearly based on Bush Senior. His motive, revenge for the innocent victims of drone attacks.
It is beginning to dawn on the general public that as George Lucas noted, we are no longer the good guys and we brought this blowback on ourselves.
I hope so –
It’s our only hope (paraphrasing Leia to Obi Wan).
Regime change comes in two flavors, as described by Prechter.
At social mood tops (characterized by high and rising stock values and peace breaking out everywhere) authoritarian regimes may dissolve (as did the USSR and Eastern Bloc).
At social mood lows (e.g. 1917, the 1930’s) authoritarian regimes go from bad to worse. As bad as the Tsars were, Lenin’s followers were far worse.
It is my sad belief that, because people don’t even widely recognize the current US totalitarianism as such, the denouement of this ongoing slide into an eventual social mood low will unleash a virulent form of what generated Stalinism, Maoism, etc.
Dear David,
I think you’re right about the US slide into tyranny.
It will definitely be the latter. It will not be an occasion for celebration.
@Eric, who said “Ceasceau (sp?) was dealt with nicely, though.”
I’ve had the privilege of touring “the People’s Palace” in Bucharest. It’s pretty impressive but people were starving while he was building it. I’ve never seen so much white marble. You could play football in the dining hall.
They say his wife got two bullets for every one they gave him. I hear she was a Major in the Soviet military and wasn’t well liked. She was caught selling children on the black market. A real ghoul by all accounts.
Yeah – apparently they both richly deserved what they got. Unfortunately, not enough such do.
Oh, and I think it’s “Ceauşescu”. There’s a little blivet under the “s” and I don’t know what you call it.
“Why, why WHY does ‘officer safety’ ALWAYS trump law-abiding citizen safety?”
Because the cop is an agent of the state. When he speaks, it is the state speaking. In the minds of statists, the state is always assumed to be correct first.
Any attack, or even contradiction, of an agent of the state is considered an attack on the state itself. This is why anything short of instant obedience and actually HELPING the cop is being prosecuted as “resisting arrest”.
It “sounds” like good advice. But in this intrusive, totally databased, totalitarian era, I suspect this recommendation is generally irrelevant. By the time he runs your plate, that badge boy already “knows” if you have a concealed carry permit. Probably knows a lot more than that, too.
That’s true – but (as in my case) what if you are driving a car not registered to you?
Yes, that would be an exception. Better hope that whoever that car is registered to is “clean.” 😉
Indirectly, that raises the pros and cons of having your car titled to an anonymous corporation in some other state.
Con….might make badge boy twitchy because he fears you have “something to hide.”
Pro….even if it makes badge boy twitchy, it nevertheless might be well worth it to avoid revealing as much information as legally possible.
Many of these press cars have funky-looking “manufacturer” plates – and of course, they’re registered in other states (Michigan and CA mainly).
This has actually saved my ass a few times, I think. Because once the cop checks the paperwork/releases and finds out I’m a car journalist, they sometimes want to talk cars – and at that point, I am almost home free. Once you connect with a cop on a human level, they tend to act more like human beings.
Eric, to further tamp down any concern on the part of an approaching police officer, join your county’s SHERIFF’s INSTITUTE ASSOCIATION (( small yearly donation required )).
You’ll receive two sheriff-badge decals in the mail. Put one on the upper left side of your rear window.
My vehicles display them.
It’ll immediately put the officer at ease.
– Support Your Local Sheriff’s Department –
Using a New Mexico LLC is the best way to register a vehicle to keep your privacy
I’ve thought about this. Is it feasible (legally) to do it if you don’t have a NM DL/legal residence? In my state, you’re required to possess a state-issued DL if your legal residence is in this state. And if your DL is for Virginia and your legal residence is here, I’m pretty sure they also require any vehicles kept in the state/county to registered with the state/county, too.
Any thoughts?
I like the idea of registering the car under a company.
Even if it’s in your state–I could do it with my LLC in Texas–at least when he pulls the tags, it’s not YOU–it’s your company…and you’re immediately someone of means, at least in his mind.
Might give him pause.
I’d recommend substituting the term “badge boy” with “badge baboon” or “badge buzzard,” with profuse apologies in advance to both the baboon and buzzard species. The term “boy” connotes an innocence that’s simply not appropriate for these knuckle-dragging, buzz-cut thugs.
the technology that LE uses against the general population can be used against them. Tracking their (LE) whereabouts is one possible use. This is one reason why I think it is important to respect individual rights and generally for government to stay out of peoples’ lives.
Thats not the case in all states. I know for sure in Iowa, a routine license plate check does not inform the officer whether a carry permit is issued to the vehicle owner.
Open carry story I saw last night:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/116550.html
As I’ve stated before in different ways, the written law doesn’t matter any more. This is no longer a nation of laws, it is nation of political power, social perception, and paranoia.
And on the paranoia ever notice that those of us who rationally recognize the conditions we live under are considered “paranoid” when it is those in and working for government that freak out at every little thing?
It’s rather scary when you realize that the persons grazing along the aisles of Walmart play a role in choosing legislators, judges and chief executives.
Watch the eyes of friends and acquaintances glaze over when you try to share the results of your Critical Thinking. When this happens I often stop in mid-sentence* and simply walk away thinking: Why must I share a small planet with such stupidly ungrateful cocksuckers and live by their rules? If Gawd actually exists, She is surely a sadistic old cunt.
tgsam
*Often they never even notice.
Tinsley, sometimes, I enjoy the unleashing of my anarcho-free enterprise-individualist aura on Clovers. Its FUN!
I have strong pipes – sometimes the sheer sonorosity of my voice can scare some in the Cloverocalypse.
I find that a loud, reeking fart will likely get more attention than a sonorous voice.
Tgsam, don’t get me started…. 🙂 Because I see it like that much much too often.
Watch the eyes of friends and acquaintances glaze over when you try to share the results of your Critical Thinking.
I’ve reached the point where I seldom even bother anymore, because in 99.999 cases out of 100, it’s wasted breath, the casting of pearls before swine. I understand now why Confucius said something to the effect of “the only person who tries to reason with a fool is an even bigger fool.”
The back-and-forth with Vicktor is a case study. Anger, hysterical (and emotional) responses; non sequiturs. Diversions, personal attacks. You are either with us – or against us. Love it – or leave it. You hate this country and its freedoms…. etc.
Who was it, William F. Buckley said he’d “rather be ruled by the first 2,000 individuals appearing in the Boston phone book than the 2,000 elected officials”?
Dear Joe,
Buckley once said “Just because [ X ] said it, doesn’t mean it isn’t true.”
I can’t remember who the X was whom he was referring to. It was some Democrat in Congress I believe.
By the same token, Buckley is dead on about the phone book quip.
Buckley is persona non grata here, and rightly so. But once in a blue moon he got it right. He, George Schultz, and Milton Friedman actually came out against the War on Drugs in 96.
Just because Buckley said it, doesn’t men it isn’t true.
“Buckley is dead on about the phone book quip. ”
Yes, and Buckley is also dead, period. Thank God nobody lives forever. He was, without a doubt, the most insufferable prick who ever pretended to be a conservative.
Sorry for the off-topic rant.
He was indeed!
But he had his purposes. Among them, he weaned me (and doubtless many others) off of “conservatism.”
Dear Tinsley,
“Watch the eyes of friends and acquaintances glaze over when you try to share the results of your Critical Thinking.”
It’s actually worse than that. Usually you can see the steel door slam down behind their eyes and lock in place with a solid “CLANG!”
You can almost hear them desperately repeating to themselves, “NO! NO! NO! I won’t listen to this! I won’t listen to this!”
In re which: See Vicktor’s posts.
Dear Ed, Eric,
No argument from me. Even before I became disillusioned with minarchism, I was never fully comfortable with conservatives.
My gut told me that despite agreement on economic issues, they weren’t really on the same page as me.
Agreeing with isolated observations of otherwise nasty people does not mean blanket endorsement of their overall character.
Buckley is merely one example.
Frankly I have no problem agreeing with isolated observations of far nastier people.
Including, as Eric mentioned earlier, Hermann Goering’s observation about Nuremberg being victor’s justice.
Or Mao Zedong’s observation about political power growing out of the barrel of a gun.
Appologise for using that word that way.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F4HW3ZU_lPM&t=2m46s
Regarding “Critical Thinking,” study the underlying psychology of political affiliation to grasp the ROOT CAUSE of human conflicts (( ofyour reference, Tinsley, to the SHE “GAWD” ))—study my analyses in the last two posts on this Andrew Gavin Marshall page (( by the way, Tinsley, your use of vulgar language, while not offensive to this scribbler, is a primitive bow to your REPTILIAN BRAIN, explained herein )):
http://andrewgavinmarshall.com/contact/#comment-2690
Dear Brent,
“those of us who rationally recognize the conditions we live under are considered “paranoid” when it is those in and working for government that freak out at every little thing?”
Very well put!
The clovers accuse libertarians of being paranoid when NDAA legalizes our outright murder.
These same clovers consider TSA confiscations of a passenger’s nail file before boarding an airliner a “reasonable precaution.”
They consider the murder of a homeowner in his own bed in the middle of the night a “righteous shooting” justified by “officer safety.”
Sometimes it’s hard not to feel like we have been transported to some science fiction nightmare alternate universe where everything is upside down, where black is white, and where right is wrong.
These same clovers consider TSA confiscations of a passenger’s nail file before boarding an airliner a “reasonable precaution.”
They consider the murder of a homeowner in his own bed in the middle of the night a “righteous shooting” justified by “officer safety.”
A regular poster on another forum to which I once subscribed described this as “Battered Citizen’s Syndrome,” which he defined as a society-wide case of “Stockholm Syndrome” (for those readers unfamiliar with the latter term, here is its definition.)
I’ve always wrestled with this, never quite being able to decide whether the Clover mentality is actually a defense mechanism against the State’s oppressive use of violence, or just a sign of mass stupidity brought on by generations of conditioning at the hands of the State and its institutions. While the validity of the assumption is certainly open to question, I’ve reached the tentative conclusion that those people who seem to absorb at least part of the message of liberty and self-ownership are probably “battered citizens” who just might be salvageable.
If you liked that story Brent you’ll love this one.
Back in 2007 two high school seniors were arrested in Jackson WY for having firearms on school property. the two boys had left home early that morning to go duck hunting before school and left their shotguns on a window rack in their truck before going to school.
They were both charged and convicted of bringing a firearm within 1000′ of a public school.
I’ve heard of various such cases. Honor students, etc and so forth…. one small error with regard to the rules or perceived rules and a person’s life is essentially over for nothing.
Title 18 U.S.C Section 924(a) establishes the penalty for violating GFSZA:
Whoever violates the Act shall be fined not more than $5,000, imprisoned for not more than 5 years, or both. Notwithstanding any other provision of law, the term of imprisonment imposed under this paragraph shall not run concurrently with any other term of imprisonment imposed under any other provision of law.
Note: A conviction under the GFSZA will cause an individual to become a “prohibited person” under the Gun Control Act of 1968. This will bar them from legally owning firearms for the rest of their life.
“Gun free safety zones” should be renamed “criminal safety zones”.
And as you must already know, this piece of shit was passed under the Commerce Clause.
The only way around it is to buy a gun manufactured in your state of residence that has never traveled out of that state.
But since FDR the commerce clause applies even if one grows food for his own consumption. I have no doubt that if intrastate manufacture were to become useful reality the feds would find a way to stop it. Perhaps that screw made in China or raw steel from another state or just cite the farm ruling(s) from the FDR years.
You know, now that I think about it, this means that a zip gun some kid makes in school shop class isn’t illegal under 18 U.S.C Section 924(a).
What a bonehead maneuver on the part of Congress (as if it were the first time). I can’t believe the idiocy. It makes my head hurt.
Good Advice Eric – and about the only viable course of action. Joe Average doesn’t stand much of a chance otherwise, especially when the Gestapo is involved.
Thanks, GW!
I carry (concealed) and wrestled with myself for a long time about getting the permission slip – which as a matter of principle I consider to be an affront. But which as a matter of practical necessity, is – as I see it – a must-do.
Now, if they ever take away my CC “privilege” – then, screw it. I will be an outlaw.
With a permit the officer involved might assume that you are law-literate and therefore be less inclined to chance complicating his life.
That’s an excellent point, Tinsley – I think you’re on to something there. Cops are probably a lot more likely to jack around with someone they perceive might be knowledgeable and in a position to cause them some trouble.
Thanks to you, I have been coining new words paronymous with Clover. Some samples:
clovercrapulous
cloverocalypse
cloversational
clovericious
cloveritis
cloverstan
cloverdame (accent grave over the a, as in french)
cloverphobic (a condition which applies to me; I suspect it applies to you and others here like Tinsley and bevin et al)
Lest you think my ego is too big, I readily concede that others may have already coined some of the above; I post this only to demonstrate another manifestation of the good you are doing.
Mike – I love it!
My hope is that in time, “Clover” becomes as well-known and widespread a term of derision as “ass clown” already is – but unlike “ass clown,” you can use “Clover” around small kids!
I’ve found that wrt the vehicle code knowing it as well as I do tends to bring out the ‘do what I say because I have the gun/badge’ attitude from cops. However they usually don’t take anything further than that. I think they begin to see that hassling me too much will just make needless work for them, court appearances where they risk embarrassment, etc but that’s just my conjecture.
I just call them Parasites…Or Tapeworms.
But I do like Cloverstan…New York come to mind.
Or USA as Dumbfuckistan.
This article’s purpose is to teach you to be submissive to authority for your own safety and keep you fearful. That’s right, sheep, go ahead and forfeit your rights for the comfort of the man with a badge.
I believe the purpose was the prevent the escalation of a technical foul into an execution. It’s sad it has to be this way. I’ve been in a few situations where the wrong moves would have got my ass in deep shit. All of which stemmed from a technical foul traffic stop like a midnight red.
I’m not advocating escalation to violence in this situation. I’m pointing out that you can protect your privacy in a way that puts the police officer on the defensive or by altogether avoidance.
Instead of volunteering information the officer didn’t ask for (i.e. your possession of a firearm), it’s better to simply keep it hidden from view in a traffic stop. If they want to search your car for whatever reason, politely decline the search and stick to it. Don’t give police any information. Don’t give them a reason to escalate or do violence to you.
Let’s assume the gun is hidden in the car and not one’s person. So the cop wants to search and that request is declined. So they bring out the dog. The cop with the dog claims the dog altered to illegal drugs. No way to know, the cop is the sole interpreter for the dog. Plus dogs can be made to alert visibly for the non-cops at any time. So now they can search. So they find the gun. Guess what? The driver now has felony charges if he’s in the wrong state.
Now lets assume the gun is on the driver’s person. He is asked to step out of the car. He is patted down. The gun is discovered. Either the driver is now dead or he will be facing charges if he’s in the wrong state.
Because of all the ticky tacky rules that come with firearms in this country it’s a thin line to walk. The magic permits of the state require following small details which as I understand require identifying where a gun is in some states. Sure if the cops don’t go for ‘beyond the stop’ it’s easier not to say anything. But if they do, it can very easily become a life changing event. One small slip up and it’s serious prison time. Every so often someone who missed dotting some i or t with storage, transport, or paperwork regarding a firearm ends up in prison.
I’m all for ideology, but if your ideology needlessly gets you killed and leaves your wife a widow and your children orphans, exactly how much good did it do?
Sunzi, in the Art of War says:
是故勝兵先勝而後求戰，敗兵先戰而後求勝。
It means “Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win.”
Basically John Adams said the same thing. That the American Revolutionary War was won before it was fought.
This is how libertarians must win the “Second American Revolutionary War.” Much groundwork remains to be done.
Well Said, Bevin.
I must constantly temper my urge to ACT, and sublimate it to an urge to TALK.
There are encouraging signs of a mass awakening. The idiots will never get it; they’re a lost cause.
But remember the magical 10% majority: in study after study, if ten percent of a populace believes something passionately, unshakeably, and uncompromisingly, it becomes the majority opinion in an extremely short time.
It’s a fascinating phenomenon. Let’s use it to our advantage.
I’d estimate about 1% are truly awake; perhaps not appraised of the full scope of the thing, but very much aware. Another 4% understand the rudiments of the scam–the banks are to blame, the government’s owned, etc.
The 4% are easy to convince the rest of the way; they just need some reading material.
Voila, we’re at 5%–and given that perhaps 20% of the populace is bright enough to grasp the story, it’s quick work for the 5% to find three buddies each.
We might actually win this thing before millions die at the hands of the NWO “elites”*.
* I hate using the word “elite” to describe those little monsters; because with few exceptions, they’re the kids no-one wanted to talk to; the ones who pretended to intellectual discourse they weren’t capable of, and now want their petty revenge not by excelling but by pushing down their betters to appear to excel.
Dear Methylamine,
Thanks!
I’m sure I wasn’t saying anything all that new. But I think it’s worth restating the old truths in new ways.
I agree. A critical mass does not have to be an absolute majority, let alone a supermajority.
An influential minority is plenty. What the actual number is, I am open to suggestions. I can believe 10%.
Ron Paul has given a damned good start. He’s gotten us pretty far down the road. But more work needs to be done.
The key is to transform the hearts and minds of the people. Or rather, ENOUGH people.
Dear Methylamine,
One encouraging sign is popular entertainment. Popular entertainment is an astonishingly revealing indicator of public sentiment.
It’s amazing how many people got the message of The Matrix. They got that it was political allegory. That it was talking not about some dystopian future, but about now, about the world we currently inhabit.
And just in case anybody missed it, in case it went over anyone’s head, the Wachowski Brothers went on to make V or Vendetta, a far more explicitly anarchist political allegory. With Britain standing in for Amerika.
The signs of growing awareness are there all right. No mistake about it.
Hi John,
That was not my intent (if you’ve read my other articles, you’ll know this). Rather, it was about pointing out the (unfortunate) necessity of doing/accepting certain things to avoid potentially severe (life-ending) repercussions.
Do I like it? No, of course not.
But I prefer to fight when there’s a chance I’ll come out ahead.
Sorry for the way I offered my criticism. It’s my first time here, and I reacted that way before I had read anything else. Carry on.
It’s cool, John –
A Clover you are not!
Dear John,
I read your comment right after you posted it.
Even though I did not agree with your manner of expression, I can honestly say it didn’t bother much at all.
Why not?
Because the well-warranted indignation behind it showed you were on the side of individual liberty. It showed that your disagreement was merely tactical, not strategic.
No, your comment didn’t bother me much at all. I felt no need to respond in a heated manner.
What bothers me is supposedly “intelligent” sheeple who close their eyes and cover their ears when I confront them with the glaring moral contradictions in conventional systems of government.
Your righteous anger didn’t bother me at all. If anything it suggested you were a kindred spirit.
The whole traffic stop scenario that Eric presents is flawed. Why are the only two options: A) Keep the gun on the passenger seat and, B) Keep it concealed but provide your CHP?
The strongest option is: C) keep it concealed and don’t bring up the subject, regardless of holding a CHP or not. Have you given the officer the probable cause to search you? If they ask permission to search you, they don’t have probable cause and you can simply refuse.
Hi John,
Keeping a gun in plain view in a car when approached by a cop is dangerous – for all the reasons discussed. Whether legal or not. But if you conceal it to avoid this – and you don’t have a CC permit – then you have committed a felony. If the cop discovers the gun, you are screwed. Maybe worse. Hence, the need – practically speaking – to get the CC permit. Even if open carry is technically legal.
So, why inform the cop that you have a permit and are (or are not) armed? One, it may be a legal requirement in your state. Two, he’s going to know the moment he runs your license, regardless. Three, he may know before that – if, as in VA, the info comes up when he runs the vehicle’s tags.
By telling him up front – whether you’re legally obligated to or not – you are using a tactic that will help to defuse a potentially explosive situation.
I think that’s a common sense move – much as I sympathize with you on the philosophical objections you raised.
It would seem the disconnect between us is the need to obey statutes that are not in your best interest. I have little patience to remain legal as long as I’m being lawful.
For me it would be an easy decision to take the calculated risk of firearm concealment in a state the prohibits concealment but allows open carry. It’s a very small risk, despite the magnitude of the punishment.
I think what you want is some sort of plausible deniability for something that might be better termed “non-obvious” carry.
Who want a pistol rattling around on top of the passenger seat? Not to put too fine a point on it, but the concept is a bit stupid.
I believe the test for concealment allows the weapon to be holstered. Attach a holster, I’d suggest a SERPA Level III autolock, on the dashboard under your ashtray or some other convienient location. Chances are very good the holstered pistol won’t be noticed; you don’t draw attention to it. If it is eventually noticed it’s obviously not “concealed”.
In other words, find a non-threatening way to openly carry the weapon.