Heroes … Not

By
eric
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Cops are the enemy.

A harsh – and global – statement, certainly.

But: Is it true?

Consider the nature of the job. It is to enforce the law. By definition. It is not to protect any specific individual – you or me – from harm. It is certainly not to serve – other than as automata  who . . . enforce the law. Whatever the law is, it must be enforced. The cop will tell you so himself. He is merely doing his job – and his job is . . . to enforce the law. Period. “The law is the law.” We have all heard it. It does not matter whether the law is itself outrageous, or simply stupid. He may even freely confess it.

But he will nonetheless enforce it. He is required to enforce it.

Consider that for a moment.

In  a doctrinal way, the cop is exactly like the people who were – rightly – strung up at Nuremburg after WWII, who stated – truthfully – that they were just following the orders issued by the lawfully constituted authority. They were not merely thugs. They were duly appointed thugs. They did not do the awful things they did at random, on their own nickle – so to speak. They were told to do it – agreed to do it – and went ahead and did it. Any questions they may personally have had about the rightness or wrongness of what they were doing were put aside.

Orders are orders. 

And it is no great leap to go from abusing your fellow man in a small way to doing it in a big way. The principle of the thing is what matters. And the principle is now very well-established indeed.

The rest is merely follow-up. A cop who will pull a gun on you for refusing to wear a seatbelt will do much worse when the time comes. When he is ordered to.

When the law demands it.

So, what sort of man volunteers for such work? Who chooses to enforce the law – whatever the law happens to be?

The answer is – must be – a thug. A person who is both unthinking – and brutal. But worse than merely a thug. Because a mere thug beats you up because he wants your money – or just for the pure sick joy of it. But what sort of person does the same things because he’s told to do them? Who does them, even when he personally may not want to? When he has doubts about the rightness of the thing? But who is nonetheless willing to literally kill a fellow human being over it – if the law tells him he must?

Place yourself for a moment in a cop’s shoes – as distasteful an exercise as that may be.

You are told to man a “safety” checkpoint at which it will be your job to threaten everyone who happens to be on that particular road with lethal violence if they do not stop their vehicle, produce identification and submit to an interrogation as to their comings and goings. These innocent people – who have given you no reason to suspect them of having done anything wrong  – must submit to your orders, must obey your commands. If they passively decline to do so – if they merely assert their ancient right as human beings to be left in peace – you will apply force. Check Checkers Specials and Dischem Specials. You will bash open their window if they decline to roll it down. You will drag them through the window if they refuse to comply with your orders to exit the vehicle. If they in any way attempt to fend off your brutal, unprovoked assault – you may kill them.

You are told to break up a “protest” – even though the “protestors” are entirely peaceful and merely exercising their right to air a grievance. Yet you join the thug scrum, with billy clubs and truncheons.

You are ordered to kick in the door of a private residence and drag the occupant out of his bed at gunpoint – because this person is alleged to be in possession of a substance the state has arbitrarily declared to be “illegal.”

You will shoot him to death if he “resists.”

You spend several hours each day manning a radar gun, issuing your fellow human beings stiff fines you know many of them cannot afford, which will place a great burden on their ability to pay the rent or put food on the table for their families, for conduct you yourself do routinely (e.g., “speed”) and which you know perfectly well to be harmless. But if they object, you will pile on.

What sort of person signs up for such work?

The foregoing is merely a small sampling of countless scores of similar examples we’re all well-familiar with. A cop’s work is to arrest and cage people who do not obey the law.  Nothing less. And their human rights be damned. If they object, if they resist, the cop has license under the law to assault them.

To kill them.

It is a fair summary – as awful as it may be to deal with it, emotionally – even intellectually.

It is simply not possible for a morally decent person to choose  this line of work – or at least, to continue in this line of work, having come to grips with the nature of the work. Because it is a line of work that requires the surrender of one’s humanity. Of the thing that makes a human being other than an animal. That is, your ability to choose to do the right thing – and to do it.

To become a cop is to give that up. To become an enforcer. To do as you are told. To become a sadist, if need be.

If the law so commands it.

Just as the law commanded in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. As it is commanding here.

A guy might be a friendly neighbor – and seem like a good person. And in a way, he might be a good person – to his family, those he knows personally. But when he puts on that costume, he will threaten harmless, innocent fellow human beings with lethal violence, cage them, rob them of their dignity, violate their rights as human beings – if the law so commands it.

This person, this cop, will demand immediate submission to a literally  endless litany of tyrannical edicts – or else. Exactly like a a member of the GRU, or the NKVD.

And such people are lauded by this society as heroes for this! (Just as they were lauded as heroes – literally – of the old Soviet Union.)

For abusing middle-aged women half their size. Old men. Shooting people’s dogs in the name of “officer safety.”

Would it not be heroic to refuse to do such things?

To decline to enforce the law when the law is at odds with natural law? Even if it meant the loss of one’s paycheck? Even if it meant becoming yourself the target of law enforcement  – for having declined to enforce the law?

Of course, few cops are willing to step up in this manner. To be real heroes –  by taking a stand for right, and with their fellow human beings as opposed to being the strutting – but simpering – tools of a malevolent system they are too afraid to question.

Much less take a meaningful stand against.

A system that rewards them for brutalizing others. 

Do cops do some good (honest, morally clean) work? Certainly. But it is increasingly incidental. It does not negate the everyday abuses they routinely commit. If an abusive husband who beats his wife daily one day rescues her from a burning car, does that make him any less a cretin?

I, like many others, instinctively want to support police. Rather, I want to support those who try to keep the peace. The police were at one time at least nominally in the peace-keeping business. To a great (or at least much greater extent than today) they left people who were not actual criminals (thieves, those who committed physical assaults, murderers, etc.) alone. There were, of course, petty infractions one had to mind – but generally, the average person could live his life with little, if any, significant worry about the law – or its enforcers. It took quite a bit to justify a cop unholstering (much less using) his weapon. People did not get threatened with lethal violence for politely declining an order to “buckle up for safety” – because such an order would have been inconceivable in the America of the not-so-distant past. Anyone much over 40 will remember this rapidly receding world. Cops had some sense of proportion – and would have felt ashamed to do the things they are now called upon to do routinely.

And which they do all-too-willingly.

Imagine: A Fourth (and Fifth) Amendment that was respected by the cops – and if not by them, then by the courts, certainly. Cops used to have to have a reason – not a hunch, but a specific cause – to stop you, much less force you to submit to a search. If they could not produce a substantive reason, then they had to leave you alone – and if they did not live you alone, then whatever they did to you would have consequences. For them.

Now, it is the reverse.

The courts have conferred upon cops essentially limitless and unaccountable authority – which means, open season on us. They are empowered to do literally anything, for any (or no) reason at all, beyond their desire to do so. Beyond, it is the law.  The cop is merely doing his job.

And if we have nothing to hide, why worry?

Throw it in the Woods? 

 

 

 

Related posts:
  1. Cop Types. . .
  2. Woman Arrested for NOT Wanting To Drive Drunk
  3. Escalation
  4. Why Do We Obey?
  5. We’re Watching You… But Don’t You Dare Watch Us

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

376 COMMENTS

  1. Re: Hero

    The word is overused. Sometimes sickeningly.

    Some of the war stories told by Drug Warriors when they gather at their favorite bar are enough to make a buzzard puke. Some of them ought to be hanged for the Drug War Atrocities they’ve participated in. I’d love to see a few of the steroid bloated scumbags dance on air. Add some DAs,judges, and legislators to the mix and you’ve got a show I’d pay to watch.

    tgsam

    • Hear hear.

      I just returned from a few hours’ visit with my friend who owns a repair shop. It being a slow day, we fiddled with his ’63 Buick and talked about This and That. “That” including the assholio local cops, who are browbeating almost everyone they stop for “permission” to search their vehicles – and threatening them with “K9 drug sniffer” dogs if they refuse permission.

      Dancing on air, indeed!

      Der tag kommt.

      • Let’s first give the legislators, governors, presidents and judges what they deserve. After that the enforcers probably won’t be much of a problem.

        tgsam

  2. What makes a Hero? What is it you can see with your own eyes that makes someone a Hero?

    I was listening to a radio show today while I was working on my car. It was an ad for a new TV series called “Chicago Fire” and it was supposed to reveal the lives of Firemen in Chicago. One of the voice overs said something like “We’re a family. Everyone comes back”.

    It’s a great aphorism for a family, but lets’ face it, firemen are professionals, not related to you, who take home a salary and a pension. What’s the job? To run into burning buildings with the intention of saving the lives of people who might be in it. It IS NOT a job for people who would like a high level of assurance they will be home for dinner. IT IS SPECIFICALLY a job for risk takers and, if I might be so bold, HEROS!

    It disgusts me no end to be forced to listen to the tripe forced upon me by the media just so I can listen to some new music. Firemen, Policemen and persons in Emergency Service are paid specifically to take risks. That’s the whole point of the job.

    When pansy milktoast liberal goldfish decide to become “Firemen” all hope is lost.

    • The thing that is most absurd is that everyone in the military, police, and fire departments could just not go to work one day or just vanish from the planet in some twilight zone like event and practically nobody would notice. Sure a few people with fires or heart attacks might notice because of no lead time to establish another method, but other than that the day would pretty much go normally.

      Now if the people who do the dirty jobs maintaining the mechanisms of modern life didn’t show up. If the engineers didn’t show up. If the farmers and the ranchers didn’t show up. There would be total fing chaos. No plumbing, electricity, food… products of all sorts. And it would happen fast given just-too-late inventory systems.

      We can figure out how to live without cops and military quickly. Try living without food or power.

      Who run bartertown?

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hgq4w4dqKsU

      • Brent I expect you and I are on the same page. When it comes to just doing your job, cops, firefighters and emergency response teams aren’t any different from farmers, engineers, sales clerks and everyone else that plays an important role in our mutually dependent society.

        What sticks in my craw is the idea that police &etc. are somehow different from other people. The pat answer is they’re different because they risk their lives, and that’s true, but only up to the point they really DO it.

        A cop that plans to go home for dinner at any cost isn’t really a cop in my opinion, he’s a functionary; someone who talks the talk but doesn’t walk the walk if you know what I mean. Cops don’t always come home, that’s why we pay ’em the big bucks.

        Firemen and cops that ALWAYS go home, people who make it a condition of employment, are in the wrong line of work.

        And that is all I have to say about that.

        • Well maybe not all.

          To put a fine point on it, my diagnosis is we’re suffering through a period where our heroes have become pussies.

        • I see dependency only because it was created. There are vital functions they have taken over and monopolized but that doesn’t mean we can’t go back and do it the way it used to be done. Instead of law enforcers we could have peace officers again. We could have a militia that fought defensive wars when we were attacked, here at home. We don’t have to have government monopolies on emergency medical and fire services either.

          There are vital functions here, but they aren’t immediate every day things for everybody and volunteers can take over the vital functions rather quickly should these folks disappear suddenly. Simply put, the world and modern life would not come to a stop because these ‘heros’ vanished.

          Meanwhile if people this culture doesn’t give two shits about vanished modern life would fall apart quickly.

          http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=TirAmOFw_WA#t=606s

    • To me, a hero is someone chooses to put his own ass in in mortal harm’s way to protect another person who is in mortal peril, with no expectation of reward.

      A paid hero is a contradiction in terms.

      • Exactly. Statistically there are plenty of professions where people die at far higher rates than cops or firemen. Where are the monuments for truckers or fishermen? Are they not heroes as well? The fact is that everyone who works to put bread on the table is doing what they have to do and that in itself is an honorable pursuit. When only a select few get draped in the statist “fashion” of being labeled “hero” is when it’s all propaganda.

  3. Fully Informed Grand Juries could eliminate bad enforcers and bad laws. By using the Fifth Amendments’ PRESENTMENT Power, Informed Grand Juries could kick ass for the sake of Liberty and Justice for All.

    Gran’ Jooree Preezentmint Powuh? Whutz thet?

    Unfortunately, it is something that will never be effectively used. If voting and hoping for special favors won’t fix America it simply will not be fixed.

    Beginning with juris doctors and career office holders, sink all of humanity to the bottom of the Challenger Deep and perhaps some truly intelligent life form will eventually have an opportunity to evolve. About four billion years remain and that just might be enough.

    tgsam

  4. My heart is sore pained within me:
    and the terrors of death are fallen upon me.

    Fear and trembling have seized me:
    and darkness has overwhelmed me.

    And I said: O that I had wings like a dove!
    For then I would fly away and be at rest.

    Lo, would I flee far away,
    and live in the wilderness.

    I would wait for him who would save me
    from my cowardice…

    and from the storm.

    — Psalm 55

  5. I wonder to what extent it is actually true that police in times past were less objectionable than they are today. I suspect to some extent law enforcement has always attracted bullies who like to push others around. The difference between the situation today versus the past is that in times past police powers were more limited, and the state did not criminalize as many things as it does today. As a result, more people were able to live their lives and go about their business without as much interference from law enforcement.

    The difference is also that in times past police mistreatment tended to be more concentrated on certain groups that are unpopular minorities or on the fringe of society (blacks, homosexuals, petty criminals, serious drug users, prostitutes etc.). Yet the average middle-class citizen was more likely to be left alone or not subject to negative dealings with police, and so was able to maintain the illusion that police are really a benign or benevolent force in society.

    What has really changed is that nowadays pretty well anyone is a potential victim of police harassment or mistreatment, and so gradually fewer people are able to avoid facing the reality that cops are really tyrants and oppressors.

    • Nick,

      Absolutely.

      Brent has dealt with this “diminishing circle” idea previously. That is, the cops have always been brutal enforcers of arbitrary authority – but the average person (and average Clover, especially) has deluded himself into regarding them as benign because – so far – he hasn’t felt the abuse. Only “those people” – who, of course, deserve it. If only they obeyed the law….

      Problem is, the laws are now so tyrannical and pervasive it is impossible to avoid them – or the cops who enforce them. At least, not without agreeing to be something less than a man, or even a human being.

  8. I caught a CNN article today about a cop being prosecuted for bitch slapping a guy in rehab who used his mouth to offend the operators of the facility when he came home four sheets to the wind an in what might appear to be a very bad mood ( http://www.cnn.com/2012/10/04/justice/minnesota-police-officer-charges/index.html )

    Was this excessive force? I’d have to say so. Why was it used? Aside from the obvious and well elucidated discussions of cultural failure in the Western societies, there’s a more practical point I’d like to bring up.

    Cops need training in Aikido and Judo. They need to be capable of subduing a drunk without punching him in the face. I don’t understand why this is hard. Hundreds of person years have been spent by followers of men like Jigaro Kano, Gichin Funakoshi and Morihei Ueshiba with the singular purpose of developing techniques that allow the judicial and appropriate use of force.

    Why are these men ignored? Why is this training not mandatory? Why has this ethic been abandoned by those who would claim membership in the Samurai class?

      • Of course they aren’t Dom. But *why* aren’t they? I’d contend its an ethical failure, compounded by a technical one.

        I’ve always been reluctant to advocate the use of firearms for personal defense, not because I’m afraid of my neighbor or even that I’m overly concerned about his lack of skill. Mostly what concerns me is that it takes very little training to learn how to use deadly force once you bring guns into the mix.

        To learn how to kill with your hands takes a great deal more training than a gun, and to learn how to subdue and disable takes even more. By the time a person has spent 10 or 15 years learning to do it, he often finds he no longer has a desire to do so. Contrast this to a rifle or handgun. $500 and a few days at the range can make you a natural born killer. Sure, you may not be able to shoot someone in the eye with a .22 at 1000 yards, but you’d likely do OK in a supermarket parking lot. Comparatively speaking, there’s no comparison (no, I did *not* steal that from Yogi Bera. I made it up myself).

        Training in advanced hand to hand combat, with demonstrated proficiency, should be required before anyone is issued a gun and the right to use it professionally. I believe that would solve many of our problems with the police.

    • The problem is the America you think exists, in fact , does not exist any more. We are a mob who wishes things into being through magic and religious sentiment.
      You are above average, but still in the midst of this mob.
      Just because you give a group of men uniforms, priveleges, technology, logistic support, and a rigorous contract and script for who they’re suppose to be, how they must act, and what they must accomplish, does not make it a reality. Life is not the 24/7reality show under command of Hollywood and CIA studios control.
      We do have UFC fighters, could this highly physical entertainment tradition be adapted to physical, maybe. }ated communities work. Beverly Hills work. All roads are red curbs. You are followed when you drive there, and will be approached if you stop your vehicle anywhere.
      We can certainly start a tradition of eastern martial arts in America. I would guess the men would need to be 3 years old or younger. The discipline and prowess needs to be intrinsically organic. Its not something to learn by prussian rote.
      15 years, from now we’ll have population \ from which subset n can be persuaded to work as the type oflaw enforcers you envision. I have no qualms with having visions, but they will only be rationally achieved in an objective manner. Spending billions and tracking results with stastistics is a meaningless deceptio yet that is all the American mob mentality requires.

      • Tor, my ideal training regimen would start at about six years old; three is patently absurd but you make your point.

        I’d start with two to three years of Aikido. Candidates who passed would continue in Aiki-jutsu for another two years with supplementary training in Iado.

        At 11 to 12 years the candidate would begin training in Judo for another two years and on success would progress to Ju-jitsu augmented by training in foil, sabre and epee.

        At 16 to 17 years the successful candidate would be trained in Shotokan Karate. Education in both western and Eastern edged weapons would continue based on the candidates proficiencies.

        At 21 to 22 years, the successful candidate would be admitted to service and trained in the use of firearms, electronic weapons and chemical weapons for 1 year.

        And that’s all I have to say about that.

        • Sounds like good folks to have around. An association of men whose core value is physical and mental lawfulness. A lasting solution takes time effort and mindfulness. It needs to b ewillingly subscribed to, not forced.
          Like mencken said: to every problem there’s a simple, straightforward consensus answer. And that answer’s always wrong.

    • Scott,

      The typical cop is an overweight (or steroidal) bully – not someone who has the discipline to acquire martial arts skills.

      I agree with Dom. It’s an insult to Samurais to compare them with cops.

  9. Cops could be heroes, if they offered their services in the manner of a taxi driver or a bouncer. $50 service call, 20/hr for neighborhood patrol, extra for removing nuisance, violent people, discharged firearm surcharge etc.

    Men who create rights that command participating. Against your will are not heroes.

    Conquering King George is a benefit to those who do thework. You have to bear arns against tyrrany at an individual level, you can’t delegate that to a fictional authority.

    Our founding was a founding of a new tyranny. Maybe initially tyranny-lite but still tyranny.

    Allowing some men freedom without obligation while requiring others to pay for and provide this freedom is a proven failure.

    First they came for the exporters and producers withtariffs. When some southern states wanted out, we should have settled up the tab and then let them go.

    Second they came for the slaves and indentured servants. Most of these forced and willing immigrants have not taken their freedom with their own two hands. They should say, let us be, we need to homestead our own land and live by our rules and customs, we do not wish to be assimilated.
    Blacks are pawns of the state, they are destroying our nation and we are to blame for demanding they behave like our christian european ideal. The war of northern aggression is all about robbing peter to pay paul. THIS WAR IS STILL GOING ON, CITIES ROB RURAL AREAS, have nots are provided for by putting guns to the heads of the haves.
    The suffragist and 2nd wave 60s womens movement, civil rights marchers. Immigrant rights, gay rights, these are all false hero movements as well.
    All they did was form a lobby, lick the jackboots of the police state and say, go threaten and rob people so we can enjoy the rights we think we deserve while someone else pays for it.
    Martin Luther King will not be properly be called a hero until people of color earn there own living by the labor of there own two hands, and not a minute before.

    • “Our founding was a founding of a new tyranny. Maybe initially tyranny-lite but still tyranny.”

      It’s easy to prove, too:

      1773: The Boston Tea Party – A righteous act of rebellion
      1791: The Whiskey Rebellion – A traitorous act of insurrection.

      • That’s brilliant! An aphorism that cuts the crutch right from under the tri-corner faux libertarians and their ridiculous claim that the masters of the burgeoning peacetime colonial army were in some way subjugating us militarily to keep us free.
        Well done, sir.

    • “Cops could be heroes, if they offered their services in the manner of a taxi driver or a bouncer. $50 service call, 20/hr for neighborhood patrol, extra for removing nuisance, violent people, discharged firearm surcharge etc”

      They already exist…they’re called “bodybuards”, “mercenaries” and “security personnel”.

      The problem then is that under this system, ONLY those with money will have any protection at all, and the rest are left to fend for themselves for justice. It would be literally a case of a crime committed, a victim exists, yet no punishment because someone didn’t pay their protection bill. That’s Mafia logic, not “public service”. Criminals would just hang out in the poor areas with no fear from the police and form gangs for internal protection and…actually that’s pretty much the way it IS come to think of it!

      No we need a universal public system to PROTECT PEOPLE and not to “enforce laws”. They have to get back to actually trying to HELP people who need it rather than just following orders. The law is meaningless regardless of what they believe, people know when an actual crime or injustice has been done. We don’t need some politician thousands of miles away to tell us that raping someone is a bad thing to do. Just as a cop shouldn’t have to be told to help someone in need, they should do it because it’s just the right thing to do, money irrelevant!

      I never took police training…to they teach cops to be inhuman unfeeling dickish slaves to higher authorities, or does the attitude develop naturally? I think the article explains that pretty good. (p.s. well written man!)

      • Yes BUT–Mamba, imagine how much more prosperous you’d be if everything dropped in price *conservatively* by half, and you had twice the income…

        …because in a free society, unburdened by all the taxes and regulations we have now, that’s a conservative estimate.

        Now do you think you’d have enough money to chip in a few hundred bucks a year for a neighborhood cop or two?

        We have three constables we pay to patrol our neighborhood of roughly 1000 households. It costs $350/year to hire them.

        And besides–why do we need them at all? You’re responsible for protecting yourself–period.

        If you really want extra protection, go ahead and pay for it.

        But a “universal public system”–who pays for it? That argument devolves to what we have today–a police state that protects the politically connected, and dominates the rest of us…at our expense!

        The three constables we hire are the most polite, deferential cops I’ve ever met. Because I pay them, and they know it. The only time they’ve ever pulled me over, he came to my car’s window looking sheepish and (before I’d identified myself) called me by name and said “I’m sorry to bother you, but I thought you should know your registration is out of date. You don’t want HPD hassling you for it.”

        And he walked away.

        Best $350 I spend on security every year…besides a recent Glock purchase.

        • How funny. That’s why I respect rent-a-cops more than your typical ones. Not to say they’re all worthy of it but at least I know their employer can’t afford to lose business.

      • Well let me think about this for a moment.

        On one hand we have the wealthy paying thugs to oppress us and on the other hand we pay for the thugs the wealthy use to oppress us.

        I think oppression would be less if the oppressors had to pay the bill for it themselves. It would be even less if we could fight back. We could fight back against privately employed thugs. This would further increase the cost to the wealthy.

  11. I think we all reject the portrayal of modern cops as heroes. So who is a libertarian hero? I have decided that Hugh Hefner is one such hero.

    The downside of his media empire would have to be its perpetuation of the pathetic menage de un culture, and its fetishism with breasts in the upper 99.99% of actual female dimensioal distributions. But the accomplishments in the arena of social freedom and living the life you choose for yourself are impresssive.

    Playboy remains the greatest libertarian publication ever to have existed. This 1969 article by Karl Hess remains one of the greatest analyses of libertarian though to appear in a mainstream publication.

    http://fare.tunes.org/books/Hess/dop.html

    This kind of world class writing is rarely seen anymore.

    Hewas the first to integrate races and he did on his own private clubs, television shows, and magazines.

    He fought corrupt prosecutors on powertrips and won, over and over again.

    He lived the carefree party lifestyle of high school in front of the whole
    World with no apologies. He fought against wars drug prohibition and helped make it uncool to be an uptight busybody.

    Mr. Hefner stands as a living beacon of the wealth and pleasure within the reach of any man who sticks to his principles and lives for himself and the values he determines are most important.

    • I must respectfully disagree with your idolization of Hugh Hefner. He, as well as the Playboy empire was (and still is) anti-Second Amendment. The “Playboy Foundation” has been contributing to anti-gun groups for decades.
      Poor example…

    • As I commented over at Karen De Coster’s blog IRT her comments on this story, I find it fascinating that this supposedly “intelligent” individual is so desperate to become a gangsta for the State that he took a “job” as a prison guard (i.e., a “job” generally occupied by people too stupid, incompetent, and otherwise unfit to be cops). This is clearly a case study proving that however “intelligent” one might be, however recklessly that term is defined, it does not mean that one cannot also be a loser.

      • In a sense, I agree with you. But being above average is no guarantee of being able to lift your brain out of the soup of indoctrination that you’ve faced as a child. Many bright minds can never escape the swamp; they’ve been irreparably crippled.

        In a way, I sympathize with those new to the job. Many start out meaning well. After spending 12 years in school, taught to lick the boots of your benevolent overlords, told what a noble task it is to help enslave your peers, it’s just a natural extension. I don’t think we can denounce the sick individuals who enjoy slave-on-slave violence without also denouncing the school monopoly that created them. A sick institution on it’s 2nd or 3rd generation of indoctrination.

        The message of liberty is so long in reaching those that it reaches because they’ve been immunized against it from their very youngest years in government prisons.

      • Conditioning has to be considered. We are not only dumbed down but conditioned to throttle our own intellect and conditioned to serve the system. The social aspects can be over-riding.

        As I became more of kook I’ve learned that in many places I am socially expected to be quiet or if I voice my views I have be meek about it. I have found and been directly told that people take offense when express my views as confidently as someone who has mainstream views. It is simply felt to be offensive to express my views without ‘in my opinion, the way I see it, in my experience’ and other such qualifiers. Yet someone solidly on team D or team R doesn’t need any of that.

        Now take someone as smart or smarter than me that for these social reasons doesn’t fight the system or never even considers fighting it, but accepts it, because it’s what is socially correct. Toss on top of this the cop and military worship. Is it no surprise they do these things? I keep going back to James Garner in “The Americanization of Emily”, it’s not the politicians and generals and dear leaders that keep war going, its that people socially honor it, worship it, etc. Sure those with power play on that, run the con, but it’s the people who make it work, who socially go along with it to get along and even believe it.

        Lots of smart people go the route of entering the military and its because they feel instead of thinking. They are social, not rational.

  14. Eric,

    I do agree there are many officers out there particularly in larger departments (NYPD, LAPD, etc..) that have victimized innocent civilians, but there are instances where police are needed. In early 2010 Nevada Highway Patrol stopped a rented Chevy Camaro going 147 mph on I-15 between California and Nevada. When the driver was stopped he had meth, cocaine, and alcohol all in his system.

    • Nevada is as corrupt as they come. An out of town dude driving while brown in an expensive car is going to get pulled over for a shakedown and forfeiture. A friend that gets cars and bikes from auctions bailbondsmen repo bank sales says sometimes there’s blood and tissue from the traffic stop.

      Wake up and smell the financial holocaust.

    • Jameel, it is a logical fallacy to infer an opposite abstract extreme of an argument. Just because the current system of police is corrupt does not mean anyone is advocating for a society with no security, or no laws. Advocating the removal of corrupt laws or institutions does not mean an endorsement of lawlessness, or an endorsement of chaos.

    • I fail to see the reasoning here. The cops stopped someone who might have hurt someone so we have to live in a police state where people who make their way into government and government jobs like cops can hurt us with impunity? It doesn’t make any sense.

      Furthermore meth is a byproduct of the war on some drugs.

      Lastly if we are concerned about impaired people driving 147mph that can be handled many different ways that don’t involve checkpoints, revenue gathering, and general preying upon and hassle to the population at large. The american culture is way to fixated on control and punishment.

    • Hi Jamee,

      No one (not me, at least) is arguing for the abolition of peace-keeping. What I am denouncing is law enforcement – the prosecution of non-crimes.

      How to know the difference? Is there – or isn’t there – a victim? If there is no victim – no actual person who has had his rights violated in some way – then there is no crime.

      So, driving 147 MPH – as such – is no crime, properly speaking. It is merely a transgression of “the law.”

      So also with regard to the drugs you mention. The state has no right, properly speaking, to interfere with any person’s decision to ingest or partake of any substance whatsoever.

      The nut of the problem is multitudes of control freaks, each with a different arbitrary set of “beliefs” about what should be “illegal” – supporting (by voting or demanding that new laws be enacted, etc.) enforcement at gunpoint of their arbitrary beliefs.

      For instance, the thing I harp on a lot: seat belt laws. I am told it is for my “safety.” But the reasoning is utterly arbitrary – leaving aside the moral rightness or wrongness of it. If I should be forced to “buckle up for safety,” why shouldn’t you – and everyone else – be forced at gunpoint to wear a helmet? It would be for your “safety,” too. Maybe everyone ought to be forced at gunpoint to wear sunscreen, since after all it is “unsafe” to expose your unprotected skin to the sun’s carcinogenic rays.

      I have actually said this to cops. Some have even conceded the point. But they will nonetheless issue the ticket – because that arbitrary control freak edict is “the law.”

      It is madness – in addition to being stupid.

      And tyrannical.

      • Regarding seat belts. Not at all arbitrary. This is what happened.
        A driver is crippled in a crash in the car. The crash was the fault of the other driver. But now, the crip can no longer work, provide for themselves and the family. So somebody has to pay, and they she in court. They ask for a lifetyme of wages plus punitive damages. A ton of money.
        BUT WAIT!! The other side’s lawyer tell the court they of course sympathise with the victim and agree compensation should be made. However, had the victim been wearing the seatbelt, the injuries would NOT have been so severe. So in fact, your honour, the victim brought some of this on themselves.
        True story!
        So, not arbitrary at all.

        • Hi Jimmy,

          There are two problems with this argument:

          First, the presumption that an individual’s misfortune as a result of risks taken become the problem of “society.” Reject this collectivist premise – this business of one person’s misfortunes or needs becoming a claim enforceable at gunpoint on others who had nothing to do with causing it – and the problem disappears.

          Second, punishing people for not wearing a seat belt presumes they will, in fact, get hurt. Therefore, they must be treated as if they actually had.

          It is exactly like forbidding a person who has never misused a firearm from possessing one because he might misuse it, or because some other person has.

          Third (I know I said two 🙂 ) why is it anyone else’s business whether I put myself at risk? (See first point above.) By what right to do other people – random strangers – get to decide such things for me? Impose them on me?

          In your example, then, the person injured chose to not wear a seat belt. However, if the cause of the wreck was not their fault but rather the fault of the driver of the other car, then the entirety of the blame rests with the person who caused the harm. Not with the victim.

          Just as it would not lessen the culpability of a person who grabbed the gun I have sitting next to me at my desk right now and shot me… on account of the gun not being locked up in a safe.

          • Point was not the harm done, but the extent of the harm done by not belting in.
            Say if you were the cause of the crash. And you are sued for four millions of dollars. Then you learn because the other driver was NOT belted in, which resulted in the injuries being far more extensive, you agree to one millions.
            Also, you can’t lay that kind of money, your insurance company will have to. So, they are forced to raise their rates on all of their clients or go out of business. Others who had nothing to do with the accident are forced to help lay for your carelessness.
            Now, true enough they can buy from another insurer, which would then put others out if work as that insurance company closes its doors.

            By the way, I always bought into the notion of belting in, and so did years afore it became law.
            My beef is that it has become a 1st offence, meaning one can be pulled over for just that. And is counted as a moving offence.
            Also, I have no issue about people TALKING on their cell phones whilst driving. TEXTING is a whole nother matter!

            • In the great usenet bicycle helmet wars it was mentioned that mandatory use should be required because it would make a motorist feel better upon striking a bicyclist if said bicyclist was wearing a foam hat.

              The premise you’re putting forth is much the same.

              In order to prevent liability to careless motorists then bicycling and motorcycling would have to be banned outright. The operator of a two wheeled vehicle would sustain considerable injury if hit by a motorist.

              There’s the hazard in this line of thinking, there’s really no end to the limits that can be placed on us because of what someone else might do. That’s the beauty of the war on terrorism too. There’s simply no limit what the state may impose on us to keep us safe under such a premise.

              How safe is the state allowed to make us? Where’s the limit? Even in motoring there does not seem to be one. At what point is safety no longer practical? At what point is it a burden?

              Now like you, I’ve been using seatbelts since my first memories of being in a car so it’s not such a burden. But now to buy a new car means a bunch of airbags, traction control, and much more. Where does it stop? With the new urbanists it will stop by taking the private motor vehicle away from us. Some careless motorist may drive on the sidewalk or some other thing and strike a pedestrian…

              I don’t like where the what-if world is heading. We managed for a long time without these notions by holding people responsible for the damage they did or even transferring the risk to the victim of the careless person. The later is horrid but it’s a far sight better than living a nice and safe as government owned livestock.

  15. I have two short comments. First, when the SHTF, what went around, will come around. And Eric, as I read your article, I started thinking about those scenes in the movie Inglorious Basterds, where the IB’s carved a swastika in the foreheads of some of the Nazi’s they captured and released.

  16. Recently, a Michigan State trooper was killed when his car rolled over . . . I wrote into various forums asking whether the trooper in question was wearing his seat belt (as required by Michigan law).
    It seemed that I had ignited a firestorm . . . I was roundly castigated by most other commenters for bringing up the question whether he was wearing a seat belt. I was told “How dare you bring that up” . . . It turns out that the trooper was not wearing a seat belt.

    • I’m not surprised by this kind of stuff anymore! It’s common place now. You or I do it, we are fucking done. They do it, completely different story.

      • And of course, we wouldn’t do that kind of thing. It’s just inconceivable. No one but a sick fuck – and a pussy – cold-cocks a woman. Or physically assaults anyone, for that matter. Normal people only respond physically when they are being attacked themselves. And even then, proportionality and restraint are exercised. No man I know would strike a woman, as that cop did. He might bear hug her (or some such) if she were raining blows on him. But hitting her? Only a psycho does that.

        Too many psychos wear costumes, unfortunately.

    • We need a database of their home addresses.

      Anonymous, where are you? It’s the greatest service a hacker could do…besides perhaps shutting down the drone control centers.

      Publish them on Wikileaks. Let the chips fall where they may.

    • In our area it’s illegal to use a handheld device, like a cellphone while driving or you get fined. We also have a toll free number called Crimestoppers where if you call with a tip that leads to an arrest you can get a cash reward. commercials on TV encourage everyone to report things, and especially the cellphones (new law, awareness training to people I guess)

      Anyway, I was walking in town and I saw “someone” (you can almost see where this is heading, right?) talking on the phone and snapped a picture of them doing it, including their license plate. Then I called Crimestoppers on my phone to report it.

      The operator was very excited to hear that I had a cellphone violation to report with photo proof, as she said “This will make it easy to convict, thank you!” She then asked for the plate number and description of the vehicle, and after a few seconds pause she said, “Ummm sir, this is the SHERRIF’S van!” I said “Yes I know, now where should I e-mail my photo and how do I go about collecting…” instantly hung up on me!

      I called back and got another random operator and told her I was just disconnected and repeated my story. The new operator claimed that there was no record of me calling at all, and when I asked where I send the photo, she told me to send it to the sherrif!!! HAHAHAHAHAAA, yeah, he’s going to get right on that one, isn’t he?

      I just swore and hung up. No reason to waste any more time, was there? But remember, the cops supposedly have to follow the same laws as us, right? RIGHT? LOL

  18. Colorado police stop, and arrest 40 adults, looking for bank robbery suspect,
    Their “reliable tip” was the GPS tracker thats placed in every bank robbery bag.

    http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/headlines/2012/06/police-stop-handcuff-every-adult-at-intersection-in-search-for-bank-robber/

    Police in Aurora, Colo., searching for suspected bank robbers stopped every car at an intersection, handcuffed all the adults and searched the cars, one of which they believed was carrying the suspect.

    Police said they had received what they called a “reliable” tip that the culprit in an armed robbery at a Wells Fargo bank committed earlier was stopped at the red light.

    • Ah, here’s a good example of “good cop” vs “bad cop” mentality. They have a tracker, they have proof, and they need to find the tracker/robbers. 2 ways to do it, same result but different mentality:

      Good cop: They stop everyone, and SINCERELY say something like “Good afternoon, I’m really sorry for this, but we have evidence of a bank robbery via GPS tracker, and are searching for the tracker and the robbers now. You are probably innocent and this should only take a moment. Once we confirm you are not who we’re looking for, you’ll be free to go immediately. again, truely sorry for this, but we have to be sure.” Then they go QUICKLY focusing on the tracker, releasing everyone one at a time as soon as they know they are innocent and try to be as UNobtrusive as possible. To those who wait, offer water and the like to make their checkpoint semi-comfortable. Above all, know that innocent people are being inconvenienced and try to make it as quick and painless as possible.

      Bad cop: They stand like mercenaries guns ready. They start barking orders, shoving everyone around and treating everyone like they’re criminals. Then take their sweet time searching everyone, and while you have them there, start searching for anything, random personal searches for drugs or whatever. If anyone asks why they are being detained, yell for them to shut up and say nothing. Leave them in the heat for hours on the floor with no idea when they’ll be able to leave, or even why they are being stopped. Wait until EVERYTHING is over before releasing even a single person. Make no eye contact with the people and treat them like dogs.

      Both will result in finding the tracker and the robber, but which attitude do you think will result on people respecting the cops? In scenerio#1, I’d happily cooperate or at least understand and see that it’s necessary, while in #2 I’d want to shoot every one of the fuckers for THEIR actions. Unnecessary esclation due to a desire to be FEARED rather than RESPECTED in their profession…yet they wonder why we don’t like cops? Sheesh…

      P.S. I never read the story on the robbery stop, but I’m confident in saying that ddds are it more resembled scenario #2.

  19. Cops body slam woman, before AND after she is in handcuffs, then fistbump in celebration of a job well done:

    her crime? talking on a cell phone while driving.

  22. Heres the article where some hillbilly cops in Stephens County GA, roared into a gas station in their pimped out Escalade, dressed as street thugs, jumped out yelling and waving guns, a man who had just gotten cash from an ATM thought he was being robbed, tried to drive away, one of the moron cops purposely stepped behind his car, then shot the innocent man in the back.

    Video here:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZFlzvt0w7Q

    The cop, named Chance Oxner, who shot the innocent man was promoted for his heroic action.

    the other moron who jumped behind the moving automobile, Billy Shane Harrison, was in fact not even certified to BE a cop at the time. Seems he didnt meet all the qualifications and training.

    And then another cop, who falsified the training records after the shooting, got caught.
    http://www.independentmail.com/news/2010/jun/17/stephen-county-deputy-charged-felony-ayers-case/

    http://reason.com/archives/2010/03/23/another-senseless-drug-war-dea

  23. We need to eliminate “qualified immunity” for ALL “public servants”. The FEAR of being personally sued for misbehavior would cut down on the arrogant attitudes these “overlords” have overus “mere mortals”.
    If a cop, prosecutor, or other public official were liable for their own behavior, they would have to be more careful in their dealings with the public.

    • Wanton killing is never “right”, whether it is “lawful” or not and that’s not the point being made. “Legal” killing would be the better term, because legality is too often a fiction made up by men to mask their own unlawful (as in defying Natural Law) aggressive and violent acts against their fellow man. But for the victors in any conflict to use violence and coercion to elicit the desired testimony from their captors and mete out punishment based thereon is just as wrong. The point that both you and Gil miss is that very wealthy and powerful men who stood to profit from it, pushed the United States into World War I through propaganda disseminated via their control of the media. This was against the sage advice of the “pacifists” (more accurately described as non-interventionists) to keep the United States’ nose out of Europe’s affair. Had the United States (and to a lesser extent Canada) stayed home, it would have been another petty little European brushfire that would have burned itself out in short order. But those responsible for two glaring examples of gun-vernment theft and cronyism, fractional reserve banking and the “income tax”, stood to profit handsomely from U.S. involvement.
      When the war was over, onerous reparations were forced on Germany essentially leaving the Weimar republic no other choice than to print money to pay off their “debts” under the Treaty of Versailles. This led to economic shock in the German economy which fueled communist and national socialist movements. This made it easy for a glib bar-room-blowhard like Hitler to blame the communists and the Jews for the troubles the German people were experiencing at the time. So this loud mouthed kook rode a platform of “hope and change” (that resonated with the common Germans) all the way to the top because of actions taken by the United States in 1917 (barely four years after the bankers declared war on the American people with the Federal Reserve and Income Tax acts). The “Jews” were pawns in the game, scapegoats, dying right along with everyone else the German National Socialist Workers Party (a.k.a. Nazis) didn’t need. You’ll notice though, that old powerful European banking families weren’t targeted by the “Nazis” regardless of their ethnicity.
      The stories we’ve been told about the wonderful involvement of the United States in these and other military conflicts are propaganda. Those that would dare question the official line of the victors are branded heretics. Those that lost the war and dared challenge the victors had their balls crushed and were hanged by the neck until dead by the very same folks that locked Japanese Americans up in concentration camps. All sides were wrong in numerous ways in both conflicts, but it’s real easy to be smug and feel justified for doing anything you want, no matter how wrong, when “your” team wins, isn’t it?

  25. meant to add: i’m on multiple gun forums and most will shut down any thread that drifts into (sainted)cop bashing. reagrdless if the thread in question is detailing serious malfeasance or illegality on behalf of the local PD swinest

  26. ehh… just to clarify.. I’m Tim L from the SF bay area not this new clover Tim. Eric, how does more than one screen name get allowed ?

  27. As usual, Eric, you hit the nail on the head with this article. However, I must take exception to one comment in the article regarding the supposed justice meted out at Nuremberg against alleged German “war criminals” in 1945.

    You Wrote:
    “In a doctrinal way, the cop is exactly like the people who were – rightly – strung up at Nuremburg after WWII, who stated – truthfully – that they were just following the orders issued by the lawfully constituted authority. They were not merely thugs. They were duly appointed thugs. They did not do the awful things they did at random, on their own nickle – so to speak. They were told to do it – agreed to do it – and went ahead and did it. Any questions they may personally have had about the rightness or wrongness of what they were doing were put aside.”

    “Rightly” convicted, huh? Are you aware that these post WW II, convictions were based on expost facto law? That is these defendants were tried for supposed crimes which were not crimes under international law at the time they were allegedly perpetrated. Need I remind you that such a legal procedure is not only unconstitutional it is against the legal norms of all civilized countries. What is “right” about that?

    Furthermore, the German leaders who were tried in these kangaroo courts were not allowed to question the veracity of the charges against them and they were tortured to obtain confessions or otherwise coerced with threats to family. In the case of the Dachau show trials in 1946, Judge VanRoden, the head of the US Simpson Army Commission, testified before the US senate in 1949 that “of the 137 Adolf Hitler, SS Leibstandarte officers interrogated(by Jewish American officers), 135 had their testicles crushed beyond repair”. Such methods of “justice” were pretty well standard procedure with the “noble”, commie loving allies of “good old uncle Joe” Stalin. What is “right” about that?
    In fact Chief Justice of the US Supreme Court at the time called these trials “nothing more than high grade lynching trials for Germans”.

    Quite parroting system lies, Eric, it detracts from the otherwise great articles you write.

    • Hi Ollie,

      You’re right – Nuremburg was victor’s justice. And the epitome of hypocrisy.

      This doesn’t mean the likes of Herr Goring, et al, were not guilty. I simply agree that the Allies were far from innocent themselves.

      • OK, Eric, let me get this straight. Goering et al were never given a fair trial so we have to rely on victors accusations toward these German leaders as representative of the truth. These same victors were then part of the system you’ve since been disparaging in all of your articles and we are supposed to trust the veracity of the accusations they have made against these German leaders? What is wrong with this picture?
        I’ve got news for you, Eric. They lie to us a lot just as they’ve lied to us about this subject.

        Here is what Sir Hartley Shawcross, British Attorney General and former British prosecutor at Nuremberg had to say about it in a speech at Stourbridge, England, 16 March, 1984.

        “I believe now that Hitler and the German people did not want war. But we declared war on Germany, intent on destroying it, in accordance with our principle of balance of power, and we were encouraged by the ‘Americans’ around Roosevelt. We ignored Hitler’s
        pleadings not to enter into war. Now we are forced to realize that Hitler was right.” – Attorney General, Sir Hartley Shawcross,
        March,16th, 1984

        If you want the truth about culpability in perpetrating WW II, Eric, you might read some of the quotes here;
        http://rense.com/general83/dett.htm
        All the best,

        • Ollie – for more details on how we got into WWII, read The Creature From Jekyll Island. It’s a book about the history of the Federal Reserve System, and with that history, how the rich dudes behind the banks got us into WWII in order to protect their investments in England and Europe.

  29. Mr Eric, not using the honorific ‘Sir” as in No sir or yes sir? to an occifer? Too me, no problemo, I use them all the time, such as “No cur, yes cur,” as we did in the army, respectful? Hell no, in trouble? Hell no, just got to remember which spelling you use.
    Officers in the services are a lot like occifers in po-lice departments and sheriffs they let it go to their heads expecting respect when none is deserved.

    • “Sir” is appropriate as follows:

      You are addressing a customer, a stranger to you, an older person, or a person senior to you in the military.

      If you feel the need to be formal or particularly polite, then “officer” is ok.

      But “yes, sir” and “no, sir”?

      Disgustingly servile.

      • Mr Eric, I sense you didn’t get my meaning, I realize I was being obtuse, Cur, by one of several definitions; 1. “A mongrel dog, especially a worthless or unfriendly one,’ 2. “A mean, cowardly person.” We would address senior officer by saying, Yes cur, No cur, it would soung respectful but it would not be respectful from our enlisted perspective…

  30. Yeah….but after you’re stuck in the government box for 12 years, told that all government employees are heroes…how much unbrainwashing does it take to arrive at a real conclusion based on any semblence of logic or reason?

  31. I’ve got mixed feelings about this. Watching the youtube videos of cops abusing mundanes angers me. I used to think there were a few bad apples and the “code of silence” protected them. In recent years I’ve seen the government institute law and policies that abet these injustices. Still, I think most police are “sheepdogs” who have a natural aptitude and capability to protect us sheep from the wolves. We need them. And they have little choice but to work for a modern police dept. with all its “law enforcement” over peace-keeping agenda if they want a good-paying job. The same goes for teachers, firemen, and an ever-larger portion of society as govt tentacles ensnare every facet of human activity. That’s the REAL problem, and I don’t think there’s anything you or I can do to stop that trend. It’s every man for himself, so prepare accordingly. I just hope the “good guys” (oath-keepers?) will be there to resist if and when someone tries to commandeer the police to enforce a “final solution.”

  32. The risk the bad cops are bring down for all the police officers is that if they insist on acting like an occupying army, they might one day be treated like one.

  33. As the late George Carlin used to say…Anyone going slower than me is a MORON! Anyone going faster than me is a MANIAC! Works for me!

  34. Who watches the policeman? That is the point. No one gets on the front lines with that person. But they can discuss what he should do for hours. No one who isn’t there with the policeman and hasn’t walked in that person’s shoes has the right to criticize.
    We do not have a justice system in the United States. What we have is a money system. If you have the money to hire the right lawyer, you get off. If you do not, then you pay in other ways. To me the thug is the system of justice based on wealth and the policeman is helpless against that system.
    Two lawyers will often argue in court. Then go have a drink afterwards. It is nothing personal. They both collected their wages for acting in court.
    Or look at out gutless wonders in the Congress. One suggested withdrawing foreign aid to Libya since they killed our ambassador. 80 to 10 against in the congress!
    Until our justice system becomes a little more than what it currently is, a policeman has no choice if he wants to keep working.
    We have a quota system. The system says he has to give out so many tickets every month.
    I personally feel that traffic management is a separate department from regulating how people act.
    I am old. I remember a time when we were taught that a policeman is your friend there to help you when you are in trouble. Not an aggressive salesman for the lawyer industry.
    Right now, if you are stopped, your best bet is restraint. Give the man respect and keep your mouth shut. Even a fish wouldn’t get caught if it kept it’s mouth shut. Answer any questions with Yes Sir, No Sir, and volunteer nothing. The current justice system is there to trap you. The policeman is there to trap you. He is not there to help you. Remember that when you vote for taxes. Mostly real estate taxes support local police.
    I remember a time when a policeman had to know the names of everyone in his neighborhood. He had to know Aunt Bee and Toby and John and Joan. He had to know about Clarence and his Attention Deficit Disorder and treat him accordingly. He had to know that Susan is diabetic TYPE I and what to do if he finds her collapsed.
    But the days of a policeman on a beat are over. They are all in $30,000 or better cruisers. For the most part they are covering a lot more territory than a beat policeman and have no personal effort to know the people they are serving.
    So they are also dealing with life threatening situations with no background knowledge of what is going on.
    Until we get our Congress off it’s backside and get them putting together realistic laws and game rules for the police to work with, nothing will change.
    Until that happens, expect them to be corrupt.

    • Dave wrote: “Until we get our Congress off it’s backside and get them putting together realistic laws and game rules for the police to work with..”
      “We the free people” don’t need any more new laws. We need to do away with 99% of the ‘laws’. Not add new ones. The only ones that need to be thrown on their backside not off of it and kicked out are the ‘congress’.
      I long for the day of post England and her ‘laws’ and pre-Consitution that was written by those so-called ( public educated term )’fathers’ you know, those rich bastards that put us under ‘new laws’.
      Stop thinking of inside the system and think outside, don’t be an American robot.

    • Dave,

      I agree with much of what you say about the high-echelons of authority, but as regards cops – they voluntarily chose to become cops. No one forces them to do what they do. So they are morally culpable for what they do.

      Yes, sir? Not in a million years, my friend. Barely civil is the most they’ll get – with no honorific.

      Because they are not honorable.

  35. Tim’s spelling, grammar and general misuse of language indicate he may be a victim of public education. He does seem to have a curious side and may be enlightened with more exposure to the less traditional sources of information.

  37. Cops remind me of the Nazi helper Jewish people in the concentration camps who helped the Nazis with their ‘legal’ ‘duties’ against the other Jewish prisoners for small benefits like an extra piece of bread or a blanket or the like.
    Leo Tolstoi gave an account in “The Kingdom of God is Within You” about how man will do all sorts of ‘things’ to others because he doesn’t realize he is also a slave. Here is a short quote from “The Kingdom of God is Within You”
    ” I have been told a story of a gallant police officer, who came to a village where the peasants were in insurrection and the military had been called out, and he undertook to pacify the insurrection in the spirit of Nicholas I., by his personal influence alone. He ordered some loads of rods to be brought, and collecting all the peasants together into a barn, he went in with them, locking the door after him. To begin with, he so terrified the peasants by his loud threats that, reduced to submission by him, they set to work to flog one another at his command. And so they flogged one another until a simpleton was found who would not allow himself to be flogged, and shouted to his companions not to flog one another. Only then the fogging ceased, and the police officer made his escape. Well, this simpleton’s advice would never be followed by men of the state conception of life, who continue to flog one another, and teach people that this very act of self-castigation is the last word of human wisdom.

    Indeed, can one imagine a more striking instance of men flogging themselves than the submissiveness with which men of our times will perform the very duties required of them to keep them in slavery, especially the duty of military service? We see people enslaving themselves, suffering from this slavery, and believing that it must be so, that it does not matter, and will not hinder the emancipation of men, which is being prepared somewhere, somehow, in spite of the ever-increasing growth of slavery.”

    I would rather be the ‘one simpleton’.
    Keep up the informing work Eric and maybe more will stop ‘flogging one another’ and end the end the ‘gallant police officer’ will get turned on and have to make his escape!

    • There are always “trustees” within the system because there aren’t enough bodies to fill the guards boots. Plus they’re cheaper since the powers that be are likewise cheap bastards.

  39. For any of the clovers here who do not comprehend just how corrupt and authoritarian the American police industry has become, one only needs to subscribe to the free once-daily report from the Cato Institute, entitled National Police Misconduct at http://www.policemisconduct.net/

    Read that report daily for a while and you will become disgusted with what American law enforcement has become. While there are still good cops here and there, the system is forcing them out, as the globalist agenda morphs US law enforcement into the enforcement arm of USSA’s police state.

    Protect and Serve was their mantra decades ago, now it has become Submit and Obey.

  40. great article……..could not resist commenting, here in NSW we just had a commemoration of the 270 cops that have died since the founding of the state of NSW in Australia, apparently a lot of tears where shed last week at the ceremony by the Police Commissioner, not by me, my family came from Police states , my mother from the Nazis and my father from the Czech purges by the secret Police, my mother now looks on with horror and dread of how the cops here in this state copy the same dress uniform style of the brown shirts and thugs of the 1930s, she is sad that these thugs and bullies dress with bloused pants, combat boots and look and behave aggressively, the world wide trend is to dress cops with the para military Police look, is this by accident ? I don’t think so, Eric the uniform also attracts these kinds of people that desire to use force over others.

    by the way no cop has ever been there to help me in any way shape or form , they are generally not to be trusted till proven otherwise.

    • I believe someone once did some research on cop fatalities here in the States and found that when you drill down into the data the numbers don’t paint all these deaths as “heroic”. There were auto accidents and even friendly fire killings. Clearly they all didn’t “fall” because of something noble.

  41. In 1963, I was driving my 1955 Chevrolet north on a two-lane main road in Wyoming headed for Sheridan (no interstate there yet) when a state trooper came up behind me with lights on. He walked up to the window and said, “Where you going in such a hurry?” I told him that I was just going to Sheridan and really wasn’t in that much of a hurry. He said, “Well, I clocked you for the last mike or two at 92 miles per hour.” I told him I guess I hadn’t realized I was going so fast. “The problem,” he said, “is that some of these ranchers pull out of these lanes and side roads without looking or stopping, and if you’re not careful at the speed you’re traveling, you won’t be able to deal with that.” I said I understood. “Okay,” he said, “just keep an eye out.” I assured him that I would, and he went back to his car.

    No suspicions. No search for weapons. No search for drugs. He didn’t even ask me for ID. I could be wrong, but I believe there was a posted speed limit of 70 at the time. Anyway, can you imagine a 19-year-old kid in a similar situation today? The world has changed, and not for the better.

    • Absolutely.

      Today, you’d have faced at minimum a “reckless driving” cite – very possibly arrest and seizure of your vehicle, too. At gunpoint.

      Things have changed.

      And most definitely not for the better.

  42. It’s a moving article Eric, no doubt. If I were a cop I’d quit my job. Wait! I was a cop, and I quit my job! Don’t let it go to your head 🙂

    You say:

    “The courts have conferred upon cops essentially limitless and unaccountable authority”

    I think this is the most important line of the treatment because it aims the criticism in the right direction. Cops don’t make policy, they serve it. Every cop that carries a gun is an officer of the Court and it’s the duty of the Court to instruct its officers and also maintain discipline. When the Court fails, so do its officers.

    I’d suggest we suffer from failures of the executive, legislature AND judiciary. Blaming cops is a lot like busting 14 year old kids selling dope on street corners.

    • What if the 14 year olds are selling lemonade, a cap they made from recycled yarn, some fan fiction they wrote about the Twilight series.

      They all get a bloody nose from tactical team 9. They get a $300 fine; their stuff confiscated, and a boring lecture from business licensing vice-seargant shriveldick prattling on about judicial, executive, congressional, rectal, and gonadal branches of American cavity search and drone executional jurisprudence.

      • “vice-seargant shriveldick”… Between this and “ball washers” you and Fimbul have made my day.

        The bottom line is that slave-masters don’t like you wandering around their plantation of lies without permission and at great expense

    • “Every cop that carries a gun is an officer of the Court and it’s the duty of the Court to instruct its officers and also maintain discipline. When the Court fails, so do its officers.”

      That’s good reasoning if we can accept the premise that there has been a failure of the system. It’s more reasonable, to me, to assume that the system is working as designed. The system is designed to extract money from the population at large and to feed individuals into the judicial process in order to provide clients for the corporate prison system.

      • Bingo! That’s why when I hear people say that the FedGov, or any governmental agency, “doesn’t know what it is doing and is stupid”, hasn’t stopped to carefully think it through. Yeah, it appears stupid, but that’s only to get you upset and while your emotions are all in a turmoil slip the noose over your neck. It works! Its worked for over two centuries. It’s in fact the most brilliant con ever created.

  43. We’ve basically reached the same level as people living in feudal Japan — offend a samurai (the nation’s “control class”) and he could cut off your head with impunity. Offend a cop and he can pull a gun or a taser and go to town with impunity.

    Sure, there are some decent cops who try to enforce arbitrary laws with restraint, but they still mean to enforce them, and there’s no question that their loyalty lies to their paycheck. The “old breed” are fading rapidly, being replaced by younger cops who are graduates of the nation’s PTSD mills overseas and the steroid labs at home. “Keeping the peace” has long since ceased to be a primary function and has been replaced by “enforcing the law,” whatever the lobbyist-focused Congress says it is at the time.

    As for who you feel safer around…I’ve known a few 1% bikers (one of the “boogeyman” groups that gets trotted out from time to time). I don’t recall them saying what speed I could drive, what guns I could own/carry, etc. Mess with them, you’ll get hurt. Mess with me or my family, you’ll get hurt.

    I think the root of the problem is that the Clovers lack any kind of internal compass of how to behave, so they need someone to tell them what to do and would be lost without it. Likewise, they think everyone else is like them — too dumb to figure out right and wrong without being told explicitly — so they want all these dumb laws for everyone.

    • “I think the root of the problem is that the Clovers lack any kind of internal compass of how to behave, so they need someone to tell them what to do and would be lost without it. ”

      Yep, there it is. People like old Tim are the ones who paid attention in school. I dropped out of high school at 16 (in 1968) because I couldn’t see the point of listening to the bullshit that formed the core curriculum. The bullshit was the main course being taught, no matter what the name assigned to the class I was required to take.

      This conditioning is the whole purpose of public school, and any actual learning has to be undertaken on a student’s own initiative, or under the direction of parents.

      • I considered some of what they made me learn to be bullshit, such as literature,ancient history, and “contemporary drama”, but I found math, chemistry, and physics quite interesting, and I recognized that they were not useless knowledge. I also liked learning Spanish. I was fortunate to have an excellent Spanish teacher. Unlike 99% of people who took high school Spanish, I still speak it quite well.

  44. Donut molesters of the state sanctioned gang are like Barry Hussein Hopenchange and other liberal rat turds, they think the whole world loves them. Believing your own press clippings and groupie ball washers will do that.

    • Agree, Fimbul –

      With the caveat that the same applies to Republican rat turds just as much. Mittens is no less an authoritarian control freak – and corrupt tool of corporatist interests – than Barry. And those who support him are fools for believing otherwise.

  46. Nothing makes me see red more than a bumper sticker that says “Thank A Cop”. I haven’t met a decent cop in over thirty years. Google the the cop who shot to death a double amputee vet in a wheelchair. The cop feared for his life when the vet waved a pen at him. Story here: http://nbcnews.to/V4eFJx

    • Yup.

      The simple question here is: Do you feel safe when you see a cop car in your rearview? Almost no one will say yes, they do. They will instead say they feel nervous – even scared. What does this tell them about the true nature of law enforcement?

      • If I am driving, I do not feel comfortable when a LEO is behind me. Simple reason: They have the power to take money from me, waste my time, and/or make my life uncomfortable.

        I have had some LEOs come to my assistance when I was disabled on the side of the road. During those occasions I was thankful that they assisted me.

        (If the law stated that I would get fined/ticketed for being on the side of the road, then I would not have been as thankful to see the LEO when I was disabled.)

        • I have had some LEOs come to my assistance when I was disabled on the side of the road.

          I’ve also had swinetards show up behind me when I’ve had a flat or engine trouble. To a one, they’ve been USELESS in terms of providing any actual assistance. OTOH, I’ve never wanted their assistance in the first place – that’s what I pay AAA for.

          I guess the only “good” thing about a cop stopping to pretend to be concerned about my situation when broken down is that, at least for a few minutes, it keeps them distracted and prevents them from finding other innocent victims to exploit. Then again, I’ve always, whenever one of them pulls over to “help,” been worried that they just might find some pretense to escalate the situation into something ugly. You never know with those psychopaths these days.

          • I once ran out of gas on the Mass Pike. Yeah, stupid and embarrassing but I had a lot on my mind and it happened. So I pull off the highway and call AAA. Then one of Massachusetts’s finest pulls up behind me. Now this hero seemed to be quite annoyed that he might have to actually render service to mere mundane as opposed to being able to sleep in his cruiser on a road detail while collecting overtime. Plus he was a member of a second protected class so he had a chip on each shoulder and was openly hostile. Well, what are you going to do? You have to take it as it comes. So the first thing he wants to know is how I ran out of gas which seemed like a fairly retarded question to me. So I replied,”The same way anybody runs out of gas. I don’t think I did anything special. Well, I don’t think he particularly cared for my reply and he informed me that it’s “illegal” to run out of gas. Who knew? If I had only known, I would have bought some gas! No one ever mentioned that in drivers-ed or when I took a driving exam and a road test. You live, you learn. And of course there’s a ticket to be issued and a fine to be paid. Whatever. Do what you have to do. You learn to live with these things in Taxachussets. I just try to think of all these fines as the price of freedom and being able to do what I want to do. Like run out of gas whenever I feel like it! So I tell him that I’m all set and that I’ve already called AAA and that they’re on their way and I’ll soon be on my way. Well guess what? That’s sort of “illegal” too. Once again, who knew? Apparently I’m not allowed to call my own tow truck to assist me on HIS highway. AAA never mentioned this when I paid them for their service. Apparently there’s some advanced skill set involved in calling for road assistance that I’m not aware of or special training or a class or something that’s not available to mere mundanes. Who knew? Wait a minute, “HIS” highway? I’ve driven the Mass Pike more times than I care to remember, but I swear to God that I have never seen his name on it anywhere. I always wondered what the State of Massachussets did with all that tax money I’m forced to give them. Apparently they gave it to this hero so he could buy the Mass Pike! A really sad, sorry and pathetic state of affairs. And its all becoming just a little too unbearable. Someday, somewhere, somehow, something’s got to give! Somebody’s going to snap. And somebody should be everybody! Hey, we all have our hopes and dreams.

        • It’s the always-there possibility of arbitrary force being exercised against you that makes you – and me – feel uncomfortable. Far more so, in fact, than being in a “bad neighborhood,” or having to deal with ordinary thugs. Because in those situations, you know you can at least use your fists (or your gun) or just beat feet and get the hell out of there, if need be. But with a cop, you’re rendered legally defenseless; utterly at his mercy. If he decides to fuck with you, he can. And anything you do can and will be used against you. Try to walk away and he’ll Tazer or tackle you, then shackle you. Resist his assault – even if it’s only to ward off his blows and to try to avoid being caged – and he’ll shoot you dead.

        • I’ve had a bunch of random Hell’s Angels bikers stop and help me repair my car when I was on the side of the road. They fixed it up, and I had to almost force them to take a few bucks as thanks for beer. when they approached, I wasn’t afraid, yet everytime a cop passes by, I’m just waiting for the lights to turn on so the bullshit can begin.

          Pretty bad when you can feel less fear form a biker gang than “society’s protectors”, eh?

          • I’ve never had an interaction with a HA – but I know people who have and they say similar things. From what I gather, the HA are like most of us: They just want to be left the “f” alone to do their thing – and you don’t “f” with them, they won’t “f” with you.

            Which makes them the antithesis of “law enforcers.”

  47. @Tim:
    Tim, you have allowed yourself to slip into comfortable delusions    .

    Most of the people on this site replying to your posts are trying to help you undergo the same painful, revealing transformation we’ve undergone ourselves.

    That is: to throw off the shackles of delusion, and face reality as it really is. To realize the conditioning you’ve been subject to practically since birth is bullshit.

    That you have controllers and masters, not cops and politicians. That if you persist in your thinking, you’re a SLAVE.

    These systems are not benign. They are not for your “safety”. They are to keep you under control, and producing for your masters. They are the antithesis of freedom.

    If you’ve seen the Matrix, we’re offering you the Red Pill. Take it. The pain is temporary, but the pleasure of living a life revealed is forever.

    • The system is a stealth civil war in progress. In Elko County NV for example, a county with 50,0000 residents, in 2011, there were 500 DUI arrests. The cost per arrest is 2 days in jail and $5000 in expenses.

      This kind of antigoverning is going to ruin the gravy train for the 47% moochers among other things.

      They’re like the demanding ball busting bellowing broad still strutting around her home the day before the man resorts to bugging out for good and never looking back.

      Raise your own treiatorous bastards, bring back the 30% tariff. Put africans back in chains. Let women get slapped around with no right to vote or do anything without a man’s permission. Leave the geezers to fend for themselves. Let the gays, mexicans, irish, get lynched. Establish a state church. End free speech and forbid criticism of government, religion, and community leaders. Burn witches at the stake. Hang the thieves. Put the kids back in the coal mines. Let the orphans and crippled beg on the street…

      I would have tolerated being a productive Peter who gets robbed to pay deadbeat Paul, but you took it too far.I’ve not only opted out, but am actively in opposition to all your collectivist crap, and hope to witness you all being exposed for the bankrupt criminal failures you really are.

      • “The system is a stealth civil war in progress.”

        That is an excellent description. I know a retired USMC officer who just so happens to be my main boss. He has a pretty high position in the company I work for (well over 200k a year). He’s been spending the past few years fine tuning his sniper skills and has well over 100k in serious rifles and other small arms. He spends most of his free time attending snipers schools/clinics/competitions across America. I only see this guy about twice a year and we discuss business over a lunch. Our last outing was basically to discuss my contract closing out where I’m presently working (which this coming week will be my last). At this last lunch he said the exact same sentence I just quoted above. He went on to say he’s been buying all the ammo he finds at the stores with cash.

        • I’ve been hearing similar stories from veterans and cops, Dom.

          Scares the crap out of me.

          I don’t want this thing to escalate to violence; but the criminals in charge are all-in at this point.

          They know that if they don’t get total tyranny, they will ALL be at the very least prosecuted…and probably worse.

          Amazing how history repeats.

          • Scares the crap out of me too! With all these cops “just doing their jobs” and theirs job description becoming more intrusive… We’ll it just ain’t good. With fellas like Tim and the rest of the clovers asking for more… We’ll that ain’t good either! It’s a fucking multiplier. Soon we’ll be exponentially out numbered in all directions.

      • Ditto.

        It is fast approaching a tipping point. That point being – when it’s no longer worth playing along.

        I, too, would have been content – would still be content – to live out my life as a quiet cow in the pasture, provided they left me mostly alone and I could mostly go about my existence without constant harassment. My point of no return will come when I can no longer even be left in peace on my own land.

        I fear that day is fast approaching – for all of us.

        • Yep, exactly. What’s so scary is that so few sheeple will allow themselves to be awakened to that reality. I say “allow themselves” because, I believe, most of them know what’s going on. They’ve just been so conditioned and indoctrinated, so dependent upon The Matrix for their entire lives that living in real freedom is too abstract and too horrifying a thought to even contemplate.

          I think many will eventually wake up and resist, but will it by that time be too late?

      • I’ve been there. Nothing but desert and mines to speak of. But, then again, I read where Nevada is the worst state when it comes to driver citations. I believe Montana ranked the best… i.e. they left you pretty much alone.

  48. Why should quanity of drugs matter, simple, a big time drug dealer is more likely to illegally carry a firearm and more likely to use it to protect his drugs and money. Personally I’m all for making pot legal, however the hard core drugs usually end in those consuming violating other laws as well and do cause serious harm even if it is just to yourself, however the cops should be able to enforce laws to keep you and others safe. As far as speeding 10 over to me is not wreckless driving, however 30 over to me is. Here where I live if you refuse to buckle up, as long as you don’t get out of control, the cop will just write u a ticket and let you be on your way. The way it should be (despite I am against the seatbelt laws as it can save lives but can also take lives). However if you don’t pay the ticket or go to court, then a warrant will be issued for your arrest forcing you to go to court. No cop should just force you out of your car and arrest you for failure to put your belt on. I don’t agree with all laws, however you should fight the justice system to have the law changed, not hate all cops. That is like hating all soldiers because we’re in war. Cops do wrong things at times, but everyone does. There are good cops out there though that try to do the right things.

        • Have you seen what our prisons are like? They are the most dangerous places on Earth. These gladiator factories turn out the killers. They house the shot-callers who decide who lives and dies in our major cities.

          In no way do they make us safe. They are used to destabilize society to the optimal level so sheep give up the optimal fleece. Its one big funny farm for them, and you were a minor hired hand in the largest crime ring ever to have existed.

          • Indeed.

            How can any human being with even the slightest empathy endorse the idea of caging non-violent “offenders” (typically, those caught with arbitrarily illegal “drugs”) with violent predators, to be faced with the Hobson’s Choice of getting fucked in the ass – or learning to fuck up other people? The product is just what you’ve said: Manufactured killers.

            It’s sickening.

    • Tim,

      That’s your assertion – not a fact. Just a blanket generalization used to justify blanket tactics against people who haven’t harmed anyone.

      Would it surprise you to know that, while in college, I grew 100-plus pot plants at a time? Yet I never used a gun (or even a harsh word) against anyone.

      I also tried “harder” drugs back then – as did almost all my friends. As did The Chimp. As did Obama. But unlike The Chimp – and Obama – we never harmed anyone. And – we’re not hypocrites, as they are. As most cops are. Most cops have tried pot at one time or another; they also “speed” routinely. They know these things are essentially harmless. Yet they will arrest – cage – other people for doing it. Threaten them with lethal violence – etc. It’s despicable.

      You write:

      “however the cops should be able to enforce laws to keep you and others safe”

      As defined by whom, Tim? The arbitrary decisions of politicians and bureaucrats? By what right?

      My “safety” is none of your damn business, Tim – or a cop’s – or anyone else’s.

      The only morally relevant basis for Thou Shallt Not is: Have you harmed someone else by your actions? Period.

      You write:

      “Here where I live if you refuse to buckle up, as long as you don’t get out of control ”

      What does “out of control” mean, Tim?

      Does it mean refusing to obey? Yes, that’s exactly what it means – in terms of what will happen, if you refuse to obey.

      Stop euphemizing and bullshitting. Face facts: If you do not obey even the most trivial order, the most nonsensical law, the cop can and will escalate the situation to the level of physical violence – to a gun pointed at your face. If you resist – that is, if you attempt to avoid his assault – he can and will kill you.

      All because you wished to be left in peace – and refused to accept not being left in peace.

      • I also tried “harder” drugs back then – as did almost all my friends. As did The Chimp. As did Obama. But unlike The Chimp – and Obama – we never harmed anyone. And – we’re not hypocrites, as they are. As most cops are. Most cops have tried pot at one time or another; they also “speed” routinely.

        And don’t forget drunken driving. The donut gobblers are regular practitioners of this. I used to frequent a restaurant and bar in Anne Arundel County, Maryland that, almost exactly at 1:45AM, would fill up with cops just getting off shift. Needless to say, these guys were NOT “stopping in for a cup of coffee” before going home. One of the bartenders used to tell me that they’d sometimes stay till 4:00AM, literally staggering out of the bar, getting into their squad cars to drive off to God only knew where. Apparently they figured that this window was “safe enough” not to risk causing a multi-car accident with multiple fatalities. And of course they could always count upon the morning shift a the local pigpen to provide cover in the event that one of the lushes did get into “a mishap” on the road.

        Fucking hypocrite thugs, every goddamned last one of them.

        • Absolutely.

          And here’s another:

          They (in my state, at least) are given leave to carry their weapons – concealed – when off duty (and even when retired) in bars and other places where alcohol is served. We mundanes are not. Even if we’re not drinking. Even if it’s just Applebees (or whatever)… you know, a place that serves wine and beer. If we’re caught carrying in such an establishment, it’s enough to lose our CC “privilege”. Not them, though. And of course, they don’t even need a CC permit to carry concealed.

      • Thomas Jefferson said it well when he wrote, “to preserve these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
        As you can see here, many of us do NOT consent to be subject to arbitrary rules and brutalized for failure to do so. So your beloved police have no JUST power to enforce such.

          • Gill, that was a hopeless comment. Try to stay on the same page. We need canon fodder like yourself to draw out the finer points of the argument, but if you insist on writing like a putz it defeats your entire purpose.

          • Gil…in other words, you need to grow up just a bit more. Are you really going to go thru life as a stupid little government loving parasite? Don’t you want to be a man?

    • Which 30 over?

      The 85mph on an empty interstate near me or the 100mph on an empty interstate near Eric?

      And I’ll tell you right now the interstates near me are far less demanding than those near eric when they are empty in the middle of the night. They are much wider, flatter, and straighter.

    • Sorry, Tim – I don’t need anyone to prevent me from harming myself. . . it’s my body, my life, and if I want to harm myself, it is nobody’s concern but mine!

      You only have the right to dictate the actions of others if you hold Certificate of Ownership over that person. Since I hold sole Title over myself, neither you nor anyone else has any right, whatsoever, to tell me what I can and cannot do to or with my own person.
      It is my right to eat a handful of LSD, if I so desire – My Body, My Choice. If I were to force you to take LSD, your rights would then be violated, and I would be a criminal and therefore deserving of consequences.

      Your argument is specious at best.

    • Tim, If drugs were legal(decriminalized), they’d be so cheap that they would not be worth protecting. And, all the gun toting criminal element dealers you describe would be broke and out of business. God help me if I need laws and cops to keep me safe! Oh and furthermore, I don’t have any respect for soldiers either. Since when do they get a pass on personal accountability as well? Tim, think about this: “What if they held a war and nobody came?”

  49. Why should quanity of drugs matter, simple, a big time drug dealer is more likely to illegally carry a firearm and more likely to use it to protect his drugs and money.

    • How many “big time dealers” do cops arrest on an average day, Clover? (Any answer other than “none” makes you a liar, and you know it.)

      C’mon, knock off the bullshit.

    • Thomas Jefferson once said, “The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others.” (emphasis mine)

      Not “Likely injurious,” not “possibly injurious,” not even, “almost certainly injurious.”

      The likelihood of any given person to carry a weapon, legal or otherwise, is in direct proportion to his likelihood of being assaulted and killed – in the case of “drug dealers,” being assaulted and killed by Jack-Booted Thugs for the heinous crime of not harming anyone.
      When was the last time a member of the Coors Cartel got busted for possession of an illegal weapon, in addition to possession of an illegal drug (alcohol), during a no-knock raid on their home?
      When was the last time members of the Miller Mafia and the Pabst Posse hoisted their illegal submachine guns and had a gunfight over sales territory in broad daylight?

      You seem to be having serious difficulty in comprehending the most basic of Principles: No Victim, No Crime.

        • Why do you care Gil? You don’t even live here in the U.S. Based on recent history people like you saw to it that a lot of your neighbors’ really nice, expensive guns went to the crusher and smelter “down under.” In an effort, once again, to train the salamander here goes. The preamble to the Second Amendment reads “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state,”. Notice that term Gil: preamble. That is explaining to you that a militia, meaning the whole of the able bodied (and at that time, male) citizens was to defend the country due to the danger (proven countless times by virtually innumerable governments down through the ages) of maintaining a standing army. Ask the fine folks in Afghanistan about “the neighbors” misuse of standing armies Gil. So to maintain Liberty and provide security from all enemies, domestic and foreign, timeless wisdom called for a militia rather than an army when this nation was founded. Got it?

          And since the militia, comprised of the whole of the citizenry, would need to be ready to counter any threat at a moment’s notice, they would have to be “well regulated.” You apparently don’t understand what that meant in 1784: “well regulated” meant well trained and equipped. In other words each man would need to be a competent marksman, be able to subsist off the land under field conditions for extended periods of time and have his own weapons and kit to do so with. This is simple common sense stuff Gil. Even you should be able to comprehend the basic concepts behind this: Each male citizen that is able must be trained, equipped and drilled in defending hearth and home or you will end up under tyranny with a standing army to enforce it. Once that happens the tyrants will use that military to pillage and plunder around the world. Oh yeah. And they’ll lie to the public about “drugs” or “terrorism” or “the Huns” to get the public to support it.

          But regardless of the preamble, the real meat of the Amendment is “the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.” In every case where the term “the people” is used even our thoroughly sold out Supreme Court recognizes that the right protected under the Constitution is an individual right. That doesn’t mean it’s a privilege or at the discretion of some bureaucrat whether or not I or my fellow countrymen go about armed, it is a RIGHT. The fact that people like you believe it should be “regulated” in the modern sense doesn’t change the intent of the framers or the fact that the Constitution (flawed though it may be) is the Supreme Law of the Land. Anti-gun laws, anti-knife laws or any infringement of that right against the peaceful and law-abiding citizenry is a high crime itself! The Second Amendment is the final check and balance in this system of government (a Constitutional Republic) and this is the real reason your ilk despises it so. And if you don’t believe a bunch of beleaguered citizens with guns can make a modern professional military think twice about the price of attempting to oppress them, you don’t know much Switzerland or especially Afghanistan.

          • And THAT ball is out of the park!

            Good job Boothe.

            I have a nasty feeling we’re about to find out exactly why that 2nd amendment exists.

            I take heart in the example of Afghanistan. We may be a bunch of softies, but we’ll harden up real quick-like when our future–and our children’s–is at stake.

  50. Those cops that would escalate a seat belt offense need to be fired, in my opinion and the way most cops are in this area, if you fail to buckle up they’ll jsut give you a ticket, they won’t make you buckle up. They will only escalate if you escalate it yourself first, the way it should be, and the use of force is based upon how much you escalate and use just the min. force to get you to comply, the way it should be.

    • Your opinion is irrelevant!

      The fact is a cop will compel obedience. If you tried to drive away after refusing an order to buckle up, the cop will pursue you, force you out of your vehicle and – if you resist in any way, defending yourself against his assault – he will pull his gun on you.

      And the law will back him, fully.

      Stop being dense, Tim. You”re smarter than that.

      • “Stop being dense, Tim. You”re smarter than that.”

        Is this a gut feeling you have, eric? Maybe you’ve seen some evidence that I missed. 😉

        • Hi Ed,

          I’m trying to give him the benefit of the doubt – until he proves there can be no doubt he’s beyond intellectual salvation.

          We were all born into the Matrix…. and I think we who are awake now have a duty to at least try to awaken others.

          • “…and I think we who are awake now have a duty to at least try to awaken others.”

            A seemingly exhausting task in the case of Tim from my reading of the exchanges above – however, I see a hint of light appearing – keep up the fight Eric!

    • Those cops that would escalate a seat belt offense need to be fired

      Silly little boy, when was the last time any cop was ever FIRED –as in barred from law enforcement for life— for an act of unjustified violence against an ordinary citizen? The answer is it has never happened, because violence against citizens is what the Powers That Be are looking for in cops! Sure, some cops are “fired” from a department after doing something extremely stupid (translation: something that embarrasses the local PTB, usually because the act was committed against someone “connected” to the local power structure). But, in far too many cases, these “gypsy cops” simply move to another jurisdiction and put on a new badge and costume, their past records somehow never following them to their new gig.

      THAT, Tim, is what being a cop in today’s Amerika means: never having to say your sorry or be accountable for the crimes you commit.

    • See Tim, that’s the problem…define “esclate”. Because from what I’ve seen, so juch as questioning the cop, or even hesitating for a second to process his words is considered “esclation” by the cop.

      They don’t want to be questioned, just blindly obeyed. You can SAY that the cop who pulls a gun at a seat belt stop needs to be fired, but the fact is cops DO this all the time and are not even punished in the slghtest…yet they still claim to respect us?

      You’ve seen it as many times as we all have, cops beating an unarmed helpless person while screaming “stop resisting”. Who’s esclating the situation here? Cops LOVE to ramp it up because it gives them the escuse to use force. So ANY questioning, movements, anything becomes an excuse for the cop to “fear for his safety”.

      If you have children, think of them, if not imagine for a moment. They are 3 years old and upset over something stupid and freaking out. You want them to calm down. Would you approach them screaming “CALM DOWN…CALM DOWN NOW!!!” over and over again in a fight posture and expect it to make things better for them?

      Now imagine your routine stop. You approach the car ready for a fight. You approach and start barking orders chest puffed in assertiveness. The person asks why they’re stopped, you bark your orders louder without answering the question. The whole time he’s just sitting there unmoving.

      In YOUR mind, it seems the cop is doing nothing wrong at all, and the driver’s the one ramping up the situation, but objectively it’s clearly the cop’s attitude that’s doing it. You’ve mistaken a driver’s REACTION to a PROVOCATION and using it as an excuse to let the cop do whatever and blaming the victim…and as you can see, the public isn’t buying this BS anymore. We can see what’s happening even if you try and pretend it isn’t.

  51. I do believe there need to be speed limits, and those that are doing above the speed limit, as long as the speed isn’t absurd of the conditions and locations don’t need to be given tickets but those speeding in unsafe conditions and unsafe circumstances that is likely to cause an accident does need to be given tickets.

    • Define “absurd,” Tim.

      When the 55 MPH limit was in force, doing 76 MPH was statutory reckless driving in my state. Now the speed limit is 70 – and no one gets a ticket for 76. If they did, it would be a minor fine.

      But, on the other hand, anything over 80 is (again) statutory reckless driving.

      And that is absurd.

    • Because you “believe” such things is what makes you a dangerous person to people who cherish freedom. Believing and emoting instead of thinking and reasoning is what small minded fools do. And fools that follow orders are necessary for tyranny.
      People who “believe” are easily herded into committing horrible acts against their fellow humans.

      • People who “believe” are easily herded into committing horrible acts against their fellow humans.

        There will be no trouble herding Tim into committing horrible acts against people who do “reckless,” “dangerous,” and “absurd” things. Right, Tim?

  52. In that case you just said, the cops were wrong, they should have identified themselves and gave an order to put down the weapon and only shoot if he continues to point his weapon at them and threaten their lives. As far as drug dealers, those that sell small amount of pot is totally different then a gang member selling large quanities of crack, heroin, and everything else.

    • But Tim – they didn’t identify themselves. They shot and killed the guy.

      Why the slavish deference to cops? What is that imposes on us an obligation to follow their “orders”?

      What constitutes a “small” amount of pot, Tim? Why is the quantity an issue? If a person has 100 (or 1,000) pot plants in his house, has he harmed anyone as a result merely of that?

      And please: Don’t package deal. Don’t tell me, well, he’ll sell those drugs to people who will steal to get the money to buy them (and so on).

      That’s exactly like saying the guy who operates a distillery is responsible for the guy who beats his wife after getting drunk.

      • I know a cop who is smoking pot on a regular basis. And when it comes for his annual drug test he is just using chemicals to flush the drugs from his system. I know another cop (a woman) who should be in jail for 5 years for something illegal that she did 4 years ago. Nobody dropped a dime on her because he didn’t do any harm to anyone even if she violated a federal law. Just because that they should go to prison?

    • The american classic… the law is for those bad people over there but not for these good people over here. You’ve done it more than once here.

      It’s always interesting when those that think like this get enforced upon.

  53. I have yet to see any cop just bust a door down because someone simply possess a drug, normally it is because they are selling drugs, and I do believe myself that drug dealers normally partake in other illegal activities and carry weapons illegally. If I seen a cop simply breaking down someones door because they just smoke a little pot, I would say then that the cop(s) is more then wrong.

    • The fact that you have not seen it is irrelevant. The fact is, it happens. Just a few weeks ago, a man was shot to death because he heard what he assumed were robbers at his door in the middle of the night. He went to check it out – armed with his gun. He was shot to death by the cops – who had the wrong address.

      PS: I sold a little pot in college. Freely, to people who wanted it. I never used force against anyone. Notice your verbiage: “drug dealer.” Why is that that a person who sells wine or beer isn’t referred to as an “alk dealer”?

      Think, Tim!

    • You can’t possibly be this naive, Tim?

      Of course they SWAT raid people for simple pot possession–Google it, or YouTube it, for thousands upon thousands of examples.

      There are over 50,000 SWAT raids per year–don’t delude yourself that they’re all for drug dealers.

      And “dealing drugs” is illegal–whose fault is that? And so what? A guy selling pot is engaging in a mutually agreed-upon, voluntary transaction. What’s immoral is that it’s “illegal”–an act in which no-one harms another.

      and I do believe myself that drug dealers normally partake in other illegal activities

      So you believe it, and it makes it so? And justifies pre-emptively SWAT’ing them “just in case”?

      Tim if you really believe these things, you are an immoral and violent person.

      I hope that’s not the case.

      • They SWAT raided in a guy in Oregon because he invested in some guns (he bought 3 new guns through an FFL) right after he was laid off his job. And SWAT and the Police raided his house at 3:00am because they thought this gentleman would go and kill his former employer … Go figure … Pre-crime Police is going to arrive in power very soon. Same for the Environmental Police … they just want to tax you …more revenue for them …

  54. No I don’t have the right to force you to buy it, no more then you do to force me to buy something, and yes there are cops that abuse their power, but not all. However are you telling me that no one should be able to force you to go to jail if you kill someone?

  55. No not everyone that breaks a law is a criminal……however there are criminals out there that do harm others, rather it be on purpose or by reckless behavior, and they need to be in trouble for what they do. However if you were to get rid of all police officers, then everyone could do what they want with no consequences, and that is a scary thought to me.

    • Tim,

      Defining what is – and isn’t – criminal, in the moral vs. legal sense is extremely simple: Has the conduct in question resulted in a victim? Has someone else been harmed? If not, then there can be no crime. That is the basis of common law dating back a thousand years or more. As distinct from statutory law – which criminalizes countless things that involve no harm, no victim.

      My choice to not wear a seat belt, for instance. Whom have I harmed? No one. If I wreck, I may perhaps be injured or even killed. But that’s my life – and so, my right to decide.

      If cops were limited to peace-keeping, that is, to going after people who commit aggression against others, then I would not be criticizing them.

      But as I explained in the original article – and as you know, Tim – a great deal of the work cops do has nothing to do with keeping the peace. A great deal of it is simply enforcing unjust, tyrannical laws. Threatening people with violence to compel them to obey.

      Do you see the danger in that? Where it will necessarily lead? Where has it already led?

      • I have yet see a cop pull a gun all because someone failed to where there seat belt. Usually it is because that person tries to physically harm the cop and the cop then have to use force in return, as any person would. I don’t agree with every law there is, but I still try to obey them, and respect a cop’s job and fight it in court if theres a problem. If a cop were to pull a gun simply because they refused to buckle up as you state, that officer is completely wrong.

        • Tim,

          That’s because the person obeyed. If he does not obey, you know perfectly well what will happen next.

          The cop will say: Buckle your seat belt! Fail to obey that order and the cop will eventually order you out of your vehicle. If you decline, he will then force you out of your vehicle. If you resist in any way, bet your ass the gun will come out.

          Don’t be dense, Tim.

          Any refusal to obey ultimately leads to a gun in your face.

    • Do you hear yourself? You’re contradicting yourself. From the lawmakers and the law enforcement, ANYBODY that breaks a law IS a criminal, or felon, or whatever they want to call you. IT is true that not everybody that breaks THE LAW gets caught. That’s different. From the law makers and the law enforcers, you broke the law, you’re a criminal … but they need to prove it. Otherwise you’re clean as a newborn.

    • Tim, if you are worried about punishing criminals in a society with NO government, then I suggest you research a little deeper. Pennsylvania had no central government in the early colonial days. Iceland had no government. For a long period, Ireland had no government. And more recently, most Western communities in the USA in the 1860s -1890s had no effective central government leaving them defacto anarchies. Read Little House on the Prairie for starters. Read Murray Rothbard’s history of colonial USA. But don’t just succumb to misplaced fears, and demand that we all pay for something totally unnecessary, and totally evil. Besides, who has killed, maimed, stolen, and defrauded more–individuals, or governments? (The answer is government by MANY orders of magnitude) and who also gets away scot-free with these heinous crimes? Government!
      A psychopath might kill a few dozen people, max, before he is brought to his reward, but give that same psychopath the reins of a country, and instead of being hanged as he should be, he murders millions and is lauded as a “hero” and a “statesman”.
      Your fears are misplaced, and your cure is far worse than the disease.

  56. So telling me there is no need for police officers I will never buy. As those that are willing to drive wrecklessly and injure and kill others need to be punished for it.

    • Tim you have to be able to imagine the system most of us are talking about building.

      Of private roads, and private peace officers. Of people voluntarily paying to drive on those private roads, and subscribing to those private peace officers.

      All peaceful, consensual, voluntary–no payments at gunpoint, no highway robbery thinly disguised under unctuous legal pronouncements.

      A peaceful, voluntary society like that DOES punish people who hurt other people.

      What it doesn’t do is presumptively punish people who’ve done no harm to others.

      My commute takes me over a well-maintained two-lane concrete-divided toll road that’s lightly trafficked. I choose my commute time to minimize that traffic; and I routinely cruise at 90, with bursts to 120 or more depending on conditions.

      Have I harmed anyone? No. I’ve never been in an accident that was my fault.

      But some idiot who’s talking on her cell phone, or texting, or simply incompetent causes a wreck at the limit–65–and she’s blameless. It was “just an accident”. NO, it wasn’t; she caused it by inattention or incompetence.

      And yet she’s not punished, *I am*, because I’m “speeding”.

      It’s a retarded system.

    • Police officers have no duty to protect us.

      Police have never done anything with regards to those who have damaged my property or me. One of the reasons I see no particular reason for government is because I’ve experienced how utterly useless it is for the reasons I am told we have it.

      • True. It reminds me of that saying, if you pay attention to the words, that “Those who fail to plan plan to fail” How is that possible? Think about it. It’s illogical.

  57. As well as the fact I have had to deal with innocent motorists being killed on the highway because some young punk teenager who just got his license decided to drive a 120 mph down the highway that struck an innocent family killing everyone in the vehicle. Incidents like that is why I feel the way I do about speeders. I seen carnage first hand by inexperienced drivers speeding, and was severely injured by someone not following the traffic laws.

    • Tim,

      What you’ve seen is inexperienced, reckless drivers – and the consequences of that. However, it is not necessarily reckless to drive a certain velocity, just because there’s a number on a sign. An excellent driver, in the right car, under good conditions, can safely operate at a much higher velocity than a low-skill driver in a crappy car doing the speed limit – or even less. Yet you reflexively define danger in terms of mere velocity – which is silly.

      • I agree certain drivers in the right conditions could safely operate a vehicle at a higher speed. In my own opinion though the general public does not have the skill needed to control a car doing 100+ with on a crowded highway or doing 60+ on a crowded city street and not hit someone or something.

        • Ok, Tim –

          You concede that some drivers can safely handle higher than posted speeds. Yet these drivers nonetheless get punished, even though – as you’ve just admitted – they are operating safely.

          Is this not unjust?

          There is an easy way to determine who should be punished – that is, held responsible for reckless or dangerous actions: If they cause harm.

          An at-fault accident is objective proof – vs. conjecture, opinion and generalization – that a driver was driving recklessly or ineptly. In which case, he (and he alone) should be held fully responsible and punished appropriately.

          But what of the driver who does not wreck? Whose driving never results in an at-fault accident? Is he not – by definition – a good (safe) driver?

          • I’m old enough to remember when the speed limit in the state of Illinois was “reasonable and prudent.” Unless you were in, or provably caused, an accident, you were not speeding. If you were in an accident, you better have good evidence (and hopefully witnesses) that the other guy was at fault. But it didn’t happen that often.

        • Very good. You’ve answered my first question, which was “isn’t any speed limit arbitrary and dependent on conditions, car, and driver ability?”

          Define “general public”. It’s impossible; we live on a Gaussian curve with N being the population. Therefore of the roughly 200 million licensed drivers, there are 200 million permutations of car capability and driver skill (assuming each drives only one car).

          Now multiply that by the number of different roads each one drives on, by the number of different weather conditions, traffic conditions…

          …and you have trillions of possibilities, each unique.

          Is it reasonable to punish people for exceeding an arbitrary number now, Tim?

          Or wouldn’t it be better to say “you’re free, in a free country. Behave responsibly. If you don’t, you’ll be liable for the damage you cause.”

          And THEN the guy who T-boned you would work the rest of his miserable life paying to Make It Right–and set an example to others, “I better use my freedom responsibly.”

          Does the current system stop “speeders” like the guy who hit you Tim?

          No. Because you were still hit. See the problem? Not only are the “laws” immoral, but they don’t work.

          Wouldn’t it be better to have freedom–that does work, and has worked in the past in America–than tyranny, that still doesn’t fix the problem?

          • So what the worst the guy would have faced in your society? Shunning? I suppose the only reason you and Eric keep saying “your system would work” in that you don’t pay taxes rather than actually getting any results.

            clovercloverclover

          • Methyl (and Eric) – you again cut to the essence of the problem, which is preemption as policy. The idea that, if we could set a speed limit or precisely describe the type of vehicle allowed, we could somehow limit or eliminate the damage caused by incompetent operators. As you both point out, this is a false assumption for several reasons.

            Preemption doesn’t work because those at the greatest risk of causing harm have no regard at all for the rules and they don’t bother to acquire the skills necessary to operate safely outside those rules. Those folks I’d classify as “fools”. In addition to the fools we have the folks who just don’t give a damn; I’d call those folks insane.

            You can write all the laws you want in an effort to control the behavior of fools and crazy bastards but it isn’t going to do you bit of good.

            You want to stop traffic accidents? Outlaw cars.

          • @Gil:

            I’m not replying to you not because you’ve posed some unanswerable question, but because you’ve proven in the past to be completely un-educable.

            I won’t waste my time. Sparring with a damp punching bag is just tiring and doesn’t sharpen one’s skills.

    • Tim,
      Why not address the real issue of not teaching teenagers how to drive? Just think if they had been taught how to drive at 120mph in a controlled environment to gain a respect and understanding of it instead of finding out on the street after the fear of the blood on the highway films wore off.

      Furthermore what is achieved by treating everyone like incompetent children? I don’t understand this about americans. Treat people like incompetent children and a lot of them are going to act that way. Which of course feeds the cycle…

      • One of the best political quotes I ever heard is:

        Build a society for idiots, and you will guarantee a society of idiots.

    • “some young punk teenager who just got his license decided to drive a 120 mph down the highway that struck an innocent family killing everyone in the vehicle.”

      Ok, then that guy goes to jail. However, anyone else who drives at that speed and doesn’t harm anyone is left alone. For a crime to exist, there has to be a victim.

      • Exactly…if we use the “gotta punish them all for the actions of a few” logic, then I want to see all police disbanded and disarmed because they kill people by the hundreds!

        Of course not ALL police shoot and beat people, but to protect the masses, according to COP logic, then we have to punish even those who do no harm because they COULD harm someone.

        I mean, read any cop’s comments on crime, even the ones posted here. They all go under the same premise: “The cops are never wrong and they always want what’s best for you, so when one breaks the law, the public has to understand that it was for the greater good, like Batman”

        First off, the 2 statements contradict each other, and second, it’s demonstratably false that ALL cops are decent restrained people. All other arguements are just semantics. It’s bad if the cop shoots someone because they THINK they are threatened, but I’m more concerned with the mentality of the cop purposely esclating a harmless situation deliberately until HE causes the fight.

        Let’s be clear…we don’t want the police to go away…we want them to respect the same rights and laws that WE have to! It’s that damn simple…treat us with respect and we’ll treat you with it. You don’t get to “demand respect” just because you have a badge, you have to earn it like the rest of us. If you see a psycho with a gun shooting people randomly, go ahead and kill him, we’ll understand. BUT at the same time, if you kill someone who doesn’t need to be killed, then you go to jail LIKE THE REST OF US!!! Easy, eh?

        when cops break the law, they get put under “paid leave” while the investigation occurs. That’s called “vacation” to the rest of us peons. THAT’S why we hate cops, they have separate rules for them and us, and are REWARDED for breaking laws while we get punished. In toronto Canada a cop who assaulted someone has been on paid leave for 7 YEARS! Think of it…7 years collecting a paycheck while BEING INVESTIGATED FOR A CRIME! You or I…we lose our jobs and salary immediately, even if found innocent after the fact. Add to that that cops never go to jail (for their safety supposedly, but you don’t feel safe in prison, try not commiting a crime then asshole!) and it’s no wonder they have no respect. They pissed it away in a jackboot mentality.

    • It used to be called freeway (there’s still signs where it says “”Freeway entrance”) … Not anymore … it is now “the highway” because it is not free anymore …

      I feel like if there’s only one idiot teen driving 120 mph and having an accident, everybody has to pay for that idiot … Why do we have to be restricted on our speed? People who want to drive slowly, can drive on the right-side while people who want and have a car that can go fast, can drive on the left. That is the “unwritten” rule on the German Autobahn. It is true that the Autobahn is far away more performant than our roads, but still, the limits are imposed not for safety but for revenue. And one more thing … the only law enforcement agency should remain the sheriff department. Why do we need police, State Troopers, and million other agencies to act as law enforcement?

  58. I will never call a any police officer, firefighter, medic or anything else a hero, because no they are not hero’s, however they are needed and have a job that needs to be done as there are fires that happen, people that need medical care, and criminals need to find justice. I am proud to say I done what I could to protect and serve the public and help save lives. I will say this though, I feel little pity for those speeding and get tickets, as I was in a life changing car accident 5 years ago that left me permanently disabled. I was T-boned by a driver doing between 65-70 mph on a city street where the speed limit was only 35 mph and he ran a red light. People like that deserve every ticket they can get.

    • Tim,

      “Need” is subjective. Your opinion – vs. mine.

      You may feel the need for “x” – while I do not.

      Should you be able to force me (and others) to pay for “x” because you believe we need “x”?

      I am sorry you were injured. However, it was not “speed” per se that led to that. It was inappropriate speed and incompetent (reckless) driving. The guy ran a red light. Which is always dangerous – at least, when there is cross-traffic. Which is why one should always stop first, before proceeding. (So, yes, it’s ok to “run” a red light when there’s obviously no cross traffic.)

    • And: What do you mean by “criminal”?

      To me, it means someone who commits an act of aggression against another person, by threatening them, or using threats to take their property, or to compel them to do something against their will.

      I suspect that you define “criminal” as anyone who does not obey the law – whatever the law happens to be.

      We therefore have a major disagreement.

      People who have harmed no one – who have merely disobeyed some edict of the state – are not criminals, because they have created no victims. Without a victim, there cannot be a crime.

      Unfortunately, all too many Americans no longer understand this ancient precept of justice.

      • We are all pretty much criminals due to the hundreds of thousands of stupid laws that we cannot possible keep up with.
        Anybody hock a lugey out the car window lately – that is a crime in some places.

      • Nothing should be illegal unless it is first immoral. But not everything that is immoral needs to be illegal. Some things God will judge for himself.

    • If I was severely injured, I,d want compensation.

      What do I gain from being forced to pay an overpriced institution to incarcerate someone?

      I want a dollar equivalent calculated and then I want the person who injured me to pay me. If they come up short, I want them forced to work as long as it takes.

      That’s what law used to be. If the party at fault could pay the damages and a small. Fine to the system, that was the end of it. If he couldn’ pay he was sent to the work house.

      If a man was too broke down to work he got chained up in a dungeon. He was held hostage there until someone came to pay for him, he found the strength to work, or he died a harsh death from neglect and insufficient food.

      That’s a rational system. If we want to go to the next level. How about a prisoner UFC cage fight every week where the victims get the proceeds?

      Any system is better than what currently exists.

      • @Tor–YES.

        The current system takes someone who’s harmed someone else and kidnaps and cages them.

        It then re-injures the victim and extorts money from him to pay for the cage and the jailors.

        Then it adds insult to injury and FINES the miscreant, and keeps the money for itself.

        The victim never sees a dime in restitution.

        How insane is that?

        • As opposed to what? Of course the victim should pay for jail. If you car seizes up then you pay for repair or replacement. Hence – opposed to what? Let the crim go free and hope he pays restitution out of the kindness of his heart? Any system that would *force* the guy to pay restitution means a state.

          clovercloverclover

          • Not necessarily, Gil. One can play this out along with shunning, as the law merchant used to do. If you (the aggressor) fail to meet the obligations laid upon you by a court or other competent body (I’ll not go into what constitutes a competent body at this time, as it would be a fair number of pages just for an overview), then you are blacklisted. Nobody will be willing to transact anything with you, for fear of being blacklisted themselves.

            Such an aggressor would get pretty hungry pretty quick, unless they went primitive. Most are neither smart nor motivated enough to do so. Those that are, aren’t likely to be the aggressor.

        • Hi Methyl. It’s insane because it’s based on collectivist premises. An injury to you personally is considered to be an injury to “society”. You are merely an individual, and therefore don’t count.

  59. I’m attacking the statist class en masse. Ad Hominidae the whole enchiladae of taxus feederati.

    Let’s say you’re with Roanoke EMS. Their FY2013 budgettotals $253 million and is on page http://www.roanokeva.gov. . The link is bottom right FY13 adopted budget.

    Northampton County is running low on OPM. WOODLAND ems has disbanded. 6 EMS fire positions are eliminated. Parking ticket fees are doubled to $20. Basic life support call costs you $375. Advanced call is $650.

    Against their will property owners pick up the tab for this. Ahorrible value they’ll get their property stolen and a wood shampoo if they protest.

    It is a mockery to call this a job, and these tax feeders workers. Nobody wants to pay for this farce but the official gang has guns and cages and it makes an offer you won’t live to reduse.

    Heroes don’t need armed enforcers to maintain the rescuees compliance and extort the protection money donors quarterly property tax payments.

  60. For your information I spent 4 years as the Chief of a local rescue team, that provides search and rescue along with EMS services. I have spent years in school to obtain my certifications and licensing as a paramedic, rescue technician, along with National certification as a SAR Tech and Nationally Registered Paramedic and national certification in Haz-Mat. I also have a certificate in Administration of Justice and spent 7 years as an Armed Security Officer. I’m far from a hero, as I was doing what I was paid to do. However, most laws are there to protect us and need to be enforced. Without police, fire and EMS any country would be up a shit creek without a paddle. Afterall someone has to do the job. If not who’s going to find justice for murders, who’s going to treat injured people, who’s going to fight fires? All countries have police, fire and EMS. How many people have had to move dead people from multiple accidents because someone who has little experience driving is doing excessive speed, hits and kills innocent people? Or should we allow people to drive however they want, kill others and continue to drive how they want with no consequences of any kind?

    • I would love to come retrieve corpses, Dood. They contain tissues and organs worth millions of dollars. I’ll put them on a refrigerated railcar to Mexico, render them, and serve transplant clinics, research labs, and all kinds of other businesses.

      I’ll give you a $1 million dollar finders fee, a $1 million payment to the family, and also a free urn with ashes, headstone, burial plot, obituary posting and keepsake register.

      If you’ve worked as a private armed guard or private onsite field nurse, I commend you.

      Based on your FreeShitUnionMedic emoting and kindergarden platitude regurgitation, I suspect not.

      If I call you from a ditch with $100K to patch me up, using only your personal vehicle and equipment, what can you really do?

      Bandage me, sterilize my wounds, and fill out a thick pile of paperwork on a clipboard while you transport me to the next station of the PinkFloydHealthMachine assembly line, right?

      All in all Chief, you’re just another brick in the fascist wall. We don’t need your medication. We don’t need your health control, We don’t want your food stamp pudding. We don’t want to eat your soylent green meat Uncle Sam I Am. Fuck him and fuck his Green Regs and Spam!

      Hey Leecher! Leave me and my kids alone!

        • Yeah, too much Hannibal Lector, not enough Bill Hicks in the mix.

          We all know Clarice is the real monster. A zombie cannibal that feeds on the spring lambs. Is that a combatants face skin you’re wearing in those Abu Gharaib Girls Gone Wild Videos?

          Be sure to sterilize the nipple clamps and use thick enough gauge electrical wire during your enhanced interrogation work, agent Starling. Prisoner Pyramids and bedouin snuff films keep us free.

          Brand USA, ain’t what she used to be.

          • Maybe that’s why the MSM has been popularizing so many zombie-themed movies and TV shows…

            …because that’s what the Free Shit Army is going to look like, after a few weeks of withdrawal from their pharmaceuticals, GMO fast food and fluoride water.

      • “I’ll put them on a refrigerated railcar to Mexico, render them, and serve transplant clinics, research labs, and all kinds of other businesses.”

        Certainly not restaurants?

        • Ha! Well, if its consensual cannabalism…

          Who comes first, the guy who sold his body to science and an exotic extreme steakhouse?

          Or the prudish tongue clucking hens and de-balled rooster bureaucracies and their mad cow lowing clover herds, that go doubleplus mooo?

        • Mmmm, I like that long pork!

          Don’t eat the brains though. Never know which ones are harboring Crutzfeld-Jakob Disease.

    • Tim,

      Your certifications and other CV items are neat – but beside the point. The point being: If you have to use force to make your living, you’re on the wrong side of the line. Think about that some.

      You write:

      “Afterall someone has to do the job. If not who’s going to find justice for murders, who’s going to treat injured people, who’s going to fight fires?”

      The problem (one problem) is that cops do much more than “find justice for murderers.” And much of it is egregiously wrong. Treating injured people? There will always be a need for that, I agree. Just not at gunpoint. Fighting fires? I’ll happily pay for the service, provided it is reasonable. If not, not thanks. In that case, I’ll take the (slight) risk that my house will burn down over having a gun stuck under my chin.

      Do you see?

    • For your information I spent 4 years completing medical school and more in residency.

      Best not to start intellectual pissing contests in this crowd Tim–“knives to gun-fights” comes to mind. You will find few forums on the internet where better-read, and more importantly better-thinking individuals post.

      95% of the people who post here use rigorous, unrelenting logic backed by a reading of history and philosophy to render their opinions. This place is like a giant whetstone, honing fine steels into diamond-sharp edges.

      Without police, fire and EMS any country would be up a shit creek without a paddle.

      Agreed. What we disagree with is how they’re funded. The correct way to pay for these services is privately, without coercion. Your way forces everyone to pay, at gunpoint, or else.

      If people want these services, they can pay. How about 40 different companies in Houston all offering EMS services? Prices would drop, quality would improve, response times would fall. Guaranteed. Just look at wrecker trucks–all private, and by god there will be one when you need it in MINUTES. In fact they’re so efficient, they know which intersections are dangerous and there are usually one or two camped out under the freeway just waiting in the afternoon! It’s a little macabre, but it’s efficient.

      Or should we allow people to drive however they want, kill others and continue to drive how they want with no consequences of any kind?

      Do you ever think in terms of what YOU would do, without any speed laws? Would YOU “kill others”? NO; for the same reasons 98% of other people won’t, either.
      a) Self-preservation
      b) Basic human morality

      This is one key problem with Clovers such as yourself, Tim. You assume the worst in human nature–but only for THOSE people, the ones OVER THERE, not you and your immediate thug-scrum. But you see, THOSE people are humans too. Day to day, they protect themselves and feel some empathy toward others; so they DON’T go on killing rampages.

      And it’s not due to the “laws”.

      And “no consequences of any kind”? What kind of idiot reasoning is that? If you kill someone, no matter how you do it, of course you’ll be punished in a free society. The difference will be, you’ll be punished by fair and truly equitable private courts…not the jack-booted State kangaroo courts of today.

      • Nope. If it’s a free society then no one can force anyone else to do anything otherwise it’s a state. A victim can use force to defend against a criminal during a crime but after that then a free society has to play the shunning game.

        clovercloverclover

        • It’s a deceptively attractive argument Gil, but it leads away from Methyl’s initial (and in my opinion central) point– to quote:

          “What we disagree with is how they’re funded.”

          This goes not to the charter of persons enforcing social order, but the motive for doing it.

          If I derive a livelihood from putting out fires, I might be tempted to start them. A volunteer fire-fighter has no financial interest in putting out fires. Absent a pathological fascination with fire (which admittedly does happen) volunteers aren’t likely to make matters worse. This can’t be said for an entire financial niche that feeds off speeding tickets.

          On the other hand, folks without a financial agenda are perfectly capable or organizing themselves on an ad hoc basis when it’s necessary to try a neighbor accused of stealing a cow. It’s worked for thousands of years.

    • The outward stuff, like certifications and licenses, can’t do a thing about using one’s own brain to process and reason. Why leave one’s “legitimacy” in the hands of a system that rewards with titles and papers? Who we are comes out of what we believe, and if one can only be substantiated from corrupted, back-slapping, power-loving goons… well, it may be time to move past the approval seeking and become your own man. As far as what we’d do without all those “services”, I’ll tell you: we’d know how to tend to our own selves and loved ones better, we’d be more savvy and wise from having done so; we’d be closer as families and neighbors from having done so. (How did all those generations before “services” ever survive without them? In the scheme of time, these are fairly-new, created, dollar generating industries.) Forcing one’s will upon another is wrong. I don’t care what garb one bears. It can never make it right.

    • Whoa now, get back from the ledge. Nobody said anything about living in a world without people doing jobs that are critical to society. The issue raised is the evil involved when you have thugs following orders of a corrupt government monopoly, not people providing essential services for soceity.

    • Of course Tim, laws like “The Patriot Act” and the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) — these are really useful laws signed into laws by our Presidents to strip you of your basic human rights!

      I just can’t wait until one of your neighbors will call the local police department to tell them they saw you cleaning your pistol and rifle and that you looked really mean while you were doing that out on your porch; then you get a visit at 3:00am from your local SWAT and PD because of somebody’s paranoia and before you have a chance to show them your ID they start shooting you because you came out in what they thought was a military-looking body armor … then I want to see if you’re still willing to lick the boot …

    • You’re assuming that a lack of government would mean a lack of laws or a lack of enforcement. You also assume, wrongly, that in the absence of government, we would all bleed to death in the middle of unpaved streets. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every “service” the government provides can and will be provided by free individuals in a free society. Policing–was done by local posses, and private security guards long before there were government cops. EMS–ever hear of a private ambulance service? Fire–Ever hear of a volunteer fire department? Roads–Ever driven in a gated community? Guess what? Homeowners pay for their own roads in a gated community! And even though I do not know how it would be done, the amazing free market would actually provide solutions to violent crime problems as well. Government is not only evil, it is an unnecessary evil. It is an idol; a false thing to worship. Yet, worship it you surely do.

      • Yep.. I live on privately owned roads. Police are only allowed to work accidents and respond to phone calls. Somehow the entire neighborhood works (who would have thought). When someone speeds in front of my home and I’m out there in the street I’ll wave them down and tell him how I feel about it. Most of the business conducted by police is geared toward generating MONEY. That’s it! It’s really that simple. Perhaps there was good intentions/motives when departments formed, but they’ve all since morphed into tax collectors.

  61. Simple, SPEED KILLS. I have worked as a rescue worker well over 200 motor vehicle crashes where people were critically injured or killed. I would say 75% of those accidents I’ve worked were caused by excessive speed. When your doing 50mph in a school zone in on city street nothing good can come of it. When you’re doing 100+ on a highway nothing good can come of it. Most drivers do not have the skill to keep a vehicle under control or stop in time when using excessive speed. If you’re doing 10mph over the speed limit, there might not be a whole lot more dangerous but when you get idiots driving 30-40 or more over the speed limit, it does often lead in accidents causing injury or death of just not the person driving but whoever they hit.

    Which is exactly why here where I live a speeding ticket vary in price by how much over the limit you are. The higher the speed, the more the ticket. If there was no cops enforcing traffic laws, a lot more accidents would occur injuring and killing people.

    Clover

    • Wow Tim that’s a profound insight; did you arrive at the conclusion that SPEED KILLS all by yourself?

      So “you’d say” that 75% of the accidents were caused by excessive speed? Then speed is an autonomous actor, this thing that just takes over and wreaks havoc?

      Or perhaps, Tim, your 75% observation is a personal bias…or in formal terms, a self-reinforcing observational bias?

      How do you explain the much higher speeds on the German Autobahn, coupled with their much lower fatality rate? I thought SPEED KILLS?

      Then you arbitrarily let yourself and a majority of others off the hook with a miserly “10 over”; because, you see, in your mind that’s acceptable. But no more.

      30 or 40? Those people are idiots; regardless of conditions, or car capability, or driver skill.

      So Tim I suggest to you, that the limit is wholly arbitrary. That different drivers, cars, and roads warrant different speeds.

      If there was (sic) no cops enforcing traffic laws, a lot more accidents would occur injuring and killing people.

      Lick the boot Tim.

      • M5 – I completely agree with your assertions here. I’ve spent time on the Autobahn in a base-level 318i and it was a blast. That was eleven or twelve years ago now, my driving skills have improved as has my equipment these days. A car built specifically for high speed handling and driven by a mature, skilled, and responsible person can easily bust triple digits safely. The cops out there that I’ve come across have generally left me alone – not because I never disregard their stupid administrative rules, but because I’m usually not stupid about choosing the time and place to make a run at 140 on the straight stretch of interstate near my house. Tim and the other assorted dumb shits like him are the ones that make driving unsafe…

        • Ironically, almost all my “speeding” tickets have been of the penny ante sort: 64 in a 55; 51 in a 35 – etc. It’s been years since they got me for anything serious.

          • Any time I’ve ever done 100+mph on a road, I haven’t crashed, nor killed anyone. . . nor have I been ticketed. I can’t say that I’ve gone that fast very many times – I realize that the vast majority of drivers are little more than skill-less drones, and don’t particularly want to be taken out by some braindead soccermom in a minivan.

            I have gotten a ticket for 75 in a 65, reduced from 95 in a 65, when my Weights & Measures Certified digital speedometer (in a taxi) read 68, however.
            Also got a ticket for 75 in a 55 when I was doing 60. Also in a taxi with a certified speedometer.

            I’m also a commercial driver, with between 900,000,000 & 1,000,000,000 miles under my a$$ – I’ve driven the same mileage in 12 years that the “average” driver (15k/yr) would take 53 years to accumulate. No accidents, no moving violations. . .
            As a commercial driver, I not only have to demonstrate my skill, I have to meet certain arbitrary physical requirements, and my vehicle has to meet certain arbitrary mechanical requirements – yet I’m restricted to 55mph – while some 17 year old kid is allowed to drive his mother’s welfare wagon with bald tires and sketchy brakes at 65 (or more, in some places), while waving his brand-new paper license out the window to dry the ink.

            It only took me a few weeks as a commercial driver to realize that speed limits are in place for the sole purpose of revenue generation.

            Same with seatbelts and motorcycle helmets.
            Do they save lives? Yes, sometimes they do – but they also take lives. Since those things do randomly take lives, the laws requiring them should be repealed – if it “saves just one life, it’s worth it.” Isn’t that the farce we were spoonfed in order to get mandatory seatbelt/helmet laws?
            Since seatbelts and helmets both save and take lives, the only constant in the equation is revenue generation.

            I do have to disagree with one thing, however – I do think that firefighters are the last of the real heroes – it takes some massive cojones to run *into* a burning exploding building while everyone else is running away screaming. The matter of pay isn’t really relevant. I couldn’t do it, unless a member of my family was trapped inside.

    • Tim, you are just a typical dirtbag antihero . Does it penetrate that pig head of yours that you are the subject of this article?

      You are just another costume wearing thug. Rescue worker? Like fucking hell you are. How did you get that position? I bet you have a gang member who got you in on the official local heist porkfest.

      Who pays for your public service? A bunch of poor powerless victims unable to protect their hard earned fruits of their efforts and labors from your invasive swinish snout and brute gold-digging cloven hooves!

      The mercenary military. The public project whores. Fire scammers. Safety scammers. Emergency medical scammers. Cops. Health inspectors. Code enforcers. Parking enforcers. Hand held ticket printers, radar guns, breathylizers, defibulators, sirens, computers, heart monitors, helicopters, prosecutors, surveillance cams, child support collectors, parole officers, labor commissioners, aldermen, planning commissioners, defense attorneys, street sweepers, firetrucks, police cars, arsenals, batons, uniforms, pension plan administrators, union representatives…

      Fuck you all. I disown and denounce every wallowing oinking trough-slurping one of you. Bring on the Porkopalypse! Tomorrow the pigs of state celebrate the 20 billionth time they fucked a citizen over. They are always on patrol and at the ready. Making high sounding speeches in their barking imperative voices. I’m from the government, and I’m here to fuck you over, SkaWeeeel!

      • In every accident I have ever seen, the cops show up long enough to see if there are any charges to be laid. They usually don’t show up to help…they show up to see what revenue can be made. The fire department deals with the wreckages, and the ambulance deals with any medical issues. I have literally watched an EMT trying to check an accdent victim over while the cop was right in her face asking questions to her, and the EMT actually had to shove the cop out of his way to do his job of HELPING THE PERSON.

        Now to be fair, I’m sure that many cops if they are the FIRST on the scene will try and help someone injured UNTIL the ambulance shows up. But I want you to think of the hundreds of scenerios where the medical team is already there. what is the cop doing? Councelling the people? Nope…he’s filling out his report, checking regestration/insurance (irrelevant at the time!), checking for drugs/alcohol, seeing if you were speeding, etc… In other words, GOING OUT IF HIS WAY TO MAKE THINGS WORSE FOR THE PEOPLE INVOLVED!!! one he has no proof of anything illegal (just a random accident for example), he leaves. No money to be made, might as well go ticket someone, EMT’s and towtruck got it covered.

        Yup, definately there to help the public. HA!

        small scale, one time I heard a noise under my car, so I stopped off the road and laid underneath it to investigate. While there, a cop pulls up behind me and immediately asks “is there a problem?” in a tone that implies he suspects me of doing something illegal. I just told him that I heard a noise and asked if I could borrow his flashlight for a moment. His response was to demand to see my regestration to prove I owned the car, then to just say “no” to the flashlight request and leave. If as a cop he was trying to help people, would it have been THAT hard to loan the flashlight for 2 minutes…the 2 minutes he spent accusing me baselessly?

      • Mamba, you’ll like this one. A former neighbor of mine fell on his motorcycle at low speed making a turn. The only damage being some cosmetic damage to his motorcycle and to his pride. A cop came a long and ticketed him for it. failure to control or some such.

    • Tim,

      “Speed” kills?

      Which speed?

      If a 747 reduces its speed to 100 knots, it will stall and crash. It is much less likely to kill you at 400 knots.

      The day before the old 55 MPH NMSL went into effect, it was legal – and apparently, safe – to drive 70 on most American highways. The very next day, on those exact same highways, it was suddenly “unsafe speeding” to drive faster than 55. Twenty years later, the NMSL was repealed. It suddenly became “safe” to drive 70 again – and no longer “speeding” – by the stroke of a pen.

      Speed limits are just numbers, Tim – typically, arbitrary numbers that bear little – if any – relation to reasonable and prudent velocities. To believe they represent the maximum reasonable speed is just silly. Don’t believe me? Ask the cops. They ignore these stupid speed limits routinely. Of course, they don’t get ticketed for doing so – because they’re special.

    • Speed doesn’t kill. Idiocy, ignorance, and stupidity do. The safest driving I’ve ever done was at 90-100mph in Germany. But you’ll respond Germans are better drivers. To which I’ll respond that’s why it was the safest driving I’ve ever done and it’s because more is expected of them. And that’s just it, americans get taught a bunch of emotional fear-based nonsense. You’re perpetuating it.

      Speeding tickets are about revenue. Plain and simple. Nothing else. Speed limits are set low to bring it in. It’s a big scam. You can’t make people drive better by trying to force them to drive slower at gunpoint.

    • Nice try Tim, but it is not speed that kills. The incidious combination of ignorance, arrogance and incompetence is what kills. Your supposition is based on pure assumption derived from the fact that all you ever see is the aftermath of whatever action it was that led to the carnige. As a matter of fact, the majority of traffic fatalities occur during crashes involving speeds of 35 mph or less.

      No Tim. Speed does not kill. Stupidity kills.

      • The Interstate highway system was designed in the 1950’s for a safe AVERAGE speed of 70 mph, in a 1950’s era automobile.
        Speed limits – all of them – are nothing more than politically acceptable maximums. E.g., “residential” areas where all the McMansions have circular driveways negating the necessity of backing out into the road, and what few children live there are in the fenced back yard with the nanny. But it’s still posted at 30mph.

        • I’ve been driving “recklessly” (* as a matter of statutory law) for decades yet never seem to have an accident…. .

          * in my state, it is prima facie “reckless driving” to exceed the posted speed limit by more than 20 MPH. Thus, on the Interstate spur that passes by Roanoke, where the posted limit is still 55, it is “reckless driving” to drive 76 MPH. Virtually every other driver on the road is guilty – or close to being guilty.

          Ditto the under-posted 35 MPH zones where traffic flows reasonably at 50-ish. All are vulnerable to the “reckless” cite.

          Also: Anything over 80 anywhere is “reckless,” too. So, on the Interstates – posted 70, with traffic generally flowing along at 75-80 – 75 percent of the drivers are this close to a “reckless driving” cite.

          It’s bullshit of the first order.

    • The mostly-unlimited-speed German Autobahn has by far the lowest accident rate in all of Europe….

      Don’t claim it is because of better driver training because if you can’t figure out how to drive in under 1 hour at age 12, then you are too stupid to live in civil society.

      Speed makes you pay attention to what is going on around you – instead of applying makeup in the rear view mirror at 55 mph…Huh…Imagine that. You want to LOWER highway accidents? REMOVE the speed limits!

  62. Once again you are ranting about one of the results….rather than the CAUSE of what is destroying America. The ever more unconstitutional laws that the ever more brutal cops and the increasingly corrupt courts impose…..all are being brought to you by the SAME PEOPLE who gave you 9/11. And I’m not talking about Osama Bin Laden, or the “18 Saudis with box cutters.”

    You’re not going to get anywhere complaining about the nasty branches on this tree of evil. You have got to Strike The Root.

      • By recognizing that the Central Banks are the subtle heart of the globalists’ power.

        Decentralize money, put the money-power back in the hands of the people, and you deprive the would-be powers-that-be of the endless fountains of fiat money that make it possible for them to buy the world at the stroke of a pen.

        “Bankers own the earth; take it away from them but leave them with the power to create credit; and, with a flick of a pen, they will create enough money to buy it back again… If you want to be slaves of bankers and pay the cost of your own slavery, then let the bankers control money and control credit.”
        – Sir Josiah Stamp, Director, Bank of England, 1940.

        Have a look at these quotes, Dom–then read <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Creature-Jekyll-Island-Federal-Reserve/dp/091298645X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1348982014&sr=1-1&keywords=creature+from+jekyll+island&quot; The Creature from Jekyll Island.

        I think you will come to the inescapable conclusion, as I did, that the powers taking over this country depend upon, and originate from, enormously wealthy banking families.

        Everything else–all the loss of freedom, the intentional poisoning of the populace, the socialism (which is really a mechanism to transfer wealth from the poor to the already-rich)…depend on central banking’s fiat debt-money.

        • meth, I agree with you completely, but additionally the idea of “fractional reserve banking” (FRB), a thousand year old scam, also needs to be addressed. With FRB bankers are still in control, but are at higher risk of failure, as this scam also can cause huge problems even if money is returned to We The People.

          • Ah yes, 100% agreed Al.

            I’m an advocate of a completely unrestricted monetary system; totally private. If some idiots wish to engage in fractional reserve, so be it–and may the fleas of a thousand camels infest their groins, a fate preferable to fractional reserve.

            Because absent government coercion and “legal tender” laws, the best money systems will win–and those will almost certainly be 100% reserve, hard-money (precious metal) systems.

            Because 5,000 years of history for metal-based money speaks volumes for their stability!

          • I agree with Meth; an unrestricted monetary system solves the fractional reserve issue. As Rothbard points out in “What has government done to our money”, when there are many entities issuing warehouse receipts, the constant exchange of reserves between banks forces reserves requirements to stay high. The more decentralization in banking, the higher the reserves requirements. Those banks that hold a low percentage of reserves will eventually die off.

      • You strike the root by dealing with the real problem which is people’s love of government. It’s a form of idolatry. In your own life, which is the only thing you truly CAN do, it comes down to:
        1. Disrespecting and having total contempt for anyone anywhere who “serves” in government. Call cops “officer” not “sir”. Refuse to give military discounts. Kill military hiring preferences. Openly talk smack about the government. Cheer for the meth freaks when the TV show “COPS” is on….
        2. Refusing to participate in any of the government’s reindeer games. Refuse to accept any government contracts in your business. Don’t vote. Don’t say the Pledge of Allegiance. Don’t sing the National Anthem (or if you do, deliberately fuck up the lyrics. When we go to baseball games, we sing “God Bless Antarctica”. And at hockey games, we stand for the Canadian Anthem & sing it loud and off key.) Don’t serve on jury duty.
        3. Help starve the beast. Avoid all taxes possible. Drag out any government procedure as much as you can (by doing such things as requesting continuances on tickets, etc.) Refuse to buy any government “service” if you have a choice. Never buy government bonds. Never take a government student loan or mortgage or GI loan. Don’t rely upon government programs; but if you qualify for handouts, take ’em and run. (It’s YOUR money & the government will only spend it on missiles and more cops.)
        4. Encourage government employees to quit. the only reason that government actually is able to do the shit it does is they have employees. No employees = no government.
        5. Encourage wasteful government programs and stop fighting for “government efficiency”. Why? because if you are standing “against” it, you will be fighting a losing battle. If you encourage waste & abuse in their system, you will help hasten its bankruptcy and its demise. Note, the previous does NOT mean to encourage government tyranny; only fruitless spending.
        6. Last, encourage all your friends to do the same. Especially if one of your friends is a government employee. Encourage him or her to quit. And while they are still laboring away in a government job, encourage them to be the worst fuck-up of an employee ever.
        That’s how we will kill it. Zero respect. Zero financing. Zero employees. With a process that uses zero violence to boot.

          • Didn’t look at your FIJA, because I am one of the small, very small percentage, of Americans who fully understands that as a member of a jury, I am OBLIGATED to judge not only the guilt or innocence of the defendant, but the merit and validity of the law the person is charged with.

            Thus I pray to the Almighty that I will one day be afforded to serve on a gun possession or marijuana possession case. I will annoy and incur the hatred of my fellow jurors, but will NOT convict someone not involved in a violent activity from merely possessing a firearm, which is our Right, nor for using or possessing “illegal” drugs, so long as they’re not jeopardizing the lives of anyone else.

            The tired old turd that “we all have to contribute to the health costs of “x” behavior ( no seatbelt, motorcycle helmet) doesn’t wash. Under the same circumstances, should people be ticketed, arrested and beaten because they’re too fat and their inevitable failing health will cost us money? Where does it stop?

            It came to me today when I heard a PSA from the NTSA about making sure you don’t “forget” your child in the car. Stunningly, according to the NTSA, since 1998, over 550 children have died from heatstroke being left in cars. Got me thinking about the hysteria involving the banning of guns due to the “epidemic” of mass school shootings. Since 1998, the number of deaths from mass school shootings is nowhere near the number of dead kids from brain-dead parents who FORGET they have a living child in a hot car. Kinda puts the hysteria in perspective, don’t it?

        • Most people have been rendered mentally retarded by the government’s publik skewls, TV broadcasts, and their “Food Pyramid”. Most people do not possess the ability to grow up and be independent rational adults…They view their political terrorists as Mommy(D) and Daddy(R). Just look at the shit Romney is getting for his comments about the 47%! This won’t change as long as the terrorists can make us use their counterfeit fiat “money”. The terrorists have won…At least for the next 100 years because they are going to start overtly murdering those who disobey them in the name of overpopulation and sustainability. Again, you Amerikans don’t know political terror.

        • Good stuff Paul!

          and AMEN, what you’re describing is agorism–or, as Solzhenitsyn said:
          “Don’t believe them, don’t fear them, don’t ask anything of them.”

          But DO serve on juries. I’m salivating–I’ve been summoned for municipal traffic court jury. I’ll do everything I can to be selected; it’s going to be a big revenue-losing day for that bunch of tax-parasite cocksuckers!

          • Totally agree with methylamine, use your opportunity on a jury to nullify unconstitutional laws or abusive prosecutors.
            If I understand correctly Texas is a strong nullification organization?

    • Mike,

      I get that – however, the fact remains that tyranny needs little helpers. If so many people weren’t so willing to don the costume, do the work – and accept the check – these things would simply not be possible.

      • There alway have been, and will be people who like to step into those jackboots. You will never get rid of their kind. The key is to keep them out of positions of power.

        That means removing the people who placed them in power.

        How do we do that? First we identify them. They are the evil entities that caused and used 9/11 to destroy the Constitution, start wars, and vastly expand “enforcement” agencies at every level.

        Here is a Latin phrase that is useful in identifying perpetrators…..”Cui Bono?” Loosely translated, it means “who benefitted?”

        • Correct – I agree, of course.

          But I also think it’s critical we de-legitimize the enforcers; make them pariahs. Held in contempt by right-thinking people.

          They may be able to force us to submit (for now) but it’s vital that they do so with the knowledge we despise them. That we consider them beneath contempt – and that the only thing keeping them in one piece (for the moment) is that they have the guns and we don’t.

          • Well, I’m with you to an extent on this “de-legitimization” concept. I agree that wearing a badge does not entitle anyone to the least bit of respect. My personal guess is that a third of cops are still relatively “good….” a third are neither good nor bad…simply employees doing a job, and a third are evil people….attracted by the opportunity to brutalize others. I also agree that the evil ones “used to” be somewhat vetted out. Now they are “fast tracked” by those in control. Video documentation on YouTube may be our most effective deterrent to evil cops.

            Nevertheless, I focus the majority of my animosity at the entities who put them in power, and enacted the evil laws they enforce.

            • I’m harsher in my judgment (as per the views expressed in the article).

              Could you threaten another person with implied lethal violence for failing to “buckle up for safety”?

              A person who can do that – who can humiliate a fellow human being that way – is a cretin. Period.

              Because such a person will do anything required of them.

              Same goes for anyone employed by TSA. The scum of the earth.

  63. Personally after working with law enforcement side by side, I have to disagree with you to an extent. I don’t see any cop pointing his gun at you for merely not wearing your seat belt, usually when a cop pulls his gun it is because the subject being stopped gave clues that he was going to harm the officer or someone else. Speeding isn’t harmless, I have worked many many traffic crashes caused by speeding. Those doing anything over 10+ over the posted speed limit without there being a life threatening emergency, should be given a ticket. I know many cops that won’t even stop someone for doing 5-10 over the posted speed limit. Those doing illegal drugs often use weapons and require the officer pulling his firearm to protect themselves. You can’t blame the police officerfor enforcing any laws, you have to blame politics for passing certain laws. Stopping someone speeding (10+) can and do save lives. In certain cases wearing your seat belt can save a life. Using a cell phone while driving does put people at risk. Traffic check points often catch those with warrants, no insurance, no driver license and many other things, and don’t cause much delay for those not breaking laws. If you don’t want a ticket follow the laws. Don’t blame the cop for doing his/her job. That is like blaming repo guys for reposessing a car you haven’t paid for. Most officers I met do the best to protect the public. There are corrupt officers, but hating officers isn’t the solution as not all officers are bad, only a select few. Fighting a police officer because you don’t like a law isn’t the solution, the solution is trying to get the law changed. Fighting the police is unlawful and can and will get you in more trouble. Follow the laws and most people wouldn’t have problems with law enforcement.

    cloverclovercloverclovercloverclover

    • The people who animate the uniforms are the front the line. Nobody to animate the uniforms and the tyrants fail. It’s really that simple.

      As to the gun pointing. It’s often implied. What will happen to someone who ignores the cop on some minor issue such as a seat belt violation? What happens next? Not talking threats, just failure to recognize the cop’s authority, just ignoring that he even exists. What happens?

      Threats are issued, force is applied. More force is applied until the person submits. If that means pulling out the gun, the gun will come out. We both know it. The fact that most people submit before the gun is drawn doesn’t take the gun out of the equation.

    • Tim’s post is the Cliff notes version of the Clover Bible.

      Look in the mirror, do you see the green petals growing out of the side of your head?

      YOU are the problem, as much as any crooked cop. So many justifications for giving up individual liberty in one post. You are the new poster child for Clover.

      • As soon as I read “working with law enforcement side by side” I could skip the rest (tho I read it). What a hymn to servility.

        • Yep, that statement was revelatory indeed. A few years back I was leaving Farmville, Va on a day when there was the funeral of an LEO in progress. The main drag to the 4 lane truck route was clogged because the right two lanes were being blocked for the funeral procession, which hadn’t arrived by then.

          After crawling to the ramp onto 460 west, I could see the side lane was being blocked by EMT’s in their modified SWAT BDU’s standing at attention with their skinned heads bowed as though God was about to pass by. They looked just like the state cops, except they had no visible firearms.

          I can see paying one’s respects to a deceased human being, but this was more a show of allegiance by uniformed tax eaters. It was sad to see that the ambulance personnel have been militarized along with the police. Of course, they work “side by side” with cops. Wonder if that includes doing a search of an accident victim and turning him in for any contraband he has on his person?

    • Lick the boot, Tim, as it settles on your neck.

      10+? What a fucking joke. Don’t conflate your lack of driving skill with a universal law. 10+ in what context? A blinding rain, a sunny day? What car, your beater or my M5? What driver, the barely-competent or the track-experienced, zero-accident driver? How was the “limit” decided, Tim?

      When it was 55mph nation-wide, was 65 so dangerous? Why does it keep creeping UP, while deaths keep trending DOWN?

      I’ll continue to safely and responsibly enjoy triple digit speeds when conditions allow them, and enjoy your indignant gasps.

      I’m starting to get a physical reaction, an urge to vomit, to the blind slavishness, the utter illogic, in reactions such as yours. It’s as though you’ve never examined a single precept of your thinking, and merely spew platitudes, homilies, memes, and cognitive puke.

      So Tim–if we’re supposed to just “follow the laws and most people wouldn’t have problems with law enforcement”–then would I be a Good Little Boy if I followed the law to return black slaves to their Massahs back in 1860? To kill a Jew in Germany, 1941? Because those were LAWS, too.

      Think for yourself. Stop watching TV. Read a book; but especially, read a god-damned history book so you can recognize when you’re making the same mistakes made merely seventy years ago.

    • Tell me, Tim, what will happen if I – politely, without any suggestion of aggression – simply decline to do as ordered and don’t “buckle up”? Will I be permitted to proceed? Or will the cop escalate the situation? If I continue to decline to obey, is it not a fact that the cop will escalate further – until the gun does come out? At which point, I have become a subject – to use your term.

      You write:

      “Those doing illegal drugs often use weapons and require the officer pulling his firearm to protect themselves”

      Really, Tim? When I was in college, I – and all my friends – regularly smoked pot. As in almost every week. I am talking about dozens of people known to me personally. Not one of us ever (much less often) “use(d) weapons” or committed any sort of aggressive violence against anyone. However, The Chimp – probably a hero of yours – crashed his car while addled by an arbitrarily legal drug. Or perhaps you are an Obamanite? What then of Barry’s freely confessed use of arbitrarily illegal drugs? Did he “use weapons” to commit aggression? No? Then what of your thesis, Tim?

      “Fighting the police is unlawful and can and will get you in more trouble. Follow the laws and most people wouldn’t have problems with law enforcement.”

      The SS and NKVD regimes said precisely the same. Obey – and you will have no worries.

      The tragic thing, Tim, is not your ignorance. It is that so many Americans are similarly ignorant.

      • When I was in college, I – and all my friends – regularly smoked pot. As in almost every week.
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        C’mon…admit it. By “as in almost every week”, you really meant “as in almost between every class”.

        But I like the reference to “the chimp” and I use it often to get a rise out of the brain-dead libbies because they always jump to the conclusion that I’m making a racist statement about obama when I go on one of those political pages and mention how the chimp is the worst president ever.

        Peace out…

        • Yup – sometimes more than that, too!

          I don’t smoke at all anymore – not because I’m opposed to it; I just don’t.

          But the experience helped solidify my becoming a liberty advocate because I got to know at first-hand what an evil crock o’ shit the “war on (some) drugs” was. Is. The essential lie – and the evil that flows from it – is applicable generally, not merely to just “smoking pot.”

          It is also why I hold creatures such as The Chimp and Barry O in particular contempt. Because they know it’s all bullshit. But they pretend otherwise because it enhances their power.

          The Chimp, by the way, is perhaps the key figure in the transformation of this country into a police state. He unleashed the always-latent psychopathy of the American volk – a volk as potentially dangerous as the Deutsches volk… with his turgid flag-humping and appeals to their worst instincts and pettiest hatreds.

          What is now routine – including the presidency of Barry O – would have been inconceivable, pre-Chimp.

    • Any cop that attempts to violate my basic human rights will get fragged. Stay out of the fast lane…because I routinely run 150+ on my rice burner while indulging in all manner of illegal substance without care for law or pissy pants cream puffs like you.

      Americans have become too submissive and continue to allow authorities free reign to abuse and torture with impunity. Instead of filming cops beat to death Kelly Thomas, why didn’t Joe “Strong Man” Cocker pull out G3 and mow down the crumbs? We all need to man up…liberty or death.

      Whenever they get out of line…frag em!

      WE CAN…WE MUST DO THIS PEOPLE!

    • “usually when a cop pulls his gun it is because the subject being stopped gave clues that he was going to harm the officer or someone else.”
      Yeah? Maybe you should tell this to the
      Scottsdale cops who pointed their guns at ME because they wanted the guy in the back seat of my cab one night.
      Maybe you should tell that to my friend Frank who was SHOT Phoenix PD when they decided to take down the guy in the back seat of Frank’s taxi. (Frank was merely grazed by the bullets, thank God).

    • No cop has ever helped me. I’ve been drawn down on several times during ‘routine’ stops, been assaulted and hospitalized by four cops when I was walking to my car, been tazed while in a restraint chair- and I follow the laws as I know them, respect people and their property, own a business and live by a very high moral code. So it’s bullshit when you say ‘follow the laws and you won’t have teouble with law enforcement’ Cops, prosecutors, and attorneys are all compromised, none of them respect your God-given and Constitutionally-protected rights. And just try to get a law changed- what crap! Go back to HQ, and read the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and then tell me where enforcing any law, to the detriment of individual liberty, is allowed in that contract, Road blocks- really? Do you think Tom and Ben would have tolerated such intrusions? ‘don’t cause much delay’ Where’s the warrant to search??!! I’d leave the USA in a heartbeat, but TPTB won’t issue me a passport; I’m a political prisoner of the current government.

    • Do you know why tyrants get to do what they do? Their soldiers _obey_.

      Police are nothing but a standing army. The entire idea of “Law Enforcement” is evil.

      It used to be that “Peace Officers” would stay out of everyone else’s business until there was a breach of the peace, and only THEN, like the Fireman who does not go out setting fires, step up and “serve and protect” by coming between peaceful people and those few sociopaths who are not peaceful.

      What “Law Enforcement” does is exactly the same thing the military does: Go out and make trouble, intrude into PEACEFUL people’s lives in order to punish them for living their lives in unapproved ways. And if they actually try to resist, to kill them.

      Nothing could signify this tyranny better than speeding laws. Someone doing no one ANY harm, not threatening nor reckless, punished. Oh, and don’t dare ignore the flashing lights just because you know you didn’t do anything wrong, the cops WILL KILL YOU if you do not instantly obey.

      The myth of “Follow the laws and most people wouldn’t have problems with law enforcement” is easily disproven. The innocent and/or unresisting people killed in their own homes by “Law Enforcement”, for example. How many must die? Abolish the police! If it saves just one life, isn’t it worth it?

    • Tim,

      Go through your statements a piece at a time. Speeding is harmless. Driving fast causes ZERO harm. Crashing causes harm, and the person who does so should be held responsible for that. However, to hold everyone hostage “in the name of $aftety” is ludicrous.

    • If speeding is so dangerous and such a crime, then why aren’t the consequences made so drastic that no normal person would speed? Make it three strikes: 1st offense – $10,000 fine; 2nd offense – $50,000 fine and 1-year suspension; and 3rd offense 5 years in jail and permanent revocation of driving privileges. (The same could be done for drunk driving, only with only one strike: 5 years in jail and permanent revocation of driving privileges; but if a drunk-driving accident results in life-altering injury or death – life in prison.) The fact is that the enforcement of speeding is just revenue-collecting. Just think of how much money states and municipalities would lose if nobody got speeding tickets. Cops are not protecting the pubic; they’re collecting revenue.

      • Excellent analysis Maynard. Indeed–if it’s about “saving lives”, and if all is justified by “saving just one life”…

        …then make it so, and ensure the penalties are so draconian nobody dares cross the line. But they don’t.

      • Don’t forget the insurance companies then have an excuse to raise your rates, even though you’ve made no claim and harmed no one.

      • I have long suggested this to the speed kills types. Why? Because I know if everyone obeyed the speed limit congestion would become crushing. So horrible that either the penalties would be reversed back to the present state or speed limits would be increased to be what they should have been all along.

    • Tim the ‘Tard summed it up perfectly why cops are such a disease.

      “I don’t see any cop pointing his gun at you for merely not wearing your seat belt, usually when a cop pulls his gun…” Note that Tim the ‘Tard is not looking very hard, but then directly contradicts himself. Key word: usually. Meaning there are times when the pigs do pull the gun for minor reasons.

      Another question not asked or answered – why was a person stopped for not wearing a seatbelt? Who is harmed by a person driving without a seatbelt on? Definitely not the cop pulling the gun.

      Speeding is strictly a matter of road design versus safe operating speeds. Eric has stated previously (and correctly) that “speeding” often is arbitrary. Highways were designed for speeds of up to 80 miles an hour, yet politicians have lowered the bar artificially.

      Tim the ‘Tard continues: “Those doing illegal drugs often use weapons and require the officer pulling his firearm to protect themselves.” Ignoring the “illegal drugs” part, I really don’t know too many people who pull any kind of weapon on anyone, especially a thug in a costume with a cheap badge who is visibly armed. IF it were true that the “druggies” assault cops often, then the evening news would be hours long of only “cop assaulted by drug users”.

      The ‘Tard goes on to blather “You can’t blame the police officerfor enforcing any laws, you have to blame politics [sic.] for passing certain laws.” Actually, we can blame the costumed clown for “enforcing” the laws by beating a person. Just because “politics” passed a law against free speech or protesting, etc, this does not give the enforcers the moral right to beat same.

      If the time comes for the “law enforcers” to start rounding up people for extermination, Tim the ‘Tard wants us to be angry at “politics” and not the people herding the victims to the death camps. Just doing their job, dontch know.

      And finally, the best for last. “Follow the laws and most people wouldn’t have problems with law enforcement.”

      Note that we are required to follow the law, no matter how immoral (segregation, anyone? Free speech zones? Refusing to talk to a cop for no good reason?). Cops are not required to follow the law (see supreme court cases indicating cops can lie in order to obtain “evidence” etc.)

      As the topper, Tim the ‘Tard again contradicts himself by saying “most people” thereby implicitly admitting that there are a number of thugs with costumes and badges that will cause problems.

      So follow the lead of the ‘Tard. Obey all laws, cower to the thugs in uniform, and you MAY not get the beating that you so richly deserve.

      • Excellent review of Tim the ‘Tard’s bubblegumming. The one that pisses me the most is: “Follow the laws and most people wouldn’t have problems with law enforcement.”

        Well, I guess that if the signers of the Declaration of Independence would have followed the laws because they didn’t want to have problems with Law Enforcement we would call the Queen our sovereign today!

        The problem is that our country becomes more and more a Police state by every day that goes by. And we allow them to do so. Our “democratic” election process have become a joke, the banker cartels/families are deciding who will be our next President, and when we will finally wake up (if we ever will do that) it will be too late.

    • Clovered-beeyatch!

      All of your claims about the so-called ‘tolerance’ of cops are based on arbitrary lines drawn by arbitrary laws that neither serve their claimed purpose, nor exist to. Speeding and accidents have no causal relationship, that is speeding does not assure an accident and accidents are not always caused by speeding. Accidents are caused by ACCIDENT. So your inane claims about the speed limit are brainless regurgitation of a doctrine that most of us are smart enough to see through.

      60% of all prison inmates are NONVIOLENT drug offenders. So even the drug users that end up in jail DIDN’T pull a gun on a cop. As such more of your puke is puddling at your feet with no point or basis in fact.

      And ‘check points’ are absolutely indefensible unless you considered Nazi Germany the model of a free society not yet achieved here. I know tons of cops in California. They are all instructed to let illegals pass through these checkpoints (too much hassle to deal with) and only target hardworking citizens for these minor and baseless offenses for the purpose of revenue generation.

      You are a dupe Tim. Period. Have an original thought sometime and maybe someone will treat you like a thinking human. The post above contains nothing approaching an original or rational idea…

      • Just like to take issue with the comment ‘Accidents are caused by accident.’ In most cases this is not so. Usually the so called accidents are the result of someone doing something stupid and one or more people not being sufficiently awake or aware to take the necessary action that would have avoided the resultant incident. This view is now agreed by our local traffic police force who now use the terms ‘Collision’, ‘Collision Investigation’ and have their vehicles signed ‘Collision Investigation Team’.

        Ken.

    • Sir, In my opinion, there is little done by police, deputies, and DA investigators that has anything at all to do with serving nor protecting the citizenry. Almost everything you see on the street or in press releases has to do with revenue generation, accurring political power, or feeding the legal/ prison/ security industry. The very metrics that are proudly used to measure police/ deputy/ investigator performance have nothing to do with serving any citizen but everything to do with feeding a system directly opposed to the free movement, association, and interaction of free men and women. Are there men and women that are in this industry that are troubled by this coruption and criminality and given an easy way out of this industry would leave? Yes! Does that free them of respobsibility for the criminal actions of their coworkers? Not in this life nor in the kangaroo courts run by this industry.

      • And yet I just read where the Feds “purchased” a prison off of the Illinois governmental crooks for around $165 million or so. So what was the citizens response to this expansion of the prison population?: Oh, goody! Now we get more “jobs” to run the prison! Sweet lord almighty. They were happy to see money flushed down the toilet so long as the shit ended up on their tin prison plate.

  64. Another GREAT post!! You have really nailed it. Thanks for having the cajones to say what NEEDS to be said publicly.

    Every time I drive by some fat loser parked behind a bush running a radar gun on the poor slobs coming down a long hill on a freeway, I want to scream! Only an A-hole would do that to people. Hero… my a$$…

    Get a real job and dump the hero crap. No one is a hero if they are doing what they are paid to do. Doesn’t matter if it’s a firefighter, EMT, cop, military personnel, airline pilot, doctor, nurse, teacher, etc. That’s EXACTLY what they get paid to do so they are certainly NOT heroes.

      • Communist-/socialist-/feminist-provocateurs

        had been infiltrating American government and

        at-large institutions from about 1862 forward

        (( read “Red Republicans: Lincoln’s Marxists” )).

        Today, citizens’ and cops’ bad feelings towards

        one another are product of those Marxian agents/

        provocateurs behind-the-scenes EFFORTS

        (( efforts explained in the former Soviet spy

        schools as “to cause mental dissonance,”

        applied by those trained in “PSYCHOPOLITICS,”

        for the purpose of collapsing Western

        systems for communism )).

        So, you are expressing ideas/feelings

        generated by Marxian “PSYCHOPOLITIANS”

        (the KGB term for their out-of-country

        provocateurs) over many decades–as are

        all law officers who mistrust all citizens.

        Our mutual feelings of hostility and mistrust

        have been engineered by Leftism’s agents

        found in every aspect of American civilization.

        The so-called “Sixties Revolution” was such a

        Soviet-engineered provocation–not any

        naturally evolving social movement. It had been

        planned and executed by Marxian provocateurs

        in entertainment and news venues, which explain

        how the revolt had unfolded nearly simultane-

        ously across the West.

        Study these rules, which the Soros-/communist-financed Snopes.com tries – but fails! – to debunk (( the rules aren’t any hoax! )):

        http://www.snopes.com/language/document/commrule.asp

        • P.S.

          Correction:

          Socialists/communists had been infiltrating from about 1850, not 1862–as posted above.

          Buy and study “Red Republicans and Lincoln’s Marxists,” which book turns everything you’ve been taught about the CIVIL WAR upsidedown.

      • The hero tag is simply an extension of political correctness. You aren’t “correct” if you,don’t buy the bs that all of these public servants are hero’s just because someone said so. Sure, brave acts occur, and should,be applauded, but don’t confuse the occasional brave act with the average GI, or cop, firefighter, etc… I did my time and it is embarrassing to be told I’m a hero just for being in the army for a while. I didn’t do anything special. The vast majority are just like me. The whole hero worship is just another distraction, another way to avoid the truth.

        • The deification of cops and soldiers is also a characteristic of authoritarian regimes everywhere. The Nazis and Soviets did it extensively.

          And now, so are we.

        • The deification of cops and soldiers is also a characteristic of authoritarian regimes everywhere. The Nazis and Soviets did it extensively.

          And now, so are we.

    • EH?
      Try dealing with the kicking, screaming, someone with the dt’s who calls you everything but a child of God for 12 hours. You can’t touch them or return the insults, but you must treat them with compassion and patience. (If you are lucky to have a CIWA protocol you can give them ativan). Try lifting and turning the 300 to 500 plus pound patient with diarrhea to keep them clean and free of bed sores. Try caring for that stroke or heart attack victim when minutes count to save their lives and brains. Try working with non-stop demands despite ringing telephones, hard floors, and quick lunch breaks when you get the chance. Try Non-stop work! Plus you have to deal with an increasing number of hostile arm chair critics (aka friends & family) who question every move you make, every medication you give, and demand a 24/7 dancing attendance even though you have other patients to care for. Sure, they Do have a right to know – BUT – not to cater to their presumed “rights of your immediate attention” thereby sacrificing the rights of your patient to good professional nursing care.
      We attend College for many years to earn out licenses and must obtain continuing education for as long as we work in our profession. (The same goes for our firefighters, EMTs, cops, military personnel, airline pilots. doctors, teachers along with my fellow comrades, the nurses). I wonder what type of job you do consider “REAL”? Try living on altruism, bub.

      • Marion,

        Your CVs are not the issue. The issue is: Do you have the right to force people to pay for your services? I – and others who advocate for liberty – say no, you do not. If we want your services, then we’d freely – happily – pay for them. If not, then we’d also be free to say: no, thanks.

        That’s how it ought to be in a free society.

      • Marion, poor ‘hero’. You CHOSE that line of work. You chose for PAY that line of work. If the pay isn’t enough for ‘rolling a 300 to 500 plus pound patient with diarrhea to keep them clean and free of bed sores’ stop accepting pay for it.
        Your no ‘hero’. No more of a ‘hero’ than a guy who gets paid to ‘roll a 300-500 pound’ hog off the slaughter floor to put sausage on our tables!
        So sad when people get paid to be considered victims and ‘heroes’ at the same time!
        A ‘hero’ is someone who sacrifices for NOTHING ( inward or outward) to save someone without payment, praise or reward.
        The stupid airline pilot that a few years back was called and still is called a ‘hero’ in many peoples eyes would have done the same thing of landing the jet in the river if he was the only one in the jet! He would have saved his OWN ars on any given day of the week!
        Get over your I’m a victim and want to be called a hero for payment.

      • Oh ‘hero’ Marion, If I ever have show up to your place of ‘hire’ at 300-500 pounds and full of diarrhea please identify yourself as the bitter ‘hero’ Marion who has to study hard to keep her paycheck coming in while working on ‘hard floors’. I would rather lay in my own (*&*^@! than have you cry online to better minded people about ‘helping’ me for pay.

      • The job is real, as in someone hired and is paying you. But you can leave if yu feel it is beneath you. You are not a hero. Go ahead and quit and offer to do it for free; still not a hero, but maybe the chip would fall from your shoulder. I volunteered for many years as a firefighter/EMT and never once considered using that term. We were ceetainly appreciative of people’s gratitude, but we chose to spend our free time helping our community and I personally was happy I could contribute. Also, forced ativan injections? If that is not a violation of natural law , I do not know what is. Did you use the old ‘implied consent’ cya wording?

        • Oh Bob, it brought a tear to ma eye.
          I bet you water up Bob at ‘moving pictures’ on nurses, cops, ‘our men and women in uniform’?
          Even using the word ‘unsung’ is a huge clue.
          I bet the Nazi nurses helping ‘the boys’ bring victory to ‘the homeland’ were considered ‘unsung’ heroes and a glory to the cause!
          Geez.
          Let me tell you who would be a ‘nurse’ ‘hero’.
          How about an Afghan woman who drags a Afghan citizen to the little dirt shack to help him after he and his family were drone striked by an ENEMY sitting thousands of miles away in an air conditioned bunker playing with a joy stick while being told by everyone in the airport he is a hero when he travels in his uniform for that public praise?
          Geez.

          • You can slap these people in the face with logic and truth and they’ll never get it. That’s why the USSA is doomed. To all those responding to Marion; Amen!

          • Excuse me, you worthless waste of food, who said anything about uniforms?

            You did.

            I said “nurses”. That’s all I said, and that’s all I meant.

            If you are as incapable of grasping the meaning of a single simple sentence, I can only cry for any progeny you might have.

            Please, I beg you, for the sake of humanity, don’t breed.

      • What is your post having to do with the main topic of eric’s article? I thought he refers to the cops, law enforcement in general! What laws are you enforcing when you are wiping piss and shit form somebody’s behind? I think you’re out of line here …

  65. “… the average person could live his life with little, if any, significant worry about the law.” This is an important principle.

    Both St. Paul and St. Thomas Aquinas came very close indeed to defining the validity of a law by the impossibility of a person of good conscience, though ignorant of the law, breaking it. Ammon Hennacy stated it the other way around: “Oh judge! Your damn laws! The good people don’t need them, and the bad people don’t obey them.”

  66. Eric, you’ve yet again stated the obvious. It’s the same sort of thing I’ve said for years. Nobody put a gun to their heads and forced them because they do this by their own free will. It’s what they WANT to do and if they didn’t want to then they wouldn’t be doing it. They see it as a means to an end: their profit at your expense. As simple as that. In other words they’re worse than gangsters because the true gangster doesn’t flower up who and what he is.

    • I retired after 22 years as a street patrol sheriff’s deputy in CA, and I agree with the mainpoints of eric’s article. I would like to point out however that cops vary tremendously in the way they approach their jobs. My philosophy was to leave regular folks alone and focus my efforts on violent felons. Cops like me disdain our peers who write traffic tickets to old ladies. Some old timers like me even consider ourselves to be libertarians, sovereigns, or even anarchists. I agree that the current class of knuckleheads wearing the badge seem to be trigger happy idiots with no understanding of the foundations of liberty, but bashing the entire profession might be going too far.

      • Hi Adam,

        Thanks for the kind words – and more, for being an “old timer” who understands how badly off the rails things are today.

        I tried to emphasize in the article that I (and I suspect, many others) support peace-keeping. Dealing with violent scumbags, thieves – etc. We’d “have your back” when it comes to such work. Gladly pay you to do such work, even. We’re not irresponsible people who are just trying to excuse wanton conduct. We’re responsible people sick of being treated like children by a system (and its enforcers) that seems to think it has the moral right to regulate and control virtually every aspect of our lives – and which criminalizes conduct that ought to be no one’s business other than those involved.

        I dread what is developing.

        I see the growing disconnect between legitimate peace-keeping and “law enforcing” – and the hatred and contempt it is fostering among people who, ordinarily, would support what cops (peace keepers) are there to do.

        Good to have you with us – and thanks for your comments!

      • Not really. By now practically all like you describe have retired or quit. Online every self described ‘good cop’ is always retired or quit. I haven’t encountered a ‘good cop’ for many years and that guy was probably counting the days until retirement given his apparent age.

        There’s always outliers, but the bell curve shift of mean is essentially complete.

        • That’s a good observation that solidifies our case for voluntarism. The increase in violence and inhumanity seen increasing in cops is reflective of the violence on sound honest money and individual control of their savings.
          A kilo of drugs is more honest than a kilo of u.s. greenback federal reserve notes. It will perform as advertised in a stable reliable manner.
          The war on drugs is a war to protect their destructive fiat money scheme from the less destructive scheme of concentrated farm commodities.
          The rest of the world is ripped off by unreedeemable greenbac.
          Like druggies, americans are greenback junkies. We destroyed our industrial base due to our addiction.
          We have lost the ability to create things of value for muslims commies socialists tribalists.
          We need to harshly detox on an individual level. Don’t earn dollars, save, dollars, spend dollars.
          Rather transact in things of real value only. Better to convert your paper wealth to crack even. A crackhead is better off than a vampire fiat money junkie. We need to gain knowledge of metals and commodities like a doper knows his dope.
          We need codes like in the days of the underground railroad. Maybe form a church that forbids bankster note as the devils scrip. Hard commodityd faithful who learned first hand that Far worse than demon rum is the demon green dead presidential portraits.

          • A sort of prohibition movement where you choose to transact your personal business in something of value. Just because there are ink-stained pieces of paper that claim to be “legal tender” doesn’t mean they’re mandated tender. It’s all a charade and I had to dig this quote up from Frank Zappa.

            “The illusion of freedom [in America] will continue as long as it’s profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”

          • Tor, well said. Man, you have a unique and awesome way of writing!

            And I am 100% in agreement. These days, if I can’t hold it in my hand, walk on it, or sit in it, I don’t consider it “wealth”. I try to keep my bank balance low; because every day dollars sit in there, they’re rotting under the onslaught of their newly-excreted brethren pouring out of Bernanke’s House of Horrors like a torrent of dysenteric diarrhea.

            Buy land. Buy gold. Buy silver. Buy lead.

            The precious metals might take a sickening plunge in the near future, because as Europe implodes the dollar will soar as investors rush to “safety”.

            But as someone wise said, the dollar is “merely the leper with the most fingers left”…or as Doug Casey says, “the least sick cancer patient.”

            And when the dollar’s day comes–when people finally wise up, and it’s no longer the “reserve currency”–it will happen in days, not weeks, not months. Wealth will disappear like pasture under a swarm of locusts.

            I don’t know when; the psychopaths play kick the can with Pele-like skill. But it’s mathematically inevitable.

          • Meth… It’s ironic that it takes Lead to truly protect Gold.

            I’ve said it time and again that we have psychopaths, and namely our so-called “leaders”, who suffer from a mineral imbalance. To put it plainly… They don’t eat enough lead.

          • Yep. Making stuff is how the world should work. Without control freaks and fearmongers and warmongers and cheating bankers it would be the way of the world and people would live in much more peace than they do today.

            Everyone likes stuff. Everyone.

      • And how do cops go on strike? They no longer walk around outside city hall, or the state capital,carrying picket signs, they just quit writing tickets. They know that they are revenue collectors, and the fastest way to hit their employer–the government, not the citizens–is to not write tickets that generate revenue.

      • Mr. Henry,it is a cathartic feeling to know that people like you(who among the corrupted police)exist. Ever think about running for public office? You are the type of police/sheriff I would believe existed when I was growing up as a kid. I wish there were an organization for those ex law enforcement like yourself to gather to help change society.

        Kudos to what eric and others also said.

        Activist for a better society,

        Kriz

        Thank you

      • Why are cops allowed to “vary tremendously”? That does not make it OK that one cop is good but works alongside some corrupt thug. This is a part of the problem. I am sick and tired of hearing that “vary tremendously” crap. I bet some Nazis, as they packed people into box cars, had some reservations and didn’t club the deportees as hard as others. Oh that makes it OK then? What a load of BS. You all wear the same uniform.

    • Bravo Mr Peters. I would add one aspect to your accurate observations: there is a direct relationship between the movement of Police from serving the community to a lethal force that rules a community and the extent that this police force has been turned into a Para-military federalized force. The further along the Para-militarization spectrum the force is, I submit, the more arrogrant and the more threatening they become to citizens. Here in southwest Florida, unarmed citizens have had a habit of being tazed to death or shot multiple times for failing to comply or somehow threatening the officer. I also believe testing police and deputies for steriod and HGH may demonstrate other chemical connections to the increase in citizen victim induced police sanctioned violence.

      • Trying to mitigate evil thugs thru invasive testing thugs will likly multiply our troubles. There can be no rationality until we once again can transact and interact rationally.
        We are like a sick race of zombies who stopped putting rebar in their concrete.
        All around these zombies, everything they build crashes down and kills them. Building new rebar-less concrete crutches will of course fail as well.
        First we boycott all. Greenbacks. Then we get back to good old 1965 days by using only silver coins of stable value or other commodity backed real money.
        Finally we bring back gold diamonds yellowcake and other superconcentrated truly precious and portable stable sane money.
        Jobs built in real money economy will be real creators of true value. Not welfare warfare matrix jobs of false destructive matrix fakery value.

        Their is no zombie savior to bring back the life that disappeared 47 years ago. There is no zombie PhD from zombie college that can free us from fiat zombie cannibalism of developing nations and factory closings in zombie central zombie cop america

        Don’t be a zombie. Don’t associate with zombies. A rational world with tangible legitimate wealth in our own 2 human hands is the only solutions.

        As to zombies avoid or if necessary doubletap to the head and immediatly incinerate.

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