Want to understand how cops think? Or rather, how thought-less they are? Here’s a deconstruction of an interview (full text here) Yahoo conducted with ex-traffic op Mike Brucks:
Yahoo asked Brucks, “How much leeway do you give someone before writing them a speeding ticket?”
Brucks answered:
“The speed limit in Texas used to be 60 mph, [and] well, out on the clear road where there’s a lot of visibility I give people leeway. I wouldn’t write tickets until they got to 80 mph…..”
Ok. Hold onto that. Now check out Brucks’ next answer:
Yahoo asked him: “Are speed limits too low?”
And he replied:
“No, the traffic engineers, at least in Texas, are pretty good. It’s not that some parts of the highway are safer for speeding, it’s that drivers aren’t always paying attention. People die on lonely deserted stretches of road too. There are a lot of times drivers aren’t concentrating. They need to understand you’re going 100 feet per second on the highway. Above 75 mph things just happen so fast, [whether it’s] a flat tire, a coyote, wind, dirt, or rocks. It’s not that much better now that cars are safer; reaction times are still the same.”
Italics added.
Well now, Officer Brucks – which is it? On the one hand, you said, “I wouldn’t write tickets until they got to 80 mph” in a 60 MPH zone – 20 MPH over the posted lawful maximum – and then you go on to make the universal statement that speed limits are not set too low, that “the traffic engineers… are pretty good.” Except, apparently, when they under-post the road by 20 MPH. In which case you cut people some slack – or so you say. No, wait. You actually say otherwise. That “…above 75 MPH, things just happen so fast” … ” even though that’s still 5 MPH below your own arbitrary determination of a reasonable speed (20 over, 80 MPH).
Well, Officer Brucks?
How about it?
You’ve admitted – openly – that you yourself flout “the law”… sometimes, when it accords with your arbitrary judgment. The sick thing – which Officer Brucks and his ilk never see – is that their arbitrary judgments are no more or less right or wrong in an ethical sense than the judgments of ordinary people. Or the arbitrary edicts called “the law” (when “the law” is purely statutory; i.e. when there’s no actual harm involved in violating it).
But ordinary people don’t wear special costumes – and aren’t empowered with the authority to impose their Judge Dredd-esque arbitrary judgments on others at gunpoint.
Much less “earn” a living this way.
Officer Brucks is utterly unconscious to his own hypocrisy – and malevolence. He actually believes he is “keeping people safe” by waylaying them at gunpoint for non-crimes (because these “offenses” have no victims) purely on the basis of his own arrogant, arbitrary determination as to what constitutes a “reasonable” speed. He arrogates to himself the authority to make the decision – as is typical of his caste.
But wait, there’s more.
Yahoo queried Brucks: “What can a driver say to get out of a ticket?”
Saith Officer Not-So-Friendly:
“When someone tells me that a family member has just been sent to the hospital and they’re on their way, how can I ticket them for that? I tell them that they’re not being safe, that they need to slow down and stay safe. That’s about it. ”
Well, perhaps Officer Sometimes Friendly. It all depends.
Apparently, it’s ok to “speed”… when Officer Brucks decides your excuse meets with his personally acceptable criteria. And here we thought safety was the criteria! Apparently, it is safe to “speed” … when a family member has just been sent to the hospital. This is good to know. Braking distances, tire adhesion, sight lines, driver skill… all the stuff Brucks and his kind love to trot out… ah, who cares? All that really matters is the inclination of Officer Brooks toward your personal story.
This guy bragged to Yahoo about having written no less than 40,000 tickets 
during his 22 year “career.” Work that out. At $150 per ticket (probably lowball given many traffic tickets routinely cost $200 or more once “court costs” and the various multiple additional “fees” and “surcharges” are tacked on) that comes to six million, six-hundred-thousand dollars’ worth of “revenue” extracted at gunpoint from the unfortunate citizens of El Paso, Texas – where he “served.” That’s just one cop. Extrapolate this to a department of costumed, badged enforcers – then a nation of them. Handing out pieces of payin’ paper they admit – though without realizing it – are trumped-up, bogus… based on little more than whatever a given cop happens to be in the mood for that day.
The day you happen to have the misfortune to be driving in his vicinity at a speed you believe to be perfectly reasonable.
But which he has summarily decided, isn’t.
One other thought along these same lines; The worm turns?:
Firearm Makers Boycott Anti-Gun City and State Governments
“stand together to repel politicians’ hostile assaults on the rights of citizens.”
[Cool. A day late, but better late than never. A.k.a. “it’s about time!” … and the ammunition makers? What say they?]
“Due to the passing of the unconstitutional legislation, the company announced that the State of New York, law enforcement departments, police officers, state government entities, and all government employees in the state would no longer be served as customers. “In short, Olympic Arms will no longer be doing business with the State of New York or any governmental entity or employee of such governmental entity within the State of New York – henceforth and until such legislation is repealed, and an apology made to the good people of the State of New York and the American people,””
“This action has caused a division of the people into classes: Those the government deems valuable enough to protect with modern firearms, and those whose lives have been deemed as having less value, and whom the government has decided do not deserve the right to protect themselves with the same firearms,” Schuetz said. “Olympic Arms will not support such behavior or policy against any citizen of this great nation.”
[Animal Farm – take three]
http://thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/14453-counties-and-cities-now-nullifying-gun-control
enough is enough, ya goberment bully-thugs. We don’t want your endless and never-ending police state journey to Hell.
I don’t, anyway,… I don’t know what the rest of america thinks.
Time will tell.
I saw a video showcased here the other day, it was about an ex-marine cop punching an ex-army guy simply for speaking truth to power, it was an obvious example of how twisted things have become in, ‘modern amerika’.
I wonder how many others saw it,.. and how goberment lovers defended it?
It was clear to me that, yes, the cop did ‘step up’ into the guys face. For one. As if sticks and stones were words.
For two, Are the marines teaching individuals ideals that are contrary to those of the culture,… or is it just contrary to the culture of an occupied nation?
The police force academy does the same thing?
It seems that way.
The Moon IS Down.
The marine cold cocked the army guy – the army guy who was “supposed to be” the public official’s master !?! – is this not a Super-contradiction to the ways of the culture? I guess it just depends upon who’s culture, theirs, or ours?
Animal Farm – take two.
The marine viewed the army guy as nothing more than a verb (less than an object?) by saying he was taking charge of the situation using physical force. What this meant was; the public is nothing more than a process to the mind of an enforcer.
It goes hand in hand with sportswatching (it really is one word)… you know, sportswatching is a whole sport unto itself,… or perhaps it’s really just a process of process watching while whittling down the players to nothing more than processes themselves? Sportswatching in this sense narrows the field of awareness, among other things, and binds the ties, usually. Sportswatching, it’s completely different from simply watching individuals play at a sport.
Just substitute the word sports in a few spots here for the word state, to get the idea:
The Function of the State of the Union Address
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/132206.html
OR, one could say, the cop was just, “part of the continuous communications of government people with non-government people”… ?
http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/132251.html
When the army guy said he was sorry, I half-thought along these lines from the link above: “The State’s cardinal sin is not coercion per se, because its willing supporters accept many kinds of coercion in return for the gains they get from being in the State’s polity.”
Did anyone else notice, in the other video recently on here, the brightly colored San-Fransisco 49’ers lanyard around the neck of the cop-chopper pilot who landed in the desert to fondle and molest the woman out looking for rocks? You don’t think that means anything? No symbolism, no iconography, no ritualistic displays of any kind similar to other tribal rituals and… either you get it or you don’t, maybe?
It’s beginning to get a lot like watching a documentary about primitive tribal cultures in the jungle. The Cargo Cult, perhaps? The Cargo Cult being played by a script?
Also, I like this quote: ““authorities” skirt the laws that are supposed to control them and instead create their own in order to control us.” – Olaf Koenders.
And this one, I don’t like, except it’s quite true: “They can do the anal probe over a jaywalking bust.” – eric.
Something has gone terribly wrong,.. or else things are going exactly according to plan.
I think perhaps most People, even zombies, realize now: surrendering is not an option… and how is that good for the culture, exactly? In so very many ways.
It’s good for the ruling class, that’s for sure.
Bottom line, we are all worse than Helots … we’re nothing more than a dehumanized process, to the mind of an enforcer.
All the better to foment a revolution along the lines of the french revolution? Seems like that’s exactly what they want.
So, let’s Not give it to them.
I’m not, anyway. F-them. … And the french horse they’re riding in on.
ReLOVEution!
speeding ticket = usage tax. If my ins rates didnt go up w/speeding, I wouldn’t worry about it at all. When your rates go up by many hundreds for a period of 3 years, that’s a lot of coin compared to the $100 fine the cop gives you..
“This guy bragged to Yahoo about having written no less than 40,000 tickets during his 22 year “career.” ”
Didn’t that sniper who pissed off one of his buddies at a shooting range last week claim he killed 160 people? They all do it. It’s a badge thing.
Yup –
Adolf Eichmann reportedly said (words to the effect) that he “would leap into his grave with great joy knowing he had helped to exterminate most of Europe’s Jews.”
The fines are also becoming outrageous. They routinely tack on “court costs” and sometimes two or even three additional “fees” so that a typical ticket for “speeding” ends up costing you $200 or more. In my state, the filthy cockroaches tried to impose low four figure “abuser” fees. Anything 20 MPH or more over the posted maximum (76 in a 55) would have been a $1,000 fine! And guess which delegate was pushing it hardest? A greasy scumbag traffic lawyer.
The traffic lawyers in Illinois got forty over and then thirty over classified misdemeanor as misdemeanors with possible jail time. 1yr for forty, 6 months for thirty.
Downstate the interstates are flat, straight, and boring as all hell with 55 and 65mph PSLs. In the Chicago area they are 6 to 14 lanes wide with 45-55 PSLs.
The speed limits are grossly underposted. I wrote legislators. No response of any value. I got a ticket for 34 over once. I was coming down an on ramp when some ‘none-shall-pass’ clover decided he owned the right lane and accelerated to close the hole I was aiming for. Wouldn’t have been a huge deal to go behind him except someone else grabbed that gap. So I punched it and made a safe merge. Keep in mind I was already doing 70+ just to fit into the traffic stream. Merging at 55mph is fine if you want to get rear-ended. That was back in the 1990s I think… ages for before this law came about. So I try to explain to our ignorant overlords that sometimes you can’t merge into traffic that’s already going 20-25 over without running afoul of this law. No answer. To think my whole life could have been ruined for making a safe merge where I only counted on myself instead of forcing my way in making someoone else take evasive action. Or what is now government’s recommendation to stop at the end of the merge lane.
Of course the traffic lawyers love it. Now lots of people need them just to stay out prison. A driver can now be put into jail on the spot by the cop. Giving cops even more power to ruin lives. No more going to meatgrinder court and getting a small fine and supervision on your own.
“A driver can now be put into jail on the spot by the cop.”
Oh, it’s far worse than that, Brent. Thanks to The Supremes, they can do a strip search. And it doesn’t even have to rise to the level of a “speeding” ticket. They can do the anal probe over a jaywalking bust.
Cue Republicans’ favorite song:
Well I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m freeeeeeee!
Outrageous fines are intrinsically criminal.
All my life I’ve read and read that America needs more EDUCATION. Well, government is infested with formally educated people. So what’s the problem now?
tgsam
When I got my statutory (imaginary) reckless driving citation in the great state of Virgini’, I started receiving calls from lawyers almost immediately.
What a racket they’ve got going. Everyone gets enriched at the expense of the only one out of all of them working for a living – ME!
And yet the People elect lawyers to Congress and the State legislatures. They also elect and reelect career politicians many of who ARE lawyers.
Of course the judges and justices are all juris doctors. Read what Madison has to say about “faction” in Federalist Number 10.
Don’t let ’em shit ON you folks! Open your mouths.
Tinsley Grey Sammons (1936 –)
@Hot Rod:
Thread continued here from the cancer thread above–getting hard to navigate it!
Totally fascinating ideas, HR! Once again I’m amazed at the level of education and discourse from people on this site…just astonishing.
You may not be a doctor–but your understanding of the biochemistry and parasitology would put most of them to shame. I am not exaggerating; you’d be astounded how poor their basic science knowledge is just a few years out of school. It’s what makes them victim to the drug companies; they simply don’t remember (or care to re-study) enough to call “bullshit” on the protocols. I have an ongoing argument with a pediatrician on my street on vaccines, nutrition, and fluoride. My other neighbor–a prominent cardiologist–is a walking heart attack waiting to happen. I shared my blood lipid results with him and told him what I eat–he literally doesn’t believe me! Meanwhile he’s loading up on statins.
Orthodoxy is killing allopathic medicine.
We desperately need people like Hot Rod and other free, intelligent thinkers to shake it up and innovate.
On the fungus-amongus cancer theory: yeah, bacteria swap genes like johns in a whorehouse. And eukaryotic cells communicate in a million subtle ways. I don’t know if anyone’s proven actual gene transfer–but the signalling/induction mechanisms are so rich you almost don’t have to. As you point out, stem cells can “become” any type of cell. They do so by selectively expressing and silencing genes; and that is driven by extracellular signals…starting with simply what other type of cell they’re close to.
Right on Methyl. Recently I had a high blood pressure incident and ended up in the emergency room (being so healthy has it’s disadvantages; I didn’t realize what I was experiencing). I’d been feeling “funny” when I worked out hard the past couple of years and now I now what that “funny feeling” was. So I’d backed way off on cardio over time (worst thing I could have done). The doctor that saw me (I go to a dr. about once every ten years…but only if I need to, so I don’t do the “my doctor” thing) told me to cut my salt intake, eat “balanced” meals (SAD = Standard American Diet) and if it didn’t improve he wanted to put me on blood pressure medicine. So I didn’t listen to him. I cut all wheat / grain products, went to a totally primal diet wise and started working my way back up on cardio and resistance exercises. Within two weeks I was back down to pre-hypertension and now I am almost “normal” and have lost about eight pounds in under five weeks to boot. When I showed the doctor my log of continually decreasing blood pressure readings over two weeks, he was scratching his head. He told me [what I was doing] “shouldn’t work. But I can’t argue with the results.” I’m going to recommend some of Mark Sisson’s and Dr. Mercola’s stuff on the primal lifestyle / exercise aimed at longevity to him (he’s young enough and seems sufficiently receptive that it may sway him).
Conventional “wisdom” on health care and medicine is so heavily influenced by big pharma, big hospitals / insurance corporations and the evil AMA, it would appear to be a plan to kill as many of us off as they can as quickly as possible; but leeching money from the victims the whole way to the undertaker. This, of course, without actually implementing overt democide (although that may be coming) which people tend to resist. It’s amazing to me how people refuse accept (or at least choose to ignore) the fact that entrenced players (think Microsoft, Exxon, Autodesk, major utilities, etc.) use any means possible to extract every dime they can from their “customers” (victims?) and hold their “market share” without having to actually compete in an even vestigal free market. Anyone who can’t look at corporate medicine and see the same phenomenon is either cognitively blind or willfully in denial.
Ja–and you’re spot-on, it is not purely accidental.
The history of allopathic medicine and its installation as a monopoly by the Rockefellers goes back to the 1920’s.
It’s quite brilliant; don’t put people in cattle-cars and send them to camps, that’s expensive and they still have guns!
Smart business says: poison them, “treat” the “disease” expensively and profitably, and cull the herd slowly.
Smart business says: poison them, “treat” the “disease” expensively and profitably, and cull the herd slowly.
Actually, with allopathic “medicine,” it’s about treating (or pretending to treat) symptoms, rather than disease – and even that not very effectively. You’d think that even the Clovertards would have awakened to this after nearly a century of failure.
Eric needs to put a sub-section up that’s tagged for health and medicine.
You know, that might not be a bad idea… anyone want to chime in?
Good idea, I was just feeling a little guilty for our hijacking the thread to talk about cancer.
Ok – I’ll discuss with Dom. It seems like a subject that might have sufficient “legs” to warrant a section devoted to it.
I myself am very leery of aloquackic medicine – the “health care” industry. Which has a financial interest in sickness.
Now, if you have a broken leg (or similar physical trauma) then a trained doctor can be just what the, er, doctor ordered. But I strongly suspect that most of what ails us can be traced to lifestyle. What we eat, how we care for ourselves, etc.
I tend to pick up on anecdotal evidence and get to thinking along certain lines. For example, out here in the sticks, one routinely finds wizened old farmers who rarely, if ever, see a doctor (excepting trauma). They are stronger than I am, some of them – despite being in their 70s and 80s. They can set fence posts and run barbed wire for six hours in the July sun and it doesn’t faze them. No cabinet full of pills. And they eat hearty – meat – every day.
Meanwhile, back in the burbs… one sees the opposite. Young men – 20s, 30s – who are physical wrecks already. By 40 – if not sooner – they will be popping statins (and Viagra). Hmmmm… what does this suggest?
Eric, I’m with you on allo-pathetic medicine. If I have a limb hanging by the skin or broken bones, then I can see a real need. If I found out that I was eaten up with cancer, I’d probably seek alternative / natural means to affect a cure; I’m not into being poisoned, cut up and irradiated all at great expense. This last incident freaked me out enough to actually “go to the doctor” since I really had no idea what was going on.
Unfortunately he wasn’t immediately available and with my symptoms, the receptionist instructed me to “Go to the emergency room now!” as they shoved a wheelchair under my butt. So they poked, prodded, tested and bled me for 24 hours only to tell me everything was fine except for elevated blood pressure.
So…I’d been looking for a good excuse to go primal and this got me off my duff. When I explained my dietary approach to the problem and backed it up with hard evidence that it was working, the M.D. was nonplussed to say the least.
Which brings me to your anecdote about old farmers: we are vertical beings designed for high mobility under a variety of conditions. Stop moving, sit down or lay down and stay that way and you can expect to…stay that way. We must keep going to keep going. That’s the secret to those old farmers, they never quit doing what they were doing and that’s why they’re still able to. And spending most of their lives in front of a flat panel and pizza box is why a lot of America’s young males aren’t physically fit for military service or much else for that matter.
I knew a retired CDC physician who was well into her eighties and walked all over town, went out to care for her cattle in the country and was clear as a bell mentally. She gave us this advice: “Stay away from doctors. They’ll kill you.” Interesting coming from a doctor, no? She fulfilled Mark Sisson’s slogan of “Live Long Drop Dead.” At eighty-eight years old, she went out to visit her cattle, got out of the truck to open the gate, had an aneurysm rupture and, according to the fellow driving the truck, was dead before she hit the ground. The wonderful part was she was doing something she loved. May I be so blessed.
@eric–
Right! They’re awesome for trauma–acute conditions, like a broken leg or appendicitis. But “chronic” conditions? No thank you. I’m convinced 99% of those are dietary and lifestyle, and most of the other 1% can be fixed with natural medicines.
@Boothe–
Wasn’t it mind-boggling to face your doctor with facts–what you actually did and got good results–and still see his disbelief? It’s a religion; they worship the AMA, the CDC, and the FDA.
Hi Meth,
True Story for you:
My wife goes to her GP annually. Well, one time – about two years ago – the Quack admonished her about her potassium level being too low (according to blood tests). He advised … drum roll… pills. He never even mentioned diet. Well, I thought: Why not just try eating a banana every day (I do) and let’s see whether that helps. It did. No thanks to the Quack. Could it be, perhaps, because self-administered bananas are cheap and don’t require a prescription from him?
Second True Story:
Being a cheapster as well as a self-sufficiency minded kind-of-guy, when we last moved, I moved us. As in multiple trips in a rented U-Haul, with me hand-carting and carrying our stuff from the old place to the new place. During this, I did something to my right knee. Pretty severe pain. I couldn’t run and even walking was painful. Much as I shun Quacks, after about a week of this, I went to see an orthopedist. Guess what he suggested? Torn meniscus – arthroscopy required. No alternatives mentioned.
Well, I was in pain enough to accept this. After all, he’s an orthopedist with a wall full o’ degrees and who the hell am I… right? So, the surgery was scheduled for a few days down the road.
About a day after my consultation but before the scheduled surgery, I went to the gym to work out (upper body). I’m gimping around the floor, obviously hobbled by my knee injury. Another guy working out strikes up a conversation with me. Turns out he’s also a doctor. He asks me what’s the problem, and I tell him. He tells me something Quack Number One did not. That while it’s true some knee cartilage tears require surgery to correct, if the injury is on the periphery of the meniscus, where there is some blood supply, the tear may heal on its own. And that there’s no downside to waiting to see. Worst case, the injury does not heal – and then you have the surgery. But – and here’s the bell ringer – if you do have the surgery, the cartilage that will be removed during the procedure will be gone forever. It does not grow back. Ever. Which means, the joint will almost certainly become arthritic – and sooner.
I was, naturally, pretty mad – at Quack Number One. Because he didn’t even hint that knee cartilage tears can sometimes heal and that maybe wait-and-see (for now) is the way to go. The fucker just wanted to cut into me – and then send me the bill. No doubt his kids need braces….
Luckily, I dodged him – and the surgery. Cancelled it. The knee healed on its own and I have had no trouble with it since.
meth…Cartels don’t do awesome. But the relative contrast can fool the eye.
@eric–
WOW, you dodged a bullet with your knee problem! Glad you exercised your BS detector. Yeah…a “meniscectomy”, bad ju-ju. It’s that little disk of cartilage that rides between the articular surfaces of the joint. Its job is to sweep the lubricant around and cushion the joint…remove it, and BAM! guaranteed arthritis.
Oh–and a follow-up job later, Hey Eric, meet Mr. Total Knee Replacement!
Just a total lack of ethics for Quack #1.
That, and insurance. If YOU had to shell out the (minimum) $20K for that surgery, you’d damn sure be asking around. But you don’t, and so they naturally suggest the expensive surgical option.
Medicine has been socialized for a long time; it’s just out in the open now.
If ya’ll haven’t, I recommend googling Joel Wallach and Youngevity. His book Dead Doctors Don’t Lie is a good intro to his mode of thinking–which is, just about all disease is a nutritional deficiency. I could nit-pick a few points, but overwhelmingly the biochemistry behind it makes sense.
Eric, how about a free-for-all section? Just let the subjects flow freely in whatever direction the posters take it?
That’s not a bad idea, either – consider it being looked into!
We already have that with the forum, but nobody likes it. Having a free-for-all is a bit more difficult on this main page.
“free for all”. organic. anarchical. correct.
Eric, I do not know what it takes to make it happen but can you make it so that when we get email notifications of new comments we can just click onto that one comment rather than have to scroll through the whole post to find it?
There are many sharp minds here; I would like to engage them quickly.
Again, I know you are busy and it might be too time consuming for you but I think it would help move the conversations along better.
Hi Skunk,
I’ll ask Dom – he’s the brains of the site!
I am new here. I wish I had found you guys a long time ago! I noticed the forum has had no new posts for several months. Why come nobody uses the forum?
Hi Skunkbear. I’ll add it to my things to do list.
John J! I have posted this video for you!
Aaron Hawkins – An Open Message to Enforcers
Allocation of Safety Importance & Responsibility
Road engineers 99.00%
Auto manufacturers 1.00%
Law enforcers 0.00%
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=032_1359911348&safe_mode=off
Sebastian Maniscalco’s “What’s Wrong With People”
Akiko and I just watched the whole deal on Netflix. Too Funny!
This last one is so true! OMG LOL
There are forces at work to minimize physical socializing I swear!
Its funny or what ever, but on a serious note this is the type of physiological bullshit that has turned this country into what it is. A person so self absorbed and non caring about the rights and freedoms of others is the whole problem. If your in such a hurry to live your life as this guy is i feel sorry for you. I like to pick out my vegetables and i don’t sign any paper work fuck juries courts governments and the like. Treat all with respect until they prove to you they don’t deserve it. I fucking hate comedians i believe they are a huge part of the over all brainwashing mechanism in this country. They make light of all the important shit and cause sheeple to blow off important issues. I exempt George Carlin from that list, he told it like it is when it comes to the gubment.
Except I have to agree with him about the tattoo business. “I don’t put bumper stickers on a Ferrari”. And his schtick about visitors and the old-school way people used to welcome you and treat guests, ignoring phone calls, is so apt. That’s the way it was. I remember it. And that’s the rule in my house! Elsewhere now? Hell!… You’re sitting down to eat with friends and their spawn and the goddamn cell phones are never left alone and the texting shit occurs in the middle of the conversation. To hell with that! If you haven’t the decency to turn the fucking phone off, and pay attention to those you’ve at least taken the time to bother even sitting down with, then ghost those damn things for the duration. You mean to tell me you can’t be “disconnected” for an hour or two? It’s too much trouble? Well, then you no longer want to be inconvenienced by knowing me.
I hear ya. I constantly wonder about how easy it would be to jam an iPhone or Android phone up some inconsiderate fucktard’s rectum – and how deeply I could lodge it.
The cop in this story has to be bull shitting. You know he’s giving a ticket to anyone going over 70. He just doesn’t want to come off as a complete asshole in this story. He knows his friends, family and neighbors are reading this. No way this guy is being honest.
Hi Jay,
Agreed –
It’s easy enough to read between the proverbial lines. The most outrageous thing about this guy – the thing John steadfastly refuses to concede – is his smug assumption of “decidership.” He gets to determine what’s “safe” – and what’s not. At his whim. And who the hell is this guy? He’s just a tax-feeding costumed enforcer – nothing more. The fact that he equates any violation of the speed limit as synonymous with “unsafe” driving (well, when he chooses to so decide) reveals him to be several things:
A hypocrite.
A bully.
An ignoramus.
Because velocity – as such – does not necessarily correlate with “safe” or “unsafe” driving. There are numerous variables. Everything from the skill of the driver to the car he’s driving to the conditions extant at the time. To broad-brush everyone (well, whomever the cop decides to broad-brush at his whim) as an “unsafe speeder” is both idiotic and vicious.
” the thing John steadfastly refuses to concede ”
Exactly. The root word of ignorance is ‘ignore’.
“A hypocrite.
A bully.
An ignoramus. ”
That’s most likely the first three qualifications for being a cop. Cops are assholes, first and foremost. Nobody who had any level of humanity would stay in the job of police officer for very long.
Thanks, Ed –
I suspect that John is either a cop himself or an ex-cop. He clearly sympathizes with cops. That is, with “good” ones, who are moderate in their enforcement of silly – or even evil – laws. He is irritated with me because I denounce Officer Brucks in principle – and do not cut him any slack because he claims to have cut his victims slack. It is like being grateful to the mugger who only kidney punches you as opposed to knifing you. Or perhaps, who only takes your money, giving you back your wallet – and warning you to avoid this alley in the future.
“I suspect that John is either a cop himself or an ex-cop.”
I suspect that “John” is just a garden variety troll who posts here under several user names.
I feed trolls insults and ridicule and nothing else. They want to draw others into pointless attempts to offer them another view. It’s a waste of time to say anything other than “fuck off” to a troll.
That’s my view, and I could be wrong.
I suspect that John is either a cop himself or an ex-cop.
I doubt that. He’s far too articulate. I wouldn’t be surprised to discover that he’s a recent college grad who, not being able to find remunerative employment anywhere in the private sector, is employed by the DHS (or one of its parasitic contractors) to troll and disrupt web sites like this one.
He knows his friends, family and neighbors are reading this.
I really doubt that’s a factor influencing his behavior. His friends are all fellow cops who will have his back no matter what he does. His family and neighbors he terrorizes and abuses. They’re too afraid of him to call bullshit on anything he says or rat him out on anything he does.
“I really doubt that’s a factor influencing his behavior. His friends are all fellow cops who will have his back no matter what he does. His family and neighbors he terrorizes and abuses.”
True, that. The citizenry has no need whatsoever for a police force. The police are necessary only to the ruling class, and provide so little benefit to ordinary citizens that we could replace the one helpful service in their job description with a few unarmed traffic accident responders.
I’m a grown man. I don’t need an armed goon to make sure that I do what I need to do in order to live my life without harming anyone.
http://jalopnik.com/5981059/us-postal-service-drivers-we-dont-have-to-obey-traffic-laws
I saw that link over at backwoodshome.com
“Anyway, my friend absolutely does not consume alcohol ever. He does, however, participate in karaoke (arguably worse than alcoholism) 2 nights per week. One evening, he left the bar just after midnight and was promptly pulled over by Johnny Law who was camped out across the street. The cop quickly became frustrated and asked my buddy why he would go to a bar if he’s not going to drink.”
Unbelievable. Incidents like this amply demonstrate the point that the system essentially requires people to fall foul of “the law” in order to provide more victims to feed the ravenous beast. Now people are being harassed by the cops because they did not drink before driving. I mean, it is pretty inconsiderate of anyone to not drink and drive, when the poor police rely on such individuals to help keep them in a job and fund their retirement benefits etc.
This reminds me of an experiment that the daredevil alter ego within me has fantasized about conducting, just to see how “Officer Oinky” and his enablers in the “justice” [*bullshit!*] system would react. It would go down like this:
After spending a full day drinking nothing stronger than soda pop or water on a Friday or Saturday, wait until about 1:00AM before dousing the inside of your vehicle with whiskey, bear, or some other fragrant alcoholic beverage. Next, go down to your local bar, being sure to arrive at about 1:30AM right about the time that “last call” is announced. (Alternatively, you could go into the bar earlier in the evening and ‘drunk watch’ for entertainment, being sure to drink nothing but soda pop and water all night). At “last call” order a soda, a glass of ice water, or something else non-alcoholic.
After the bar closes, stroll slowly and deliberately out of the bar toward your vehicle. There’s an excellent chance that ever-vigilant Officer Oinky has the parking lot under surveillance looking for fresh kill, so your gait and movement is important here. Be sure to move deliberately, but not with any kind of stagger that would indicate obvious impairment.
Next, get into your car, start it up as normal, then head out of the parking lot and onto the road, making sure that you do not drive one single mile over the posted speed limit. Keep a close eye in your side view or rear view mirror to see whether or not Oinky has chosen to follow. Even if he doesn’t, one of his fellow porklets is no doubt somewhere within a mile of your 10-40.
Here’s where things will get interesting. Once you spot a porkmobile either behind you or on the side of the road, be sure to swerve slightly, either off onto the shoulder or over into the oncoming lane, quickly correcting your move and resuming normal driving. If Oinky has been following you, this probably the point at which the flashing lights come on and you’re directed to pull over. When Oinky taps on your window, be sure to roll it down quickly, letting the overpowering stench of alcohol hit him squarely in the face. At this point he might flip out and order you out of the car, maybe not even bothering to check your license and registration (not likely, but who knows what a cerebrally deficient creature will do in the heat or an adrenaline rush?). Even if not, or however he reacts, cooperate with him, donning a pleasant demeanor. At this stage Oinky will probably order you out of the car and will of course do his usually “data mining” exercise to check you for outstanding warrants, etc. If he asks you if you know why he pulled you over, resist the urge to answer “I’m not a fucking mind reader, especially of minds as tiny as yours is,” and respond with the usual “no, officer, I have no idea.”
Next will come the field sobriety test, which, unless you’re a paraplegic or fitted with prosthetic limbs, you’ll pass with flying colors. Oinky will probably at this point think that he’s been kidnapped by space aliens and/or transported to an alternate universe. After all, NO ONE can POSSIBLY be sober if their vehicle reeks of alcohol. Not knowing what to do, Oinky will probably opt to place you under arrest.
It is at this stage that you should actually request -nay, DEMAND- a breathalyzer or blood alcohol test to prove your sobriety. Or, if Oinky still insists on placing you under arrest, demand a test at the station. Either way the results will be the same; you’ll come up stone-cold sober, with not a drop of alcohol in your system. Ergo, Oinky and his pals will have no legal justification for continuing to detain you.
I don’t know if anyone has ever tried this, but I’d be very curious to know how it would play out. I strongly suspect that any attempt on the part of Oinky or his judicial enablers to detain you under such circumstances could become grounds for a false arrest suit. It would also serve to tear to shreds the bogus idea that such an arrest has anything to do with keeping “drunk drivers” off the rounds.
Oh, and change “bear” to “beer” in the above. Damned fat fingers!
The armed parasite in the article said he let people go by at 80mph on the remote roads, *back when the speed limit was 60*. Today the speed limit in Texas is generally 75 on the remote roads. So your claim that he is inconistent for ignoring speeders while saying that the speed limits are appropriate is weak. His leeway with the old limits was only 5mph over the current limits, a 6.67% margin of error).
Later you say that he’s a hypocrite for saying it’s safe to speed when a family member is in the hospital. In your own quote of him, he clearly says that it’s still unsafe and that he tells the people to slow down and be safe. All he does differently is decline to write a ticket. It’s not hypocracy, it’s his humanity overpowering his thug mentality as he empathizes with someone.
When you engage in such obvious fallacies to support your argument, it makes all of us in the anti-traffic law community look bad.
Dear Jason,
You are missing the point.
“Law and Order” clovers prattle on about how “The law is the law!” They assure us that strict adherence to the Rule of Law makes us all safer, because everyone knows the rules of the game in advance. They assure us that being a stickler for the letter of the law is actually “for your own good.”
This of course is in total contradiction to arbitrary discretion by “law enforcement officers.”
No, the hypocrisy is not ours. It is theirs.
“it’s his humanity overpowering his thug mentality as he empathizes with someone.” – Wow, is that ever twisted and contorted.
It’s Not teen spirit, that’s for sure.
Definition of HYPOCRISY:
to believe what one does not
1: a feigning to be what one is not or to believe what one does not; especially : the false assumption of an appearance of virtue or religion
A.k.a. a two faced bas…
Virtue my ass.
Dear IAM,
I’ll be the good cop. You’ll be the bad cop.
LOL!
Funny. But then there’s this:
Matt, another wrote (on another website) “I believe we are labeled terrorist because we desire freedom.”
That is so profound and so simply perfect.
I try and try to be nice, yet somehow it often comes across as bad. Maybe it’s a regional perspective or something?
Then again. Am I comming across as if I were from out East or New Jersey? I hope not, they are often very rude.
Do I come across as That bad? Should I stop? I know I have a tendency to come across as too strong, maybe it’s from watching Tarzan as a child? I certainly never thought Yertle the Turtle would apply to my life in any way. Yet they both do, X10.
I’ve begun to think I have too high of expectations of others, it’s like, “Don’t you get it!?! You should be able too! WTF is wrong with you!?!” – Shake – shake – I even do that to pretty blondes… if they can figure out how to read electrical schematics, they should be able to get this too.
And the jocks and preps (not Preppers) they should be able to get this too, but they don’t, they wrap themselves in this blanket of ignorance and it’s… worse than anything I’ve ever done.
Stupid greasers will never get it, or they always did. ?
Rumblefish.
I’ve just Got to learn to Love the Bomb a.k.a. Dr. Strangelove, ?
Seriouly though, I keep getting asked why I’m laughing. Usually, it’s what I do before I type. Or maybe that’s, often?
I never cry, maybe I should?
On another note, is it better to have a small airplane than it is to have an eduro? I wonder. I also wonder how cheap wings cost. I seem to remember flying a $1500 air-craft.
This website is dangerous – dangerously Great for ideas. I love it! More and more each day.
Octopussy! – just wanted to say that for no reason. I just like the word.
“We don’t want to make any enemies with da woman.” – line from the film.
Oh crap, I’m going long with this comment, pardon my rant like scribble. Westworld ho!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westworld
“Octopussy! – just wanted to say that for no reason. I just like the word.”
I wonder if Ian Fleming ever thought about naming her Octovagina?
I often wonder about things like that. Does that mean that I need psychiatric attention?
tgsam
Pussy Galore!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1pUXH1Bye88
Dear IAM, Tinsely,
“Pussy Galore!”
I just wanted to say that, for no reason either!
Re: being the bad cop. Don’t sweat it. That’s how “good cop, bad cop” works. I’ll do my job, and you’ll do yours.
Dear Eric,
Now that’s foreplay!
Jason,
How is it “weak” to point out that a cop who, on the one hand, states categorically that speed limits are not set too low – that traffic engineers are “pretty good” – and then on the other hand, states he spotted people 20 MPH over the speed limit (as well as gives “breaks” for various reasons) isn’t contradicting himself? Isn’t tacitly conceding that speed limits are set too low – but that the decision as to when is his, not ours – or even “the law’s”?
This guy wrote 40,000 tickets. I have no doubt the vast majority were utterly unjustified “technical foul” infractions.
And you defend this – and him – and attack me for attacking him!
good cop or bad cop…not many warnings are issued anymore…tickets are a business model, all about REVENUE…for the politicians… victim less crimes against the states ‘color of law’…guilty or not ..just pay the fine.$$$$$$..thank you very much……and the bastards get re elected…..
The last time I got pulled over I asked the cop, just give me a warning. He flat out said he Never gives out warnings.
Failure to signal from 300 feet in front of the line of cars that just took off from the stop light, no one else was in front of them except me as I changed lanes. Psft!
… And I had friends who say… ah what’s it matter how things were in the 1980’s,… things are different now. The Russians won. Or was it the Cubans? Crap, IT Is just like John Belushi said in the film Animal House, the Germans did win!?! The German central bank and the Rothchilds, that is.
Or so it seems.
“all about REVENUE…for the politicians” is Right, only you left out the satisfaction their supporters get from reading the police report. … The sick bast…
Eric,
While I agree with your overall point, your commentary regarding Brucks’ example of how to get out of a ticket is a total straw man. He literally says “I tell them that they’re not being safe, that they need to slow down and stay safe.”
And you come back pretending he said the opposite: “Apparently, it is safe to “speed” … when a family member has just been sent to the hospital.”
He literally said the person was being unsafe and that they need to slow down to be safe. And your response is “he says it’s safe to speed in that circumstance!”
Seriously? You certainly don’t need to resort to this kind of nonsense to point out the immorality and inconsistent arbitrariness of the state.
Hi John,
The point here is he tickets people arbitrarily. He lets some go – according to his feelings. Yet he asserts that all “speeding” is unsafe…. except when he decides it’s not.
See?
Dear Eric,
You nailed it.
What’s worth emphasizing, even though pretty much everyone here already knows it, is that this arbitrary discretion, this noblesse oblige, is not an unintentional by-product of cloverism.
It was the underlying, unacknowledged intent of the clovers all along!
The “system” we now endure, was the goal of the clovers from day one. It is an expression of their image of how the world should work. It is the product of the clovers’ Will to Power, and the sheeples’ willingness to submit.
Of course. I fully agree. I’m simply pointing out that that isn’t the point you made, nor is it what you said.
Again, he literally said it’s “unsafe”, and you literally responded by directly implying he said it is safe (in a certain circumstance.)
You didn’t just straw man the situation, you literally lied, and basically claimed he said the exact opposite of what he actually said.
Of course ticketing arbitrarily is even worse than just plain ticketing. That has nothing to do with a concept of “safety”. You directly addressed the “safety” issue in the paragraphs above it: If the cop personally thinks it’s safe he doesn’t pull them over.
Obviously if he pulled them over, and literally told them they were being UNSAFE, and that they need to “slow down and be safe”, then it could reasonably be concluded he felt they were not being safe. Do you agree?
Whether or not he tickets them is a completely different issue.
Again, I fully agree with your overall assessment. But you don’t need to lie to make the case. It’s already a slam dunk without you having to compromise your integrity and build straw men.
Wow, what a slam. I see some gaps, but I’m supposed to be done for the night.
“It is an expression of their image of how the world should work.”
– everyone, including myself, should keep that in mind.
I literally lied?
How?
The cop states categorically that speed limits are not set too low – ever – that speed limits are therefore always correct and that “speeding” is therefore by definition “unsafe.” As in dangerous – ipso facto – to the person “speeding” as well as to others. He then states that he gave people “breaks” despite their “unsafe” driving (as he defines it) – depending on his view of their explanation (as well as “just because,” in the case of his giving people a 20 MPH “spot” – when he decided this was acceptable).
He thus gives the lie to his own stated position. If he really believes that “speeding” is always “unsafe” – as he claims – then it’s criminally irresponsible (as well as arbitrary and capricious) of him to give out “breaks” to anyone who “speeds” … right?
What would you think about a cop who gives “breaks” to some rapists? Gee, Officer… she was really hot…. you know?
The fact that he did give out “breaks” is a tacit admission that at some level he knows it’s bullshit.
I’m not following your reasoning at all.
Anyone else care to chime in? Do you guys think I misstated anything, set up a “straw man” argument?
Are you kidding me?
Brucks: “I tell them that they’re not being safe, that they need to slow down and stay safe.”
Peters: “And here we thought safety was the criteria! Apparently, it is safe to ‘speed’ … when a family member has just been sent to the hospital.”
Which part of pulling someone over and telling them they are being “unsafe” and that they need to “slow down” gave you the impression he was saying it was safe (i.e. the exact opposite of “unsafe”, for those of you not paying attention)?
But he doesn’t ticket them!
Yet he claims their driving is “unsafe”!
Well, which is it? If it’s “unsafe” to “speed” – then it’s inexcusable to give people “breaks.” Ever.
Yet he does give some people “breaks” – at his discretion.
Exactly like letting a rapist go… because hey, the girl was really hot. Just don’t do that again, son – ok? Keep it in your pants… .
Except we’d be outraged by that.
I’m outraged by bullshit enforcement of bogus laws – from the petty to the not-so-petty.
Abuse is abuse.
Brucks spent 20 years abusing people.
But you seem to think he’s a “nice guy” because he occasionally gave his victims a “break.”
And that I’m being unfair to this costumed cretin because, hey, he sometimes gives people a “break.”
The difference between us, John, goes deep. You still stand in awe of authority. You therefore defer to it – reflexively giving it the benefit of the doubt.
I don’t.
Nope.
He admits to “spotting” people up to 20 MPH over the posted speed limit – meaning, he has arrogated unto himself the power to determine what a “safe” speed is – irrespective of the posted speed limit!
Brucks thinks it’s “unsafe” to “speed” – except when he decides otherwise!
“Exactly like letting a rapist go… because hey, the girl was really hot. Just don’t do that again, son – ok? Keep it in your pants….”
BAILIFF! Whack his pee pee. –Cheech and Chong, c. 1972.
It’s quite amazing how you can dance around this like some kind of politician. Whether or not he “gives them a break” and doesn’t ticket them is wholly irrelevant to what we’re currently talking about.
Once again: He literally said “you’re being unsafe”, and you immediately responded by implying he said they were being safe.
Which part of pulling someone over and telling them they are being “unsafe” and that they need to “slow down” gave you the impression he was saying it was safe?
John,
If their driving was “unsafe” (as he says) and yet he lets them go regardless, then he has conceded they weren’t really doing something “unsafe.” He knows it’s just a technical foul – something he can ticket them for at his whim, under the law but which he knows in his heart is nothing more than arbitrary velocity violation. So, when he hears a “good excuse,” whatever vestigial humanity he possesses cause him to “give them a break.” But not the other poor slobs who committed the same “offense” – but haven’t got a sufficiently good sob story.
Either that – or he is derelict in his duty to “protect” us and keep us “safe.” Because he’s not punishing “dangerous speeders” every time.
That makes him an hypocrite.
He asserts – in a very blase way – that he looked the other way when people were driving up to 20 MPH faster than the posted limit. Yet he states that speed limits are never set too low.
Think about that!
He won’t say the speed limit was absurd (though it is, obviously, and he knows it is). He simply arrogates unto himself the power to determine what speed shall be sufficient to cause him to hit you or me with a piece of payin’ paper. At his whim.
That makes him a hypocrite and an asshole!
And you continue to engage in Talmudic parsing in his defense!
The mind-fuck has really done a number on you, John. You see this tax-feeding costumed thug in a sympathetic light because he sometimes “goes easy” on people… people who have not done a blessed thing to begin with, other than run afoul of arbitrary laws such as those rgarding velocity.
Wake up, man!
John J, the cop being interviewed has a typical american view of the law. A social view. See speeding up to 80mph is okay with him. But 81mph isn’t. A good excuse will avoid a ticket, but just driving at a speed a little bit faster than what he thinks is safe gets one. But the traffic engineers and the political system that sets the speed limit is just fine, even though the speed limits are 33% lower than the real upper bound this officer has decided.
The guy is so full of social contradiction that I think it is perfectly acceptable to interpret this as some speeding being ok and others not. It’s one of the clear messages in the interview.
I don’t see how Eric misrepresented it when he equated speeding is ok to this cop deciding who to ticket and who to not ticket based on the story. Also Eric used the qualifier ‘apparently’ which means this is his impression, his opinion, the way he’s interpreting the officer’s words. Eric can have whatever opinion he wants in this regard. I can certainly see that the cop can give that impression. I think rather that the cop thinks it’s unsafe but acceptable or ‘safe enough’ with the right excuse. That is the safety required is relative to the conditions. It’s his apparent social way of thinking.
Why does a good story not get a punishment? Are the people supposed to entertain the officer? The punishment is supposed to be based upon the legal idea that the government may punish or even criminalize risk taking. The risk is probably more when someone is a poor emotional state rushing to the hospital than when it’s just a nice day without much traffic so they decided to go faster. But the person who is in a poor emotional state gets told to ‘slow down’ and is on his way but the person paying attention enjoying the drive for the drive’s sake, he gets punished. It’s just personal feelings, not safety, not even law. Perhaps the cop thinks that it is unsafe but understandable for the person rushing to the hospital, but why does it become unsafe for the other guy when it’s just a difference of opinion? 80mph vs say 83mph? Is it really that far out to think the cop is making a safety judgment by whom he lets go with a short lecture and whom he doesn’t?
I really don’t see how Eric’s opinion is so out of line. Perhaps a bit of an intellectual short cut, but that’s really picking nits. The cop has floating idea of what degree of safety deserves punishment and what doesn’t. What doesn’t get punished in this society is ‘ok’, is by default ‘safe’. We’ve see time and time again because ‘safe’ is an opinion. What’s safe today could be reckless tomorrow and vice-versa.
Eric,
I find it interesting that you continue to find it necessary to bring in personal assessments about me, as opposed to simply own up to your mistake.
You have no idea who I am or what my political philosophy is, yet you feel the need to presume to tell me what I think and what’s wrong with my mind.
I have said absolutely nothing about the morality of taxation, government statutes, or the initiation of force of any kind on humans acting peacefully.
I simply point out a blatant inconsistency in your piece here, and you basically do a little dance, trying to equate someone being ticketed with him being “unsafe”, and then throw out knee-jerk zombie accusations of statist brainwashing.
All I was trying to do was keep you honest. I suppose I should have expected the over-defensive backlash, as I’m sure you’re used to any criticism you get being from a statist criticizing your overall philosophy…but I guess I just thought maybe you’d be intelligent and intellectually honest enough to actually read what is written and not be so self-conscious and presumptuous as to immediately point and scream “STATIST!” the minute someone offers anything other than praise for something you write.
One more time:
You already established in the first section of the article that if he doesn’t feel they’re being “unsafe”, they don’t get pulled over, even if they are moving faster than the speed limit.
That’s it. That’s where the safety issue ends. Either they’re being safe [in his mind] and they don’t get pulled over, or they aren’t [in his mind], and they get pulled over.
Once they are pulled over, we’ve established that he thinks they are being unsafe. He further confirms this by literally saying “you’re not being safe.”
I honestly don’t know how it can get any clearer than that.
Just because he doesn’t ticket them, it doesn’t have to mean they’re not being “unsafe”. The whimsical ticketing is another issue. Go ahead and attack him on that. But do not falsely claim that his ticketing is what determines if he thinks they were being safe…because again,
1) He blatantly stated he thinks they were being unsafe. Unless you have proof you can read minds, you’re not going to win the argument that he really doesn’t think that — and simply ticketing them vs. not ticketing them for their “unsafe” behavior is certainly not enough evidence to give anything close to an assumable theory of mind…certainly not enough to override A) his act of pulling them over, and B) his literally stating he thinks they’re being unsafe.
2) YOU already established that if he doesn’t think they’re being unsafe, they don’t get pulled over in the first place.
Complain about the flexible nature of his enforcement of the statute. Complain about the idiocy of the statute itself. Complain about the immorality of a legal monopoly on force. But don’t sit there and establish one point, and then essentially try to establish a contradictory one just because it suits your agenda.
Perhaps you need a course on logic. Perhaps your hatred for the state simply blinds you to any sort of accurate reasoning when it comes to the topic. Perhaps your interactions with government agents have done a (to use your term) “mind-fuck” number on you…I don’t know.
I don’t know what prevents you from understanding a simple error of logic, nor what possesses you to feel the need to engage in ad hominem nonsense (which isn’t even close to being accurate, by the way) when someone simply points out said error.
One might use the phrase “physician, heal thyself,” here.
John,
There’s no “mistake” to own up to!
Again:
Asked directly whether speed limits are set too low, Officer Oink states categorically that they are not. He then describes how he gives people “breaks” – that is, elects not to enforce the speed limit (which, recall, he states to be categorically correct) at his whim.
Either speed limits are posted too low or they are not.
Oinky says they are not.
Yet he lets some people who violate the Sacred Speed Limit go. When he feels like it. He himself does not obey “the law.” He admits to it. Yet expects us to – always. Except every now and again, when he decides we have a good story. Then he may give us a “break.” Because, clearly, he knows good and well that exceeding an arbitrary velocity violation is not unsafe (as such). Else he would give no one “breaks.” Because only a maniac gives “breaks” to people who commit real crimes – as in my example of the rapist let go with a warning because hey, the girl was so hot, officer.
He’s full of shit.
And you seem unable to see it!
Dear Eric,
I didn’t chime in because I didn’t think it was necessary.
John’s “Who’s on First” routine about “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” was utterly irrelevant, and a complete waste of time.
Who gives a damn about who imagined what?
Since John is not as inarticulate as many of the clovers and sheeple who troll, it’s hardly out of line to wonder whether the time-wasting wasn’t his real objective in the first place.
The real issue of course, was what you kept trying to get John to return to.
Does a system that puts individuals at the mercy of such arbitrary, discretionary exercise of power have any legitimacy? Should such a system be abolished?
Since that was your bottom line all along, there was no “mistake” to own up to.
Thanks, Bevin!
John is articulate and appears to be intelligent – hence my efforts.
We’ll see!
Dear Eric,
Sure thing!
Eric,
I’m honestly surprised at how you are able to keep dodging the issue. First you try to claim “officer oink’s” concept of “safety” is reflected in whether or not he tickets someone…then when I present the logical case that completely dismantles that nonsense, you are now back to focusing on whether the speed limits are too low or not. (As well as continuing to lecture me on the philosophy of government and government agents, and implying I’m defending him, his actions, or the monopoly that he thinks gives him the authority.)
As this is of course your blog, it doesn’t surprise me that you’ve been afforded some equally irrelevant and accusatory backup. They are of course your followers.
But what does surprise me is the way you not only refuse to acknowledge the very simple and incredibly blatant point I’ve made multiple times now, but the way you so childishly resort to lectures and zombie accusations of state worship/blind devotion/brainwashing/etc., as if that were at all relevant.
Once again you have no idea who I am, yet you seem to completely ignore what I’ve actually stated, and instead abstract everything down to:
1) This guy is criticizing something I said…
2) That must mean this guy disagrees with my philosophy…
3) That of course would mean he’s a statist!…
4) And that of course means he’s been brainwashed and is so blind that he can’t see ridiculousness if it’s wearing a badge…
5) He needs to wake up!! Break free of the Matrix!!
As I said, I fully understand your inclination to follow such a path of assumption, as most of the time, you’re probably right in those assumptions, so you pay no price of ultimately being wrong, even though the jump from #1 to #2 is complete non sequitur.
But even still, I would have thought (or perhaps hoped) that someone such as yourself would be a bit more discerning and capable of taking what is said at face value, not simply jumping to conclusions about the person who said it so that you might be able to dodge the point made.
I’ll make my point one more time:
You established in the first section of the article that Oink doesn’t bother up to 20 mph over the posted limit.
Great. You have revealed him to contradict himself, as you point out, elsewhere he said the speed limits were not too low.
No problem. He exhibits signs of doublethink. You’ve established evidence for your thesis. The problem comes in in the next section. You quote him as telling a driver they are “being unsafe”…and then turn right around and claim he thinks they are being safe…and admittedly base your conclusion on whether or not he gives them a ticket.
In other words, he tells them they’re being unsafe…and according to you, if he gives them a ticket, it means he actually thinks that. But if he tells them they’re being unsafe and doesn’t give them a ticket, he is actually lying, and doesn’t really think that, he’s just saying it for no reason.
Do you see the problem with your claim here? Nowhere have you established that the ticket is what constitutes Oink’s opinion of “safety”. It’s perfectly feasible that he could believe someone was being unsafe, and pull them over to slow them down, and tell them they’re being unsafe and need to drive slower…and yet still not ticket them.
But it helps your case to imply a human being could do no such thing, that it’s impossible. …that if no ticket is written, then “a good story” has changed the officer’s feeble, contradicted mind, and he no longer thinks the person was being unsafe.
This of course is total nonsense.
Again you and a follower or two may find this to be a negligible point, and I might actually agree that it did not warrant this much discussion, which is why I simply called your attention to it, said you’re better than that, and left it.
But evidently you have either a problem with comprehension, or actually do require a course in logic. (Or of course you simply need to open your eyes and not make so many assumptions.)
I originally called your attention to it because I feel it is important to be honest in the presentation of one’s case. I thought that you were simply not being fully honest in that part of your piece because it helped your thesis.
But your responses here have shown that you may very well not have actually understood the error you made, as it seems you still don’t. (Unless of course you’re simply being dishonest now so as to save face.)
If you are truly that ignorant of the error, I apologize for saying you “lied”, even though I was technically correct in saying so. If it was an honest mistake, I would retract that statement and use a different word. And I would also encourage you to take a course on logic. David Gordon has an online class I would recommend, and I believe Gerard Casey does as well.
But more importantly than that, I would encourage you to at least read what is written and address that, instead of making assumptions about the person who wrote it and resorting to ad hominem accusations, and proceeding to roll into lectures which are totally irrelevant to the point raised.
John,
You continue to with your Talmudic parsings – I’ll continue with my factual rebuttals.
Fact: Cop states speed limits are by definition correct – because they’re the speed limit, ipso facto.
Fact: Cop equates “speeding” with “unsafe” driving.
Yet cop admits to ignoring the speed limit – that is, enforcement thereof – when it suits him. When he decides – arbitrarily – that it’s set too low. Or when someone’s “story” justifies (in his mind, irrespective of “the law”) giving them a “break”… even though according to his stated logic, all speeders are, ipso facto, guilty of “unsafe” driving and so deserve punishment… except when he decides otherwise.
The point I made stands:
This guy spent a career enforcing bullshit laws – laws he knows are bullshit.
Once again, that’s not the point you made.
More facts:
Fact: A human being can believe a person was being unsafe, and at the same time not write him a ticket.
Fact: Cop stated the person was being unsafe, and needs to slow down.
Fact: You claim the cop thinks the person was being safe.
Fact: You have no way to prove your claim (i.e. that the cop doesn’t actually believe what he said.)
The point I made stands:
You basically claimed he said (or at least believed) the exact opposite of what he actually said. Yet you have no proof of this claim, and in fact the evidence is against you in this regard.
One more time: he said one thing, and you immediately claimed he actually believed the exact opposite…and based your claim on something that has literally no bearing on what he said. (See Fact #1)
It’s precisely the point I’ve made, John!
Others here seem to agree, too.
Your problem is you apparently can’t grasp that the cop’s statements were disingenuous – as proved by his actions.
He claims to believe as a matter of principle that “speeding” – always and everywhere – is by definition “unsafe.” Yet he doesn’t always enforce the speed limit he claims to believe as a matter of principle is as much a right vs. wrong line in the sand as real crimes, such as theft or murder or rape. That fact means he knows, deep down, that the speed limit is just a political-bureaucratic construct – not always or even necessarily wrong in an ethical sense. Just illegal. He therefore exercises discretion – that is, his whim – when it comes to enforcing this law.
Sure, he says all “speeding” is unsafe. But his actions reveal his true view. And his hypocrisy.
Can you not see this?
Or are you a cop attempting to help a brutha out?
Once again,
Fact: A human being can believe a person was being unsafe, and at the same time not write him a ticket.
Fact: Cop stated the person was being unsafe, and needs to slow down.
Fact: You claim the cop thinks the person was being safe.
Fact: You have no way to prove your claim (i.e. that the cop doesn’t actually believe what he said.)
You can dance around all you like, but you — as well as any of your followers who would likely defend you no matter what you said — cannot honestly deny these facts.
But it’s certainly fun to watch you try and shimmy around them.
If a cop – whose business it is to enforce the law – really believed another person had committed an illegal act that was also dangerous and yet failed to enforce the law forbidding that act, then he is either a hypocrite (because he knows, deep down, the law is bullshit, yet punishes some people but not others, at his whim) or he is utterly derelict in his duty.
Exactly like a cop who decided to let a rapist go because the girl was so hot.
What is it about this simple exercise in logic you (apparently) can’t understand?
His actions (his failure to act, to be precise) prove my point, John.
He may mouth the cliches, recite the cant… but his actions reveal that he knows perfectly well that speed limits are often arbitrary (and arbitrarily low) and that “speeding” is often nothing more than a legal technicality he’s bound to enforce, but which he sometimes selectively enforces because (once again) he knows it’s not an ethical breach to speed in the same way that stealing or raping or beating someone up is.
Lawsee!
Dear Eric,
Like I said, “Who’s on First?”
Only deliberately, to troll us.
Long story short:
It’s not about perception. It’s about action.
It’s not about who thought what. It’s about who did what.
Who did what is not in question. The actions are observable. It does not require “mind reading.”
The clover cop’s actions were inconsistent with legality and justice. No mind reading is required.
QED.
This just keeps getting better. You can’t deny the facts, so instead you resort to more ad hominem and childishly edit my comments and add symbols to essentially call me names.
Real class act there, Peters. Nice to know this is how you deal with honest critique.
I honestly expected a lot more from you. I don’t think I’ve ever actually met an alleged libertarian who had to resort to ad hominem and name calling. That’s generally a state-apologist MO.
Way to steal their tactics.
John,
I bequeathed unto you the mark of Clover because you continue to pedantically belabor an argument that makes no sense. A sophistic argument.
The cop’s actions belie his statements.
Yes, he pulled over the “speeder” – which you argue confirms he does believe that “speeding” (all “speeding”) is always and necessarily “unsafe.” Yet he does not give all “speeders” a ticket. He lets some go – if they have a “story” he likes – and doesn’t even pull over others.
I assert this proves he does not really believe what he says. Because if he did, he’d ticket them. All of them. After all, they were engaging in “unsafe” conduct that was also illegal, as per “the law.”
Do you suppose he selectively enforces the law as regards rape? Gives warnings? Pull your pants up. Leave her be. Go and sin no more… walks past some rape scenes?
Really?
Your issue, apparently, is that you insist that his words are relevant – as opposed to his actions.
I base my critique on the cop’s actions – which give the lie to his words.
Eric,
First of all, dress it up all you want, it doesn’t change the reality of your childish and logically fallacious behavior (again, as your second official logical error, if you won’t take it upon yourself to gain some instruction in logic, you might at least look up the term “ad hominem”.)
Second, your constant comparison of “speeding” (a victimless, statute violation) to rape (a clear act of aggression), illustrates a severe shortcoming in your understanding of rights and actual libertarian principles.
I’m truly sorry that someone who presumes to call himself a libertarian apparently can’t see an ethical difference between those two acts.
(I’m sure you’ll come back and insist you do see a difference, but your constant comparison of the two suggests otherwise…speaking of “judging actions”)
Which, again, it doesn’t. Fact.
It’s interesting that someone who would seem to want to defer to actual facts (at least in one comment) wishes to ignore them when they aren’t in his favor.
It’s been fun watching you dance, Eric, but I’m afraid there’s nothing new that could come of this. You’ll keep claiming “speed limit” this and “he said the engineers are good” that, but you won’t be able to deny the facts I have stated multiple times above.
Again, all I can do is urge you to educate yourself with at least an intro course in logic (including logical fallacies), and now I suppose, perhaps some instruction in the reality of libertarian principles and actual rights. Selective enforcement of an illegitimate statute is not the same as selective enforcement of a law against aggression.
If a cop elects to not give out tickets to half of the “speeders” he pulls over, that’s great. We’re halfway there.
You apparently think this is a bad thing, and that speeding punishments should be handed out with the same vigor as rape punishments.
Again, I’m sorry that someone who purports to be a libertarian would spout, let alone hold, such a view.
Keep reading, my confused friend.
Oy vey!
John, you’re really something.
I tried to carefully walk you through the logic of my position using an example of an ethically wrong act (rape) as opposed to a merely illegal act (“speeding”).
I tried mightily to get you to see that anyone who, on the one hand, asserts (by stating) that an illegal act such as “speeding” is also necessarily an ethical wrong and not merely illegal – yet who believes in selective punishment – is exactly like someone who believes in selective punishment for rape.
This cop believes in selective enforcement – according to his whim. He believes – as his actions clearly demonstrate – that sometimes it’s ok (ethically) to speed, even if technically illegal. And even though he says otherwise.
His actions belie his words.
The Libertarian position is that all violations of the NAP are ethically wrong.
The fact that this cop claims to have been moderate (as well as arbitrary and capricious) in his enforcement of violations of the NAP does not make him a good guy.
Your ardent defense – and turgid avoidance of the obvious – suggests to me you’re either a badge yourself. Or a badge-snuggler.
It’s been fun deconstructing you, John!
JohnJ, the cops words and actions are not logically compatible. They are social. They are designed for the reader to come away with the opinion that this cop knows what is safe and what isn’t but shows ‘compassion’ to those who have a good excuse for having an illegal idea of a safe speed or making a different risk decision than he does.
Eric is pointing out that this is illogical. Irrational. His job is supposedly to -punish- unsafe driving. But he is so full of contradictions it’s hard to determine what he is actually saying. The 60mph speed limit is properly set but he won’t punish until 20 over? He’ll cut someone a break with a good story but if it’s a lonely road and someone is doing 82mph because it’s an open road with good conditions then that needs punishment? It doesn’t make logical sense. It makes social sense. Which is the way americans like things by and large.
See they want that guy who just likes driving 82mph punished but not that person rushing to the hospital to see a relative… yet who is probably the safer driver of the two?
Last night I am driving along in the very light traffic because the stupor bowels is on the TVeee and guess what is over the rise, a state cop in the median. I brake, change lanes to the right behind an SUV. I probably broke his laser or radar contact. He starts to pull out. I change to the rightmost lane and start to pass a semi to my left. He dives over and is behind me. I hold between 55-60. He isn’t tailgating… Odd behavior for a state cop. After I clear the semi he passes me and then uses the next turnaround to go back.
Given past experiences it’s good thing I was driving my plain small sedan and not one of my other cars. In the other ones I probably would have been pulled over.
See the law isn’t logical. It’s social. In this plain sedan I am ‘good people’. Put me in one of my more capable cars and I am ‘bad people’. It’s a social thing, and that’s what this cop is doing and you’re going with it. Eric is pointing out the illogical nature of it in total. Most of it is how you see ‘safe’ and punishment versus how Eric sees it.
In the logical mind the cop is enforcing (that is punishing violators of) a particular idea of risk tolerance. His or the state’s depending on what he feels like that day. But if a person has a good story, then he doesn’t get punished. The pulled over driver was then logically safe enough, his risk tolerance acceptable for his personal -circumstances- not to be punished.
If I wrote something on this cop I would have spent a few paragraphs explaining this. Then again I am used to the back and forth where short cuts that should be understood turn into debates on what I really meant.
The cop does deem by virtue of not punishing, the past driving as safe enough given a driver’s circumstances. He just tells them not to do it going forward. Remember, he doesn’t give the guy in the sports car on bright sunny sunday morning on an open road the same break. It’s about his interpretation of risk taking. It changes with the circumstances of the driver. Something summed up in the word ‘safe’.
Second, your constant comparison of .speeding. (a victimless, statute violation) to rape (a clear act of aggression), illustrates a severe shortcoming in your understanding of rights and actual libertarian principles.
I.m truly sorry that someone who presumes to call himself a libertarian apparently can.t see an ethical difference between those two acts.
To the law enforcer they are all the same. If one drives 30 over one of Illinois’ grossly underposted speed limits, he is guilty of a Class B misdemeanor. That’s 6 months in jail.
What else is a class B misdemeanor?
Criminal Trespass to Property
Harassment by Telephone
Possession of Cannabis (more than 2.5 grams but not more than 10 grams)
Now 40 over is a class A misdemeanor. What is a class A?
Aggravated Assault
Battery
Domestic Battery
Criminal Damage To Property
Criminal Defacement to Property
Criminal Sexual Abuse
Criminal Trespass to Residence
Criminal Trespass to Vehicles
Deceptive Practices
Driving Under the Influence
Driving with a Suspended/Revoked License
Endangering the Life or Health of a Child
Interfering With the Reporting of Domestic Violence
Patronizing a Prostitute
Possession of Cannabis (more than 10 grams but not more than 30 grams)
Possession of Drug Paraphernalia
Possession of Hypodermic Needles
Prostitution
That’s one year in prison.
What Eric is doing is pointing out how the law works, not libertarian principle. The concept of selective enforcement goes all the way the up the crime ladder. Speeding is equal to the state as many things libertarians see as real crimes. And yes, cops do let people slide on real crimes too. That’s the point of the comparison.
Is conflation as much a function of fiat (keep it simple) as inflation?
“There’s no crying in baseball!” ~ A league of their own
There’s no human being in cop…which has something to do with the cop con-tention of no human being in ‘mundanes’.
“The essence of the state is its legal monopoly of force. But force is subhuman; in words I quote incessantly, Simone Weil defined it as “that which turns a person into a thing — either corpse or slave.” It may sometimes be a necessary evil, in self-defense or defense of the innocent, but nobody can have by right what the state claims: an exclusive privilege of using it.” ~ from a joe sobran piece, couple days back
Here’s some more:
Driver re-education
By Eric Peters
Recently, I spent eight hours attending “driving school.”
Unfortunately, it wasn’t Bob Bondurant’s school.
And it had very little to do with actual driving, either.
What it did have a lot to do with was trying to impress upon the attendees how important it is to obey The Rules. Whether these rules are just or sensible didn’t enter into it. Just obey. That was the lesson. Eight hours spent dutifully pretending that the entire shebang wasn’t anything other than the American DMV’s version of the re-education seminars for thought criminals they used to have in places like the former East Germany.
You’re supposed to pretend you did something wrong; they pretend they’re doing something righteous by showing you the (supposed) error of your ways.
Everyone plays patty-cake and, with luck, no one gets sent off to the gulag.
In the East German version, usually there’d be a smartly uniformed Stasi officer – and the looming threat of a long stint in a prison – for motivation. Here in the People’s Republic of Virginia, the “students” had to make do with an amiable off-duty local cop – who did a better than average job of going through the motions – and maybe even believed some of the cant he robotically recited.
I was there, like most of the others, to disappear a recent “speeding” ticket.
It wasn’t a big ticket (a heinous 64 mph in a 55 zone) but these days, you are a dumbo if you give the insurance company any pretext whatsoever for jacking up your premiums. A minor speeding ticket might cost you $150 up front in fines and court costs – but it is the down-the-road costs (in the form of higher insurance premiums for the next 3-5 years) I was looking to dodge. By agreeing to spend an entire Saturday (9-5) attending this session, the court would dismiss the 64 in a 55 – and no record of anything would be on my DMV rap sheet.
That’s the scam. Just so long as you pay them off, they’re happy.
So, there I sat – along with about 30 others – fastening my bib in preparation for a steaming, piled-high serving of bullshit.
The first course came in the form of the instructor-cop’s rhetorical question to us asking whether we “speed.” Of course we do – that’s why we’re here. Everyone in the room admitted they speed, routinely, as a matter of course – including the cop. But the natural follow-up to that is never discussed: If everyone is speeding (cops included) then might there be something wrong with the speed laws? Most of us don’t commit murder routinely – or even occasionally; we generally don’t steal – or drive on the shoulder running down pedestrians, either. Law or no law. Yet this law almost all of us disobey every time we get behind the wheel. But instead of questioning the law, we bow our heads in shame and pretend we are guilty of something?
How? Why?
No one says anything, of course. It would be like an East German asking how come the East Germany’s Erich Honecker gets to live in a big house and gets driven around in a Zil limousine while the rest of the proletariat in the worker’s paradise – where everyone is “equal” – live in drafty walk-up flats with cold water only and ride around in a smelly old bus (if they’re lucky).
Then the cop regales us with stories about people he has let go – including a stripper from West Virginia he pulled over late one night for doing 15 over the limit. She told him “honestly” that she had been working all night and just wanted to get home. Understandable. We have all “been there/done that (though maybe not the stripper part of it).
Struck by her honesty, the cop lets her go with a warning. Very nice of him, right?
Now, everyone else is cooing – but I am marveling at the disconnect. On the one hand, the cop is hectoring us about the eeeeevils of speeding – telling us that it is the “number one” reason for most accidents and that it is important to obey all speed limits for that reason, etc. And yet, like most cops, he implicitly gives the lie to all this (or else, he’s just corrupt – and which is worse, really?) by freely admitting that he often lets people off simply because he sympathizes with their story. Note – not because they weren’t actually driving faster than the posted limit (and thus, driving dangerously, according to the spiel). They were. He just decides to give some people – but not others – a “break.” Based on nothing more than his whim.
Lesson: Even the cops know the speed limits thing is a con – else why let some people go? Do they ever let bank robbers off with just a warning if they have a good story?
When the crime is real, the rules are (usually) inflexible. But like us, when it comes to speeeeeeding, the cops have to play this stupid game. Only it’s not them getting the tickets – or groveling in an attempt to avoid one.
Then came the second course of cant – served up with lots of double-talk gravy and all the fixins’ …
The cop is telling us all that it’s super important and a moral imperative, even, that we give a wide berth to addled older drivers doing substantially less than the posted limit because “we’ll all be old one day, too.” Well, yeah – but what has that to do with safe driving? Why is it bad (and highly ticket-worthy) for a young, alert, competent driver to exceed any speed limit, anywhere – but it’s ok for a fearful, past-it, probably half-blind old person to drive considerably slower than the posted limit – almost certainly creating a road hazard in the process?
No answer.
Isn’t impaired or dangerous driving – regardless of the cause – the thing that ought to matter to a traffic cop, and to the law?
No one dared make the observation, of course. Gotta play along.
Next course was a “safety” movie at least 20 years old. It was narrated by a walking (and still alive) Christopher Reeve and featured half a dozen other now-dead celebrity pitchmen, including John Ritter and Paul Newman. It went downhill from there. The cars, for example, were all mid-late ’80s vintage. So no ABS. So most of the gib-jabbering about what to do in panic-stop situations was as out of date as Ocean Pacific shorts and Philip Michael Thomas.
More such movies followed – with “five minute” breaks in between that often lasted for 30-45 minutes, leaving the class to just sit and scribble, talk among themselves or just nod off to sleep.
Very much like high school. Not much educating going on; lots of wasted time.
But maybe that was the point all along.
If the hassle of being fined by the courts and crucified by your insurance company isn’t enough to kill your will to live – or at least, any desire you might still have to enjoy driving – then maybe this gulag archipelago for a day thing will do the trick.
The only time I had to go to one of these things live and in person, back in the 1990s, I openly challenged the instructor. Also answered questions with real info just to get the damn class over with. Nobody else would speak and it slowed it to a crawl. The instructor even challenged me to find stuff in a book of the vehicle code. I did. She wasn’t too pleased about that 🙂
I’ve been forced to endure one such class back in the eighties. All due to getting a ticket at a “trap” where the cop was lurking: a stop sign that was so far away and in the dark that you couldn’t see it except in daylight. It was a setup. The cop had to actually take his flashlight out and hit the damn thing with it’s beam before I knew it was even there. Hidden indeed! I took the class and it was exactly as you describe. In my thirtyfive years of driving that’s been the one and only time I’ve ever gone to one.
Guys, I think your approach to the driver improvement class is all wrong! I’ve been three times, yes three! Each time it got better. Some of my best memories came from these classes. I still remember some of their names too. Like Heather, the girl with the BMW Z3. She was faster than her car! The key to these courses is to go to a large one and have as much fun as possible. Most importantly, don’t you dare pay attention to what the fuck the instructors are saying though. I missed the driver improvement classes so much I ended up enrolling myself in ASAP (some alcohol class). I watched Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for the first time in this class. Very educational. No Heathers’ though! 🙁
I’ll take that under advisement, Dom. With an eye out for “Heathers”. Remember the movie?
More on Speed Limits—
Thread from above continued here for your posting convenience.
Bob:
That’s up to the road owner and his customers! Will they sue him for excessively dangerous conditions? Not unless they’ve been harmed; they’d have no standing. Those who ARE harmed? Determine the cause. But here’s a wild guess–actual speed will rarely be the culprit; more likely the usual suspects including cell phone, inattention, or bad lane discipline.
Meanwhile, the other customers will continue on their merry way unperturbed by arbitrary enforcement. And mindful of their responsibility not to harm others.
And THAT’S what’s lost in today’s malum prohibitum world–responsibility. People can blindly bumble through life oblivious to any irritation they’re causing…because they’re just “following the law”, while others are just “following orders”.
It’s specious to associate highway speed limits with traffic safety. New York State has a thruway system with a posted speed limit of 65mph. The highway was built to federal standards and can easily handle greater speeds. The interstate system (e.g., I390, I490, I590, etc.) was also built to the same federal standards yet the speed limit is 55mph. The rationale presented to the public is the interstate system travels through urban/suburban areas and therefore requires lower speed limits for increased safety.
However excessive speed is not the reason for collisions. The core issue is that vehicles follow too close behind the leader which reduces reaction time. The informal rule has always been one car length for every 10 miles of speed so if driving at 65mph the following vehicle should be at least six car lengths behind the leader. If the road conditions are poor (i.e., snow, heavy rain, fog, etc.), the distance between vehicles should be even greater.
But it would be impossible to enforce a ‘car length’ regulation so law enforcement picks on speed which is easily measured with technology. The state claims reduced speed saves lives even though fatal collisions can and do happen at much lower speeds.
If the state truly cares about traffic safety, it should focus more on educating the driving public about reaction time and stop rigidly enforcing the speed limit which is nothing more than legal theft of its citizens’ money.
Correct, Poky!
That’s what’s so galling about the system we’re stuck with. It’s why we know – when we’re waylaid by Officer Unfriendly – that we’re being unjustly harassed. Think about it. Any normal person would not only feel ashamed about doing something genuinely wrong (i.e., something that caused someone else harm) but would accept punishment as what they had coming. Do you feel ashamed when you “speed”? Do you accept the ticket you’ve been handed as just?
Of course not.
Our guts tell us what our heads ought to – if we used them more than we do!
Porky, you are largely correct, but let’s take a step deeper. Why do these tight clumps of traffic form? Because lane discipline broke down. Why did lane discipline break down? Because someone put a 55mph speed limit on 75mph road.
It’s the very speed limit that is supposedly there for safety that creates an unsafe condition. It’s like so much government does. It fails and then the solution isn’t for government to stop meddling, it’s to do more of what failed.
“The informal rule has always been one car length for every 10 miles of speed so if driving at 65mph the following vehicle should be at least six car lengths behind the leader.”
Sheet, And All this time I thought it was two seconds behind, no matter the speed.
I think I got that from public co-ed prison driver’s ed.
I’ve been doing it wrong this whole time?
The government folks change it from time to time. Both the car length for every 10mph and 2 second rules were once taught.
The last official teaching I was aware of was three seconds. And they teach it to absurd lengths. Wonder why intersection throughput is crap these days? They now teach people not to move until the vehicle in front of them has been gone for three seconds.
However that was four years ago, it’s probably something much worse now.
Ah, I see, it’s both metric and stand at the same time so no one learns either one. It’s the 1970’s all over again.
I should add, Only this time, the Love is gone.
Ok, I’m done for the night, that should have read: Ah, I see, it’s both metric and STANDARD at the same time.
“The government folks change it from time to time.”
I mentioned this in a column a few months back:
At the government “driving schools” (you know, the day-wasters you attend in order to disappear a traffic ticket) the instructors now instruct people to hold the steering wheel in an air bag-friendly way. Which means, in a way that’s less efficient as far as controlling the car.
I really wish I had recorded the online traffic school. The astoundingly dumb stuff in it was remarkable. (I missed the signal change and turned right .0001 seconds or so after the light turned red but the cross traffic had green left turn arrows which is defacto right turn arrow for me. Perfectly safe. The cop nearly hit someone turning left to proceed straight through the intersection to ticket me.)
The airbag friendly way of holding the steering wheel is classic of what government does. It makes a mandate. That mandate has flaws because people in government don’t know all there is to know and often refuse to listen to those that know more. Then instead of admitting their error they have to teach modified behaviors, make more laws, and/or make new mandates to patch over the previous one.
I think about my air bag going off and slamming my arm into my face often, or just snapping my arm. Can’t wait!
Well now, Officer Brucks – which is it?
Have you ever “cornered” a live cop by pointing out the complete lack of logic and nonsense in his own words? Have you ever tried to get force him to admit to his hidden agenda after his inept verbal gymnastics expose him for the fool that he is?
I’ve tried, and believe me, it gets ugly, fast. These dimwits are physiologically incapable of either critical thought or rational discussion. One of the reasons that “Big Pigs” (i.e., Chief Porkos) tend to avoid talking to the media and delegate that task to either a hired flack or an underling who can parse words of more than two syllables is that they’re afraid of facing hardball questions (not that they EVER have to worry about that when facing the MSM). This is why Officer Oinky resorts immediately and reflexively to violence whenever his actions are questioned. Like a feral animal or a mentally retarded human, he has no other defense at his disposal.
@IAM – “People should avoid the grocery store too? And the mall? I try not to let People walk behind me while I’m in stores, I’m not always successful, should I give up on self-defense?”
Absolutely! Haven’t you seen all those videos of shoppers pulling their weapons? Here’s a link to one:
http://www.grocerystoregunmen.com/?vid=“these-videos-dont-exist
Now you’re just being ridiculous. You want me to believe that you can’t tell the difference between the threat of a shark and the threat of a hawk? Sure the hawk could attack you but why would he unless you were messing with him first?
Well, this is spiraling down.
The mall brawl videos are real enough.
And didn’t you see the recent news story about a store in a mall in L.A. and the hostage situation there?
What of the People walking out of the wisconsin state fair awhile back? That didn’t happen?
One of the points of the dogs example was, all threats are real, there is no interpretation to them.
Like you said, it’s subjective.
A boy in a bubble lost at sea and floating around in his bubble might find the shark and the hawk to be equally threatening.
A 90lb. woman is likely to fear a 120lb viciously barking dog lunging at her while the dog is tied to a tree with weak rope.
I suppose the guy in the video thought he was encountering the equivalent of a tiny yappy lap dog tied down by a weak rope.
That’s conditioning at work?
Are we in a war zone, or a ReLOVEution zone? I suppose which one a Person thinks they are in is how they approach things?
A little of both, I suppose.
… I’ve got to go shovel snow and try to start a car. Interesting discussion.
“Well, this is spiraling down”
I agree. Sure all threats are real, but not as probable. That’s why if you swim in shark infested waters with a seal suit on you are more likely to be eaten by a shark than if you are inside a ‘shark proof’ cage with a blasting stick.
You must see the difference.
The moment a cop pulls you over you are already the victim of someone using coersion to violate your rights, and many, many times THAT situation goes spiraling down.
So the mere interaction requires defensive measures and a hightened sense of awareness where the mere act of going to the store, or mall or fair does not.
For years I’ve tried to emulate a driving style to provide me with the maximum possible fuel economy, as espoused on EcoModder and many other websites. One of the things that kills fuel economy is stopping and starting. The town I live loves to put stop signs at many residential intersections where there is plenty of line of sight and they could be safely converted to “slow down and proceed with caution.” I recently started doing the latter at all of these stop signs, whenever it is safe to do so. Being an otherwise accident-free and ticket-free driver for decades, it would really chap my ass to get a ticket for not fully stopping at these stop signs. My son got one a few years ago, at one of the neighborhood signs that I now cruise through, and it cost him almost $200. What a rip off, for a victimless crime that endangers NO ONE.
I once interviewed the head of the Mississippi State Patrol for TV news and asked about speed limits and enforcement. His reply was “Although the speed limit is [at that time] 70, we don’t enforce it until 80 because on those highways that is a safe speed. But we don’t make it 80, because then they would drive 90, which is too fast for that highway”.
That has to be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.
So cops don’t enforce the law. The law is arbitrarily determined by them literally “on the fly”. It’s totally subjective. Made up out of thin air, just like our money. Ok, got it.
And if the speed limit was 80 everyone would go 90 because – as we all know – that’s the rule: whatever the speed limit is then drive 10 mph faster. Drivers certainly figure absolutely nothing else into their decision making process when deciding how fast to drive.
That has to be one of the dumbest things I’ve ever heard.
We’re talking about Mississippi’s top cop, so that shouldn’t come as any surprise.
Ahh the ‘X over’ myth. Research put that to bed many decades ago yet the myth persists that if a potholed narrow two lane that hasn’t been resurfaced since it was built in 1933 had a speed limit of 100mph everyone would drive 110mph. Never mind it that the only thing that could make down that road these days is a truck crawling along at 15mph.
I think it comes down to that americans like everything social. No real rules or processes. Just warm and fuzzy and nonsense exceptions to a lot of ticky tacky controlling rules. This way most people go through life not bothered, nonconformists get hammered hard, and the power structure has control.
It’s just another area where driving symbolizes the greater society. Where wierd Jimmy gets a ticket for 51mph in a 50mph zone and his car is searched while good ol’ Frank can zoom by at 65mph on the same road. Americans seem to like this sort of social order. There are entire jobs that people have to rely on ‘tips’ to make any money. It’s just done that way socially. It’s absurd.
So here’s an example of a cop making a credible threat on an innocent, honest, law abiding citizen and even though the citizen is armed he does not use it to defend himself.
The cop pulled his gun and even told the guy he was going to shoot him in the back if he didn’t do what he said.
I don’t get it. Why is he carrying if he’s not going to use it to defend himself? Is he wearing it for show?
There’s a moral disconnect. I bet this guy had never had a gun pointed at him before until now. And why does he “believe” he has a gun? To defend himself against someone else with a deadly weapon. And what does he do the very first time he’s in that situation? He submits. Sell the gun buddy; it was a waste of money.
Why would he feel any more justified in using it against a non-govt criminal than a govt criminal? Pretty clear here that his life was threatened. Nobody could refute that. Pretty clear this cop was not acting rationally. And if the cops gun had discharged and killed the guy? You think the cop would have been charged with murder? Pft. Fat chance.
I don’t get it. Seems like all this talk about 2nd amendment and what not is just talk. A lot of chest pounding.
http://teapartyorg.ning.com/video/fl-deputy-threatens-to-shoot-concealed-carry-licensee-and-arrests
“I don’t get it. Seems like all this talk about 2nd amendment and what not is just talk. A lot of chest pounding.”
Actually you DO get it. Ninety or so million gun owners have done nothing to stop the nullifying of the Bill of Rights. There is no solidarity among gun owners, in fact an unconscionable number of gun owners are statists.
Do you know of a single successful revolution that found it necessary to own weapons legally? I don’t.
That having been said, I not only support the Second Amendment but I support the entire Bill of Rights. Don’t you wish EVERYONE did?
tgsam
“in fact an unconscionable number of gun owners are statists”
Yea, that makes me laugh. They are “law abiding people who legally carry”. Put another way: they carry what the govt gives them permission to carry in a way the govt says they can. No doubt they are proud of their law abiding nature too.
Those guys shouldn’t be a problem to the outlaws who illegally carry then. Because we’ll be better armed and carry them anyway we want.
You’re right though. We have the means and we have the numbers yet we continue to do nothing.
We need to be the change we want and that includes social attitudes – like defending ourselves against abuse regardless where it comes from.
We need to set the example in practice as well as in theory. Until there are some videos of citizens defeding themselves against the state, working together then nothing will change.
Consider the grand jury Presentment Power found in the Fifth Amendment. Also consider the power of the petit jury to judge the law as well as the fact and vote for acquittal. Why opt for bloodshed if you can lawfully prevail by employing the genuine Law of the Land? Apparently it is too simple for good folks to believe . . . but simple it is.
If the juris doctors and career office holders don’t like the genuine Law of the Land they are free to die defending the evil Legal System that has supplanted the legitimate Law of the Land.
tgsam
And I want sweet revenge. I want to feel like I’ve just seen every bad guy in every Western Movie get what’s coming to him. Only this time I want it to be those who have betrayed their oath of office and I want it to be real.
tgsam
The only way the 2A will ever have any teeth is when 1) people start carrying whatever they want to carry, wherever they want to carry it, whether or not the State approves, and 2) they pull their collective heads out of their asses and realize, as so many of us do, that the point of carrying is to defend ourselves against the state-employed home invader and gang-banger – not the non-state sanctioned “freelancers.” The percentage of violent crimes committed by the latter is in the low single digits. The percentage committed by the former is on the upswing and will soon approach the majority of violent deaths committed on Amerikan soil.
Dear lib,
the point of carrying is to defend ourselves against the state-employed home invader and gang-banger – not the non-state sanctioned “freelancers.”
Absolutely, positively true!
It’s galling that too many gun owners are still afraid to even think this, let alone say this, or god forbid, act on this.
Example: By deliberately practicing open carry without a “permit.”
As I see it, natural rights are real. Individuals have them. That is the moral high ground.
But, to actually enjoy them in the real world, one must do more than merely assert them rhetorically, one must claim them physically.
Example: Here on Taiwan, most drivers refuse to yield the right of way to pedestrians, even in clearly marked pedestrian crosswalks.
They barrel through without a second thought. They know the pedestrians won’t risk asserting their right of way with their bodies. So the drivers take advantage of it.
They know they can intimidate pedestrians into yielding to their one ton vehicles. After all, who is going to risk spending the rest of one’s life in a wheelchair?
The broad masses of sheeple on Taiwan live with it. They don’t even think about it.
Not me. It sticks in my craw.
One day, I happened to be carrying a very long aluminum pole on the way home. So I stuck it out in front of me, forcing oncoming drivers to stop, or else risk damaging their windshields when they ran into the pole.
(NB: As I see it, this is not “clover” behavior. As I see it, a market anarchist society would stipulate that one ton vehicles must yield to one hundred pound pedestrians out of entirely rational considerations.)
To me, this illustrates an key principle. Rights to be actually enjoyed, must be claimed through physical action.
This is as true of gun rights, as it is of a pedestrian’s right of way relative to motorists.
“The cop pulled his gun and even told the guy he was going to shoot him in the back if he didn’t do what he said.”
I’d call that, having the jump on someone.
“I don’t get it. Why is he carrying if he’s not going to use it to defend himself?”
I don’t get it. Do you think he should have tried drawing on the cop while the cop had a gun pointed at him?
Over the decades there have been many dogs which have barked at me and lunged at me as if they wanted to attack me, but I didn’t draw on them, and they didn’t bite me. Is that a bad practice?
“I’d call that, having the jump on someone”
Again, back to my original point: why carry a gun if you are going to put yourself in a position where someone can so easily get the jump on you and render your weapons useless?
“I don’t get it. Do you think he should have tried drawing on the cop while the cop had a gun pointed at him?”
Not much he could have done at that point but how did he get in that position? Because he had NO intentions of using his gun. He might as well have not even had it.
“Over the decades there have been many dogs which have barked at me and lunged at me as if they wanted to attack me”
WTF? There was no speculation here; no dogs (literally speaking at least) The threat was credible and clear. The cops actions and words made his intent obvious.
Everyone should be prepared for any traffic stop to turn into a credible threat on your life but it will. Just by arresting your forward progress he’s already violated your rights. Why would you expect him not to continue?
If you underestimate your opponent then you do so at your own risk.
“The threat was credible and clear. The cops actions and words made his intent obvious.”
Yes, and so too for the dogs.
“Not much he could have done at that point but how did he get in that position?”
He lives around lots of dogs. That’s why I used that example, they seem quite similar.
That’s also why I asked if it was bad practice to draw on every dog that barks at you and or lunges at you.
The dogs actions and bark made his intent obvious.
“He lives around lots of dogs”
Then he should expect the dogs, know what the dogs are capable of and be prepared to defend himself.
The decision to do so is subjective.
Your risk, your decision.
I don’t know how many videos you have to see where people who knew the risks and yet did nothing are beaten, shot and killed.
“why carry a gun if you are going to put yourself in a position where someone can so easily get the jump on you and render your weapons useless?”
People should avoid the grocery store too? And the mall? I try not to let People walk behind me while I’m in stores, I’m not always successful, should I give up on self-defense?
In most areas of life People are going to put themselves in a position where someone can easily get the jump on them and render their weapons useless.
Fine line, I guess?
I don’t know much about cops, but don’t they always carry some kind of defensive spray? Dogs freeze up in fear hearing the aerosol hiss, they don’t know what it is, and don’t want to take chances. If you manage to get anything in their eyes, that’s going to occupy their full attention long enough for you to get by.
The reporting of so many dog shootings must be some sort of social compliance effort. Out of every 100 dogs they spray to “stay safe”, I bet they wouldn’t even have one follow up where they had to shoot the animal, IMHO.
Cop got the “drop” on the old guy as citizen was lackadaisical allowing cop to get a superior tactical position. (May this be a lesson to everyone to never allow cop to see that you are armed and always be able to get behind bullet proof cover and have access to superior weapon. Remember, cop is wearing a vest and most likely, you are not.
Getting out of the car and turning back on a potential threat was foolish. This guy learned a valuable lesson to expect violence at all times, especially when dealing with cops.
Imagine had the citizen peeled out a few hundred yards and then placed his car perpendicular to cop and opened fire with a .308? Cop would have been screaming alright- for his mommy… just prior to dying!
You seem to be objecting that some cops show discretion and human compassion. Way out in West Texas, at night on a lonely road, I got stopped for speeding. I had my three kids with me. I had just bought a 600 dollar Dodge Omni — the notoriously crappy K-car. It being a weekend, I neglected to get it registered, and simply swapped the tag from my other (deceased) car.
The officer asked for registration and proof of insurance. “I don’t have insurance, officer.” Registration? “Naw, I have a bogus tag on this car.” You were speeding. “Yeah, I was flying.” Driver’s license? “Not on me, but I do have a valid license.”
Stunned, the officer just shook his head. At this point, (I was standing behind my car with the officer), my 6-year old son could be heard saying to his sisters, (my windows were open — you didn’t think the AC worked on a K-car, did you?), “Wow, this is cool! A COP pulled my Dad OVER!” The whole scene was lit up by the cruiser’s light bar. “My son wants to be a cop when he grows up,” I said.
“Just get out of here and get this taken care of, will you.”
“Thanks officer.” (This was Texas DPS — a State Boy.)
Love your website.
Hi Alberto,
Not at all – what draws my fire is this idea that some guy in a costume ought to be in a position to decide – at his whim – whether to hassle you or not over a BS non-crime such as “speeding.” We’ve been conditioned to regard it as decent of them to “give us a break” every now and then. Well, how about giving us a break all the time – by not hassling us over non-crimes, ever?
I know you are right! I agree. But, considering that cops are here to stay, let us hope there are some “good” ones to balance out the psychopaths. If even BEING a cop is perceived as being negative, where will you recruit decent human beings?
There are a few good ones. But they are fewer and farther in between – because it’s much harder than it used to be for a basically decent person to be a cop. Think about it. Would you want to hassle people over their seatbelt habits? Throw people in cages (and ruin their lives) because they were growing a plant? That sort of thing is typical “law enforcement” these days.
But, considering that cops are here to stay…
I wouldn’t necessarily take that as a given.
Dear alberto,
“If even BEING a cop is perceived as being negative, where will you recruit decent human beings?”
But that’s just it!
Being a cop is perceived as being negative, because it is negative.
That perception is not a misperception. It is an accurate perception.
With scant few exceptions, one is not going to be able to recruit decent human beings to do the job, because the job today is “law enforcement,” not keeping the peace.
Another example of a decent-human-being cop: I was parked in a pull-off, kind of hid back in the mesquite, about 40 miles north from Laredo, Mexico, having overly sampled the Mexican beverages in that town, along with two adult companions. The Mexcal was not really kicking in until I was on the road back to San Antonio, so I did what I thought was the most responsible thing, which was to stop driving and sleep. (I hid my keys under a rock — if you have the keys they can get you for DUI, but not otherwise.)
We were all three sleeping, when the light bar woke us up — DPS Trooper. I explained the situation to him. He said, “Yeah, I could smell your breath ten feet away.”
“Well, I’ve been drinking Mescal, it has a pretty strong aroma in its own right.”
“Yeah, I noticed that myself. Look, here’s what I want you to do. Drive up to town (about 5 miles} and park on the side of the road. This is a dangerous spot because a lot of wetbacks walk through here. You’ll be safer up the road.”
I should explain that the Trooper was Hispanic himself. “Wetback” is not a derogatory term in that part of Texas. Its not unlikely that his cousins lived on the other side.
“Look, officer, is this some kind of trick? Are you going to pull me over when I get on the road?”
“No, its no trick, sir. I can tell by talking to you that you can drive safely to town.” (It was three in the morning and no traffic anyway in this very remote area.}
He was true to his word. A real human being.
Alberto,
We live in a United Nations coordinated world police state.
So you were sleeping, and some thug makes comes around, turns you upside down to see if you have any lunch money for him, and then moves on, to shake down the next guy.
If you don’t have a problem with that, then you are pathetic, I hope you figure out the truth before it’s too late.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_number_of_police_officers
Yeah, I’m pathetic. I fall short in many areas. Fortunately, there are the enlightened, like you, to guide me.
So when a cop pulls you over and demands your papers comrade – a violaton of your rights – with the intention of violating your rights further AND you’ve done nothing wrong, but he chooses NOT to violate your rights further, that’s to be considered compassion?
That’s like calling a murderer compassionate because he didn’t shoot both of the occupants of the house.
So if I want to be seen as a compassionate person I can go out and grab a smaller guy by the shirt and threaten to kick his ass ( with no concern of prosecution ) but at the last moment put him down and say “now get out of here”.
Then everyone would say: “look, there goes Don, he could have kick the shit out of that guy but he didn’t. What a kind and compassionate person.”
That’s right along the same lines as cops saying they have a dangerous job. Well, stop pulling people over because you have no idea what kind of person you’re going to encounter. Funny, I drive the same roads and yet have never been threatened by any of those dangerous people.
Dear Don,
Murder is okay if you do it because it’s your duty and your job to do it and you don’t enjoy doing it and wouldn’t do it otherwise. A mass-murders kills for enjoyment, the way he likes to. It’s not his assigned job. That’s why he’s evil.
Most cops likewise threaten you only because it’s their duty and their job to do so. If they were found to be threatening someone for personal enjoyment, they would be moved to a desk job where they did not enjoy their job. Just like a magician can’t reveal how he performs his tricks, so must the cop obscure any instance where he is enjoying acting violently.
Public servants remain a part of the overclass, only insofar as what they are doing is perceived to be a sacrifice and unpleasant to them. Wearing a pained yet emotionless grimace, they garner exactly the same admiration people reserve for monks or peace corp volunteers.
This behavior must comply with Immanuel Kant’s brand of selfless ethics. IK’s school of thought is a philosophy which judges an action’s goodness based not on its consequences but on its adherence to a set of rules or duties.
Other ethical theories like utilitarianism or ethical egoism which judge an action’s ethical standing based upon its consequences are totally foreign to Kant’s categorical imperitave which claims to transcend our humanity.
Unlike doing things for your ego, or because they seem to work, Enforcer’s act only under what can be called “duty ethics” or “nonconsequentialist ethics.” Enforcers must merely do the right thing, it doesn’t matter that he’s part of an overgrown police state that eviscerates an entire economy, just so long as he acts according to principle and not out of malice or for his personal satisfaction.
Immanuel Kant’s categorical imperative is the most significant and dominant idea in modern ethics. The two critical elements to the categorical imperative are:
Perfect Duty to Universalizability
A perfect duty is one that must be met. A person who fails to meet a perfect duty has done something wrong. Kant argues that all people have a perfect duty to act in such a way that their actions could be universalized and no logical contradiction would occur. In other words, actions should not be relative to the person performing them and in order to be judged good, must be such that, if everyone performed them, harm would not result and there would not be logical contradictions between the actions of people or groups of people.
Ends In Themselves
The second portion of the categorical imperative is that we should act in such a way that we do not treat people as mere means to ends, but as ends in themselves. This requires respecting the humanity of our fellow human being and treated them as unique and valuable individuals rather than means through which to obtain things we want. A business owner shouldn’t seek to make profit, if it means violating the categorical imperative. All men are expected at all times to act like something superior to men. They must appear and in fact be something they are not, out of a sense of duty and ethics to their fellow men.
Kant agrees that people have free will. But in the next breath, points out that there can be no such thing as perfectly free will in practice due to outside influences of other people and society. Individuality is always to be sacrificed to ones duty and to never treating a fellow human being as a means to your end. It is an absurd system of Catch-22, the more you follow it, the less anything makes sense, and the less anyone enjoys living in Kant’s inhuman madhouse of self-denial and self-sacrifice.
More on what goes through the minds of enforcers but on a different topic (New gun laws in NY). Watch how they dance around the central issue while one guy tries to get them to address it.
http://forums.officer.com/t184320/
LOL. I don’t even have to read the article to get a gist of the responses. The URL says it all.
Sorry Eric, I have to disagree with you and the others on this one. He’s right about the traffic engineers setting safe speed limits, with the exception of the nationwide 55 MPH laws of the past and the many local speed-traps or “traffic-calming” zones. More importantly, he’s cutting people slack when he only tickets them going over 80. Even if the roads were privately owned you’d need patrolmen monitoring the drivers. This may be one of the few areas where law enforcement agents actually try to protect us instead of going after “the usual suspects.” I’ve seen plenty of “mad dog cop” videos on youtube and this guy ain’t one of them. Look at this way: if his political/bureaucratic bosses put radar in his patrol-car and dock his pay for NOT giving tickets to people going over EXACTLY 60 MPH, would that make you happy?
Hows that Calpers treatin ya CA-Bob? I know times are hard!
You are incredibly brave not to mention the strain you are under.
http://www.calpers.ca.gov/index.jsp?bc=/investments/assets/mvs.xml
How do you 1.6 million brave California servants manage to make do with an investment fund worth only $253.7 Billion. That’s not the America I learned about in grade school! I wish my neighboring state citizens would do a little better.
As only one of 3 million state masters of the Nevada democracy, I give a shout out in solidarity to my 38 million fellow democratic masters in the next door state of California.
Like me, I’m sure all 38 million of the California masters of you public servants would want to thank you and your brothers for cutting us all so much slack and humbly going without with only a meager token of undying appreciation and gratitude.
http://www.calpers.ca.gov/eip-docs/about/facts/facts-at-a-glance.pdf
You public treasures put your lives on the line each and every day, we are so glad you were there for us, are there for us, will always be there for us!
We want you behind those desks. Walking around with your clipboards. Tirelessly radar gunning our driving speeds. Selflessly counting the alcohol content of our breath. Giving stern looks to unruly traffic until the ambulances and tow trucks arrive.
We’re pretty happy right now, Bob, thanks for asking. Maybe if you only worked three days a week. Six hours each day, but keep getting your same pay, benefits, and annual increases of course.
I know it’s stressful and that we lean on you pretty heavy sometimes. If you need us all to contribute even more, be sure to ask. You’re not heavy your our government brothers!
Thanks for your service and for keeping us safe!
E pluribus servus tributum!!
– Nevada Tor, on behalf of all
grateful Nevadans & Californians
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalPERS
Nevada? To think I live just north of ya! Considering how the Vegas cops, and Nevada in general, are notorious, I wonder what the positives are for living there.
I moved here during a “boom” time when it was top ten worldwide in growth. There were almost no cops for locals, only a Mad Max pedal to the metal freeforall, except in the high surveillance tourist trap wealth extraction areas.
Now nothing is being built and it’s at the absolute bottom worldwide economically. There’s also been a couple of sales tax increases, used to fund more ticket happy patrol cops than anywhere I’ve ever lived. Stay away. Moving here was all “Angel Eyes” idea!
Leaving Las Vegas – N. Cage – To Angel Eyes
Angel Eyes – Jazz Fakebook
http://www.hvar.komerce.cz/fakebook/011.gif
“Excuse me while I disappear”
Dude! The last time I set foot in Vegas was back in 06 while passing on through the air terminal to New Zealand. Before that it was 96 and one night while driving back to Texas…. Wanted to see how it had changed from 82… As you can see I rarely visit. Once every ten to fifteen years. And I know about the economic tsunami that hit the place. While up in the North Dakota oilfield I even saw women who’d moved from Vegas just to get a job. That’s a radical move! I shouldn’t laugh because I’m probably going to join them soon.
Munkov, I think you’ve jumped to the wrong conclusions about me. I’ve spent my whole life trying to make sure I have as little to do with govt as possible. Compared to most Californians I am definitely a “stranger in a strange land.” I figure it’s like France. I’m not going to let the fact that I don’t speak their language or understand how they think keep me from spending time there to enjoy the nice weather and museums. Life is a voyage, and as long as you’re polite to the natives and have something useful to offer, you can go wherever you want and stay as long as you want.
I’m sure you’re right, in most respects, that blind attacks on a class of people is counter-productive. Even the hated enforcers, or tax collectors. But how does one root out the usurpers using only disapproving glances?
France is the untouchably number one as a world tourist definition. But why does French Culture still rule by force, when it doesn’t need to. Gaul would do well to cut loose all the snobbocrats, I am quite sure.
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.
That MLK quote sounds impressive, but can anyone deny with a straight face, that Jim Crow & Forced Plantation Servitude has been replaced with love?!!
No, something much darker and more hate filled, has taken its place.
Our national government is a carrier of far worse venom and poison covered in fake smiley face stickers that mask a toxic mass-produced pandora’s box of snakes and vermin.
Bob,
You state on the one hand that “He’s right about the traffic engineers setting safe speed limits” and then, in the next breath (like the cop) destroy your own argument by conceding there are exceptions. Not just the 55 MPH highway limit, either. By the cop’s – and your own – admission, “cutting people slack” by as much as 20 MPH over the supposedly “safe” maximum!
Speed limits are routinely under-posted and frequently arbitrary. Not my assertion/opinion – a fact. The bureaucrat’s own “bible” – the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices and the 85th percentile rule for establishing speed limits – are ignored as a matter of course. Posted limits are often set 5-10 MPH below the 85th percentile speed – which is why, on almost any road, virtually every driver is “speeding.” This fact alone ought to tell you something but apparently doesn’t.
Look: “speeding” is nothing more than exceeding some bureaucrat or cop’s notion of appropriate velocity. It doesn’t say a thing – as such – about a driver’s ability to safely control the car. An excellent driver in an equally excellent car running 90 MPH on the highway may pose less risk to himself and others than some half-blind old coot in a mid-’80s Buick doing the speed limit (or less).
This cop harassed tens of thousands of people for non-crime. As is typical of his caste. You seem to think this is ok – and that he’s all right because he says he “gave people breaks” and “cut them slack” sometimes.
Sheesh!
“An excellent driver in an equally excellent car running 90 MPH on the highway may pose less risk to himself and others than some half-blind old coot in a mid-’80s Buick doing the speed limit (or less).”
The problem with Old Coots is that they fail to adapt. Prior to my cataract removal I had given up driving after dark. I am also keenly aware that my thinking and reaction time have slowed and I act accordingly. (Hey cocksucker! Yeah YOU you worthless motherfucker, the person looming large in my rear view mirror. You’re gonna have to live with my ticket-free 70 mph or move to the left lane and get the fuck around me.)
The expression “Act your age.” certainly applies to “Old Coots”.
It is painfully true that the terminally unintelligent do not grow more intelligent with age. When one encounters a stupid Geezer it is safe to assume that he either has Alzheimer’s or s/he was a stupid youngster.
I find that just a few miles of inventive cursing is likely worth hours on the psychiatrist’s couch.
Tinsley Grey Sammons (1936 –)
Hey cocksucker! Yeah YOU you worthless motherfucker, the person looming large in my rear view mirror. You’re gonna have to live with my ticket-free 70 mph or move to the left lane and get the fuck around me.
Damn, that’s BEAUTIFUL. I’m going to digitally record that and blast it at 200 decibels from a bullhorn mounted on my car next time I’m doing above the posted limit in far right lane on a multi-lane highway and some asshole decides to tailgate.
I hadn’t seen the information about speed limits routinely under-posted before. If so, then policy wonks are ignoring the traffic engineers’ recommendations… another triumph for greedy politicians.
I agree that there are many factors that make fixed speed limits arbitrary. I was giving the benefit of the doubt to Brucks by assuming he takes that into account when he makes his judgment calls on whether to pull someone over for exceeding the posted limit. Why? Because if we paint all cops with the “evil agent of the state” brush we risk alienating many decent and useful people needed to resist the endlessly encroaching central planners.
My bigger point is that we need to pick our fights. You can’t fix DC. This is how empires die. History tells this tale over and over. But you can deal with the world as it really is in a way that mitigates problems for yourself and others you encounter as you motor through this “vale of tears.” Cutting each other some slack is the number one way to do that.
You’re an eminently reasonable man, Eric. I can read his reply up to the phrase “traffic-calming” zones, and then truth be told, I go into a sort of red-around-the-edges slow burn, and falter as I try to soldier on.
Upon further reflection, I think the Bob here is also leaning rather heavily on Immanuel Kant. An enforcer is “needed” in Bob’s mind because he is able to act from a higher sense of duty, and not from the base motivations of mere mortals.
The traffic engineers are detached adherents to the higher good. They draw a paycheck, but are un-sullied by it unlike the private sector. Bob is certain they perform at a higher-consciousness public servant frequency of advanced thought not available to mere mundane engineers.
The revenue enhancing speed traps are axiomatically “traffic calming zones.” The reasoning being, they aren’t for any individuals’ benefit, thus they must be better private property, since they are noones’ property.
Drivers are hassled & impoverished by cops & traffic engineers as a sort of tough love. These Enforcers are more worthy than the old masters of southern plantations who also lived off the labor of other men called slaves because of greed. These Enforcers are different, they only do it for your own good.
It’s exactly the same reasoning of the cotton barons who claimed to make upstanding Christians out of the West Africans laborers bought and sold as commodities.
The Africans provided the physical labor while the planters provided the civilization and opportunities be a part of a “higher society.”
Traffic cops are a new breed higher class of men, exactly like the plantation owners. They think in a higher realm, making esoteric decisions about who they should cut some slack to and who they should tie up tightly in the restraints of the law and throw the book at.
Drivers of the public roads are the base African savages. The patrolmen are of the more civilized class of men who are above petty considerations of the slave class who drive on the public roads any old way they please, thinking only of themselves.
The patrolmen are there to protect you from yourselves. They never think of themselves while they are on duty. It’s exactly the reasoning that said African men were of the sort that needed the protection of living under a plantation system, instead of trying to survive as farmers of their own crops in the ways they saw fit to do.
I can’t think of anything more evil or frightening than modern men who live only for duty and self-denial, suppressing any and all humanity for some twisted fantasy of nationalist, socialist, or spiritual ideal. You can’t reach these modern cavemen and their totem poles, unless you possess too sink to the mentality of men who live in caves and club each other with sticks and stones out of duty to the clan.
Tor, I’m not relying on Kantian logic. I just think it makes sense to keep people from driving like maniacs and endangering the lives of others. I think the “Andy Griffith” cops have the same motivation. If they err on the side of safety, it’s not a big problem. If the “not-Andy-Griffith-types” use every opportunity they find to harass drivers and demonstrate their “authorita” then it is a problem. As I wrote earlier, I’ve seen the youtube videos. I also read Will Grigg’s essays. My blood starts to boil, too. Then I stand back from my emotions and try to think about the situation as rationally as I can. As Eric mentioned earlier, we definitely have a plague of law-enforcement types as opposed to peace-keepers. My prognosis for the future is that it’s only going to get worse. Look at what’s happened in the US since 911. Unconstitutional executive powers enacted with little significant reaction by congress. The bank bailouts. Endless QE. The gun grabbers “not letting a crisis go to waste.” I advocate cutting each other slack because we’ll need all the friends we can get when we pass the tipping point.
My point is that those of us who prefer “natural law” need to avoid making enemies un
Like in anything, it is the use of force, of threats, of exercising control that brings about disorder in driving.
Why do we have left lane blockers? Because of the low speed limits. It’s their god-given-right to do their chosen speed in the far left lane.
As more and more laws are made for ‘safety’ driving gets worse and worse. It’s building better idiots, causing more disorder.
The more rules there are the more advantage a person has by breaking them. Thus breaking them is more encouraged. People also stop being able to see the difference between the nonsense rules and the basic necessary ones. So they break whatever rules that will get them ahead. Perspective is also lost. For instance, 50 miles an hour on a 20mph residential street in the afternoon with little kids playing nearby is punished the same as 85mph on an 8 lane interstate in the middle of the night when nobody is around. Thus more disorder.
The way to keep people from driving like maniacs is not to control as if they were children. To control them like children they will behave like children. They will also act to get away with whatever they can get away with.
Bob we agree on much–911, police state, banksters, guns etc.
But you have to examine your precepts!
Here’s what I mean:
Then immediately you point out “it’s only going to get worse”, and talk about the “respect mah authoritah” types.
Do you see the internal contradiction?
Because if you allow enforcement of ANY arbitrary law–one which has no victim–you create the very authority structure that “only gets worse”
You notice yourself the two types–the Andy Griffith and his opposites. You see therefore that “enforcement” is arbitrary–dependent upon the man, not the law.
You’re willing to accept it if it’s enforced leniently, if he’ll “give you a break”.
But you don’t like it when it’s enforced “unreasonably”–too strictly for your liking.
That is not a system of laws or reason; it is arbitrary and capricious. Real law–natural law–is absolute, not subject to the enforcer’s interpretation*
Just so, the speeding laws themselves are arbitrary and capricious. I’m much safer at 100–highly capable car, capable driver–than a 70-year-old in an old beater with no shocks and drum brakes at 60mph. That’s an extreme case–but there are infinite gradations on that scale, just as there are infinitely many road conditions that affect safety.
Freedom WORKS because it lets each of us exercise our full potential in a simple-to-understand paradigm, the NAP. If I’m not harming, stealing, defrauding, or damaging a person or property, I’m free to continue.
And the cop can fuck off unless I’ve actually harmed someone or something–and THEY complain, not the fictitious entity “the State”.
* natural law is absolute; however there is still mercy, for example in recognizing lesser punishment for a crime of passion, or accident, or with extenuating circumstances.
Hi Bob,
“I just think it makes sense to keep people from driving like maniacs and endangering the lives of others.”
Let’s examine this a little more closely.
Is driving faster than a number on a sign “driving like a maniac”? According to whom? At what point does your (or my or anyone else’s) subjective opinion about what “makes sense” become enforceable at gunpoint?
Most people – probably including you – “speed” (that is, drive faster than government arbitrarily decides to be acceptable) as a matter of routine. Does this – ipso facto – constitute “endangering the lives of others?” If yes, why? If not – then why are you defending the enforcers? It’s either right – or it’s not – to punish people. Punishing them just a little bit – but for no real reason (that is, not because of any actual harm they’ve caused) – or “giving them a break” sometimes, also for no real (objectively valid or even definable) reason – in no way obviates the fact that they are being punished unjustly.
You write:
“If they err on the side of safety, it’s not a big problem.”
Tell that to the millions upon millions of people who’ve been forced at gunpoint to part with large sums of their hard-earned money via tickets and subsequent insurance “adjustment.” I’d very much like to have back the several thousand dollars in “speeding” fines I received just during the Drive 55 era – when 76 MPH was a reckless driving cite in my state. I received several of these absolutely outrageous, trumped-up six demerit point, several hundred bucks a piece tickets…. for driving at speeds that, before “Drive 55” were either legal or nearly so. Now, they’re (arbitrarily) legal again. Is it “safe” – by dint of their saying so? How so?
I’d like a refund!
Here’s the bottom line: You either support the NAP – and its corollary: no victim, no crime – or you don’t. If you don’t, then you’ve chosen the side of authoritarianism and arbitrary force applied against your fellow human beings.
In which case, you ought not to object when force is applied arbitrarily against you.
Meth,
I’m just saying I don’t want to killed or suffer property damage when I’m on a public road because of some idiot’s reckless driving. If there’s a way to accomplish that without speed signs and patrolmen, I’d like to hear about it. In the meantime, what’s the point of antagonizing some decent cops just trying to do their jobs who often agree with our views on natural law and small government?
I think I see the “internal contradiction” you were referring to. Arbitrary laws for victimless crimes are bad. It leads to bigger government with more laws and more law enforcement agents and more taxes until the whole system collapses from parasistic overload. Yep. And that’s where we’re headed. And there’s no stopping it. Just a matter of time. I’ve seen this coming since back in the 70s when I was studying electrical engineering in college and was amazed by all the clueless kids aimlessly wandering around campus while majoring in basket-weaving or some other pseudo-science. I was concerned about what it portended for America’s future until I read Harry Browne’s “How I Found Freedom in an Unfree World.”
Hi Bob,
Again, you’ve got to make the objective case that a given speed is “reckless.” Merely driving faster than you’re comfortable driving does not constitute “reckless” driving. Or deserve ticketing. Speed – as such – does not necessarily have any bearing on “safe” driving. It may. But that does not mean it must. The laws we suffer under assume it must – that it is always “unsafe” – ipso facto – to drive faster than whatever number a politician or bureaucrat literally pulls out of his ass and pastes on a sign. It’s crazy.
I find the fixation on velocity as the primary way to gauge “safe driving” to be silly. Obviously so. People’s comfort level – and skill level – varies wildly. Why should we accept arbitrary criminalization? I assure you my ability to negotiate the curves of Bent Mountain (local road) safely, while in complete control of my vehicle at speeds well in excess of the posted maximum is greater than the ability of my mother-in-law to do so at speeds lower than the posted maximum. Yet I am subject to being ticketed – while she is not. Does this strike you as reasonable? (Parenthetical disclosure: She’s had multiple “accidents” over the past 20 years… I’ve had none.)
I’m antagonized by any assertion of arbitrary authority. Because logically, I understand that one thing necessarily entails the next thing. Thus, if you accept unreasonable enforcement of unreasonable traffic laws, then you have conceded to them a crucial principle that, I assure you, will come back around to bite you on the posterior at some point. It is exactly, precisely, why we are now in the predicament we’re in – a burgeoning police state in which authority is exerted arbitrarily as a matter of routine.
The principle at issue here is everything!
I understand what you’re saying, this is what I believe to be some errors:
When you say “it makes sense” you’re not speaking of sensory experience, or of scientific observations. You are talking about the local consensus of the “Morality Police.”(a Kant-equivalent concept, but we can keep him out of the discussion)
One’s inner “Morality Policeman” is a raw primal intuition that claims superiority over both your own sensory perceptions as well as the scientifically observable aspects of any given situation.
Any man who pays attention to his senses, can perceive that he is driving a car in an unsafe manner.
Any scientist who observer a stretch of highway and keeps notes, could offer a matrix of probability and a model which could be used in a limited way to optimize certain aspects of vehicular flow and efficiency, insofar as he keeps to only the things capable of being reduced to mechanistic recordable events.
You Morality Police, however, claim much greater jurisdiction and powers. The same powers one’s mother always has. Mom just knows what is best for you in any given situation. By virtue of her authority and desire to do good, both Mom & the Morality Police know just what a safe speed to drive is. That you shouldn’t snack between meals, or you’ll spoil your dinner. That there’s a fair price to be charged for a gallon of gas, and anything in excess is price gouging. That one man shouldn’t own one hundred vehicles, when no one else in town can afford even one car.
Andy Griffith was problematic even while he was on the air in the sleepy and fictional town of Mayberry, North Carolina (population 1200).
Sheriff Andy’s office is the gateway to tyranny. Certainly, he could be fired and the town could act in a more financially responsible manner.
It would be a sounder practice to have a schedule where townsfolk took turns being the sheriff and manning the jail for an eight hour shift, with their own gun and clothes, no money.
The special uniform, police car, all those things cost money, and quickly escalate into a black hole of spending that consumes a little town like Mayberry.
If Mayberry has a sheriff, why not also a fire department? Fire fighters are even more obviously a bad value. As long as there are fire hydrants and firehoses somewhere, can’t just any pair of citizens hook up a firehose and put out any fires that should arise?
What is the benefit to Mayberry to build a dedicated fire station, buy a firetruck, and pay the salaries of men to sleep in the firestation and earn a living from the other townspeople taxes?
Any self-sufficient town quickly goes bankrupt. Doesn’t Mayberry need a library? And a recreation center? And an auditorium? And a sports stadium? And a history museum?
The mind of the Enforcers blank out the most important fact of their existence. That they are an unsustainable drain on the tiny Mayberry community, and the best thing they all could do is to resign and use the buildings for some other purpose. Otis can sleep outside on the ground, or pay for his own lodging, that’s the only purpose Andy’s malinvestment jail was ever used for anyway.
Eric,
I do like the NAP idea. Taking it to the logical extreme, let’s say all traffic laws and their enforcement were suspended. Further, let’s say there were no significant increase in traffic deaths or injuries as society adjusted to the change. Great, we didn’t need the signs and fines after all. But, if it turns out the roads become more dangerous, what then?
Hi Bob,
Excellent!
I think you’d find things would naturally sort themselves out. If inept/reckless drivers had to bear the full brunt of their ineptitude and recklessness – as opposed to transferring it to you and me and everyone else – in short order, the inept/reckless would be off the roads.
The best criteria for gauging a driver’s competence is simply – does he wreck (or cause others to wreck)? If he does not, then it’s hard to accuse him of bad (let alone “reckless”) driving… even if he is driving 140 MPH.
I have no issue with advisory signs – which serve the valuable purpose of conveying information to drivers about roads they may not be familiar with – and so on. But here’s an interesting thing: Thanks to the system we have, advisory signs have been rendered meaningless via absurd dumbing down. You see a sign indicating a curve ahead and “35 MPH”…. but you know – based on experience – that 35 MPH is ridiculous. Hell, traffic is running 40-45 (or more) through that curve. So you learn to ignore not only that sign – but other signs.
Then there’s the issue of blind obedience to signs/signals – because “it’s the law.” So people sit at a red light in the middle of the night, even though it’s obvious there’s no cross traffic and they could easily proceed safely.
All because they’ve accepted this notion that government bureaucrats and politicians have the right to set down arbitrary rules that must be followed… or else.
@Bob et al–
I’m restarting this thread at the bottom of the page–search for “More on Speed Limits”
“I just think it makes sense to keep people from driving like maniacs and endangering the lives of others”
You think? Not be insulting but who cares what you think brother? What do your thoughts have to do with me? Define maniac and endanger because if I ask 10 people each one will give me a different subjective definition so who’s the wise and all knowing high priest that knows EXACTLY when someone is driving like a “maniac” and “endangering” the lives of others?
And who has the authority to “keep” anyone from doing anything that they have a right to do? “Keep”? Heyzeus H. Christ. Do you hear yourself? Somebody has to tell others what to do! And who do you nominate for that job bra?
I think cops drive like maniacs: they speed ALL the time, weave in and out of traffic, type on their laptops, talk on their cell phones and these guys are supposed to “keep us safe”? How exactly? Who is going to keep us safe from them?
I’m vehemently opposed to being punished for doing something wrong before I do something wrong.
And you are morally inconsistent with your ire for the state but your acceptance of state agents.
Cali Bob, the experiment has already been done.
For congested local roads towns in europe removed all signs and traffic signals. Soon after traffic congestion went away. Collisions dropped. Flows were faster. Conflicts dissolved.
For limited access roads there are the no speed limit sections of the autobahn. The lane discipline is near perfect. People accelerate to merge. Turn signals are used. Fatalities are less than the US interstate. The same thing happened in Montana under R&P. When R&P was removed for speed limits fatalities skyrocketed up as high or higher than they were before R&P brought them down.
People are much more agreeable with each other with a few simple rules than they are with the control freakism.
What I would like to know,are cops reading these posts ? And if they are,I wonder what they’re thinking ? To me,I think a lot of cops are people that are on a power trip and it makes them feel important. I think they’ve seen too many “Dirty Harry” movies. I would love to talk to an “off-duty” cop and express my feelings. When they put on their uniform,does all empathy leave their brain ? To hell with the Chief or the cities Mayor,council members,etc.Just like the damned gov’t,they need to start living within their means.
Two years ago on my first day of retirement,I had an unfortunate home invasion. Two white punks burst into my house with ski masks on and attempted to do mischief to me.Unfortunately for them,I kicked their asses. One guy,got his nose broke and the other will need major dentist work,as he lost some front teeth. Luckily for me,they were not armed.Luckily for them I wasn’t either. After they fled,went to the police station right around the corner from my house and told them what happened. That if they acted fast,they could catch them. They said “go home and call 911,we don’t have anyone to spare”. Great ! I went home called 911 and two and a half hours later,they showed up. I gave them hell and asked what the hold up was. Apparently 2 neighbors were squabbling about a dog running loose and couldn’t make it right away ! Where were the priorities ?
They were short-handed because we have too many motor-scooter cops collecting revenue for the city. They never caught them. But,I’m always looking for a white Suburban,with a lift and big tires and a white dude with tattoos on the back of his neck !!!
Hi Brady,
As we have transitioned (as a society) from peace-keepers to law enforcers, the problems you describe become worse – obviously worse. Most of the laws on the books today are fiat laws – that is, they criminalize actions that don’t violate natural or moral law. Everyone understands that murder or rape or theft is wrong as such. Because they involve harm to a real victim. But (as an example) “speeding” – or (much more egregiously) a seatbelt “violation”? Who has been harmed? No one. But the state has been affronted. The state – which asserts its authority to control your life, down to minutia, often in the name of some general “public good” or “to keep us safe.” It’s soft tyranny that quickly becomes hard tyranny when challenged.
Now consider the mentality of a peace officer vs. a law enforcer.
The first is the Andy Griffith archetype. He’s not a bully by nature. In fact, the opposite of that. He dislikes people who actually harm others. Otherwise, his attitude is encapsulated in the phrase, “he ain’t bothering no one.” And it’s corollary – so leave him alone. Good men are attracted to this profession of peace-keeping.
Now consider the second type – the Officer 82nd Airborne archetype. The law enforcer. This guy enjoys exerting his authority. He demands submission to “the law” – any law, every law – irrespective of the nature of the thing. His mentality is encapsulated in the phrases, “the law is the law” – and “I’m just doing my job.” And our job is to Submit & Obey
Think for a moment what sort of person it takes to man a probable cause-free “safety” checkpoint – where citizens are treated as presumptively guilty until they prove otherwise. Or who not only can stomach but feels good about barking orders at grown adults to “buckle up for safety” … or else.
I think you have to be a bully at heart to do such things.
Hi Eric, I,have to chime in. Just to clarify, 82nd Airborne Officers aren’t anywhere close to the mindless government drones who are employed in law enforcement. Responsible military officers enforce discipline necessary for the mission and welfare of the men (no women served in any units I was in). Now, whether you agree with the mission, that is another conversation. As an aside, I used to agree with the mission, but once away from that life, I see that while at the time I felt our intent was noble, the reality is we were but another weapon in the bully’s arsenal. I don’t think the vast majority of troops are even aware that they are tools for oppressors. Then again most troops I served with in airborne, rangers and spec ops were there more for the adventure than any sense of purpose, or duty to country nonsense. On the combat support side, virtually all were there for the steady paycheck.
Rule of Law – when law is capitalized, it means Gods laws, those moral laws everyone knows are wrong. Rule of law, lower case, that is mans laws, which are arbitrary to say the least. The bible makes this clear, although religions continually misinterpret in support of their peculiar brand of dogma.
I have to add this in.,this women in combat nit nonsense. No one will say this who is of,enough rank to make a difference, but one big reason not to have women in those units is pregnancy. In Bosnia, not even a real war from a USA perspective, there was a steady stream of pregnant women headed back to their home bases, in Iraq, I wonder what that maternity express looked like?
Hi Tomas,
Without meaning to offend, I submit it’s not Biblical law or any other religious conception of right or wrong, but natural law that ought to be the basis for human interaction. Natural law posits that you are free to act so long as your actions cause no demonstrable harm to another. Put another way, no victim – no crime.
I am leery of Bliblical (and other religious) injunctions as regards a man’s personal/private decisions in life – including as regards matters of conscience.
Natural law doesn’t take issue with the Christian – or the Zoroastrian (or whatever). You’re free to live your life, to pursue happiness as you see it… even if it seems odd or “immoral” others… so long as what you do doesn’t actually hurt someone else. A real someone else. Not “society” or some such construct.
America once hewed to that ideal. That if “he ain’t hurin’ no one” leave him be. That it “takes all kinds.” And, “it’s a free country.”
It’s not anymore.
And a theocracy will not change that. In fact, it would make things much worse.
Mankind would do well to disabuse itself of the psychological burden of religion. What little good religion could rightly claim is overshadowed and nullified many times over by the evil that it has wrought.
I’ll buy none of this “misinterpretd” “misused” or “misunderstood” crap. Critical Thinkers find no need to employ riddles to express the truth they discover. Religion is not a viable substitute for Critical Thinking, never has been and never can be.
Religion is a meal ticket for parasites and scoundrels and a cover for usurpers and murderers. But in spite of all this, no candidate for political office would dare openly confess his atheism.
Gott mit uns? Give me a fucking break.
Tinsley Grey Sammons (1936 –)
Dear tomas,
I agree with you about “man’s laws.”
An example of “man’s law” is the Gun Control Act of 1968. Not good.
But… is what some men call “god’s law” really “god’s law?” Or is it merely “man’s law” falsely labeled as “god’s law?”
What about Muslim “Sharia Law?” Muslims insist that is “god’s law.”
Is it “god’s law” for you, a Christian? Or is it merely “man’s law” according to Muslim infidels?
How about vice-versa?
Maybe the only real “god’s law” is natural law. After all, according to both Christians and Muslims, god created Nature. Therefore Nature’s laws are god’s laws, and must be obeyed.
When the patient lives He gets the credit. When the patient dies we get the blame. –Dr. Ben Casey
But… is what some men call “god’s law” really “god’s law?” Or is it merely “man’s law” falsely labeled as “god’s law?”
No and yes to your two questions, respectively. Perhaps the saddest thing to infect all of the world’s religions, probably since time immemorial, is the sheer and innate laziness of most of their adherents. Rarely ever do laypeople who subscribe to a particular faith take serious time to carefully study the tenets of their faith (the Torah/Bible for Jews and Christians, the Koran for Muslims, etc.). Most people simply leave it to “the experts” to explain it to them. Unfortunately, far too many of those “experts” are either ignorant mental midgets devoid of either critical thinking skills or the ability to understand the tenets of their faith, manipulative and self-serving con artists with agendas of their own that have nothing whatsoever to do with advancing knowledge of the faith or the spiritual well-being of their flocks, or some combination of both.
For this reason, while I was raised in a faith-based environment and would like to more actively live my life by the same precepts, I find myself frequently wanting to agree with Tinsley’s assertion that critical thought and religious faith are polar opposites. It seems that systematic human distortion of scriptural precepts makes any other conclusion very difficult to reach.
Dear Tinsley,
When an airliner crashes, the sole survivor says “It was a miracle. God spared me.”
He doesn’t ask himself why God didn’t spare the other 399 passengers along with him.
After all, wouldn’t that have been a 400 times greater miracle?
Logical thought really isn’t the theists’ strong suit.
Morning, Bevin!
That sort of religious solipsism (narcissism, really) is rather incredible, isn’t it?
God loved me so much he made sure I survived the airline crash. The 399 other passengers that died horribly? Ah, their time had come, apparently.
Dear lib,
I find myself frequently wanting to agree with Tinsley’s assertion that critical thought and religious faith are polar opposites. It seems that systematic human distortion of scriptural precepts makes any other conclusion very difficult to reach.
Amen to that!
Thank god some people can see that.
😉
Dear Eric,
Top of the mornin’ to you!
It never ceases to amaze me how religionists are able to “reverse engineer” their faith so that whatever the result, it proves what they wanted to believe all along.
This sort of irrationality is far from harmless. For example:
… drowning was used as a way to determine if a woman were a witch. The idea was that witches would float and innocent women would drown.
— Wiki
It also applies to true believers who subscribe to that secular religion known as “good government.”
I’m reminded of an airport security memo that was distributed by the feds to airport security personnel years ago, even before the abomination known as the TSA.
It said that if a passenger positions himself at the front of the line, he could be a terrorist because he’s trying to rush through asap.
It went on to say that if a passenger positions himself in the middle of the line, he could be a terrorist because he’s trying to hide in the crowd.
Finally it said that if a passenger positions himself at the end of the line, he could be a terrorist because he’s hoping the inspectors will be fatigued by the time they get to him and wave him through.
I’d say they have all their bases covered.
Indeed!
And – it’s the ones who actually believe their “reasoning” is reasonable (even logical) that shock me most.
A cynic is infinitely preferable. The Stalin type who knows exactly what he’s doing – but just doesn’t care that he’s unjust, or evil. He simply needs to trot out some excuse – one he knows is an excuse.
But the other type? The one who really believes in the rigthness of doing anything to anyone in the name of whatever end (“the public good,” “society,” “the children,” “keeping us safe”)….. those people make me want to head for the hills!
Dear Eric,
Exactly the way I feel.
If the tyrant victimizing you acknowledges the truth by winking at you, it’s still bad, but not quite as bad.
At least he doesn’t make you feel like the whole world has gone mad.
At least you know he is merely playing a cynical game, and that he affirms your perception of reality.
Then there is the “Judge Dread” type. He is the law. His lesser brother is officer Cartman who wants his authoritah respected. I’ve run into them a few times.
Then there is Officer mafioso, he wants you to submit so nothin’ bad will happen to you, capiche? I’ve run into him as well.
Then there’s the bureaucrat. He does his job. He may have no real joy in it or believe the propaganda, the can even upset him at times or he may really like it, but he does what he is told to do. He has performance objectives. Sometimes he likes the power sometimes he doesn’t. (the cop in the story is probably 90% bureaucrat, 10% Dread)
Most cops are mixtures. The least common IME experience is any sort of Andy Taylor traits. Encountered that once. Guy was 50% Andy, 50% bureaucrat IMO.
What I would like to know,are cops reading these posts ? And if they are,I wonder what they’re thinking ?
Well, I’m sure someone else reads the posts to them, since very few cops are capable of fundamental literacy skills. As for what they’re “thinking,” to the extent that cops “think” at all, their reaction to our posts is probably summed up by the following:
“Don’t you fucking disrespect me, you fucking turd! So help me, I’ll beat the shit out of you and taze you next time I see you!”
Or something like that.
This is why cops REFUSE to engage in conversation or debate and simply go for the physical violence instead, which explains why they’re never without their weapons or out of range of “backup.” Almost none of them are capable of either empathy or critical thought. A disarmed cop is essentially a brainless, defenseless eunuch.
That reminds me of something I overheard many years ago, in a police station in England. Someone filling out a report called out, “How do you spell ‘lacerations’? Oh, never mind, I’ll just put ‘cuts'”.
That may have been illiterate, but it wasn’t stupid.
I never understand why people equate spelling with literacy and intelligence. It is a separate skill, mostly memorization, that has no bearing on either.
I am a very poor speller. Have been since I was a child. However, I did very well on standardized tests for spelling. Why? to be machine gradable they would ask which of the words was misspelled or which one was spelled correctly. Well I can’t spell for shit but I sure can tell when it’s wrong. Why? literacy. I know what is correct when I see it. I just can’t remember what that is when I have to spell it on demand.
My wife is Japanese. Her and my daughter both speak it in the home. My Japanese is obnoxiously bad, but I am a spelling wiz in Japanese. It’s almost impossible to spell a Japanese word wrong. Get this, you know why! Because every word is spelled exactly as it sounds. Imagine that.
My ability in Japanese when at its peak consisted of the socially useless ability to read parts of engineering drawings. I couldn’t speak or even know the words, I just knew what the symbols meant.
So if you wanted to know what hardness the steel was supposed to be… I could tell you 😉
I really should get back into practice on that.
PS: people have probably noticed when I post here without spell check 🙂
The basic alphabet (Hiragana & Katakana) ain’t so bad. I had both memorized for a bit. Not so much anymore. But the Kanji.. Forget about it! Sometimes I read books to my daughter with no problems, but don’t understand what the hell I’m reading! ha
Hiragana and katakana aren’t so bad. Kanji? Fugediboutit!
Ah Ee Uu Eh Oh
Ka Ki Ku Ke Ko
….
The ability to think critically is the thing that counts for me as regards evaluating intelligence.
Spelling and grammar errors – as such – only indicate a deficit in those areas of knowledge, in the same way that many bright people aren’t particularly adept at higher mathematics.
However, all bright people understand – and accept – logic.
When you find yourself attempting to communicate with a person who does not accept logic – who very clearly doesn’t even comprehend the concept of logic – then you know you’ve come up against a blockhead.
Clover, for instance.
The minds of enforcers are shaped by Immanuel Kant, the central figure in modern philosophy. He is the one who ended the “crisis of the enlightenment” and negated the advances brought by Gutenberg’s press. His rationalizations for the morality of centralized power attack the internet on all sides, and will eventually bring about its subjugation and taming to be just another compliant “technology” that falls short of its promise to return reason and enlightenment to the human race.
The Kantian Enforcers allow only a narrow range of human autonomy. They argue that human understanding is the source of the general laws of nature that structure our experience; and that human reason itself provides the moral law of the majority.
That our basis for belief in God, in freedom, and the immortality of creeds and nationalities are all equivalent. That, therefore, scientific knowledge, morality, and religious belief are mutually consistent and secure because they all rest on the same foundation of beneficially limited human autonomy, which is also the final end of nature according to the teleological worldview of reflecting judgment that Kant introduces to unify the theoretical and practical parts of his philosophical system.
To the Kantian madmen, eradicating the practice of smoking worldwide or nations sending rocketships to the moon with money stolen from individuals are both man at his finest and most glorious moment.
The enlightenment was evil, sayeth Immanuel Kant, because it made philosophy enjoyable. Old men on couches having harems of adoring young groupees. Wise men enjoying banquets and libations by their adoring students. That must be stopped.
Austere forums where students endure dry long painful speeches. Ascetic monk professors who labor over tomes of books and eat crusts of bread in spartan mausoleum colleges. Segregated from youth and beauty and joy. Only that can be rightly called philosophy.
We must make mythical supermen who have no need of earthly pleasures and human contact and association. It’s not just the ideas of Ron Paul that are so attractive. It’s his moral superiority, his super-goodness and imperviousness to temptation that really sells his ideas.
I am weak and imperfect, thinks the 20 year old. I will be an acolyte of a 70 year old man, and I will transcend the ways of the flesh and the indignities of youth. I want to be a doctor and perfection itself.
That’s what’s wrong with America, say the Kantian Lemmings who follow Ron Paul for the purpose of self-denial. If we all had the restraint and wisdom of 70 year olds, we wouldn’t be in the mess we are in. I will throw away my chance for a full life, and fast-forward my development. I will live as a 70 year old right now at the age of 20, and do so for 50 years, and expect that everyone else do the same.
Somewhere a corpse grins a bony grin. The message of voluntaryism gets a Tavistock push into a kindler gentler American version of the message of the Ayatollah & the Priest.
They use the same excuses for their desire to rein in the internet as they do with guns: “reasonable” controls. Reasonable? To whom? To them must likely because WE don’t matter. When the hoipoloi get up in arms they pooh-pooh and cluck their tongues at us in consternation. But they don’t actually step back to where they began, that’d be verboten, no they come back to that first millimeter gained and back no further. And then the cycle repeats. I’m reminded by my old mans “solution” to government “They oughta line them all up and gun em down”. Wow! To my teenage, public-skrewl, hive-mind, that was so over the top I didn’t know what to say. Fast forward well over thirty years later and I’m beginning to sound just like him.
The owners of the servers and networks? The builders of the internet and the www? The software and protocol developers? The creators of content?
Those are all flawed human beings. No one of them can see the whole picture, can control it all and make it “serve” the greater good.
They have made a great beginning, but now must yield to the higher powers, the experts who will deliver a great interconnected future for all 7 billion Earthlings. This great resource must truly achieve it’s potential to become the World’s Web, for all of humanity.
There is too much hate speech. There is too much inequality. There are too many victims of a rogue unruly wilderness. The Enforcers will bring justice, and fairness, and provide access to all earthlings, not only the privileged ones in wealthy nations. They will bring light to the dark places, and discourage the lies and promote the truth. A safe place for sharing will be made for both young and old, and for all creeds and all races, an internet for all of humanity for all time.
But will they make time to squeeze in the “two minute hate”?
Two Minutes Hate Against Ron Paul
http://www.youtu.be/F5SbWHQ0uZg
We must hate this doubleplusungood Oldthinker who wanted us to surrender the war against Eurasia. He unbellyfeels Ingsoc and must be locked away for all his treasonmonger and crimethink.
Eric Blair’s(George Orwell) final warning to us in a 2003 documentary.
http://www.youtu.be/JXm5hklbBsA
“This is the direction the world is going in at the present time. In our world, there will be no emotions except rage, fear, triumph, and self-abasement. The sex instinct will be eradicated. We shall abolish the orgasm..Always at every moment there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless..A boot stamping on a human face forever.”
# Eric looks directly into the camera #
“The moral is – Don’t Let It Happen. It Depends On You!”
Tor, you are spot on in your assessment of Kant and his influence. By reviving and popularizing Plato’s parable of the cave, he provided the wedge that keeps the vast majority under the thumbs of the ruling class: you can’t really be sure of your senses or your judgments, so you have to rely on those who do see and think clearly, those outside the cave.
Kant’s philosophy is the reason behind the apparent arrogance of the Progressive movement. Those people really do think that they see things clearly while the rest of us do not. It is only natural for them to conclude they we will be better off if we do what they tell us to do, and that if left alone we will make self-destructive choices. Hence, their endless meddling in every aspect of our lives. For our own good. And for the sake of the children. They really believe this stuff deep down in their being. It is a religious type of belief; hence their imperviousness to facts or reason.
In one of the great ironies of all time, Kant’s “Critique of Pure Reason” was published in 1776. It has indeed destroyed the Enlightenment and if unchecked will bring about the Dark Ages again. It has already made horrifying progress toward that end.
It’s because they’re “special”, and their intentions are noble, that they chafe when we scream out at their handiwork upon us. Mengele would be proud of them.
Tor:
“Austere forums where students endure dry long painful speeches. Ascetic monk professors who labor over tomes of books and eat crusts of bread in spartan mausoleum colleges. Segregated from youth and beauty and joy. Only that can be rightly called philosophy.”
Great point. I would add that another victim of Kantian philosophy is the Local Bar.
Not that long ago people would stop in after work at bars, pubs, taverns, to hoist a few and discuss the issues of the day. (Is there anything better than an ice cold, well crafted beer at the end of the workday?)
Many different points of view would be expressed and even though sometimes the arguments could get heated people would at least interact with each other and see each others’ humanity, good or bad.
You can learn a lot about someone and how they think when they have had a few. And you could learn something about yourself as well. I have learned more about people while in bars than in any of my college “social studies” classes.
But draconian DUI laws have stopped the art of having a few.
Human interaction has been reduced thanks to MADD and other Clovers.
(Yes, I see the irony of complaining about the lack of human interaction while typing on a keyboard in an anonymous forum.)
In the Upper Midwest over half the bars have closed.
1 smoking bans. 2 Being forced to close early. 3 Being denied license renewals increasing crime 4 being denied license renewals for being nuisances
As a young kid, nearly all my time and my families time was with other families and kids. Drinking and smoking was non-stop, even while at “work.” As I get older, everything is atomized. Much of our time is spent in isolation now.
I think you’re right: the war on drugs / alcohol / smoking / driving / texting are all the same wars on person to person interaction.
The end goal must be to make USSA a type of North Korea where all interactions are with the state or are done because the state wants them to occur.
This is why I loved being in Germany and Japan… No such horse shit nonsense as being promulgated here in the American Gulag. My aunt owned a “Gasthaus” with beer on tap and fresh fixins out of their tiny, spartan, kitchen. The large room, with it’s pool table, booths, jukebox belting out the “new” ABBA and Queen tunes, pinball machines, with the smoke swirling like some sort of blue fog over everyone. It was a sort of fantasy land. And they didn’t have a TV running either! Of course, back in that day, when Bonanza was on the toob, the streets went silent.
In Japan they even had vending machines that sold beer with whiskey chasers already in the can! Nothing to stop you or I at any time of the day or night from purchasing it! And yet I never saw, not once, some drunk or kids fumbling for their yen to shove into these machines. This country with its puritanical and progressive nut-jobs? Damn them all to hell! They’ve crushed the spirit out of everything.
You’re wrong about this one “They’ve crushed the spirit out of everything.”
There is plenty of spirit in law creation, tax collection, fines, punishment, and there enforcement.
I’m an optimus what can say!
I thought those were called the Decepticons? But seeing as they’re essentially the same sort of robots I would have to agree.
In elementary school, kids are taught the feel safe around cops. They try to show children that cops are nice, that cops are the good guys.
At some point, though, everyone eventually grows a fear for cops, or maybe disrespect for them. (Or is this just me?)
If that’s the case, why do they bother trying to appease the children’s emotions in their early years? To turn in their parents to the state like 1984?
The conditioning works, Brandon. Because even though – as you note – most people are reflexively uncomfortable around cops (which ought to tell them something but doesn’t) they still reflexively accept all the dogmas about cops being “heroes” who are there to “protect” us… and implicitly accept that they must always Submit & Obey.
Critical thinking is what’s lacking. When I find it awakened – especially in the mind of a young person such as yourself – it makes my day!
In the end Eric, there will always be people who voluntarily cast themselves into the fray. We can call them “cops” or “vigilantes” or “stone cold idiots”, but they’ll always be there. We don’t know why. Perhaps we can’t know.
Here’s the thing:
I – and probably many here – find myself in the uncomfortable position of being “anti-cop” … because “cop” is no longer synonymous with peace keeper but rather with law enforcer.
I’m uncomfortable – because I’d like to support cops… if cops were peace keepers. I have no sympathy for thieves or thugs of any description and so very much support anyone who puts himself in harm’s way to thwart such.
But the ugly truth is that cops today are law enforcers first and foremost.
That they violate the rights of peaceful, harming-no-one people as a matter of routine. Which means: cops are thugs – acting under color of “the law.”
I daresay no one here ought to have any reason to fear peace officers. But I bet most of us fear cops – or at least, feel very ill-at-ease when one is nearby.
Precisely because they are law enforcers.
I understand your position; there is a difference between a peace officer and a law enforcement officer. Unfortunately there’s no difference in job description these days.
If you want to be a peace officer you can expect no pay. Peace Officers don’t draw a salary anymore. If you’d like money, you become a Law Enforcement Officer.
Don’t like cops? The problem is easily solved; stop paying cops. Start paying Peace Officers.
I QUIT my job as a Peace Officer last year because some dip decided to start charging people for my work. I worked for free.
It’s people just like your readers that can make a difference; Stop Paying Them!
Please.
“Don’t like cops? The problem is easily solved; stop paying cops. Start paying Peace Officers.”
It’s what we’re working toward… first step on the path is to de-legitimize law enforcement. To re-orient people’s minds so that they see – and accept – the core principle: No victim, no crime. Leave peaceful, harming-no-one people alone. Even if you personally don’t agree with what they’re doing (such as smoking pot or having multiple wives or having sex with the same sex or driving faster than you are comfortable driving or not wearing their seatbelt… etc.) Check personal beliefs at the door. Live – and let live.
If someone’s causing (or has caused) someone injury, that’s another thing. But it’s also the only thing.
Most people become cops today because they desire a short-cut to power.
In all societies hierarchies exist. There are two kinds: natural aristocracies, where people rise in social power due to the acclamation of their superior wisdom, or political hierarchies where people attain social power simply due to their credentials, badges, or job title.
We now have a near-total political hierarchy, so people with badges automatically command obedience (or you will be beaten, shot, tazed, under color of law). This power appeals to many people, especially those with sociopathic tendencies.
This is why most cops scare us. We aren’t stupid.
eric’s comment at 12:29 pm – I would like to have that printed in my local paper.
That’s most everything in a nutshell, eh?
Where’s my Easy Button?
Well put. And yes, I fear them simply because they have become revenue collectors and any one of them can complicate my harmless life any time s/he wants to.
tgsam
Yup –
It’s enraging to know you’ve harmed no one – yet some costumed thug is able exercise authority over you. I know I harp on this a lot, but the seatbelt thing is the reductio ad absurdum of this business. A society that allows this – allows men with guns to threaten peaceful citizens with lethal violence for electing not to wear a seatbelt is a society not far from mandatory “physical jerks” (as Orwell put it) in the morning in front of the TeleScreen… and much worse besides.
Yup. Officer Friendly is anything but. At the public school my daughter used to go to before we put her in private school, there was a cop who’d come eat lunch with the kids. Indoctrination in the classroom and the cafeteria. The kids never seemed to get a break from it.
She used to say that he was so nice and, although my kids know daddy’s ire for cops, that he was a good one. I explained to them how any cop which carries a gun, a taser, a club, and handcuffs and has written even one speeding ticket and consider’s it his job to “enforce the law” regardless of its morality is not a good person otherwise they wouldn’t be a cop.
Wow… he sat with them at the table? That’s an interesting strategy… Maybe it teaches them to hold their thoughts, as authority will always be there to hear/observe.
@Eric
Thank you for the kind response. Raised my mood:)
At the public school my daughter used to go to before we put her in private school, there was a cop who’d come eat lunch with the kids. Indoctrination in the classroom and the cafeteria. The kids never seemed to get a break from it.
Sadly, even many private schools are infected with this shit now, with “Christian” schools run by evangelical Protestant denominations being the very worst offenders. My grandson’s school in the Deep South is one such misguided institution.
It truly, constantly grates on me. I cannot wait for the day when a congregation full of such evangelicals finds itself terrorized one Sunday morning by a thugswarm of SWATards. Maybe then those dimwits will get the message that Officer Friendly ain’t your friend!
Drink driving laws and enforcement have very little to do with road safety. The real purpose of drink driving laws is to give police increased pretexts to stop people for no reason, to condition the public to accept more intrusions on civil liberties (more arbitrary stop-and-search, more checkpoints etc.), and it is also about negative attitudes towards alcohol consumption and taxing drinkers.
First they came for those who have a few drinks before heading home, and because I seldom did so I said nothing. It’s too late Clovers. They will be coming for you, and alas, there is no-one left to speak for you.
Hi Nick,
Yup – I’ve been ranting about this for years, literally. The DUI “checkpoints” normalized everything we have to deal with today; enshrined the idea of prior restraint and eviscerated the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.
“Law and order” Republicans are especially guilty for having supported these affronts.
Hi Eric,
I find that I increasingly avoid doing things like going out for dinner or staying out late simply because I get tired of having to run the gauntlet of the Highway Gestapo. It is easy to look back fondly on times past when we were at least slightly freer to go about our business unmolested.
The Clovers of the world can only ever see that ‘we need to get the drunks off the road’. They don’t see that once a precedent is set, it inevitably expands into other areas. Once you concede the point that police can stop anyone without reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing, and subject them to invasive screening of their physiological state, well then it’s all over. You cannot object to any other invasion of our rights or privacy. The elites and those in power understand that principles are at stake. But most of the sheeple will never get it.
“I find that I increasingly avoid doing things like going out for dinner or staying out late simply because I get tired of having to run the gauntlet of the Highway Gestapo. It is easy to look back fondly on times past when we were at least slightly freer to go about our business unmolested. ”
Me too, Nick…
I continue to be amazed – and depressed by – the inability of Clovers to grasp the principle at issue – and the inevitability of future events based on the precedent set.
The core problem is not stupidity, though. It is a populace rendered incapable of critical thinking by government schools. This is the key to – well, everything.
Eric,
I have a friend who lives in New Jersey (ugh!)where I tell him there are “local yokels” with radar guns behind every billboard and overpass.I’m in PA where it’s only slightly better because the township law enforcement can’t use radar so they time you between the ugly white lines they paint on the road.
Anyway, my friend absolutely does not consume alcohol ever. He does, however, participate in karaoke (arguably worse than alcoholism) 2 nights per week. One evening, he left the bar just after midnight and was promptly pulled over by Johnny Law who was camped out across the street. The cop quickly became frustrated and asked my buddy why he would go to a bar if he’s not going to drink. When he asked the officer why he was pulled over in the first place, he responded, “because you were driving close to the yellow line.” So now we don’t even have to cross out of our lane, just come “close” to the line to warrant detainment and interrogation by our overlords.
Yup – this sort of thing is now SOP.
It’s disgusting.
Even more so the mentality of those who spend their days enforcing it.
They’re bullies. The fact that they have official sanction changes nothing.
Two words: camera camera
“The DUI “checkpoints” normalized everything we have to deal with today; enshrined the idea of prior restraint and eviscerated the right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures.”
All true, Eric now The War on Drugs multiplies all that by a hundred. And The War on Terror multiplies that by a hundred. The Beast is insatiable…
All of these “laws” PROMISE more order by preventing the pre-existing conditions of harm (take away booze and voila, no drunk driving, take away guns and voila, no gun murders, etc.)
We know, however, that such Malum Prohibidum laws (illegal because we say so, not because they have immediate victims) produce DISorder, not order.
This is axiomatic. Force as a means inverts any outcome, such that no good can be produced by institutionalized force, which
axiomatically means the State cannot produce order, safety, health, or promote general welfare. It’s literally impossible.
Yet this wisdom is all but unknown in these times when Statism is the near-Universal religion, a death-cult underwritten by Progressive beliefs.
The Laws only beget further laws which underscore how absurd it all is. If the first “worked” then why the need for the second or third or thousandth? If the legal profession has done anything its to denude the planet of trees.
dc, “… in these times when Statism is the near-Universal religion, a death-cult underwritten by Progressive beliefs.”
Very true, Statism has become a religion. The fanatical faith people have in the absolute goodness of gubment is getting frightening. I feel like I am alive in 12th century Europe just as the Inquisition is getting started.
The governmental zealots are sharpening their tools of torture with a gleam in their eye. Maddow et al, the politicians, Blackness Inc, and the rest of the faithful Clovers are in a spiritual frenzy and are ready to spread some righteousness.
We heathens must be converted by any means necessary.
Heck you don’t even have to be driving or sleeping it off on the side of the road to get “taxed” by the highwaymen of the highway patrol. The poor politicians in Sacramento are having to dig into their previous budget surplus because more folks are obeying the parking laws: http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2013/01/28/sacramentos-parking-ticket-revenue-drops-as-more-feed-the-meter/ Seems as though those rotten, no good “law abiding” deadbeats cost the city $1.2 million in “lost revenue” by obeying the law. Maybe the Sacramento royalty will raise the parking fines another 42% and cost the city another couple of mil. HA!
Funny how you guys are ranting about being pulled over by badge boys. But not a word about the far more unconstitutional practice of road blocks to check for DUIs.
I don’t drink. “Never” drove drunk back when I did drink. And I have no problem with severe sanctions against drivers “pulled over” with BAL above .10.
But those roadblocks are Way More Unconstitutional than speeding stops. They are essentially despicable. And that’s the way I’d categorize those who participate therein.
Anti-cop rants will have a lot more credibility if they bitch less about smaller infringements, and focus more on the major atrocities.
“But not a word about the far more unconstitutional practice of road blocks to check for DUIs.”
Now Mike, you know that doesn’t include me!
Sorry MikePizzo, but there’s already a discussion on such a thing:
http://ericpetersautos.com/2010/11/17/dealing-with-holiday-roadblocks
I’m sure there’s more.
MikePizzo might be surprised to learn he is convincing men to drive drunk when he says, “And I have no problem with severe sanctions against drivers “pulled over” with BAL above .10.”
Here’s the reason that is:
How To Convince Men To Drive Drunk
http://www.lewrockwell.com/crovelli/crovelli28.html
Might also want to check out, Prohibiting Drunk Driving Is Not Self-Defense
I didn’t see the other links above, pardon the extra.
I was cruisin down our local highway one morning and bam, there’s a sherriff on my ass. I look at the speedo and I’m going around 63 (55 limit). I back off just a little and sure enough, he lights me up.
You know why I stopped you?
No.
You were doing 74, License, reg
Comes back and says, since it’s the holidays, I’m feeling festive and I’ll let you go.
Clearly, He lied about my speed and was obviously fishing for a warrant. What a douche. All about social intimadation and revenue extraction. Man I love living in a free country.
These bastards can pull you over ANYTIME THEY WANT. With speed limits, traffic laws, the basic rule, seat belt laws, alcohol laws, registration tags, DEQ stickers, light bulb requirements, etc., etc., NOTHING stops THEM from stopping YOU any time they want and it can be purely capricious. It’s like a roving band of Nazi assholes driving around with guns and attitude.
This is why justice DEMANDS an honest cop but you just can’t find one because the power they have corrupts them. It’s like any dictator in his fiefdom, he’s going to act on whims. Think of the reprobate, loser sons of Sadam Hussein and how they acted while those MFers were alive.
The police power is simply out of control. These bastards are SUPPOSED to be public servants (what a joke!) and should be subject to retention review by an independent, CITIZEN watch group made up of people like those of us on this web site who give a shit and understand the potential for abuse inherent in this system.
Then, office Butkiss from the interview above spews his mindless drivel about speed limits and how he basically tickets people whenever in the hell he feels like it and WE fire his ass because he’s too damn dumb to have so much power!
It was probably 15 years ago or so that I first posed that underposted speed limits and other traffic laws were designed to pull over anyone at any time. If you’re going the speed limit you’re driving suspiciously slow. If you’re driving close to the mean speed or even somewhat below it, you’re ‘speeding’. Of course now that pretext is all but gone. They just use checkpoints and make stuff up.
Of a piece with this is the practice – apparently now common – of arresting people who are trying to “sleep it off” in their cars.
You can’t win. Might as well drive drunk.
You can’t win. Might as well drive drunk.
On that subject, if you haven’t done so already (you probably have, but for the benefit of readers who haven’t), check out what regular LRC contributor Mark Crovelli has to say here, here, here,here, and here.
DUI laws exist b/c drunk people make bad decisions, like thinking they can drive.
If one decides not to drive because he doesn’t want a DUI, that would be a good decision, that he aint gonna make, ’cause he’s drunk!
If you make such a good decision, then you’re probably fine to drive.
The whole thing is an exercise in idiocy; like everything the govt does.
Good Critical Thinking by Crovelli.
If they don’t expect you to drink and drive, why do bars have parking lots?
This is why justice DEMANDS an honest cop but you just can’t find one
The term “honest cop” is as much of an oxymoron (and physical impossibility) as “virgin whore.”
Correct. Their job is to enforce the law, not judge it’s morality. 99% of all laws that they enforce violate our rights.
No such thing as a moral cop so no such thing as an honest cop.
The modern concept of “police” didn’t exist until a little over 100 years ago. Prior to that, people in society recognized their role in maintaining order.
By “professionalizing” the maintenance of order, paradoxically we get more disorder. The State, and its agents, are by definition creators of disorder…an axiom that appears lost to the Memory Hole today.
@dc:
The State, and its agents, are by definition creators of disorder.
Exactly right!
In fact Bevin had an entire post on the topic a while back; it’s a phenomenon the Chinese libertarian philosophers pointed out 3,000 years ago.
The State creates a culture of violence and disorder–“the fish rots from the head first”.
But of course. This only reminds me of what I’ve said in regards to 9/11: That after countless dollars, agencies, buildings, weapons, bodies here and scattered across the globe, that when it came to the defining moment where they were to be called upon THEY FAILED! And those who failed were rewarded for it. Case closed.
Dear lib,
I love political oxymorons.
One of my favorites is the Neocon term, “benevolent hegemonism”
It goes well with “congressional ethics” and “clean government.”
There’s a whole list of adjectives that, when they precede the word “government,” create the most obvious of oxymorons. The most prominent (and oft abused) among them:
– Accountable
– Just
– Legitimate
– Limited
– Representative
– Small
FREE COUNTRY
The link you posted shows 64 views. Below is a link to the same video with over 5,185,000 views. Just wanted you all to know that millions of people have viewed this video – no a measly 64 people.
Je mehr desto besser.
That video is Hollywood’s favorite bait-and-switch.
It is a sideways promotion of Statism, of “national greatness via collective efforts” (alluding to NASA, that asinine boondoggle, as a measure of greatness?!) and it ignores the single greatest threat to humanity in history, our penchant for handing mass-murder technology to the psychopaths who rule us.
Perfect analysis, dc.
The definition of a police state is one where what is legal or tolerated in practice is based on the arbitrary views of police, government bureaucrats etc., rather than on the objective letter of the written law. You increasingly have a situation where the state is criminalising more and more behaviour, and creating more burdensome regulations that are difficult to always follow to the letter. Then when people inevitably fall foul of certain laws, they have no real alternative other than to plead for leniency from the authorities.
And that is the whole point. It is to create a situation where everyone is effectively indebted to the authorities. Where everyone has no real choice but to essentially go cap in hand to the petty tyrants and say “please massa, show me some mercy”.
And naturally if the police let you off for some such minor infraction, you are less likely to make a fuss about other intrusions of state power. After all, you are in their debt now. They own you.
Dear Nick,
Nicely put.
That was worth more than a years of social studies class.
*year
You’re welcome Bevin
“The police will always be there to stop criminals because the government hates competition.”
I have often wondered that myself. To the extent that the police dislike private sector criminals, they do so because they see them as competition for the market of fleecing the wider populace, not because they care about their victims. They see rival crime syndicates that must be put out of business.
Dear Nick,
I agree. I’m not so sure about that one either.
Lew Rockwell was telling Alex Jones about some homeowner who called 911 and said an intruder was in his house.
The cops told him not to do anything, and they’d be there in 20 minutes.
The homeowner then called back and said there was no need to rush. He had already shot the intruder, so they could take their time.
The cops then told the homeowner they would be there immediately.
Those cops anyway, were probably motivated by the desire to monopolize the protection racket.
It’s why some cops harass concealed carry and open carry civilians. They want exclusivity. They want to be special. They don’t want just anybody to be able to go around armed. That dilutes their cachet.
You have to understand that a lot of young people who enter the profession (like yours truly) do so to help their fellow man. The unfortunate part is that a large number of anal-retentive types are also drawn to the profession and are promoted by the anal-retentive types that have already fought their way to the top of many of these organization.
Libertarian-type officers are usually burned out after a few years of dealing with the criminals running the place and leave the profession all together, hopefully wiser for their experience.
The biggest problem with that though is it leaves all the anal-retentive types in charge and they recruit from their own kind for the next batch of “enforcers.” Today’s batch are hired for their ability to follow orders to the letter and their low personal morality code, which means they will follow any order, including killing their fellow citizens…
No, Bevin, I think your original “yearss” (plural) of social studies classes was spot on. That one sentence really does sum it all up better than nearly 12 years (plural) of state-scripted lies fed to young detainees.
Dear lib,
LOL.
I originally wrote “six years of jr. and sr. high.”
Then decided it was too much of an exaggeration. So I changed it to one year, but forgot to remove the “s.”
Maybe I should have left it as is.
Here are the reasons we have the “Law” and why it must be creatively enforced…
http://olgreyghost.blogspot.com/2009/12/slavery-alive-well-and-perfectly-legal.html
http://olgreyghost.blogspot.com/2012/02/fighting-terrorism-by-boiling-frogs.html
OGG – I followed your links and just wanted to say that your blog is spot on. I, too, am old and grey but being about ten years younger than you, not quite a ghost yet. 😉
One of the other meanings for “ghost,” besides the disembodied spirit of a dead person, is a person who earned or was awarded a certain degree of fame or infamy for acts of bravery or bravado in his/her younger days and now in his/her “grey” years chooses to live more quietly (quiet, hell! I ain’t going away quietly!)…:)
Charles Lindbergh is a good historical example. When he died in relative obscurity in the state of Hawaii during the 1970’s, most people didn’t know that he was living in Hawaii or that he was still alive…
As I recall, Lindbergh’s fame turned to infamy when he publicly stated his views on eugenics and race that did not sit well with the prevailing notions of then (and now).
OTOH, Lindbergh married into the Parasitic Financial Aristocracy and appears to have rubbed elbows with key elements of the cabal who effected complete control over most of the world during the 20th century. This renders even his opposition to entry into WW2 suspect in my eyes.
OGG,
I served a short sentence as a deputy sheriff many years ago. (1973). It took me about a year to figure out how the game was played. I quit in disgust. I can’t imagine it has improved in the intervening years. Now old and grey myself, I find much pleasure in educating the youngsters in ways to screw with the state and fight for liberty.
Old, young or in between, this fight is worth winning…
“Old, young or in between, this fight is worth winning…”
Indeed, as the stakes are too darn high for us to lose…
http://olgreyghost.blogspot.com/2012/02/bellum-omnium-contra-omnes.html
Excellent insight Nick–just so.
And it’s precisely the same game with the “national debt”–money printed from nothing by globalist banksters, then lent with interest.
“You owe”–guilt, and perpetual enslavement to a debt none of us signed on to, a debt that does not exist.
Of course. The more the iron fist squeezes people for “offenses” the more people will snap. And the justification for the abuses soon follow whereupon they ratchet down even further and even more snap and so on and so forth.
If I’ve learned anything from clover it’s that cops are always right!
Dom,
I am sure they have special training so they can text and ride a motorcycle at the same time. The training gives the badge carriers super abilities that mere mundanes can not possess.
If you buy that I am willing to sell you a bridge at a bargain price. It is located over the east river between Brooklyn and Manhattan.
Dear dom, mith,
It was “exigent circumstances.”
I’m thinking he was initially on a call, but the situation de-escalated and he was able to handle it via text. Thank clovers he was able to save the day! This cop is just that good!
“Yeah,” as Tommy Flannigan would say, “that’s the ticket!”
Dom wrote, “This cop is just that good!”
The laughs just keep rolling out tonite. I keep getting asked what’s so funny.
Also, Bevin wrote: “Tommy Flannigan” – for a lifetime I’ve heard that saying, only Now do I know who said it. Again, thanks.
That cop isn’t as skilled as the guy in the internet classic:
BrentP,
That might be a LEO on vacation. 😉
It amazes me how he can ride and text at the same time. I do not think it is wise on his part, but I am still amazed.
He’s a skilled rider – but also a foolish one. To do that in a T shirt and street pants is really stupid. If he’d had leathers on, I’d have respect for his judgment as well as his skills!
I don’t think a cop could be that skilled riding. The lack of judgment sure, the skill is highly unlikely.
I used to have fun with my Chief when he would come in on Tuesday morning after a city council meeting the evening before…
“The council members want you guys to write more tickets!”
“You know, Chief, I live in this town, too, and I would like to know where all these dangerous drivers are that the council wants us to ticket.”
“You know why they want you to write more tickets,” he would growl.
“At the academy we were taught that we write tickets to promote roadway safety. Why does the council want us to write more than just the amount to promote safety?”
“You need to quit playing dumb or you can find another job…”
He couldn’t fire me but he would always imply that he could. As General Butler discovered that “War is a Racket,” I discovered that Law Enforcement was also a racket meant to raise more money for our benevolent government officials to spend on their favorite projects.
This also fits into their reason to declare war on Americans who own guns and know how to use them…
http://olgreyghost.blogspot.com/2013/01/upgrading-our-societal-default-setting.html
“The police will always be there to stop criminals because the government hates competition.”
Aha! So, the Emperor really is naked.
tgsam
That last sentence reads like something Mencken would say.
It’s getting worse and the real concern is obviously revenue collection by outrageous fining. Unfortunately, a transfer of funds does absolutely nothing for the economy. America, home of the slave and the fee.
Long ago I championed so-called Law and Order. Today I fear and hate agents of government more than I fear and hate the private sector criminals. With a little luck I might not go to prison for shooting a private sector thief or attacker.
Gawd, how I hate human predators and parasites.
Tinsley Grey Sammons (1936 –)
Dear Tinsley,
Long ago I championed so-called Law and Order.
Ditto. I used to write things like “We need the Rule of Law, not the arbitrary Rule of Men.”
Then it dawned on me that the Rule of Law is the arbitrary Rule of Men — Lawmen.
There is no legal redress within a system of “limited government.”
Limited government is a utopian concept. Government refuses to be limited. Limited government is merely totalitarianism in its embryonic stage.
Keeping it simple.
“Limited government is merely totalitarianism in its embryonic stage.”
A Keeper. Is it a Bevin original?
tgsam
Dear Tinsley,
Thanks!
As far as I know, it is a Bevin original. For what it’s worth.
It sort of grew out of a short article I posted a while back.
Populism, Plutocracy, and Oligarchy: The Fulfillment, not Betrayal of Democracy
Bevin Chu
September 30, 2007
http://thechinadesk.blogspot.tw/2007/09/populism-plutocracy-and-oligarchy.html
I’d go a different route: Democracy is the apotheosis of institutionalized slavery (the State), where instead of having to rule each man and woman slave by brute force, the putative “owners” (Charles Hugh Smith’s “parasitic financial aristocracy”) convinced the slaves to chain their own wrists and whip their fellow slaves for “being uppity.”
No need to pay for as many Overseers when the slaves are duped into believing their periodic vote affects the condition of their servitude.
Dear dc,
I’ll add it to my quotes list, credited to you of course.
Thanks, Bevin.
I thoroughly enjoy the like-mindedness I encounter among those who frequent Eric’s blog.
He’s attracting a good crowd, in my opinion.
David Calderwood
Dear dc,
Eric is doing a terrific job of rallying the troops.
Why has he been able to do so?
The answer is surprisingly simple. It’s because he has taken a principled stand.
As far gone as Amerika is, a “Remnant” still retains the ability to distinguish principles from platitudes.
Many of them have stumbled across Eric’s site, an oasis in a political desert, and decide to rest in the shade for a while.
Going through such ritual motions as voting merely adds a layer of hypocritical pretense to the process. –Bevin Chu
Amen to that.
Tinsley Grey Sammons (1936 –)
Limited government is like limited cancer.
Dear MoT,
That’s good too.
I’m going to add that to my list, attributed to you.
Minarchism Always Becomes Maxarchism
http://thechinadesk.blogspot.tw/2013/01/minarchism-always-becomes-maxarchism.html
I suppose it’s important to note that in any health regimen that you don’t simply jump up out of your seat and run a Marathon when you’ve never done so before. Even walking gets you to your goal. Same as in how to deal with cancer, or government. You KNOW it wants to kill you so you get rid of those foods and lifestyle choices that put you into this position and then work towards eating right and taking proactive action on our own rather than being led by the hand by our “government clinicians” and their prescriptions. Because they’ll practice their “government” on you at your expense.
@ MoT
You can have limited cancer; I help chop out stage Ia lung cancers everyday, and this type rarely returns. The take home is always that you have a chance to survive if you eliminate a horrible thing early enough. Government is presently in the metastatic stage, the stage of no return; it needs hospice, but they insist on trying every experimental drug to prolong the inevitable end.
—Jacob
Jacob, thanks for the reply. I suppose, in my typically cynical way of looking at things, I was pointing out that you don’t just “live and let live” with what intends to kill you. You either “cut it out and kill it”, or take an alternative tack (I have a friend whose daughter was essentially given a death sentence, thanks to chemotherapy, told to make funeral arrangements, and then went on an all natural diet and is completely “clean” now. Docs were in complete bewilderment as to why. Really?) before it kills you. Because it WANTS to kill you. The same for government.
@MoT:
A recent land-mine study in the journal Cancer Cell showed what any idiot observing oncology the last thirty years could have told you…
Chemotherapy not only doesn’t work, it makes it WORSE!
As you said–Really? 🙂
Read G Edward Griffin’s A World Without Cancer; it’s an eye-opener.
Methyl, Something I learned but never confirmed is that with chemo baking soda is used to buffer the toxic chemicals. However baking soda is thought to be toxic to cancer cells. Also nobody ever did a study to find out what may be doing the work in chemo. That essentially a treatment of cheap and harmless baking soda could be effective.
Do you know anything regarding it?
Brent, it’s incredible but there have been people who have had sodium bicarbonate “treatments” and seen their cancers vanish. Honest to god. Many believe it’s an alkaline/acid PH balance in our bodies that is out of whack. A friend of our family in Japan was given a few months to live after being diagnosed with cancers that appeared in her breast and elsewhere. The “treatments” were killing her. So she took another path and chose something that even I thought was bizarre… being treated with microwaves, and she is now clean! I was stunned. She’s now well past the point of where she’s supposed to be in the ground. And she’s the very one that pointed us towards baking soda. Irony of ironies that years ago we sent her books on alternative cancer therapies so she would be encouraged and not give up hope. I’ve seen so many men and women (two in my own immediate family, my mom and sister) get eaten up by this shit that it boils my blood.
@BrentP:
I’ve heard of it but not researched it (sodium bicarb).
There are many metabolic peculiarities unique to cancer cells; odd pH balance being one of them, so the bicarb idea seems reasonable.
Chief among the oddities is that cancer cells are fermentative–they metabolize strictly by Kreb’s and don’t use oxidative phosphorylation.
There’s a chemical that blocks Kreb’s–among many others–called DCA…di-chloro acetic acid. Butt-simple, dirt-cheap, very promising, not patentable.
Many terminal patients were using it with good results; the FDA sued them. It went to the “supreme” court–and that august body told the dying cancer patients they weren’t “allowed” to use DCA. Because the FDA said so.
Laetrile, AKA the nitriloside extract of many pitted fruits especially apricot seeds, is extremely promising and is the subject of that Griffin book. I take 15-20 seeds a day as a preventative measure.
There are many, many others; mostly aimed at killing cancer by depriving it of sugar via ketogenic (primal, atkin’s) diets and strengthening the immune system.
The dirty secret is, we ALL have cancer, ALL the time; your immune system kills it before it’s past a few cells.
Kill the immune system–with toxins, vaccines, and poor diet–and you get cancer.
@Meth… I’m going to look into that laetrile that you mention. Especially something for the wife. Seeds? Tell me more or PM me.
@MoT:
G Edward Griffin, World Without Cancer, is where I learned about laetrile.
It was investigated in the 70’s, and the establishment at Hopkins conspired to kill it. The book is that story, and a lot more.
Joel Wallach of Youngevity has a lot to say about selenium and cancer, too. His approach is entirely nutritional.
Dr. Burzinski right here in Houston offers excellent therapy. So good, in fact, the FDA spent 14 years trying to shut him down–while they schemed to patent around his patents!
His story is even more interesting than the laetrile saga.
Suffice it to say–I’d never let myself or a friend or family go through the standard “cut, burn, and poison” scam!
@MoT:
One more thing–except for someone like Burzynski who’s got the stamina to fight the club FDA–forget about getting non-standard treatment in the Land of the Free.
A few of the promising treatments started here–and hounded out by the FDA–have opened clinics in Mexico and elsewhere. Worth looking at.
@Meth… Good links. It’s about prevention for us. After all of the years have passed, and seeing both my mother and sister end up looking like concentration camp victims, I’ve vowed never to end up like that. Our American diet has been poisoned to the point of absurdity. They should rename it the Pyramid of Poison. I won’t rant further. Over and out.
@MoT:
No problem. Yeah–I’m watching my sister’s mother-in-law waste away. The sad thing is, they wouldn’t hear anything from me…I’m that “conspiracy theorist”.
She’s in hospice care now.
What frustrates me is that cancers are up across the board–dramatically so! Childhood cancer especially; they used to be so rare they’d fly medical residents in to see them. WHY?? Shouldn’t we be talking about why there’s 30x as much breast cancer?
But no–that doesn’t suit the Elite’s dialogue. They’re busy killing us, no point in talking prevention!
@Brent Methyl Mot
I did a little designing of certain radiation equipment and though I’ve heard of people it helped, I have my doubts I’d use it myself.
Many people speculate that Fungus and human DNA can exchange and that cross of parasite in a human cell creates a broken Krebs version of cancer cell. The causal connection between sugar and fungus and cancer is well established. Though most cancer specialist will deny that indeed a cancer cell is actually fungus what they don’t deny is that some DNA of fungus might enter into a human cell an cause malignancy.
Personally if I had cancer I’d opt to get as much of it chopped out with a laser as possible. Then instead of chemo, I’d buy me a hot tub or sauna. I’d press the temperature to near body fever temperatures (would require supervision from a caretaker). As cancer high temperatures is known to kill cancer much more effectively than chemo. It would be delicate though pressing into 104 F and not done right you could cook your brain.
70 some years ago they found that cancer would regress when a bacterial infection insued in a cancer victim. Basically it was shown that by introducing a chronic strep bacterial infection cancer would totally disappear in 80% of victims. Many speculated at this time that the bacteria stimulated a immune response including fever that most often times eliminated the cancer all together. Once chemo came on the scene though most doctors moved away from this proven treatment. Many concerned that by injecting the body with another pathogen such as strep violated their hypocratic oath to do no further harm. But then it became hypocrisy instead when they irradiated and chemically nuked the body instead.
Actually what I was alluding to was hypthermia treatment of cancer. Microwaves and RF are often used to focus on cancer cells by heating the tissue infected with cancer using microwave (deep tissue) tumors respond by shrinking. But the secret I believe is just elecated temperatures. Cancer cells because of their broken Krebs cycle have a voracious appetite for fuel and oxygen. To supply cancer the fuel the body thinking that it has a problem of lack of these material will often build a larger network of veins to the cancer cells.
Like any other exothermic chemical reaction when you add fuel and oxygen the outcome is excess localized heat. Therefore by elevating the body temperature to 104F the cancer cells running much higher burn rate and temperatures die first.
Also I’ve provided a link to the research of bacterial infection curing cancer (Coley’s Toxins):
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1888599/
dammit, mispellings, capitals where I didn’t want them, bad grammar. BTW I meant hyperthermia instead of the mispelling, I’m trying to give as much info as possible and still work on my products. I don’t mean to sound ignoramus by my choice of poor wording and grammar though.
What I think is most interesting is that with all the alternatives, the status-quo defenders say they are all trying to rip people off, make money off them.
Well, what is the current order doing? It is so money grubbing it uses the FDA to block anything it can’t make money off of. Yet, we aren’t supposed to even consider the ideas of anyone else for they might make some money off it.
@Hot Rod–
Yeah, I do remember something about the sepsis-killing-cancer theory. I didn’t know it had been practiced! Amazing how fast the medical establishment shoves unprofitable treatments in the memory hole.
Keep in mind Kreb’s is anaerobic; and it’s highly inefficient. Thus the elevated temperature probably stresses them past their energy-production ability.
Yeah…fungi hate high temperatures. It’s theorized that’s one reason we mammals run high constant temperatures.
Never heard the fungal/human cell hybrid theory but it’s fascinating. I’ll have to do some reading.
One other theory is that all cancers are trophoblast cells–essentially stem cells–that are normally used by the body to repair damaged tissue, but go wild and produce cancer. That implies all cancers have a common genesis…
“What I think is most interesting is that with all the alternatives, the status-quo defenders say they are all trying to rip people off, make money off them.”
@BrentP
Excellent words. I agree there is nothing more more insane for a logical mind than when a scientific field becomes dominated by manager crooks. You know what I’m talking about being an engineer that actually makes things. The manager who always has to argue with you just to one up you and spite you, though he has a degree in history. I’ve found that the only way to get this dumb bastards to do the right thing is to make them think the right way was their idea to start with. Its really not that hard, but it does drive up their ego. Same is true in the medical profession as the politicians always strangle out the productive. Hence why we as individuals have to try to sift through the garbage when it comes to our own health. We may be totally wrong as division of labor isn’t on our side and it would make economic sense to allow dedicated professional in a true marketplace to focus on one thing and become the best at it. Until government or the miniverse of it gets involved in “professions” which then turns everything upside down again. Then its everyman for himself with his own health. Fortunately, the internet is providing alternative views and thoughts, they maybe wrong as hell but hopefully a logical mind can narrow it down to a few plausible answers.
@Methyl
“Keep in mind Kreb’s is anaerobic; and it’s highly inefficient. Thus the elevated temperature probably stresses them past their energy-production ability.”
You are correct its anerobic and inefficient, however it does require oxygen in its electron transport. Many people don’t understand this but you can literally kill cancer cells by decreasing the oxygen delivery to them, despite you being correct that its anerobic (lactic acid producing cycle). Many blood thinners and I believe vitamin A and Beta Carotene can starve the blood flow of both oxygen and fuel to the cancer cell therefore making it hard for the cancer to grow. Carrots are high in beta carotene by the way more on that later.
“Never heard the fungal/human cell hybrid theory but it’s fascinating. I’ll have to do some reading.”
Well its interesting because I’m no doctor but bacteria for example can become resistant to antibiotics by “jumping genes”. It requires no sexual contact or reproduction. The bacteria simple hand over succesfull genes to another struggling bacteria and the ailing bacteria gets an update in DNA code. Look up bacteria transmutation and jumping genes and it will throw your head into a tizzy that if a backward parasite can do this than higher evolved life probably also has various and more efficient ways of doing the same thing. The problem with fungal cells is they are very close to the human cell and vice versa. Step and point is why antibiotics work well for both of us in destroying our bacterial nemesis without doing damage to either fungus or human cell. But fungus will also respond to human hormones and steroids and vice versa. So you got the potential for fungus to damage the human cells, the human body responds by more steroids trying to outgrow the infection, but the fungus responds well to the steroid and a reproductive race results. Vice versa fungus produces growth hormone that human cells respond to. Remember that certain fungal cells can use the Krebs cycle to ferment. The idea is that one theory is that either a fungal gene is transfered to a human cell that transforms it into a Krebs cycle. Or maybe a fungal parasite is able to drill into the human cell and basically damage and take control of the cell. The latter case that everytime the cell reproduces that the invader is also able to multiple in the new offspring.
“One other theory is that all cancers are trophoblast cells–essentially stem cells–that are normally used by the body to repair damaged tissue, but go wild and produce cancer. That implies all cancers have a common genesis…”
I hear you and as you know that most cells have a Hayflick Limit. The telomeres (shoe lace nucleotide tips) keep getting shorter with every multiplication until the strands of DNA become totally unravelled and the cell dies. The Hayflick limit is there to keep a bad cell from going nuclear and becoming cancerous if damaged. But suppose like you said that a immoral stem cell that keeps adding the telomeres with each multiplication and thus has no Hayflick limit somehow gets corrupted, then you can have a cancerous cell divide infineum. This would mean that if a fungal predator or gene transfer was involved that it would have to affect the type of stem cell you are talking about. Not too unlikely since they are distributed throughout the body.
Again I’m not sure that all cancer is going to be fungal transmutation or invasion, but there is a high correlation of fungus in cancer victims. Whether that is cause or effect is to be debated. Interestingly, that the baking soda cure that one doctor uses to eliminate cancer tumors claimed that cancer causing fungus is killed by contact with baking soda. He lost his medical license though he claimed excellent results in curing cancer victims with a baking soda on tumor contact. Doesn’t mean he was right, but like BrentP said if a cure doesn’t have an instant profit motivation you can be sure the FDA and pharmies will try to squelch that one.
Anyway, a possible reason carrot juice and garlic have been known to help cancer victims? Both are antifungicides as well as blood thinners.
I’m no doctor so take into account this is nothing more than my own self education and opinion.
@Methyl
I just was brainstorming about what you said about stem cells and kind of married that with gene therapy (gene jumping- transumtation) in my own mind. I was thinking that the idea of the dispersed stem cells is that they can become any other kind of cell when needed. So they could become a heart cell, a skin cell, eye tissue cell, etc. Therefore, there must be some kind of communication with neighboring cells (gene therapy or information transfer) what cell the stem should be converted to upon demand of damaged tissue. One could see this as a pathway for maybe a fungus cell growing nearby to somehow transpose its genetic material (transmutate the cell with its own DNA)? Anyway that would combine the immortal aspect as it would involve the stem cells and at the same time provide an open pathway of insertion of DNA code from an invader? Just all speculation, but one can see that there must be a communication between neigboring cells going into converting the general stem cell to various other kinds of cells when needed. What if that pathway gets polluted by an invader (fungus)? Could this be like jumping genes?
HR, one of the early bosses I had in my career would work me in a circle. I would suggest a solution, he would have me work on his idea, then his next idea, then another, then back to the one I suggested in the first place. So I stopped making suggestions. Guess what? He would then suggest what I would have done first thing. The guy wasn’t dumb, just enjoyed these stupid games. When I stopped playing he had no other choice but to allow me to get the job done.
America The Prostrate
In a simplistic sort of way,
across a desert lit by the moon.
America lay prostrate,
lulled by prosperity’s tune.
Beautiful thing in a world gone mad,
everyone knows the lies being spoke.
They spill from the mouths of bankrupt souls,
leaderless people, morally broke.
The globe spins on, a compact disc,
television soothes the planet.
Hard drives quietly think away,
politicians run the gamut.
Prostrate pricks, sucking away,
at America’s aging tit.
Pay up now, or go to jail,
they care less, how you take the hit.
They act as if it will never end,
The Nazis felt much the same.
Fortify your home, your town,
these criminals have no real shame.
The knock on the door will surely come,
midnight terror of the state.
Theft, lies, fraud and deceit,
social incubators of pure hate.
Hang from a rope, they surely will,
these prophets of civic duty.
After the riots, the deaths, the trials,
before these pirates split the booty.
RJ O’Guillory
Author-
Webster Groves-The Life of an Insane Family
Limited government is merely totalitarianism in its embryonic stage.
Another home run, Bevin! And another addition to my collection of “quotable quotes” (with full attribution, of course).
Lib,
You, Bevin, Methyl, Brent – and many others who gather here – are among the best minds I’ve had the great pleasure to get to know thus far in my life. I salute you all!
Dear Eric,
Thank you Eric!
Both for the generous praise, and for “manifesting” this intellectual oasis in an endless political desert.
It has allowed everyone who has stumbled across it, to drink from the refreshing waters before returning to the fray, to do battle against creeping — nay, galloping tyranny.
I salute you!
Eric, It’s great that you put this site together. I was the ‘black sheep kook’ of a few autos forums because of the parallels I see. It’s great that you put this site together. Finally a place I can discuss these things and have people participate with ideas and solid thinking instead of reflexive name calling.
And my thanks to you, Eric, for introducing me to like-minded virtual friends…and providing an oasis of sanity for us to sharpen our wits.
It’s wonderful to know we’re not alone.
It is – almost as much fun as riding a two stroke Kaw!
I’m an almost daily reader, though I don’t comment very often. But this is one of the very few sites where the comments are generally as good as the content. (And your content is very good, Eric!). Not many others where I bother to read the “thoughts” of the commenters. A good group here. It’s nice to listen to rational, intelligent folks on the Internet for a change! Thank you all, and thank you Eric!
Thanks, Sperm – good to have you here, too!
Aw, shucks… [fade in beet red here]
Some family, friends, and colleagues might disagree with you on the “best minds” part.
Dear lib,
Coming from you, that’s high praise indeed!
Thank you!
There’s some interesting history of philosophy behind this “We need the Rule of Law, not the arbitrary Rule of Men” thing. It’s actually the triumph (but only in North America, and only by force rather than by reason) of the “measures” side in the continuing 18th and early 19th century debate in Britain, about “measures or men?”, roughly speaking between the Whigs and the Tories respectively. In Britain proper, it faded away with the understanding that you need both (of course, even having both doesn’t always succeed; it just fails less often than a pure strategy of just one or the other).
The same issues came up in Judaism, and were reflected in the teachings of the famous Rabbis Shammai (for measures) and Hillel (for men). These days, Rabbis are careful to draw on the insights of both and never to neglect either in favour of the other. (I have oversimplified a whole lot and left out a lot, of course, just to get something simple enough to serve for purposes of illustration – you can’t teach all of Talmudic scholarship in a single paragraph, or at any rate I can’t.)
And – which will probably ring bells with you, Bevin – these issues also came up in the early schools of Chinese philosophy. Similarly oversimplifying, the Legalists (for measures) came chronologically before the Confucians (for men), and in China – by and large – the consensus settled on giving up on measures and on only trying for righteous men as rulers (which they often did not get, but who could at least rise above the institutionalised measures some of the time, usually early in each dynasty). Although this didn’t endorse a mixed strategy, the rulers generally drew on the Legalists for a lot of how they implemented things.
Dear PM,
And – which will probably ring bells with you, Bevin – these issues also came up in the early schools of Chinese philosophy. Similarly oversimplifying, the Legalists
Yup.
In a way, the Legalists could be considered the first clover despots. If I remember my Chinese history lessons, they were considered the political theorists for the Qin dynasty, the most tyrannical dynasty in China’s five millennia history. Mao Zedong admired the Qin emperor. Surprise, surprise.
Fortunately, as Murray Rothbard noted, China made up for it by producing the first market anarchists as well.
Unfortunately the Daoists were never able to upt market anarchism into practice, and only developed the theory.
It is time to fulfill their dream.
….the issue is “limiting” government…not “limited” government. The concept has to be tied to an active verb, not a passive adjective….I worked for the US Department of Defense for over two decades as a “Federally Protected Whistle-Blower”…a great description of what you should be if you report fraud, waste and abuse…instead you get active harassment, systemic abuse and a process that is designed to shut people up, not create transparency…so we can create all the types of government we want…but we have to have people of ethics and integrity who agree to manage our government according to those principles…and we have to have a society that demands morals and ethics associated with proper decision making and government leadership.
Regards,
RJ O’Guillory
Author-
Webster Groves-The Life of an Insane Family
Just got a ticket in Detroit for doing 45 in a 40 at 12:38 am. Not a soul on the road. Clear night.
And since my license is a Georgia license, they held my license as bond. I have to pay $100 just to get my license back. The ticket is $120 – of course I’m going to court – for doing nothing more than driving down the street.
Of course – like the statutory reckless driving ticket I got in Eric’s good ‘ole Virgini’ – I won’t be ponying up for this frivolous citiation either. I’ll just call the DDS in Georgia and tell them I lost it and get a new one for $5.
I’m done (voluntarily) funding the mob at ALL levels.
Often what happens hen a cop gets pulled into court for the same offence is that their excues are just like yours: “The road was empty and weather was clear etc..”.
They usually get off. I doubt you’d share the same fate.
Just rent a cop uniform for court day. Could be cheaper than the ticket. Certainly worth is if not!
I couldn’t stand the thought of defiling my body and soul by donning such a costume. I’d wear a pink tutu first.
Nor I.
And here’s the troubling thing: Even those with the right mindset, who want only to be peace keepers, cannot be only peace keepers.Not if they want to stay on the job. The job requires them to enforce the law. To man arbitrary and probable cause-free checkpoints. To batter down innocent people’s doors. To threaten harming-no-one people with lethal violence for daring to assert their right to decide for themselves whether to “buckle up for safety” …
What sort of man could stomach such “work”?
Not me.
Momma’s talkin’ to me tryin’ to tell me how to live! Dununah dununah dun dun dun!
But I don’t pay attention ’cause my mind is like a sieve! Dununah dununah dun dun dun!
(Sorry, but any mention of pink tutus makes me think of that song.)
…does wearing a pink tutu get me out of the ticket..? I’m on it! Ha!…No seriously, my parents were corrupt law enforcement folks…cop and court clerk…so getting out of tickets was a learned art form for us kids…you’d mention how much respect you had for the law,…”cause your Dad was a cop”….next thing you know they would be asking about my Dad…”a big-son-of-bitch,..right?”… next thing you know, we’d be on our way! Corrupt, corrupt, corrupt…all of it..
Good luck with that. Many states have reciprocal agreements. I was once cited in SD for 81 in a 75 zone and could not renew my license in Illinois until it was cleared. It cost more for the “administrative fee” in IL to confirm it had been paid than the original ticket. I think that’s what is meant by “more efficient government.”
Dear w,
I think that’s what is meant by “more efficient government.”
Exactamundo!
Champions of “efficient government” who run around trying to eliminate “waste, fraud, and abuse” just don’t get it.
Government is not inefficient. Government has never been inefficient. Government is supremely efficient at its real role — extorting money from the public at gunpoint.
Government is only inefficient at “protecting and serving” the public. But hey, that was never its function in the first place.
and, unfortunately, I don’t think they’re going to “Get It” until (to borrow from brother Mencken) they “Get it good and hard!”
Our task is to survive to see the day.
And quite honestly, most of them deserve to “get it good and hard.”
Like you say, our task is to remain among those who are spared the ass-ramming that the majority deserves and has coming to them.
Yeah, no shit. I had an eighteen year old unpaid ticket from AZ (no proof of ins.)come and bit me in the ass when I tried to renew my CA license. Only cost me ten bucks to AZ but I had to call them and wait on hold for forty minutes. Unfuckingbelievable.
Driving in Detroit on an empty road, after midnight?
Damn, Don, you must have a death wish – or are one helluva daredevil!
Northern suburb but I make sure I keep moving. The only time I stop is if the cops stop me to confiscate my money, I mean protect and serve me.