Apparently, our money’s not enough.
They want our blood, too.
You may have heard about this. In Texas – one of America’s, uh, “freest” states – the cops have got the power to throw you over the hood of a cruiser and forcibly extract your blood if you decline to take a Breathalyzer test. After having been forced to stop for no specific reason at a “sobriety” checkpoint. Your refusal to cooperate – that is, to prove your innocence (that’s how it works in America nowadays) to the satisfaction of a cop is all the provocation necessary. Roll down your sleeve.
Or else.
Count (oops, Police Chief) Art Acevedo of the Austin PD wants to expand what had been a “pilot” program – weekends only – to a full time regular operation.
To make this routine. News story here.
Inevitably, other states will follow. Oregon already has. At some point, the Supreme Court will “affirm” the “constitutionality” of these blood draws. Why not? It has already affirmed the “constitutionality” of all sorts of obviously not constitutional practices – including the random and probable cause-bereft stopping of motorists to force them to prove they aren’t guilty of pretty much everything in the motor vehicle code (e.g., you’re forced to prove you have a license, the mandatory insurance, that your car is registered and has all the demanded stickers, that you are buckled up for “safety”, etc.). If these fishing expeditions are reasonable (as demanded by the Fourth Amendment) then what constitutes an unreasonable search?
Nominally, search warrants are still required before the syringes puncture your flesh – per a 2013 Supreme Court decision to that effect. But it’s a pro forma (read, rubber stamp) exercise. The warrants are approved reflexively, as a matter of course. Because – words of the court – refusal to voluntarily provide a sample constitutes “consciousness of guilt.”
Might as well have one of those machines – like they have at the airport long-term parking lot – that spits out the piece of paper when you push the green button. It’s not like it was back when America still had a semi, rule-of-law-wise and it was actually necessary to go before a judge or grand jury with evidence, which would be considered and which had to rise to a fairly high standard before a warrant was issued.
Ah, but this took time.
And cops – law enforcers – cannot abide this. Justice must be served piping hot and steaming fresh. Better to kick down the wrong door in the middle of the night or jab needles in the arms of “suspected” behind-the-wheel-tipplers (and tokers) than fuss with all that tiresome rule-of-law stuff.
For instance, that weird and strange idea that no person may be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself. Fifth Amendment. And as legally irrelevant today as the Fourth Amendment’s prohibition of unreasonable searches. Both very ungoodthinkful and doubleplusungood.
Our “freedoms,” you see. It’s what they hate us for.
The government, that is.
The real terrists.
Who are the enemies of our freedom.
How is this business worse than Sharia Law? Seriously. Substitute The State for Allah – and it’s the same thing. The least show of disrespect – which now includes declining to cooperate in your own railroading – will result in an ultraviolent response. Instead of ululating, you’ll hear stop resisting! … but what’s the difference?
Maybe they don’t kill you – well, not as policy (yet). But how far down the road can that be?
If you’re over 40 – and still dimly remember the America that used to be – you will no doubt marvel (despair is probably a better word) that such things are happening. Things which would have been literally not believable as recently as 20 years ago.
Cops forcibly holding you down and shoving a needle in your arm to extract your blood because you asserted your former right to not participate in your own incrimination. Of course, this is not new. It’s just that the principle has been expanded. How many decades has the Ministry of Plenty (aka the eye r s) required – under penalty of law! – that you provide them with… well, whatever they demand? That you swear – under penalty of law! – that all the information about your affairs you’re compelled to provide them with for purposes of trying and convicting you of whatever crime they choose to charge you with is without error or omission?
Keep in mind that these vampiric cops are the same cops who have already been sanctioned by the same courts to strip search you and probe your anus or vagina with their fingers following an arrest for any offense – including routine traffic offenses (Florence v. Board of Chosen Freeholders of County of Burlington, et al; see here). Remember: Arrest means they simply assert you’ve done something illegal. They do not have to prove it to arrest you. And then probe you.
Once under their power, you are – legally speaking – powerless. Even to the extent of declining to provide evidence that can and will be used against you.
And even if there is no evidence of anything “illegal.” 
Your mere refusal to play their game – to perform the roadside acrobatics, to exhale into their notoriously unreliable Breathalyzer – now constituting sufficient legal warrant to extract your bodily fluids using whatever force is necessary.
Because “exigent circumstances” – and so on.
The fools who support this do so under the delusion that since they have nothing to hide, no possible harm can come to them. What harm, after all, could possibly come from empowering the government to assault people at random, without the legal necessity of having to adduce some specific reason to suspect them of having committed a crime prior to the assault?
They are, after all, only trying to keep us safe.
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HuffPo – HuffPo! – reports police killings (that’s by police, not of police) average nearly 1 every 8 hours.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jerome-karabel/police-killings-lynchings-capital-punishment_b_8462778.html
There is some good information here, and, of course, some questionable interpretation. Of course they try to blame the prevalence of gun ownership in the US compared to other countries. And fear. But only 56 police were killed by civilians in the last year, less than 5/mo. That’s a lot less than 1 every 8 hours.
They do, probably correctly, place some of the blame on poor training of police, with emphasis on firearms training and very little on mediation, etc. But they fail to mention the increasing percentages of ‘Officer 81st Airborne’ as at least potentially contributing to the problem.
Hitler finds out Top Gear has been cancelled
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geiGm3Xi-4E
Hitler Reacts To The German People’s Car EPA Scandal
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dKef1JFpiCA
What’s wrong with doing the dishes. It can be very zen, if done right. Non-coercive equal-itarians are no problem. It’s only the ones that insist force be used to make opportunities strictly equal, that I have a huge problem with.
– –
You’re just a kid
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dEIQSbul9Os
Sean: Thought about what you said to me the other day, about my painting. Stayed up half the night thinking about it. Something occurred to me… fell into a deep peaceful sleep, and haven’t thought about you since. Do you know what occurred to me?
Will: No.
Sean: You’re just a kid, you don’t have the faintest idea what you’re talkin’ about.
Will: Why thank you.
Sean: It’s all right. You’ve never been out of Boston.
Will: Nope.
Sean: So if I asked you about art, you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book ever written. Michelangelo, you know a lot about him. Life’s work, political aspirations, him and the pope, sexual orientations, the whole works, right? But I’ll bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel. You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling; seen that. If I ask you about women, you’d probably give me a syllabus about your personal favorites. You may have even been laid a few times. But you can’t tell me what it feels like to wake up next to a woman and feel truly happy. You’re a tough kid. And I’d ask you about war, you’d probably throw Shakespeare at me, right, “once more unto the breach dear friends.” But you’ve never been near one. You’ve never held your best friend’s head in your lap, watch him gasp his last breath looking to you for help. I’d ask you about love, you’d probably quote me a sonnet. But you’ve never looked at a woman and been totally vulnerable. Known someone that could level you with her eyes, feeling like God put an angel on earth just for you. Who could rescue you from the depths of hell. And you wouldn’t know what it’s like to be her angel, to have that love for her, be there forever, through anything, through cancer. And you wouldn’t know about sleeping sitting up in the hospital room for two months, holding her hand, because the doctors could see in your eyes, that the terms “visiting hours” don’t apply to you. You don’t know about real loss, ’cause it only occurs when you’ve loved something more than you love yourself. And I doubt you’ve ever dared to love anybody that much. And look at you… I don’t see an intelligent, confident man… I see a cocky, scared shitless kid. But you’re a genius Will. No one denies that. No one could possibly understand the depths of you. But you presume to know everything about me because you saw a painting of mine, and you ripped my fucking life apart. You’re an orphan right?
[Will nods]
Sean: You think I know the first thing about how hard your life has been, how you feel, who you are, because I read Oliver Twist? Does that encapsulate you? Personally… I don’t give a shit about all that, because you know what, I can’t learn anything from you, I can’t read in some fuckin’ book. Unless you want to talk about you, who you are. Then I’m fascinated. I’m in. But you don’t want to do that do you sport? You’re terrified of what you might say. Your move, chief.
The state has become to dangerous to tolerate.
There are many Americans who worship the state and authority. There’s no getting around this fact. If the state makes a declaration about something, it’s to be taken as gospel and not come into question. Therefore the state is all powerful and becomes an out of control monster. The bureaucrats, whether in Washington or in your home state are no different from one another. They all think alike. They want control. They want unlimited power of control over the masses. This is the natural outcome of the state: to become massively powerful and to have total control over everybody’s lives.
What once was considered the ultimate in freedom has now become a license to steal, violate our rights and deny us the liberty to travel freely, and to use the excuse of traffic safety in order to fill the coffers with revenue collected by those in the blue uniform.
The old Soviet Union wasn’t this bad. Not even in China have things deteriorated to this extent. We are all now enemies of the state. Considered to be domestic terrorist threats if we even criticize the state. The cops have a license to kill, rape, rob at gun point and abuse the citizenry. They no longer need a search warrant and may I remind every body here that was one of the abuses by the British soldiers in the colonies: they could write their own “Warrants of Standing” whenever they wanted to force their way into a person’s home to search for the King’s Stamp. This was not the main cause of the American revolution but it went a long way to starting it.
As long as Americans in general continue to tolerate this long list abuses and usurpations, nothing will change.
There is too much to loose to remain either ignorant or silent and there is no longer any excuse.
Communism was an aggressive political system after WWII. Khruschev said that they would bury us. Communism was the greatest threat to global freedom. Now, the U.S.A. is the greatest threat to global freedom.
Hi Ramrod,
Yes… and the common denominator? They’re governments. Violence on an industrial scale. The most evil individual imaginable could never do as much damage as a government could.
As governments do.
Took everything we had……no argument here.
Dear Eric,
According to Max Weber, the state is:
… any organization that succeeds in holding the exclusive right to use, threaten, or authorize physical force against residents of its territory. Such a monopoly, according to Weber, must occur via a process of legitimation.
… international relations are characterized by the absence of widely acknowledged legitimacy in the use of force between states.[3]
This is why limited government never remains limited.
This is why “Limited government is early stage totalitarianism. Totalitarianism is late stage limited government.” https://anenemyofthestate.wordpress.com/quotations-from-chairman-zhu/
This is why the US Constitution, which “legitimated” the US government’s ” exclusive right to use, threaten, or authorize physical force against residents of its territory” inevitably and inexorably led to our current Amerikanschen Polizeistaat.
Hi Bevin!
Yup. And this point must be hammered on until a critical mass of the salvageable population groks it.
If they don’t eventually grok it, we’re all doomed.
Doomed. Doomed I say!
Seriously, though, it feels like we’re living in some comic book universe. All the supervillain-style people are coming out of the woodworks with their plans to royally f*** over ever single other person they can.
Dear Eric,
When we make such suggestions, many people react dismissively. They say “Impossible!”
But what alternative is there?
A root cure is the only cure. Anything else is a band-aid.
This advice will save your life. If you get caught in one of these checkpoints, pull off to the side of the road and call AAA. Get your car towed out of there. Open the hood and detach the battery if you want too. Much cheaper than what lies ahead.. When you get home, call AA….
Austin resident here:
No-refusal weekends used to be only when special events were in town – SXSW, F-1, ACL Music Festival, and so on. Lots of people are visiting Austin, having a good time at the bars on 6th Street, then getting in their rental cars and bouncing down I-35. They really were a menace, like the guy who drove through a crowd and killed 2, injuring 25 more last year.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/03/13/at-least-2-killed-23-hurt-after-car-plows-into-crowd-near-south-by-southwest/
But then Chief Acevedo generalized this lone random tragedy into “blood in the streets” (being a cop, this is the way they see the world) and expanded the program to almost every weekend. And naturally, caught several people each weekend that were driving drunk. Wow, the program is a success!!
And so now, he wants it to be a full time thing. Imagine all the lawbreakers he could catch!
This is the slippery slope, and how it happens.
The same thing happened 3 years ago by an elderly man and wife in his caddy and wiped out tens of people, killing many. Why didn’t they pick on elderly drivers and go after them with guns?
Besides, this guy was wanted and was trying to get away from a felony arrest, something they don’t mention. They didn’t say in this article he was drunk and seems like that had nothing to do with it. He just didn’t want to be caught for another crime.
You’re all right but everybody .imisses the fundamental point. By definition, you are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law by a jury of your peers. Everything else is details. That is why it is so very important to assert your right to travel and be armed. If you allow them to grant you priveleges you have to meet their terms.
sorry for the typos…
Hope everyone had a happy Indigenous Peoples Day
http://time.com/4071362/indigenous-peoples-day-denver/
Tactics of the Hero Conquistadors
The introduction of gunpowder in Europe in the late 14th century led to the increased preference for infantry-oriented professional armies and gave birth to heavy infantry armoured like a knight, with mailed armour, an iron helmet and gunpowder artillery.
When traders introduced arquebuses and muskets, warlords were quick to adapt them, giving them a large advantage. Kingdoms developed expertise in both cannon manufacturing and shipbuilding. Warships were constructed equipped with firearms and advanced gunpowder cannons.
Arquebuses played an important role in the victories of small and outnumbered armies in 1541–42 campaigns in Ethiopia. Arquebuses were carried by some of the soldiers of Hernán Cortés in his conquest of Mexico in the 1520s.
In their first contacts with native peoples, firearms and arquebuses were formidable weapons. A few effective artillery hits would stop the charging warriors and destroy morale because of the noise and carnage.
The small weapons carried by native warriors had little advantage. Even though the reloading procedure in arquebus was lengthy, rarely allowing more than ten shots per battle.
The bulldog was mascot of the conquistadors and brought on expeditions around the globe.
The most famous of the dogs of war was mascot to Ponce de Leon called Becerrillo. Who was the first European dog to reach North America.
Although many American civilizations had developed methods for working soft metals, including gold, silver, bronze, tin and copper, this knowledge was applied mainly to the development of religious and artistic objects, as well as household utensils.
Few metals were used for military applications. Indigenous cultures were limited to weapons of wood, flint and obsidian.
COPS don’t have a medical background, there’s no WAY I’d trust those yahoos to draw blood without missing veins, poking just for fun, or flat out nerve-damage incompetence!!!
This is insane unto itself, but to allow someone like this to draw the blood, the only blood they’re trained to draw comes from bullet holes!
Oh, they’ll “train” them… in the same way they’re “trained” to handle firearms.
Not just your blood they are after too. When the blood test doesn’t work……
http://www.nwitimes.com/news/local/lake/schererville/c-p-man-seeking-m-in-catheterization-lawsuit/article_8331836f-3cc4-54ff-9d71-3c33fc42946f.html
Well…out here in Commiefornia…you are free to decline to breathe into the notoriously unreliable machine…however you must choose either a Breathalyzer or blood/chemical test, and get that choice recorded, preferably your recording. If the “tax collector in costume” gets to choose, it is either a Breathalyzer, or a refusal, ’cause a blood test takes time…they haven’t decided to hold you down and draw your blood yet…
An administrative hearing run by another “tax collector in costume” (CHP employee of DMV) will automatically suspend your license for 1 year for failing to waive your 4th and 5th amendment rights. If they don’t, it is a negative performance review in their employment record.
There is a pending law suit regarding this topic…perhaps in some land far, far away there will be people who get to exercise their constitutional rights…but unless a successful conclusion to this lawsuit occurs, it will not be here!
http://www.losangelesemploymentlawyer.com/News-About-Our-Firm/SDSHH-Challenges-Constitutionality-of-DMV-Suspension-System.pdf
The Constitution, if it ever was valid, has been dead at least since the time of ‘Honest’ Abe.
Anyone tried the medical rape accusation? This is only different from forced procedures of the 1940’s, by degrees. “Oh no one is being killed or maimed, thus it’s not assault” <— Yeah, watch how well that would work for someone not a cop doing this kind of thing. I wonder if the lawyers who thought of this just hate cops and the people they send them after. The police don't have a death wish to upset half the population of a county.
https://youtu.be/zh1OL-iRkAQ
But, but… you’re supposed to comply with all orders from the Sainted Swine, no matter how demeaning, cruel, abusive, or violent and then fight it in court. The courts run by the same entity that controls the Sainted Swine, which is in no way collusive. The same entity that passes the laws the Sainted Swine are duty bound to enforce, no matter how contradictory they are to each other or the supposed “Law Of The Land”. So in short, just obey The State, no matter what, and you’ll be fine. Until The State decides you’re expendable and then you just won’t matter anymore.
“well they raped and murdered other tribes all the time”
OK, so where’s the documentation? Of course there is also “2 wrongs don’t make a right.”
Sorry, this was supposed to be a reply to Libertymike’s comment below.
The fools who support this do so under the delusion that since they have nothing to hide, no possible harm can come to them.
They are too dense to recognize the ‘slippery slope.’ They may have nothing to hide today, but who knows what may need to be hidden tomorrow.
“But it could never happen here!” Right, ask a Native American about that.
(I recognize of course that the so-called ‘Native Americans’ are not the original natives of this continent either.)
PtB, writing of Native Americans, have you ever noticed how so many people will, in knee jerk, pavlovian form, respond, “well they raped and murdered other tribes all the time” when they hear of actual, documented massacres and rapes of Indians by the US military?
Even better is people who don’t realize what’s happening to border tribes, to this day. A bunch of armed thugs coming in and threatening everyone, and that’s not even the gangs.
I don’t think the fools who support this understand how widely this could cast the DUI dragnet. Suppose that after a long day of work, Joe Fool takes a vicodin to sooth his aching back before he goes to bed. The next morning, officer Barney Fife could stop Joe on his way to work and give him a DUI citation simply because he has traces of a narcotic pain killer in his blood stream.
Hi Toldev,
Yup.
Certain drugs (legal and not) can be detected in blood long after the effects have worn off, too. This whole business is sickening and depressing.
The people who do this to their fellow human beings are the sort who would have made fine SS men.
Oh, it’s worse than that. I recently had some very strong antibiotics prescribed to me. I’d had them before long ago but the pharmacy now writes out everything about a drug so you’re informed, a good feature in my view. I read it, the same yada yada yada till I got to the part where it said it could be perceived by drug tests of the more controlled sort to be a false-positive for various other drugs, but no elaboration on what they were. Now isn’t that precious?
I had a codriver get me hell yesterday for being a health nut as to what I eat. He saidk “Ah hell, you’re so old you shouldn’t worry about stuff like that” and laughed. Well, he made a good point really. Maybe I shouldn’t sweat it and just guzzle Coke’s and Subway chemicals(yuch).
Seeing the end of the line these days is sorta comforting and I make get religion but I’ve seen virgins that weren’t too shiny.
Morning, Eight!
To help deal with the misery of my life right now, I sometimes puff a little at night to help me sleep. I never drive while under the effects, but I am pretty sure the residue is detectable in blood. This is alarming. I am convinced that one of the not-so-good side effects of medical marijuana is that states will enact these blood draws specifically for that reason – because pot is not detectable using the Breathalyzer. Problem is, though, that a positive blood test result does not mean you’re “stoned” … only that you were stoned at some point previously.
Evening,eric, 450 miles and 4 loads later, I can answer that. No worry, they’ll be able soon to take a piss test on the spot. After all, they do seem to get off on playing with people’s privates. Then there will be, and mark my words, check points that have already happened in the middle east, er, southeast, almost the same thing, where they did collect DNA and it’s happened here in Tx. more than once but people in Ft. Worth and Dallas were incensed so they shut it down……til the courts rule it’s legal.
Now doubt, we’re working up to a badged thug, “civilian” all out war. They now try to turn two cops getting blown away into an epidemic. Just wait till it is. “Civilians” can sneak around in the dark in clothes that thwart heat signatures and buy or make every hightech device they need including everything the coptards have. Just because you have a cell phone doesn’t mean you have to carry it with you. Night vision, the very best, is easily bought(with lots of money) as are bionic ears and everything else you might need to stalk an animal.
It’s a given, you get what you give and that’s how shooting started in smuggling drugs. When it first began, nobody smuggling every considered shooting people and cops didn’t suspect everybody that didn’t look and act like them and still wouldn’t have shot them. One thing leads to another as is so easily seen by the effects of the “drug war”.
Well, when you are filling up the vial, get “the shakes” and piss on the cops’ shoe. Probably want a good lawyer though, because you’ll be charged with assaulting an officer.
Colorado’s pot laws include a “driving while impaired” provision that includes testing for THC levels in blood. The problem is that (as with alcohol) different people have radically different reactions to amounts of THC ingested. So establishing a one-size-fits-all level is much more difficult. Of course, most of the difficulty is that the prohibitionists haven’t successfully lobbied for a “no safe dose” policy in the state house, and right now a major chunk of tax revenue is being generated by the recreational market.
Don’t think I want Mr. Happy to be treated badly though.
IIRC, THC is a metabolite, not the actual substance causing the high.
THC can (will) be detected by the test for a week after a smoke.
The test that checks if you’re actually HIGH at the time costs too much…. The metabolite version is cheaper, and nets more arrests for “DUI.”
I only seem crazy, advocatign we deal with the problem pro-actively. I know what happens if you don’t – you lose a testicle, and TPTB say, “Boys will be boys…”
Kill ’em all. Lucifer knows they’re his…
Fairly good article about testing for THC:
http://www.westword.com/news/thc-blood-test-pot-critic-william-breathes-nearly-3-times-over-proposed-limit-when-sober-5856545
Colorado’s DOT has a rather informative page up about the policy too. Click on the FAQ section for more specific information:
https://www.codot.gov/safety/alcohol-and-impaired-driving/druggeddriving
Eric, a positive blood test doesn’t mean that you are stoned; it means that you are screwed. How did we get into this injustice? Who is to Blame?
Hi Ramrod,
We got here because the population agreed that “safety” justifies abridging any (former) right once recognized by the state.
It all began – back in the ’80s – with the approval of random sobriety checkpoints. All else followed.
Dear RR,
Eric is right.
Basically any erroneous political premise will eventually be implemented in its most extreme form, in a manner totally consistent with the initial error.
We are going to have to face the fact of life in the U.S.A. that Clovers have us greatly outnumbered.
Unless we kill them.
to quote Eel O’Brien, “They just kept pushing…”
Smoke a joint on first day of a 2-week vacation. Come back and take blood test first day back to work. Get fired.
Or better: Get a hair test months later.
It’s obviously not about safety or liability. The feds actually force-well, coerce companies into do this. Same way they forced states to comply with 0.8 limit instead of 1.0.
Hi Joe,
Yup.
Prisoners are subject to mandatory testing for “illegal” substances. Not free men.
It baffles me that people put up with this; but then, the net has been cinched tight for decades now and it’s damned hard to be a refusenik and remain employed or even become employed. They now routinely test white collar workers whose jobs entail no “risk” to anyone. As a condition of employment. But people need work, so they submit.