Do “Blue Lives” Matter?

By
eric
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Do “blue lives” matter more than other lives?hero lead

According to Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards, they do. He signed a new law last week making attacks on armed government workers – you know, cops – a “hate crime” subject to harsher and additional penalties than would otherwise apply.

Edwards – a former armed government worker himself – has an interesting view of crime and punishment, as well as of rights. These vary in degree according to such things as the color of the uniform one wears.

Punch a mere peon (not uniformed) in the face because you hate the guy’s guts and it’s still a crime, but a lesser one. “Hate” enters into it only if the person receiving the punch happens to be a certain category of person, such as a uniformed one.

One of the state’s armed enforcers.

The presumption being you didn’t exactly like him, either.

But now (in John Bel Edwards’ fief) it’s an actionable offense to not like the blue-clad person you struck. Whereas if the reverse were to happen (the armed/costumed government worker threw a punch at you) it is merely a physical assault and not also a “hate” crime. . . .

We are to assume it’s nothing personal, you see.Hero 3

But even if it obviously is – let’s say the armed/costumed government worker is caught on tape cursing his victim, calling him a “dirty skell” or a “maggot” – he can only be prosecuted for the actual punching.

His hate isn’t actionable.

Which is… odd.

Well, not right.

Rights – such as the right to not be punched in the face – cannot vary according to the person affronted. It’s either right – or it’s not. Regardless of the color of the people involved, or the costumes they happen to be wearing.

And punishing people differently (or additionally) for committing the same violation of another person’s rights cheapens the currency of one person’s rights, while valuing another’s more dearly undermines the very concept of rights.hero worship

This is a feudal way of doing things. One may not affront the person of the king – or his barons. But the king – and his barons – may do as they like with the serfs.  

That is what Governor (perhaps Shire-Reeve would be the more fitting title) Edwards has just codifed into the law.

He claims it was done in response to the Black Lives Matter movement, but this doesn’t parse. The BLM movement does not claim that the lives of black people matter more than the lives of other people. Their complaint – a legitimate one – is that the lives of black people should not be valued less than the lives of other people.

By people wearing blue especially.

They – blacks – have a legitimate grievance. There is no question, for example, that they are disproportionately hassled and punished by people in blue over trumped-up (because no victim) “offenses” involving arbitrarily illegal “drugs” (not including  alcohol, which is a more socially accepted and therefore arbitrarily legal drug). 

But all of us have a beef with this business of putting the state’s enforcers on a pedestal – literally – by making their persons more sacred than ours. Shire-Reeve Edwards makes the usual noises about these enforcers “taking risks to ensure our safety” when they do nothing of the sort.

Or at least, it is not their primary function.

They themselves openly tell us that the very most important thing uber alles is their safety. At our expense, if need be – and even if not.

And the courts have just as openly stated that the primary business of law enforcement is… law enforcement. To make us obey.

The blue-clad do not have a legal obligation to lift a finger – much less put that finger at risk – to “ensure our safety.”

Yet most people have been successfully conditioned to view law enforcers – heavily armed, heavily protected, with back-up and all the legal privileges that attend their station – as selfless Lone Ranger types, putting our lives ahead of theirs when the need arises. It’s a fairy tale right up there with the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus, but most people grow out of those delusions around the age of 12 or 13.

But even Santa Claus doesn’t expect special treatment under the law.

Those in blue, do.hero 2

And while it’s no less an affront to their rights (and equally deserving of punishment) when a Mere Ordinary physically assaults one of them, an affront to our rights committed by them ought to be dealt with more severely. Not because they “hate” us.

They are just as entitled to that as we are entitled to hate them.

But because when they abuse us, they have abused their authority over us.

Possessing authority ought to impose a particular obligation to be judicious in the use of that authority. Else that authority is more likely to be abused. A deterrent – in the form of greater responsibility – is essential.

And yet, the reverse is the rule. Those in blue are held to a more lenient standard than we are. Which is an incentive for them to be less careful about trespassing on our rights.

Which – not surprisingly – wane as theirs wax.

Perhaps even more ominous is that “hate” crimes as usually construed – as when applied to skin color or genitalia or the use thereof – extend beyond action (e.g., actually punching someone in the face) to one’s views of others.hut hut hut!

If these are not correct they are criminal.

“Hate speech,” for instance. That is, speech that the aggrieved group deems “offensive.” In the UK and other European countries, it is a prosecutable offense to offend someone (the offense defined by the persons offended).

Basically, to hurt their feelings. To challenge some orthodoxy.

We still have the rickety defense of the First Amendment, but it’s going the way of the Fourth, Fifth and other ex-amendments.

Imagine what it will be like when it becomes criminal to speak ill of an armed government worker – perhaps government workers generally. Or not show sufficient reverence. Perhaps even to look at them “funny.”

No doubt, Shire-Reeve Edwards can’t wait.

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Related posts:
  1. Whether Black Lives Matter
  2. Who’s to Blame When Air Bags Don’t “Save Lives”?
  3. The Other Side of The Thin Blue Line
  4. …But It Will Save Lives
  5. One Thing Leads to Another

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94 COMMENTS

  1. I find it very suspicious that Mark Twain has so much to say about JFC’s writing style.

    Probably the real problem is JFC is outside the mainstream pablum in some intolerable way? I don’t care for Twain, he doesn’t really go there, to wherever he’s writing about.

    With Twain, it always seems like you’re viewing things safely from your car in the “It’s A Small World” ride at Disney.

    Cooper’s Works
    http://external.oneonta.edu/cooper/bibliography/works.html

    200 Years of Admiration
    http://external.oneonta.edu/cooper/articles/suny/2003suny-logacheva.html

    Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses

    In 1895, Mark Twain published his acerbic criticism of James Fenimore Cooper. In his essay The Literary Offenses of Fenimore Cooper, Twain asserted Cooper’s popular Deerslayer, a Leatherstocking tale, committed 114 “offenses against literary art out of a possible 115.” Generally, Twain’s biting mockery of Cooper’s characterization, plot, and setting is considered by contemporary critics as unnecessary and unfounded.

    In Mark Twain as Critic, Sydney Krause asserts:

    The sulfurous grumblings over Cooper is hardly the work of a judicious person, of a respectable citizen like Sam Clemens, who after the debacle of 1892, had made it an appoint of honor to pay his creditors one hundred cents on the dollar; rather, it belongs to a hoodwinking persona who puts up a good front but is not always entitled to the horror he exhibits and is not the unsuspecting reader he pretends to be.

    John McWilliams in The Last of the Mohicans: Civil Savagery and Savage Civility also agrees that Twain’s attack is unjustified. He states:
    Hilarious though Twain’s essay is, it is valid only within its own narrow and sometimes misapplied criteria.

    Whether Twain is attacking Cooper’s diction or Hawkeye’s tracking feats, his strategy is to charge Cooper with one small inaccuracy, reconstruct the surrounding narrative or sentence around it, and then produce the whole as evidence that Cooper’s kind of English would prevent anyone from seeing reality.

    Twain’s intention, through his “sulfurous grumblings,” is not simply to convince the reader of Cooper’s inaccuracy; more so, he is defending his notions of literary and historical appropriateness.

    Twain, revolting against the entire Romantic tradition, used Cooper as a metonym for the literary characteristics Twain had fought so hard to eradicate. Krause comments that Twain’s essay was;

    more than a caveat against the pitfalls of romantic fiction; it was a plea for readers to accept the verdict of history that old-style romanticism–at best an exotic movement with a code of feeling engendered by a cult of sensibility, to which America opposed the cult of experience–that this brand of die-hard romanticism was a literary dead letter in post-Civil War America.

    Fenimore Cooper’s Literary Offenses
    by Mark Twain
    http://twain.lib.virginia.edu/projects/rissetto/offense.html

      • The ’92 movie (Last of the Mohicans) was superb; conveyed the feeling that one got (thatI got) from reading Cooper’s words even better than the words. Daniel Day Lewis was Nathaniel. Not just playing him.

        • Dear Eric,

          I heartily agree!

          In fact, having read the novel, I would say that LOTM the Film was actually better than LOTM the Novel.

          Cooper’s writing style was atrocious in many ways. Michael Mann’s filmization did away with all those problems, leaving only the dialogue.

          The climatic scene on the cliff when the Mohican chief’s son is killed, and the heroine’s younger sister leaped to her death left a lump in one’s throat.

          The haunting theme music was terrific too, wasn’t it?

          • bevin, eric, the movie was a masterpiece. Better than the book in my opinion and that’s a rarity. I watched Lonesome Dove last week-end and got that same feeling although McMurtry is a great writer. No way that book could have been done in a single film type theme. Return to Lonesome Dove is a good flick too. The director could have used more “Texan” input but it entertained and was fairly accurate and stayed with the books, both movies. Yall have a good one. I have 700 miles and six loads to do in the next 14 hours. Adios amigos.

              • I’ll be damned bevin. What year was that? I could always have arranged a job to be in Houston MWF or TT. I could have dug a writing class with him.

                One thing I especially value is a hard cover of Lonesome Dove my deceased mother gave me for my BD one year.

                I found my parents generation liked LD as much as we did and so did the kids. Now I need to order a disc of Return since our last VHS player bit the big one negating watching Return again.

                A popular song around our house is one of James’, Choctaw Bingo.

                • That was back in the late 60s, early 70s.

                  Lonesome Dove was a truly impressive in its sense of realism.

                  I must admit I don’t know enough about the actual history of the Old West to discern whether it was in fact real.

                  All I know is that is sure as hell felt real, and that if it was real, people back then were a tough breed, nothing like those today who get their panties in a bunch over a politically incorrect remark.

            • Michael Mann sometimes becomes too enamored with style at the expense of substance.

              But not in LOTM, I’m happy to say. He struck a good balance between attention to the visual images and the emotional content.

  3. “Rights – such as the right to not be punched in the face – cannot vary according to the person affronted.”

    This is exactly the consequence, or perhaps the primary problem of the difference between the dejure constitutional republic and the parasitic defacto public policy democracy. Who you are matters in the latter jurisdiction, and only the common law matters in the former…

    • That guy’s laugh is infectious. Funny vid. Hey, I think Walter Jeffries is actually a cop wannabe. What’s really funny is that most cops start out as wannabes.

      • Some of those short vids are hilarious. If something makes you laugh, it can’t be all bad.

        This guy has a whole freeee section on his site, like mises.

        Some good stuff on the Secret Behind Secret Societies from Rappoport there.
        http://www.federaljack.com/ebooks/

        My take is that getting stuff for freeee instead of paying for it is a degenerative process. If you balance it out by paying for some other things, it’s a regenerative process.

        I spend several hundred a month on cable and media subscriptions. That’s regenerative process that rewards the producers of new unique media content.

        I also pirate probably millions of dollars worth of stuff. Most of which I view a minute of and then reject as not worth watching. This activity is degenerative. It “robs” the creator of his due compensation. Rewards pirates and destabilizes things. Increases chaos.

        I don’t see any other way of getting the high quality mental nutrients I’ve become accustomed to. It would be an easy job, to track my views and then bill me accordingly. But those in power don’t want easy and logical.

        They want stupidity for the masses. And enlightenment for the controlling elite minority.

        If the only way I know of keeping my mind well fed involves degeneration. Then that’s what I am willing to endure and multiply, because the alternative of being one of the caged minds without imagination is abhorrent to me, and not worth the payoff of being “a good man” who is also good dupe from the assholes who’ve commandeered this planet.

        I spend about

        • degens are also hard to follow, maybe because they have a high level of chaos in their minds, they’re not especially good at self-editing or patient in hitting the comment button.

          better a semi-lucid glitchfest, than I am able to concoct well constructed uninspired peons to the likes of Trump or Mittens. Gack.

  5. Oh yes, this double standard burns my butt so much! everyone else has to EARN respect, while they believe they have the right to DEMAND it. and funny how their lives are worth so much more when they are the ones ENDING our lives so casually!

    A while back in a neighbouring city (Moncton) we had a perfect example of this. On one weekend 2 people shot people. The first guy was a man in an apartment with a shotgun who killed his neighbour and was threatening to kill anyone who came to arrest him. I barely know what happened to this man because 4-5 cops raided the place, got him, and that was the end of that news cycle.

    BUT on the same weekend a man had a rifle and shot a COP, openly stating he was looking forward to shooting others. I swear, no exaggeration, link to be provided at the end of this, the cops SHUT DOWN MOST OF THE CITY, put everyone on lock down, called in over THREE HUNDRED other cops from neighbouring districts (all overtime on our dime), set up a manhunt, and in the end the guy turned HIMSELF in becasue he ran out of ammo and food. Afterwards there was grief counseling for the cops and the entire neighbourhood to deal with the “trauma of the event”

    in BOTH cases one man was killing another man and threatening another. But just LOOK at the discrepancy between the reactions!!! And yet they DARE to say that we’re treated equally? PLEASE, SPARE ME THE BULLSHIT!!!

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2014_Moncton_shootings

    • Everyone has their cross to bear and I hope he’ll have his.

      Hate is such a difficult word to describe. I very much dislike going onto the breezeway and having to dodge a skunk but I don’t hate the skunk. A skunk is a skunk, same as I am a man. We both do what comes naturally and hopefully, not “unnaturally”. When skunk sprays Cholley Jack I get pissed at skunk and I’m not proud of CJ if he brings it on himself which he almost never does.

      But skunk will be back and he’ll do it again so I have to decide toot sweet if skunk is going to get the chance to come back. Hopefully, I won’t stink too bad and can get yee old shotgun and flashlight and find skunk again. I let skunk go his own way……for a while. I don’t hate skunk but it’s hard to live with skunk so I let skunk run off and follow and when skunk is downwind of me, I blast skunk, not because of hate but simply because he’s aggressed against me(and put me out…quite a bit) and will do so again. I dig a hole upwind of skunk, pick him up on long shovel and if I have blown his head off, won’t even have to put up with skunk smell. I understand skunk has a hard life and he’s prone to make mine hard too, as well as CJ’s. Once skunk is buried, everything is just A OK once I get CJ and myself both smelling good again. This is not hate I have for skunk. When skunk is on the road, I simply avoid skunk.

      Now that old rattler I nearly stepped on the other day is a me or him thing right then. I was grateful when the wife said Are you aware you’re standing almost on top of that prairie rattler? since they’re 10X more poisonous than a diamondback. I didn’t see him because I was distracted by a great big diamondback. You just never know where the most lethality might be.

      • The black & white striped kitties are also just as bad as coons when it comes to eating someone else’s sweet corn. That’s a legitimate death sentence in my book.

        • PtB, we get back to “unintended consequences”. We had identical toms, both yaller, but old ringtail decided he would take no prisoners going for the food and Bread of Bread and Butter didn’t back down and got killed. I could stand ol ringtail sorta, kinda up to that point. I was hobbling around on that thrice broken leg at the time so getting out the door and down the steps left me at a distinct disadvantage….till old ringtail killed my best bud. To hell with pain, I went on a jihad. When it was over, CJ and I had offed 10 of ringtail’s buddies as well as ringtail himself.

          This is a lesson ol porky could learn as well: Don’t bite off more than you can chew.

            • By the time I was done with all that my leg had me ready to eat a box of nails and shit a roll of barb wire.

              • PtB, something we can all appreciate I think. Nearly two years after the leg fiasco, after I’d been driving trucks for 80=90 hours a week and climbing on trailers to load and unload all that stuff….like dozers and trackhoes and backhoes and all types of stuff I couldn’t identify I went to a specialist.

                This PA shows up, a 40 year old guy with an edgy haircut and styled out the wazoo with a hell of a looker nurse. He looks the scars over on my leg and said “Who did your surgery?” After all, he was just trying to get through dealing with an old trucker who didn’t understand much. I fixed him with a “look” and said “What surgery?”. He started to speak and then stopped. I didn’t say another word. Then he screwed his brow up and said “hhmmm”. No shit sherlock, hhhmmm indeed. I guess he’d never seen scars from the inside out.

                Then he asked me if I drank. Seriously? When the first specialist said he wouldn’t give me painkillers(hell, it weren’t no big deal)cause the DEA didn’t like for him to do that, I told him to kiss my ass and I went home and drank 3-4 shots of bourbon at a time, followed by a few cold beers and more bourbon till I passed out for an hour or two and then drank more beer to attend my hangover followed by 4-5 more shots of bourbon and more cold beer. It was early March, a good, cold one, and I lived with the window open and no covers sweating bullets.

                Another alphabet agency screwing up the already hamstrung medical “practice”. I’d bet DEA and their family get any amount of anything they want. I can see our illustrious senators lying around suffering cause their doctor is scared to give them a painkiller.

                This country sucks and now the DEA is trying to cut meds for those people with slight maladies like cancer, broken bodies and all those other “non-issue” pain sources. I’d like to get my hands around BO’s neck and make him “pain free”.

    • Am I missing something Tor Libertarian? I looked at both of the links you posted about Walter Jeffers, and I saw no indication that he had anything to do with molesting boys. In fact, your second link shows that the victim was a female. This site shows that the female acquaintance was between 13-17 years old. That also looks terrible, but when you read that he only got 30 days of jail time and 3 years of probation then it becomes almost certain that actual rape has not occurred; otherwise he would be serving probably 5-25 years behind bars. Perhaps he flashed her or exposed himself, which would be entirely meaningless in a society open to nudity. Perhaps he gave her a dildo. I don’t know what he did.
      You might very well know more about this guy than what the 2 links have divulged. I do urge people to not jump to conclusions based upon a mere listing. This person certainly has been convicted as a sexual offender. That fact alone does not prove that he is an evil b@st@rd. You would probably be surprised by what can get you on a sexual offender registry, which is for life.
      http://www.businessinsider.com/surprising-things-that-could-make-you-a-sex-offender-2013-10

      http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/08/mapped_sex_offender_registry_laws_on_statutory_rape_public_urination_and.html

  8. Let’s get real on this third grade irrational cop hating nonsense. You sound like children that hate the teacher because she punished you for talking in class. Clover

    Cops are needed. Period. The have dirty disgusting jobs that are worse than working at your local sewage treatment plants. Some are dishonest, or power freaks or ego maniacs or just outright murderers. Just like society as a whole. However once you accept the obvious tenet that they are needed then you have to accept the next obvious notion and that is that they are not required to get their brains bashed, their faces shot off or their arms broken when they do their NEEDED jobs. Why should a cop get involved in a bare knuckle brawl with a gentle giant who could kill a person with their fists? Hence you get cops shooting people but in a completely understandable way. Cops are not obligated to take needless risks.Clover

    I have been handcuffed and I have been royally pissed off by an a- hole in blue. Still, many cop haters act like stupid little kids especially considering when their trouble going on, they are for damn sure, calling for the po po..

    • “Cops are needed. Period.”
      Supposing for the sake of argument we accept your premise. How about you lay out for us what minuscule % of what the pheroes do is needed? And why shouldn’t we hate them and berate them for everything else they do – especially persecuting [sic] otherwise innocent (or what the heck, even not so innocent) people for made up crimes, i.e., malum prohibitum acts?
      “Cops are not obligated to take needless risks.” Well, neither are we ‘mundanes.’
      And the pheroes are never justified in exposing those for whom they supposedly work to such risk.

    • Walter,

      You may believe “cops are needed.” I believe otherwise. Your beliefs are not binding on me, or ought not to be. And while you may see an equivalence here there isn’t. My belief imposes no obligation on you; you are not made to obey – or to pay. Your beliefs, on the other hand… .

      But let’s examine your claim a bit more deeply.

      You say “cops are needed.” For what, exactly?

      You do the usual thing – and package the things that most of us take no issue with (keeping the peace by dealing with actual criminals – those who harm others or their property) and the thing that constitutes the majority of what cops do – enforce laws, most of them being affronts to liberty because no harm was caused by the “offender.”

      Why, for example, should a person be subject to a physical assault (by a cop) on account of his not wearing a seat belt or because he “possesses” some arbitrarily illegal “drug”? Or for “speeding”?

      PS: If Tor is right, and you were handcuffed and caged for sexual assault upon a child, you deserved it and I take no issue with it.

      • Eric: law(s) is the codified expression of POLITICAL will. Sure, those barristers and pontificating professors like to cite regarded works like the codes of Hammurabi, the Ten Commandments (along with the rest of the Torah), the US Constitution, and so on. BTW, according to Star Trek lore, we’re 14 years late in getting the Fundamental Declarations of the Martian Colonies, let alone colonizing Mars, and if we let NASA still be in charge, a “real” James T. Kirk some 240 years from now will STILL be Earth-bound in Iowa!

        When you get right down to it, the exercise of politics, as justified by “law”, is about FORCE. I.E. “men with GUNS”. Typically the implied threat of violence, be it assault, murder, and/or imprisonment, more than suffices, although most can see the benefits of “compliance” without overt threats. Cops are nothing more than the agents of said force. And as long as they actually employ that force for “good”, i.e., apprehend the “bad guys” and cart them off to the pokey, then they’re the “heroes”. However, as you well-pointed out, it’s when they employ said violence in enforcement of laws that are inherently unjust, such as possession of a PLANT or its components (e.g., “I ‘smell’ weed…), or, they overstep their bounds or simply commit criminals acts outright under color of authority, that’s when they’re anything BUT “heroic”. This “governor” can make all the political points he wants, it doesn’t change the facts that AGWs are simply CIVILIANS, like us, and are supposed to be as subject to the law as anyone else. In reality they’ve become a “privileged” class and know it, and all too many not only live down to that trope but FLAUNT it!

    • Dear Walter,

      “Still, many cop haters act like stupid little kids especially considering when their trouble going on, they are for damn sure, calling for the po po..”

      Could you repeat that? In English?

      • Hi Bevin!

        I – for one – will not be “calling for the po po” when “their trouble going on.” Why not?

        Because “their trouble” will be over with long before “the po po” could even get here – assuming the best of intentions (and competence).

        I’m on my own out here in The Woods and so have no use at all for the “po po.”

        They harass me over victimless (and so non) “crimes” such as “speeding” and declining to wear a seatbelt. They compel me to stop and submit to an interrogation/search and present my “papers.”

        Feed them fish heads.

        • Dear Eric,

          Me neither.

          I have no use whatsoever for the banksters’ costumed thugs.

          Obviously, as a hardcore free market anarchist I would eliminate The State altogether.

          But even within the current context, elimination of the “police” would be a vast improvement.

          Based on pro liberty articles I stumbled across recently, I’ve learned that “police” as we know them today are a relatively new phenomenon and that people got along fine before without them.

          • They’re good when there’s a shark alert. You can snell them to a big hook, throw them in and troll with em. Pork is one of the best baits going. Uncle Josh has made an empire with pork trailers, frogs, etc.

            • Dear 8sm,

              I hear you.

              The post-9/11 world we inhabit is so Orwellian, so Kafkaesque, so intolerable to anyone with any sense of justice, that often the only appropriate response is black humor.

          • “police as we know them today are a relatively new phenomenon”
            Didn’t they get their start as Pinkertons? Working for Wells Fargo to catch stage and train robbers, then working their way up to being strike breakers?

            • Dear Phil,

              Couldn’t find the articles I stumbled across previously. Instead I found this. Equally revealing!

              “The key question, of course, is what was it about the United States in the 1830s that necessitated the development of local, centralized, bureaucratic police forces?

              … Anecdotal accounts suggest increasing crime and vice in urban centers…

              … But evidence of an actual crime wave is lacking. So, if the modern American police force was not a direct response to crime, then what was it a response to?

              … More than crime, modern police forces in the United States emerged as a response to “disorder.” What constitutes social and public order depends largely on who is defining those terms, and in the cities of 19th century America they were defined by the mercantile interests, who through taxes and political influence supported the development of bureaucratic policing institutions. These economic interests had a greater interest in social control than crime control. Private and for profit policing was too disorganized and too crime-specific in form to fulfill these needs. The emerging commercial elites needed a mechanism to insure a stable and orderly work force, a stable and orderly environment for the conduct of business, and the maintenance of what they referred to as the “collective good” (Spitzer and Scull 1977). These mercantile interests also wanted to divest themselves of the cost of protecting their own enterprises, transferring those costs from the private sector to the state.”

              In other words, modern cops are indeed goons for the corporatist interests.

              Their job is indeed “To Protect and Serve” — the corporatist interests, not us Mere Mundanes.

              • Good stuff, Bevin,
                “The emerging commercial elites needed a mechanism to insure a stable and orderly work force”
                According to John Taylor Gatto, this was the purpose of the GICs. And of course, a stable and orderly market to go along w/that work force.

                • Yup.

                  Pretty clear indication of the nature and purpose of the “po-po” as Jeffers calls them.

                  Their raison d’etre was not “protecting the public”, either then or now.

                  It was imposing the corporatists’ concept of “law ‘n order”, and producing a human labor force that approximates domesticated animals, such as sheep and cattle.

                  The control freak cop-clover connection is no accident. It’s the whole shootin’ match.

                  It all makes perfect sense.

                    • To me it explains the “war on some drugs” phenomenon, which if you think about it in rational terms, just doesn’t make sense.

                      Why get all bent out of shape over someone smoking hemp but not tobacco?

                      But if you realize the clover mindset of the PTB and their enforcers, which they also attempt to drum into the heads of Mere Mundanes via gubmint edumacation, then it makes perfect sense.

                      It’s all about control. It’s all about creating a society rooted in obedience to authority, and the eradication of any and all vestiges of independent thought and individual judgement.

                      Establish an orthodoxy. Enforce compliance. Keep everyone in line. Doing the masters’ bidding.

                    • “if you think about it in rational terms” – but it can’t be done. It’s a true contradiction in terms.

                    • The war on some drugs was about profit, protecting big pharm’s bottom line and getting more control over those masses who protested wars which were also about profit and involved the same players as the war on some drugs.

                      I recall when anyone could go to the doc and complain they just didn’t have any zip and felt like it was making them fat. Doc would write a script for some sort of speed and everybody would be happy. And speed was cheap cheap cheap. Then big pharm began to make all sorts of speed with various sorts of downers right there in with the speed or much smoother forms that could be administered in even greater quantity therefore making the downer industry with it’s myriad ways of chilling out a speedster even more profitable. Then we end up with bi-phetamine, black mollies and methaqualone, good ol’ Qua’s, and tuinal and seconal and all them al’s. After a couple decades though mom’s began to have burnout requiring more sophisticated stuff but the cheap stuff had to stop to sell more of the expensive stuff. This rocked along pretty well into the 80’s but then cocaine got to be all the rage and that really cut into big pharm’s bottom line.

                      Besides, pot and acid had already been outlawed so anything without a CIBA-GEiGY or Roche logo became illegal. Too many people had figured out how to make good old Nazi methamphetamine that was much purer than big pharm’s speed and that gave the cops all the excuse they needed to really expand to get all that speed and cocaine(just don’t jack with RR’s Ollie North/Norieaga venture) along with the ever growing amounts of pot being imported since nobody wanted to have a big bag of coke or speed and no pot or qua’s. Then qua’s were targeted and of course that caused those who could manufacture some righteous meth to make some methaqualone too. Now things are gong gangbusters and cops see criminals everywhere they looked, esp. if young people appeared to have plenty of money or appeared to be counter-culture or the evil of all evil, both.

                      There was a time in the early 70’s when people could do coke and fly under the radar cause it wasn’t “on the screen” yet. Late 70’s and that all changed. Then the cowboys started going to the discos and the hippies started wearing cowboy hats and boots and going to disco/shitkicker clubs and all the gloves came off. Cops just busted everybody who wasn’t 50 years old and didn’t look like they’d spent the day at Brooks Brothers or pouring concrete.

                      Now they know for a fact that everybody without a badge, no matter if they’re 80 and using a walker, is a damned criminal that needs to have their ass handed to them and since they just had their second big shot of steroids for the day they know just the guy to do it…..once they get the pastry sugar off their hands and their overloaded John Browne belts disengaged from everything around them.

                    • It also explains the TSA.

                      The TSA has yet to catch a single “terrist”.

                      Yet the PTB are doubling down on “airport security”.

                      “In a very classic sense, it is a strategy for acquiring more power.

                      Problem. Reaction. Solution.

                      For now, this Pre-Check system is an elite path to bypassing the rigor and discomfort of TSA screenings and speed up the hassle of traveling.

                      In the long run, it is part of the biometic ID grid that will place everyone under preemptive suspicion and real-time, global surveillance and monitoring.

                      Those who seek greater control are using the problem of long airport lines to whip the public into compliance with its new security systems (which have been active for many years, but so far only adopted by a few).

                      If people don’t sign-up now, can they expect more terrorism to speed the recruitment effort?

                      It’s not about security. It’s about the corporatist “elites” who own the USG, more efficiently herding their sheep and cattle — us.

                      http://www.shtfplan.com/headline-news/the-tsas-answer-to-long-lines-is-wait-for-it-more-security_06012016

              • A School Sucks podcast that I recently listened to made many of these same points, but then added another one I found interesting and yet obvious: Companies sprang up and became prosperous by selling vice products while desiring that their employees abstain from them. Hypothetical (perhaps actual) example: Alcohol manufacturers do not want drunk or drinking-on-the-job employees. They also wanted protection from prohibitionist types.

                • Dear 8sm,

                  Talk about luck. I just stumbled on to while trying to find other articles!

                  The way cops behave toward Mere Mundanes. The “You will respect my authority!” attitude? The “Stop resisting!” eyewash?

                  No accident. All intentional. All as planned.

                  The cops are not “derelict in their duty” when they beat us into submission. No, just the opposite.

                  They’re doing exactly what they were hired to do — herd us, the human counterparts of cattle and sheep around, to be exploited by the seedy “elites”.

                  It all makes so much sense.

          • Not to mention they don’t even have a legal obligation to protect us.

            Justices Rule Police Do Not Have a Constitutional Duty to Protect Someone
            By LINDA GREENHOUSEJUNE 28, 2005

            WASHINGTON, June 27 – The Supreme Court ruled on Monday that the police did not have a constitutional duty to protect a person from harm, even a woman who had obtained a court-issued protective order against a violent husband making an arrest mandatory for a violation.

            … the police failed to respond to a woman’s pleas for help after her estranged husband violated a protective order by kidnapping their three young daughters, whom he eventually killed.

            http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/28/politics/justices-rule-police-do-not-have-a-constitutional-duty-to-protect.html

    • There may be a legitimate need for peace officers, people to diffuse and settle disputes without getting to the level of court. It’s a valid role to diffuse matters before they get out of control. This sort of role used to be an idealized version of police officers such as that of Andy Taylor. On the other hand society has no need for cops, people who collect revenue for government as highway men or who enforce laws designed to socially engineer the population (war on some drugs for example).

      When cops exist to be highway men and interfere in people’s private choices then it should come at no surprise that there is risk involved in this.

  9. This goes against our founding principles in the Declaration that:

    “All men are created equal”

    Laws like this are illegitimate on their face.

  10. All police departments need to be abolished! They are a fairly new institution, and we did well without them. I believe that they are here largely to be mindless, unaccountable order followers to enslave the people through the illegitimate laws written by our globalist controlled legislatures.

    Before we had these demons in blue we had the Constitutional Militia of the Several States. Just about every male in the country was a member, and they were always available to deal with situations of “real” lawlessness. And the Militia did not cost the tax payers a thing. We need to reconstitute the Militias and dismantle police departments.

    • Here we go again, we’re(they’re) back in town again, we’ll play the clown again, one more time.
      I hate(sic) to be the broken record but the life you save will almost assuredly be your own……but don’t do it for something you know you’ll walk on. Buy a couple dozen of the small handcuff keys and install or have installed(no big deal, real easy to hide behind the inside tag of your waistband)a key in everything you wear on a daily basis. If you get lucky and get thrown in a car with no divider, the rest is easy. Grab the drivers gun, shoot the other one and then do the driver, easy peasy. Remember, it’s a hate crime anyway you go about it. Be sure to get your ID back from them…..they won’t mind. Torch the car making sure to ruin any cams or recording devices beforehand.

      Don’t be a dick when they pick you up, make out like you’re one of them. Hit their biases, tell some jokes, etc.

      I once needed a license renewal and a friends’ mom worked the desk there. Two troopers I had seen but didn’t know except for their name tags were there avoiding work and heat. Their reputation preceded them. I was really full of shit that day and so were they. I was popping some good jokes and they were matching me. When it was over I left amid a lot of good cheer and my new DL had this guy in a hat and dark shades. I haven’t been that lucky since. Since my eyes change color depending on various factors, i’ve decided to buy some cheap contacts for next time.

  11. I went to the Infantry course in 1992 with John Bel. He was obliviously in the military to punch his ticket to political office. He used to laugh about being above the law since his family, the Edwards, ran Louisiana. One unfortunate deputy mistakenly gave him a ticket and he related how the man was corrected for his error. I have often wondered when I would see John Bel show up on the political landscape.

  12. “Rights – such as the right to not be punched in the face – cannot vary according to the person affronted. It’s either right – or it’s not.”

    who is going to enforse this fatwa?

    equality before the law is a mere assertion, not an objective law

    History of equality before the law…

    In his famous funeral oration of 431 BC, the Athenian leader Pericles discussed this concept. This may be the first known instance.

    “If we look to the laws, they afford equal justice to all in their private differences; if no social standing, advancement in public life falls to reputation for capacity, class considerations not being allowed to interfere with merit; nor again does poverty bar the way”

    Pericles’ Funeral Oration from the Peloponnesian War
    http://legacy.fordham.edu/halsall/ancient/pericles-funeralspeech.asp

    – so some ancient greek hero says this after orchestrating a nice big slaughter and lua of peloponnesians. and we must keep to this because why?

    – what exactly is the apotheosis process by which “treatment cannot vary” becomes “an iron law.” Are we now to worship such old dogma from the old deities such as GOT’s – the Drowned God?
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0n2i5qRca8

    I could accept that those who produce and give more, should be treated better and enjoy better treatment. if there’s objective merit evident, why not?

  13. It is common knowledge among cops (and is recommended in the police academy) that a cop obtain a “throw-down”–an unregistered pistol to “plant” at a questionable crime scene.

    Another “dirty trick” is a police officer possessing a small bag of marijuana to justify a search during a traffic stop. The cop merely rubs some marijuana residue on the trunk lid. When the dogs are called in, the dog indicates drugs, thereby “justifying” a search.

    “Asset forfeiture” laws are commonly used to “enhance revenue” without any criminal activity being noted and are a form of “legalized robbery”. The supreme court was dear wrong in carving the “drug exception” to the Constitution . . .
    It is against the law to lie to “law enforcement” but cops, prosecutors and their ilk can lie with impunity. They often extract false confessions (in collusion with crooked prosecutors) with beatings. torture and harassment. ALL interrogations and traffic stops should be video recorded. Of course, most of “law enforcement” is against this as it would reveal their dirty dealings.

    I would like to see honest cops follow their oath of office and REFUSE to enforce unconstitutional laws. The Constitution is simple enough for the average person to understand without “interpretation”.

    posted anarchyst 6-2012.

    – I appreciate any kind of inside baseball on heroes.

    I personally don’t see the value in faithful slavemongers, aka”honest heroes”, but what the hell do I know.

    • Even one of the most notorious, sensational crimes in the last 100 years, the assassination of JFK involved a “throwdown” gun. That shit’s been working since it was a “throwdown” rock.

  15. The whole concept of ‘hate crimes’ flies in the face of “innocent until proven guilty.” Hate crimes are thought crimes, and you can’t prove thought, Minority Report to the contrary.
    When it comes down to it, all crimes are hate crimes in one sense or another. Either the offender hates the victim, or he hates the law. There is no justification to differentiating between ‘hate crimes’ and ‘non-hate crimes’ when it comes to meting out justive.
    I say “human lives matter,” none any more or any less than another.

    • The whole imposed concept of “innocent until proven guilty” also flies in the face of being a natural mammal, at liberty to live on the earth and sustain in self in peace.

      IUPG itself is an authoritarian construct found in the Digest of Justinian…
      http://www.thelatinlibrary.com/justinian/digest22.shtml

      it’s Dig. 22.3.2

      Paulus 69 ad ed.

      Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat.

      The original Codex Justinianus was promulgated in April of 529 by the C. “Summa”.
      This made it the only source of imperial law, and repealed all earlier codifications.

      However, it permitted reference to ancient jurists whose writings had been regarded as authoritative. Under Theodosus II’s Law of Citations, the writings of Papinian, Paulus, Ulpian, Modestinus, and Gaius were made the primary juristic authorities who could be cited in court. Others cited by them also could be referred to, but their views had to be “informed by a comparison of manuscripts.”

      tl:dr version. The Romans were the Alpha Assholes who delivered us into this misery we now languish under.

      Acting like having the positive right of being considered “innocent until proven guilty” is superior to the prior negative right of not being considered at all because there were no ubiquitious Roman Assholes lording it over nearly every square inch of Europe is insane.

      Anyways.

      The principal surviving manuscript is the Littera Florentina of the late sixth or early seventh century. In the Middle Ages, the Digest was divided into three parts, and most of the manuscripts contain only one of these parts. The entire Digest was translated into English in 1985.

      The Digest was discovered in Amalfi in 1135, prompting a revival of learning of Roman law throughout Europe.

      Roman Law “Heroes” Lore:

      The sixth century Digest of Justinian (22.3.2) provides, as a general rule of evidence: Ei incumbit probatio qui dicit, non qui negat—”Proof lies on him who asserts, not on him who denies”.

      It is there attributed to the second and third century jurist Paul. It was introduced in Roman criminal law by emperor Antoninus Pius.

      – It’s a whole lot of rotting fish guts if anyone’s asking me. Which probably noone is.

      Caesar can keep his Damn Dirty Ape Roamin’ paws off of me, is all I’ve got to say on the matter.
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Otm4RusESNU

    • “When it comes down to it, all crimes are hate crimes in one sense or another. Either the offender hates the victim, or he hates the law. There is no justification to differentiating between ‘hate crimes’ and ‘non-hate crimes’ when it comes to meting out justice.”

      PERFECTLY STATED!

  17. Police should be held to a HIGHER standard of conduct, as they have “official” sanction to take life, with impunity.
    NO! to any “hate crime” protections.
    Recently an off-duty plainclothes cop started a fight wit a civilian bar patron. When the civilian patron got the best of him, his cop buddies stepped in and charged the guy with “assault” on a police officer.
    Now imagine this “hate crime” legislation for police officers is enacted. Giving a cop a “dirty look” during a traffic stop will now be prosecutable.
    Cops do not need more “protection”. They should lose the “protections” that they now have…
    Giving cops “hate crime” protections is like giving them a “free pass”…

  18. Ever notice that police unions are “fraternal”? This should tell you something. The “thin-blue-line” is a gang, little different than street gangs–at least when it comes to “covering-up” questionable behavior by police.
    In today’s day and age, “officer safety” trumps de-escalation of force. This, in part, is due to the militarization of the police along with training in Israeli police tactics. This becomes a problem, with the “us vs. them” attitude that is fosters, along with the fact that Israel is a very different place, being on a constant “war footing”, and by necessity, its police tactics are very different.
    There are too many instances of police being “given a pass”, even when incontrovertible video and audio evidence is presented. Grand juries, guided by police-friendly prosecutors, quite often refuse to charge those police officers who abuse their authority.
    Police officers, who want to do the right thing, are quite often marginalized and put into harms way, by their own brethren…When a police officer is beating on someone that is already restrained while yelling, “stop resisting” THAT is but one reason police have a “bad name” in many instances…
    Here are changes that can help reduce the police-induced violence:
    1. Get rid of police unions. Police unions (fraternities) protect the guilty, and are responsible for the massive whitewashing of questionable police behavior that is presently being committed.
    2. Eliminate both “absolute” and “qualified” immunity for all public officials. This includes, prosecutors and judges, police and firefighters, code enforcement and child protective services officials, and others who deal with the citizenry. The threat of being sued personally would encourage them to behave themselves. Require police officers to be “bonded” by an insurance company, with their own funds. No bond= no job.
    3. Any public funds disbursed to citizens as a result of police misconduct should come out of police pension funds–NOT from the taxpayers.
    4. Regular drug-testing of police officers as well as incident-based drug testing should take place whenever an officer is involved in a violent situation with a citizen–no exceptions.
    5. Testing for steroid use should be a part of the drug testing program. You know damn well, many police officers “bulk up” with the “help” of steroids. Steroids also affect users mentally as well, making them more aggressive. The potential for abuse of citizens increases greatly with steroid use.
    6. Internal affairs should only be used for disagreements between individual officers–NOT for investigations involving citizen abuse. State-level investigations should be mandatory for all suspected abuses involving citizens.
    7. Prosecutors should be charged with malfeasance IF any evidence implicating police officer misconduct is not presented to the grand jury.
    8. A national or state-by-state database of abusive individuals who should NEVER be allowed to perform police work should be established–a “blacklist” of abusive (former) police officers.
    9. Most people are unaware that police have special “rules” that prohibit them from being questioned for 48 hours. This allows them to “get their stories straight” and makes it easier to “cover up” bad police behavior. Police must be subject to the same laws as civilians.
    10. All police should be required to wear bodycams and utilize dashcams that cannot be turned off. Any police officers who causes a dash or body cam to be turned off should be summarily fired–no excuses. Today’s body and dash cams are reliable enough to withstand harsh treatment. Body and dashcam footage should be uploaded to a public channel “on the cloud” for public perusal.
    11. All interrogations must be video and audio recorded. Police should be prohibited from lying or fabricating stories in order to get suspects to confess. False confessions ARE a problem in many departments. Unknown to most people, police can lie with impunity while civilians can be charged with lying to police…fair? I think not…
    12. Any legislation passed that restricts the rights of ordinary citizens, such as firearms magazine capacity limits, types of weapons allowed, or restrictive concealed-carry laws should apply equally to police. No special exemptions to be given to police. Laws must be equally applied.
    Police work is not inherently dangerous…there are many other professions that are much more dangerous.
    A little “Andy Taylor” could go a long way in allaying fears that citizens have of police.
    That being said, I have no problem with police officers who do their job in a fair, conscientious manner…however, it is time to call to task those police officers who only “protect and serve” themselves.

    • AnnRshit, when are you going to stop posting this repeatedly debunked Statist Copsucker drivel? You seem to have validated my hunch that your incorrect spelling of anarchist is meant to mean anarchist-lite? That was the same goal as minarchism has tried unsuccessfully to accomplish. The real choices are between self-ownership and slavery. You keep trying to pretend that partial pregnancy is indeed possible.

      • Brian, lighten up, already…
        You must be a copsucker…
        What drivel is that?
        I am merely posting what is possible–not an ideal situation. If I had my way, all government-run law enforcement would be abolished. The private sector would take over. Absent that, requiring cops to take responsibility for their actions by “hitting them in the pocketbook” is a start. Make ’em pay…
        My post is merely to attempt to put some controls on our out-of-control “law enforcement”…

        • Anarchyst, you keep pasting that text over and over again. I replied to it months ago, pointing out many reasons the whole concept of government law enforcement must be scrapped entirely. Your repeated pasting of the same thing transmits the idea that your belief remains as ‘mend it, don’t end it’.
          In this reply you finally state that you likewise would prefer for the present policing system to be abolished, but that you don’t think that option is realistic.
          I submit to you that mending the current system would at best only work as a reset button. Police chiefs, judges, and prosecutors will all want their incomes, powers, and influence to grow, and grow it will. Mixing coercive government with businesses is fascism.
          Anarchism is growing because more and more people are seeing the State for what it really is. Your repeated and long-winded Statist post is no solution at all, and does nothing to educate people about anarchism.
          If you want to understand what anarchism really is; I suggest that you go back to the EP Auto articles Anarchy Works, and the one about the CONstitution. Otherwise: May I suggest that you change your handle to ‘Minarchyst’?

          • “Anarchyst, you keep pasting that text over and over again.”

            Bryan, he’s pasted that same thing several times at the burning platform blog. I doubt he even wrote it to start with.

            Maybe the spelling of anarchist, with a ‘y’, as his screen name is a disclaimer, because he doesn’t seem to have a handle on anarchy or on minarchy for that matter. Statist lite is more like it.

        • Dear anarchyst,

          Re: labels

          Brian undeniably has a point.

          If — notice I said “if” — you still believe in “some government”, and can’t bring yourself to champion “zero government”, you really shouldn’t call yourself an anarchist, or even an “anarchyst”.

          You should call yourself “minarchyst” instead.

          Truth in labeling, after all.

          This is an “if, then” proposition. It depends on what you actually believe. Only you know that for certain. But the fact is you have written a few things that are clearly minarchist rather than anarchist.

          • It would seem minarchism is a conundrum wrapped around a contradiction. It’s “pardon my french” but a fuckall term for those who don’t want to be labeled a statist but have differing opinions of who they want to rob. A minarchist is as different from another as sand on a beach. All swishing this way and that but no cohesion.

            You are an anarchist or a statist or something blowing in the wind that wishes to have a label so you choose minarchist…..as if it can be absolutely defined. Quantum physics is hard science compared to minarchism representing a specific thing.

            • Dear 8sm,

              Needless to say, I agree.

              But I hasten to say in my own defense, that back in the day when I was still a minarchist, I was a minarchist only because I mistakenly assumed that an objective morality rooted in the NAP necessitated a single set of rule enforcers.

              I didn’t realize back then, that a single set of rule enforcers guaranteed the opposite result, the gross abuse of monopoly power, and a descent into totalitarianism.

              In any event that is a grave but perhaps understandable mistake that some genuinely well-intentioned minarchists make. I know it was the case for me. Once I realized my mistake of course, I changed my position.

            • That was then. This is now.

              Back then, many of the finer points of the “minarchist vs. anarchist” argument had yet to be clarified and publicized.

              Failure to understand was perhaps more excusable.

              Today, with a couple of decades of minarchist vs. anarchist debate behind us, “ignorance is no excuse”, or at least a much less plausible excuse.

              • bevin, it would seem via the Wikipedia page that clarification is or has drowned in a miasma of contradiction. There are either too many or not enough authors on that page. I lean to the aspect of one is too many, untold numbers are too few. The entire thing really is, and I am loathe to keep repeating myself, one contradiction piled on the other.

                It’s a bit like my boss giving directions. He never says a direction as we know them, just left and right. If he sent me west to a location, I’d have no doubt that I’d return someday to reach it coming from the east.

                Some probably such as yourself see minarchism as an impossibility. I certainly do. I always knew I was no statist, had no love or respect for govt. anything but I never passed through minarchist land. My realization of being an anarchist was much like the realization a toggle switch doesn’t work in the center position since there is none.

                • My realization of being an anarchist was much like the realization a toggle switch doesn’t work in the center position since there is none.

                  I like it!

                  I’m embarrassed to admit it took me far longer to see the truth.

                  • bevin, I’d bet there’s not a person here that’s not embarrassed it took so long for them to accept or realize what they were. Me too.

                    But anarchy for most people who have lived by the NAP their whole lives is the final thing we come to realize. There was a time when I might have said I was, for the most part(I have never tried to sugar-coat this for anyone)I was a law-abiding person which simply meant I didn’t take from others, not that I gave a whit at all about laws I deemed irrational or ones that served just the few. It took nearly my whole life to put the word “anarchy” to the way I operate.

                  • bevin, one more thing before I return to re-reading Even Cowgirls Get the Blues……and I’d be proud to give Suzie Hankshaw a lift anytime, would someday get as many of us here together at one place and yaw each others ears off for a few days.

                    The more I read that book the more I consider sticking out MY thumb again…..although I never used the thumb method. I’ve broke down many times I couldn’t make the fix or just had had it with somebody else’s rig. I’d grab my shaving kit and start walking. I don’t ever recall ever getting leather warm except for the time I had no radio and was 4 miles from the interstate. It gave me time to reflect and delayed me perfectly so that nice young nurse could stop and pick me up and would have taken me all the way home……if I’d wanted to risk it.

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