Persecution Pantomime is now an established part of what is styled “law enforcement” in the United States.
This includes such theater as marching a dog around a vehicle to confect probable cause to search it when it is otherwise absent. The motorist cannot refuse to watch this show – and if the dog “alerts” (i.e., it raises a paw, spins in a circle or whines or cocks its head or some other clearly objective evidence that you have arbitrarily illegal drugs in your vehicle) this provides the armed government workers with the legalized pretext to tear apart your car.
Similarly, roadside gymnastics and breath tests.
Many people don’t realize that the physical jerks – as Orwell put it – and the roadside breath test are administered to establish prima facie evidence of drunk driving – to justify the arrest and to take the person into the custody where they are then “asked” (under duress) to take another test – breath or blood – using much more accurate equipment.
This is generally the evidence that winds up being used in court.
The catch – in most states – is that refusal to perform gymnastics or take the (notoriously inaccurate) roadside breath test will usually result in not just your arrest but also automatic suspension of your license for refusing to provide evidence against yourself even if you are not convicted of DWI.
You have no rights, basically. Just an obligation to obey and assist in your own persecution.
If, however, you are certain you are not “drunk” – haven’t been drinking or only drank a small amount – it can be wise to refuse to take the inaccurate roadside test and accept arrest, in order to at least have the more accurate evidence of the breath/blood test they’ll take at the jail used against you… or not.
If the second test comes up negative – i.e., your BAC is nil or below the legal threshold – then you will probably not be convicted of DWI and that will save you a world of grief (and money) even if the court doesn’t rescind the suspension for not taking the roadside test.
But if you did take it – and the AGW claims it showed you had (as an example) a BAC of .11 at the time of your arrest, that will doom you, probably – even if the later, more accurate test came back with a BAC well below the limit. The prosecutor will say you “cheated” the system by delaying tactics – by the time you took the second test, you’d “sobered up.” The judge will agree, as judges are very PC and do not want to appear “soft” on “dangerous drunks.”
It is going to get worse, by the way – because (ironically) of the legalization of pot. It will now be assumed that everyone is “high” as well as presumptively “drunk” – and it will be our obligation to prove we are not.
But unlike alcohol, THC cannot be detected – reliably or otherwise – using a breath test of any kind and it remains in the body for a long time. Long after the “high” is gone. This presents a number of possibilities – or rather, worries.
The first is that in addition to effectively forcing people to undergo notoriously inaccurate roadside breath tests using the threat of immediate arrest as the prod, drivers will shortly be forced to submit to roadside blood draws to test for THC on the same basis. You won’t have the option to say no to this, either. At least, not without automatically losing your license as well as being immediately arrested.
The precedent for forced blood draws has already been established in law; in fact, more than half the states already practice this ghoulish routine – which the courts have ruled does not violate the Fourth Amendment because drivers have given their “implied consent” to such things . . . by driving.
By applying for a driver’s license – which the government forces you to possess in order to legally exercise your former right to travel freely – the government says you’ve agreed to forfeit your other rights, such as the right to be free from unreasonable searches.
And because of something called “exigent circumstances” – which amounts to: The government cannot be inconvenienced by your rights when it is trying to nail you to a cross for something.
The whole point of the Fourth Amendment, of course, was to make it inconvenient for the government to persecute people by obliging the government to refrain from persecuting people who had not given it evidence they’d committed a crime. It was the burden of the government to establish guilt – without the forced “cooperation” of the targeted person.
It was once generally believed that forcing people to give evidence against themselves was tyrannical.
Now it is considered “necessary and proper” – another bit of deliberately vague verbiage taken from the Constitution, which was written by lawyers for lawyers, in order to be parsed by lawyers – to our general disadvantage.
A government that can threaten you to give evidence, can force you to give evidence, is a medieval government.
Some, of course, agree with the doctrine of “implied consent” and “exigent circumstances” – because they are willing to take away any legal obstacles that might facilitate a “drunk” (or “high”) driver “getting away” with it.
This brings to mind a line from Robert Bolt’s play, A Man for all Seasons – and the subsequent film (1966). It is about King Henry VIII’s chancellor – and friend – Sir Thomas More, who ends up losing both Henry’s friendship and his head, because he declined to aid in his own persecution. There are many great dialogues in the play – and film – but one stands out that is relevant to 2019 and our times.
More is debating legal protections with his son-in-law, Roper – who advocates using whatever means necessary to apprehend the guilty. The dialogue runs as follows:
Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law?
More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?
Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!
More: Oh? And, when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you – where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast – man’s laws, not God’s – and, if you cut them down – and you’re just the man to do it – d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.
More, of course, lost that argument – along with his head.
And so, now, have we.
. . .
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It’s worth noting that EVERY time a lawyer, judge or prosecutor gets pulled over for DUI, they ALWAYS refuse the Breathalyzer and take the suspension. ALWAYS.
It’s also worth noting that without a Federal “Real I.D.” approved driver’s license, you will not be able to board an airplane or enter a military base or Federal building in 2020. It’s like a Soviet internal passport. (Of course, your license will be scanned and your flight/entry will be permanently recorded, forever, the Federal panopticon database out there in Utah).
So, you DON’T have any actual right to travel freely. You’d think that the First Amendment’s freedom of assembly clause would give you that right… but not any more it doesn’t.
Come to think of it, you don’t have ANY Constitutional rights any more. OH, WAIT… I forgot. You DO have the “Constitutional right” to jerk off to interracial pornography and to get an abortion and to marry another man. James Madison wrote those amendments, and they were ratified in 1791, weren’t they???
Regarding the “Real ID”, when renewing my Virginia driver’s license earlier this year, I declined to have it compliant with Real ID. What I’m wondering is what happens if I am called for jury “duty” (i.e., another aspect of our slavery) in a federal court? I have to be there, but not having the “Real ID”, I’m not allowed to be there. Somehow, I think the government will find a way to screw me. They always do.
Hi Mike,
I “opted out” of the REAL ID, too. My understanding is that as of Jan. 1, 2020 it means no flying, no entering “secure” government facilities – which certainly means courthouses. I’ve never been called to jury duty, oddly enough.
I wonder why.
You can still use a federal ID like a passport.
I use my passport everywhere real ID is required because well, if they want to play papers please I’ll use the ID made for it and Illinois wasn’t real ID compliant until a few months ago.
When I travel, the ratre times I do, I use my passport.
I think I already got permanently banned from federal jury duty – LOL
I haven’t flown since 2012 and now I’m retired so don’t need to. MY DL is up in about a year and I don’t know if there is still the not-Real Id option? I do know it was an extra charge for Real Id when they finally broke down and offered it.
I won’t do Real[stupid] ID either. Why would I? Haven’t flown since 1988, and never will again, unless somehow we are again able to without giving up our basic Constitutional rights- which of course is not going to happen- and if it did, then we wouldn’t need the natioina ID card then, anyway….
I’ve never set foot on any military base, and never will.
I have no interest in entering any federal gulag building….nor of them having any of my biometrics in their databases.
They can take their Real ID and shove it up their collective asses!
Oh…but dontchaknow, it’s going to “prevent terrorism”, just like it does[n’t] in the terrorist police state of Is-ra-hell, with all of their checkpoints and machine-gun-toting soldiers…..
The Is rah elle model is far preferable to the Chi-com social credit score model that the Dems want to adopt here. Either way, both suck. Our hut hut hut model sucks bigtime as well.
I think I will start wearing a Sombrero and driving without a license or insurance, since that seems to be the way to skirt their laws and not get pulled over by the AGWs.
I refused a breathalyzer and blood draw back in the early ’80s, and to say the goons were pissed off would be an understatement. I also refused to sign the DUI paperwork and they just printed “Jailed” on the line. Later they put me in a small room with two of the largest roided up deputies that were on the force and compelled me to sign a statement saying that I believed that I was intoxicated on the night of the arrest, and that I was not forced or coerced to sign said statement. (as the deputies stood behind me in a threatening manor) I was too young and broke to fight it, but going down as an “Implied Consent” DUI with no hard proof was a lot better than if I had taken the tests.
If I tried that today I would be beaten and possibly shot.
In some maybe most states roadside sobriety tests (including the portable breathalyzers) can be refused with no legislated penalty. These tests exist for the cops to build probable cause. Don’t give them the chance with tests that are ultimately subjective. Without this the cops have to use something else, if it exists, then arrest you, then there’s the blood test or breathalyzer at the station.
Dunno about that, Brent. Far as I can see, every state except CO., has a draconian penalty for breathalyzer refusal- in most it’s automatic license suspension (usually for longer than if you were convicted of DWI- and often without the option of a “hardship” license); and in some, it’s suspension plus fine; and in a few even jail time!
Scary thing I noticed while checking my facts on this: Not only do most states now carry additional penalties for a “DWI” if one has kids in the car…but in several states, they’ve morphed that into actual CHILD ABUSE charges!
Just like possessing a given amount of some drug automatically reads your thoughts as “intent to distribute”…..so you can be a “drug dealer” without ever having sold so much as an aspirin; now you can be a convicted “child abuser” if a machine finds you “guilty” of some other [non]crime….even though you’ve neither hurt a child nor anyone else.
You are the victim…the state is the criminal….but you suffer the penalties….
When it gets to such a point as this where words and concepts no longer have any meaning, and one can be convicted for crimes that have never occurred and in which there are no victims, but one is labeled the same as if they had committed a heinous act…..we are living in a despotic banana republic……
What’s next? Charging someone with murder if they erase someone’s signature?
Have a drink and harm no one- and your punishment will be severe; but be a third-world troglodyte border-jumper and rape a little girl, and you’ll be fine…..
Breathalyzer refusal after arrest at the station has those penalties. The stupid human tricks and roadside breathalyzers vary from state to state.
Hi Brent,
In my state, refusal to take the roadside breath test is itself an offense – or rather, punished as one. You will be arrested and your vehicle impounded. Your license will also be suspended automatically .
Emerson: “What are you doing in there?” (jail)
Thoreau: “What are you doing out there?”
https://www.activistpost.com/2019/11/new-legislation-will-throw-people-in-jail-for-disrespecting-cops-seriously.html
“In a vote this week, lawmakers in the Monroe County Legislature passed a proposal in a 17-10 vote to fine and/or jail a person who annoys, alarms or threatens the personal safety of an officer. The jail sentence is up to one year and the fine is up to $5,000.”
Annoys? Alarms?
Wow. Brave fucking heros that need this kind of protection from us….
But they can beat or kill you for no reason without so much as being charged.
In NYC if you hurt LEO’s delicate feelings you get fined as well. It seems the citizens have been throwing water on them.
I want to see a dog swear out an affidavit indicating the existence of the sought-for evidence, and it’s exact location, which is supposed to be necessary to search and seize said property!
A Man For All Seasons is indeed a great movie!
I am now going to play the devil advocate. Back in the 70’s and 80’s I was a volunteer EMT. As I recall there were big wrecks on interstate 30 near Pittsburgh just about every Saturday night. My shift. Drunks were rear ending stopped vehicles at high speeds, head on collisions were common, you name it. The carnage was horrendous. Many of the victims of these accidents died before we could get them to a trauma center. These events are now pretty much non existent. I don’t know what to say. Our rights are clearly being eroded, but the roads seem to be alot safer now.
My rights > other’s saaaaaafety. The highways started becoming appreciably safer in the 1980s due to improvements to vehicles and the replacement of older, less safe cars with newer cars that had better brakes, suspensions, steering and overall handling. Improvements in lighting have made driving at night safer as well. While the fedgov still mandates upward beam scatter into headlight standards, the low beam headlights are far clearer and project more light to the road ahead than lights 20, much less 30 years ago. Due to the National HIghway System Act of 1995, many US style highways have been upgraded as well. Crashes have gone down because of the natural improvements in cars. Today, cars have a lot of crumple zones and side impact protection. The minus to that is decreased outward visibility with high beltlines. The fatality rates are turning up again, aided by capacity collapse on major interstate highways
In the last 4 years or so, Uber and Lyft have done a lot to reduce drunk driving crashes, as it is easier and more acceptable to arrive in an Uber car than it is on some yellow tylenol car. That is helping the situation.
Ahh…but now, with DUI arrests and convictions DOWN, states and municipalities are scrambling to find other ways to, as Eric puts it, “mulct” drivers for whatever reason. Hence the emPHAsis, on the wrong sylLAbel, on “drugged driving”. Many jurisdictions, if you’re hauled down to the police station on a DUI charge, and you “blow clean”, will immediately RE-ARREST you on the pretext that as far as the officer observed, you were “impaired”, and alcohol being ruled out, there must be some “drug”, legal or not, in your system to have caused said “impairment”. Proving that is much harder, but the idea is to get you to plead to SOMETHING, pay a huge fine, booking and court fees, impound fees (don’t kid yourself that the tow company isn’t kicking something back to the police benevolence association), and, if they find cash, KEEP it (Civil Asset Forfeiture), or even your ride itself. The Sheriff of Nottingham ain’t out there to apprehend the “highwaymen”, he IS the “HIGHWAYMAN”!
You probably meant US 30, Interstate 30 runs between DFW and Little Rock, AR.
Greater attention is paid to ensuring officer and detainee safety during a stop nowadays to avoid having some yahoo plow into them BOTH.
Off topic read for you Eric
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/guides/100-best-cars/
I remember all the cop shows (Dirty Harry, etc) during the70’s and 80’s and 90s where the cops were constantly complaining about being outgunned and having to let criminals go because they didn’t read them their rights or didn’t follow proper procedure. This was the “programming” that was used to create our present dystopian world. And it worked.
Although the shows were good to watch I caught on to the memes being passed and warned as many as I could but was considered a kook. Today watching the older TV shows it’s easy to see how they were indoctrinating us. All one has to do is ‘look’. The new shows are doing the same. And I am still called a kook.
As for the Constitution,,, it’s been pronounced dead ever since two planes took down three buildings. “Pull it!!”
You’re right. The only show that showed the cops in kind of an adversarial role vis a vis our rights was the Rockford Files. In the Season 5 episode “A good clean bust with sequel rights,” there was mention of a “reaction” to permissive judges and crime in the general public. Clearly by the late 1970’s the indoctrination was working.
That’s something else I’ve thought about before. I used to watch the original Mission: Impossible on Netflix, back when I had Netflix, and though I didn’t get it at the time I do now. Early on you had a lot of the expected “Covert Adventures in Commieland” and rooting out commie spies in the US, but – especially as the show went on – you also saw a lot of the team operating against targets who not only weren’t enemies of the US but hadn’t even done anything to anyone yet, as well as against “sub-national” threats such as organized crime – often domestic organized crime – which should have been dealt with by civilian law enforcement. A perfectly entertaining show but I now have to wonder; was it just entertainment or a deliberate attempt to normalize intelligence-agency meddling all over the world and right here at home too?
Started right with “Dirty Harry”, where Inspector Callahan ought to ALREADY know that, having captured the Scorpio killer still alive at the old Kezar Stadium, if he tortures him to find out where the 14 y.o. girl has been stashed (Callahan is certain that she’s already dead, but in the faint hope that he’s wrong, wants the info so maybe she can be rescued), that any info that he gets as a result of said torture WILL be deemed inadmissible…IF he admits that he “leaned” on the suspect! Why the Inspector would even admit to having tortured his captive escapes me, he could just plausibly deny it, and, absent overwhelming medical evidence to the contrary, even in “Sin” Francisco, no one will care about the killer and his ‘rights’.
In those days, it was known as “getting off on a technicality”…some judges actually threw out a warrant if there was a typo that had no relevance, and so on. However, cops, being bureaucrats with badges and issued sidearms, simply learn the “work-arounds” in the trade, their interest is to make those busts and advance their careers, not to uphold YOUR rights!
Also, if you get pulled over: Never, ever, EVER, say you had anything to drink! Lie. I don’t care how shitfaced you are, the answer is, “Why, no, officer”. I tell all my kids this too.
“No officer, I’m just exhausted from driving all day”
That aside, remember how my mom told me one of my sisters friends got arrested for drinking, even though it was HOURS ago and it would of been out of her system, so thanks for reminding me Tom
Best to say NOTHING at all. Hand the officer the “Fair DUI” flyer, and don’t speak AT ALL. If you talk, the officer could claim that your speech was slurred or that he detected an odor of alcohol on your breath, giving him reasonable suspicion to detain to investigate. You absolutely have the right to remain SILENT, in this case literally to protect your interests.
Implied consent: We pay no attention when this shit is put into place. We almost deserve what comes from our shrugging our shoulders.
We’ll never learn.
We have your back/6!
-Police State Flag on back of GroceryHauler/Joe Sixpack Truck
Eric, wait until we are all forced into electric, driverless cars. When we no longer drive, the state will be forced to generate revenue some other way. Since they can’t get you for impaired driving. Then they will start making up reasons/laws on why they need to harass you in your home. I’m sorry the 300 square foot tube you will be living in. Then it will be much worse.
Hi Matty,
Of course – unfortunately. For us. They will argue that we still can’t drink “too much” (or eat red meat) as these entail “risk” and thus we may “impose costs on society.” Every last redoubt will be micromanaged, controlled – and punishment meted out for “noncompliance.”
This might have sounded ridiculous just ten years ago. Does anyone reading this now think it is?
I used to think INGSOC and 1984 was the end-state for the Soviet Union. Now, I am not so sure if it’s not to be the end state of the American experiment. 1865 sure has a lot to answer for.
Hi Crusty,
I thought so, too – but I now think Huxley was farther-seeing. Brave New World is our world. Conditioning and social pressure and narcotics rather than violence. Keep the masses addled and infantile; cater to their immaturity and foster mindlessness.
Mustafa Mond knew better than Stalin…
Yeah Eric, that is a possibility I can see more clearly now.
Or is the end state more like Demolition Man, or The Running Man?
Or, is it all of the above, a smorgasbord of official opression, take a bad example from each and put it on steroids?
Actually, I’m wondering if we’re in The Village more each day. Who is Number One?
Eric,
You ever listen to this?
https://youtu.be/2WaUkZXKA30
I still believe when people cannot simply ignore the bastards we will see chsnge. For now there is simply a slow boil of anger and resentment.
Eric,
“This might have sounded ridiculous just ten years ago. Does anyone reading this now think it is?“
For fucks sake, making the OK hand gesture is considered a hate crime.
Think of all the criminals. Flight line workers, construction workers, factory workers, anyone in a noisy environment.
Civilization has collapsed.
Without the ability to communicate we are doomed.
Hi T,
It has, indeed. Like a delayed-reaction time bomb. The cracks around the foundation have been visible for some time – but now the structure is literally crumbling in front of our eyes. The destroyers are in the open, now.
I always thought I’d not live to see what I knew was coming when I considered all of this as a high school kid back in the ’80s. I thought it would take at least another 50 years, probably 75-100.
But here we are – and I think we all know what’s coming.
Soon.
I’m sure there are people in power who are salivating over the Chinese “Social Credit Score” and writing up legislation to implement it in the US. Just need another false flag… er, I mean international terrorist event, and we’ll be seeing networked cameras everywhere.
Ever wonder why they are called “Think Tanks?” Because a “Think Missile” or “Think Nuclear Bomb” would be a little too obvious.
Plenty of that “social credit score” is already here. Just look what happens when you express an contrarian viewpoint, even when your 100% correct. Bye bye to a secure job, career, your small business etc.