Tag Archives: civil rights

Copping a Feel

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  Opponents of “stop and frisk” are missing the point. I guess it all goes back to our Nation’s obsession with race and race politics.  As far as I can tell, this dangerous policy has nothing to do with racial profiling, whatever that is. It has everything to do with our rights as citizens of the United States of America. If you read a lot of the founding documents and writings of our Independence, you will find many references to what should be our unalienable right….. No unreasonable search and seizure. See, along with all the other things we have forgotten, we have forgotten that we are to have equal standing under the protection of law. Stop and Frisk elevates authorities above that. Where Stop and Frisk is in place the police now have the ability to circumvent your presumption of innocence. It’s just part of a troubling trend that changes the relationship we have with these same authorities. 

  

Don’t think so? Well join the armies of ignorance shlubbing their way through our society. Think it’s all about race? If so, you have fallen for the oldest trick in the book used by Machiavellian aristocrats. It’s like looking through a window into your back yard, and it’s on fire. Shift the size and location of the window, and you can shape the image you see. Maybe just the swingset’s on fire according to your new view. Sure, that’s a problem, but nowhere near as alarming as the raging inferno inching closer to your home. The issue is NOT that blacks in America are being unjustly searched. It’s that ANYONE in America can be stopped and searched.

Another defense of this indefensible stop and frisk policy is my favorite: “If you’re not up to anything, or doing anything wrong, what’s the big deal? What are you afraid of?” Take a look at how many new laws are passed by Congress every year. I’ll wait. OK…. now take into account all of the County, City and State laws passed every year. Guess what? Most people are “doing something wrong” every day. For instance, are you correctly following all of your ridiculous neighborhood covenants? Or how about all the moronic City ordinances? Is your trash in the right place? Is your car parked correctly? How tall is your fence? Microchips in your kids…oops, I mean animals? You get the idea.

Now, combine these never-ending laws with who enforces them, and for what purpose. When did “protect and serve” become “Harass, Fine, and Collect”? How many folks reading this now get all warm and fuzzy when they see the Po-Po behind them? Or safe and secure when they pull into your driveway? Ask the kid who was shot to death in California last month for having a smart mouth (“What, are you going to shoot me?”) at a DUI stop. Whoopsy. At least his friends and family can rest assured that after a lengthy paid leave this gunslinger will be back on the streets.

It’s about control, folks. And I know what you’re thinking. You think I’m paranoid. Well, just cause I’m paranoid doesn’t mean people aren’t out to get me, and you. See, while you’ve had your head down, and the TV on, thousands of new laws, EPA directives, and executive orders have been flowing out of our ever-increasing government agencies, local, state and federal. And in case you didn’t know, crap rolls down hill, and we are all at the bottom. Just like the enemies we have across the ocean herding their goats, those whose lives are spent in search of power are biding their time, counting the progress of their initiatives in terms of decades, not minutes.

At the same time the power that those who are supposed to protect us has been growing. Listen, I know we all want to think that the police, prosecutors, and judges that are our public servants are as selfless and heroic as on TV. And hey, some of them are. But there is a rapidly escalating change in how these folks do business. Due to an increasing need to raise more revenue than ever, combined with the militarization of even the most backwoods police departments, a frightening us-versus-them mentality is arising. I find it humorous that on MSNBC I’m told that the Tea Party are jack-booted thugs, when there really are jack-booted stormtroopers just waiting for their next warrant-serving or drug raid. Since when did even the smallest and most ill trained sheriffs’ departments need armored vehicles, black military garb, body armor, and automatic weapons?

What happened to the days of Mayberry? Jeez, even Sheriff Andy knew to only let Barney have one bullet. Now Barney’s got unlimited discretion to take away your life and liberty with the most powerful of arsenals. Awesome. It used to be just disrespectful to mock an officer of the court. Now it’s a crime. Don’t believe me? Give a cop the finger next time you see one….. you’ll get an education in how far your Freedom of Speech has been degraded faster than you can say bye-bye to your posterior virginity in prison.

I know we all want to feel safe. I know we all want to do what we can to have safe neighborhoods, schools, and streets. The answer is not empowering hordes of government employees, agencies and regulations with the ability to control and dictate every aspect of your life. People write laws, and people are not perfect or only motivated to have your interests at heart. The reason our founding documents specifically say that our creator (and by the way I don’t care who or what you think that is) granted our rights is this:

Rights given by our creator cannot be taken away, altered or revoked. We are born with them. Because trusting imperfect people with your rights, your safety, your security, your prosperity, and your literal liberty and freedom, is folly. And the more you cede to these imperfect people, the closer you get to wearing the yoke of servitude. And it won’t happen overnight, it will happen in inches, over the course of time. And in the end you won’t even know you’re a slave……. until you wake up in chains.

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Oh No…… It’s Mr. Bill Oh’ Really!

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  There’s a troubling trend I’ve been noticing in the last few days. Well… to be honest, it’s not new, and not that many are troubled by it. Maybe that’s what I find so irritating. I just watched a clip of “King Loofa”, otherwise known as Bill O’Reilly, once again pontificating on television while slathered in what looks like oompa-loompah make up.  His grand, arrogant oration to a member of the opposition to nationalized healthcare made me want to spit out my Kroger-brand coffee. 

  His (paraphrased)  point was this: ” Hey, you guys know you’re not going to win this de-fund Obamacare thing…. you know it’s a fight you can’t win…. so why are you fighting it? What’s wrong with you guys? You must be stupid or crazy or both.” Well why don’t we change Bill’s name to Bill Oh Really? I thought this nation was founded on the very notion that some fights are worth fighting. Even when it’s against all odds, even when everyone says it can’t be done. Defeat the most powerful empire on earth? Nah.. Create a republic of free men and women that takes the power from an Aristocracy and gives it to ordinary folks? Nah…. Impossible. So why try? 

  It brings to mind just a few examples of people who spit in the face of Bill Oh Really’s “wisdom”.  I’ve already mentioned the founding of our country, so let’s start there. Do you think that George Washington had confidence in his ability to defeat the armies of the British Crown?  Well I don’t think he did. In fact, if not for the outcome achieved, and with the exception of the Battle of Trenton, Washington kinda sucked at winning any engagement with the British.  His crowning achievement was probably not getting shot right out of his saddle every time he lined the Colonials up for the slaughter.  To me it seems that it surely must have been Providence that we came out on top of the struggle for Independence.

  Let’s make a stab at another individual that made the impossible possible.  Take a look around you wherever you are right now.  Are the lights on? Can you read at night without dripping wax all over you? Let’s forget the whole flourescent bulb fiasco for a second, as that’s the subject for another day.  Electric light has changed the world in a way that almost nothing else has.  Mankind finally did what was thought to be a pipe dream. Bring light to darkness, safety to lurking danger, with the flip of a switch.  Thomas Edison tried hundreds of time to invent the lightbulb. and I’m sure the Oh Really’s of the world told him, “hey, it’s not going to work, it’s a fight you can’t win…. so cut it out already will you?”.  Well I’m glad the Sultan of Shower Scrubbers wasn’t there to, pardon the pun, illuminate him on the futility of his endeavor. 

And finally, I wonder what Mr. Bill would say to Martin Luther King jr. and other civil rights activists of the sixties? Surely they were also told, “Hey…. what you’re doing is impossible. You’re just making a stink for something that you know will never happen.” I guess he’d line up with guys like Democrat Senator Strom Thurmond or Klan member Senator Robert Byrd, Democrat from West Virginia, who personally stood at the podium for over 14 hours to try to block the Civil Rights Act. Or guys like George Wallace, and yes he’s another Democrat , who stood in multiple schoolhouse doors to block innocent children from going to school.

I was under the impression that I was fortunately born somewhere where the impossible is made possible. I thought this was the Nation of Underdogs. I thought this was perhaps the only place on the face of the earth where if you could dream it, you could do it. Because sometimes you fight because it’s the right thing to do, no matter the odds, no matter the cost. History is made by men and women who looked poo-pooers like Bill O’ Reilly in the face and said, “Impossible, huh? We’ll see about that.”