Don't talk to the police, by James Duane

It occurred to me today that I have yet to put up a post about Professor James Duane's absolute classic, "Don't Talk To The Police".

I got no excuse for that lapse, folks.  Facepalm.

Well, let's put a stop to that.  Here you are.

For those who have never seen it:  please, fix that.  (You'll understand, when you do.)  For those who know it: do help spread it as far and wide as you can.  It's no longer a stretch to say that it might save someone's life.

Claire Wolfe on living in a police state

Claire Wolfe is at work on another capital-R resource.  The first installment of "Responsibilities of a resident of the police state" is now up at Backwoods Home magazine, and it frames the problem about as well as it can be said.  She begins with the simple summary:

I know: Our first responsibility is to ourselves and our families. We didn’t create the police state. What government does isn’t our responsibility (except to whatever extent we support its actions). Yet we’re people of conscience. We can’t watch others be crushed without feeling a stab of their agony. We know, as others are crushed, that the crushing machinery gathers momentum and will roll toward our own lives. We know that not only we, but the ideals that sustain civilization, are being crushed. And that matters to us. Matters vitally, painfully, heartbreakingly. No matter what else we do, we can’t stand by and watch that happen without feeling an obligation — or at least a passionate longing — to do our all to stop it.

She then goes on at more length about just how agonizing it can be to observe even just one aspect of the current scene:

Then with so much indignation roused against them, police abuses against individuals ought to be among the easiest police state activities to halt. Even if you acknowledge such (admittedly big) factors as the federal government paying, equipping, training, and otherwise encouraging local cops to be thugs, in theory outraged local people (supported by a howling Internet) ought to have a relatively easy time putting a stop to such local outrages.

But despite the outcry, the abuses don’t stop. They don’t even slow down. Instead, we now see SWAT-style raids used to enforce housing code violations and catch student-loan scofflaws. We see polite objectors being charged with the catch-alls of disorderly conduct, obstruction of justice, or resisting arrest — and less polite objectors killed on the spot. We see tasers — once billed as “non-lethal” alternatives to firearms — being used as “compliance tools” against old ladies, grade-school children, diabetics, epileptics, and handicapped teenagers. We see people who photograph cops being threatened with long prison sentences. We’re told the horrendous lie that “freedom” requires absolute, forelock-tugging, dirt-scuffing, unquestioning obedience to Authoritah — and we’d better believe it OR ELSE.

You know all that, of course.

And it pains your conscience, doesn’t it? It makes you want to scream in frustration. Makes you want to take the law into your own hands and end the abuses by any means necessary. Makes you wonder if the entire country hasn’t lost its mind — and makes you sure that the entire “justice system” has well and truly lost its collective marbles — or perhaps isn’t intended to be a “justice” system at all.

No matter how loudly you yell, how many times you show up to support a victim in court, how many letters you write to editors, how many times you speak at public forums, how many times you do exactly what Martin Niemoeller mourned that he didn’t do … things just get worse.

See, this is why I follow Claire Wolfe.  She has a talent for respectfully re-humanizing the problem of inhumanity, and she does it without flinching on principle.

Don't just read and share this one, bookmark it.   I suspect the following installments will be similarly worthy, but even if they're not, this here is a resource for anyone who (like me) has struggled with the "what to do" demons.

Scared of Freedom: another gold nugget from Larken Rose

Personally, I struggle to explain to others why I ignore and shun the political process whenever and however I am able to do it, as a matter of survival.  Oh, I try, but I always sound obtuse, even to myself.

Larken Rose seems to have no such trouble, and I am always happy to amplify his thoughts by whatever meager amount I can.  Via Wendy McElroy, check out "Scared of Freedom", which begins thus:

There are a lot of people who consider themselves freedom advocates, who, with righteous zeal and indignation, vehemently rail against the injustice, corruption and oppression "government" continually spews forth. However, many of those same people, when they hear someone suggesting life without the monstrosity called "government," will immediately go into turbo-backpedal mode, insisting that some "government" is needed, that we need to work to fix the system, and that we need a good "government," that just does good stuff, and protects us, and so on.

The situation is a lot like a battered spouse, who is given the opportunity to escape her abuser, but who insists that she can't leave, that he really loves her, that she needs him, that the relationship can be fixed. Such a response shows that, as much as the abuser is a nasty scumbag, there is also a serious problem in the mind of his victim, which enables the abuse to continue.

So it is with statists who just want a nicer, gentler "government." They don't actually want freedom. In fact, they are scared to death of freedom, which is why they refuse to give up the very beast that they are constantly condemning and complaining about. They insist that "government" is needed to protect people, to maintain liberty and justice, and do nothing more. The fact that the gang called "government" has never done that, anywhere in the world, at any time in history, doesn't shake "limited statists" from their faith in the idea that that "needs" to happen.

There's a lot that follows this, and it's made of the same stuff.  RTWT, and please consider sharing it with those who need it.

As usual, the man has a point.

The incalculably valuable Arthur Silber, today on protection rackets:

My God and gee whiz, the desperate need for debt reduction by the federal government is a terrifying business. I know this must be true, because all our leaders and all major commentators repeatedly tell us so. To a person, their pronouncements are drenched in urgency, warning of doom if we do not accede to their demands.

Those familiar with Silber's talent for such preliminary snark know what's coming next:

When your preferred, and more and more frequently your only, tactic is terrorizing your subjects -- abroad or at home -- the specifics of the "crisis" of the moment are entirely irrelevant. What matters -- the only thing that matters -- is spreading panic and fear. For a terrorist, terror is the point.

Your national leaders are terrorists. Look on the bright side: they aren't shooting at you or sending drones into your neighborhood. Not yet. You still have that to look forward to, you fortunate idiots.

RTWT.  In addition to his trademark imagery and firebrand style, Silber here makes convenient use of the "which instance of this atrocity are we talking about again?--cause it sure gets hard to keep them all straight" literary device which, let's face it, has just about become "file photo" worthy for any current-event topic you can name.

Consider introducing Arthur Silber to anyone you know, who does not yet understand.

"They have to prove it, or else I'm a murderer too."

Butler Shaffer on the Casey Anthony trial.

The words of one of the jurors, Jennifer Ford, should give encouragement that many of our neighbors can rise above the Madame Defarge lynch-mob mindset. As Ms. Ford so well expressed it: "If they want to charge and they want me to take someone’s life, they have to prove it. They have to prove it, or else I’m a murderer too."

Duh.  If there's any hope at all for this whole "rule of law" thing, that concept better damn well be buried deeply in the DNA of every juror of every trial, all the f#$kin' time.  Make those malignant bastards work for every conviction they seek.  Consider nullification every time, and do it when necessary, with absolutely no regard to "case law".  And when they whine at you that you're making their jobs difficult, say "it's the least I can do for someone who will stab me in the back at his first opportunity".  They want convictions, you want justice, and the two are not--let me repeat,

NOT

the same thing.  You do not want their jobs to be "easier".  You do not want them to want their jobs at all.  You want them to feel like if they do something wrong, that they will pay personally, and severely.  (That is, you want them to feel just like you do now.  Note the "stab in the back" reference above.)

Anyway, Shaffer gets uncharacteristically contrived with his interlude imagery in the middle of this piece, but if you ignore that (and he's earned that sort of respect) it's typical gold.

I have no defense to make of Casey Anthony as a person or a mother. I don’t know that much about her to make any such judgment. Her alleged failure to notify anyone of Caylee’s being missing until thirty-one days later does not impress me as the epitome of responsible motherhood. But the jury was not assigned the task of judging this woman’s character. They understood what Dennis and Amelia did not: individuals are responsible for the consequences of their actions. In a world in which we have become accustomed to dealing with one another in highly abstract ways, it is easy for any of us to express opinions – or courses of action – without feeling any sense of responsibility for what we have put in motion.

Getting to the bigger point, as ever.  RTWT, it's worth it.

________________________________
By the way, on the same subject, if you haven't already, check out Balko's piece, and this marvelous follow-up at The Agitator:

If the argument you’re about to make begins this way:

I see the purpose of the whole “innocent until proven guilty” premise of our judicial laws, however ...

. . . just stop typing. Or talking. There really isn’t anything that can follow however that isn’t going to make you look foolish.

The response to the Caylee’s Law piece has been mixed. But a few of the angrier responses have been wonderfully absurd.

Balko does occasionally indulge in a prurient roast, a forgivable thing given the outstanding work he does every day, and I admit to laughing out loud at most of them.

American life in a nutshell.

I swear I am not making this up.  It happened about ten feet in front of my face, not two hours ago.

We were finishing up hot dogs sold by the volunteer FD when the announcement was made of a small route change for the parade.  As it happened that change put the very beginning of the parade route right past our faces.  Within minutes, dozens of additional people found their way to the same spot we were in, belonging to exactly two demographics:  young children with parents, and seniors.  It struck me that all the kids and parents seemed demonstrably friendly, courteous and aware, and the only ones "barging around" seemed to belong to the senior demographic.  (Yes, there were a couple of the seniors that conspicuously stayed well back and smiled a lot at us, but the rest of the "bargers" zoomed on in front of us as though never noticing we were there.)

Anyway, the parade was the usual small-town arrangement of characters, including the incessant parading of politicians and would-be politicians, sellin' their snake oil.  (I don't know just what to make of my casual observation that most of the crowd's engagement did seem to politely tune down, when the plasticene-grin-and-tightly-scripted-wave crowd trundled by.  In particular, again, the kids and parents just didn't seem to say much of anything, one way or the other.  Perhaps wishful thinking on my part, but it was notable enough to register.)

I do, however, know just exactly what to make of the episode that happened when the Borough ("county") parade vehicle came on by, with its printed repertoire of catchy catechisms in the "we luv to serve" vein of professional smarm. 

I swear, again, I am not making this up.

"Seniors!" shouted the leader of the bargers that had settled right in front of us.  The tone of his voice immediately indicated that he was speaking for the cadre around him.  "Whatcha got for us?"  The sense of entitlement hit me like a dog whistle.

The two occupants in the Borough vehicle, who had been throwing candy at the kids with big smiles, flashed looks of pure contempt, just for one instant, and showered the seniors with...peanuts.  Within another second, their smiles had returned and their next handfuls (of candy) were again in search of younger prey constituents.

I looked around.  Nobody seemed to have noticed, or made anything at all of it.  No one.

That's what completed the image.

Fourth of July, otra vez

Wrote this one two years ago, and did not feel the need to change anything.

---

It does me well to remember, now that the Fourth of July is here and all the banners and colors are in evidence, just what the observance is supposed to be for.

The Fourth of July is not the day the Constitution was signed or ratified.

It's not even when the Bill of Rights (and with it the legitimacy of the Constitution) was ratified.

It has nothing--nothing--to do with self-congratulatory, chest-thumping military displays.

It has nothing to do with any sort of flag.

It has nothing to do with faithfulness or loyalty to your government.

In fact, if you read the document that the Fourth actually celebrates, you find some interesting things, including:

• This is about declaring that a people are ultimately independent from, and therefore above, their government.
• This is about declaring the right to revolt against a government that has stopped representing its people.
• This is about people willing to stand up and become military targets of their own government.

These folks were revolutionaries.  They were secessionists.  They were seditionists.  No doubt King George considered them "terrorists" and "traitors", guilty of "treason" toward the duly constituted authoritah of the time.

And we celebrate the Fourth of July today, not only because they stood up and said, "we've had enough of your abuses and are no longer subject to your rule", but then had the moxie to fight back when George called them on it.

Think about that.  These people opened fire on their own government, when said government came to take away their stockpiles of unlicensed, unregistered, long-range, (better than) military-style arms.  They organized and fought a guerrilla insurrection rather than continue to endure a government that did not serve, reflect or benefit them.  And, perhaps to the surprise of everyone including themselves, they prevailed.

Isn't it funny how times have changed.  Criticizing the government is now only done by kooks and loonies, who of course should be rounded up and added to the ever-growing list of potential terrorists.  Quoting the Constitution or Bill of Rights is now considered impertinent enough to get you on the list.  And the Fourth of July is now all about wearing the team colors, whooping it up for the coach in Washington, and celebrating with displays of military might.  All while you shut up and pay your taxes, so nobody gets hurt.

Because, you know, times are so different now.
 
Please do celebrate the Fourth of July--for what it is.  Independence Day.  Go read the Declaration of Independence, and talk about it.  It may not be a casual conversation, but it's one worth having.