Monday, July 27, 2009

Praetorian Presumptions




















Behold the face of fear and insecurity: Riot police in Oakland, seen here protecting and serving their community.


Salt Lake City's
Deseret News, as part of its continuing campaign against rationality, recently published a house editorial condemning civilian ownership of firearms.


Bobbing in the puddle of pathos created by the editorial staff's lachrymosity can be found this lump of congealed hypocrisy:
"[T]ough guys don't pack firearms. Fearful guys do -- people who see everyone around them as a threat and think the worst of faces they don't recognize. Guns don't showcase strength, they showcase weakness."


There is the beginning of an important point here, but it's one the people responsible for that editorial, in their ideologically induced foolishness, are too thick to recognize: If they are serious in their assessment that carrying firearms (particularly handguns) is symptomatic of socially dangerous insecurity on the part of those who carry them, then disarmament should begin with those most frequently found in public possession of those weapons -- that is, the police.



Since police are trained "to see everyone around them as a threat and think the worst" of those they encounter, they are a uniquely suitable target for disarmament, at least by the standard suggested by the
Deseret News.


In what could be (depending on one's worldview) either a divinely ordained symmetry, an example of Karmic synchronicity, or a convenient coincidence, an active-duty police officer validated the point above in a brief blog item for National Review.


Writing about the arrest of Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates, Jr., "Jack Dunphy" -- the name is a pseudonym for an active-duty LAPD officer -- took umbrage with the suggestion that slapping a set of handcuffs on a small, middle-aged man and hauling him off to jail might not be the wisest way for a police officer to react when offended by something that man had said.


After all, insisted the cyber-Centurion, being a policeman is dangerous, and those mundanes who refuse to display proper docility might well end up dead.



By way of illustration, "Dunphy" writes, "here is what I would advise [anyone] ... who finds himself unexpectedly confronted with a police officer: You may be pure as the driven snow itself, but you have no idea what horrible crime that police officer might suspect you of committing. You may be tooling along on a Sunday drive in your 1932 Hupmobile when, quite unknown to you, someone else in a 1932 Hupmobile knocks off the nearby Piggly Wiggly. A passing police officer sees you and, asking himself how many 1932 Hupmobiles can there be around here, pulls you over.
"


"At that moment," Dunphy continues, "I can assure you the officer is not all that concerned with trying not to offend you. He is instead concerned with protecting his mortal hide from having holes placed in it where God did not intend. And you, if in asserting your constitutional right to be free from unlawful search and seizure fail to do as the officer asks, run the risk of having such holes placed in your own."



Are you paying attention, oh wise and compassionate editorial board of the
Deseret News? Here is an active-duty police officer who treats as a virtue precisely the cluster of borderline-paranoid traits you ascribe to every civilian gun owner: A tendency to see everyone else as a threat, an inclination to suspect the worst of every stranger, and a willingness to resort to lethal force at the slightest provocation.


At some point, it will get to be that obvious: Peruvian riot police wearing their Imperial Stormtrooper-by-way-of-Strange Brew armor to celebrate that country's Independence Day.



From the point of view of that police officer -- a very common opinion in that profession -- killing an innocent civilian as the result of a mistaken threat assessment, however tragic, is justifiable.


In fact, summary execution just might be condign punishment for a mundane who "disses" a police officer by being a bit too persistent in asserting his rights, according to "Dunphy."
He and the others of his caste enjoy the privilege to kill, which means that the rest of us have a duty to submit, or die.


So when an innocent person finds himself on the receiving end of unjustified attention from a police officer, his only safe course of action -- from this point of view -- is that of the proverbial rape victim: Just lie down and endure it, and enjoy it, if possible.




"One of the common-sense rules of life can be summed up this way: Don't mess with cops,"
opined Washington Post writer Neely Tucker by way of reinforcing that point in the aftermath of the Gates arrest. "It doesn't matter if you are right, wrong, at home or on the street, or if you are black, Hispanic, Jewish, Muslim or whatever," Neely asserts. "When an armed law enforcement officer tells you to cease and desist, the wise person (a) ceases and (b) desists.... The police, when they show up at a residence or a liquor store, don't know what's what or who's who. The good cops are there to have people (a) cease and (b) desist. The bad cops still have a badge, a gun and the legal authority to haul your butt downtown."


"So you want to make friends, join the glee club," concludes Neely. "You want to yell at people who are lousy at their jobs, go to a Redskins game. But, all things considered, don't mess with cops. It usually works out better that way."




Here's how it breaks down from the statist perspective:
When civilians carry firearms because they don't know who the bad guys are, we're being pathologically insecure; when police not only carry them but routinely use them to make others submit to their will without reasonable cause, they're merely exercising a professional prerogative.



As things presently stand, any reaction to police other than immediate, unconditional submission is treated as a threat to "officer safety" and grounds for arrest or the exercise of lethal force.
"The rule is, if a police officer stops you in a car or on the street, he's the captain of the ship, and whatever he says goes," insists Jim Pasco, executive director of the Fraternal Order of Police. "If you've got something to address, do it later. Do what he says, or else only bad things can happen."


Do what he says, or else only bad things can happen
.


Isn't that the essence of any illicit demand made by a criminal or terrorist?


Pasco and others of his ilk display a mindset that is innately, and definitively, anti-American. Not only do they assume that were living in a state akin to martial law -- that is, a condition in which civilians are required, on pain of death, to render immediate obedience to people in state-issued costumes; they also assume that authority flows downward from government officials upon the heads of less exalted personages in the private realm.


Norm Stamper, former police chief of Seattle, Washington, is a retired peace officer whose influence is sorely needed today. He points out that contemporary law enforcement officers are not trained to deal respectfully and deferentially to "real Americans" -- that is, people who understand that in our constitutional system police are supposed to be their servants, not their masters.



"Any cop can deal with a robbery suspect, but show me the cop who can handle a real American," commented Stamper in a recent interview with the (Boston-based)
Christian Science Monitor, quoting policing expert George Thompson. A "real American" is "someone, when you say, `Roll down the window,' says `No,' or who meets you at the threshold at home and says `No, you can't come in. Show me your warrant.'"



For all of the horrors associated with the militarization of law enforcement, there is one ironic benefit: It's becoming easier all the time to recognize the "real Americans" among us. They're the ones writhing at the end of Taser wires, or being dragged away in handcuffs, or bleeding to death on the floor of their homes because they required -- either verbally or through so much as a moment's puzzled non-cooperation -- a modicum of respect for their constitutionally guaranteed rights.


Talk about gratuitous: Henry Gates, seen here under arrest for the purported crime of hurting a police officer's feelings.


Most jurisdictions have what some call "cover laws" -- such as those dealing with "disturbing the peace," "disorderly conduct," or other dubious infractions -- that are applied with malicious creativity by police officers who don't care to be reminded of their servile status.


It's not unusual for police officers
possessed of a particularly strong bullying tendency to bait citizens into conduct that can be described as "disorderly" in order to create a pretext for arrest. That's pretty clearly what happened in the Gates arrest.


David Rudovsky, a senior fellow at the University of Pennsylvania Law School, describes the phenomenon of "persons being arrested who challenge the authority of police" as a form of extra-judicial "street punishment." That is to say, it's exactly the kind of government-inflicted criminal violence that provokes official disapproval in State Department-issued human rights surveys of
other countries. By now it's become pretty clear that issuing reports of that kind is a motes-and-beams exercise.


Perhaps there's nothing new about the common "wisdom" urged on us by our rulers, who expect us to behave like cringing serfs in every encounter with our supposed protectors -- and then to hymn the praises of the "freedom" we enjoy as subjects of the world's largest, most powerful, and most malignant empire.



What is new, and ominous, as illustrated by
the Gates Incident, is this: Taken as a body (there are more than a few heroic and valuable exceptions), the federalized, militarized police "community" is a Praetorian Guard afflicted with a prickly pettiness about criticism, whether public or private.



Granted, America's professional police forces were not originally created as a special bodyguard to the chief executive. But over the past four decades, since Richard Nixon announced a "war on crime" as a cynical ploy to capture the loyalty of the uniform-worshiping "Silent Majority," all serious presidential contenders have courted the endorsement of police unions and associations. Each administration since Nixon's has cultivated a bond between the "front-line soldiers in the war on crime" and their "Commander-in-Chief."




Accordingly, police unions now have sufficient political influence -- due in no small measure to the tendency of conservatives to fetishize armed bureaucrats in uniform --
to stare down the President. Witness the success of Sgt. James Crowley, the officious dweeb who needlessly arrested Henry Gates, in extracting -- with the help of his comrades in the police union -- what amounts to an apology from Barack Obama.



Observed the
Christian Science Monitor: "[T]he union's hard line -- successfully staring down a president -- is a window into the so-called Thin Blue Line -- the `Band of Brothers' mentality that draws police departments closer in time of crisis." Or, in this case, fuses them together in bonds of adolescent petulance in confronting their critics when one of their number abuses a citizen.



We've reached the stage in our imperial decline in which the bearer of the Imperial Purple has to take care to keep the Praetorians on his side. Obama is particularly vulnerable in this respect, not only because police unions see him as a cultural outsider but especially because his agenda for forcible reconstruction of American society will depend heavily on the organs of official coercion.




As someone who lives inside an all but impregnable security bubble, Mr. Obama doesn't face the prospect of sudden, undeserved violence that increasingly haunts typical citizens in their encounters with police. Yet in his recent stand-off with Officer Crowley and his comrades in blue, Obama flinched because he obviously fears the political consequences of alienating the Praetorians.



A piece of American folk wisdom
unwisely attributed to Thomas Jefferson informs us that when government fears the people, there is liberty. As our present and deepening predicament indicates, this isn't entirely true.



Those supposedly intrepid fellows who are kitted out in high-powered weaponry and body armor, and prowl our cities in over-powered cars, have a bladder-loosening fear of the common citizenry. The worst among them are bold as Achilles when it comes to slapping the cuffs on diminutive Harvard professors, or forcing grandmothers to do the "electron dance," but suddenly acquire a taste for caution when dealing with actual criminals who can put up an effective resistance.




At some point, common Americans -- both inside and outside the jury box -- are going to have to rediscover
the ancient and indispensable right to resist unlawful impositions by police. We need to bring about an end to the culture of impunity that has taken root and begun to flourish in law enforcement.



The best way to do this is
not by trusting police to police themselves, or expecting the political class to do likewise, but to recognize, in law and practice, a principle articulated centuries ago by John Locke: A criminal who acts under the color of government "authority" is simply a criminal, and should be dealt with, by the citizen, in appropriate fashion.


(The second part of the series on "Child-Snatchers and Life-Stealers" will be posted later.)

Be sure to tune in for Pro Libertate Radio on the Liberty News Radio Network.


On sale now.











Dum spiro, pugno!

44 comments:

  1. Like I've suggested repeatedly on a friend's firearms related forum; one of the most effective things those of us in the Gun Culture can do to frighten these genetic culls is to simply double our numbers - both in terms of personnel and materiel.

    Last time I checked there were approximately 240 million privately owned guns in the hands of 75 million citizens.

    With those numbers on our side, any attempt at disarmament by the Parasitic Class - to borrow a term coined by my good friend L. Neil Smith - should prove a daunting task.

    Imagine how much more foreboding such a task would be if the vermin in D.C. had to attempt confiscating 480 million firearms from 150 million Americans.

    With the recent buying frenzy of both guns of martial utility and ammo in the wake of the election of that communist Kenyan catamite to the White House, we're already off to a decent start in this endeavour .

    Let us do what we can to contribute to this momentum until our numbers have reached the point where effective civilian disarmament becomes a _practical_ impossibility.

    "Amateurs discuss tactics. Rank amateurs discuss grand strategy. Professionals discuss logistics."

    In the meantime, those of us who are already armed and logistically squared away should train conscientiously with those arms - both individually and as small units - in the event that the line in the sand ever gets crossed.

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  2. I noticed that comments aren't allowed at NRO for the execrable post by [Jack Dunphy]. Too bad. I desperately wanted to vent all over that disgusting excuse for a human being.

    Great post, Will. You always manage to see deeper into the issues than anyone else, and you are spot-on in your analysis of what the police have become.

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  3. I've noticed that you changed the art at the top of your page to a rifleman-appropriate for the times I'd say. Out of silly curiosity, I wonder just how impregnable Mr. Obama's "security bubble" really is. If the people wanted to make a citizens arrest of the liar and chief, how many of them would it take. 100? 200? 500?

    The population needs to awaken. Mr. Grigg, you should run for local sheriff. I think that mostly bad people want to be sheriff, we should change that.

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  4. "[T]ough guys don't pack firearms. Fearful guys do"...

    You already took the words out of my mouth by pointing out the hypocrisy.

    Maybe its time for a new slogan.

    "It's the COPS stupid."

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  5. Vulture,

    To leave comments for Dunphy, go to the following post at Patterico: http://patterico.com/2009/07/26/jack-dunphy-on-racial-profiling/

    He regularly blogs there.

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  6. LibertyorDeath,

    It would be a tough and bloody battle to fight these people on their own turf, i.e. with firepower. They have unlimited firepower, up to and including F-16's and nuclear weapons. (Not the cops, the State. The cops only have APC's and tanks, but that's enough.)

    Rather, take a motto from Sun-Tzu on The Art Of War: "Always choose your own field of battle. Never meet the enemy on a field chosen by him, but retreat, and regroup on a field of your own choosing."

    The weapon we hold which they do not is MONEY. They get all the money to fund their operations from US. If we opted out of their money schemes, they would wither away and die. Actually, I believe this is coming down the road, whether we like it or not - California is leading the way - when the economy finishes collapsing, government will be unable to pay all those thugs in blue, and they will have to take off their uniforms and guns and go home, and leave us alone - finally.

    Who would keep the peace then? Well, I would like to see some idiot try to hold up a liquor store, if the other 6 customers in there were all packing sidearms.

    We just need to make sure the other 6 customers can shoot straight, so they don't kill each other instead of the idiot.

    I think there would be a sudden great eruption of civility and good manners, and respect for the property of others. Anyone else would not survive very long.

    Yours in hope,
    Lemuel Gulliver

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  7. Any contact with a LEO has become a potential life and death encounter. If you are going to be tortured and/or killed anyway, what is the sense in cooperating or waiting for the badge-bully to pull his trigger first? The attitude of the LEOs and their puppetmasters is having unintended consequences. Now, here, and in the real world.

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  8. The national rot that assumes someone who wishes to protect himself is somehow dangerous and which began in the east has now appeared in full regalia in the intermountain west. How nice.

    I would admit that a fellow who wants to defend himself is, indeed, DANGEROUS - to the criminal. Perhaps our liberal friends take umbrage on this basis, never having met a criminal they could not make an excuse for.

    In the end, being judged by 12 instead of carried by 6, given the construct of our society today, should be the new golden rule.

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  9. [W]hen the economy finishes collapsing, government will be unable to pay all those thugs in blue, and they will have to take off their uniforms and guns and go home, and leave us alone - finally.

    Who would keep the peace then? Well, I would like to see some idiot try to hold up a liquor store, if the other 6 customers in there were all packing sidearms.

    We just need to make sure the other 6 customers can shoot straight, so they don't kill each other instead of the idiot.

    I think there would be a sudden great eruption of civility and good manners, and respect for the property of others. Anyone else would not survive very long.


    Exactly, Lemuel. As the quote attributed to Thomas Jefferson says, "an armed society is a polite society."

    Of course from the Ruling Establishment's point of view, that's precisely the problem. An armed, polite society of liberty-loving free people doesn't need an army of hired thugs to "keep the peace", but the State certainly needs one to enforce its positivist laws. As you also mention, and as I've brought up in the past as well, once the dollar implodes and its value descends to a point below that of Monopoly[TM] money, the mercenary armies of blue and green will doubtless be less willing to "defend freedom" [sic] or "protect and serve" [sic]. The question at this point becomes one of whether large numbers of them will "see the light" and join in the movement to restore liberty, or whether they will degenerate into bands of armed brigands against whom we 75 million-plus armed liberty lovers must defend ourselves.

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  10. In the end, being judged by 12 instead of carried by 6, given the construct of our society today, should be the new golden rule.


    I agree with this in theory. The problem, however, is in the composition of those 12, in any given courtroom, in whose hands your life would rest in the unfortunate event that you found yourself a criminal defendant. Given the merciless and unlawful tampering with pools of potential jurors during voire-dire by the evil duos of judges and prosecutors, and the abysmal ignorance of even rudimentary Constitutional law and the BoR (i.e., natural law) by those who manage to slip through the filters and become empaneled, I would say that the odds of any citizen charged with using a weapon in self-defense, especially against a rogue agent of the State, getting a fair trial, let alone an acquittal, are slim to none.

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  11. Sadly enough, this is the first time I have found one of your columns to be 100% wrongheaded.

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  12. It was bound to happen sometime, I suppose.

    "From the crooked timber of humanity, no straight thing was ever made."

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  13. Sadly enough, this is the first time I have found one of your columns to be 100% wrongheaded.

    Would you care to elaborate?

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  14. TP you need do expand upon your dangling comment. I for one don't mind seeing disagreement so long as there is explanation.

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  15. Sadly enough my parents subscribe to Deseret News and believe the claptrap it gives them. I told them the first thing I do after I move out is buy a gun. They were shocked. SHOCKED! I tell you.

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  16. As far as I'm concerned teacher.paris, this is one of the best essays of Mr. Griggs' that I have ever read, and I have read a good many of them, as well as three books. I hope that you will elaborate greatly on your comment. You are 100% correct in everything you said Mr. Grigg, and I am sure that other "right wing extremists" such as Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry would agree with you fully as well.

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  17. The term "verbal judo" is what cops are trained to do to make people up set so they can be arrested for their anger displayed.
    These monsters are trained to get in people's faces and try to get citizens up set so they can be arrested. That simple fact clearly makes the case that something has gone very wrong with our country in regards to police.

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  18. The problem, as I see it, is a multi generational period where not only the founding principles of this country, but the principles upon which those principles are based, are not taught and, therefore, not understood by the vast majority of the populace. Without an understanding of and commitment to these principles, and the spiritual cultivation which is the eternal companion of Liberty and truth, the whole of our civilization degenerates to a philisophical, spiritual, and mental state that could be best described as Cro-Magnon in its simplicity and scope. Far too many police and politicians care only for the accumulation of power and its use in the imposition of their will on all those within their sphere of influence. These people have become almost feral in nature.

    jk

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  19. Another excellent piece, Will. Thank you so much for all that you do.

    The idea that Lemuel Gulliver posed about the collapsing economy reducing law enforcement numbers is one that hopefully will prove to be the case.

    However, after observing events in Zimbabwe during this past decade, it doesn't appear that our looming economic calamities will be sufficient to stop these thugs, because whenever Mugabe was faced with growing mutiny among the ranks of his military and police due to lost wages, he simply printed more money to make sure his Praetorian Guard stayed on course.

    Maybe the fact that Americans are armed (whereas the unfortunate citizens of Zimbabwe are not) will prove to be what it takes to bring down our police state, but lack of funds may not be enough to stop this madness, as long as the Federal Reserve controls the printing press - and the Treasury Department.

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  20. There's an interesting observation about affinity of the leftists (all civilian disarmament noises come from them) to the common criminals:

    in the Stalinist Soviet Union the arrested common criminals were officially called "socially close elements" - as opposed to political prisoners. The treatment of the "socially close" was much more lenient, as documented by Solzhenytsyn, Freed, Varlamov, and others.

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  21. Having formerly been a police officer both in a city (San Diego) and in a small town (Putnam, CT and Yreka, CA), I can say that there are still many police officers - although far fewer than in my day - who legitimately wish to help keep the peace, rather than enforce "the Law".

    This sergeant would not have been serving Mr. Gates well if he had not done his best to establish that A) Gates was not an intruder in someone else's home, and B) that Mr. Gates was not trying to send the "cops" away under duress ("bad guys" with a gun on him, etc.) It is good procedure to move a person out of the dwelling briefly to make sure all is well.

    Where this broke down was when Mr. Gates became abusive. Crowley was right to remove him from the house, but should have immediately released him once it was shown he was there legitimately. The problem is that most police academies teach their officers that, one you have had to lay hands upon a person, you must arrest them. Otherwise the department and the officer may be sued. I am _not_ saying this is a good reason, simply that it is inculcated into the minds of police officers in their training.

    A good police officer will - as many of us have - immediately release a person (849b in Californica) when it is determined that A) it is safe to do so, and B) there as been no real crime committed ("refusing the 'legal order' of a police officer" should not be a crime.) A good police officer will not draw his gun and shoot a person - black, white or whatever - for not complying with his directions.

    While, there are still many officers who truly wish to help keep the people they serve safe, they are becoming a minority. Our country has indeed become a police state, and for the most part, "the policeman is not your friend."

    Planning to be in the 3% (if my courage holds)

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  22. Yet another awesome article. Great insight and approach to getting the point across. I wish more Americans understood what has happened to law enforcement in the last twenty years. I have two co-workers both with teenage children who have recently gotten in trouble with the law, very minor things. When they asked me about it, I basically said "your children really did nothing wrong, it's that in the last twenty years the state has criminalized adolescence”. It really surprised them, and enlightened them a bit. Keep up the good work, I recommend you to anyone with "authority issues".

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  23. Anon 6:42:

    It's not clear from your post whether or not you're still a police officer. I certainly hope that you are still on a force somewhere; if all cops held the philosophy you do, there would be infinitely more respect for both police officers and the institution they represent. In short, if government policing is our only near-term option, we need MANY more like yourself to make it work and to keep liberty alive!

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  24. — Jack Dunphy is an officer in the Los Angeles Police Department. “Jack Dunphy” is the author's nom de cyber. The opinions expressed are his own and almost certainly do not reflect those of the LAPD management.

    If the LAPD almost certainly does not share this opinion, then why do they continue to hire thugs like this who do?

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  25. I am beginning to enjoy Mr.Griggs. The fact is the government is trying to turn this country into a nation of slaves. Some how we live for the banks and multinational corps and every other thought is terrorism. Under the guise of helping the downtrodden abused and "victims" and protecting all of us the all persuasive government and their goons wont be happy until everyone has been denounced and sent to the gulag. We have a giant paranoid machine designed to do nothing other then to "get the bad guys". In the old days they had other names but one wrong move one time and your life is effectively ruined. More laws lower thresholds broader meanings and the net culls more "bad guys". Anyone that thinks Hate laws are to protect some one is delusional. Its thought crime and the gulag likes it.

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  26. The black racist affirmative action president; the black racist affirmative action governor; and the black racist affirmative action Harvard professor stand on one side. An honest policeman stands on the other.
    Many decades ago the doorbell rang in the course of student party I hosted in Stockholm. Outside was Swedish policeman 18 inches taller than myself. I asked him what the problem was with a "sir".He said Your party is too loud." I turned the stereo to a much lower sound level and he left. 15 years ago, I drove through a red light at major intersection in Chicago in the wee hours when there was no traffic. When I realized what I had done, I stopped just passed the intersection, got out of my car, and I waited. A police car with flashing light appeared, drove by, stopped and backed up. The officer got out of his car and asked me if I had just driven through the red light. I replied, "Yes, sir." He then asked why I had stopped. I explained that as soon as I had realized what I had done, I realized that with my luck there had to be a polceman watching.He wish me goodnight and left.
    The affirmative action Harvard professor was an arrogant, insulting, trash-talking black racist jerk who caused his own problem. Fortunately his behavior provoked the affirmative action black racist president to unveil his stupidity and racism when he told the press that he did know what had happened but that the police had acted stupidly and whined about the mythical racial profiling by policemen that the study he himself had sponsored in Illinois had concluded did not exist.
    One last story. I friend of mine who was one the highest paid call girls in Chicago had finished servicing a scion of one the world's richest families in his penthouse. He refused to pay her so she picked up an extremely expensive and fragile artwork. The scion called the police. Two detectives arrived. They listed to the two stories and then the senior detective looked at the penthouse owner and said,"Pay the lady, asshole."

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  27. The affirmative action Harvard professor was an arrogant, insulting, trash-talking black racist jerk who caused his own problem.

    I stipulate to the description of Mr. Gates.

    However, being an arrogant, insulting, trash-talking jerk of any race, creed, or color is not a crime. Nothing Gates said or did justified the criminal assault on his person by the "powerless white police officer" (Ann Coulter's phrase) who dragged the professor away from his home in handcuffs.

    Obama, as I've pointed out, was entirely wrong to examine this outrage through the filter of race, as opposed to seeing it as a patent abuse of power by an arrogant police officer offended at being "dissed."

    Once Crowley had identified Gates as the owner of the property and satisfied himself that there had been no break-in, his authority over the matter ended. From that point on he was an armed trespasser and should have simply withdrawn, rather than baiting Gates outside on a pretext to arrest him on a spurious "disorderly conduct" charge.

    There is no law anywhere against insulting a cop. Being a racially obsessed idiot,while thoroughly unpleasant, isn't a crime.

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  28. With all due respect, but being a professor of African-American studies at Harward *is* a crime.

    First of all, it is theft. Just like the cop, the professor is a parasite. In fact, cops sometimes do something good; this professor of made-up bullshit "science" is a well-paid charlatan, period.

    Secondly, the main occupation of the professor is brainwashing young people into believing his racist and collectivist drivel. For that alone he deserves to be hanged. Child abuse (and this indoctrination *is* a child abuse) is a serious crime.

    Now, this doesn't absolve the cop. It's just the irony of two parasite assholes trying to out-asshole each other...

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  29. Im not sure on the accuracy of this article, but it was emailed to me by the FOP.

    New Policy Allows Police To Shoot At Fleeing Cars
    Previously, Shots Could Only Be Fired At Cars Used To Attack
    CHICAGO (CBS) ―

    1 of 1

    The Chicago Police Department has instituted a major change in policy regarding the use of deadly force.

    Effective next Monday, police officers will be able to fire their guns under circumstances where they previously could not.

    The new policy, from police Supt. Jody Weis and confirmed by WBBM Newsradio 780 Wednesday morning, allows police officers to shoot at fleeing vehicles if the driver or passengers are suspected of committing a felony.

    The old policy allowed officers only to shoot at vehicles that pose a threat to them or others, such as if the driver were trying to run down the officer.

    But now, officers need not be under attack to open fire.

    Mike Krauser, WBBM 780
    (© MMIX, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved

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  30. Mr. Gulliver,

    I happen to agree with most of your observations.

    But to clarify my original point, I was in no way advocating that We the People should wage a conventional Second Generation Warfare (based on attrition, mass, the seizing and holding of territory, and sheer firepower) against the tyrants if the Line should ever be crossed..

    My only point(s) was that by doubling our numbers:

    1) We are making an already formidable task (i.e. tracking and disarming 240 million privately owned firearms from 75 million Americans) even that much more strategically problematic for the Parasite Class to successfully pull off. With that accomplished we can probably deter - or at least defer - any nationwide gun prohibition scheme. If not, then we can make it a sheer impossibility for those cretins to pull it off.

    2)We don't have any control over the odious pro victim disarmament crapaganda being excreted by all the major mediums of "news" nor do we seem to be able to check the momentum of gun prohibition on the political front - both domestically and on a global scale. What we CAN do is to participate in the buying frenzy of guns, ammo, spare parts, support/repair/maintenance gear and training in their use ( followed by regular practice) so we can get our skills, practical nuts-and-bolts knowledge, and firearms related logistics sorted out while such is still legal and can be achieved with a minimal of hassles.

    3)With any collpase of the State - a distinct possiblity with the continuing economic downturn and the only scenario that can possibly halt our incremental but snowballing descent into Leviathan's Lair - not only will we be faced with danger from the statist forces in the form of martial law. In the ensuing chaos, we will also face threats from private sector predators and aggressors.

    One ugly, unimpeachable and eternal truth about the human condition is that no matter what racial, ethnic, cultural, or religious group you belong to there will be some other group who have taken it upon themselves to vilify you and when sweeping upheaval or crises comes to the fore, they will take it upon themselves to rape, rob, and murder you and your's.

    History is filled with defenseless people who have been kiled en masse by bandtitti - both official and otherwise - during tumultuous periods.

    The only way to avoid being a victim is to have teeth and the ability to use them to lethal effect.

    4) The fact that small arms cannot stop tanks and APCs does not render them usesless. As Vin Suprynowicz pointed out in one of his many excellent columns, while your M1 Garand cannot stop a tank from driving onto your lawn or into your domicile (which you should have E&Eed out of long before), it sure as hell can stop bullying on an individual basis e.g. some uniformed thugs trying to rape your wife or seize and inventory your cache of food/ammo/medicine, whatever. Besides, those tankers and pilots have to leave their planes and tanks sometime.....

    The Werhmacht learned this painful lesson in the Balkans and the Taigas west of the Volga, the Imperial Japanese Army got taught in China, and the Soviets learned it in Afghanistan.

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  31. [cont.]Also, the arsenal of nuclear weapons in the hands of the tyrants is strategically non relevant. With the exception of us using it on the japs in order to hasten their surrender ( and intimidate the Soviets who were thinking of staging an all out invasion of Japan in order to increase areas under her auspices in the Postwar Geopolitical scheme), no nation state has ever been able to figure out a way to profit from the employment of nukes in an actual conflict.

    In fact, the only thing that acquisition and possession of nukes have done is deter nuclear armed nation states from going to all out war with one another.

    The other irony being that in the Postwar world, even being a nuclear power has not done much to confer any actual advantages when said nation states went to war with a non-nuclear power.

    In fact, many a declared nuclear power have had their imperial ambitions checked by a far weaker, non nuclear armed foe. Specific cases? Us in Vietnam, Lebanon, and Somalia. The Soviets in Aghanistan. The Indians in Sri Lanka. China in Vietnam. Israel in Lebanon.

    The underlying reasons for this unlikely but consistent phenomenon are explained comprehensively in Martin Van Creveld's excellent book _Transformation of War_ but my main point is that if gov'ts are unable to find a workable strategic and tactical niche for nukes when faced with a foreign foe, it is unikely that they will find a way to wring out any advantages when facing domestic dissent.

    After all, the State can only function in a business-as-usual fashion via regimentation imposed by bureaucracies and their ancillary infrastructures and any disruption can only threaten the State's ability to operate. And few things are as unpredictably disruptive as the use of nukes.

    Besides, the statists want to rule over a given region and it's populace in order to leech off the fuits of the latter's productivity. Can't do that in a devastated and contaminated wasteland.

    As for the idea of withholding money from the Parasite Class as a grand strategy, it is possibly feasible but only in conjucntion with other parallel endeavours.

    I also agree that the inability of gov't to pay it's minions can only portend changes for the better. Understatement, that.

    The beautiful thing about this kind of ploy is that such a campaign of resistance can be widespread - that it can continue to grow and self perpetuate - without any centralized leadership or hierarchical organization meaning there is no single focal point for the gov't to target and destroy.

    And with the preponderance of modern mediums of real time mass communications and info dissemination( cell phones, the 'net etc), such a form of resistance will find a emergent intelligence among a myriad of players - each with their own motives and purposes - all coordinating on an ad hoc basis to grow, evolve and adapt even as the the top heavy, vertically centralized Nation State struggles in vain to contain growing dissent as it's ponderous Boyd Cycle is being out maneuvered by fleeter and more agile small groups of elusive non-state actors.

    Read John Robb's _Brave New War_ for THE definitive case study of the collpasing order of the nation states - whose ascendance which began during the Peace of Westphalia has reached it's apogee and is now in gradual decline - and how they are being stymied by non-state dissenters.

    Even though the non-state actors described in _BNW_ would be genuine terrorists by our definition a lot of the observations and concepts can be useful across the entire spectrum of a resistance movement.

    One other aspect of Robb's ongoing study which should be of immense interest to _Pro Libertate_ readers is what he terms the creation of Resilient Communities which are, simply put, self suffcient communities which can weather any privation caused by systemic disruptions and failures but which can also be applicable for folks like us in cases where the state attempts to logistically deprive restive groups/regions of the necessities required for staying alive.

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  32. Will, here’s dash-cam video of the 14-year-old New Mexico girl who had to have surgery after the police chief tasered her in the head. Her injury required 18 staples and four stitches and it is nasty. The police chief had said that he drew his taser and warned her to stop, but it looks like he had the taser in his suety hand before he even got out of his car.

    At the end of the clip the news anchor said “So far no charges have been filed against Kailee for the fight she had with her mom.”

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  33. This is just another facet of the general state of things that I have called Orwell's boot

    I hope to start a discussion on the true nature of the problem, and it is not some conspiracy. It is us. --- At least I think that it is.

    Orwell's Boot: our inevitable? descent into tyranny

    >From the book 1984

    "If you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face - forever."

    To paraphrase Sun Tzu: If you do not know the nature of the problem you are dead meat. Please go here, read and comment I would like to start a discussion among people who agree that we do not know why more people do not want freedom, and how we may address the problem of growing government and eroding freedoms.

    Here are some ideas to remember.

    If (an agency of) the government can tell you what drugs not to take, it can tell what drugs you must take.

    If (an agency of) the government can tell you when and where to pray, it can prohibit you from praying

    If (an agency of) the government can tell you you can not have an abortion, then it can tell you that you must have an abortion.

    If (an agency of) the government can tell you who you can not marry, it can tell you who you must marry.

    If (an agency of) the government can tell you who you can not have sex with, then it can tell you who you must have sex with.

    All of these agencies consume our resources, and produce nothing useful.

    http://factotum666.livejournal.com/829.html#cutid1

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  34. The Peruvian police look like a cross between RoboCop and (except for the coloration of the body armor) Imperial Storm Troopers. Perhaps a few of them collapsed from heat stroke during the parade or exercise.

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  35. Brian, I had read that about the new policy in Chicago, but now it’s back the way it was. It seems the police changed the policy on their own without checking with their rulers. If they changed the policy from don’t-shoot-unless-you're-threatened to shoot-if-you-SUSPECT-someone-is-a-felon, could anybody really tell the difference? Aren’t they always scared and trembling? I was just reading a story about a homeowner who was shot as soon as the police crashed through the door. The guy was descending the stairs and blam, he's dead. The cops thought he had a gun. He was holding a blue plastic cup, but, you know, whatever.

    Not So Fast On New Fleeing Policy
    CHICAGO — Chicago aldermen – not Police Supt. Jody Weis – would decide whether police officers can fire their weapons at felony suspects fleeing in motor vehicles, under an ordinance introduced Wednesday amid conflicting statements about an impending policy change.

    Chicago Sun-Times columnist Michael Sneed reported the new deadly force policy scheduled to take effect Aug. 3. It was confirmed to her by Police Department spokesman Roderick Drew, who did a subsequent radio interview discussing the new policy.

    But, the change was apparently not cleared with the powers that be at City Hall, a no-no for any Chicago police superintendent.

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  36. This is an excellent post, Mr. Griggs; I hope all of your posts are as equally well written, insightful, and stimulating.

    I also hope that the commentors (commentators?) here understand that it is not Obama, as such, who presents a threat to us. The comment that "With the recent buying frenzy of both guns of martial utility and ammo in the wake of the election of that communist Kenyan catamite to the White House...." misses the point.


    Indeed, the most savage, unrelenting and somewhat successful attack on our liberties was launched and maintained by the Previous Occupant and his henchmen and henchwomen. While the Obama administration is continuing the Bush Administration policy of destroying the dollar and moving wealth out of the middle class to the Fatcatocracy class, Obama is not -- so far -- arresting citizens and slamming them away for extended periods without access to family, lawyers and the courts, as Bush was doing. Obama has not made the assaults on the Constitutional rights of us all that were made by Bush.

    It is not a left vs right matter.

    The culprit is government. All governments are inherently hostile to liberty. When those governments and their "leaders", including county and municipal governments, state governments, special governmental districts, and Federal governments, are all elected [to one extent or another] by voters -- we have to conclude that millions of our neighbors and fellow citizens just don't get it: They continue to elect incompetents, collectivists, plutocratic adherents, and police state enablers. They are, as the contemporary philospher Eric Fromm has put it, dailey involved in escaping from freedom. They want secuity, more than they cherish freedom.

    I have had a few good chuckles about the frantic buying of weapons in anticipation of and in the wake of the election of President Obama. Where were you guys when Bush and Alberto VO5 were busy dismantling 200+ years of developing Constitutional law? Many of us progressives had already bought our weapons in the wake of the election of President George Bush.

    It is intellectual folly and wishful thinking to talk about making some sort of armed resistance to the United States government. Is is a crime to advocate it. Our guns are best used to defend ourselves from intruders into our homes and businesses, and from assaults by thugs.

    As some of you may know, it is generally considered a crime in almost all jurisdictions to resist an illegal arrest. That is, if an officer arrests you without a warrant or probable cause, you can be charged for the additional crime of resisting that arrest if you try to resist it. They -- the cops -- are familiar with this special treatment they are given by legislation and the courts. If they want to arrest you for some charge that will stick, they will make an illegal arrest in the hope that you will resist it. Gotcha!

    I think part of the problem here is that we have allowed cops and prosecutors and courts to frame this issue wrongly. If a cop does not have a warrant or probable cause or the instruction of a magistrate to arrest someone, then what the cop is doing is not making an arrest. What the cop is doing should be seen and characterized as kidnapping, assault and abuse of office. If there is money involved that a cop may want to seize and forfeit, then theft may also be involved. A citizen, of course, has every right to defend himself or herself from those kinds of crimes.

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  37. Having been in Peru during their Independence day ( 7-28-2008) I never once witnessed the Phalanx of armed police that was pictured. Although liberally peppered throughout the country - urban areas in particular, are muchas Policia. In the rural areas, unlike Amerika, very few police are present.

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  38. Anon 4:56 - Your statements about misplaced blame are correct, whether for the current occupant of the Oval Office, or for his immediate predecessor(s). The fact is that both are/were nothing but figureheads, which has been the case for every president in the modern era. Nothing emanating from their mouths or pens represents their own thoughts, beliefs, or decisions. Everything they write, say, do, or order in an official capacity is pre-scripted for them by the corporate-media-military-academic complex that is the REAL power behind the imperial facade. The last president who attempted to speak and act independently, one John F. Kennedy, met with a quick and violent death just a few days after he made known his intentions to take on the very same Federal Reserve against which one Congressman Ron Paul is now doing battle (and on that note, let us pray that the Good Shepherd is watching over and protecting Ron, for he is facing down the very essence of satanic evil on this earth).

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  39. Liberanter. I have to disagree when someone says that they have no say as to what they do, say, act, etc. Nobody put a gun to their heads and said, "Listen hear! You're going to do such and such or else!". Simply doesn't happen. They know damn well what they do and the consequences and are fully 100 per cent behind their actions because if they had any conscience whatsoever they would act accordingly. If they had any decency at all they wouldn't be in government period. That they don't do the decent thing tells you all you need to know. They aren't simple powerless puppets but willing co-conspirators of the first order. I have no sympathy for any of them.

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  40. Good question, Anon 4:56am: “Where were you guys when Bush and Alberto VO5 were busy dismantling 200+ years of developing Constitutional law?”

    Let me hasten to say that while I don’t think the question applies to most of Will’s readership, it is a good question for the worshipful neocons and republicans who supported Bush. I think their Bush-worship is summed up nicely by David Limbaugh in a 2006 column about the NSA’s warrantless surveillance and wire-tapping (which he supported):

    “Does anyone really believe President Bush wants to spy on innocent old ladies or any other group of innocent Americans? Does anyone – besides the loony left and unwitting dupes they have convinced – really believe President Bush has a sinister desire to consolidate executive power, make himself a dictator and eviscerate the Fourth Amendment?”

    In a column before that, and puffed up with self-righteous “patriotism,” he gave his “permission” to the NSA to eavesdrop on any communication he may have with anybody the government believed to be a member of al-Qaeda. Would he give his “permission” to the TSA to grope and manhandle his wife in the name of fighting terrorism? Personally, I think he would.

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  41. When are the blind Mormons going to wake up and kick the New World Order Minions out of the Deseret News??

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  42. Dunno Will. The officer was there to investigate a break and enter which had occurred, albeit a legal B&E. The owner, from the get go was a racist ass and obstructed him from doing his job instead of showing his ID and getting the cop on his way. When he followed him out of the house and proceeded to carry on his vocal harassment in public, he got popped. Maybe not the wisest thing to do, but on the other hand, maybe it was.
    It certainly has been a "teaching experience" about Gates's and Obama's racism, to anybody that's not a blind liberal.
    ML Jones said always get a second opinion. A surgeon will usually want to operate. Likewise maybe someone who's forte is the growing threat/reality of the police state here in the US will view the incident in that light. I don't know that I agree in this case.
    Thank you.

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  43. The rough and tumble reporter should go tell a gangbanger or cop he is weak for carrying a sidearm. After all in Obamessiahs politically correct liberal utopia we can just hug and sing Kumbaya together as we sign over our paychecks to the whores in DC. Have you seen my Che Guevara t-shirt dude I'm going to the collective to get some sprouts.

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  44. Mr. Grigg, thanks for another gem of sparkling truth. The reality of the Orwellian police state is truly upon us.

    Anonymous who said, "These people have become almost feral in nature." My sentiments exactly!

    Feral. Like jungle predators, or sharks engaged in a feeding frenzy when the scent of blood drives them to take large chunks out of each other and themselves.

    I've seen videos where a cop, in his frenzy to silence the protestations of some little kid on a bike, has pepper-sprayed, or tazered himself.

    Also, it's obvious that cops now long to all look and sound alike: The ubiquitous bald head, the blank-eyed, surly expression, the same tone of voice, mannerisms etc.

    Individuality is shunned. "Police" everywhere are morphing into some sort of homogenous, menacing, out-of-control organism.

    Also worrisome when "altercations" do occur, usually as a direct result of "police" provocation, the one or two who initiate the abuse are quickly joined by 3,4,5,
    6+ and the dynamic of the event takes on the precise characteristics of predators closing in to devour their prey.

    Like beasts, once they've gotten a "whiff of blood" nothing and no one on earth can stop them and I've never heard a voice of reason in the lot.

    Women "cops" who avidly join the fray are beyond reprehensible.

    Thanks,
    b
    911=USrael

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