Authored by John Whitehead via The Rutherford Institute,
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned.
—William Butler Yeats, “The Second Coming”
Things are falling apart.
How much longer we can sustain the fiction that we live in a constitutional republic, I cannot say, but anarchy is being loosed upon the nation.
We are witnessing the unraveling of the American dream one injustice at a time.
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Day after day, the government’s crimes against the citizenry grow more egregious, more treacherous and more tragic. And day after day, the American people wake up a little more to the grim realization that they have become captives in a prison of their own making. No longer a free people, we are now pushed and prodded and watched over by twitchy, hyper-sensitive, easily-spooked armed guards who care little for the rights, humanity or well-being of those in their care.
The death toll is mounting. The carnage is heartbreaking. The public’s faith in the government to do its job—which is to protect our freedoms—is deteriorating.
With alarming regularity, unarmed men, women, children and even pets are being gunned down by police who shoot first and ask questions later, and all the government does is shrug and promise to do better.
Things are not getting better.
Justine Damond is dead. The 40-year-old yoga instructor was shot and killed by Minneapolis police, allegedly because they were startled by a loud noise in the vicinity just as she approached their patrol car. Damond, clad in pajamas, had called 911 to report a possible assault in her neighborhood.
Ismael Lopez is dead. The 41-year-old auto mechanic was shot and killed by Mississippi police who went to the wrong address looking for a suspect in connection with an aggravated domestic violence case. Police also shot the man’s dog, which had raced out of the house ahead of him.
Mary Knowlton is dead. The 73-year-old retired librarian was shot and killed by Florida police during a “shoot/don’t shoot” role-playing scenario when police inadvertently used a loaded gun intended for training.
Sam DuBose is dead. The unarmed 43-year-old rapper was shot in the head and killed by a University of Cincinnati police officer during a traffic stop over a missing front license plate.
Andrew Scott is dead. Although the 26-year-old homeowner had committed no crime and never fired a single bullet or lifted his firearm against police, he was gunned down by Florida police who were investigating a speeding incident by engaging in a middle-of-the-night “knock and talk” in Scott’s apartment complex.
Richard Ferretti is dead. The 52-year-old chef was shot and killed by Philadelphia police while trying to find a parking spot. Police had been alerted to investigate a purple Dodge Caravan that was driving “suspiciously” through the neighborhood.
Fritz Severe is dead. The 46-year-old homeless man was shot five times and killed by Miami police in front of more than 50 schoolchildren attending a nearby summer camp merely because he was seen holding a metal pipe.
Jordan Edwards is dead. The 15-year-old high school freshman was sitting in the passenger seat of a car driving away from a house party when Dallas police, claiming to have heard gunshots, smashed in the window of the moving car and shot the teenager in the head. Edwards’ two brothers, also in the car, watched him die. No weapons were found.
Charleena Lyles is dead. The pregnant, 30-year-old mother of four had called the police to report a stolen Xbox video game unit. She was shot and killed by Seattle police after they arrived at her home to find her holding a knife.
In every one of these scenarios, police could have resorted to less lethal tactics.
They could have acted with reason and calculation instead of reacting with a killer instinct.
They could have attempted to de-escalate and defuse whatever perceived “threat” caused them to fear for their lives enough to react with lethal force.
That police instead chose to fatally resolve these encounters by using their guns on fellow citizens speaks volumes about what is wrong with policing in America today, where police officers are being dressed in the trappings of war, drilled in the deadly art of combat, and trained to look upon “every individual they interact with as an armed threat and every situation as a deadly force encounter in the making.”
Remember, to a hammer, all the world looks like a nail.
We’re not just getting hammered, however.
We’re getting killed, execution-style.
It no longer matters whether you’re innocent of any wrongdoing or guilty as sin: when you’re dealing with police who shoot first and ask questions later, due process—the constitutional assurance of a fair trial before an impartial jury—means nothing.
All the individuals who have been shot and killed by police—fired at three and four and five times in a split second—have already been tried, found guilty and sentenced to death. And in that split second of deciding whether to shoot and where to aim, the nation’s police officers have appointed themselves judge, jury and executioner over their fellow citizens.
In this way, we’re seen as nothing more than animals and treated as such.
In fact, we’re being gunned down like dogs.
Consider that a dog is shot by a police officer “every 98 minutes.”
The Department of Justice estimates that at least 25 dogs are killed by police every day. ?
Spike, a 70-pound pit bull, was shot by NYPD police when they encountered him in the hallway of an apartment building in the Bronx. Surveillance footage shows the dog, tail wagging, right before an officer shot him in the head at pointblank range.
Arzy, a 14-month-old Newfoundland, Labrador and golden retriever mix, was shot between the eyes by a Louisiana police officer. The dog had been secured on a four-foot leash at the time he was shot. An independent witness testified that the dog never gave the officer any provocation to shoot him.
Seven, a St. Bernard, was shot repeatedly by Connecticut police in the presence of the dog’s 12-year-old owner. Police, investigating an erroneous tip, had entered the property—without a warrant—where the dog and her owner had been playing in the backyard, causing the dog to give chase.
Dutchess, a 2-year-old rescue dog, was shot three times in the head by Florida police as she ran out her front door. The officer had been approaching the house to inform the residents that their car door was open when the dog bounded out to greet him.
Yanna, a 10-year-old boxer, was shot three times by Georgia police after they mistakenly entered the wrong home and opened fire, killing the dog, shooting the homeowner in the leg and wounding an investigating officer.
Here’s the point: when you train police to shoot first and ask questions later—whether it’s a family pet, a child with a toy gun, or an old man with a cane—they’re going to shoot to kill.
This is the fallout from teaching police to assume the worst-case scenario and react with fear to anything that poses the slightest threat (imagined or real). This is what comes from teaching police to view themselves as soldiers on a battlefield and those they’re supposed to serve as enemy combatants. This is the end result of a lopsided criminal justice system that fails to hold the government and its agents accountable for misconduct.
Whether you’re talking about police shooting dogs or citizens, the mindset is the same: a rush to violence, abuse of power, fear for officer safety, poor training in how to de-escalate a situation, and general carelessness.
This is the same mindset that sees nothing wrong with American citizens being subjected to roadside strip searches, forcible blood draws, invasive surveillance, secret government experiments, and other morally reprehensible tactics.
Unfortunately, this is a mindset that is flourishing within the corporate-controlled, military-driven American police state.
So what’s to be done about all of this?
Essentially, it comes down to training and accountability.
It’s the difference between police officers who rank their personal safety above everyone else’s and police officers who understand that their jobs are to serve and protect. It’s the difference between police who are trained to shoot to kill and police trained to resolve situations peacefully. Most of all, it’s the difference between police who believe the law is on their side and police who know that they will be held to account for their actions under the same law as everyone else.
Unfortunately, more and more police are being trained to view themselves as distinct from the citizenry, to view their authority as superior to the citizenry, and to view their lives as more precious than those of their citizen counterparts. Instead of being taught to see themselves as mediators and peacemakers whose lethal weapons are to be used as a last resort, they are being drilled into acting like gunmen with killer instincts who shoot to kill rather than merely incapacitate.
As a result, we’re approaching a breaking point.
This policing crisis is far more immediate and concerning than the government’s so-called war on terror or drugs.
This is no longer a debate over good cops and bad cops.
It’s a tug-of-war between the constitutional republic America’s founders intended and the police state we are fast becoming.
So how do we fix what’s broken, stop the senseless shootings and bring about lasting reform?
For starters, stop with the scare tactics. In much the same way that American citizens are being cocooned in a climate of fear by a government that knows exactly which buttons to push in order to gain the public’s cooperation and compliance, police officers are also being indoctrinated with the psychology of fear. Despite the propaganda being peddled by the government and police unions, police today experience less on-the-job fatalities than they ever have historically.
Second, level the playing field. Police lives are no more valuable than any other citizen’s. Whether or not they wield a gun, police officers are public servants like all other government officials, which means that they work for us. While police are entitled to every protection afforded under the law, the same as any other citizen, they should not be afforded any special privileges. They certainly should not be shielded from accountability for misconduct by the courts and the legislatures.
Third, require that police officers be trained in non-lethal tactics. According to the New York Times, the training regimens at nearly all of the nation’s police academies continue to emphasize military-style exercises, with the average young officer made to undergo 58 hours of firearms training and 49 hours of defensive tactical training, but only eight hours of de-escalation training. If police officers are taking classes in how to shoot, maim and kill, shouldn’t they also be trained in non-lethal force, crisis intervention training on how to deal with the mentally ill, de-escalation techniques to use the lowest level of force possible when responding to a threat, and how to respect their fellow citizens’ constitutional rights?
Fourth, ditch the quasi-military obsession. Police forces were never intended to be standing armies. Yet with police agencies dressing like the military in camouflage and armor, training with the military, using military weapons, riding around in armored vehicles, recruiting military veterans, and even boasting military titles, one would be hard pressed to distinguish between the two. Still, it’s our job to make sure that we can distinguish between the two, and that means keeping the police in their place as civilians—non-military citizens—who are entrusted with protecting our rights.
Fifth, demilitarize. There are many examples of countries where police are not armed and dangerous, and they are no worse off for it. Indeed, their crime rates are low and their police officers are trained to view every citizen as precious.
Sixth, stop making taxpayers pay for police abuses. Some communities are trying to require police to carry their own professional liability insurance. The logic is that if police had to pay out of pocket for their own wrongdoing, they might be more cautious and less inclined to shoot first and ask questions later.
Seventh, support due process for everyone, not just the people in your circle. Remember that you no longer have to be poor, black or guilty to be treated like a criminal in America. All that is required is that you belong to the suspect class—a.k.a. the citizenry—of the American police state. As a de facto member of this so-called criminal class, every U.S. citizen is now guilty until proven innocent.
You could be the next person who gets shot by a police officer for moving the wrong way during a traffic stop, running the wrong way in the vicinity of a police officer, or defending yourself against a home invasion when the police show up at the wrong address in the middle of the night.
People have been wrongfully shot and killed for these exact reasons.
Yet as I point out in my book Battlefield America: The War on the American People, there can be no justice in America when Americans are being killed, detained and robbed at gunpoint by government officials on the mere suspicion of wrongdoing.
Unfortunately, Americans have been so propagandized, politicized and polarized that many feel compelled to choose sides between defending the police at all costs or painting them as dangerously out-of-control.
Nothing is ever that black and white, but there are a few things that we can be sure of: America should not be a battlefield.
Police officers are not soldiers.
And “We the People: are not the enemy.
With tens of thousands of innocent citizens being killed daily now does our country even stand the chance for survival?
Maybe some serious thought should start being given to moving to Mexico, or better still Venezuela, where we are safe from the government.
Anon- what the fuck? Get your head out of your ass. Tens of thousands? Daily? That would be millions a year. What a fuckwit.
About 1000 people are killed yearly by USA cops. About 40000 yearly are seriously injured by the good ole USA goon squad cops. You are 8 times more likely to be killed by a cop than a terrorist, yet we spend billions defending against terrorist.
What a f>>ked up country we live in…..!!!!
NEVER call a cop for help, anywhere, anytime, for any reason. He (or she) will simply shoot you dead and go back to his donuts and coffee without a second thought.
I would agree. Under no circumstances should a citizen EVER call a police officer unless ABSOLUTELY necessary. With few exceptions, it will simply make the situation worse, and in some cases MUCH worse. Because now you are bringing a over confident, armed moron in to a situation that his “training” is going to tell him that 1. He is the most qualified and 2. Everything is going to be a law breaking offense.
Arrogance and Ignorance go hand in hand, and modern police have BOTH in spades. Add to that the modern policing for profit objectives, and you have a recipe for a worse situation in almost any occurrence outside of a bad traffic accident or worst life threatening situation….
There are so many cases of a father / mother calling the cops about an unruly son / daughter only to regret that fateful call when they end up burying their dead child because the goon in blue “feared for their life”. Sorry mr. or mrs. citizen, I had to shoot your 15 YO. Oops, my bad. They get desk duty for a few days. In one case, I even remember where the city attempted to bill the citizen for the damage that their dead daughter was accused of doing to an officers uniform as she bled out. Now that is government at its best….
Fucking cops. I hate the fuckers.
You cop lovers can blow me.
Euphemism of the day:
“Whether or not they wield a gun, police officers are public servants like all other government officials, which means that they work for us.”
“They work for us.” Hope you got a good laugh off that.
A comment. This change in the nature of American police forces is due almost entirely to the influence of the Israelis. Israel has a massive “defense” industry, much of it focused not on tanks and planes but on “security” and police training. They swarm everywhere around the globe. In the U.S. gullible police chiefs and heads of Federal and state agencies have swallowed the myth (and it is a myth) of Israeli prowess in these fields. They have allowed these soulless foreigners to infiltrate our entire national internal security apparatus with terrible consequences. In short, they have trained our own police to treat us like Palestinians. The minority of cops with the infamous Doberman mentality have been only too eager to play along.
We didn’t “allow” their takeover- the tribe has carefully schemed to get where they are.
“Anarchy is being loosed upon the nation”? Terrible choice of words John. You mean “government is being loosed upon the nation”! Government is the root of all evil and the bigger the government the greater the evil. Every time. Anarchy, to be precise, is something to strive for.
So what’s the problem? They were all black, Hispanic or women, right? Keep killing them off.
You are veritably a total “asshole”; you have “not so much brain as earwax” (Wm. Shakespeare – “Troilus and Cressida”).
He’s just pissed the victims didn’t have yellow stars pinned to their chest.
But the killers DO wear jet-black uniforms, have short haircuts, and are typically Aryan-looking.
So it’s a quandry….
— “you have “not so much brain as earwax””
They were mocking the people here that they consider racist/sexist.
You can have Peace, Individual Liberty or Diversity; pick any two. We’ve chosen Diversity and Individual Liberty, therefore we shall not have Peace, but Anarcho-Tyranny.
Had we the opportunity to vote on the issue, I’d have chosen Peace and Individual Liberty at the sacrifice of Diversity, but we all know that leads to Cossacks and Nazis, so here we are.
Individual liberties my fucking ass. If you stacked up all the laws on the books that impinge and restrict my individual liberties it would circle the solar system twice. What’s left that I’m allowed to do fits on a postage stamp. I get taxed to death, and beyond. I’ve got building codes, city ordinances, and about a billion other “laws” telling me what I can’t do. I’m forced to buy a health care plan that I don’t want. I have no property rights on land that I bought and paid for. Every communication that I have with anyone and everyone, as well as every bit of my online activity is being monitored by big brother. Tell me more about these individual liberties that I’m supposed to have. When cash is banned and all transactions go through the government monitored banks, and when they tell us that we will be chipped when we renew our driver’s license and that vaccinations will be one of the conditions of maintaining our driving privileges y’all can tell me even more about my individual liberties. Individual liberties, is that newspeak for slavery?
Actually I would agree that Neuday picked the wrong two as reference for our situation, though their primary point is still just as meaningful.
I think that the path pursued from above was “Peace (within the US) + Diversity” which has resulted in the crushing of individual liberty… but the Peace was faked for the most part which is steadily fading and all that is left is Diversity + Conflict + Regulation.
Wow, Huckleberry. No wonder you were the bestest of Sam’s boys.
Anarcho-tyranny is an oxymoron. That’s like saying ‘christian atheist’. Words have meaning.
The whole miasma is intentional. It is designed to intimidate
all the peeps to shut-up, and lay low. It is a form of propaganda.
unfortunately, the default of stupidity is force, but intelligent officers might question authority.
Maybe someday someone will research to find out the percentage of police murderers who are active duty veterans from our glorious ME wars. They would be jumpy and trigger-happy I think, perhaps not good candidates for community policing. Easily triggered you might say.
“Easily triggered you might say.”
groan….but you had to.. :^)
Yes I couldn’t help it.
Neither can former Mogadishu-dwellers.
when I had my little “field exercise” with local law enforcement a few months ago, I got a sense that most of the younger policemen I saw around me while I was on the ground were just back from the real “killing fields” of the Middle East. Just the way they were watching the strange situation unfold with detached concern on their faces. After all, a middle aged woman, mid-50s stomping off into a residential neighborhood in front of at least a half-dozen officers performing a traffic stop is odd, but not illegal, dangerous or anyone’s business in public places. But, for whatever reason, my claiming to want to walk to my lawyers office instead of sitting in a line of cars being searched illegally by policemen walking up and down looking into cars, as if every single person driving on that street was a suspect with no expected rights of privacy, was highly suspicious. Well, something snapped and I just kind of “went off” into being a marching madwoman for the rights of ANY free man to walk down a public street in a safe manner, obeying traffic and crossing laws without being accosted by the police. I GET it that being a black youth constantly being questioned for walking down the street MUST be a horrible thing to contend with. So, on my simple walk to my lawyer’s office, I somehow decided I was taking a stand against tyranny and within a half hour, I was spread-eagled, handcuffed face down on the concrete surrounded by very militaristic policemen for a small community like Cape Girardeau. After telling a couple of inquiring policemen in cars that I was simply taking a shortcut to my lawyer’s office, I attracted a freaking clusterfuck of them to surround me and take me somewhere.
EDIT… I am sorry I lost my train of thought, Gayle. I was going to mention that my husband and I discussed that day again very recently. I realized I’d never asked him where he was when he got called. This is irony of all ironies: He was in the lobby of our lawyer’s office. With all the harassment on the walk through the neighborhood by police, then being on the ground at that car wash forever it seemed… he beat me there.
He said the police called and said they had his wife at such and such car wash. He said he would come get me… he had NO IDEA he would find me on the ground in handcuffs. It was a shocking day.
This was a well-written article. Certainly, there is a problem. But please people, let’s not lump every single cop in the country in the same group as those cops who did these terrible acts of injustice. I would hate to be lumped in with every person I know who does what I do for a living. There are a bunch of them I would NEVER want to be associated with and another bunch that I would be proud to call co-workers and friends. I have several family members and friends that work in law enforcement that have never shot anybody in their long careers and have done all they can to help people every day. It doesn’t make them saints. It just means they are doing their job as they should. When we throw a blanket over a people, it won’t be long before that blanket is thrown over us.
Moving “violations.” “Civil” asset “forfeiture.” No duty to protect. Calling it your job don’t make it right…would you like cheese with that Nuremberger?
Who wants to be a cop? Yeah, maybe when the Saturday Evening Post had paintings on the cover of a cop sitting on a stool in an ice cream shop and smiling while next to him a pretty girl was receiving flowers from her prom date, but now? You’d have some psycho issues to be sure.
Police have clearly been trained to shoot first and ask questions later. DA’s and AG’s have clearly told/signaled that prosecutions and discipline won’t occur.
Whitehead is getting to be like Denninger and Kuntsler.
Some of his examples were justifiable shootings and when a writer doesn’t differentiate he loses credibility.
We are getting what we as a society deserve because not only will we not stand up and demand that things change,we do not have the will to marginalize or ostracize the people,groups,businesses or institutions that condone,support or ignore the deviance of society.
Many of you guys are not religious so this will piss you off but a non religious society is a failing society.No matter what one says about Islam,it is ascendant because the people are going thru the motions of belief.
If we do not want violent cops,we need to keep violent people off the street while working the political process and strengthening the nation’s public and private institutions.
When you have violent cops and a justice system that doesn’t work, you are going to have violent people.
Fevered imagination. The only place Islam is “ascendant.” Before that it was communism. Before that it was…whatever.
World is full of windmills. And Quixotes. And boogiemen. And believers. And their never ascending descendants.
The clay-clay is cray-cray. Crawdads all around.
Maybe if they were properly trained and didn’t spend all their time trolling for speeding ticket revenue, things might be better.
Anarchy ain’t “mere.” Or a synonym for chaos. “Constitutional republic” my anarchic ass. Countries are CAFO’s. Always. Everywhere.
But fiction sustenance, that’s the stuff that sells. Gotta’ have narrative cover stories, plausible deniability, & a lynch mob to distribute away responsibility.
Like “the American people” did it. Some people livin’ that la vida loca did do it. From day1. Some others followed the lunatics. Lots of others – the herd always does. Some unpacked the crazy & left it heaped by the side of the road.
“In their care” – canard. Petrified fossilized canard. From day1.
Paranoia comes with the costumes. But that’s what us\them’s all about. Costumes. Humanuniforms, gangs, & their dehumanized, uniformed, others. Always. So far.
Mental illness, & cowardice, is baked in. It isn’t an “intelligent design.” It’s not even a “mundane” design. It’s clay. Not just feet, either. On a level with the wobbly ashtray made, brought home, by a first-grader.
The basic clay is this: without an other, a them, lower castes to castigate – there is no, or insufficient, self identity. It’s absurd. But not at all intentional. Nature of beast precedes beastly actions; it’s born in, at conception, all this contraception of slightly dissimilar conceiveds.
Cowbirds & cuckoos, brood parasitism, warped:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brood_parasite
It used to be that being an American meant something. When the cops can knock on your door and blow you away, I guess it doesn’t mean shit anymore.
Instead of setting up opposing camps like BLM and AltRight, we should resist the hangman at every turn. Demand the firing of the Mayor, Popo chief and the entire fucking police force. After a while, you won’t be able to pay them anyway. Get rid of the Popo and contract with the sheriff for peace-keeping detail. Make the sheriff eat the $million wrongful death cost.
It used to mean something? All due respect, how do you know that, or what’s – really – the basis for saying that?
Everywhere I’ve been, people are people. No exceptions. Every time before my time, that I’ve read about, people are people. No exceptions. The stories older timers have told me, things seen & experienced, people are people. No exceptions.
“We” are, or were, exceptional is barely an exception, either. Because people are people – & they love being special so much they are often not above just asserting it is so. And gradeschool thru highschool & on into court apologist history scribblers for adult conscripts say it is so.
American exceptionalism is not a unique notion. We-pride & Auld Lang Syne language presides, *abides*, all ‘round the globe. All throughout history.
There have been some good synopses into accurizing, revisionist, perspective on American history posted in here. The good old days were the same as the bad current ones. People populate the same continuum & bell curve as ever. Now is popular winter of discontent, back then was the Springtime of possibilities. Lather, rinse, repeat.
I see dude people…Vanna, can I buy a vowel? wheels’ gonna’ spin in any case.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUYKSWQmkrg
— “Instead of setting up opposing camps like BLM and AltRight, we should resist the hangman at every turn.”
Great. Make a proposal how.
— “Demand the firing of the Mayor, Popo chief and the entire fucking police force.”
Great. Make a proposal how.
— “Make the sheriff eat the $million wrongful death cost.”
Great. Make a proposal how.
BTW, this proposal will have to include how to deal with the knock on effects, including protection from groups that will seek to stop your proposal at every turn up to and including killing you if you actually gain any traction. More likely though, some method of organizing enough support for your proposal that will be immune to fragmenting and infiltration.
You are going to have to rally enough people around this specific goal (an identity in reality), keep them focused, shut down dissent trying to subvert the goal, and most importantly be prepared to pick up the pieces left behind if you actually succeed in removing the mayor and current police structure during the time period it is transitioning and ripe for opportunism by those who… again… for better and worse… are currently kept in check by the existing structure.
Goodness, razzie, you’d discourage a raging hard-on.
RazPutin, the raging bull(shitter).
“After a while, you won’t be able to pay them anyway.”
That’s why they are being set up to pay themselves through asset forfeitures. They can take anything they want from anybody they want any time they want. Now that’s a good paying recession proof, depression proof, collapse proof, SHTF proof gig. Guaranteeing that they’ll stay on the job through hell and high water. Government sanctioned, uniformed mafia.
I remember when I was first becoming politically aware. I read an op-ed while waiting in some sort of office with magazines that didn’t seem to care about pop culture. The jist of the piece was that even though the country was not yet recovering from the horrible unemployment and recession caused by Carter’s attempt to turn this country into International Habitat for Humanity, Congress found funding to have specially armored vans designed and built to give each member a way to be ferried out to govern the rest of the country in case of EMP. So, with all the world’s communication and ability to transfer information wiped out, the first and most important thing for Congress to do is to get out here and tell us what to do.
It made me realize elected officials do not live in the real world at all.
My brother had a shotload of felony no knocks and arrests. Never shot so much as a dog. It is not all police but it sure seems like it is a lot.
Someone should write a book maybe?
Until “qualified/sovereign immunity” is changed, amended, etc., this is going to happen. And this from someone who generally supports law enforcement.
Freedom isn’t free… ;0
Yes it is, it’s oppression that costs.
There is little doubt that nationwide we are plagued by an over zealous police force of our own making . To say that police are somehow obligated to protect and defend citizens and their collective rights in our society is totally wrong . Check the charters or mission statement of most local police organizations and you will see they have zero responsibility or accountability to protect or defend anything for you . However they do have the right to cast a wide net of suspicion over every citizen when it comes to asset forfeiture . That my fellow TBP commenters is a favorite tool of Jeff Sessions . It’s nice to know that the head law enforcement officer in the land loves the ability to confiscate personal property without due process and then it is up to you and your possible frozen bank account to prove your innocence to have your property returned . So much for the presumption of innocence !
I follow one hard and fast rule , avoid speaking to cops at all . Remember police can lie and evade and use every false premis you could dream up to get you to say the wrong thing !
When ever an officer wants to question you about anything you need an attorney !
Your only response should be :”Officer am I being detained or am I free to go?” If his or her response is anything other than you are free to go such as wait here or I need you to step over here , hey pal your under arrest keep your mouth shut ! And remember you are not a constitutional lawyer and you do not understand your rights as he or she read them in the Miranda reading . You need an attorney !
“Everywhere I’ve been, people are people. No exceptions.”
It’s true, we all are greedy, violent, selfish, lustful, prideful, arrogant, and all the rest. But, hey, some civilizations seem to have a view that individuals are important. Liberty, you know? Freedom. The ability to act in one’s own self-interest results in something tremendously important to everyone’s prosperity, which is the division of labor. That is the source of wealth.
A government is run by people who are attracted to power and having the ability to profit from controlling others. It follows that government that is bound in chains by a constitution might lead to the existence of a people remarkably different in behavior from people living under oppression.
Sure, psychologically, we are the same, but we are decidedly different depending upon our environment. A beaten child just does not have the same profile as a well-loved and respected child.
Our gov’t has become a piece of shit. Why? The people have voted for cretins, and not only that, they have admired these while showing up by the million to cheer for them. Why? Force, being easy to understand and apply, unlike the concept of “the invisible hand,” becomes more and more attractive to minds molded by an education system created by the cretins.
— “But, hey, some civilizations seem to have a view that individuals are important. Liberty, you know? Freedom.”
Neat!
— “The ability to act in one’s own self-interest results in…”
Competing self interests, with some winners and some losers. Which means not everyone’s self interests will be met.
— “…something tremendously important to everyone’s prosperity, which is the division of labor. That is the source of wealth.”
The ability to control and direct labor is also tremendously important. Different people’s self interests result in different forms of this manifesting. The more free to pursue those self interests, the more the versions that are successful at surviving… regardless of moral judgements… the stronger those self interests will establish themselves and the more other people will align their smaller self interests with those larger self interests.
— “Our gov’t has become a piece of shit. Why?”
People have been free to pursue their self interests which do not align with your self interests or mine.
— “The people have voted for cretins, and not only that, they have admired these while showing up by the million to cheer for them. Why?”
Self interest.
— “Force, being easy to understand and apply, unlike the concept of “the invisible hand,” becomes more and more attractive to minds molded by an education system created by the cretins.”
The only way to stop that is to prevent those who would, in their own self interest, seek to create such an education system. By force.
Unfortunately the communists understand how to move the real world and people toward their self interests far better than the conservatives… and have used the systems and people of the US to advance their self interests very well.
It’s going to require rethinking how to respond because what we’ve been doing hasn’t worked.
“seem to have a view…”, yeah, that’s what’s in the sales brochures & warlord victor written\approved sales “histories.” But that’s the only place it is vis a vis nationstates.
Those natstate entities are the chains that bind. Not flattering & congratulatory paper documents purporting to extol the virtuous people & their virtuous new bosses who ineluctably turn out to be, yet again, the same as the old bosses.
Fool me once…a significant “purpose” of new generations seems to be to reset the fool. Young minds are a terrible thing to waste, unless you got the waste management contracts – hits – followed by rolling up of those ‘territories’ – on young minds, say & do the human “sacrificing” cannibals.
Self-serving\aggrandizing, “I feel pretty” tune-thoughts that can’t be gotten out of one’s head, such as these sales brochures & histories, are like prions. And contrary to allopathic – cartelized, CAFO’ized – “medicine” memes, there are no pills, of any color (red\blue) that cure mad cow disease.
Sell the sizzle – not the steak – & then set the stake, good & hard & tight. Carlin’s club that you ain’t in bit has been in the 4 horseymen’s horses mouths – along with their bellies full of Trojans – since long before George described it. Since human history forever.
Psychologically we are the same? Speaking for myself, as one not bent in nitrogen narcosis, nor swirling down a Stockholm Syndrome drain, nor running for or backing a Manchurian candidacy, I am not the same, psychologically, as Patty Hearst at the crest of the arc of her infamy, nor any of the Manson family at the depths of their butchery, nor any flag wavers who have done, do, are, &\or support, what analogous Pattys & Charlies – but for being “made” – did, do, will continue to do, albeit under cover of color of law &\or other useful idiot delusions.
Individual nature intersect individual nurture does beget what it begets, but nature is first; way out in front, in fact. I’ve known beaten kids that never recovered from it, & others that were never dented by it (& people at points inbetween)…or, via the natures they were dealt, leaded those dents – no bondo.
Fun how close to “bondage” that plastic filler sounds, eh? The easy route is the road most travelled, because pragmatic – ends justify means – nervous systems reproduce more than any other. Pragmatists aren’t craftswo\men, they are veneerists. “I just have to look good, I don’t have to be clear.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YHimia_Fxzs
If you are free, to whatever extent, it is not because the Goebbels launderers of this or that gov say so. Any that do say so, then drill that into kiddie brains, are intent on pavloving the dogs.
“What’s in your wallet?” goes the plastic commercial. Whatever it is, it was mostly there before you had a pocket to put plastic card wallets into.
For what it’s worth: You are all too stupid to do anything that makes a difference. You won’t do anything but bitch.
What are you willing to do to save the nation? Will you work at learning what it takes? If so, go learn about “domicile”, and “residence”. Learn about your citizenship. Read the article at this link, and also the linked articles embedded in it.
noconstitutionforyou.blogspot.com
This nation has terminal cancer. It can not be saved.
“You won’t do anything but bitch.”
Says the guy who came here to bitch *about everyone else*.
Go piss up a rope.
Rawdawg, what is it about this place that attracts all kinds of cranks with an ax to grind?
razzle! Yikes! Go now immediately after reading this to Mises.org and begin your education! All is not lost, there is still time for you to bask in your understanding of history, the wars, the socialist experiments without number, even of the Jamestown pilgrims who figured out in just one year that allowing people to work in their own self-interest not only prevented the “starving time” of the previous year, but also encouraged self-interested charity. Or don’t you think Mother Teresa had self-interest? Or God for that matter. You really do not understand the prosperity resulting from the division of labor? Oh my. Oh my. Can you really be that, um, unlearned, that unobservant? Maybe we are doomed. Okay, everyone go out to the gold panning areas and get to work! Save yourself!
Oh, and be sure to pay particular attention to “price.” That’s what people use to evaluate things like careers, food, freedom, etc. Very useful, though the Fed people are as clueless as, well, some other people. Did you know that “losers” in a free country can get up and go “win” doing something else?
You aren’t comprehending the post you replied to. I agree that self interest is the best way to structure an economic relationship.
I’m saying that we have the government we have because certain people are better at pursuing their self interests than us and have been using our form of government against us to pursue their own self interests… which means preventing them from pursuing their self interests. Conundrum.
Re-read my point again and really think about what I’m saying. The people that setup those education systems you are upset about did so… IN THEIR SELF INTEREST. I’m saying that there is only one way to stop them… and that is by preventing them from being able to establish those education systems. And there is only one way to do that. Threat of Force.
Again, I’m not disagreeing with your ideal… I’m pointing out that everything you are talking about are the results of individuals and groups using their freedom to fulfill their self interests that run counter to your or my self interest.
The bank bailouts were people pursuing their self interest. Ya dig?
— “Oh my. Oh my. Can you really be that, um, unlearned, that unobservant?”
Generally when you start resorting to comments like this, it’s not a good sign.
— “Did you know that “losers” in a free country can get up and go “win” doing something else?”
Yes. Did YOU know that enemies of a free country can get up and in their self interests convert your country out from under you until you no longer have a free country?
Ya daffy bastard.
And just to *really* hammer the point home.
The “losers” I was talking about in the above post are you and I who have had our self interests brushed aside in favor of the “winners” who established that education system and are reaping their profits.
I’m not talking about a business that fails to get off the ground and “gosh darn billy let’s try again”… I’m saying that the people you talked poorly about in your post are people pursuing their self interests. And you aren’t tipping your hat at them for being better at pursuing their self interests within the system we both have available to work within.
— “Very useful, though the Fed people are as clueless as, well, some other people.”
The Fed are people pursuing their self interest.
Are you picking up what I’m putting down yet? Or do I need to simplify it even more?
raz, you got your ass handed to you by Michael M and no amount of replies from you will rectify it. You lose. The End.
Vodka: Did the Clinton and Bush families pursue their self interests?
Vodka: Is the CIA pursuing its own self interests?
Vodka: Are you in competition with the Bush, Clinton, Obama, etc. families, the CIA and the NSA, The Fed, etc in the pursuit of your various self interests? Are you handing their asses to them?
Vodka: Do you understand how to accomplish this?
— “It follows that government that is bound in chains by a constitution might lead to the existence of a people remarkably different in behavior from people living under oppression.”
It requires various factions competing in the arena of pursuit of self interests being able to defend against and defeat *other* people exercising their free right to pursue self interests which ultimately subvert the constitution.
If those whose self interests are a chained government can’t out-compete those whose self interests are an oppressive government… those self interests in a chained government will lose. Did lose.
Mike is talking about the small scope local business view of self interest and that’s fine, but the moment he projected it up to asking questions about “why” we have the government we have… the answer is ingrained into the very concept he’s already talking about. People opposed to a chained government pursuing their self interests and *winning*.
People with self interests who understand that at the end of the day the only rule on planet earth is “if you can pull it off” and nothing else, have used the freedoms available to them to turn the government (and education system, and people) into the situation we find right now. They are exercising the maximum scope of Mike’s “self interest” conversation.
They are competing in a market that views a government’s constitution as irrelevant if those whose self interests are tied to the constitution are incapable or unwilling to make it stick. Their self interests require going around it… and they have… for many many decades. They are competing in the biggest free market around and understand that nations are sub-sets of the truth which is earth is fundamentally an anarchy and all that matters is whether you can pull off what you set out to do and whether someone will try to stop you.
The US education system is the result of people pursuing their self interests at the highest caliber of this concept.
Vodka: Their goals are not our goals, and their pursuit of their self interest has found the price we’ll work for, the “price” we’ll stomach without causing too many problems, the degree of failure they are willing to tolerate as they pursue their self interests, etc.
Just because we don’t like the competitive terms they have established with us doesn’t mean that all the mechanisms we can learn about over at Mises aren’t fully in play and “our price” they are willing to pay has been “discovered”. If “our price” starts to increase, they will adjust their self interests pursuit accordingly.
Somebody is off their meds today.
Somebody doesn’t have a counterpoint.
In order to properly understand the true field of self interest pursuits and the benefits and costs, someone has to be honest about the full scope of what that means once leaving the grade school concept of idealized protected markets.
That honesty requires recognizing what the pursuit of self interests results in when operating in an reality based environment with agents actively seeking to *use* the freedoms to subvert the freedoms… and how this gives them a competitive advantage in their pursuit of their self interests over your own.
Yes price discovery and labor value discovery are found… but so is the Deep State. They are competing right along with you in the only genuine market of self interests… the market that understands constitutions and contracts only matter if you make them matter.
Okay, razzle, the self-interest of the pols, bureaucrats, welfare rats, neo-cons, socialists, Bilderburgs, Rothschilds, Illuminati, and every other con out there need to be stopped, right? So we can no longer rationally promote self-interest as it is practiced in our universe simply because we citizen mutts cannot compete well enough? Yes?
“I see!” said the blind man who was reading the newspaper to his deaf brother who was trying to find a station on the radio. But if that all sounds conflicting, think about a world where you have assessed life as it is and your own self-interest needs to be shit-canned and you need to pull out your AK and start shooting the bastards preventing you from pursuing your own self-interest. Not sure that is clear either.
I think, razzle, that “force” has been tried a few times in history when the people got fed up with starving. Take the French Revolution. Now that was a pretty one. Afterwards, they got Napoleon and about a hundred years of nastiness. Mao used force and got his backyard steel production along with about 50 million peasants who starved — because they were not allowed to pursue their self-interest except that if they did they were murdered but it was also self-interest that had them make steel if they were not to be murdered. Gets complicated, but either way they died. Stalin, Pol Pot, Lincoln, Hitler, Roosevelt, Wilson, Tojo, I mean the names keep popping up. All about force and what did we get? Another day older and deeper in debt, if we lived at all.
No, razzle, we have to have a philosophy of self-interest. It’s how humans operate best. Force just kills a lot of us, though I am not saying that there do not come times in a nation’s history when the blood of tyrants and patriots are required to water the tree of liberty. I think I heard that somewhere.
I think the solution is not force, but a break-up. We humans are tribal and not suited to live in nations of hundreds of millions let alone hundreds of thousands. I like the idea of a 50 or more nation states where the states compete for citizens and citizens can go where they are treated best, best being an individual thing. Some might want religion to be foremost, others jobs, others privacy, and on and on. Even within the nation states there might be competing cities and towns. Let each person’s self-interest direct him away from the cretins’ ideas of how a state should be run and toward the idea of non-force and self-actualization.
Nice
— “So we can no longer rationally promote self-interest as it is practiced in our universe simply because we citizen mutts cannot compete well enough? Yes?”
No. That’s not remotely what I’ve said.
You have to protect the environment within which you want to practice self interest arrangements from people who will *exploit* your open practices which means establishing some boundaries on what is permitted.
— “I think, razzle, that “force” has been tried a few times in history”
“Force” means establishing laws within your self interest boundaries that seek to prevent the establishment of (for example) communist organizations, communist school systems, communist wealth distribution systems via the government. The “Threat of Force” I’m talking about is not revolution, but the law identical to “Force” being used to prevent people from using violence or theft as a method of competition in the pursuit of self interest.
— “I think the solution is not force, but a break-up.”
That would not be in certain people’s self interest who will use force to try to stop you.
So great… break-up. Now tell me how you’re going to accomplish it on YOUR terms with YOUR self interest outcome that won’t result in other people using their self interests in return to stop you.
No… I’m not saying stop founding your philosophy on self interest, I’m saying stop ignoring that the people you don’t like are nothing more than mutual competitors in the self-interest game and they are beating us… because we have no method of or ability to protect the boundaries of what is considered acceptable self interest pursuit.
“Force” means consequences for pursuing certain forms of self interest advancement. Murder, theft, etc… but what we haven’t protected against are subversions of the environment to convert them away from an environment that will NOT, over time, result in massive federalized education systems and cultural rot media organizations targeting children.
— “No, razzle, we have to have a philosophy of self-interest. It’s how humans operate best.”
Correct, but in a *completely* open environment, humans who have no ethical desire to maintain your pursuit of self-interest always out compete you. Every time.
“They” operate best when there is no threat of force against their methods of subverting your freedom via education, handouts, media corrupting children, etc.
— “Force just kills a lot of us, though I am not saying that there do not come times in a nation’s history when the blood of tyrants and patriots are required to water the tree of liberty. I think I heard that somewhere.”
I’m not calling for violent revolution, though if you were to be honest with yourself… those people fought over far less injustice than we’re currently rolling over for impotently, yes?
Without consequences, a completely open self-interest environment (which is what the earth is above nations and is the field that the most hard core self-interest actors are acting) always results in those who play fair being out competed by those who do not. Navel gazing about “but if I can just convince people” will just continue to result in you losing to those who hijack people’s self interests for their own.
This is why we have threat of force in response to murder, theft, contract violation (for the plebs), deception, etc. However what we don’t have threat of force against are subverting the government in favor of practices that grant those who have no interest in your freedoms from using the very freedoms you want against you to convert the system into something completely counter to what your self interest wants. You are powerless to stop them if we keep repeating what we’re doing.
There are no more frontiers to retreat to like in the past.
Razzle the dumbass got owned:
[img]https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQ51aTBgf3c-caoiELvpxtnJnCpBR__uNPTkrotgIFX0QC2iKeEZadiwKt-aA[/img]
This is not anarchy, this is the opposite of anarchy. Anarchy does not mean chaos, it simply means ‘the absence of rulers’. There are rules and order in anarchy, there just isn’t a monopoly on the enforcement of them.
There isn’t a monopoly on the enforcement of rules. You are 100% empowered to try to enforce your own rules, gather people together to establish new rules, defy other’s rules, etc.
You aren’t guaranteed success, however.
Bullshit. If you try to enforce your own rules, the state (the monopoly) will lock you in a cage.
I specifically said you are not guaranteed of success.
The people who operate their goals via the state are just *better* at enforcing their rules than you are at enforcing your rules against their violations of your rules.
Which is precisely the outcome of anarchy in practice.