Needless Escalation Over Registration “Violation”

Guest Post by Eric Peters

The other day in Arlington, TX, armed government workers stopped an SUV over a trivial statutory violation – that is, a manufactured “offense” against the Authority of the state. The driver and passenger of the SUV weren’t bothering anyone and certainly hadn’t harmed anyone.

But they were harmed – to death – by the armed government workers.

It all began over an out-of-date registration. The SUV’s papers were not all in order, essentially. This became the pretext for everything that happened next –  and which did not have to happen and almost certainly would not have happened, had the men simply been left in peace –  instead of being made the victims of armed government workers.

Of course, leaving peaceful people alone is not what armed government workers do. They look for and create non-peaceful situations.

Then escalate them.

So, they pulled the SUV over – euphemism-talk for using threats of deadly violence to compel the SUV driver to interrupt his peaceful, harming-no-one travels and submit to a mulcting by armed government workers on the prowl for manufactured offenses such as papers not being in order, in order to relieve the victim of money at the least and – hopefully – find other “offenses” in the process of mulcting the victim for the first “offense.”

Which is just what happened.

The armed government workers claimed they “smelled marijuana” – the say-so pretext for more-than-just-mulcting. These magic words – along with other magic words such as “officer safety” – endow the armed government worker with the legal authority to escalate the violence meted out to people who’ve done no violence themselves.

There is a war on some drugs (but not others, such as alcohol) which has manufactured the offense of possessing or using the dried leaves of a plant, regardless of the harmlessness of either act insofar as any harm done to others. And it is enough of an offense for their to be any “smell” of the arbitrarily illegalized dried plant matter to provide legal pretext for dragooning the occupants of a vehicle out of their vehicle, subjecting their persons to the indignity of a rough physical search as well as a search of their vehicle and its contents by the armed government workers.

If, in the course of their rooting around inside the vehicle, they discover arbitrarily illegal other things, the victims – the people dragooned from their vehicle – will likely be arrested and caged as well as mulcted.

In other words, the trivial initial offense of papers not being in ordnung metastasizes into a major “bust” leading to handcuffs and jail. It’s enough to instill in the minds of the victims of such a prospect a non-compliant attitude, even thoughts of attempting to get away from their tormentors.

Which is exactly what happened.

The two men in the SUV did not “resist,” in the argot of armed government workers – unless by “resisting,” one means attempting to avoid being victimized by armed government workers.

They first rolled up their windows, which resulted in immediate gun-drawn lethal escalation by the armed government workers. At this point, things spiraled out-of-control. The panicked driver starts the engine of his SUV, attempts to drive off – and a fusillade of lead ensues, leading to the summary execution of the driver, a man named O’Shea Terry. The armed government worker pumped five rounds into him.

Hut! Hut! Hut!

It did not used to be a capital offense to attempt to get away from armed government workers – especially over trivial, manufactured offenses such as papers not being in order or even the smelling of arbitrarily illegal drugs.

It was later reported that a gun was found in the car – and news coverage implied this further exonerates exonerates the armed government workers who shot Terry to death.

But possessing a gun is – as such – no more a crime in the moral sense (as opposed to the legal sense) than possessing dried plant matter or not having one’s “papers” in order. None of these offenses create victims, the essential defining element of any truly criminal act. They are merely transgressions against the Authority of the government, which employs armed government workers to victimize peaceful people who have affronted its Authority.

Which is the most serious “crime” on the books.

Note that a scumbag on Wall Street can fleece thousands of their life savings and never face a Taser, much less a Glock. He creates legions of victims – but does not affront the Authority of the government – and so is physically safe from life-ending repercussions.

Observe what happened to VW… but not to Takata.

And god help you if you’re caught without your papers by an armed government worker.

Especially if he “smells marijuana.”