From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: GM suspends new truck program
Date: Thu, 19 Jun 2008 18:52:51 -0400
Message-ID: <rmml54hb5trnb53es52ke87mrk63ksci21@4ax.com>

On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 06:11:51 -0400, Steve Wolf <news@w8iz.com> wrote:

>I'm with Bob (below).  The US isn't the suppressed state.  Someone is
>trying to turn parody into fact.
>
>I don't feel so suppressed, except when at the airport and they take the
>twentieth little swiss knife on my keyring.  Yeah, the airport.  Other
>than that, I don't feel so suppressed.

Ahh, you remind me of the people described in a book I just finished reading
regarding "that dirty little war" in Argentina.  You know, the one where the
right wing death squads hauled people away and "disappeared" them.

The people like you down there had a saying.  When the goons came in the
middle of the night and hauled away one of their neighbors, they'd turn away
and say to each other "Well, they don't haul them away for no reason".  It's
so easy to turn away and rationalize.  Until someday the door being kicked
down is yours.

An example is what happened in Monteagle, TN last week.  One cop was killed
(good) and another badly wounded (not so good) in a 4AM no-knock "dynamic
entry" (sic) to a guy's house who had an outstanding warrant.  Just so
happened that the guy was awake, was armed and was pretty good at shooting
home invaders.

Surely this guy was a murderer or a child rapist or something, right? Nope. He
had a bench warrant for not showing up to do his community service after a
DUI.  IOW, a gestapo-like middle-of-the-night raid on a drunk driver!

Now this guy wasn't (he committed suicide when cornered.) a very nice fellow.
He'd been in and out of jail on various petty things like shoplifting all his
life but he'd never done anything violent and all his offenses were crimes
against property and not persons.

Problem was, this two-bit redneck cop shop, best known for fee grabbing on
I-24, had some new SWAT toys that they wanted to play with (no doubt bought by
DHS using "anti-terrorism" money) and so they decided to kick this drunk's
door in.  Fortunately, in this case, they got what they deserved.
Unfortunately, that's a rare occurrence.

So the question arises, in America if I have a petty outstanding warrant,
perhaps one I don't even know about (say, for unpaid parking tickets), should
I have to live in fear of the gestapo kicking in my door in the middle of the
night or should I be politely arrested, processed and released like they do in
the rest of the civilized world?

You may remember the America where "The right of the people to be secure in
their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and
seizures, shall not be violated" still applied.  It's becoming a dim memory
for me.

Another question.  Are you happy with conditions that exist now in the
national forests where so-called "law enforcement" forest service rangers
stomp into your camp, open your coolers, enter your RV or vehicle and rummage
your stuff looking for beer, all without a warrant?  Or would you prefer them
to obey the law like they're supposed to?  (for that matter, I still can't
find authorization in the Constitution for federal police forces.  Nor can I
find the authority that lets a forest supervisor override local law by fiat -
banning alcoholic drink in Monroe county which is wet.)

 And when they do it often enough that the ACLU files a civil rights suit
against the government, will you praise the ACLU or curse them?

Which is the America that you want to live in, Steve?

John

From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: GM suspends new truck program
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 02:39:17 -0400
Message-ID: <cahm54hq84e5f0curgib3khmn7pb5sa1n3@4ax.com>

On Thu, 19 Jun 2008 16:46:51 -0700, "Technobarbarian"
<Technobarbarian-ztopzpam@gmail.com> wrote:

>
>"Neon John" <no@never.com> wrote in message
>news:rmml54hb5trnb53es52ke87mrk63ksci21@4ax.com...

>> So the question arises, in America if I have a petty outstanding
>> warrant, perhaps one I don't even know about (say, for unpaid parking
>> tickets), should I have to live in fear of the gestapo kicking in my
>> door in the middle of the night or should I be politely arrested,
>> processed and released like they do in the rest of the civilized world?
>
>    That depends. If the police have some reason to suspect that they're
>going to get this sort of greeting they come down hard. If they don't you
>get something more mundane.

This guy had no violence in his past, was not on parole and did nothing to
give these cops any excuse to come busting in during the middle of the night.
He worked a normal day job, an excellent time and place to have picked him up.

 His awful offence was skipping out on litter patrol, something apparently
that a lot of people do, judging by the number of bench warrants that got
issued during the two days I sat in court waiting on the case I was to testify
in last fall.

> We had the same sort of thing happen in our
>neighborhood recently: medium weight scumbag on parole had told people he
>wasn't going back to prison under his own power. He got the full Monte, with
>a happier ending. OTOH I see people for whom it's just an expensive taxi
>ride to some place they didn't want to go all the time.

Having served for awhile as a volunteer field deputy, I know that there are
many non-violent ways of taking a suspect into custody.  Surprise is the most
effective method.  NOT busting in the door but calm and polite surprise.
Simply knocking on the door and grabbing the guy when he answers works most of
the time.  So does sitting on his house in the AM to grab him when he heads
out for work.  Or sitting on his place of employment and grabbing him in the
parking lot.  Mornings are great because most folks aren't at the full state
of alertness.  All of that requires actual police work, of course, which means
that most slob cops won't bother.  Especially when they can act like Big Men
With Guns instead.

Let's suppose that a guy barricades himself in his house, threatens to kill
himself, yadda yadda yadda.  No hostages or anything like that.  The most
effective method of getting him out is simply to out-wait him.  Yeah, it might
take a day or two but so what?  Cops have the moral and legal obligation to
use the least force necessary and in these cases, simply out-waiting him IS
the least force.

Let's imagine for a moment that we took away the guns from ordinary cops.  You
know, like they do in England.  They have armed rapid response teams for when
armed force is needed but it takes high level command authorization to use it.
Suppose the beat cop had nothing but his baton and maybe pepper spray and had
to justify the use of each.  How would run-of-the-mill criminals be arrested?
Well, if England is any indication, politely, quickly, with little fuss and no
violence.

I have a British friend who is a roadie and who likes his weed.  Before the
Brits came to their senses and starting pretty much ignoring pot, he got
arrested several times.  He describes each encounter with the un-armed cops as
about the same - quick, all business-like and firm but polite.  No "street
justice" and no macho-man crap.  In one instance, they knocked on his door and
two guys grabbed him by the arms when he answered.  None of this throw him
against the wall and bash in his head.  Just firm restraint.

On another occasion, they waited until he came out to walk to work and grabbed
him from behind on the sidewalk.  Again, none of this smearing his face in the
pavement and a knee in the back.  Just a firm grasp of each arm.  They didn't
bother to hand-cuff him, of course, because they knew that he was a harmless
pot smoker, ferchristsake.

It's been my observation that even people who live lives of petty crime tend
to respond in kind to how they're treated.  I certainly saw that in the cases
I was involved in.  If the cop acts like an armed thug then the bad guy is
likely to respond in kind.  OTOH, if you treat them with respect, firm respect
to be sure, then often as not, the response is "OK, let's go" and full
compliance.

IMO, the single most productive thing we could do to protect our personal
liberties and our lives is to take away the guns from all street cops, modeled
after the British method.  The very fact of not being allowed to strap on that
artificial penis will stop the worst of the bunch from even applying.   The
rest will quickly learn that frontal assaults on people are non-productive and
occasionally result in ass-kickings.  Checks and balances at work.

>      I've seen these Forest Service "rangers" ask/insist on looking in
>hundreds of coolers without having a single person object. It always amazes
>me that people go along so meekly. I would assume they're working on the
>theory that they "have nothing to hide", but some of them do, even if it is
>only their beer. It makes me crazy. There have been times I was tempted to
>put myself in that situation just so I could tell them to "bite me" and see
>how far it's pushed and how it ends up. Ah, so many potential adventures--so
>little time.

Here they don't bother asking.  They just storm into camp and rifle though
private property like a prison guard shaking down a cell.  I was sitting and
visiting friends at the State Line campground one night last year when that
happened.  The "ranger" walked right up to the first SUV he came to, opened
the back door, flipped open the cooler and rifled through it.

Neither my friend nor any of the others in neighboring camps took too kindly
to that and there was a confrontation.  The "ranger" finally realized that 25
miles back in the middle of nowhere wasn't a favorable environment to go up
against a dozen or so pissed-off citizens so he got in his little green truck
and left.  He was transferred out at the end of the season (no idea if the two
events were related) but there are plenty more where he came from.

That was the rare, perhaps singular exception to what normally happens.  Most
folks are sheep who meekly stand by while their basic rights are shredded.  If
rumors are true, there is about to be a doozy of a lawsuit.  I just hope that
they can penetrate sovereign immunity and get the ranger thugs themselves.
Lots of the folks who've been harassed are members of the same 4WD club so
perhaps they're going to do something about it.

John

From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: GM suspends new truck program
Date: Fri, 20 Jun 2008 09:50:48 -0400
Message-ID: <om7n54h0vbf4q24herltgnbaa8esq01g49@4ax.com>

On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 06:49:29 -0400, "Jack Cassidy" <Jacapat2@tampabay.rr.com>
wrote:


>Disarm the police? Have you ever been to Philadelphia, Detroit, or Newark?

Yes, unfortunately yes and VERY, VERY, VERY unfortunately yes.

The first question one has to ask is, what is the cause and what is the effect
of the high level of armed violence?

Implied in my concept is ending this Drug War against the Constitution.  Just
as the booze wars of the 20s failed, this one is an utter failure too, but is
the perfect vehicle to let cops be thugs and relieve us of all our rights.

I propose a little experiment.  Pick a city, any city.  OK, let's say Newark.
No loss in the very unlikely event the experiment fails.  The experiment is,
not only legalize all drugs but actually GIVE them to whomever wants them.
Free.  Gratis. On the house. Ever how much they want.

Grab some welfare queens, give 'em push carts and let 'em start handing out
the goodies to earn their checks.  Give the system time to settle down from a
huge perturbation like that and then see what results.

My predictions?  Drug-related crime would stop in its tracks, practically
instantly.  Users would no longer have to steal to buy the dope and there'd be
no market for the traffickers to feed. Narcotic users would be so stoned that
they'd do little more than lay around until they died.  Stimulant (coke, etc)
users would be so amped up that their hearts would explode in short order.

I'd leave the really wild drugs like crack, meth and PCP off the street.  If
you want to use those, you have to check into a facility where you can't hurt
anyone if you flip out.  You're not imprisoned but you ARE detained until you
come back down.  Think of it as a drug bar with enforced designated drivers.

There would be little demand.  After all, people went to those crazy drugs
only after the more desirable drugs like plain old amphetamines, pure cocaine
and such became harder to get and/or very expensive.  Move as many users as
possible over to the good stuff and stress the narcotics over stimulants so
that users are doped down instead of amped up.  Pure pharmaceutical grade and
un-cut coke and heroin and such.  Hand out a high octane mix of Valium and
Fentanyl.  The user doesn't care and couldn't do anything even if he did.

With the "thrill of the illegal" gone, and the bulk of the current user dead
or dying, few new users would enter the fray.  Those who did, well, that's
Darwin in action.

There would be a huge but short-lived spike in the death rate as existing
users fried themselves, after which, the use rate would decline to a stable
but tiny level which would have no societal consequences.  Unlike booze and
cigs, there is no large user base to exert peer pressure on potential new
users. And unlike the 'way cool' tobacco and booze users, coke heads and
junkies really strung out on the pure stuff are NOT role models to be
emulated.  The few people who think that they are, well, Darwin at work again.

I'd even go so far as to set up the drug equivalent of hospice where dopers
can spend their last days in stoned bliss but isolated from the rest of
society.

Radical?  yep.  Brutal?  You bet. The pure essence of free will at work.  Sure
'nuff.  Almost surely successful?  Absolutely.  After all, nothing could be
much worse than what we have now.  Especially in Newark.

With the root cause of almost all violent crime gone and the excuse for cops
to be thugs gone along with it, even Newark would be peaceful.  Still trashy
but peaceful.

 With drug-related crime gone, most of the cop shops could be laid off and the
rest disarmed.  A top priority would be to get cops out of those
pseudo-military black pajamas that lets 'em pretend to be soldiers at war with
the citizenry and put them back into the traditional starched blues.  A
service-oriented uniform that is a constant reminder that, just like the
apartment or motel doorman, they're servants to the people and not the other
way around.

Third priority after disarming them and getting them back into respectful blue
uniforms would be etiquette school where they learn to say "sir" and "ma'am"
in a respectful tone instead of the smarmy mocking tone used today.   And how
to treat their superiors (everyone else) with the respect that they deserve.

That's the way cops behaved in my youth when they could still be respected.
And that's the way my grandfather, who was the police chief of Russelville, AL
before the war, described things.  He would have personally busted the head of
any cop who dared disrespect a citizen.

Here's a suggestion for something even more radical to go along with my drug
war experiment.  Eliminate "policeman" as a career.  Like they say about
politicians, the people who WANT to be cops should not BE cops.  We'd need a
few detectives to address the few actual crimes that remain after the drug war
is ended but those guys would be investigators and not have arrest powers.
Separation of powers just like at the federal level. Citizen-cops would be the
only ones with arrest powers. For street patrol, institute a draft.

Every citizen who is of age, has a clean record and isn't physically or
mentally disabled is obligated to serve as a cop in his neighborhood for a
month at a time, at whatever frequency is necessary to keep the streets
covered.  Probably no more often than once every few years.  No exceptions and
no buying your way out of the obligation.  Folks with physical handicaps can
do paperwork, answer the phones and do dispatch.

We want people who DON'T want to be cops out there walking the beat.  The guy
who's tempted to abuse his power this month knows that next month he may be on
the receiving end from the guy he just messed with.  Checks and balances at
work.

A third, very small group, an armed rapid response force, would be available
for dealing with the rare actual armed confrontation but their use would
require the highest available executive authorization.  The mayor, the county
executive, the governor, etc.  There would be no sovereign immunity, including
for the executive.  Whenever this power is abused, both the abuser and the
person authorizing the action are personally held to account.

Taking this a step further, police upper management is also eliminated as a
profession and is filled with a draft.  Perhaps prequalify draftees to those
qualified to mange a small organization.  Again, we're erasing that thin blue
line and removing the distinction between "them" and "us", the cancer that is
so rampant in police forces everywhere today.

For every excuse that you can think of why this won't work, ask yourself "Does
ending the Drug War against the Constitution make that reason go away?"
Invariably, the answer is yes.

>I think the big difference between Britain and the U.S. is the Brits are a
>lot less likely to face a criminal armed with a gun.

I can't say but if so, the REASON he will face an armed criminal in many cases
is because of his thuggish behavior.  Unless there is a clear, present and
immediate danger to innocents, there is NO justification for armed assaults by
police.  Either surprise and capture or contain and wait.

If you want to see a perfect example of a thug with a gun, watch the end of
that first video clip at prisonplanet.com, the one that started this thread.
Watch how the punk with the gun treats that hoemowner who objects to their
breaking and entering.  That little punk needs the crap beaten out of him and
then fired and prosecuted for aggravated rudeness.

John

From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: GM suspends new truck program
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2008 05:43:11 -0400
Message-ID: <kjrr5499t4pjc6ooehs9c2khb62dlls0e3@4ax.com>

On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 23:36:58 -0400, "Jack Cassidy" <Jacapat2@tampabay.rr.com>
wrote:


>> as the booze wars of the 20s failed, this one is an utter failure too,
>> but is the perfect vehicle to let cops be thugs and relieve us of all
>> our rights.
>
>I'm not sure that the war on drugs is an "utter failure," I would agree it
>has not been a complete sucess, but how much worse would it be if we chose
>not to fight it at all?

I can't imagine it being any worse a failure.  Drugs are as readily available
as they've ever been and at the lowest price in real dollars since the start
of drug prohibition.  Even the drug warriors (sic) admit that street price is
an excellent indication of the success or failure of an interdiction effort.

Then there is the law of unintended consequences.  The market for crack was
manufactured by the short lived, unsustainable and ultimately worthless
crackdown on powder coke.

Even more dramatically, the market for meth was fabricated from whole cloth by
the DEA's assault on the legitimate use of amphetamines and thus the reduction
in availability of pharmaceutical grade speed on the street.  When you think
about it, one could not create a worse drug than meth.  The high is quick but
short lived and is followed by desperate depression.  It makes people do
really stupid things plus it is violently and practically instantly addictive.

I have a friend who tried meth just once.  He told me that he now realizes why
meth heads do such crazy things.  He said that it was the most intense, pure
and exquisite pleasure that he'd ever experienced or could ever even dream of.
He's a professional writer but he admits that words fail him to describe the
feeling.  Equally true of the depression that followed.  He said that for a
day or two after the hit, he would have sacrificed anything and everything in
his life for another hit.  Fortunately he had arranged for someone to keep him
from doing that.  He freely admits that he would have been an addict after
that first hit had a friend not stopped him.

Those propaganda photos showing someone going from ordinary citizen to street
ho in just a few months aren't jive.  I watched that happen to an employee.
When I fired her, early on in her decline, she went almost directly to the
street where I could observe her "at work".  She whored for awhile around our
little town and finally disappeared.  I don't know if she died, if family got
her to rehab or if she moved to a more lucrative whoring market.  This was an
ordinary middle class woman with a husband and kids.

The ONLY reason meth exists is that speed got hard to get.

Bottom line: as long as there is a demand, that demand will be filled.  The
only question is, how much violence is to be associated with filling that
demand?

On the flip side, places like California where pot is effectively legal, Great
Britain with a similar situation and Holland where most all drugs are legal,
demonstrate that when the drug war is halted, use rises little, if any, and in
some cases, declines.  "The thrill of the illegal" effect again.

By any measure, an effort that shows little to no change when it is stopped is
the very definition of "failure".

>> My predictions?  Drug-related crime would stop in its tracks,
>> practically instantly.  Users would no longer have to steal to buy the
>> dope and there'd be no market for the traffickers to feed. Narcotic
>> users would be so stoned that they'd do little more than lay around
>> until they died.  Stimulant (coke, etc) users would be so amped up that
>> their hearts would explode in short order.
>
>Wouldn't it be a lot easier to just shoot them? Instant results and a much
>lower cost.

"easy" and "government action" should never be used together.  True, just
shooting them would be easier and faster but that would be Stalinisque and not
something I'd want to ever let happen again.  That's way too far down the
slippery slope of letting government get rid of all sorts of "undesirables".
You know, like Jews, Gipsys, malcontents, intellectuals,
counter-revolutionaries and all the others who have been labeled "undesirable"
and then killed at various times in recent history.

My plan, ending the war and making drugs free and available, is markedly
different in that at every step of the way, the doper does it to himself.
Government plays but a passive role.  Government simply makes it available; it
doesn't take up the pill, pipe or syringe and force the drug upon the user.
That's the critical difference.

>> Radical?  yep.  Brutal?  You bet. The pure essence of free will at
>> work. Sure 'nuff.  Almost surely successful?  Absolutely.  After all,
>> nothing could be much worse than what we have now.  Especially in
>> Newark.
>
>Radical and brutal are the reasons we lost the war on drugs, We as a people,
>are not willing to be radical or brutal, Otherwise  we would have just shot
>all the dealers and addicts  years ago.

No we wouldn't have because a) "we" can't identify them and b) there is a
ready supply of replacements on both sides.

Come to visit me here in Tellico some time.  I'll take you around and
introduce you to all my friends and acquaintances.  I'll be you a steak dinner
that you can't identify the opiate addict in the bunch.  He/she/it looks
perfectly normal because he/she/it makes enough money so that he/she/it
doesn't have to use street drugs.  He/she/it has access to medical grade
morphine.  There are no track marks or other indications that he/she/it uses a
powerful narcotic. He/she/it is the addict and the medical professional is the
dealer but you'll not identify either, short of doing a blood test.

The current situation is radical?  Hardly.  Same old prohibition that
governments have tried since time immortal.  Like they say, a definition of
insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different
results.  By that definition, there is mass insanity in the government.  I
want to take the radical step of trying something DIFFERENT and expecting
different results.

Brutal?  It's hard to imagine anything much more brutal on both sides than
what now exists.  Open warfare on the streets between drug gangs, places
ordinary people don't dare go, places where ordinary residents armor their
doors and windows and have bullet-proof "safe rooms".

On the flip-side, jack-booted thugs dressed up as cops are busting in doors in
the middle of the night just like Stalin's and Hitler's troops did.  Even the
smallest redneck cop shops are being armed with weapons of war like automatic
weapons, grenade launchers and armored personnel carriers.  Cops are killing
innocents and getting by with it by calling it a "mistaken address". They're
seizing your civil liberties and making citizens with enough of a clue to
realize what is going on fearful of any encounter with authority.

Short of a military coup or civil war, I can't imagine it getting much worse
in the big cities and only slightly less bad in other areas.

>> With the root cause of almost all violent crime gone and the excuse for
>> cops to be thugs gone along with it, even Newark would be peaceful.
>> Still trashy but peaceful.
>
>Maybe, Maybe not.

That's the correct answer to the question "will it work?" about any experiment
before the experiment is actually conducted.

>> And that's the way my grandfather, who was the police chief of
>> Russelville, AL before the war, described things.  He would have
>> personally busted the head of any cop who dared disrespect a citizen.
>
>I daresay that your grandfather didn't face the kind of things that go on
>today.

On the crime front in a small town like Russelville, there is little
difference.  There were drunks and petty criminals and bootleggers and wife
beaters (and husband beaters :-) and an occasional murderer just like there
are today.

The biggest difference is that so fewer things were crimes back then.  He
policed against actual real criminal activities.  Hemp was a crop grown for
rope instead of for smoking back then.  Morphine and opium were available
over-the-counter in such things as Paregoric and Laudanum.  Explosives, guns
and ammo were available over the counter and by mail order because the movie
plot threats of today hadn't yet been invented.

Prostitution was nominally illegal but he didn't spend his time harassing
whores as long as they stayed off the main drag and mostly out of sight.  The
pimp (singular) didn't rough up his whores because he knew that Pop WOULD bust
him for that.  Pop was smart enough to know that all he would do is uselessly
aggravate everyone involved if he wasted his time on this victimless "crime".

Like the safety valve on a boiler that relieves pressure before everything
explodes, good old fashioned fist fights defused much social friction before
it escalated to something more violent and deadly.  When he broke up a fist
fight where no weapons were involved, he sent the participants home instead of
running them in and charging them with assault.

By the same token, when I or any other student got in a push fight or
half-assed fist fight at school, the cops weren't called like they are today.
The coach took us to the gym, strapped on the boxing gloves and let us duke it
out.  We didn't go home and get daddy's (or our own) guns and shoot up the
school.  When the fight ended, that was the end of the dispute.  In fact, two
of my best friends out of high school were guys that I duked it out with like
that.

The removal of this safety valve is probably a or perhaps THE major reason for
the large number of crimes of passion today relative to back then.  After the
fight, few people went home to get their guns.  Lots of times they shook hands
and resumed being friends the next day.

>> Taking this a step further, police upper management is also eliminated
>> as a profession and is filled with a draft.  Perhaps prequalify
>> draftees to those qualified to mange a small organization.  Again,
>> we're erasing that thin blue line and removing the distinction between
>> "them" and "us", the cancer that is so rampant in police forces
>> everywhere today.
>
>In the first place, Drafting the police is involuntary servitude,

Lemme guess.  You were a draft dodger.... :-)  Seriously now.  I don't call it
involuntary servitude; more a duty of the citizen to his community.  Notice
that I didn't say "to his government".  With a properly educated citizenry, no
draft would be necessary.  People would volunteer.  After all, they're taking
care of THEIR community.  To avoid sliding back into that "those who want to
be cops shouldn't be cops" trap, I'd still use a random selection system from
the pool of everyone and not just volunteers.

>That
>aside, I personally don't want reluctant police that would just as soon go
>hide when violent crimes are being committed against me or my family, I am
>willing to defend myself but what if the crazies are more than I can handle
>alone?

Going on my experience and that of friends who served along with me as field
deputies, that simply doesn't happen. (A field deputy in Tennessee, in case
you don't know, is a sworn but unpaid volunteer deputy sheriff.  He is armed
and has arrest powers but may not exercise his powers in the absence of a full
time deputy.  Field deputies typically ride right seat in a patrol car or
direct traffic at football games and such. I was a field deputy because before
TN passed its CCW law, that was the only way for a citizen to carry a weapon,
concealed or otherwise.)

I was every bit as dedicated to defending my community as were the paid
deputies.  The difference was that since I didn't have my career and my
manhood wrapped up in the job, I didn't get turned into a thug and there was
no conflict between employment and the right thing to do.  And when I WASN'T
on-duty, I was an ordinary citizen which meant that if I harassed someone, he
might just look me up and kick my civilian butt.  Checks and balances.  Always
checks and balances.

I can't tell you how many tickets I saved citizens by suggesting to my deputy
to let the guy go, that he wasn't speeding THAT badly and that we had better
things to do.  And I would have NEVER stood by and permitted my deputy to
conduct a warrantless search of someone's car after he made a traffic stop.

The pressures on the full time cop to choose to stop someone or not, to write
the ticket or not, to make marginal arrests, to ignore corruption by fellow
cops were many and powerful.  He DID have a ticket quota.  His arrest and
conviction percentages DID figure into his promotions and raises.  The
pressure NOT to report official corruption was huge (that thin blue line
again.) because a cop-snitch led a very hard and dangerous life.  I was
subject to none of that pressure and neither would a transient police force
like I propose.

If my deputy had ever done anything that I had to turn him in for, I'd have
had to quit being a field deputy but I'd not have lost my career because my
CAREER was engineering.  That's a big difference.  I admit that I wore
blinders of sorts in that I chose to ignore bad things other deputies did.  I
was young and my personal moral and ethical code wasn't fully developed.  That
would not happen today.

>In the second place I don't agree with your assessment of the police in
>general, I know there are some who should not be police but most big city
>departments do their best to screen out the bad ones. I have managed to love
>62 years in some of the worst neighborhoods  without coming in contact with
>flagrant power abusing police. The majority were just human beings doing the
>best they could under some very difficult circumstances. I have no problem
>with getting rid of the bad ones but I don't believe they are all, or even
>almost all bad.

To a great extent, you don't see things until you know what to look for.  Plus
you really don't have any experience to base your opinions on.  Most
everything you said above is either conjecture or you're simply repeating what
you've been told.

I have a large amount of experience, both as a field deputy and as a trainer.
For many years I trained first responders (cops, firemen, EMTs, etc) in
radiation safety and what to do at a scene involving radioactive materials.
The cops, like other first responders, had to pass my course as part of their
requalification and certification.  To put it bluntly, there was a LOT of
sucking up to the instructor.  Who would be me.

Much of that sucking up was telling war stories.  Such as the cop who is now a
high official in a department demonstrating how he shot a petty crook in the
back and killed him as he was fleeing and then dropped a piece (put a 'clean'
"throw down" gun) on the victim to make it look like the victim was armed and
therefore it was a clean shoot.   Since this cop is now in high management in
that department, how much effort do you think the department puts forth to
root out OTHER bad cops?  Clue: None.

>You are entitled to your opinion, I just disagree.

That's a common retort from people who have run out of anything substantive to
say.


>While I agree there is no  justification for armed assaults against citizens
>without an immediate danger to innocents, To disarm the police is folly. How
>would you contain a well armed criminal if you are unarmed?

I wouldn't. As an unarmed cop, I'd call in the rapid response force.  Once the
drug war and related problems are eliminated, the instance of "containing a
well-armed criminal" would be rare as hen's teeth.

Secondly, encounters with armed bad guys don't necessarily escalate into armed
confrontations.  I can think of a number of times when my deputy arrested
someone and upon frisking him, found a gun or a large knife or a sap.  Because
the deputy treated the arrestee with a decent amount of respect and didn't act
like a thug, throwing him on the ground or up against the patrol car and
things like that, the arrestee didn't feel the need to go for his weapon in
order to defend himself.

An important point to realize is that career crooks, the ones who pass through
that aggravating "revolving door of justice" know how little punishment awaits
them.  If just getting arrested and convicted is all that they face, there's
no incentive to escalate to violence.  OTOH, if the cop shop has a reputation
for "street justice", the petty crook DOES have a powerful incentive to use
violence - survival. Thug cops really do bring a lot of violent encounters
onto themselves by their actions.

I suspect that this point is why the British system works so well.

Thirdly, whenever possible, once innocents are out of danger or are not
present in the first place, I (as scene commander) would simply wait the guy
out.   Whether the guy is holed up in his house, a store, his car or wherever,
I do NOT have to play Delta Force and escalate the incident to violence.  I
can simply surround and contain.  He'll get hungry/sober/hot/cold/bored in
short order.  How do I know?  Because that's the way it works when the armed
police thugs are NOT allowed to run wild.  Some cop shops still work that way.
That's the way my department worked before it got militarized.

>Aggravated rudeness? LOL. If rudeness were a crime they couldn't build
>enough jails to hold everyone.

Not for everyone, just cops.  And why not?  Why shouldn't our public SERVANTS
be polite to their superiors, the citizenry?  And why should they not be
disciplined for violations?  I DO hold the people with arrest powers and the
ability to kill and mostly get away with it to higher standards.  What
possible reason could you have for not doing the same?

>I agree the cop in the video was an asshole, maybe better screening and
>educating the police is the answer, But there will always be some of that.

Same attitude as that of the citizens in Argentina that I mentioned.  Same
attitude as those good German citizens.  When you accept ANY amount of abuse
as normal and acceptable then the debate reduces to how MUCH is acceptable.
You quickly realize that "zero" is the correct answer after you've been on the
receiving end of it. You SHOULD realize that the correct answer is "zero" just
on principles.

>The good thing is it was captured on tape, The homeowner should have some
>sort of recourse, and having proof of what happened helps.

Come back and defend that concept AFTER you've tried to take action against a
bad cop.  Even if you "win" you'll be so much the poorer for the experience,
both in dollars and in inner peace.  Problem is, "wins" are so rare that they
make the news when they happen.

I see a whole lot of "don't confuse me with facts; my mind's made up" in your
post.  If I'm wrong and you ARE interested in educating yourself on this
subject, drop me a line and I'll give you the name and phone number of a
lawyer who can open your eyes.  Buy an hour of his time and listen to what he
has to say.  He's the one I used after my stop'n'rob at the hands of the
Knoxville, TN cops.  Almost his entire practice is made up of defending police
victims and prosecuting civil rights suits against cops.

He was quite amazed that I didn't get my head bashed in and then arrested for
resisting arrest and/or have dope planted in my motorhome as the excuse to
seize it.  He said that they target drivers of expensive vehicles and then do
stuff like that so that they can steal the vehicle under color of law.  What
they euphemistically call "civil forfeiture".  It violates every concept of
separation of powers AND checks and balances to allow government agencies to
profit from their corruption.  That is what is currently happening with this
"civil forfeiture" tragedy.

Probably the only things that saved me were that I was excruciatingly polite
to the pig, I didn't have much to steal (they got a gun and some cash) and
that my passenger was an Army intelligence officer, a highly decorated Major
and combat vet.

Jack, why don't you find out if your local department has a field deputy,
auxiliary police or ride-along program?  If they do, volunteer.  It'll be fun
and will be an eye-opener.  And as a greybeard, you can calm down some of the
hotshot young punks that are coming directly out of MP duty in the army and
onto the force.

Come back in a few months and we'll swap notes.

John

From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: GM suspends new truck program
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2008 06:09:24 -0400
Message-ID: <3d8s54t375pvna56hb9t3ccs44hkqi7hu1@4ax.com>

On Sat, 21 Jun 2008 23:40:06 GMT, Eregon <Eregon@Saphira.ørg> wrote:


>They also have a court case against the department: there are 4 black
>officers who don't want to shave but don't like the departmental
>regulation that requires all uniformed officers to be clean-shaven.

Not in any way trying to defend these guys from afar because they're probably
sandbagging but do be aware that there is a Negro genetic abnormality that is
fairly common that makes close shaving extremely painful.  I have a friend
with that condition.  It has a name but I can't recall it.

What happens is that the hair kinks so sharply as it exits the follicle that
if cut at the skin level, it curls back and embeds itself in adjacent skin.
That puncture wound gets infected, develops a pustule and hurts like hell. The
solution is to let the hair grow out enough that it isn't stiff enough to
puncture the skin.  Beard that length can be cut with hair clippers.

The result is kinda scruffy if the guy doesn't let it grow out into a full
beard.  My friend is that way.  He doesn't want a beard.  This scruffy look
has gotten him WAY more attention from the cops than even the average black
guy, even though he's a chemical engineer at a nuclear plant and dresses the
part.

He has WAY more tolerance for police harassment for DWB (driving while black)
than I would.

My point here is, as usual, don't believe what the media feeds you.

John

From: John De Armond
Newsgroups: rec.outdoors.rv-travel
Subject: Re: GM suspends new truck program
Date: Sun, 22 Jun 2008 05:49:21 -0400
Message-ID: <ku7s54dlou5gtm2kl0pio4m3iltm6akja0@4ax.com>

On Sat, 21 Jun 2008 07:23:58 -0500, "Mark Jones" <noemail@mindspring.com>
wrote:

>Will wrote:
>> On Fri, 20 Jun 2008 18:10:17 -0500, "Mark Jones"
>> <noemail@mindspring.com> wrote concerning Neon John:
>>
>>> You sound like a lunatic fringe nutcase.
>>
>> A perceptive remark, but years late.
>
>I try to cut most people a lot of slack, but some of his
>anti law enforcement tirades sound like someone who
>law enforcement should be keeping an eye on.
>

That would be good.  If I can get 'em all to waste their time watching me then
they'll not have time to harass others.

John