RashyNullPlanet

Kyle’s recent article, Response to Luke: Anarchy, Power, Authority, and Will gets at the underlying reasons that voting is gravely wrong:

The present system where power, responsibility, authority, and value are all divorced from one another creates an environment that can only deteriorate. Authority can only be taken and used by force or the threat of force. Wrongs done in the name of that authority cannot be righted except through the extremely high cost and terribly uncertain outcomes of a faceless bureaucratic process in which no-one suffers the consequences of acting wrongly, or, failing that, the massive violence of resistance to the state or outright revolution. And every such incident widens the gap between the so-called collective will and the will of the individuals in which authority resides - thus requiring increased force to maintain that stolen authority, and a higher hurdle to overcome for those trying to convince, or worse, to force, the ?authorities? to allow their own interests to be recognized and pursued.

Voters sever themselves from responsibility for inflicting their will on their neighbors by pointing to politicians. Politicians use the illegitimate vote to claim authority to exercise power over other people without the consent of their victims. At the same time, those same political creatures sever themselves from responsibility for their actions by pointing to the voters. Enforcement agencies sever themselves from responsbility for their actions by pointing to the politicians. Employees of the judicial system sever themselves from responsibility for their actions by pointing to politicians. Isn’t it obvious that it’s a giant shell game?

Sean Bell’s murderers were acquitted this afternoon:

Three detectives were acquitted of all charges Friday in the 50-shot killing of an unarmed groom-to-be on his wedding day

Officers Michael Oliver, 36, and Gescard Isnora, 29, stood trial for manslaughter while Officer Marc Cooper, 40, was charged with reckless endangerment. Two other shooters weren’t charged.

Cooperman indicated that the police officers’ version of events was more credible than the victims’ version. “The people have not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that each defendant was not justified” in firing, he said.

With tires screeching, glass breaking and bullets flying, the officers claimed that they believed they were the ones under fire.

The emphasis is mine. It should be obvious what happened: one cop fired a shot, the others heard it, panicked, assumed they were being fired upon, and joined the summary execution that killed Sean.

This is disgustingly predictable:

[Judge] Cooperman indicated that the police officers’ version of events was more credible than the victims’ version.

Deference to police, despite the evidence, has become a prerequisite to being a judge.

In the end, this is all we need to know:

There was no weapon inside Bell’s blood-splattered car.

Those cops fucked up huge. Cooperman lacks the spine to say so, and let the murderers walk away.

Sean Bell’s murder is one more reason that cops should be required to wear forehead cameras streaming live video and broadcasting GPS coordinates.

A friend sent me this Kiyosaki article earlier this week.

Kiyosaki is confused about some things. He opens with this:

Most of us are aware of the sacrificial slaughter of Bear Sterns.

Then he continues with this, in the very next sentence:

Some people call it a bailout, but I call it a handout…

This blatant contradiction doesn’t bode well for the rest of Kiyosaki’s article, which includes this Nuremberg lob:

The Fed was doing its job…

Kiyosaki comes apart with this:

The rise in the price of gold is a sign that capitalism has stumbled.

This is like saying that basic arithmetic has stumbled. Capitalism, like basic arithmetic, isn’t an active thing. It’s a concept. It can’t “stumble”. Kiyosaki’s statement is wrong. The fact is that capitalism has been demonstrated once again, by the rising price of gold, to be valid, despite Bernanke’s attempt to avoid basic concepts.

When your unit of measurement shrinks, the number of your units that you’re using to quantify other things has to get bigger.

The price of gold is rising because the unit of measure, the dollar, is getting smaller, because the Federal Reserve printed more dollars.

That’s how much state and federal governments have been taken from me and my wife since we started working many years ago. That’s just income taxes, medicare taxes, and social security taxes. That doesn’t include sales taxes, property taxes, or vehicle taxes.

I’ve been keeping track of that running total since I started working. It’s actually a bit low, because it doesn’t include the taxes taken from my wife before we married.

Looking at that number makes me sick.

I wish I had Billy’s magnitude of conviction.

Email out, just now, after a lot of thinking about what to do about the Dearborn Heights cop who stopped me, and the less than satisfactory response I received:

Dear Chief Gust, Captain Gavin, Lieutenant yyyyy, and Mayor Paletko,

I appreciate your timely response to my complaint about officer xxxxx.

There are a few items in the response that conscience compels me to address.

First, regarding the conclusion that I exercised poor judgment: surely the city attorney has informed the police department that anyone who is in a public place, including law enforcement officers, may be photographed without their consent. There is no legal requirement to request permission to photograph people in public places. There is also no legal requirement to take photographs while stationary.

The response appeals to emotion by asking me to imagine a stranger taking pictures of my wife and children in front of my house. Consider that hypothetical scenario. I would have very limited recourse if that happened. I would certainly not be justified if I were to pursue and stop that person. If I requested assistance from my local police department, I would be informed that they could do nothing about such an incident, because anyone in a public place may photographed. Celebrities constantly being photographed by paparazzi live with this fact every day. Officer xxxxx had no justification to pursue and stop me because I photographed him or his patrol vehicle.

Second, the response implies that I drove away quickly after photographing officer xxxxx. That is not true. I drove through the parking lot at a safe and reasonable speed appropriate for a parking lot, and joined traffic on Pelham at a safe and legal speed. The implication that I drove quickly away is not true.

Third, it appears I wasn’t entirely clear in my first note: I absolutely dispute officer xxxxx’s claim that I was speeding. As law enforcement officers, you must surely be aware that vehicle speedometers are not entirely precise. Surely you are also aware that federal regulations mandate that vehicle speedometers must be accurate to plus or minus 5 mph at a speed of 50 mph. Officer xxxxx claims I was traveling at 3 mph over the speed limit. That is much less than the 5 mph tolerance mandated by federal law. I cannot be held responsible for the manufacturing tolerance of speedometers produced by car companies. If my speedometer reads 1.5 mph low, and officer xxxxx’s reads 1.5 mph high, it would appear that I was traveling 3 mph over the speed limit, when in fact, I was was not.

What this means is that officer xxxxx used speeding as a pretense to wrongfully stop me. If I was actually speeding, he would have issued me a citation.

I believe Officer xxxxx would not have stopped me if I had not taken his photograph. That means: he stopped me because I took his photograph. That is clearly inappropriate.

Fourth, officer xxxxx ordered me to show him the photograph stored in my cell phone. I believe he should have had a search warrant before ordering me to show him the photograph. I showed him the photo out of fear of being further wrongfully detained.

Fifth, the response does not address the fact that officer xxxxx (and others) have routinely, and for many years, squandered precious Dearborn Heights tax dollars by lounging around that 7-Eleven store, reading newspapers and magazines while they leave city vehicles burning expensive city gas in the parking lot.

Blame for this incident is being placed entirely on me. If there was poor judgment involved in this incident, it was certainly not entirely on my part. Officer xxxxx clearly exercised poor judgment by ignoring the fact that photography in public places is a legitimate activity, by using speeding as a pretense to stop me, and by wrongfully searching my cell phone. As I mentioned in my original note, such poor judgment demonstrates that he may be a potential liability for the Dearborn Heights Police Department, and the city.

Sincerely,
Matt xxxxx

 

 

 

I didn’t bother to include any requests in that note to the DHPD. Anything they’d send back would just blame me again.

It’s obvious to me, and should be to anyone with even a shred of objectivity, that the cop stopped me because I took his picture. His claim that I was speeding was a pathetic excuse to stop me, and his demand that I show him the photo was a blatant warrantless search.

Technology is working for us:

http://ratemycop.com/

Support it. Use it. Then, know FIJA.

Email out to Billy, earlier this evening, after reading his latest, The Banality of Evil:

Some markers are *made* for smelling:
http://www.dickblick.com/zz212/15/

How’s an 8-year-old to know which are good markers and which are bad? Why, by the decree of people bigger and stronger than he is, the same way “adults” know good drugs from bad.

Jesus.

Look: markers, and drugs, are matters of personal preference. There is no rational or moral justification for anyone to violently prevent another person from pursuing what makes them happy if that pursuit doesn’t demonstrably harm anyone else.

Even worse, far too many people are content to sit idly by while others claim to act on their behalf, violently preventing other people from pursuing what makes them happy even though that pursuit doesn’t demonstrably harm anyone else.

Worse still, the idlers will merrily enter a voting booth and lend scraps of legitimacy to the people who claim to act on everyone’s behalf.

I received a response from the Dearborn Heights Police Department after my complaint about one of their officers stopping me for taking a picture of him and his patrol car. They sent it to me via email on Friday, March 21st, though the letter is dated March 18th.

I’ve been thinking about whether or not to pursue this any more, and haven’t yet decided what to do. I doubt the DHPD is going to change its ways, even if I were to hire an attorney and sue them for some thing or other. At this point, I really don’t want to spend a lot of time or money on this, however, at a minimum, I do want to make sure it’s documented in detail so I have a record of it, and maybe it will help the next person who’s wrongfully stopped by the officer.

Here’s the text of the response I received. It places blame squarely on me:

March 18, 2008
Mr. xxxxx,

I have been assigned to investigate your compliant against Officer xxxxx for his actions on March 13, 2008. I have read your complaint and interviewed Officer xxxxx. Your letter, as well as Officer xxxxx?s version of the incident, are virtually the same. After considering the facts, I have come to the following conclusion:
I feel that you exercised poor judgment in the manner in which you took Officer xxxxx?s photograph. A simple courteous request prior to the photographing would have been proper. Without knowing your intent, you created anxiety, fear, and uncertainty in the officer?s mind. I ask that you put yourself in the officer?s shoes. I don?t know your family situation, but how would you feel if a stranger took a photo of your wife or children in front of your house and then quickly drove away. I am sure that would be upsetting to you and your family without knowing the intentions, good or bad, of the stranger.

Also, the speed limit on Pelham is 40 mph. Officer xxxxx stated that you were speeding. You don?t dispute that. The traffic stop was lawful. It was reasonable for Officer xxxxx to ask you about the nature of the photograph during the stop, and advising you to ask permission in the future.

In regards to your 10 enumerated requests. I will address them briefly.

1. Officer xxxxx will not be apologizing to you.
2. Officer xxxxx will not be disciplined in this matter
3. The Officer?s name has been addressed
4. Refer to number #2. Nor do we make it a policy to disclose discipline meted out to complainants.
5. The city attorney was consulted in this matter.
6. No such document exists.
7. The Dearborn Heights Police Department does not have a policy on the photographing of its Officers. Nor do we plan on implementing one.
8. This complaint is not sustained
9. A video tape may be available if you still wish to acquire it. A FOIA request is necessary. You may do that at DHPD Records Bureau.
10. I can assure you that Officer xxxxx will not retaliate against you because of this incident.

Sincerely,
Lt. yyyyy
Shift Commander

www.dearbornheightspd.com