17 thoughts on “Stop and Frisk”

  1. Bloomberg leans on Terry v Ohio (aka “Terry Stops”) to claim this is legal, but then likens the program to random DUI checkpoints.

    Terry requires some reasonable suspicion that those stopped are engaged in criminal activity. Random stops do not comport with “reasonable suspicion” unless you believe that all people everywhere at all times are suspicious to the state. Ahem.

    This program is unconstitutional in more ways than one. Why the Justice Department is not out there slamming this is beyond me – it “randomly” targets latinos and blacks in highly disproportionate numbers. It makes no sense.

    The scary thing is a federal District Court in New York City might well approve of this. Even so, it will not survive scrutiny in an appeals court.

  2. That’s a good bluff, Sebastian, but you’re probably embarrassed by that stupid remark you made. They’re answer to you was like a slap in the face.

      1. I suspect that Mikeb accidentally posted to the wrong blog entry. Almost happened to me the other day (I can’t remember if I successfully realized what I was doing, or if I successfully deleted the wrong comment, or if I had to request deletion).

        I suspect he’s talking about Sebastian’s conversation with CSGV on Twitter, where Sebastian asks CSGV if violence was the right answer to stopping Hitler, and CSGV says that the answer is beyond their organization’s paygrade–and they then went on to quote Sebastian out of context.

        So, to Mikeb, I have to ask: what should we have done about Hitler? Was it inappropriate to defeat him with arms? Was the Jewish Uprising against Hitler in Warsaw unjust, because it involved the use of arms, illegally owned by Jews, against Proper Government?

        For that matter, if Speaker of the House Boehner arranged for a secret assassination of President Obama and VP Biden, and then declared himself President For Life because the assassinations demonstrated that terrorists would do anything to destroy our way of life, and thus this action is Important for “preserving” our liberties, would we be better off getting our rifles and pistols out, and overthrowing this dictator, or should we not even have these guns, because of “just and reasonable” gun laws?

        1. “if Speaker of the House Boehner arranged for a secret assassination of President Obama…”

          It must be exhausting to have a mind that works like yours.

          You really think you and your little guns are crucial in the preservation of liberty. It’s laughable, your egomania that is.

          1. No, guns aren’t sufficient to preserving liberty–you need the hearts and minds of the people to do that. But what I want to know, is, if a petty tyrant managed to obtain the Presidency via the methods I just outlined, what do you propose to do about it?

            But I suppose you don’t have to worry about it, really. After all, you live in Italy, and such things have never, and never will happen there…and if it does, you could always just flee to Germany, or France, or Russia, where such things have never, and never ever again will happen.

            1. Alpheus, You’re the sheepdog, you’d take care of it for the rest of us like you and your other sheepdog friends took care of everything when Bush and Cheney tricked the world into attacking Iraq and pushed the Patriot act through and when Obama continued the policies that included indefinite detention and illegal eavesdropping.

              What kind of petty tyrants are you waiting for, tough man? Why aren’t you taking action instead of blustering on the internet and challenging me.

              1. The difference between Bush/Cheney, and petty tyrants in general, are that I’m looking for blatant tyranny, such as the assassination-and-complete-takeover-of-government scenario I proposed. I don’t expect it to happen, nor do I expect that Obama (or it could have been Bush, for all I cared) to declare himself President-for-Life, but if it happened, I’ll be doing everything I can to oppose it.

                It isn’t blatant tyranny to make a case that Saddam Huissain was violating the terms of his surrender, and as such, should be taken out of power, with proper authorization from Congress.

                And while Obama’s blatant unconstitutionality of going to war against Libya without Congressional Approval *is* tyranny, it is subtle tyranny; for now, I am satisfied with just getting Obama out of office in the next election.

                To further complicate matters, not all tyranny can be, or even ought to be encountered the overthrowing of governments. I don’t know how likely it is that we’d return to concentration camps, but after having become familiar with the Japanese-American Concentration Camps of WWII, I will be doing everything in my power to keeping people out of those camps, and to liberating people from them.

                Have you given any thought about what *you* will do, to counter tyranny? If another Italian dictator rose up, are you prepared to oppose him? Will you fight the police that come in the night, even if you are armed with nothing but a broom or an axe?

                In Italy (and Japan, for that matter), police regularly beat confessions out of their citizens, and then submit those confessions as evidence in court. What are *you* doing to end such tyranny? Or do you just not care?

                1. I would also add that starting a Revolution is a complex issue, and it shouldn’t be done lightly. For one thing, you need to have public support–all the fighting in the world isn’t going to help you, if the public views you as “malcontent and insane” (John Locke’s words, if I recall correctly). For another thing, if you have public support, but that public isn’t ready to accept self-government, any Revolution against tyranny is only going to end in more tyranny.

                  Having said that, you shouldn’t discount the usefulness of arms in preventing tyranny. I read an essay years ago that made the case that armed militias prevented Federal Government from repeating the Waco disaster. The FBI was well aware that armed citizens were ready to stand up for the next fringe group, to prevent them from going down in another inferno. The essay even gave examples of a couple of situations that happened after the events of Waco, but were approached with a bit more tact, in part because of this armed element.

  3. NYC lowered the crime rates in the last 10 years or so by mis-categorizing the crime. Robbery becomes bulgary, felon becomes misdemeanor. They forced cops who dared to blow the whistle into submission. They almost got one cop put in mental hospital because he disagreed. It was so bad even This American Life did an episode on it (Ira glass lies once in a while but once in a while his show has good stuff, but his liberal lean on public money made me quit listening).

    Google “Adrian Schoolcraft,” the cop in that story.

  4. And we have more evidence that the antis fully support “papers please” searches of “suspicous” minorities.

    There’s a term for the kind of State that removes any limits on what the Police can do.

    Tell us again how gun control doesn’t have racist roots?

      1. Mikeb, what about the racist loonies that passed “Saturday Night Specials” laws in the South, and then only enforced the laws against Blacks? Or the Sullivan Law of New York City, passed to keep the dirty Irish immigrants in line?

        Of course, it’s more accurate to say that gun laws aren’t racist–they are elitist, in that they are meant to keep the masses from having guns, but politicians and celebrities are free to have them. It so happens that racisim is sometimes an elitist belief. Hence, the results of things like “papers please” searches of “suspicious” minorities making gun control, and rights control in general, looking like racism.

        It’s not really racism at all. It’s elitism, pure and simple.

        1. Great distinction, Alpheus. Only the pro-gun guys like you have a handle on right-living and thinking. The others are either racist or elitist. What about your pals in Arizona? Sheriff Joe and the late great JT Ready? Do you disavow any association with the likes of them?

          1. I don’t pay attention to Sherriff Joe in Arizona, but the Libertarian side of me gets a little irked by some of the antics he pulls off; others, I completely agree with.

            As for JT Ready, I only heard about him from you, and in Googling him, I see no reason why he’s important. A wacko Neo-Nazi who killed his family? Why should I feel that I’m at all associated with him?

            If you’re going to say “But he advocates for the right to keep and bear arms”, I’ll have to ask you: I use Linux, and have even tried the Reiser File System once. Do I suddenly need to disavow any association to Hans Reiser, who murdered his wife?

            Should I accuse you of being a hypocrite, because you haven’t disavowed association with the David Brock, the head of Media Matters, who makes sure his bodyguards (illegally) carry guns? It’s this “I’m going to ban guns, but make sure I carry, or my bodyguards carry” attitude that is Elitist. And it isn’t just Brock, but Nancy Pelosi, Mike Bloomberg, and others, who either carry guns themselves, or have armed bodyguards, but still insist that guns are only good for killing people and should be banned–except for themselves, of course.

            For that matter, I haven’t yet heard you disavow any association from the KKK, which as a matter of course, disarmed Blacks as part of their terrorism against them.

            If this is all you have, then you are grasping at straws. As for the racist origin of many gun control laws, we have documentation.

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