This article was originally published by Ryan McMaken at The Mises Institute.
People of a certain age might remember the old John Birch Society slogan “Support your local police!” The idea here is that your local policeman is a liberty-loving buddy of yours who would only ever support just laws and constitutional mandates. Only those bad guys in the FBI or BATF would ever consider violating your rights.
Now, obviously that has always been a rather naïve fantasy, but the notion certainly has a long history of support among American conservatives. The idea that unionized, well-paid government employees sympathize with the common man instead of with the government that signs the cops’ checks apparently has long made sense (for some reason) to conservatives and many others.
David Icke To LEOs & Military: “Look Your Children In The Eye” & Tell Them YOU Enforced Tyranny
But thanks to the ongoing “state of emergency” and the fact that state governors, mayors, and health officials now rule by decree, we’re witnessing more and more how local law enforcement officers have no particular interest in the rule of law, the Bill of Rights, or basic human rights of any sort. Police have been at the forefront of arresting business owners for the “crime” of using their own private property, using city parks, and engaging in other peaceful activities.
As Judge Napolitano has noted, these “stay-at-home orders”—and the penalties that accompany them—aren’t even real laws since they were never passed by a legislature or brought into being by any process other than on the authority of a single person who is usually a state governor or municipal official. By no definition of “rule of law” do these measures meet basic moral requirements for their imposition on peaceful citizens.
But the police are enthusiastically enforcing these edicts nonetheless and using them as an excuse to harass the taxpayers.
Here are just a few examples from around the United States.
- Police arrest a business owner for refusing to close his smoke shop.
- Police harass and detain a man for playing softball with his family in a nearly empty park.
- In Delaware, “a local business owner was even arrested for personally violating Carney’s stay-at-home order.”
- Wisconsin police arrested a dog groomer for social distancing–related “violations.”
- Shreveport, Louisiana, police threaten local business owners.
- NYPD officers assault a man for violating social distancing “laws.”
- In Odessa, Texas, a SWAT team descended on a peaceful demonstration at a tavern.
Keep in mind that no one is required to go near these places or interact with anyone involved. Those who wish to isolate themselves from these businesses and their clientele may freely do so. Yet these are just a handful of the many cases of police harassment involving citations, arrests, and other forms of coercion and intimidation brought against people who are just trying to live their lives. Nor should we assume that this is “as bad as it gets.” Since there is no longer any due process or public legislative process subject to checks and balances, governors and mayors can unilaterally decide at any time to ramp up social distancing requirements and business closures. If the public appears uncooperative, public officials can simply order police to be making mass arrests. We have no reason to think the police would not comply with this order.
After all, police personnel, who do not have a particularly impressive record when it comes to stopping or investigating real crime, have plenty of resources to crack down on nonviolent “perpetrators.”
The cases of New York and Odessa are instructive. Odessa law enforcement officers apparently have the extra time and resources to assemble a SWAT team in response to protests, but does this mean there is no real crime that needs investigating in Odessa? Of course not. According to the FBI’s 2018 crime survey, Odessa had 1,049 violent crimes in 2018, including 118 rapes and 819 aggravated assaults. If late 2019 and early 2020 were at all similar, then we’re talking about hundreds of violent crimes that Odessa-area police officials are ignoring in order to harass people for entering a tavern.
Indeed, if Odessa law enforcement agencies are anything like countless police agencies in other areas, only about half of the violent crimes are “resolved” at all. That is,
only 45 percent of violent crime lead to arrest and prosecution. That is, less than half of violent crimes result in what is known as a “clearance” of the crime. Property crime clearances are much worse. Only 17 percent of burglaries, arsons, and car thefts are “cleared.”
Among violent crimes, homicides experience the highest clearance rate by far, at 61 percent. Aggravated assault comes in at 53 percent, and rape at 34 percent.
But these are just cases where arrests are made and prosecutions are initiated. A smaller number of cases actually lead to convictions. A crime may be cleared even when the suspect is later exonerated.
New York is not exempt from these trends, yet the New York mayor recently dispatched one thousand cops to break up Jewish funerals and ensure that people don’t have barbecues on warm spring days.
By the way, there were more than forty-six thousand violent crimes in New York in 2018. But don’t fear, the police have extra personnel to come and break up your small backyard gathering.
There’s nothing surprising here, however. Police have long shown a lack of enthusiasm for addressing real crime, knowing that business owners, small-time drug users, and loiterers won’t fight back, and thus make for much better targets.
This is why police are often found to run and hide from truly violent criminals while the victims must fend for themselves, as in the case of the Parkland shooting or the case of the stabbing of Joseph Lozito.
Police are always careful to use the legal defense that they are not obligated to actually protect anyone from anything. The courts agree with this defense, and it is now well established legally that although you have an obligation to pay the police to “protect and serve,” the police have no obligation to actually provide protection.
But police officers and their bosses have convinced themselves that the really important policing right now involves hauling dog groomers off to jail and collecting revenue from parkgoers who are only standing five feet from the next person. But if you have a problem with real crime? You’re likely out of luck.
There are some LEO,s who will not arrest or enforce unjust Laws. They are Few and Far Between. Most police are corrupt Parasite ticket writing Revenue Generators. They care very little about anyones God given rights and Freedom. If you gave the Firemen a badge they would be just as bad.
1000% correct.
Firefighters are the “hero” cousins of cops.
Actually, when a boot is on your throat, it doesn’t matter if it is a government, corporate, or scumizen boot. They are all guilty of the same charges! Violating people’s rights! Predator Nation! A failed state full of psychopaths! How is it that people don’t realize this?! If a corporation or neighbor or total stranger is doing the same thing that the government pisses people off about, it doesn’t matter what they are! They are criminal predators that violate rights! They are all scum!
Government is, and always has been, a system of plunder and control manned by civilization’s sociopaths and psychopaths. It arose parallel to the development of agriculture. Surplus and excess production attracted plunder by gangs of sociopaths who found it easier to steal some one else’s labor than use their own. To protect themselves, the farmers made deals with these gangs for protection. Government was born.
Plunder and control go to the strongest government gang. Defeat the strongest gang and another will take it’s place.
The police are comprised of sociopaths and psychopaths that get a rush pushing others around. They have no real life skills so they work for a gang that gives them a living by plundering the public. Their job is to obey and protect the rulers and collect revenue for their bosses. Mostly low IQ, no neck, shaved headed, pot belly tards.
That is a new one on me for the creation of government being a gang of thieves that a farmer made deals with to protect them. Why didn’t the farmer just kill them? People only stand to lose by negotiating with thieves. That is just straight forward logic. Rewarding evil behavior only results in more evil behavior. That is also straight forward logic.
In an official State of Emergency there is little recourse for the common man to find relief from government edicts. It has been this way ever since states of emergency have been declared.
Challenges have, and will, fail in a court of law. Just in the last couple days the US Supreme Court has refused to hear a case against PA governor Tom Wolf for his shut down. Although there was no specific reason given, it is generally accepted that these actions are business of the state and not the Federal government. The PA Supreme Court has upheld Wolf’s shutdown last month.
Protest all you want…the courts are against you. Whatcha gonna do? Armed insurrection? Not from all the keyboard warriors. That’s the whole point of the interwebs…an outlet for grievances so no one takes to the streets in a serious manner. That’s why they let all extremes continue to post agitprop. They know that it’s all talk.
Our FL County Sheriff Office is corrupt as Heck. The cover up the Counties Fraud. And sucks off about 50% of the entire County Budget that includes the Jail. Time to disband the entire CO Sheriff office and just issue a 12 ga shot guns to every household. We can take care of business ourselves. Remember the 3-S’s.
Unfortunately, things will just continue to get worse, because that is the nature of decay. The meducal community went from being busted for the opiod epidemic, to being busted for the coronavirus hoax. Wall Street, the corporations, Digital Mafia, and the government went from being busted for the 9/11 hoax response of war against seven nations as a psy-op with murder involved in addition to the destruction of eight nations, one being our own to launder money from the Pentagon to Wall Street, now resulting in $21 trillion in “accounting errors” to being busted for covid-19 “everyone is the enemy.”
The media just does not even resemble anything even remotely close to reality or the truth anymore.
This is just to get people to realize that things will not improve anytime soon. Not because it is not possible, but because in order for things to improve, the corruption has to end, and there are just way too many extremely corrupt psychopaths that have absolutely no intention of changing into honest respectable members of society, and they are the ones that are in control, and placed in control by people that are even more corrupt than they are,- the puppet masters.
In order for a legitimate revolution to occur, everyone would have to stop lying and abusing the rights and property of others. Misdiagnosing the problem will never result in a cure.
The media just does not even resemble anything even remotely close to reality or the truth anymore…
In order for a legitimate revolution to occur, everyone would have to stop lying and abusing the rights and property of others. Misdiagnosing the problem will never result in a cure.
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EXCELLENT comment, Andrea. Here’s the thing….
I really don’t know what’s going to happen in the future. I’m here on the “dark continent” which was really truly progressing with good yearly economic growth, etc. thanks to China really investing & building a lot of quality affordable new infrastructure (3G/4G telecom, dams, hospitals, schools, stadiums, ports, railways, skyscrapers…).
Yes, there are some really fcuking annoying things I don’t like about the Chinese either (like offloading cheap fake goods to poor unsuspecting Africans, or encouraging poor Africans to poach their rare Big5 wildlife tourism resources mainly consisting of lions, elephants, rhinos etc. for dumb herbal remedies.). I suspect those are just private corrupt Chinese businessman & hopefully not a CCP policy. We shall see.
But here’s my point: At least the Chinese don’t create chaos using Al Shabaab/Boko Haram Islamo mercenaries or try to overthrow African governments. They come simply to conduct trade & commerce without pushing any destructive SJW/FemiNazi/GloboHomo agendas. However, I do get a sneaking suspicion that China might want to populate Africa in order to relieve its population density consisting of 1.3 billion citizens. In that regards, I don’t think Africans will allow this. Trade & development? Yes! Offload your over-population in Africa? Not gonna happen. Then again, African leaders are supremely corrupt – just like their NATO counterparts.
Anywho, all of a sudden, this frigging Coronavirus bullsh!t threatens to derail EVERYTHING in Africa since Africans are, by & large, very naive and have a very slavish subservient mentality to Western NGOs (Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, WHO, USAID, Oxfam, etc.) thanks to that lying one-trick pony, Barrack Obama, and other “Western democratic” institutions.
I just wished that conscious awakened Americans reading my comment REALIZE that the actions of their hijacked DC government (via the usual suspects who control it!) have disastrous consequences for innocent citizens on other continents who are merely TRYING to DEVELOP THEIR RESOURCES.
This tyranny is a global problem which was started by the “compassionate conservative” Bush Jr. via 911 but accelerated with the one-trick “black” pony Obama who created chaos in the region by overthrowing Libya’s Qaddafi.
Incidentally, Libya had the highest standards of living on the entire continent. So why destroy it? That chaos then led to the sh!t we see in Syria now. I am absolutely certain that had the black snake, Obama, not been in power, it would’ve been very hard to get all of Africa to sit back & watch Libya totally get destroyed since Qaddafi invested a lot on the continent. And that’s the reason why they selected that treasonous nigga into the White House in 2008. Do you think John McCain as POTUS would’ve been able to get black Africa to sit back & watch Libya get destroyed? Unthinkable. There would’ve been a massive scary uprising against all American interests. But the fake smooth-talking Nobel laureate & “allegedly Kenyan” negro pulled it off EASILY.
To conclude, pro-2A American citizens of good conscience need to understand that WE ARE AT THE POINT OF NO RETURN. Things are going to get much, much WORSE if We The People don’t end this global tyranny which easily corrupts foreign leaders & international institutions with deep state funds. Is it any wonder why most African leaders usually act against the wishes of their people?
Look, I’m not scared of COVID-19 nor Ebola nor influenza nor SARS because I take good care of myself and I make my own medicines (colloidal silver/copper/zinc, neem/moringa/turmeric/cinnamon capsules, etc.). However, I’ll be honest with you SHTFers…
I am fcuking TERRIFIED of what’s coming down the pipeline. Things are going to get really bad in America. So YOU need to put an END to this TYRANNY since DC is the head of the snake. Cut if off! Please, I’m begging you as an honest law-abiding citizen peacefully inhabiting this planet! If we all sit back & just complain, it’s over, Rover! Might as well wait for Bill Gates & his cronies to forcefully vaccinate ALL of us.
Find the COURAGE to CHANGE things once & for all and quit getting distracted with race (blacks, Mexicans, Chicoms, Muslims etc.). FOCUS on the DC snakes & the race issues will, all of a sudden, DISAPPEAR since those are just distractions.
You want an end to destructive immigration? Then go after the DC snakes. You want an end to toxic GMOs, the Fed/MIC & corrupt Alphabet agencies? Ditto!
Lots of love to all the conscious, awakened netizens (black or white or Asian or Hispanic) who can relate to my message above.
~Captain Black Picard
– a creative, hard-working “Afrocoid” techie from the Caribbean who immigrated to Canada at age 8 but now exploring Africa, sharing my knowledge with the “locals” as well as my beautiful & very sexy African girlfriend.
If it were up to me, the U.S. would not be involved in other countries. There is a tremendous amount of disinformation regarding American military involvement. The American military are mercenaries for hire, by national and foreign corporations, global bankers, and foreign governments.
What the United States military does, is counter to the national and economic interests of American citizens.
So, until people start placing the blame on the beneficiaries of U.S. military involvement, they will just keep running around in circles, like a dog chasing its tale.
No American citizen has ever received a stipend check for U.S. military involvement, unless they worked for or hired the military!
The military is not fighting enemies that have attacked American soil! The military is fighting on behalf of enemies that have attacked American soil!
“War is a racket.” – Smedley Butler
It appears that the only Americans left with a sense of freedom are those inner city young black people having parties in homes and meetings on street corners. Everyone else is a slave to the MSM fear mongering. Oh yeah, take vitamin D3. It mitigates the effects of the virus
Mac, Really?!! Watch this video – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2CmJCa4qcY&lc=UgxwJ9VSarFvbkr76wx4AaABAg.98PsaiPhTyv98Q2QuQjqqD This represents ALL the officers I know and I’ve been in the profession for MANY years.
John Birch Society is a gatekeeper started by Rockefeller to hide the truth about Communism, and that truth is that it is Jewish from its origins with Marx to its commissars in Russia and its advocates and financiers in the USA and around the world.
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JBS started by John D Rockefeller? WOW, what a stretch that is. Rockefeller is at the very core of globalism and he isn’t Jewish. The controllers are Uber Wealthy Fascists who hire Communists as “Human Resource Managers”.
FWIW, the John Birch Society is irrelevant. I have been a member, off and on since the mid 1980’s. My dad was a member before me. He got out also. Up here in North Idaho, the remnant JBS is composed of tired old white men who still believe they can educate young people about liberty and free-market economics. If anyone tells them they are woefully out of touch, they ignore the obvious.
Based on my education and experience, I pointed out to them the biggest adversaries of the JBS going back to the 1960’s; were and still are, the B’nai B’rith and the Anti-Defamation League. I saw that with my own eyes during my ’60’s-era college years. For that truth, they threw me out for being: “Anti-Semitic”.
As far as Amerika’s “Thin Blue Line” is concerned, you must all keep in mind the Orcs and Orcettes with badges serve their paymasters, not the public. One only has to look at the absolute chickens**t antics, such as the lard-ass with a badge in Meridian, ID, vis-à-vis the woman and her kids at the park, to realize “law enforcement” agencies at all levels serve themselves and not the public. As a 30-year former Peace Officer from SoCal, I can also attest to that. It became apparent to me during the bogus “War on Drugs.” That’s when I got out.
So if you want to push back and grab your God-given liberties, plan accordingly. Some areas of the FSSA are re-opening. Others need more popular nudges. It is becoming more apparent to many of us that we have been lied to at all levels of government. Their “Pandemic” is in reality a “Plandemic”. Godspeed to all. Stay safe.
I bet there’s a lot of guys reading this site who write comments to make the rest of us think they are very independent and can stand up to the gov’t – bullsh*t, most guys who are married can’t even stand up to their old ladies. Many of them are stuck a rut with a wife and a sh*t life and some job. If most of them were honest and had a microgram of testosterone in their body, they would admit it. They never learned simple lessons early in life. I’ll give two lessons, both freebies. The first is for unmarried guys – You don’t marry women, you use them as you see fit, and when things play out and you’re done with them you throw them away. The second is for married guys who are lucky enough not to have kids and married less than 10 years, take your one chance at happiness – never ever cheat, just leave (if you cheat, or married 10 or more years many states will require husbands to pay spousal support along with losing half of their property and wealth), the rest of you married guys are just d*cked. Several years ago I was once married for a few years when a friend showed me the light. My ex was really pressuring me to have kids, she always wanted me to “talk things over with her” before I did something – translated that means get permission from her, and generally had to have everything her way. The worst was she was always trying to change me by comparing me with other people. So I acted quickly on my friends advice, and fortunately got out of it free and clear. Now I do what I want, when I want. And have a mortgage-free home and some property. I date when I feel like it and always keep things on my terms. Most women I date are actually looking for a husband and want kids (but I keep forgetting to mention I had a vasectomy). Because of my fortunate circumstances, when asked for advice I have successfully convinced a few acquaintances not marry. Empower yourself before you try to change the bigger picture of things.
Exactly Quick Learner. And if you marry, make sure she has a ton of more wealth than you, to keep the playing field even. So if a split-up occurs you don’t lose most everything. And learn how to pull out every time, before you fertilize the womb. I was married twice, split my stuff up twice. Do the math. I have now been single for over 20 years. Have my own land and off grid dwelling and debt free, and do what I want, when I want. And when they start to talk marriage, run…. and don’t look back. If you are in a relationship you will never, ever be able to realize your own goals. If you have kids, just admit you failed and prepare to be a slave 25 more years until they are adults. And the kids will make sure they keep you broke. Then when your kids have kids they will dump them off on you again for more punishment. I refuse to date any women with kids. Learned my lesson well.
Sociopath. (look it up).
Thank God you don’t reproduce !
It is abundantly clear that the Robber Barons in charge have decided to just keep becoming more ridiculous, devoid of logic, and devoid of truth in a counter-intelligence scheme during the robbery in action of everything, including civil rights, since they were busted again.
This plan is guaranteed to fail.
Anyone that has taken a solemn oath to deny the existence of reality, in addition to being evil has chosen to be on the losing side of the battle. That is not even debateable. They will eventually have to face reality. They are in total denial, to the point of denying that reality exists, which proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that they are both insane and retarded.
The majority of people that are always whining about law enforcement on public forums are usually the FIRST to pick up the phone in order to snitch on somebody, or whenever a situation escalates above their comfort level.
Cops like these, and cops that use SWAT to raid tomato gardeners, should realize that when the shit really hits the fan in the future, their traitorous and disgusting behavior WILL BE NOTED AND remembered!
From Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn (winner of the 1970 Pulitzer Prize for Literature):
“And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?… The Organs would very quickly have suffered a shortage of officers and transport and, notwithstanding all of Stalin’s thirst, the cursed machine would have ground to a halt! If…if…We didn’t love freedom enough. And even more – we had no awareness of the real situation…. We purely and simply deserved everything that happened afterward.”
-The Gulag Archipelago
Historian, thanks for reminding me of another great historical novel. Must be at least 3 decades since I read the book. History is instructive as to how brutal life can be and how windows-of-opportunity close very quickly. People are not inclined to believe a train ride will lead to starvation or mass killings.