This is just a general rant on US politics circa 2009. Today, I read that Obama is going to sit down for "a beer" with the racist Boston police officer Crowley and his personal friend Gates. This is populism at its most stomach-churning. It's like Obama's handlers want the American public to believe he really is Kal-El, capable of flying around the country in Santa-like manner sitting down and resolving all disputes with a peace-beer.
No one stops to ask whether the police ought to be able to arrest someone for belligerency. Why is belligerency an arrestable (and chargeable) offense in the first place? Since when does someone get "the right" to not be insulted just by virtue of wearing a uniform and a tin badge? Police should not be granted the power to make lawful orders (above the power to make such orders which any citizen has) and they should not be granted exception to traffic rules. I have observed in my nearly 15 years of driving (no accidents) that police cruisers are the greatest single moving hazard on the road, whipping U-turns without warning, running stoplights, stop signs, speeding and driving carelessly and distracted at will. I'm fed up with the double standard, there's no excuse for people to behave illegally because they have a magic uniform on. The Greeks have been rioting on and off for the last two years over the police hypocrisy. The police commit a crime and no one is charged or even disciplined unless it's video taped and, even then, they don't get punished to the same extent that a non-police officer would be. It's time to end the double standard. It doesn't matter what get-up you have on, the same rules apply to you as to any other person. It's become clear that the system is protecting its own and that means that the system has become the enemy of the people.
This led me to another thought: the Constitution has failed to perform its specified function and, for this reason, it ought to be scrapped. "... Whenever any form of government becomes destructive to [protecting the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness], it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." [Emphasis mine] The evidence for the failure of the Constitution is the de facto suspension of habeus corpus which occurred in the cases of Jose Padilla and Brandon Mayfield (these are the cases we are aware of, the nature of gagging NSLs means there could be many, many more such cases that we do not even know about). To me, this is a blatant, obvious violation of human rights on the part of the Federal government for which no excuse can be made. It is not a failure of a few bad apples within the system, it is a failure of the system itself. The system did what it was supposed to do to Padilla, Mayfield and the other innocent victims of the PATRIOT Act and MCA. That means that the system itself has become destructive to the ends which the Constitution was supposed to prevent it from destroying. And this means that it is time to scrap the Constitutional Federal government. We could easily break into 50 (or fewer) separate nations and dissolve the Federal government. This might sound crazy on the face of it, but how crazy is it that the "land of the free and home of the brave" is indefinitely detaining and possibly even torturing its own citizens without due process and even without media scrutiny through the use of NSL gag orders? The Federal government has so far over-stepped its own authority that it is no more insane to dissolve it than to tolerate its ongoing abuses.
No one stops to ask whether the police ought to be able to arrest someone for belligerency. Why is belligerency an arrestable (and chargeable) offense in the first place? Since when does someone get "the right" to not be insulted just by virtue of wearing a uniform and a tin badge? Police should not be granted the power to make lawful orders (above the power to make such orders which any citizen has) and they should not be granted exception to traffic rules. I have observed in my nearly 15 years of driving (no accidents) that police cruisers are the greatest single moving hazard on the road, whipping U-turns without warning, running stoplights, stop signs, speeding and driving carelessly and distracted at will. I'm fed up with the double standard, there's no excuse for people to behave illegally because they have a magic uniform on. The Greeks have been rioting on and off for the last two years over the police hypocrisy. The police commit a crime and no one is charged or even disciplined unless it's video taped and, even then, they don't get punished to the same extent that a non-police officer would be. It's time to end the double standard. It doesn't matter what get-up you have on, the same rules apply to you as to any other person. It's become clear that the system is protecting its own and that means that the system has become the enemy of the people.
This led me to another thought: the Constitution has failed to perform its specified function and, for this reason, it ought to be scrapped. "... Whenever any form of government becomes destructive to [protecting the rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness], it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness." [Emphasis mine] The evidence for the failure of the Constitution is the de facto suspension of habeus corpus which occurred in the cases of Jose Padilla and Brandon Mayfield (these are the cases we are aware of, the nature of gagging NSLs means there could be many, many more such cases that we do not even know about). To me, this is a blatant, obvious violation of human rights on the part of the Federal government for which no excuse can be made. It is not a failure of a few bad apples within the system, it is a failure of the system itself. The system did what it was supposed to do to Padilla, Mayfield and the other innocent victims of the PATRIOT Act and MCA. That means that the system itself has become destructive to the ends which the Constitution was supposed to prevent it from destroying. And this means that it is time to scrap the Constitutional Federal government. We could easily break into 50 (or fewer) separate nations and dissolve the Federal government. This might sound crazy on the face of it, but how crazy is it that the "land of the free and home of the brave" is indefinitely detaining and possibly even torturing its own citizens without due process and even without media scrutiny through the use of NSL gag orders? The Federal government has so far over-stepped its own authority that it is no more insane to dissolve it than to tolerate its ongoing abuses.
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