The police state, coming soon to a neighborhood near you
The philosopher Hannah Arendt once observed that it was arbitrariness, not necessarily severity, that distinguished totalitarian from law-abiding states. Stalin may have had his Gulags, Hitler his concentration camps, but the key to understanding the exercise of totalitarian power there and elsewhere lay in its capricious, unpredictable application, not its harshness. The operation of law is public, regular, knowable in advance. The eruption of the totalitarian impulse inserts a vertiginousness element of whim. That’s part of what makes it terrifying. In a free society governed by the rule of law, people know where they stand. In the normal course of affairs, most people will never directly experience the coercive power of the state. They are not subjected to harassment at the arbitrary direction of state officials. With the erosion of the habits of liberty, however, everything changes. Now the state tends to regard the people first of all not as its raison d’être but as a potential threat. The result is a sharp contraction of that latitude that free societies allow their citizens.
I thought about these melancholy truths when a friend told me the alarming story of Robin Fleming, a 70-year-old glider pilot and instructor from South Carolina. On July 26, 2012, Mr. Fleming was out for a leisurely flight when, late in the afternoon, the tranquility of the day was suddenly broken by a radio call from local enforcement officials barking orders that he land his glider immediately. “The presumed offense,” the magazine Flying reports in a story called “Pilot Arrested, Charged for Doing Nothing,” “was his briefly flying over a nuclear power plant at approximately 1,000 feet AGL [i.e., above ground level] while looking for lift.”
According to Flying, “Local law enforcement cannot, for the record, order any pilot of an airplane in flight to do anything.” What the magazine meant, alas, is that local law enforcement agencies may not so order a pilot. That they can do was demonstrated by the unhappy case of Mr. Fleming on that otherwise pleasant summer say.
Mr. Fleming landed. His plane was instantly surrounded by 17 police vehicles. He was “detained on the spot, brought to jail, held overnight on a charge of ‘breach of peace,’ and not released until he was bailed out late the next day.” It might have been worse. According to another report from the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, one officer spoke of “commandeering the airport.” “He was running around . . .saying ‘We were going to shoot him down.’” Yikes. In the event, the Darlington, South Carolina, sheriff’s office wouldn’t let Fleming call anyone, so members of his flying club were alarmed when he didn’t return as scheduled from his flight. Eventually, they organized a search for him.
The sheriff’s office claimed that Mr. Fleming had violated a “no fly” zone. The problem, as Flying points out, is “there is no such kind of zone, no such regulation and no such offense.”
Robin Fleming was arrested and thrown into jail on the initiative of some hysterical local law enforcement—no, make that “law perversion”—officials.
One immediately begins to wonder who perversions may be perpetrated in the name of gun control.
Lest we forget, both Waco and Ruby Ridge started over suspected gun control violations. In both cases rather than a simple visit by local law enforcement military style raids were carried out resulting in multiple deaths of both law enforcement and civilians including unarmed women and children.
But that’s not a bug – that’s a feature!
Umm, dont you support this very same type of action in the War on Drugs? I may have you mixed up with someone else, but I dont think so.
Of course the most venerable of non-offenses, about which you seem to be unaware for some reason is Driving While Black.
Just curious. Do you know? Is there any correlation between the number of black drivers who break the law and the number of black drivers who are pulled over?
I am all for pulling over anyone who breaks the law.
When they’ve actually done studies, they’ve found that, yes, the rate at which different races get pulled over reflects their composition in the neighborhood.
Do a search on google scholar for race bias traffic stops; read some of the studies. It’s pretty interesting.
Look up the percentages of felony crimes committed by black perpetrators and compare them to the percentages of black people in the population and you will see the reason why the police have to pull over so many black drivers. Use your head when you read numbers. People pushing agendas always leave out the inconvenient statistics.
Do you think that random lawless harrasement is ok as long as the proportion of perps in a population is sufficiently high?
I don’t. And neither does anyone who supports the constitution.
Yea, Nemo! And in an all black neighborhood too!
Try telling the race of someone in the car in front of you some time.
You see a lime green Lincoln ahead with 22″ wheels and spinner hubcaps. Who’s driving it?
It would be extremely interesting to find out how many of these pull-overs occur at night, when it’s essentially impossible to determine the race, sex or anything else about the driver. I do a lot of night driving, and the only time you can really see anyone in another car is when a) there’s a bright light very nearby, and b) the windows are either rolled down or untinted. And down here in Florida only fools don’t tint their windows to the maximum allowed by law.
When Sikhs or dwarves start committing crimes out of all proportion to their demographic there’ll be Driving-While-Congenitally-Short and Driving-While-Sikh.
Anyway it’s a non-issue since black Americans declared during the recent Presidential campaign that getting a driver’s license is not an option for them – too difficult. If you can’t get a simple ID what’s the odds a driver’s license is in the cards?
Unless liberty-loving people put aside differences and unite to save our country, not much will remain that is worth saving. Wrongs have happened to many people for many reasons. Harboring personal grievances resolve nothing. If you are reading this post I must believe that you understand we are headed in the wrong direction. With every passing day government encroachment accelerates.
Yeah, about that. Blacks on the NJ Turnpike get pulled over in more then their fair share of the population. And a NJ crusading newspaper set out to show how eveil it was by actually doing research. Set a speed camera up on a bridge over teh Turnpike that would take a picture of speeding cars and their drivers, and record the speed. THEY never published what they found, though what they found leaked out. Turns out that the more over the speed limit a car was going, the more likely it was being driven by a black. And that blacks were speeding way out of their population proportion among drivers. And that, comparing statistics of blacks being ticketed vs. all others being ticketed, they were being ticketed at a percentage far less then they should be. And why would that be? Ahh, glad you asked. Becasue troopers who enforced the law fairly, that is, stopped the speeders and ticketed them as they found them, would be accused of targeting blacks, and be subject to investigations and scorn for enforcing the law fairly!
http://www.city-journal.org/html/12_2_the_racial_profiling.html not difficult to find this study, though it is not the newspaper one.
On this subject, I know a story that’s both amusing and disturbing…
A dozen years ago, I was a database administrator for a defense contractor. My boss, Jim (not his real name), was an exceptionally talented young man — one of the very best bosses I’ve ever had — who happened to be black. He and his wife were both into database administration and management, and between the two of them, they earned some considerable coin, and had carved out for themselves a nice little niche in that expansive world known as the American dream — beautiful home in the suburbs, nice clothes, nice cars, children, and they had earned every piece of it.
Jim told me about the time he took his wife and children on a trip through Tennessee, driving his Lexus. At some point, though he did not break any traffic laws, he was pulled over by an older white deputy sheriff. The deputy walked around Jim’s gorgeous luxury car, took it all in, and then walked up to Jim’s window, leaned over, and said, “Pretty nice car you’ve got here, boy.”
Jim told me he stifled the urge to reply, “Yes, Deputy, I always take the wife and kids with me when I go car-jacking.”
One idiot does not equate to an entire state or nation of racists.
Conversely, my wife and I were driving through Arkansas. My wife was doing 60 in a 55, I looked at her speedometer when I saw the cop, she got pulled over and written a ticket for doing 75mph. Her plates on her Civic were from NV. Ended up costing us $500 when all was said and done. Your friend getting pulled over might have originally had less to do with his race and more to do with his out of state plates.
I’m wondering: would Mr. Kimball have allowed his blood to boil so fiercely, and his pen to flow so torrentially, if the pilot’s name had been, say, Ahmed Aziz, or Muhammad Usman? Just a question, that’s all….
Problem is Koko, that would be as reasonable and constitutional as arresting a member of the German American Bund for flying over a munitions plant during WWII, and holding them for a thorough investigation.
In other words, it would be fine.
You got THAT right.
Ever wonder why the US government has allowed so many Muslims to immigrate here? And no, it isn’t because exposing Muslims to the liberty and prosperity that once were hallmarks of the American way of life will lead Muslims to become less radical and less violent. Generally, it has the opposite effect.
Here are the reasons:
1) To appease wealthy and powerful Arab oil interests.
2) To obtain tourist and tuition money from wealthy and powerful Arab oil interests.
3) To endanger Israel by helping Muslims to obtain American technology.
4) (the biggest reason of all): To endanger the American public by importing a fifth column of hostile foreigners – who then become a pretext for ever-harsher “counterterrorist” measures at home. As anyone who has ever been at an airport can observe, these measures are always enforced most stringently on non-Muslims.
Tom Perkins writes: “. . . that would be as reasonable and constitutional as . . .” – Tom, could you please clarify the *constitutional* basis for arresting “Muhammed Usman,” a basis you seem to regard as self-evident? If you can, keep the following in mind: you made your claim on the basis of nothing more than a *name*; your charge, then, is to show where IN THE CONSTITUTION any justification for arresting Mr. Usman – just a name, again, in the example I gave, which is all you have to work with – might be derived?
“The philosopher Hannah Arendt once observed that it was arbitrariness, not necessarily severity, that distinguished totalitarian from law-abiding states.”
My guess would be “yes”.
Muslims are just like anybody else. Go talk to Mr. Driving-While-Black. I guess the increased security at airports globally the last decade which is exclusively because of Muslims is a chimera.
How dumb is political correctness? Let me count the ways.
I think the outcry from the right over the midnight arrest of the muslim man (forgive me, I forgot his name and I don’t have time to look it up) for “parole violations”, but actually as retaliation for the video said to be the cause of the Benghazi assault, has been pretty substantial in the corners of the internet where I hang out.
He isn’t a muslim. He is an Egyptian Christian.
And he was here legally and not on an expired student visa? My blood would be.
Hey, how about your blood? It doesn’t seem to be boiling about what happened to Mr. Fleming. Does it only boil if the guy is named Aziz or maybe some other minority the “I’m-so-cool” set feels to be the fashion of the moment?
Roger, the best, they only, way of ensuring that you and your family remain on the right side of the line dividing those who are subject to lawless state power from those who are not is to make sure that THERE IS NO LINE.
We all have to play our part here. The best thing YOU could do is write against persecution of muslims, even the awful political radical muslims, who have broken no law rather than encouraging it. Because while the occasional middle class white guy with a paunch does suffer the odd bout of “You can’t take photos here” that’s hardly the center of the problem. We need to deal with the root cause not complain about the odd occasion where people like us suffer from the more gentle consequences the post 911 police state.
So; When you move your family to Mali, make sure you let us know how your life has improved.
I hear they have some great night clubs and golf courses.
Forget that.
I want to live in a liberal democracy where the wrong kind of people can live free unless they break the law exactly as easily as the right kind of people.
Comunists, Christian fundementalists, Republicans, Muslims, Democrats in a land of the free.
If you’re not free to be any of those things you not free at all.
What do you identify as the “root cause”, Nemo?
KT,
The root cause of lawless state power? Is, you know, the state using the power of the state oustside of the law.
It’s done in lots of different ways with lots of different excuses, more or less systematicaly, more or less conciously. Some people suffer from it a lot. People like me and Roger, not so much, and when we do it tends to be in a rather genteel kind of way: talked at by state employees with lots of sentences ending in ‘sir’.
Thing is I agree with Roger’s analysis. But it needs to be acted on at all times for all people, not just decent folk.
Actually, no, Nemo. The “root cause” has to be what is LEADING TO the use of non-lawful force of authority. The use of it, itself, is nothing more than the effect. The cause is something else. The cause is the belief that the government is here to save us from ourselves, that they only have our best interests at heart. A great many people have fooled themselves into believing that. We, as conservatives, ARE and often DO battle with that “root cause”. Every time we tell people that government is not the answer to every problem or that government often makes things worse, that is exactly what we are doing.
So you’re saying that the mere existence of state power dooms us to a police state because no law can adequately contain it. I’m saying something similar but not quite that. I think some kinds of state power can be ok and some are never ok.
If we were to say all state power is bad I would then begin to wonder about power per se and that way lies madness or at least Jacques Derridas.
Lawless state power is never ok. It needs to be fought and stopped a long time before it comes to your neighborhood.
Sorry that you want to live in a liberal democracy, Nemo, but Islam’s fundamental tenets are so contrary to the Constitution of this liberal republican democracy, that you can’t be faithful to Islam and faithful to the US Constitution, so really Muslims should not live in the US. And since a significant portion of they have proven themselves to be very dangerous, it isn’t worth the risk allow Muslims to even visit the US.
Why are you parroting Al Qeda propoganda about muslims and america?
You and Al Qeda say a muslim can’t be a good american. Me that the president of the USA sday they can. You’re on the wrong side.
“The best thing YOU could do is write against persecution of muslims, even the awful political radical muslims, who have broken no law rather than encouraging it.”
Thing is, you can’t be a ideologically standard muslim (what you call radical) without advocating breaking the law.
Let me know when they make a case for repealing the constitution, then that will change.
I’m not sure that advocating a change in the law, however outrageous, should be treated as advocating breaking a law. In fact I’m sure that it shouldn’t.
You’ll have seen ‘A Man For All Seasons’? There’s a version with Charlton Heston: that’ll float your boat you’re lot like him, but it’s not really the best one. Anyway, there was an exchange between Sir Thomas Moore (Lord Chancellor under Henry VIII) and a radical chap, his son in law I think, that goes something Like this.
S.I.L: I would cut down every law in England to get to the Devil.
S.T.M: But then when you had succeeded in getting the Devil and all the laws were cut down, what would be left to protect you from the storms that would ravage the land.
Radical Islam or whatever the Hitler de jour is, is ‘the devil’ the things Roger describes are the the ‘winds ravaging the land’.
On reflection their were some things I liked about the Charlton Heston version a lot. Roy Kinear’s turn as ‘the common man’ for example, and Charlton was a more human Sir Thomas Moore. Maybe I’ll give it another look.
Nemo, you’re a special kind of stupid, aren’t you?
No, he’s a special kind of evil. He knows exactly what he’s doing – using an exaggerated version of our own ideals to destroy us. Right out of Alinsky.
Well my mother said “Nemo, you’re not stupid you’re special and don’t let anyone ever tell you any different.” Then she kind of welled up with a proud-but-tragic look on her face and hugged me hard. But maybe I misheard and she meant what you said. I can’t quite rmemember; this was months ago.
Thing is, you need to say what it is specifically about what I said that is stupid. That’d help move things along. Maybe I’d learn somethng.
Easy to see you misunderstood “especially stupid”.
I phoned. It was ‘Nemo, you’re not especially stupid’, which is fair.
You need to get out more and participate in the real world, Nemo. You should start by getting out of your mother’s house, I think.
Regardless of Nemo’s “clever” implications about “our lot” and his baseless assumption about what constitutes our beliefs and assumptions, he has shown a distrust of the growth of the state. For that, he should be considered a potential ally.
He’s a Muslim, lying to infidels isn’t just permitted, it’s required. He’s saying he distrusts OUR state, he’d be fine with tyrannical power in the hands of a state governed by Sharia.
Nemo, the root cause of overly zealous policing is comprised of several factors, as per my observations from 42 years in law enforcement, including five levels of supervision.Stupidity, Ignorance, Amorality, Malice and Sloth head the list. I believe that any officer who even attempts to enforce a nonexistent law should be summarily discharged. If an officer lacks probable cause, he may not detain anyone, driver or pedestrian. All officers know that. If he exceeds his authority he needs to be suspended without pay. On a second offense he needs to be encouraged to seek some other form of employment. If he is amoral and/or malicious, there is always the ACLU, NOW,KKK, CPUSA,DNC, RNC and Congress. So opportunities abound for the lazy, dumb, knownothing, mean fool who can’t tell right from wrong If those conditions are exacerbated and his behavior is egregious he may even qualify for president. Police officers of all races are more suspicious of minorities because brown and black minority members commit crime far in excess of their population percentage. But mere suspicion does not permit detention. Cause is needed for detention, search, seizure, arrest: probable and reasonable.Those terms are carefully defined and taught to all officers. I believe the most important of those factors is Morality. An officer who knows what is right and is morally constrained to do right is most likely to do so.
Good to see H. Arendt cited again. While researching one of her points on Z. Brzezinski’s http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=node%3D9&field-keywords=between+two+worlds-america+in+the+technetronic+era&rh=n%3A9%2Ck%3Abetween+two+worlds-america+in+the+technetronic+era , I saw that she commented on a claim by a 1968 Presidential candidate that only six members of the US Congress enrolled their children in Wash. D C public schools. Well worth a reread : http://www.amazon.com/Crises-Republic-Politics-Disobedience-Revolution/dp/0156232006/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358548083&sr=1-1&keywords=crises+of+the+republic Also of interest given the long entrenchment of “left” nomenklatura in US society is : http://www.amazon.com/Revolutionary-Change-Chalmers-Johnson/dp/0804711453/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358548596&sr=1-1&keywords=revolutionary+change . Another look at changes was formulated in : http://www.amazon.com/New-Left-Ayn-Rand/dp/0451095510/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1358548731&sr=1-4&keywords=ayn+rand-the+new+left ; the discussion of education is fascinating.
It is tempting to conclude that the revolution is over, and that the other side won, and that we are now in a “counter-revolutionary” effort which will require quite different tactics.
Revolutions in Western societies often are based in rising expectations, and we are now in an era of general falling expectations. Revolutions have time to build their theory and “new government” structures and membership. The current situation doesn’t seem to offer a generation of time for salvific change. Is it even still possible to ease into a “post-Progressive” or “after Blue” society ? http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2013/01/16/life-after-blue/
Thanks for your informative and stimulating discussions. GBUSA
Capricious… you mean like that retarded monkey David Gregory brandishing a 30 round magazine in D.C. and having no charges brought, where most would be prosecuted for it?
I am ignorant of the incident you cite. Surely you do not want someone arrested for “brandishing a 30 round magazine”? Did you mean to say, “a semiautomatic rifle with a 30 round magazine”? There are no laws, anywhere, against “brandishing magazines.”
In a similar vein:
http://www.sott.net/article/256370-US-government-claims-just-like-the-Nazis-that-the-truth-is-too-complicated-and-dangerous-to-disclose-to-the-public
http://www.alt-market.com/articles/1273-a-message-to-the-left-from-a-right-wing-extremist
Dear Leader isn’t capricious in the least. Au contraire, he is perfectly transparent.
“The capricious intrusion of the state into our daily lives has become an intolerable nuisance. The question is whether we have the collective will to stop it before it blossoms into something even worse.”
The laws granting the government sweeping emergency powers are already on the books. All that remains is for congress to declare the emergency. The financial goose may not yet be cooked, but it is in the oven and cooking. If they time it right the takeover will be greeted by the majority with relief.
I have some applicable experience playing cop, and incident commander for some years now. As the incident commander I have ordered helos out of the area, for a handful of reasons at several different scenes. This SEVERELY chapped the local news and their position was “you can’t” and I did quite a bit of leg work to back up my position that “I can”. Now years into it “I can” has stood the test of time. So there is at least “one” reason that someone on the ground can tell pilots what do do (I have no idea if this ownership of the airspace over a critical incident extends to fixed wing stuff).
There was actually a list of criteria very clearly spelled out that I got from the FAA. I am not looking at it so I won’t even attempt to replicate it – but – in very broad strokes it said “for the safety of anyone in the air, or on the ground.” Many years back I was on the side of a house that contained bikers with rifles, working on turning into a hostage barricade. What you can hear from inside the target, and your ability to clearly communicate with your team are both survival information. Directly interfered with by how hovering multiple news choppers. I sent them away. That and other scenes where PD assets were moving into danger close positions (meaning: risking their lives) which were being live broadcast into a TV inside the target. Sent them away.
SO – knowing not a damn thing about the rules over nuc facilities, but applying my experience with critical incidents. It would seem to make some sense that you would restrict that airspace. I am totally naive to the rules but aren’t there much the same rules for bridges and highways and the like? Or is it all just a standard “this far off the hardpan” rule?
It does sound like the peeps in blue got their skivvies in a knot. Sometimes you head down a road being led by reasonable suspicion and sound tactics. And your wrong. If everyone is being a pro it amounts to a handshake or an apology and explanation for what happened and off to other stuff. However – I have never flown a thing in my life and if you were to propose to me as a “what if”. . we fly our glider over the nuc plant? LOL, I would respond some Fed is going to float a valve over it.
Shame on you!We may not operate on the basis of “what seems to make sense’. We enforce the law. Period. Either we have a law permitting us to disperse, say, airborne vehicles, or we do not. We must never attempt to enforce nonexistent laws. That is capricious and malicious and illegal. When we break the law we become crooks- just like the adamhenrys we are sworn to suppress. We obey the laws of arrest, search and seizure because we are lawmen; not outlaws. We are authorized to enforce the law; not to invent it.Our Constitution is a social contract, expanded by the laws of the lesser jurisdictions, to deal with specifics.We must live by the Law; not by how some person happens to feel at the moment. We must all obey all the laws all the time. Cops too.
This is nothing new. They’ve been going after people who want to raise their own produce and livestock and feed others for quite some time now.
http://bobmccarty.com/2011/08/10/anonymous-call-to-new-animal-abuse-hotline-leads-to-raid-on-colorado-womans-rabbit-farm/
This is just one egregious example.
Every single American has committed a crime before 9AM each day.
They only need to determine which one.
In 1867, the Speaker of the House made a rule: as there were too damn many laws already, a Member had to submit one for repeal before he would entertain any motions for another new one.
How many laws and rules are on the books today vs. then?
Perhaps a few orders of magnitude. Yet ignorance of their bullshit laws is NO excuse.
Obama is the poison. We have all been instrumental in the fashioning of this poison for at least a hundred years.
Prosit!
When the government decides not to enforce certain laws, i.e., immigration laws, then, in my opinion, it has lost it’s moral authority to enforce any lesser laws. Why should I come to a complete stop – especially when there is no other traffic around – at a stop sign? Is the intent of the stop sign to control the steady and safe flow of traffic, or is it to ensure that all the molecules of air in my tires come to complete stasis before I proceed on. If it’s the latter, and I get fined $300, then I am being selectively persecuted by the State. The same State that ignores immigration law.
I challenge the use of the term “nuisance”. A grave threat to life and liberty isn’t a “nuisance”.
Forget deer hunting. This is why you need AR-pattern rifles.
With law enforcement doing street side body cavity searches for the charge of throwing a cigarette from a moving vehicle. Nothing shocks me anymore. We have devolved into a nightmare nation that searches people in our cities and highways with no justification. 90% of all stop and frisk in NYC are released with out charges. I have personally had officers search my vehicle at least 7 times. While me and my family sit on the ground like criminals. Not sure if they search me based on race “American Indian” or if they hate long hair. Could be the time of evening we commute to our vacation home, who knows. What I do know is I am 43 and this BS started about 6 years ago and is getting worse.
Sadly this is not all Team Obama. Indefinite detention without due process was supported by 93 senators. Americans assassinated by drone with out any judicial oversight. All the pieces are in place to make “1984″ seem like Eden.
Alright, just to set the record straight and make this perfectly clear, to ascertain the level of capriciousness, there is no law or ordinance against flying over a power plant, nuclear or otherwise, at that altitude in that jurisdiction?
Since I used to fly in and around SC, I pulled out some of my old flight bulletins for SC from back in the day. Heres what I found though I don’t have any specific recollection of it relative to my flying there — but regulatory bulletins do ‘routinely’ come out for any numbers of installations around the country as a matter of national security. There was the other usual interesting data included in the bulletin but I didn feel like also copying it to word then copy and paste here.
What is ommittted from the article is that all relative Federal, States and local authorities were alerted by the power plant security who made the report and that the local FBI had told them (sheriff’s department) to hold the pilot for questioning, something they couldn’t do without a charge, so the minor charge was made to comply. (per AOPA)
FDC 1/1979 FDC AND FDC 1/1980
November 2, 2001, For reasons of national security, effective November 2, 2001, until November 7 2001, all general aviation flight operations are prohibited within a 10 nautical miles radius of and below 18000 feet MSL over the below listed nuclear power plants except for medevac, law enforcement, rescue recovery, emergency evacuation and fire fighting operations when authorized by ATC:
SOUTH CAROLINA –
CATAWBA – 6 MILES NNW OF ROCKHILL, SC.
H.B. ROBINSON NUCLEAR POWER PLANT – 26 MILES NW OF FLORENCE, SC.
SUMMER NUCLEAR POWER PLANT – 26 MILES NW OF COLUMBIA, SC.
OCONEE NUCLEAR POWER PLANT – 3O MILES SW OF GREENVILLE, SC.
SAVANNAH RIVER SITE – 11 MILES S OF AIKEN, SC.
At the time of the incident, there was no NOTAM or prohibition on FAA charts or other prohibition against flying over the nuclear plant. There was a note on the FAA chart that it was *preferred* that pilots fly around rather than over, but no prohibition.
I understand that. But whats missing from this authors rendition of the story was that, it was the security at the power plant who alerted federal, state and local officials, instigating a response by local law enforcement followed by the FBI who gave them direction to hold for questioning resulting in the minor charge to hold him pursuant to the FBI’s direction. The Sheriff was admittantly confounded by the whole thing but took all the heat like a southern gentleman. I think it unfair to continue BBQing him and his department!
In my town, almost half of the police officers are young combat veterans with attitudes. And some of them are batshit-crazy because of whatever they had to put up with over there in Iraq or Afghanistan. I’ve seen it in my own kinfolk. They came back from Iraq without a scratch on them, but they’re hard. And grim.
Roger, I WAS issued a warning by some sort of “bridge official” for doing a charcoal drawing of the Delaware River from the Calhoun St. Bridge in Trenton, N.J. in 1991!
As a pilot I can see both sides of this. For one, pilots have been told since 9 11 to not linger around places like nuke plants. I have flown past many without incident, but did not maneuver anywhere near them. That is what this pilot did to arouse suspicion.
The problem arises when one arouses the suspicion of someone who is simply doing what he thinks is the right thing, and relays his suspicion to someone who can turn a non-event into a deadly one: Law enforcement. At that point, all bets are off. These days, there is little likelihood of them simply realizing that there is no threat, and a greater liklelyhood of them escalating the situation. This scenario has been playing itself out many times recently. This time it was a glider pilot. Not long before, it was an innocent person with a carry permit being turned in to Swiss Cheese by some trigger happy bozos at a Walmart.
The lesson is that you must be careful these days not to arouse suspicion ANYWHERE. Do that and your friendly neighborhood “public servants” may come along and ruin your day, if not you entire life. THEY MAY EVEN KILL YOU.
If you find yourself in such a situation, your first priority is to stay alive. Kiss their little jackboot behinds if you have to. Save the “But this is America!” arguments for forums like this. The America you knew and loved is dead. Just make sure you don’t end up the same.
“The problem arises when one arouses the suspicion of someone who is simply doing what he thinks is the right thing, and relays his suspicion to someone who can turn a non-event into a deadly one: Law enforcement.”
The problem is that if law enforcement doesn’t “do something,” and something untoward happens, there will be a hue and cry for the head of whomever didn’t do something and 12 morons with drivers’ licenses who’ll award millions in damages because “nothing was done.”
He was a glider pilot. His route was somewhat at the mercy of wind and weather. He couldn’t go anywhere fast without dangerously losing altitude. There was official advice that it was preferred that pilots go around nuclear plants, but
no prohibition was in effect at the time of the incident.
The law enforcement officers had the difficult task of being expected to do something without having a clear understanding of what laws they were upholding and what their role should be. They overreached.
Glider needs updraft.
Nuclear (or any other) power plant needs to dump waste heat.
Dumping waste heat creates updraft.
Duhhh…
Physics or engineering or aeronautics 101, take your pick.
Your “triggerhappy bozos” were clearly identified police officers, called to Walmart by store security who had observed the suspect, under the influence of several kinds of narcotics, carrying a concealed pistol.The suspect was commanded, “Hands up, on your knees, flatten out.” He did not comply. Instead, he reached into his waistband and pulled out his pistol. And was shot and killed. He also had a second, illegal pistol on his person. It turned out that he made the rounds of physicians, obtaining prescriptions for various narcotics ,
which he consistently abused. The police had every reason to believe he intended to shoot them, and were vindicated. Question: Were you the lead cop there, what would you have done when the suspect disobeyed your order and pulled out his gun, standing three feet from you?
Well, this was obviously for the greater good of society.
No, but it was for the kids.
No, but as long as one child was protected, it was worth it.
No, but it was to preserve public order.
No. It was to ensure that everyone – every last one of us – submits in what the enforcers judge to be a proper form and procedure.
And, as they say, that’s the way the story goes. First your money, then your clothes.
As former KGB officer Peter Deriabian once said about life in the Soviet Union, “There are only three kinds of people: Those who have been in prison, those who are in prison and those who will be in prison.”
As prisoners in the USSR used to say to their guards, “Me today, you tomorrow.” -Solzhenitsin
Back in the 1980′s I was a motorcycle courier in DC. I remember making a drop at the White House east gate, which is where the social office is located. The cop on duty X-rayed the parcel as per normal procedure, and exclaimed, “What is that?” I volunteered that it looked like a pistol. The cop says, “I can’t let that in the White House.” So I ripped open the package and dumped the contents on the conveyor belt. It turned out to be a wooden necklace that had somehow coiled itself into the shape of a handgun. I just can’t imagine what the response might be today.
Roger and Hannah have it exactly right. In a free society people are permitted to use their personal judgement and discretion. Under a bureaucratic tyranny there’s a rule or regulation for everything. Personal initiative gets squashed. Before you know it the entire creaking machinery of the state comes to a grinding halt. That’s where we stand today. And the entire process is entirely arbitrary and totally pointless (until it becomes dangerous). Gah.
Once before 9/11 I was stopped by airport security. A friend dropped me off at the airport. He had a case of summer sausages that he was handing out to coworkers for Christmas on the back seat of his car. As I got out, he offered me one. I had no good place to put it so I stuffed it into my coat pocket where it made an unusual bulge. A few minutes later I became the interest of lots of security officers. They laughed at their mistake and I went on my way.
We get the system that we deserve. We fall asleep at the wheel and corruption ensues. The people in Adams County, CO seem to be realizing this. The police are shooting innocent dogs and drunks and it takes a significant media reaction to get those in charge to notice. Apparently, the managers are too busy lining their own pockets and these events are great distractions.
Cops become over-zealous when they are not being supervised properly. One cop gets away with an act of bravado and another follows. Before you know it, they are swatting all the time and the citizens are terrorized.
Molon Labe Pledges
We will never disarm. We will never surrender our military pattern, semi-automatic rifles and the full capacity magazines, parts, and ammunition that go with them. The fundamental purpose of the Second Amendment is to preserve the military power of We the People so we will have effective means to resist tyranny. Regardless of what unholy, unconstitutional filth issues from the mouths of oath breakers in “Mordor on the Potomac” our answer is MOLON LABE.
And the public goes merrily along, waving the flag and worshiping Obama.
Both ends of the Republicrat party are to blame. Almost 30,000 new laws went into effect this month, who knows what the average number is each January?
The so called “war on drugs” set the stage for the storm trooper tactics now being used against Americans for almost any perceived offense:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=bFALonjLay0#!
You see, unintended consequences happen to the right as well as the left. Those who cheered each new escalation in government police powers meant to impose their Utopian view now seem surprised that the same apparatus can easily be used for somebody else’s version of what a “great society” should be.
Other libertarians and I have been called “anarchists” repeatedly on the pages of PJM, but one question remains unanswered. If it takes tens of thousands of new laws each year to stave off “anarchy” does that mean we lived in anarchy last year, or the year before? What is the magic threshold of absolute government power that is needed to keep us out of “anarchy”?
A ‘free’ society is only free when it is disciplined and responsible to the freedoms granted them. The churches have failed their flocks and their flocks have failed their churches and the government only responds to the consequences.
If the Word of God no longer strikes fear and respect in the people of a nation granted all its freedoms within the precpt of Christianity then the tussle for its future lies somewhere inbetween a government controlled society or an anarchist society. All the guns in the world will have NO influence in society’s decision/actions for its future destiny!
What we’re now entering into in America, is a struggle for which will win — a government contolled society or anarchism. The great American experiment of individual freedoms has one foot in the base of the grave.
With all due respect, what does middle eastern mythology have to do with the US turning into a police state, or anything else I wrote? We have a Constitution, it is being trampled upon almost daily, until someone tells you you can’t go to church I don’t see the relevance of your reply.
Just in case you don’r read much here on PJM, there are bus loads of folks who contend that the constitution was drafted around a particular brand of Christianity and thus, they have inalienable rights over and beyond anything written in the constitution. Idiocy!
What do you do when your children abuse the freedoms you’ve given them? Exactly!
You want and demand individual freedoms, absent a police state, then you best be very, very disciplined and responsible to them!
But back to the topic! Only the dullest knife in the drawer who obviously, was a resident of the area, would fly in and around a nuke plant or any sensitive operation, post 9/11. The very professional contracted security of nuke plants have a very serious job to carry out and they did so, having nothing whatsoever to do with a police state. Had it in fact been a terorist operation and successful, all yuou people would be BBQing them!
The “very professional contracted security at nuclear plants” are largely composed of the very dregs of society, receive minimum wage or close to it, and lack the education, training and experience to secure your chickenhouse against a possum.
Even so, an officer must have a law to enforce before he can enforce it. He does not have the authority to invent laws to suit perceived needs. Yes, we have too many laws. Yes, our freedoms have been stolen, via various pretexts. But no, we we may not invent even more laws, as individuals, whenever we may feel the need. Unless, of course, chaos/anarchy is the goal we really seek.
We’ve always had places where you have to watch out for the local sheriff — and the local judge who always backs up the local sheriff. And there are traditional ways of resolving conflicts with them.
Published on Jan 9, 2013
The US Senate is considering President Obama’s picks to lead the Pentagon and the CIA. The candidate for the post of Spy Chief, presidential counter-terrorism advisor John Brennan, is a strong advocate of aggressive CIA tactics, and has secured a controversial drone programme as one of the agency’s main tools. Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury thinks if Brennan is confirmed as the CIA head, the agency will further expand its powers.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZFYFVxiheE
I wrote in 2003 that both political parties are in love with Big Government (still true) and that the operating philosophy for both parties is really the same: America is a problem to be fixed, and Americans are a people to be managed.
But I really did not imagine that it would take only 10 years.
The Battle of Athens was an armed rebellion led by WWII veterans and citizens in Athens and Etowah, Tennessee, United States, against the tyrannical local government in August 1946.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5ut6yPrObw&feature=player_embedded
A disgraceful story, but happily, in a society still governed by laws rather than men there is an upside. I have not read the “Flying” article, but it appears that this was a most egregious case of false imprisonment, which usually is both a civil wrong and a common-law felony. Forget the waiver he was forced to sign as a condition of not being prosecuted (for what?). It would be utterly worthless. The hapless Mr Fleming, as far as I can see, is entitled to sue the pants off the state of South Carolina, or at least the local constabulary, and should be entitled to a substantial verdict.
Hmmmm…i have been watching a program on the National Geographic channel (the Canadian version) about Canada’s equivalent of the TSA (Canada’s border and security services). Omg — not until I watched several of these episodes, did I become aware of just how far Canada has slipped down the road (in terms of eroding civil liberties in this country). As an American, I can rattle off at least a half dozen gross violations of civil rights (which, I suppose, in Canada no longer exist). There is no First Amendment, there is no Second Amendment, there is no “due process”, there is no presumption of innocence, there is no taking the Fifth to avoid self-incrimination. (There was one episode in which the border police — for no apparent reason — demanded a person (a Canadian citizen) disclose his passwords on his laptop computer so that they could access his personal info (so much for “privacy”, so much for search only with probable cause). This , I discovered was a routine occurrence. They simply demand the passwords to access info on computer laptops, cell phones, etc — they actively look for something incriminating. This is the bizarre new world in which we live…
In the left/liberal “social justice” utopia, police arrest you because they feel like it and not because you’ve done anything wrong.
The main problem here is that Law Enforcement is often called on to decide things when the officers have little understanding of the law involved and what their role should be.
Local law enforcement has no jurisdiction over aircraft in the air, just as it has no jurisdiction over ships underway or railroads or postmen delivering mail. Aircraft are controlled by the FAA and Air Traffic Controllers. If they wanted the plane to land, that’s who they should have called.
The Law Officers are lucky the FAA hasn’t weighed in on them interfering with the function of an airport. You can be sure if the airport had been bigger or had more traffic, they would have.
In this case, the lawmen should have called the FAA and let them handle any violation of airspace, if any existed—It’s the FAA’s job. The FAA can assess fines or make arrests if needed.
The FAA can’t arrest anybody. It is not a police force.
If you don’t mind an intervention from an English state school teacher, you need to think of a remedy for this kind of abomination. The basic problem is the sense of impunity that government employment carries with it. If in this case several hundred people who are found within a light year within the heirarchy of the responsible individual were to lose their jobs and to have their careers destroyed, then there might be a significant subduing effect.