Just Say No . . . to Cops

Eric Peters

Photo: Hoboken is superhero saturated and I personally love a bit of the eccentricity in the Mile Square. Over this weekend, Hoboken Spiderman was pulled over by the Hoboken Police Department and issued a ticket or tickets according to an anonymous source. As a result of being pulled over the diminutive super hero had to unmask himself in order to deal with the officer. It was mentioned by the source that the police officer gave Hoboken Spiderman a ticket for driving his electric vehicle without a license and a helmet. It is The Boken’s understanding that such a small electric vehicle does not require a motorcycle license. We are unsure if a regular driver’s license is required to operate an electric bike of this size and power.

Few of us like to interact with cops – like scabies, they are best avoided entirely. But when do you have a choice – and when don’t you have a choice about interacting with a costumed enforcer? When are you legally required to identify yourself? To produce ID? Laws vary, state to state, but here are some general things to know:

The (so-called) “consensual” interaction

This generally applies to pedestrians and so on – people out in public, but not operating a motor vehicle. A cop may – like anyone else – approach you at any time and ask you questions. He is not required to have “reasonable suspicion” a crime has been committed – much less “probable cause” suggesting that a crime has been committed.

Most people – because they have been taught to defer to people wearing state-issued costumes – will answer a cop’s questions, even though they would rather not – and probably would not have, if the person asking were just an ordinary citizen as opposed to a costumed enforcer. They feel pressured. Some will show their IDs, if asked – and even grant permission to let the cop rifle through their possessions.

Arguably, all of this is less than consensual, real-world-wise, if not legally speaking. Because it can be intimidating to find yourself face to face with one of the state’s costumed (and armed) enforcers. Absent the costume (and the gun) you might be inclined to tell the person to piss off and leave you the hell alone.


Sanity is Not Statistical...But it is Uncommon

Eric Peters

Sanity still exists, it’s just not consistently applied.

For instance, consider marriage. It is generally agreed that it ought to be voluntary – that both parties should be mutually consenting. And not just to the initial union, either – but to the union on an ongoing basis. If at any point the union is no longer satisfactory, the couple’s right to part from one another is rarely questioned. This is sane. The idea that they should be forced at gunpoint to stay together is (rightly) regarded by most people as insane.

Yet the same principle is rarely translated over to the realm of politics. We are told as children by our teachers about the “consent of the governed.” But when that consent is withdrawn, why is it that most people recoil from the idea of peaceful separation? Why do most people celebrate the forcible “union” of unwilling partners? How is it different to be told you must accept being lorded over by a certain form of government – or else – vs. being told you must stay with your husband or wife – or else? Is it a function of numbers? That is, because more than just two people are involved, it becomes ok to force some to be bound by others? Is it because of “process”? What makes that any different from a husband declaring he has a piece of paper in his hand that entitles him to “perpetual union” with his unwilling wife? Society, after all, is just intellectual shorthand for all the people in a given area. “Society” does not consent to anything because society does not exist. Only individual people exist – and do – or do not consent.


One Thing Leads to Another

Eric Peters

Kevin Bailey, 22, got into a fatal shootout with Solon, Ohio cops the other day. It all began over a minor traffic violation – failure to signal before changing lanes. Once he had Bailey pulled over, the cop claimed he “smelled marijuana” – and it went bad from there. Bailey took off, ran off the road and – as the cops closed in on him, fired his gun at the cops. The cops were better shots and Bailey was killed at the scene.

Natürlich, the cops are portrayed as “heroic” – and have been exonerated of any wrongdoing.

Arguably, it was actually heroic – if foolishly so – for Bailey to have attempted to get away from the costumed enforcers who ultimately killed him. This will shock some readers, no doubt. Having been conditioned from youth to reflexively kowtow to authority (however constituted) they instinctively side with authority whenever there is a confrontation. But, consider: What was Bailey’s initial crime? Had he done anything to justify being waylaid by costumed enforcers? Oh, yes – a “law” was (allegedly) ignored. But who did Bailey harm by not using his turn signal before changing lanes? Obviously, the answer is – no one. Yet this was – is – sufficient pretext for costumed enforcers to begin a “harass and collect” traffic stop. (Which, by the way, now entitles the costumed enforcers to forcibly take a DNA sample as well as perform a strip search. Before you have been convicted of anything. The Supreme Court has ruled both measures to be “constitutional.” See here and here.)

If we lived in a free country – one in which people were free to go about their business without being stopped and fleeced at gunpoint by costumed agents of the state – Bailey would never have been stopped in the first place.


Where Do Cops Come From?

Eric Peters

Ever wonder how come there are men (and women) in costumes “policing” the rest of us?

Most people accept this relationship as both given – and eternal. That there have always been men (if not always women) in costumes “policing” the rest of us. But, in fact, it’s a relatively novel thing. Think back to your schooldays. Do you recall any mention of police when you were learning about the colonial era and the American Revolution? There were sheriffs, yes – and the local militia. But these were concerned mostly with keeping the peace – that is, stepping in when someone harmed someone else. Up to and even during the Civil War – a titanic struggle between the fading remnants of the old republican idea and the centralized, omnipotent state that took its place – the idea of police as we know it was essentially unknown. It is a modern concept – one developed out of the company town idea.

You may or may not recall the company town. It is a place – once upon a time, a very real place – in which the company not only employs nearly everyone but also controls nearly everyone. During work hours and – most relevant in terms of the discussion at hand – the rest of the time, too. This is achieved by paying the workers not in specie, but in “script” or tin coinage or some other form of fiat currency issued by the company – and good at the company stores in the company town where all the company workers live. Even the worker’s homes are company homes. In the company town, everything you did was the company’s business. And to keep it all nicely organized, there were company police. - Sound familiar?


Redcoats

Eric Peters

Abuse people and they tend to get angry. Abuse them long enough – without repercussions – and the anger eventually explodes. It is an old lesson, often forgotten. And which must, therefore, often be relearned.

British redcoats were hated for their haughty, contemptuous treatment of colonial civilians. This idea that the wearer of a red uniform was a special – sacred – personage, entitled to deference and different treatment.

In particular, different treatment by the law. What a colonist dare not do, a redcoat could do with impunity. Or at least, without much fear of repercussions. It lead to Lexington and Concord. And to 1776. We are at the same juncture today. Only our redcoats wear black and blue.

In Florida, one of these latter-day redcoats – a state trooper – literally walked away from any responsibility for causing the death of an innocent person (and severely hurting two others) who just happened to be in the way of his grossly negligent and arguably criminal conduct. Here are the facts:

On Feb. 10 of last year, Florida Trooper Detrick McClellan heard a report over his cop radio that some kids were reportedly throwing rocks from an overpass. Though not on-duty, McClellan chose to “respond.” So far, so good.


Why Are The Domestic Extremists All White?

Eric Peters

Perhaps you have seen the loathsome “no more hesitation” target practice sheets (see here, if you haven’t) provided to the Department of Heimat Sicherheitsdienst by an entity called Law Enforcement Targets, Inc. They depict old men, young mothers, pregnant women – even a little boy. Anyone who has seen these cretinous confections has been dismayed – and outraged. What sort of sick mind would even think to create such things – let alone actually create them? And can you imagine the reaction if someone made shooting targets depicting cops? No doubt there would be two-in-the-morning SWAT raids and probably a Waco-style barbeque of the offenders.

But I’d like to bring up another aspect of this despicable affair that’s just as telling – and perhaps even more dismaying. The same government that hectors the country relentlessly about diversity is apparently very happy with a certain homogeneity when it comes to portraying “domestic extremists” on shooting targets: White older man; white young mother; white grandmother; white little boy. No diversity at all.


Pushback

Eric Peters

Something very good – though very dangerous to the congealing police state (but not to liberty-minded people) has occurred: Millions of Americans have decided they will not abide by any demand they register their firearms – much less surrender them. And are saying so – openly.

More than a few local sheriffs have also publicly stated they will not enforce any such demands. For the first time in living memory, the debate is not fundamentally about which guns – or how many guns. It is about whether the government has any business even knowing whether you’ve got guns at all – much less dictating the type you’re allowed to have.

It’s a Rubicon moment – because this idea involves a great deal more than merely firearms. It is an assertion – though not fully conscious, yet – that trampling the rights of any individual because of the actions of another individual is an ethical outrage. Not just the right to keep a gun. All rights.

The Beat-era author/philosopher William S. Burroughs once quipped: “After a shooting, they always want to take the guns away from the people who didn’t do it.” He said that decades ago and at long last, people are coming to resent being vilified – and punished – not for anything they did. But because some other person did something. Or even worse, because some other person might do something.

Group guilt isn’t selling as well as it once did. And the stock people take in individual responsibility seems to be increasing.

Perhaps because the orbit of liberty has constricted so dramatically – especially during the past 10 years. Instead of gradually increasing the temperature so that the frog doesn’t notice he’s being boiled alive until it’s too late for him to hop out of the pot, they’ve cranked up the heat suddenly – and the frogs are now aware of what’s happening to them. And beginning to hop…


The Running Man … For Real

Eric Peters

How long will it be before they actually start shooting us from helicopter gunships à la The Running Man? In that movie, Arnold Schwarzennegger plays Ben Richards – pilot of a gunship who actually refuses to spray a crowd of helpless people with his mini-gun. For his refusal to be brutal, he is turned into a contestant on The Running Man, where he must fight for his life against a series of gladiators for the amusement of the crowd.

Is it not amazing how predictive so many mass-market films have proved to be? Only in this case, the real-life ‘copter pilots are itching to mow us down. See, for instance, the recent “drills” in Florida and Texas – video seen below, for instance- where civilian areas were overflown by military choppers firing blanks. To train them. More precisely, to acclimate them to the idea of raining death down on Americans.

And here’s the latest: In this video, a woman is seen committing the highly suspect and probably terroristic act of taking a walk in the San Bernardino, CA desert, just off a major highway….from the vantage point of Officer Unfriendly in his taxpayer-funded whirlybird. The airborne enforcer menaces the woman from above, repeatedly buzzing her at treetop (if there were any trees) altitude before setting his ‘bird down like it’s Vietnam all over and the only thing missing is speakers blaring Ride of the Valkyries. He struts forward authoritatively – suited up just like Lt. Col. Kilgore in his special costume. You know, the one that gives him sanction to brutalize people.


Why They Will Lose This Time

Eric Peters

A reader – several readers – express their sense of hopelessness. That 1930s Germany is replaying itself out right before our eyes – and that most Americans either don’t see it or don’t care. One reader put it as follows:

I wish I had some faith in all of this but history isn’t kind to it. My prediction is that a few of you will be made examples which will be splashed all over the media, 99.9 percent will do as they are told, and the rest will merely hide/bury their guns for another day . . . which never comes. California already made the SKS (rifle) illegal retroactively and all the owners meekly handed them over. This won’t be any different. It is to easy to go to work, make another deal with the devil, and hope that nothing worse happens … but it will. The cattle cars will next and you won’t resist those either. Your neighbor will be called a terrorist but you won’t care because he always was a little funny, kept putting leaves in your yard, and most importantly it isn’t you….

It could certainly go that way (as history so depressingly shows us). But it could also go a different way. I suspect it will. In fact, I submit that we already have evidence that it is going differently.

For one thing, a lot of people are already wake – and more are waking up every day. In percentage terms, the numbers are small – perhaps 5 percent of the population is comprised of people who reject the state – organized violence – in principle and who adhere consciously to the Non-Aggression Principle (NAP). However, that 5 percent is also millions of people.

Now consider that there are tens of millions more gun owners who are frightened by – and angry about – what’s going on. Who are beginning to comprehend that a right that matters to them is under siege – and thus, inevitably, they are beginning to appreciate that all of their rights (and by necessary implication, the rights of others) are also under siege. They are beginning to get it. And their numbers are increasing at a geometric rate. Witness the eruption of rage in New York. The widespread and public utterances of defiance. (See here and here.) Even the cops – some of them, at any rate – are coming out openly on the right side. Our side. (See here.)


Will You Submit & Obey?

Eric Peters

In New York, we have a prequel of what’s to come – the repeal of the Second Amendment and summary criminalization of peaceful citizens merely for possessing the means of self-defense, even in their own homes. As in Great Britain, citizens of NY face prison if they use proscribed weapons against murderous thugs – even in their own homes. The tyrants Michael Bloomberg and Andrew Cuomo have made their decision. Now New Yorkers will have to make theirs. And so will the rest of us – if, as seems likely, the federal tyrants succeed in issuing a New York-style fatwa that applies to the rest of the country. Which brings us to the question: What will you do?

It is a very hard question. Perhaps the hardest question Americans have had to face since 1861. As then, there may be no peaceful way to preserve our rights. There may be blood. As then, one side is absolutely determined to impose its will at bayonet-point. To murder us in the thousands – perhaps millions, this time - if we refuse to submit.

There is no reasoning, no discussing. What we face is violence against our persons by people who absolutely will not leave us in peace – no matter how peaceful we try to be – until we have submitted to them utterly and for all time to come. We wish only to be left alone – and demand that our right to defend ourselves against those who will not leave us alone be respected. That self-defense is the most basic of rights – a right conceded even to the lowest animal. They do not acknowledge our rights; they despise the very notion of us having any rights at all. They regard their power over us as limitless in principle – and rage at even the smallest assertion of freedom of action. They loathe our guns because our ownership of guns is an expression of our determination to defend our very lives – and thus, of self-ownership. And that is what cannot be tolerated.


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