Safe...

There is an ongoing thread, that I have been reading. Today I posted this on it, in response to Sargent Mac, a police officer, somewhere in the USofA. Due to the 1000 character limit on the comments, the post is broken into a bunch of little posts. Sargent Mac is in bold at the beginning. My posts follow.

The whole thread can be found here...

OK, so if I, as a police officer (which you're not AT ALL fond of), want to speak to you and say, "Excuse me, sir, could I speak with you a minute?", would any of you consider that an attack upon your liberty?

How about, "Stop!"?

And, if so, how much force do you believe you'd be justified in using to "defend yourself?"
Sergeant Mac | 12.31.04 - 4:50 am | #

"OK, so if I, as a police officer (which you're not AT ALL fond of), want to speak to you and say, "Excuse me, sir, could I speak with you a minute?", would any of you consider that an attack upon your liberty?"
Not if you peacefully accept my decline.
"How about, "Stop!"?
And, if so, how much force do you believe you'd be justified in using to "defend yourself?""
Then "you" would be guilty of initiation of force. It then, simply becomes an escalation/response senario. I ignore you. You grab my arm to restrain/detain me. I push it way, you put your hand on your sidearm and unsnap your holster. I do the same. You initiate a quickdraw, I respond in kind. The results will be based on practice, preparedness and, a little bit, on luck. Feeling lucky?
David Goodyear | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 6:55 am | #

Feeling Lucky?

Understand, Sargent Mac, I, and most of those on this thread, wish you no harm. And there are some problems with the scenario I just laid out. I'll get to those in a minute. But, libertarians and other freedom loving people are tired of the authoritarian intrusions on our lives. It starts at the federal level, then more from the state. These two levels can be ignored to some extent, in that they are mere legislation actions that have no effect until enforced or applied at the street level.
David Goodyear | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 7:00 am | #

Now, when it gets down to the street level is where it involves you and me. If you approach me in a polite manner and explain what you are doing, what you are interested in and how you think I can help you, you might find that I am all too willing to help, if I can.

If, however, you decide to try to use an assumed authority over me, you will find me resistive. If you then escalate the scenario as above, don't be surprised to find me responding, in kind.

You have no right to my time, my property, or my cooperation. If I decide to give it willingly, that is one thing. But don't think you can take it by force. Won't happen.
David Goodyear | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 7:09 am | #

Now, to the problems with the scenario;

1. - As soon as restistance is apparent, I know of no officer who is going to backdown to a challenge of his/her authority, even to the demise of his/her investigation or even the possible loss of his/her life.

2. - Most people are aware of problem #1 and have already decided how they will handle the situation.

3. - The officer has no way of knowing what the detainee is prepared to do.

4. - Some, knowing that the officer is likely to escalate all the way to the deadly force level (by drawing his weapon) have already decided that they will not follow the escalate/response scenario above, since it leaves them at a disadvantage in the draw. They will draw first.
David Goodyear | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 7:16 am | #

I think this is a serious concern to you, as it should be. What I have gathered from your posts here, is that you would like a more free nation. You would like less government. You would like to not have to play out the scenario above.

Yet, you are unwilling to recognize individual rights. You are unwilling to recognize property rights. And, you are unwilling to stop doing the very things that make this country a police state.

I submit that you make some form of the scenario,...inevitable.
David Goodyear | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 7:23 am | #

Now you may pontificate on the law all that you want. You may defend the corrupted courts as the place to seek justice. But I would point you to a work, by Frederick Bastiat, called "The Law". The laws first duty (and yours) is to protect the natural right of defense.

Something that you would transgress in your attempt at authoriatarian structure.
David Goodyear | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 7:30 am | #

From "The Law":

"Life, faculties, production--in other words, individuality, liberty, property -- this is man. And in spite of the cunning of artful political leaders, these three gifts from God precede all human legislation, and are superior to it.

Life, liberty, and property do not exist because men have made laws. On the contrary, it was the fact that life, liberty, and property existed beforehand that caused men to make laws in the first place."
David Goodyear | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 7:31 am | #

"What, then, is law? It is the collective organization of the individual right to lawful defense.

Each of us has a natural right--from God--to defend his person, his liberty, and his property. These are the three basic requirements of life, and the preservation of any one of them is completely dependent upon the preservation of the other two. For what are our faculties but the extension of our individuality? And what is property but an extension of our faculties?

If every person has the right to defend -- even by force -- his person, his liberty, and his property, then it follows that a group of men have the right to organize and support a common force to protect these rights constantly. Thus the principle of collective right -- its reason for existing, its lawfulness -- is based on individual right."
David Goodyear | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 7:33 am | #

"If a nation were founded on this basis, it seems to me that order would prevail among the people, in thought as well as in deed. It seems to me that such a nation would have the most simple, easy to accept, economical, limited, nonoppressive, just, and enduring government imaginable -- whatever its political form might be.

Under such an administration, everyone would understand that he possessed all the privileges as well as all the responsibilities of his existence. No one would have any argument with government, provided that his person was respected, his labor was free, and the fruits of his labor were protected against all unjust attack. When successful, we would not have to thank the state for our success. And, conversely, when unsuccessful, we would no more think of blaming the state for our misfortune than would the farmers blame the state because of hail or frost. The state would be felt only by the invaluable blessings of safety provided by this concept of government.
David Goodyear | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 7:35 am | #

It can be further stated that, thanks to the non- intervention of the state in private affairs, our wants and their satisfactions would develop themselves in a logical manner. We would not see poor families seeking literary instruction before they have bread. We would not see cities populated at the expense of rural districts, nor rural districts at the expense of cities. We would not see the great displacements of capital, labor, and population that are caused by legislative decisions.
David Goodyear | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 7:35 am | #

But, unfortunately, law by no means confines itself to its proper functions. And when it has exceeded its proper functions, it has not done so merely in some inconsequential and debatable matters. The law has gone further than this; it has acted in direct opposition to its own purpose. The law has been used to destroy its own objective: It has been applied to annihilating the justice that it was supposed to maintain; to limiting and destroying rights which its real purpose was to respect. The law has placed the collective force at the disposal of the unscrupulous who wish, without risk, to exploit the person, liberty, and property of others. It has converted plunder into a right, in order to protect plunder. And it has converted lawful defense into a crime, in order to punish lawful defense.

How has this perversion of the law been accomplished? And what have been the results?

The law has been perverted by the influence of two entirely different causes: stupid greed and false phil
David Goodyear | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 7:36 am | #

"The law has been perverted by the influence of two entirely different causes: stupid greed and false philanthropy."

I'll let youread the rest at your leisure.

But please, remember, few here want to see your death or a civil war. But most here are willing to match your escalation, action for action, and accept whatever outcome prevails.
David Goodyear | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 7:39 am | #

I only hope that local police and sheriff's departments learn this before too many examples have been made.

Then again, those first examples will probably be the worst LE offenders and rogues.

So maybe it will just be house-cleaning.

Let's be careful out there...

...everybody.
David Goodyear | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 7:44 am | #

For additional reading:

http://www.ncc-1776.com/tle2002/libe155-20020107-03.html
David Goodyear | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 7:46 am | #

One more thing...

As someone above menteioned, early in this thread, you will be the one to set yourself up as an enemy of the people.

No one here is going to rifle through your car under pretense of a safety search. No one here is going to violate you house and steal your Doritos. No one here is going to order you to stop or do a "Terry" patdown of you.

We are not your enemy, until you make it so.
David Goodyear | Homepage | 12.31.04 - 7:58 am | #


River: They weren't cows inside. They were waiting to be, but they forgot. Now they see the sky and they remember what they are.
Mal: Is it bad that what she said made perfect sense to me?
From the Firefly episode "Safe"