The Goat Pen

I've told my son, god forbid you are ever suspected on a serious crime by the police but you don't tell them anything - not even your name, even if they threaten to lock you up for the rest of your life.

They don't get up in the morning with the idea they are trying to find ways you are innocent. They even tell you in the Miranda - anything you say can be used against you. Why in the world would anyone talk after hearing that?

Also , after serving on the grand jury, I noticed that an overwhelming number of cases brought for our consideration had the suspect confessing to the crime.

I realized the severity of the crime determined the amount of time the cop was willing to spend on doing the legwork beyond the confession to prove guilt enough to bring to the grand jury.

eCat wrote:I've told my son, god forbid you are ever suspected on a serious crime by the police but you don't tell them anything - not even your name, even if they threaten to lock you up for the rest of your life.

They don't get up in the morning with the idea they are trying to find ways you are innocent. They even tell you in the Miranda - anything you say can be used against you. Why in the world would anyone talk after hearing that?

Also , after serving on the grand jury, I noticed that an overwhelming number of cases brought for our consideration had the suspect confessing to the crime.

I realized the severity of the crime determined the amount of time the cop was willing to spend on doing the legwork beyond the confession to prove guilt enough to bring to the grand jury.

Welcome to my world...

Why did you have to quote that?

Couldn't you have just answered since you were the next post? I'll never understand why people do that.

Jungle Rat wrote:Why did you have to quote that?

Couldn't you have just answered since you were the next post? I'll never understand why people do that.

Who cares?

Evidently I do. My scrolling finger isnt getting any younger. You'll see soon enough

Jungle Rat wrote:Evidently I do. My scrolling finger isnt getting any younger. You'll see soon enough

Well we are sorry your highness. Between having it in your ass and touching your phone, I bet you are exhausted come bed time.

on that show 48 hours, for those of you that may not have seen it, they follow a detective after the first 48 hours of a crime - usually a murder. I assume 48 hours is the magic number that says if you don't have a break in the case between then, its a good chance the case will go cold.

You can see how deflated these guys are when they bring a suspect in and they have pretty solid evidence he is guilty but he lawyers up immediately and doesn't tell them anything. Its the guys that try to bullshit their way out of it that gets them excited.

bottom line is you don't say shit - not a damn thing. I saw one where the guy talked about what kind of suits he liked and they linked that back to what an eyewitness at a funeral, then to a guest registry at the funeral and then proved this guy lied about his timeline, and then of course he thought he was busted when they confronted him about lying and he broke down and admitted he did it after they convinced him they'd go easy on him.

Fuck Alito, Rogers, Thomas and Scalia.

Also, I (sometimes) quote the guy right above me if it's a busy thread and my answer may wind up 4 lines down from its original target because of posts. I hate going back and editing the post to add the related quote. It's more annoying to do that than skimming past the quoted section.

roberts

but yeah

oh yeah. I must have been multi-tasking.

Which case are you showing disdain for them?

How does one tell whether one is living in a dictatorship, or almost? The signs need not be so obvious as having a squat little man raving from balconies. Methinks the following indicators serve. In a dictatorship:

(1) Sweeping laws are made without reference to the will of the people. A few examples follow. Whether you think these laws desirable is not the point. Some will, others won’t. The point is that they were simply imposed from above. Many of them would never have survived a national vote.

Start with Roe vs. Wade, making abortion legal, and subsequent decisions allowing late-term abortion. Griggs versus Duke Power, forbidding employers from using tests of intelligence, since certain groups scored poorly. Brown versus the School Board and its offspring requiring forced integration, forced busing, racial quotas, and so on. The decision that Creationism cannot be mentioned in the schools. Decisions forbidding the public expression of Christianity. The decision that citizens can be stopped and searched without probable cause. The opening of the borders to mass immigration.

These are major, major laws grossly altering the social, legal, and constitutional fabric of the country. All were simply imposed, mostly by unelected judges against whom there is no recourse.

Note that there is no practical distinction between a decision by the Supreme Court, a regulation made by an executive bureaucracy, and a practice quietly adopted by the intelligence agencies and federal police. None of these requires public approval.

For that matter, consider the militarization of the police, the creation of Homeland Security’s Viper teams that randomly search cars, the vast and growing spying on Americans by government, and the genital gropings by TSA. Consider the endless undeclared wars that one finds out often only after the troops have been sent. All simply imposed from above.

In principle, elected officials represent the desires of their electorates. In practice Congress barely touches on most issues of concern to the public. Overturning any of the aforementioned types of laws is virtually impossible.

(2) Another measure of dictatorship is the extent to which the people fear the government. A time was when governmental official in general, and the police in particular, had to be cautious in pushing the citizenry around. A justified complaint to the chief of police brought consequences. Today the police can do as they please, and you have no recourse. The new aggressiveness applies especially to federal police. If you object to excessive intrusion by agents of TSA, they will make sure you miss your flight. In principle you can complain, but in practice the effect is zero.

(3) Dictatorships characteristically watch the citizenry very carefully, using the secret police and encouraging people to inform on each other. Both are now routine. Did you vote to have your email read, your telephone calls recorded, your browsing habits on the web turned over to the NSA or the FBI? No. And you have no recourse.

To one raised in a freer United
States, it is astonishing to hear on the subway of Washington, DC constant admonitions to watch one’s fellow passengers and report “suspicious behavior.”

Another source of deliberate intimidation is the IRS. This police agency is not dreaded because people are cheating on their taxes—few are, and those are usually smart enough not to get caught. People fear the IRS because it can arbitrarily wreck their lives, invade their premises, demand
endless documentation that few have, and run up penalties and interest for crimes which weren’t committed and which the IRS doesn’t have to prove.
You have no recourse. You may win in the end, but tax lawyers are expensive, as IRS well knows, and in any event the intent is not to collect taxes owed but to punish. As has been documented, Mr. Obama’s administration employs IRS for exactly this.

The IRS gains its punitive leverage from the fact that it is impossible to know what taxes you owe and simply pay them. Years back, Money magazine sent a “moderately complex” tax return to fifty tax preparers, from big-league to small potatoes. They produced widely varying results, with only two in Money’s opinion getting the right answer. If tax specialists can’t tell how much you owe, neither can you. This means that in practice you are always vulnerable.

(4) Lack of constitutional government. This is not the same as lack of a constitution. The Soviet Union had an admirable constitution. It just paid no attention to it.

The American constitution says that Congress must declare war in order for our forces to be deployed. This last happened in 1941. The president now sends American forces wherever he wants, whenever he wants.
The Fifth Amendment forbids self-incrimination, which means confessions obtained under torture. Obama’s administration openly tortures prisoners of war, a de facto withdrawal of the country from the Geneva Convention.

The Fourth Amendment provides “"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated….” If you are a conservative strict constructionist, you can argue that the Constitution does not mention telephones, the internet, or computers, and that therefore the government has the right to monitor all of these. A liberal might argue that RAM, the internet, and computers are the equivalent of papers etc. It doesn’t matter who argues what. The government spies on all.

The First Amendment guarantees freedom of the press. Again, the Obama administration uses the intelligence apparatus of the state to monitor the communications of reporters. This is highly intimidating, which is the intent. The fear of being monitored has a profoundly chilling effect on the willingness of sources to say anything to reporters that the government might not like. This is a major step toward the controlled press usual in dictatorships.

Officials in the current administration have said that if you are not doing anything wrong, the monitoring should not cause fear. Only criminals need worry.

This is dangerous for at least two reasons. First is the mindlessness of anonymous and unaccountable bureaucrats. For example, as a journalist I have run Google searches on explosives, on pathogens usable in biological warfare, on the concealability of nuclear weapons, and on the synthesis of nerve agents. Some computer program could kick this out as evidence of probable terroristic intent, and FBI agents would show up with their usual blend of pathological wholesomeness, arrogance, and love of power.

The other reason is that the government inevitably will abuse its knowledge. Knowing the peculiar sexual tastes or amorous strayings of political opponents, or their smoking of an occasional joint, provides great leverage over them. In some circles, this is known as “blackmail.”

If this isn’t quite dictatorship, we are rapidly getting there. Wait a few years.

I have no doubt the feds have read this place. Especially since IB posts here.

I believe they have too, but we're chicken feed. There are thousands if not hundreds of thousands of sites out there that have full blown hard core anarchists, revolutionaries, secessionists and real enemies of the state on them.

We're just coffee shop talkers here.

Great post!

When an unelected bunch of nannies can ban the manufacture of gas cans with vent caps something is very wrong. I wonder if the EPA has an entire division studying ths effects on the environment caused by vent holes on gas cans. These pasty white morons have never mowed a lawn, used a chainsaw, owned a four wheeler or any anything other than sit in their offices and try to come up with new ideas just to piss me off. I fill my pressure washer out of one of the "improved" cans... Kachunk, kachunk, kachunk, kachunk. And with each kachunk, gas sloshes around the nozzel. How can that be better for the environment?

So i take my awl and like millions of other Americans, punch a hole in the top of the container. Now i'm prpbably a felon and my yard will become the next Super Fund site.

Nor do they care about destroying entire industries and people's livelihoods. Not exactly economy friendly.

amazing post

worthy of a national editorial in a well publicized rag

but of course you would make their list

your sexual deviancy would be exposed

your internet history of catholic nun porn publisized

your use of the N word to your homie buddy pounced upon

your NRA miscellaneous deductions magnified and audited to the discredit of your entire financial framework

your wifes secret Emails to Rat publicized

your sons desires to sneak into womens lockerrooms transgendersized

your movie treatments plagerized

Mr. Holder would not be amused to view your commie radical teapothead musings

but I thought it was very amusing-- thought provoking-- and now I will stew for the rest of the day of what this country and more important what's gonna happen to my grandson's country

first post I might actually save-well done

So much to comment on...particularly this definition of a dictatorship that captures the formation of our government from day 1. Interestng, but also foolish. I'll get to it at some point, but I'm in Boston sitting through a boring meeting. So, I'll sit still for a day or so.

On a close note, though, this sure went out in a whimper...

http://t.co/TxnOSzfjH7

whoa - sorry I didn't write that - I can't take credit for it -

my apologies if anyone thought I did. I just reposted from a blog I read.