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Your comment echoes my experience... in New York City. I’m white too, and I’d gotten pulled over more times in NYC than anywhere else. There’s always something: you drove over the yellow line for a second; your hands weren’t on 10 and 2; we may have seen a cell phone at your ear; why does your car have a big dent? The NYPD is one huge pain in the ass.

I live in Florida now; sheriff’s deputies in my county are very chill. They wave and say hello, and they don’t care why there’s something weird in the back of my truck.

Huh, this is strange. My experience has been the opposoite When did you live in NYC? I'm not white (I'm of Indian / South Asian ancestry.) I lived in NYC for years, and even owned and drove my own car in NYC for a few years (2017, 2018, and 2019). There were many times that I'd been speeding, and I've never been pulled over for speeding (not even once) inside of NYC. I've only been pulled over by NYPD once, and that one time was not without reason (I had made a right turn where right turn were not allowed). That one time they were pretty professional.

There was even a time when I was distracted, and drove partially through a red light (in Queens), and the car coming from the other side was a NYPD cruiser. If I hadn't braked, I would have hit them. The officers inside the NYPD cruiser glared at me (with a very angry face), and I braked, and then reversed back to behind the red light. But they went on their way (and didn't give me a ticket or anything). I'm not sure why my experience has been so different. Maybe the NYPD changed after wave of BLM/etc. protests that started in 2014?

Lack of evidence isn’t evidence of lack. Presence of evidence is evidence of presence.

That is to say just because it didn’t happen to you doesn’t mean it doesn’t happen - and because it happened to other people, we know it does happen in spite of it never having happened to you.

Thankfully, the libertarian party of Florida successfully lobbied Tallahassee, and civil asset forfeiture is no longer legal in Florida.

Florida is an amazing state, I wish I lived there. DeSantis has successfully banned local governments from future coronavirus restrictions including lockdowns/shutdowns.

There is 100% chance I will lose a substantial amount of money due to a lockdown, there is %99+ chance I will survive the virus. Of course this risk profile isn't for everyone but that's the beauty of personal liberty: the freedom to make the choice that's right for you.

> Of course this risk profile isn't for everyone but that's the beauty of personal liberty: the freedom to make the choice that's right for you.

But your personal choice does determine if you put the lives of not only everyone around you but also your entire community at risk. Does that count for anything?

Personal protection is just that: personal. If masks are not adequate to protect you from others who may not be following best practices then I think the PPE standards need to be adjusted. You cannot trust/expect everyone to adhere to them perfectly.

I live in an area that isn't Florida but does not adhere to quarantine guidelines. Personally, I don't know of anyone who has been sick. We wash our hands and take basic precautions and anecdotally that has been sufficient.

Personal disclaimer: I am anti lockdown. This is causing substantial damage to our economy and I depend on my community having the financial means to purchase my services and products.

I work in construction and the majority of the jobsites do not wear masks. We are all ok. If you are feeling sick then don't be an asshole and show up to work. Everyone I know has followed this basic guideline. Of course you will say you can have it and be asymptomatic etc and we could discuss this ad nauseum but I will just tell you I am not open to changing my mind. I have an absolutism mentality on this position. I don't think we know enough about the virus to make these types of detrimental restrictions. For example we now know putting someone on a ventilator for an extended period of time typically does more harm than good.

> Personal protection is just that: personal. If masks are not adequate to protect you from others who may not be following best practices then I think the PPE standards need to be adjusted.

That's not the point of using a mask at all. It never was, to begin with.

Masks are intended to limit or eliminate the chance you infect people around you. Sure, they also help you not breed in particles, but masks are quite literally a filter you place over your mouth and nose to stop the droplets you're emitting from spreading around.

The rationale is that covid carriers can spread the disease for over a week without even suspecting they have it. They spread the disease by spraying infected droplets through their airways. Thus, the right thing to do is to be on the safe side and ensure we cannot contribute to spread the disease.

If the whole community acts responsibly and takes basic measures to stop the disease from spreading, the disease stops spreading and the epidemic is reigned in.

You wear a mask to protect the community and ensure everyone around you stays safe. You're intentionally putting everyone around you and everyone you contact with at risk if you not only refuse to take basic precautions such as wearing a mask but also engage with people who also refuse to do so.

NYPD is extremely corrupt. I know someone who became an officer there and quit and moved to long island due to the pressure for corruption/hazing/etc.

Another friend of mine is a retired NYPD lieutenant and I forgot exactly what happened but he told me a story of someone claiming to be innocent and his response was "How do you think I became lieutenant?"

Don't fuck with the white shirts.

While we're sharing anecdata, here's mine: I've driven all over this country, in almost every state, frequently in rural areas, and usually speeding (and not trivially).

I've rarely been stopped and never felt like the police were trying to seize my vehicle or acting more intensely than the situation warrants.

I don't know what the difference is, but I can second GP's statement that the experience you and GGP had isn't universal.

I know it happens, and for some unlucky people it happens more than once, but I think discussions like this tend to overstate how often it occurs because of self selection bias.

I definitely understand that I might be the unlucky one, I'm in no way implying it's the norm, and the selection bias is definitely a thing here - but what I'm trying to convey is that it's far more common than people think, and that even if it's pretty uncommon to rare, the consequences can be far worse than warranted or earned, and in many cases can be devastating, which is unacceptable for a system that is entirely constructed and can be changed with some legislation and enforcement.

Your first comment was certainly implying that its the norm:

> I can tell you right now, police in rural areas absolutely _are_ looking for any and every excuse in the book to pull you over, search your vehicle, and question you far more intensely than the situation warrants.

As was the root comment in this thread:

> In these towns, if you have out-of-state plates, you will regularly be pulled over for doing 5mph below the speed limit. You can expect a dog to sniff around your car if the patrol has one.

That's what I'm disputing here, not the injustice of CAF when it happens. Even people who oppose civil asset forfeiture (including me) still feel comfortable traveling throughout the nation.

I'm not suggesting that people don't travel - my personal opinion is quite the opposite - I'm only saying that it's more common than people think and part of my statement to that was a personal anecdote in agreement with the OP because I've experienced nearly the exact phenomenon they described.

I would not call that "implying the norm".

Regardless, CAF needs to be abolished and I wish the crowd that cares so much about the Constitution would care about Amendments that aren't the 2nd and 1st.

In this case we're not looking for the universal or the average, we need to fix these awful things happening to these people - even one example is too much and we have way kore than that, and you should be happy it hasn't happened to you yet, because it's nothing more than luck.

> I don't know what the difference is, but I can second GP's statement that the experience you and GGP had isn't universal.

How frequent should that problem be until it's recognized as a problem?

From where I'm standing, civil asset forfeiture sounds like blatant corruption and outright stealing made good on paper.

I completely agree; many of these cases are unjust, there are undoubtedly many cases of corruption, and the law should be changed.

I only take issue with the suggestion in this thread that we should be afraid to travel around the nation because of these rare events. There's far more reason to be afraid of dying in a crash.

I’m not saying you should be afraid of traveling the U.S.

I’m saying I’ve traveled the U.S. a /lot/ in several different capacities (from personal trips to touring with bands) and that rural areas by and large have given me more problems in terms of police than urban areas ever have.

I’m not implying that you should be afraid to travel - I’m saying quite plainly that the incentives around CAF are severely misaligned and that cops are very aware of this fact and abuse it when they can, and that takes different forms but one of those is mundane traffic stops that turn into roadside interrogations.

Thankfully my state requires a conviction for asset forfeiture to remain. Otherwise you are entitled it back within a set period of time.

But then again, our cops aren't exactly despised or severely strapped for cash. They're mostly like the cop from wayne's world.

Reducing illegitimate traffic stops is one of the side-benefits I see as more cars become self driving.