After traffic stop, man forced to have x-ray, enema, anal probes and colonoscopy
kob.com
kob.com
Even more amazingly, it wasn't one officer alone by the side of the road in an ambiguous circumstance; there was a judge, a DA, multiple officers from several departments, two medical facilities, etc involved.
A civil suit is inadequate; state or federal criminal investigations should be forthcoming. It is possible there is a reasonable explanation, but an investigation is the only way to determine that.
The judge granted a warrant, an almost facially invalid one (and it turns out, completely invalid for other reasons), but will still be immune from anything here.
The DA will be immune from anything here. The Officers will claim qualified immunity, and may or may not win.
At least there is supreme court precedent that should have put them on notice: Winston v. Lee - 470 U.S. 753 (1985)
"(a) A compelled surgical intrusion into an individual's body for evidence implicates expectations of privacy and security of such magnitude that the intrusion may be "unreasonable" even if likely to produce evidence"
Here, it wasn't even likely to produce evidence.
The doctor will certainly be sued for, among other things, battery, false imprisonment, etc.
(Looks close, they threw some other stuff in there. Here is the complaint: http://www.scribd.com/doc/181747773/Complaint-David-Eckert-v... )
If the warrant was invalid to begin with, my concern is that a court won't be able to strike down the medical procedures as unconstitutional because the search itself was unconstitutional on simpler grounds.
I hope Eckert will win a civil suit, but my guess is that the worst part of this story will be the lack of deep constitutional scrutiny.
I am not a lawyer.
They are the professional that should have laughed the cops out of the hospital.
The best outcome, I would think, includes a number of people spending several years in federal prison for deprivation of rights under color of law (18 USC Sec. 242) [1], as well as any licensed professionals involved losing the relevant professional licenses.
Of course, if punishing people for violating people's rights was something people were willing to actually hold politicians accountable for as much or more than punishing drug dealers, then US Attorneys -- always political appointees and usually also politicians -- would be much more concerned about it.
Accept-and-mutter-darkly just preserves the status quo.
I don't accept and mutter darkly, i just think the majority of the populace in the US is happy "as long as it doesn't happen to them", so i'm not sure much will change?
(Excerpt from complaint -- emphasis mine) 24. Plaintiff asked Defendant Rodriquez if he was free to leave, which Defendant Rodriquez contends that he found rude. 25. Defendant Rodriquez told Plaintiff he suspected Plaintiff of having illegal drugs in his car and proceeded to interrogate Plaintiff on the matter.
The officer felt that he'd not been shown correct respect by the victim and then decided to make him pay. To be honest, I'm not sure how much I blame the doctors in this fiasco, because I don't know what sort of legal protections are available to them if they were to refuse to carry out the invasive operations. Do doctors in the US typically have a legal counsel who can advise them if a warrant is valid, or what operations an officer with a warrant can demand? I know I'd have no idea if a warrant were valid, or what the officer could compel me to do.
All that aside, I thought there was little about police behavior that would surprise me. This surprised me a little. Butt-clenching as probable cause? Seriously?
"Twenty-four male students out of seventy-five were selected to take on randomly assigned roles of prisoners and guards in a mock prison situated in the basement of the Stanford psychology building. The participants adapted to their roles well beyond Zimbardo's expectations, as the guards enforced authoritarian measures and ultimately subjected some of the prisoners to psychological torture. Many of the prisoners passively accepted psychological abuse and, at the request of the guards, readily harassed other prisoners who attempted to prevent it. The experiment even affected Zimbardo himself, who, in his role as the superintendent, permitted the abuse to continue. Two of the prisoners quit the experiment early and the entire experiment was abruptly stopped after only six days. Certain portions of the experiment were filmed and excerpts of footage are publicly available."
Sorry, the characterization in the comic is a bit aggressive, but I find the objections raised there sensible.
Ok, I'll bite, what could possibly be a reasonable explanation for excavating a man's anus half a dozen times?
I generally do trust police, and especially federal judges. Everyone involved in the drug war has gotten corrupted, and to some extent the lawlessness south of the border causes lawlessness in enforcing the law north of the border; Nietzsche and all that.
So, before hanging people, I'd rather get more evidence. But on its face this isn't so much a miscarriage of justice so much as a string of felonies committed by law enforcement and medical professionals.
You probably never lived in NY.
I think the drug war is bad for a wide variety of reasons, and the militarization of domestic policing (mainly over drugs, and now terrorism) is bad for everyone (including the police), but it's not because I've personally had problems with police.
I'm a white, upper-middle-class, works-with-USG/DOD, contracted in war zones, lots of friends in government/police, etc. person, so I have it exceptionally easy, sure.
I've met bad individual officers, but it's rare, so yeah, I generally do trust police, based on my personal experience. One of the worst tendencies of policing organizations is the "thin blue line", so they need to take aggressive action in cases of internal abuse to overcome that.
It sounds like you get it at some level, but to make the point extra fine: this is privilege. When white middle-class guys (which includes me) say, "eh, they've always been nice to me, so I'm not sure what the big deal is", we're failing to care because it the problems don't affect us. A cop's not to stop and frisk me for no reason or kick down my door looking for pot or harass me for some trivial moving violation or throw me in jail on unreasonable charges to get beaten and raped every day. They're always nice to me. So it's easy to say, "cops are kinda great, and that one time my house got robbed they were ON it", and just never internalize the fact that for so many people, they're an armed oppressor working with official government sanction and little accountability. That it takes something as mind-blowingly outrageous as court-sanctioned rape to get our attention and we're still not quite willing to look the system in the eye and say, "man, this is just fundamentally broken"...well, that shows just how deep that privilege goes. Is it any wonder that bad cops and prosecutors (and, gulp, judges) feel empowered to do this kind of shit?
Ask him if he's got any crazy stories about stupid shit other cops have done. Then ask him why he hasn't reported them for doing it.
That's the real problem, a very real application of "one rotten apple spoils the barrel." The problem isn't so much the individual police who violate the public trust (there will always be bad apples as long as there are humans involved), it is all of the others who turn a blind eye to those violations.
Those cops who never commit any overt violations but let other cops off with a free pass are the ones responsible for eroding public trust because they teach the public that it is an "us vs them" mentality. As a privileged white guy 99% of the time your interactions with the police will probably be just fine, but even you never know when that 1% bad apple is going to show up, but you do know his buddies won't do anything to hold him to account for what he might do to you.
I think you probably understand this to some extent, referencing "the thin blue line" (the documentary of that name actually turned the phrase on its head), I just wanted to spell it out for anyone else who might not be familiar with the ironic definition of that term.
Edit: I don't mean the article when I say small matters
It is particular to police in that they are entrusted with greater responsibility than pretty much any other organization in the country. Their standards of accountability need to be proportional to that responsibility.
Given how thoroughly whistleblowers are destroyed, it's hard to fault someone for not calling a colleague out on relatively small matters.
That's circular reasoning -- Given how corrupt they are, it is no wonder that no one on the inside stands up to the corruption.
If you want to fix issues with the police, the first thing you have to understand is that there are humans behind those uniforms, humans who have spent a significant part of their life getting there. Being part of a skilled occupation is not something most people can just toss aside casually, hence why small offences get overlooked. If you can understand the motivations and psychology of the people doing the wrong thing, you have a wider array of tools at your disposal than "I have a really big stick here if you make a wrong step".
As for the circular reasoning bit - not at all circular, given that I'm not saying 'free pass'. If you want to break the cycle, change the culture. You do that by making it a point with the people cops answer to; make them give whistleblowers better protection. Changing the culture is difficult, but if you want serious change, that's the way to do it.
Thanks for calling me a Nazi for trying to better understand how people are motivated, by the way. I suggested improving protections for whistleblowers as a way to prevent this kind of situation in future. Clearly I instead should have been demanding permanent imprisonment (or even the death penalty) for specific people I don't like, all without a nod towards a fair trial. Then I wouldn't be like a Nazi at all!
You're part of the problem. Seriously, these people stick by their own--it's the rest of us poor bastards who get the shit end of the stick.
[0]http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.asp...
I don't think any amount of evidence could justify a cavity search, but I'm willing to wait for the judicial side of the story before I finalize my judgement on this matter. It seems so mind-bogglingly impossible that a judge would grant an invasive search warrant on something blatantly circumstantial.
However, we know for a fact that a judge signed a search warrant for a cavity search. "Clenching buttocks" seems like such an arbitrary basis for an invasive search warrant that I suspect there may be more to this story.
There are scum in every occupation. Police don't get a free pass. They're flawed humans like the rest of us.
Go watch The Wire. You'll be more understanding.
I really didn't want to comment on this article, but I must object to the use of the word "taxpayers" where "human beings" would be much more appropriate.
In general I would agree. But this stuck out for me:
the warrant was only valid in Luna County, where Deming is located. The Gila Regional Medical Center is in Grant County. That means all of the medical procedures were performed illegally and the doctors who performed the procedures did so with no legal basis and no consent from the patient. In addition, even if the search warrant was executed in the correct New Mexico county, the warrant expired at 10 p.m. Medical records show the prepping for the colonoscopy started at 1 a.m. the following day, three hours after the warrant expired.
If that's true, then it seems there's no possible way to play devil's advocate. Hopefully the legal system will dish out some justice for him.
It's incredible that they were able to find doctors who went along with it not once, not twice, but five times plus a forced colonoscopy.
For him with dollars and for the rest of society by putting everyone else involved in the unemployment line, if not prison.
Not to mention that destroying a professional career that takes ten years to start on one misstep is harmful to the medical system itself - why is the slogan always "lock the bastards up" and so rarely "train them better"? The former is a post-facto lose/lose, the latter win/win.
Making a very very public example of them is plenty of deterrent value for future "medical professionals" who may be dragged (or otherwise) into any further situations like this.
The firing and blacklisting of every law enforcement officer involved, and yes, up to and including the chief of police, is again a solid push back against this sort of abuse of power everywhere.
Too bad the judge won't see anything but perhaps a slight remembrance of this circumstance when the next election comes. His name should be posted at every polling place, end of story.
Tired, so damn tired of these stories.
If you're tired of these stories, then, perhaps, look to similar cultures that don't have them with the frequency the US does. You'll find that they don't see 'lock them up and throw away the key" as the answer to most transgressions. Rehabilitation and retraining keeps people as productive members of society, rather than lifelong imprisonment in which they become permanent burdens.
And now you're firing the Chief of Police for not having a pat answer when 'cornered' (article's term) by an investigative reporter. You're baying for blood because he didn't spout something off-the-cuff when he possibly didn't have all the details? And people wonder why public figures play their cards close to their chest. Not to mention that it can be a miscarriage of justice if the defendants don't get a fair trial because of something said by a public figure with authority over them. Similarly the judge's original warrant may have been justified given the information presented at the request.
As someone else in this thread mentions, what we have here is one side of the story. It happens again and again and again that the Internet Righteous Machine goes berserk over a one-sided story without bothering to verify.
Making a very very public example of them is plenty of deterrent value for future "medical professionals" who may be dragged (or otherwise) into any further situations like this.
Yes, because the 'deterrent' mentality is working so well for the US so far, what with the incarceration rate five times higher than any other western nation, highest in the world.
I'm not saying these guys shouldn't be punished at all, but the hysteria of your "fuck them all" response is hardly realistic or just. Let them be found guilty in a court of law, of rape and of inappropriate warrants and whatever else. But keep your head about you when discussing legal issues. Being dispassionate doesn't mean being uncaring.
Furthering the appropriateness of having the discussion here is the fact that other venus are more appropriate to other aspects of hacker culture, and the dearth of content available otherwise. (We have github or twitter for technical discussion, and success stories and productivity articles are essentially naval-gazing)
One doctor didn't go along and claimed it was immoral. Good. Now what about the other ones? They are authoritarian followers. They love to submit to authority. They take great pleasure in telling others how they "served" and aided an investigation. Someone in uniform coming in and barking orders, and a line of willing "helpers" forms right away.
Authoritarian followers are very dangerous and there is a surprising high number of them in this country, from what I can see. It is surprising given the rhetoric about how freedom, individualism, respect for human rights and liberty. Those are always touted as foundational principles.
( For those wondering what I am refering to, it is this book/article by Bob Altemeyer http://members.shaw.ca/jeanaltemeyer/drbob/TheAuthoritarians... )
Sadly perhaps, I sort of assume cops are corrupt already, I've just seen enough of corruption to kind of fall into that stereotype. It doesn't surprise me that they would want to abuse their power or would want to exercise sadistic tendencies given the opportunity. So that doesn't surprise me.
My present disgust is centered on the doctors and nurses who participated in this.
Kind of strange coincidence not too long ago we heard in the news about the doctors working with the CIA and the military that tortured prisoners.
Doctors are someone most people usually trust. But if you talk to people from other countries, you often hear how they distrust doctors. Ok, that sounds strange at first. They could distrust politicians, police, the military, but it is really sad when one stops trusting doctors. This is why though, because they have seen doctors do immoral things, they have seen them kill their relatives and harvesting their organs, or taking bribes to save lives, or refusing to treat people who have participated in anti-government protests and so on.
Are we headed the same way?
EDIT: grammar clarification and I can't spell
This is already enforced stringently in one very narrow domain: licensed doctors cannot assist states in either conducting, or even planning the preparations for, their processes of death penalty by lethal injection. This has caused them some practical problems, because they basically have to get amateur doctors to give advice. The AMA's rationale is that executing someone is not a legitimate medical treatment, and definitely doesn't have consent. But this principle seems like it should apply more broadly than the fairly extreme case of actually executing someone.
I don't know of any case where a doctor has actually participated in an execution, but it seems doubtful whether anything would actually happen to them.
Oh man, I shouldn't ask..
.. but I'm going to. Link to more info?
Apparently they're ending the practice next year.
http://www.dafoh.org/evidence/
I don't want to reveal more detail about a particular case as it would reveal too much about me.
Google on your own about such cases, there were some in Brazil, Russia, China is more well known one, also this is a recent case :
http://www.theguardian.com/uk/2013/may/14/family-girl-died-i...
Speak for yourself.
Think of all the resources (money) involved here. Now think of all the resources involved in trying to defend these actions. Now think of all the other things we could do with those resources.
Posting it to HN is fine.
The problems are the terrible quality of some comments, and the lack of downvoting of shallow unthoughtful nonsense.
Is it a mistake to use that definition here? Obviously the local law is relevant in legal proceedings and I want to respect survivors of sexual assault, but what else do we call it?
"Our investigation reveals another chapter. Another man, another minor traffic violation, another incident with Leo the K-9 and another example of the violation of a man's body.
Young is taken to the Gila Regional Medical Center in Silver City, and just like Eckert, he's subjected to medical procedures including x-rays of his stomach and an anal exam.
Again, police found nothing, and again the procedures were done without consent, and in a county not covered by the search warrant.
We've learned more about that drug dog, Leo, that seems to get it wrong pretty often. He might be getting it wrong because he's not even certified in New Mexico. "
If you do it, it's theft. If they do it, it's a tax.
If you do it, it's torture. If they do it, it's enhanced interrogation.
If you do it, it's terrorism. If they do it, it's freedom fighting.
If you do it, it's counterfeiting. If they do it, it's quantitative easing.
If you do it, it's a mafia. If they do it, it's a government.
What does smokeyj's comment add to the discussion? At best it's emotionally charged and douchy way of saying you don't like the government.
I disagree with this. If an individual does not have the right to do something, neither does a collective. We all individually have the right to defend ourselves, for example. As with most things in society, it's more efficient to "outsource" the task to specialists like police. However, if individuals do not have the permission bits to do something like administer non-consensual anal probes, neither should law enforcement.
An individual does not have right to punish another person in response to a crime after the fact (A.K.A. revenge). Collectively, we do.
Reality is well established that government plays a different role than individuals and is explicitly given permissions we refuse to citizens by way of the Constitution.
People can't own ICBMs or atomic bombs, either, which is their sovereign right if not for the oppressive government.
As soon as "revenge" comes into it, the self-perpetuating downward spiral of justifying bad behavior as punishment for bad behavior begins.
Individuals in society who gain pleasure from the punishment of others, whether that punishment was deserved or not, should realize they're really just being sadistic.
Not that I want a full auto weapon :-)
Whatever the constitutionality of the Miller Amendment, it's clear the Federal Courts are going to offer no relief.
They're expensive; as noted jmccree, in the US limited in numbers, perhaps 200,000 in civilian hands. But worse, the cost of ammo the chew up!
Me, I wouldn't mind having a belt-fed Genera Purpose Machine Gun, but I'd have to burn up a lot of ammo at some range I don't even know of anywhere nearby to become sufficiently proficient.
Well, a real FN P-90 would be cool, but not clearly useful.
As for your knowledge of US weapons laws, it has never been illegal at the Federal level to own 10+ round magazines, although during Clinton's "Assault Weapons" ban new ones were restricted to the police and military. But with the world awash in surplus magazines, and the manufacturers' having months between signing and enactment to stamp out as many as they could, all it resulted in was increased prices for them, and renewed popularity for .45 ACP in new gun designs. I.e. if you're limited to 10 shots, you'd better make them count, which is my philosophy, biased by the fact that the M1911 fits my hand perfectly.
But during that AW ban I owned a number of > 10 round magazines, and currently own 10s for various guns, including 10 or so AK-47 magazines for a friend who lives in a state where they're now banned.
But it's only a few states that do that, although they include the large population California and New York. To put this in perspective, 42-3 of the states have (or in the case of Illinois soon will have) de jure or de facto "shall issue" concealed carry regimes. That means any citizen or resident alien (e.g. Green Card holder) in good standing can get a license to carry a concealed handgun. A handful don't even require a license, including the large population state of Arizona.
Only two of these states recently imposed magazine size limits, Connecticut (which has always been weird, and the politicians are using Newtown as an excuse to turn the screws on the citizens they'd prefer to be subjects), and Colorado ... where the backlash has been fierce, including the recall of two state senators including their Senate President, and subsequent full elections could easily result in a reversal of that law.
So, actually, most of us mere mortals can be as well armed as the police normally are (full auto carbines being of very limited utility). Heck, we can even own body armor as good as their's.
this is your emotionally charged and douchy way of projecting your dislike for those who dislike government. smokeyj's comment were accurate, and none of it, when read without being emotionally charged, suggests an anti-government sentiment: describing things the way they are doesn't always reveal a personal opinion.
Seizure, impounding, eviction, even fines, ...these might ring truer, since they're generally harsher, require less sophistication and such effects are more immediate. These things are often unavoidable, and inflicted without option or recourse.
Meanwhile, taxes, tolls, tariffs... eh, not so much. They're slow, often legislated amidst varying degrees of democracy (in our modern times) and in some cases can be met with degrees of flexibility, where a real slippery individual might be capable of avoiding them.
True. Taxes are armed robbery with a threat of kidnapping and confinement. They have nothing to do with theft.
This is such a crock.
Taxes are the agreed upon payment for services rendered, the EULA for which you agreed to by being in the country.
If taxes were called protection money you still wouldn't connect the dots.
Are you willing to give up your language, culture, job, home, friends and family and probably whole lot of other things to nullify that EULA?
Every law that is a promise to use force, incarceration and violence to uphold it.
And the tax system today is more and more like two wolves and a sheep having a vote on what to eat for supper.
So yes if you're not willing to give up those things you just accepted that newfangled thingy we call "The Social Contract."
There are very large and practical advantages of organizing judicial system, infrastructure and other basic, hard to replace societal services through a tax system.
But history shows us that the more a government interferes the less efficient the result will be.
My analysis of the current situation would be that since all power corrupts the governments of today have become hard-handed, arbitrary in their exercise of powers and blind to the consequences. The amount self restraint that an ordinary citizen could expect from governments seems to be long gone, they pass another law, they raise the taxes and use the "social contract" as a pretext.
I am a very firm believer in non-violence and non-force and would like to minimize the use of violence and force as much as possible, advocates of statism and authoritarians in general don't seem to agree with that view.
Please see the article at the top of this thread for a good example of what I'm talking about.
Also, unless you are an anarchist who rejects all forms of capitalism, then I would argue you do support the use of violence and force, you just support a different kind of authoritarianism.
You challenge/nullify the parts you disagree with using this nifty tool we call, "The Democratic Process".
The specific terms of the contract are available here: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/browse/collectionUScode.action;jses...
it appears the Gov't is in violation of their part of the contract, to wit the clause of AT LEAST the 4th Amendment (unreasonable searches and seizures; see the TSA, see most police conduct, see the crap with the NSA, etc etc ad nauseam). Therefor, I should be able to nullify and void this 'social contract' and (among other things, trying to keep it simple since we're arguing 'on the internet') not pay my taxes. We all know how well that will work out - fines, court summons, all culminating with large men with heavy clubs and guns knocking on my door to 'coerce' me to fulfill "my half" of the bargain.
If the deck is stacked so far against you there's no reasonable way to remedy your grievances, it ain't a 'contract' it's a 'coercion' or 'an offer you can't refuse'. The government is a bully with a very large, very powerful club, and we have no reasonable recourse against it. We try to play by the rules, they'll change the rulebook or completely change the game. Ergo, the grand-grand-grand-parent commenter who said "Taxes are an armed robbery" is essentially correct.
I'm not even going to get into the 'contracts made under duress aren't enforceable contracts' side of things.
And, apropos of nothing, while I personally don't mind paying most taxes, I'd like to see a way for individuals to pay 'their share' and indicate what programs their money would get allocated to "Humble Indie Bundle" style. A 'reasonable default' for the majority who don't care, but sliders and drop-downs with various degrees of detail for those who do. I'd like to be able to shunt all of my tax money into silos for 'road repair', 'public education', "fireman's fund", etc, and keep it away from things like "Department of Defense" "local police forces", and "NSA slush fund". tl; dr - A highly granular way to "vote with my dollar". I doubt that will get implemented in my lifetime (if ever), but a man can dream...
You can nullify the contract by leaving any time you like. Or you can attempt to hold the government to the contract using a little known facet of our democratic process called "The Legislative Branch."
Your home, family, friends, culture, job and probably a big part of your identity will be left behind. Even in states with well known scumbag governments people tend to stay until they have a very real threat to their life and person.
And to think that democracy is a kill-everything-silver-bullet is very naive, we have had laws written under democratic rule that allowed one person to own other persons, less then 10 years ago sexual intercourse between men were still illegal some states in USA.
And yet I agree that a central government is preferable to no central government, I would also agree that democracy is very much preferred over the alternatives.
All I ask is that the social contract is not to be used as a pretext for things that are not absolutely necessary since we are born into that contract and can not nullify it in any realistic way at a later stage in life. Please respect my personal freedom, privacy and individual rights - keep the use of force and violence against others to an absolute minimum.
Is that to much to ask?
PS Search youtube for video called "George Ought to Help", it may contain some things worth thinking about
Also as I already pointed out, your home, family, friends, culture, and job are there largely because of the services the government provides. So while it may suck, if you disagree with paying taxes you can not pay them and leave, or you can stay pay your taxes and continue to enjoy the services of the government.
Here's a thought experiment. Imagine if the government hadn't invested it's tax revenue back into national defense and infrastructure for the past three centuries. Do you still think your home, family, friends, culture, or job would exist? Why should you get to enjoy the payout of investing three centuries worth of tax revenue if you are not going to contribute?
People give up their homes, family, friends, and culture every single day in the U.S. just to survive. Now I do think it's definitely unfair to those who simply can't afford to move. If that's the case for you or the parent I was responding to, I will personally buy you a plane ticket to Somalia (or any other place with limited government) and give you two months rent.
If we were talking about national defence and infrastructure, that would be something that even an "anarchist" as myself would be willing accept and file under "things that a government can administer", but the amount of government sponsored waste, abuse and misuse of collected tax is reaching biblical proportions right in front of my eyes.
We don't have a constitutional court in Sweden and the political landscape is very much a hegemony and in practice a two party system like the US - it doesn't lean towards changing the system in any meaningful way, When I'm told that I should be prepared to accept my current situation due to a "social contract" which I have been born into - and if I don't like it I can always pack my bags and move to Somalia - it doesn't seem at all reasonable to me - even if you pay my ticket.
Second, role and praise of governments ... The major advancements in living standards and job creation have largely been due to technological improvements, free market capitalism, enterprises and entrepreneurs. The largest redistributions of wealth have been due to voluntary membership in trade unions and individuals exercising their right to choose employer. Governments and nation states have historically opposed any change to things like guild systems and even ordered military forces to break up strike actions. I don't think that crediting governments for job creation and living standards is entierly correct.
We don't live in a perfect world, so I don't expect volontary co-operation to work for all issues that a society faces, I am prepared to accept a central government in a nation state. In that way I am just a different kind of authoritarian than you. There may even be a high practical value for a central government to administer things like infrastructure, defence and judical system.
But once we get past that point we are walking a slippery sloap and we must be very careful with every step we take - otherwise we might end up in a situation where it is me or your who gets a thoroughly examaniation of our back part like the gentleman mentioned in the article above.
And I really don't see how that is covered in any form of social contract.
Sweden is second in the world behind Norway for income equality (one of the most import factors in encouraging entrepreneurship), has one of the highest rates of entrepreneurship of OECD countries (much higher than the U.S.), is number one in the world in terms of gender equality, has the 4th highest life expectancy in the world (The U.S. is 33rd), has the fifth lowest infant mortality rate in the world (less than half that of the U.S.), and is within 10% of the U.S. in terms of GDP per capita.
According to the most recent data I can find (2012) Sweden is fifth in the world in terms of tax percentage of GDP. Considering Sweden is top 5 in almost every indicator I can think of, that seems pretty reasonable to me, and I would not hesitate to call that best of class service.
How can you simultaneously claim that "The largest redistribution of wealth have been due to voluntary membership in trade unions and individuals exercising their right to choose employer."
While also making the claim that you can't simply up and move because "Your home, family, friends, culture, job and probably a big part of your identity will be left behind".
If there is only one or very few employers in your area what real right do you have to choose your employer? Your indictment of the Social contract is equally an indictment of the Free Market.
Also you're going to need some evidence to back up claims like "The major advancements in living standards and job creation have largely been due to technological improvements, free market capitalism, enterprises and entrepreneurs." If you'll take at look at the industrial revolution you'll notice almost all infant industries were subsidized, several key technological developments that helped lead to the industrial revolution were spurred by government intervention (e.g.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marine_chronometer), and patents were really enforced for the first time to encourage entrepreneurship and strangle competition from competing countries.
As for the government using force to break up strikes. I can only speak to U.S. history, but I can't think of an instance where the government stepped in (with violence) before the strike turned violent. I can think of several far more egregious applications of violence by private industries:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Blair_Mountain
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homestead_Strike
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ludlow_Massacre
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matewan_Massacre
And in fact, it was the government which codified the right of unions to strike, preventing private enterprise's unjustified use of violence (or at least attempting to). Unions pretty much wouldn't exist today if it weren't for government protection.
Also, I'm sorry but anarchists reject the use of force in all forms, they would not support any hierarchical forms of power (in a lot of cases that includes any capitalist system, and no anarcho-capitalists are not anarchists). Let's call it what it is, Libertarianism.
You're portraying industry and taxation as a chicken and egg scenario, and by proving that taxation is why your job is here, taxation must therefore be the enabler of civilization (and as a result, just and moral -- to the extent you support caging people who do not agree). Your basic premise is theoretically and historically inaccurate.
As for your disdain for limited government, that's what set the US apart. It's why we grew to have the largest industry in the world. By your reasoning, Cuba and North Korea should have regulated themselves into endless prosperity by now. Let me buy you a ticket.
So yes, I would actually love to live in Cuba, so I will take you up on your offer to buy me a ticket.
You can email me at quinnchrzan@gmail.com to make arrangements.
Thanks!
And yes obviously they were revolting over having to pay taxes not you know the whole taxation without representation thing (hmmm... taxation in exchange for representation, that sounds almost like some sort of social contract). Maybe try reading some history through a different lens than "waaaaah taxes!" Why don't you give this a try: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_People's_History_of_the_Unite...
Also I was dead serious about accepting your offer to buy me a ticket to Cuba, you can email me at quinnchrzan@gmail.com
Thanks!
I will seriously buy your ticket if you promise to stay in Cuba. Email me in a year with proof and I'll send some bitcoins your way. Maybe they'll have computers in Cuba by then.
...and the result was enslavement, genocide, and subjugation. Yay! I don't know what you mean by saying I'm not arguing out of principle. I'm citing specific events and facts while you sit there and say "but history!" while not responding to any of the evidence I'm providing or providing any of your own.
You offered to buy me a ticket, not promise to reimburse me if I stayed for a year. If you're already trying to back out of your verbal (written?) contract you must be a pretty shitty libertarian. How about this, I'll draw up a contract in which I agree to stay for a year on the condition that you pay for my ticket with the requirement that if I fail to prove residency after one year I will reimburse you for the ticket. A ticket from where I live to Key West (an hour boat ride away) is less than 200$. What do you say? Are you willing to put your money where your mouth is?
And hey maybe when (if) I come back in a year the U.S. might have a functional education system and get that healthcare thingy figured out. I mean it's kind embarrassing we're doing worse than a country that doesn't have computers. Except they do have computers despite the efforts of the U.S. embargo.
Let me put it another way. The efficacy and morality of taxation cannot be deduced via extrapolating historical economic and sociological data points. If a country has high taxes and is economically well off, that doesn't refute that taxation constitutes theft. It also doesn't prove that they couldn't have been better off with lesser or no taxes. Just because a region has low taxes or low regulation doesn't mean it's the epitome of what a decentralized society has to look like either. I can tell you think you have my ideology in a little libertarian box, but you're only fooling yourself.
As for your ticket, I'm not backing out -- but the condition is you have to stay. I'll buy your ticket and send it to you, but you have to put down a safety deposit on a mutually agreed upon arbitrator for the amount of $400. Every year you can prove residency you get $100 back. If you can't prove residency, I keep the remaining funds.
And supposing I accept the fact that taxes are theft. If I can show with my stupid "evidence" and "historical record" that lack of government regulation has tended to cause oh say, slavery, genocide, and subjugation. Am I simply supposed to accept the risk of those because you can make the unfalsifiable claim that no taxes could theoretically lead to a different outcome? Why is theft the ultimate immorality in your ideology. Is the capitalist exploitation of the worker not theft?
So now you want me to put up twice the cost of the ticket and stay for at least four years? Somehow I don't think you made your initial offer in good faith. I'll accept if you lower the bond to the price of the ticket and stick to the initial one year (mostly because I sincerely doubt I could manage to stay in Cuba for 4 years without getting booted out). You can pick the escrow agent (obviously I'd prefer an established service).
Oh in just in case you think you've got my ideology in a box. I'm all for a decentralized government. I'd say I identify most closely with anarcho-syndicalism. But I do most definitely reject any sort of libertarian or capitalist ideology.
1. I made observation X.
2. You argue observation X is wrong because Y and Z.
3. I claim arguments Y and Z don't negate observation X
4. You claim I don't offer any arguments besides "waaah taxes"
I just want you to realize how ridiculous your method of communication is. Your communication style reveals that you're more interested in being "right" than understanding why an argument is made. That's fine, but I'm not really interested in scoring fake debate points here. This isn't a debate -- and if it was, you would be in trouble. Instead of asking why I hold an observation to be true (thus, allowing me to make an argument for it), you immediately go on the offense, forcing me to rebuttal your arguments. I stopped responding because it became clear you're here to reaffirm your own ideology rather than discuss ideas.
X = If you do it, it's theft. If they do it, it's a tax.
Y = I will personally buy you a plane ticket to Somalia (or any other place with limited government)
Z = Imagine if the government hadn't invested it's tax revenue back into national defense and infrastructure for the past three centuries.
I never agreed to anything. Born into a social contract, you say? Well, only slaves are born into contracts, I will retort.
Slaves can't enter contracts, by birth or otherwise.
Minors can't enter contracts, either, so your parents entered you on your behalf when you were born. You maintain it by staying here.
You had an 18 year head start to decide before most of the social contract even takes affect, while using services largely tax-free.
You're welcome to leave whenever you like.
Or it is null and void when I turn 18.
> You're welcome to leave whenever you like.
And so are you. So there. It is pointless to counter criticism of society with "move to Somalia if you don't like it" and similar absurd platitudes. It doesn't address the question at hand, and it also doesn't address the fact that people who disagree with the (faux) social contract does not have any less of a right to live in the same country as you do.
Imagine that you go to a party, and to your horror you discover that a mass rape is in progress. You try to intervene and say that this is just not right, but are quickly told that if you don't like it you can go down the street to that other party where there are no raping going on.
-----------------------
The Remissness of our People in Paying Taxes is highly blameable; the Unwillingness to pay them is still more so. I see, in some Resolutions of Town Meetings, a Remonstrance against giving Congress a Power to take, as they call it, the People's Money out of their Pockets, tho' only to pay the Interest and Principal of Debts duly contracted. They seem to mistake the Point. Money, justly due from the People, is their Creditors' Money, and no longer the Money of the People, who, if they withold it, should be compell'd to pay by some Law.
All Property, indeed, except the Savage's temporary Cabin, his Bow, his Matchcoat, and other little Acquisitions, absolutely necessary for his Subsistence, seems to me to be the Creature of public Convention. Hence the Public has the Right of Regulating Descents, and all other Conveyances of Property, and even of limiting the Quantity and the Uses of it. All the Property that is necessary to a Man, for the Conservation of the Individual and the Propagation of the Species, is his natural Right, which none can justly deprive him of: But all Property superfluous to such purposes is the Property of the Publick, who, by their Laws, have created it, and who may therefore by other Laws dispose of it, whenever the Welfare of the Publick shall demand such Disposition. He that does not like civil Society on these Terms, let him retire and live among Savages. He can have no right to the benefits of Society, who will not pay his Club towards the Support of it.
-----------------------
Source: http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/v1ch16s12....
My fault - I stirred the hive.
Yes, HN is for more than just tech and I love many of the articles that wind up on this site but I disagree that biased politics should be a cornerstone.
Yes, the government is far over reaching it's bounds, I don't think many people on this site would disagree with that, but when it gets to the point where I have to read a comment related to the NSA in every single thread, regardless of it's relevance, it gets tiresome. Nothing is being added to the discussion, just emotionally charged comments like the one above. The "preaching to the quire" metaphore could not be more applicable to this situation. HN is not a sight to raise awareness on, we all know.
I've only been on this site for about 2.5 years now so I'm far from a veteran, but I have seen two major events that have caused a wave of pointless comments.
1) NSA spying revelations as stated above.
2) Google reader shutting down - Companies discontinue old products in favor of new potentially more popular ones. Get over it, there's plenty of alternatives and I don't care that every time a Google product launches you're hesitant to use it because "what if Google discontinues it?". Just like the NSA, stop bringing up stuff everyone knows.
Can we stick to topics that actually raise discussion please.
Is everyone trying to be ironic?
But are you saying that NSA spying on everyone should be just another minor fact, I don't get it. Doesn't it seem wrong to you that someone is listening to ALL your digital communications/actions?
Most of comments are not much political. (i.e. I see them as discussion of ethics/morales, not as person/party x agenda pushing/discussion)
The police are totally out of control in this country. They are out of control because they are untouchable. That was the lasting legacy of the Rodney King acquittals: you can do what you want if you're a cop. You can beat a black man senseless for nothing. You can beat a homeless man to death with your fists. You can pepper spray, tackle, and beat peaceful protesters dancing in a public square. You can smash people's cameras who are trying to document your abuses. You can send SWAT teams to the home of the mayor of a small town, shoot the family dog dead, track the blood all over the house, put the family on their knees for hours with guns to their heads, and then when it turns out it was a mistake, leave, laughing and saying "you're lucky we didn't arrest you."
Almost certainly it will get much worse before it gets better. Armed with ever better surveillance, city police are going to get much more powerful. And power corrupts. I think we'll be hearing about a lot more of these kinds of abuses.
Eventually, 400M Americans are going wake up, realize that they've had enough, and effect real, lasting change.
To a propagandized society, yes, that the revolutionary truth about the initial acquittals. The bourgeois truth is that the LAPD police academy cheaped out on baton training, excluding the normal sections that would have allowed them to restrain King with a minimum of force.
Given that, they had exactly three choices: shoot him like a dog, beat him into submission, or I suppose let him free to commit more crimes while intoxicated.
I guarantee you the message sent by the second prosecution in an area and situation where conviction was much more likely (2 out of 3) has had a lot of very bad effects, including the police resorting to their firearms a lot more.
"Eventually, 400M Americans are going wake up, realize that they've had enough, and effect real, lasting change."
Perhaps all this will help you understand why we're buying guns of military utility at unprecedented rates? With the exception of last August, for around 40 months NICS tracked guns sales have been higher than those of the preceding month a year previously (source is the NSSF). Note that the starting point of this massive surge is well beyond the period of fear that Obama would take effective gun control steps and way before Newtown.
It's ... amazing. The world's stocks of $150 (in today's prices) standard bolt action military surplus rifles have been exhausted, that's from more than a century's production of them.
I'm not sure if we're gearing up for a civil war/general resistance to this sort of shit, the inevitable consequences of the government running out of money, or things less dire in the runup to one or both, but we're getting thoroughly prepared, which should terrify the police-judicial complex. And may well be doing so.
As I and other keep saying, this will not end well.
I hope not. My hope is that we can outsmart violent revolution, and do something much better. In the end, we are a functioning democracy, and in 6 years theoretically we could replace every elected official in the land, the President, every governor, every congress person, and every local sheriff and police chief and judge. It would require an almost unimaginable level of cooperation, and it wouldn't address the bureaucracy problem, but literally in 6 years all of the elected decision-makers could be new. We could eliminate parties, hold a new constitutional convention, and adopt policies aimed at capping the complexity of our legal code. And all it takes is 6 years of cooperation.
To me, that's a great outcome. And I suppose if you got the majority of Americans in most places to agree with you, then you'd actually have a chance to get it done.
What can possibly make you think more than a century of division, which I rate as reaching civil war status in Woodrow Wilson's 2nd term almost a century ago, will magically change. Rodney King expressed the hope pretty well, "Why can't we all just get along?" but that's not happened.
I have my own ideas as to why, going back to the antebellum period, but they're irrelevant to the observation that this is clearly getting worse, and arguably at an accelerating rate. Add to that the inevitable Federal government bankruptcy within, say, a generation---are you proposing you could get a majority of Americans to become Tea Party types, refusing ever more "free" money from the state and after cutting enough of the government's expenses to start paying down the accumulated 17 trillion in debt???---while none of us can predict the time or shape of things to come, there's no way it will end well.
As Kipling noted in "The Gods of the Copybook Headings". Or I could say you're pushing hope over experience---and I think we've had enough Hope and Change to last a generation or three....
* Well, there's one possibility, nanotech resulting in a post scarcity society fixing the fiscal problem, but it wouldn't fix the divisions, and its development has been ruthlessly suppressed by the existing science establishment who want that money for themselves.
After the SECOND probe (there were six total probes, two x-rays) I'd think most people would be convinced the guy wasn't hiding anything. Even if he was, we're not talking pounds of drugs here.
The police involved, and anyone that went along with SIX probes and two x-rays, and still were not sure this guy was innocent, are far beyond "corrupt", they are simply insane. Corruption generally comes with some kind of substantial payoff. What could that have been in this case? I'm really baffled by this, and scared. Only truly crazy people could allow this to happen, much less support it.
I have.
I was pulled over in Dallas, TX because my tag light as "out." He made me step out of the car. When I did, I looked at my tag light. I was not out. I told him. He then changed his story to it was "too dim." (It was the factory light in the factory casing, etc. All stock.).
He then asked if I was okay with a search. I told him no, so he called the drug dog.
Drug dog hit on my car on the third time around it. They ripped my car apart, threw my laptop on the ground, let the dog crawl all over my interior. This entire time my car was running. They kept me there long enough to run down 3/4ths a tank of gas.
After they found absolutely nothing (I don't do drugs outside of caffeine and alcohol once a month or so.) the dick head started trying to rip off my fucking interior door panels because he knew there was something there. He started with the one on the opposite side of the car that the dog hit on.
The other officer talked him out of it and they let me be on my way, but then I had to spend the next half hour picking my shit up off the side of a 6 lane interstate at 10:30 PM in the fucking dark, praying I didn't leave something behind or get hit.
Cops are are worse people on average than a random group of the general population. "Domestic violence is 2 to 4 times more common in police families than in the general population." [0]
[0]http://www.purpleberets.org/violence_dv_extent_problem.html
If it's "we did this horrible thing, but made some money" or "we did this horrible thing, and locked up some terrible bad guy", then at least there's some kind of logic to it. But we keep hearing these stories of: someone in power does some whacked-out stupid mean shit to someone who's in no position to resist. And it goes unchecked and unpunished?...
I don't mean to be hand-wringing and preaching to the choir here,... but yeah -- I'm baffled and scared, too. I think there's a streak of American culture that enjoys hurting people just for the sake of hurting people.
I'm remembering back to the L.A. riots, after the Rodney King beating. I'm a white guy, and I was watching the riots on TV in high school. I wasn't sure what to make of it at the time. Maybe things haven't changed much?... (sadly...)
They'll pay.
If you think of the police (or groups of police officers) as just another gang (sadly a possibility in some districts), then this could be a targeted humiliation/retribution effort either on the behalf of a police officer (unlikely) or for a local patron/mafioso.
It seems the most plausible explanation to me.
I don't know what else to say really. This kind of reaction defies any form of rational discourse. As an outsider I'm kind of numb to it though. America, in my mind, has gone from a "cool" place that I learned about on television (Home Alone, Mickey Mouse Club, Terminator, NASA etc.) to this giant nanny state that has MASSIVE knee-jerk reactions to anything, e.g. putting warning labels on coffee, searching peoples assholes for drugs cause they clenched their buttcheeks, making air travel a ridiculously painful experience, etc.
If true, it is simply criminal abuse of power by a small set of individuals. Nothing in the 'normal' war on drugs encourages anything like this.
Not that I think that'll get very far, perhaps another lawsuit or 5 to try to force them, but if they don't bill the guy they wouldn't have a claim against them to begin with, I'd suspect.
In re the billing, it's probably an automatic thing from the hospital itself, rather than the physicians.
Attorneys had to be falling over each other trying to get to this client.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/troopers-texas-prob...
at least one officer was charged with sexual assault.
There are many consequences to excesses by the state like this case, and this is probably one of the more minor ones.
All felonies used to be capital crimes, for which you could in fact get the death penalty.
"All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing." - Edmund Burke
"Do you think those officers in this particular case did that?" Ramirez asked.
Gigante didn't answer, instead he referred Ramirez to his attorney."
It's simple, really.
This sort of non-response just screams "We're guilty and top to bottom corrupt" ... not the sort of thing that will end well.
The medical clinic and the doctors who performed the procedures should all sue the police officers involved personally as well as the police department since they lied and they solicited the doctors to commit crimes. This kind of rogue police behavior needs to be severely punished in a very public way to send the message that "peace officers" are there to keep the peace, not to disturb it.
Why wouldn't you just stop at the X-ray? Is there some method of hiding drugs that wouldn't be very obvious in an X-ray? Ignoring the morality entirely, did they actually gain anything from that? Was there someone who could of hid narcotics past the first 7 steps?
What's so powerful about this story is it doesn't seem to make sense. I want to know why. What on earth motivated anything beyond step 1? Step 1 was bad enough!
Pathalogical certainty of guilt.
Once you have that then the only possible answer is that you simply haven't looked hard enough yet, if you give up then you are letting someone get one over on you and you know they are lying no matter what the damn machine says.
What is needed is a standard of liability insurance for police departments that is paid for by their pension fund.
Hopefully this guy getting ten million dollars will make the citizens revolt AT the police agency, and drive the stake deep. I do agree we need a standard of liability, but who is going to start the groundswell to make that happen?
People only care when their pocketbooks are on the line as far as I can tell.
These doctors may have risked their livelihoods or their freedom by refusing to comply, but they knew full well the actual harm they would do if they did comply. They should be held accountable.
Yeah, no. The first doctor is home right now, sleeping well, knowing s/he did the right thing by refusing to comply. The cops didn't have shit, the second hospital doctors completely abdicated their responsibilities absent any compelling interest and they went along with it because they wanted to, because they found a good enough reason. How do I know? Because the existence of the first doctor(s) proves they could have said "no."
The first doctor got away with it because the other doctors went along with the officers' demands. If everyone had refused they would have been ethically in the right, but you can be assured the authorities would have reacted far less favorably.
Just because you can see how they would comply says more about you than them.
EVEN IF he did had drugs in there, this would still be not right to me. Aren't there more effective ways than this to combat drugs? Let it go.
IMO, everyone related to this case (besides the victim) should be fired, divorced and ostracized. Sounds like a DOJ case.To bad it never occurs to prosecutors that we could encourage police and doctors to obey the law using the same means.
If this man was found with drugs he wouldn't have been offered better training or face a civil lawsuit. If we are willing to be tough on drug users, we should be as tough on people in authority when they break the law.
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/353322/dagger-heart-ju...
The defining characteristic of English law is its distribution of power between prosecutor, judge, and jury. This delicate balance has been utterly corrupted in the United States to the point where today at the federal level there is a conviction rate of over 90 percent — which would impress Mubarak and the House of Saud, if not quite, yet, Kim Jong Un. American prosecutors have an unhealthy and disreputable addiction to what I called, at the conclusion of the trial of my old boss Conrad Black six years ago, “countless counts.” In Conrad’s case, he was charged originally with 17 crimes, three of which were dropped by the opening of the trial and another halfway through, leaving 13 for the jury, nine of which they found the defendant not guilty of, bringing it down to four, one of which the Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional and the remaining three of which they vacated, only to have two of them reinstated by the lower appeals court. In other words, the prosecution lost 88 percent of the case, but the 12 percent they won was enough to destroy Conrad Black’s life.
Multiple charges tend, through sheer weight of numbers, to favor a result in which the jury convict on some and acquit on others and then tell themselves that they’ve reached a “moderate” “compromise” as befits the reasonable persons they assuredly are. It is, of course, not reasonable. Indeed, the notion of a “compromise” between conviction and acquittal is a dagger at the heart of justice.
I believe to say it's "utterly corrupted" goes beyond the observable facts.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conviction_rate
Also, police in the US today looks more of an military unit. And on top of that police in some states makes lots of money on doing seizures.
Prosecutors should have high conviction rates, they shouldn't be prosecuting innocents, or at least people they can't easily convince a jury are criminals. That they fail so often in states tells us a lot.
I'm also unconvinced the innocent are as frequently convicted in state courts as in Federal.
Now, separate from this we could discuss the plea bargain and its abuses, but we've got some strong evidence that a lot of people who refuse them and then go to trial are found not guilty.
http://www.volokh.com/2013/11/07/thoughts-eckert-v-city-demi...
There's no intellectual discourse to be had here; it's just the dissemination of fear.
Matters such as this highlight major problems with society, and many hackers feel a personal responsibility to address those problems in some way, whether that be by reasoned discussion, protest, or various forms of support for larger causes formed to deal with those problems.
This is not fearmongering, this is shining a very bright light on an issue that has spent far too long in the dark.
I love to hear about failures in human systems above all else, and value HN's ability to find them for me.
If they'd cover it on TV news, it's probably off-topic.