Posted on 01/18/2011 9:26:42 AM PST by DariusBane
Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to assume the position.
Thanks for posting; I’ve only scanned it and will have to read it in more depth later.
I don’t believe that local police forces are unconstitutional, but there are probably elements of the way we do policing that need to be re-thought. And I agree with the notion that too much separation has arisen between police and citizens, that in the end citizens police themselves (and we have delegated certain people to specialize in this, but delegating must not imply giving up either rights nor responsibilities).
I have a lot of misgivings about the way traffic enforcement is handled, becoming as it sometimes does a source of revenue and control rather than merely safety.
I think at the end of the day a constitutional republic will have policemen but it is worth while to think about how we assure that they are still fellow citizens and not centurions.
I'll be curious to see whether distinction is made between local (State) police and Federal police, the later I believe clearly being unconstitutional.
ML/NJ
Cops are the only reason women get to leave the house alone.
I vote we keep them.
You didn’t read the article.
Thomas Jefferson, in the Kentucky Resolutions, 1798:
... the Constitution of the United States, having delegated to Congress a power to punish treason, counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States, piracies, and felonies committed on the high seas, and offenses against the law of nations, and no other crimes whatsoever; and it being true as a general principle, and one of the amendments to the Constitution having also declared, that “the powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people,” therefore the act of Congress, passed on the 14th day of July, 1798, and intituled “An Act in addition to the act intituled An Act for the punishment of certain crimes against the United States,” as also the act passed by them on the — day of June, 1798, intituled “An Act to punish frauds committed on the bank of the United States,” (and all their other acts which assume to create, define, or punish crimes, other than those so enumerated in the Constitution,) are altogether void, and of no force; and that the power to create, define, and punish such other crimes is reserved, and, of right, appertains solely and exclusively to the respective States, each within its own territory.
POLICE AND THE “AUTOMOBILE EXCEPTION”
The courts have been particularly unkind to Fourth Amendment protections in the context of motor vehicle travel. Since the 1920s, Fourth Amendment jurisprudence has allowed for a gaping and ever-widening exception to the warrant requirement with regard to the nation’s roadways.391 Today, police force untold millions of motorists off the roads each year to be searched or scrutinized without judicial warrant of any kind.392 Any police officer can generally find some pretext to justify a stop of any automobile.393 In effect, road travel itself is subject to a near total level of police control,394 a phenomenon that would have confounded the Framers, who treated seizures of wagons, horses and buggies as subject to the same constraints as seizures of other property.395
The courts have laid down such a malleable latticework of exceptions in favor of modern police that virtually any cop worth his mettle can adjust his explanations for a search to qualify under one exception or another. When no exception applies, police simply lie about the facts.396 “Judges regularly choose to accept even blatantly unbelievable police testimony.”397 The practice on the streets has long been for police to follow their hunches, seek entrance at every door, and then attempt to justify searches after the fact.398 Justice Robert Jackson observed in 1949 that many unlawful searches of homes and automobiles are never revealed to the courts or the public because the searches turn up nothing.399
I have not read it yet, but will.
This is part of the general issue of government taking things over. They gave, for all intents and purposes, eradicated the common law.
Try to get near a sitting grand jury with a charge.
I believe there are still a couple states where the people can empower a grand jury. But in most states, a grand jury may not be seated unless it has the blessings of the courts.
So, in most cases, corrupt politicians/administrators have little to worry about.
“Nope, but to compare any profession today to the ‘same’ profession 100 years ago is ludicrous.”
So Doctors don’t know history of Medicine?
Attorneys don’t know the history of Law?
Military personnel don’t know military history?
Bankers don’t know the history of money?
Ask any doctor or lawyer if their profession resembles anything close to what it was 100 years ago.
There is a difference between knowing the history of your profession and being able to directly compare them.
And to use the phrase, 'as recently as 100 years ago' is downright irresponsible, IMHO. No agenda here, huh?
No agenda? Of course their is an agenda. Yes it is History.
I didn’t write the Article. That is something that people strangely seem to personalize the content of an article with the poster (not saying thefactor is doing that).
But a vast chasm does exist between what the founders envision and what we we have become. Particularly the accepted search and seizure rules that are in place today. Especially in the way property is treated by the law. Most defiantly in the balance of POWER between the people and the STATE.
I was providing the feminine (not Feminist) view because it will prevent change.
Ah, I understand.
...
What about the oldest profession?
.
Well... let’s do away with police then, and see how it goes.
Stable communities do not need police, and most of America live in stable communities.
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