"Sorry to bother you at 2:30AM sir, but we'd like your permission to check your house for contraband. No charges will be filed if you say 'yes'."
Is anyone reading the entire article? Has anyone read past reviews of this program. The core word is “PERMISSION”. The police were to enter and look for guns via the “espressed permission” of the owners.
There are all too many “community leaders” in Boston and every other large city that leap at the chance to criticize the police, but have NOTHING to say about the daily and almost hourly slaughter of young people on our streets. From family and friends of the dead we hear wails of mourning, while from the “leaders” only the “sounds of silence”.
The MSM trumpets the tragedy of 4000 dead in several years of war in Iraq. In the same time, how many young minority children have been the victims of drive-by shootings, innocent bystander shootings, ricochet bullets, and sudden rage shootings? What says the MSM about the toll of dead here at home.
The much scorned “Bush’s war” has made the country safer, if not safe, but who speaks up to make the neighborhoods safe? Again, the sounds of silence.
Why does this remind me of the “permission to have sex” training in colleges? “May I place my hand on your breast? May I kiss you with both lips and my tongue?” It also reminds me WAY too much of the stereotypical prosecutor’s snipe: “If the perp didn’t do anything, why does he need a lawyer? If he doesn’t have contraband in his car, why would he deny permission to search?” “Secure in their persons and possessions” is why! Argh.
Well they have permission to kiss my red, white, and blue balls!
"Sorry to bother you at 2:30AM sir, but we'd like your permission to check your house for contraband. No charges will be filed if you say 'yes'."
How about you dig up the actual factual answer to that question before waving around the emotional rhetoric?
If a parent has a right to give permission for the police to search, then the parent has a right to search. Why would any sensible person involve the police? Would you?
If there aren't going to be any charges filed, then what is the function of the police in these searches? Are you of the opinion that this program is valuable? I think it undermines respect for individual rights.
We have already lost our privacy with respect to our banking. Cash transactions over some amount that the institution might believe is "suspicious" obligate the bank to reveal details to the police that might indicate that a crime has been committed. If you have nothing to hide, why not allow the authorities free access to all your financial records?
The root of the problem is right there in those few sentences.
No one says anything anymore. No one has the courage to say to these young thugs that what they are doing is wrong. No one seems to be able to summon the courage these days to teach their kids moral absolutes. They seem to have fallen out of fashion.
Parents today have lost the either the will or the know how of how to be parents. Today it appears to me that mothers and fathers prefer to be their children’s friend rather than their children’s parent. Consequently parents have lost all authority in their children’s minds because friends are equals and do not have authority over one another.
Too many children today grow up with out parents whether due to divorce, illegitimacy or abdication of responsibility. Unfortunately the program in question is not the answer. It could at best (if accepted by the populace) be a temporary fix. Unless we reestablish the family unit the problem this program seeks to fix will be with us until our entire society collapses.
Unless we teach our children to govern themselves only a despotic government will be able to govern our society. And only parents willing to be parents can teach children to govern themselves.
This program is another step down the road to the despotic government that the growing parentless society will force upon us.