- Law enforcers in Dallas and Ft. Worth recently made the
North Texas Metroplex proud with their high profile high idiocy high jinx
in a span of 14 days.
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- First came the report of the Dallas PD patrolman who
caught up with a couple in front of a hospital after they ran a red light
during a headlong rush to reach the woman's dying mother.
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- That traffic infraction, the bully-in-blue decided, was
incredibly more important than someone's mom meeting her Maker.
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- The badge bum lectured the couple for thirteen minutes
while scribbling out a moving violation citation. Midway through, the wife
made a break for it and reached her mother just before she died. The husband
didn't.
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- During the "I am God" grandstanding the public
protector actually drew his gun, threatened the man with jail and told
him, "I can screw you over."
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- The fact that the man was Houston Texans running back
Ryan Moats made the traffic stop national news. The dashboard video went
coast to coast.
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- Fun while you stun time in Texas: playing taser tag
- with lowly peasants known as "citizens." (AP
photo)
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- A few days later a pair of police punks decided to play
taser tag with a perp when he "became combative." (Keep in mind
that in today's officialspeak being branded "combative" might
be nothing more than failing to instantly bellow "Sir, yes sir!"
when a Serve and Protect praetorian orders you to drop and kiss the asphalt.)
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- The patrol car's videocam recorded the mocking voice
of one taser-wielding officer sneering, "take it like a man"
while another derisively shouts, "Do you want another one?"
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- Unfortunately for the enforcers, the screams of the suspect
were also recorded.
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- Then it was the Pride of Fort Worth's turn.
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- The city made headlines by settling a suit for 50,000
smackers after an officer smacked around a deaf man during a traffic stop
back in 2007.
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- Pulled over for speeding, the driver reached for his
ID. The road warrior naturally assumed he was reaching for a gun, spun
him around and slammed his kisser into the rear windshield, breaking his
nose.
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- The dashboard video caught it all.
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- So what's going on here? Whatever happened to those friendly
neighborhood cops like Bert from "It's a Wonderful Life?"
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- The cops of course always claim each case is just one
bad apple in the barrel, but over the years the whole barrel seems to have
rotted.
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- Any libertarian worth the label will tell you that anyone
committing coercion, whether king, cop or commoner, must be held personally
accountable. And thanks to dashboard videocams and citizens with cell phone
cameras, that's happening.
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- But this problem goes deeper.
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- Cops enforce the laws. The more laws there are, the more
cops there must be. So the cop shops all over the country lower their standards
to reel in more recruits. But lower standards attract lower recruits. Like
the kids you grew up with who bullied you and stole your lunch money and
muscled you into the hallway lockers.
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- The result is not more police on patrol but more bullies
bedecked with badges.
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- And the problem goes deeper still.
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- Politicians. Bureaucrats. Civil servants.
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- Once upon a time these public poobahs knew their place;
they worked for government and performed a service. Today they see it as
their mission to rule, regulate and run absolutely every aspect of human
existence.
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- Politicians promulgate thousands of new laws every year.
Bureaucrats relentlessly bombard us with regulations. Civil servants everywhere
compel us to cope with a multitude of meaningless minutiae simply because
they can.
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- Rules, regulations and laws are meaningless unless they
are rigorously enforced.
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- And so the Thin Blue Line becomes the Thick Brute Slime
and the Free State of America turns into the Police State of the political
classes.
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- The solution is simple, but radical. As radical as the
founding of America. Repeal all victimless crimes. Stop prosecuting people
for committing the act of harming no one. A good start would be shoving
the genie of gargantuan government back into the bottle of the Constitution.
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- The result? Free society. Minimal government. A criminal
justice system with zero tolerance for coercion, intimidation and fraud.
A police force adequate to policing criminals, not citizens.
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- Democrats won't shrink government. Republicans won't
either. They're all addicted to power. Only libertarians will do it.
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- So forget love of money. Here's a fact you can frame
and hang on what's left of your wall once the SWAT team is finished busting
through your door at 3 AM and wrecking your home while clutching the wrong
address in their gnarled knuckles:
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- Coercion is the root of all evil.
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- http://www.examiner.com/x-1449-Dallas-Libertarian-
- Examiner~y2009m4d19-Bullies-bearing-badges
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