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ACLU Creates Map of US "Constitution-Free Zone"
trackpick points out a recent ACLU initiative to publicize a recent expansion of authority claimed by the Border Patrol to stop and search individuals up to 100 miles from any US border. They have created a map of what they call the US Constitution-Free Zone. "Using data provided by the US Census Bureau, the ACLU has determined that nearly 2/3 of the entire US population (197.4 million people) live within 100 miles of the US land and coastal borders. The government is assuming extraordinary powers to stop and search individuals within this zone. This is not just about the border: This 'Constitution-Free Zone' includes most of the nation's largest metropolitan areas.'"
Airports?
One of our competitors trademarked the term "hypothesis". From now on, we will call them "boneheaded ideas".
Which "US land or coastal border" is Milwaukee 100 miles from? Chicago?
What I'd like to see is an analysis of what percentage of the original 13 colonies is in the Constitution-free zone? Just eyeballing it looks like around 80%.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
Nah, the Supreme Court finally told the D.C. government that at least part of the Constitution actually does apply there.
The message is simple, "You have no rights."
Seriously, does anyone think that this really has anything to do with illegal immigration? There are plenty of laws on the books to stop them from coming in and to deport them, however there is a severe lack of Federal authorities using those laws. This has everything to do with getting people used to being searched illegally.
Many times local police will pick up an illegal immigrant for drunk driving or another offense, they'll call the feds, and the feds will do nothing.
A year ago in MN a woman ran into a school bus, killing 3. It turned out she was here illegally and had been arrested before. The local police called INS (during the first arrest) and they wouldn't do anything about it.
If you have something that you dont want anyone to know, maybe you shouldnt be doing it in the first place -Eric Schmidt
Well, considering they don't feel the constitution applies, they probably don't feel too strongly about about any of your right. You probably don't want to try this.
I wouldn't tell them to get stuffed. However, you could try what this guy does...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fv8hoQYeVl0
One of his last ones he was stopped there for like 7 minutes until they let him go.
The first one is good too:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6uw7506xMw&feature=related
"Especially absurd is the recurring theory that private guns prevent the national government from becoming dictatorship."
I love how people tend to forget we're a nation born of revolt and war, tempered in the fires of combat, using pretty much PRIVATE WEAPONS against a MUCH LARGER ARMY.
Pay closer attention to history. If it can happen ONCE and create a new country, it can happen again.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
For advocating an open border. If the American civil liberties union spent their time defending the liberties of Americans instead of illegal immigrants, there would not be an excuse to extend border enforcement halfway into neighboring states.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
I love how people tend to forget we're a nation born of revolt and war, tempered in the fires of combat, using pretty much PRIVATE WEAPONS against a MUCH LARGER ARMY.
I love how people tend to forget that the Colonial militias were getting their asses kicked by the redcoats until a bunch of Germans and -- yes -- Frenchmen came over and taught us how to fight as an actual army.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Keep posting so we know exactly when they come and haul you away.
you know, I was actually kind of hesitant to post this half-joke, but you see, that is the problem.
The USA is not a place where one should be worried about what one says; Especially when it is in defense of the constitution. I'm not going to be cowed into speaking of this crap in hushed tones.
Posting to forums and other distributed places gives a much louder and far-reaching voice than any megaphone or soapbox could offer. So I will explicitly state that I think when rights of US (and all free) citizens are taken, there is a point where the country is no longer itself.
If this house falls, it is our duty to rebuild it whatever the cost.
I am ready for that lame event and willing to take action, but I'm sure not eager!
I just hope the foundation holds.
Read my Very Short "Stories"
I've been through the same checkpoint, and I'm white. They spent about 10 minutes looking around the car and in the trunk. It was a rent car since I was there on business, so it was immaculate, but they took their time anyway checking the vehicle and my documents.
It really was annoying. I can't imagine doing it on a regular basis, even if this only happens at random intervals. Now that I think about it, random intervals would be even more annoying.
More Polish than German, but then again the borders back then weren't the same, Germany and Italy being comprised on many little pieces. But a more important complaint: we were still losing once they taught us to fight like an Army (after all, there were ex-soldiers leading the milita). The 10,000 soldiers the French sent, the Navy, the guns and ammunition, probably all helped more than the expertse.
And you left out that the "private weapons" he mentioned included cannons (the most sophisticated weapons of the time), and other British Army weapons.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
Am I the only one who is scheduling trips to the firing range much more frequently?
Andy Out!
But just because Big Brother can blow your house down, don't just roll over on the assumption that he will. Make him do it, and live with the consequences.
I's already happened. Big Brother did blow someone's house down, and there were consequences.
DISCLAIMER: I am posting from Kandahar City, Afghanistan, where I am stationed for the next little while.
The example you cite - the American Revolution - hasn't been applicable to the real world since the last years of the American Civil War.
The time period from the early 1700s to the late 1800s was dominated by the smoothbore, muzzle-loading musket, and its big brother, the smoothbore, muzzle-loading, solid-shot cannon (of which there were few in the Colonies)
An American Rebel, armed with a flintlock Kentucky Rifle, carried a weapon that was the technological equal of his British Regular Army counterpart. In some ways (range and accuracy) it was superior; in others (rate of fire) inferior. Employed properly, entirely comparable.
The success of armies in this era was largely a function of discipline, leadership, and logistics. If you had a cause sufficient to unite men in common purpose, leaders with enough tactical acumen to employ them, and paid attention to the problems of supply, it was entirely possible to go head to head with a national, professional, regular army and win outright on the battlefield - especially if your "professional" opponent was lacking in one of these vital areas.
That is no longer the case. No militia is capable of withstanding the kind of destructive force a modern combat team (a company of mechanized infantry, a troop of tanks, and two artillery pieces) is capable of putting out.
The insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan die - in large numbers - any time they try to go toe-to-toe with modern combat forces. It's no contest; so hopelessly lopsided that it's almost pathetic.
The only weapon that is at all effective is the Improvised Explosive Device (basically a really big land mine) but the IED is not a decisive weapon; it is a harassment tactic, not a war-winner.
The insurgent plays off our unwillingness to inflict civillian casulties. If we take fire from a village, it is entirely within our combat power to stop the entire village flat (in seconds!) to get him. We choose not to for very good reasons.
But if a government WERE willing to inflict those kinds of casulties (and please note that I am NOT advocating such a course of action) any would-be rebels would find themselves in a world of hurt very quickly. The idea that a self-organized citizen militia could take on and defeat the US Army, Navy, and Air Force is simply laughable.
Yes, the North Vietnamese pulled it off, but that was because the will to do what was necessary to win wasn't there. Within the boundaries of the United States proper, however, it is safe to say that will exists, given that the army that has killed more Americans than all other armies in all other American wars *combined* is the US Army. Ask Lincoln and Grant if they had the will to do what was necessary to win. or better yet, ask Lee.
Your Second Amendment is nice in theory. In practice, it is a paper tiger.
DG
Want to learn about race cars? Read my Book
There are a couple of weaknesses in that argument:
"look and speak like" clearly doesn't apply to the gangsters' "soldiers" in urban areas where black-on-black and brown-on-brown violence (and white-on-white in less-urban) is prevalent. Neither does it apply to an army trained in "civilian pacification" (slaughter) where the admission standards have been lowered to allow criminals to join, as in the United States Army.
History has show that US Army soldiers are quite willing to kill anyone, as ordered, in the US. From the Whiskey Rebellion, through the Draft Riots (when Lincoln first enslaved free men to fight his war), through Kent State, with a detour through the forced labor enforced by the US Army on workers at a aircraft plant BEFORE we entered WWII, there is no time when the US Army has refused to employ deadly force on US civilians.
I know they won't accept it as a defense against tax evasion, but, isn't there some real questions of merit over whether this amendment was fully or correctly (according to the law) ratified properly?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Is this one of the human rights? As far as I know, no nation in the world allows you self-defense against the state (also known as cop-killing). There is also no nation in the world that has a law on the books that states: "If we, your government, suddenly turns oppressive (determined by the citizen's opinion), it is hunky dory to kill cops." As I understand it, the 2nd amendment gives you the right to wave your guns around, it doesn't give you the right to use them on people.
And as a final note. You do realize that Iraq under Saddam had a pretty high percentage of private gun ownership? It didn't seem to matter.
- Do you think the government has a real, and appropriate, interest in knowing who and what is coming in and out of the country?
- If so, why is it inappropriate to check at the borders (or at the nearest available transit points) that those crossing have their citizenship documentation or passport and visa documentation, as they are required to carry by law for all cross-border travel?
Yes, I want to live in a country where the laws are enforced. Being "randomly" stopped on the street in the middle of the day to check that I have ID papers on me? That is inappropriate. Being checked for my papers when I am doing something for which papers are required, such as traveling between two countries, is not.
And also may I point out: You are required by law in every state to carry your drivers' license, automobile registration and proof of insurance papers, if you are driving a vehicle (car, truck, minivan, etc). When such vehicles are crossing the border, the US government has a real and important interest in doublechecking that the driver is not either (a) entering or (b) leaving the country with a STOLEN vehicle.
That's not the America I grew up in
Sadly, it looks like the America you're probably going to die in though.
I'm glad I don't have kids. Yes, I know, people said the same thing in the fifties and sixties, with the threat of atomic war with Russia hanging over their heads and we survived the Cold War. Not that we're exactly out of the woods, but we haven't died in a nuclear holocaust. Those times were pretty damned scary, but I have to admit: if my parents had succumbed to those fears I wouldn't be here. They took the chance that life would go on, that the final conflict would never come. And it hasn't, yet.
Nevertheless, we have bigger fish to fry nowadays. We are not dealing now with an externality, such as fear of encroaching Communism that motivated our behavior during the Cold War. Yet, the problem is no less ideological in nature, and what makes it worse is that the ideologues in question happen to be running our government. Actually, "ideologue" is perhaps too mild a term. "Sociopath" comes closer to the mark, I think.
I'm not certain this trend can be reversed either, because far too many of us are in support of it. Many of us are afraid of illegal immigration (with good reason, it's true) and look upon these security "enhancements" with an uncritical eye. Others are swayed by the usual "think of the children" arguments, and again give the Government a free pass. In any case, throwing away whatever remains of our vaunted Constitution, whatever is left of our humanity, is not a viable solution. Long term, allowing our fears to be played upon by an ever-more-powerful State is going to cost us. Bigtime.
By the time the full effects are felt by most of us, well, I don't know. We may be in too deep by then. "Constitution Free Zones" show how far we've fallen in a few short years.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Baton Rougue is almost 300 miles from Mexico and Cuba as the crow flies, and over 600 miles from Mexico by the shortest roads. And you are extrapolating this to say that they entire argument is crap? The simple fact that a state which does not border any country has a "Border Patrol" is ridiculous.
I live and travel in the southwest and I can tell you for a fact that it is not crap. Border Patrol has permanent checkpoints located far inland between major cities in the states, not between the border and the first major city. They stop every single car that drives through. They often have drug dogs go around and sniff cars before they let you drive on. They occasionally perform random searches on peoples cars. The only reason that this is not considered a blatant violation of constitutional limits on search and seizure, is because the courts have significantly widened their interpretation of what constitutes a customs and border search.
Furthermore, the fact is that regardless of whether the Border Patrol is exercising their power in LA, they do have that power and can choose to do so at any time.
About once every 30-50 stops, they make an arrest - a SINGLE arrest.
So by your own words they are stopping and harassing hundreds of innocent citizens for every single arrest that they make.
Not to mention that the US Supreme court, this year, more or less put this to rest by ruling that second amendment is an individual right, so it more or less nullified the whole militia = group right argument. If you accept what the Supreme Court said, then the 2nd amendment is basically about the inalienable right of the people to keep and bear arms. Theres nothing in there about arms only for hunting purposes.
Python
Do you really want to live in a place where there's such a thing as "a perfectly legal stop to verify documentation"? That's not the America I grew up in.
Currently in New York City it is law that cops can stop you and search "backpacks or other large containers". The Second Amendment for years http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_3_52/ai_59243533>has only been The First Amendment can be restricted at the pleasure of politicians to avoid uncomfortable press in cities across America since the invention of the "First Amendment Zone"
Maybe that's what Governor Palin means when she says small towns are more pro-America, she means they are still protected by the Constitution.
We are all just people.
If they're using tunnels don't you think they're smart enough to avoid these checkpoints?
This is exactly what was warned against in 1984 and Fahrenheit 451. It seems the US Constitution isn't worth the paper it was written on.
Easy. Secure the fucking border. If that requires a fence and a minefield so be it. A secure border means it is difficult to smuggle things across it.
Cool. Then when I want to smuggle drugs from Mexico into the US I'll just set up a couple of miles back and fire them over with a mortar.
Of course smuggling refugees across the border is more difficult, but I'm sure we can get them into Mexico somehow.
First ask yourself this - would you under any circumstances tie a woman down and impregnate her with a turkey baster? No? Ok, read on.
The courts have been very clear on abortion. If the fetus cannot survive on its own then it is not considered to be a person and has no constitutional rights. If the mother does not wish to continue providing life support for the fetus, preventing her from aborting the pregnancy is no different than forcing her to become pregnant against her will.
Pro-life arguments are also pro-slavery. Protecting the dependent unborn makes as much sense as protecting the undead.
War as we knew it was obsolete
Nothing could beat complete denial
- Emily Haines
The actual simplest way would be a good solid fence, but there are people who hate that idea with a passion bordering on insanity for some reason (such as, they don't actually WANT the law enforced).
I like having food in the fridge, illegal immigrants were critical to growing and harvesting that food. So no, I *don't* want the law enforced.
Liberte, Egalite, Fraternite (TM)
Even scarier - we only implement in so far as it appears to benefit certain segments of the voting/donating population.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.