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06/21/2004 Archived Entry: "Cops and the people: "It's half-past Claire Wolfe""

"MY ALARM CLOCK IS RINGING. IT'S HALF-PAST CLAIRE WOLFE." C. D. Tavares wrote that today in a post to the AZ-RKBA list.

"Obtaining a suspect's name in the course of a Terry stop serves important government interests," [Justice] Kennedy wrote in today's very unsupreme court decision in the Dudley Hiibel case.

"Of course it does," C.D. responded. "And the Bill of Rights was written expressly to trump ALL 'government interests,' because government is always free to define its interests liberally any way it likes. The Supreme Court is now officially to the point where it has entirely forgotten this principle."

The court has been submitting the Fourth Amendment to the death of a thousand cuts, anyhow. I'm sure most people will think this new decision is no big deal. What's in a name? But do you feel it? There's an air of finality about this decision. Well, not finality, exactly. The court will continue to hack and slash at the corpse of the Bill of Rights. But something's about to break. And at the risk of mixing metaphors, it might be a camel's back.

And this comes on the news that President Bush has pledged to support a bill to make all cops (including retired and off-duty cops) a specially privileged class. As if they weren't already. Just read the cop attitudes in this article if you have any doubt about how police as a class view themselves.

I don't expect a rash of cop killings -- or judge killings -- to happen tomorrow ala Henry Bowman. But the next few years look very ... interesting. I hope I never have to kill anybody. I hope no freedom lover ever does. I still think there are other things to do to create freedom for ourselves right under the noses of those who imagine they own us. But whatever happens next, clearly it's us against them and them against individual rights. And the time for any willing cooperation with "authorities" is over.

I want to ask all the cops out there: "Are you with us or against us?" But the answer is already obvious. This is not intended as a threat against anybody. It's more along the lines of a prediction, and one I really dread to make. But if you're an abusive cop or a statist judge, in the next few years you'd better get the f*k out of freedom's way.

A couple years ago, I'd have ranted fiercely today, and maybe that would have made more interesting writing. But now, it's time for quiet anger. The first time some torturer hits you you might scream. And the second. And the third. And the hundredth. But at some point the screaming stops and the real, implacable hatred begins.

Posted by Claire @ 08:58 PM CST
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