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You article amazes me. Of all the examples to use about our civil liberties and you choose to write about an Honduran immigrant who speaks no english. The police were called there because a concerned neighbor saw a man kicking in a door. Even the most prudent of liberals like yourself should see that the police were obligated to respond and investigate. The police, probably speaking english....god forbid, instructed the man several times to show himself. He didn't. So the police handled it. A police invasion? Not at all, they were called, they responded and had a duty to investigate. Not the fault of the police that the man doesn't speak english. Poor poor Mr. Sauceda. If you want my sympathy you wont find it for an Honduran immigrant. You make it out like the cops were monsters. Like they were just driving along and picked out some illegal immigrant to mess with. The best part of your article is when you say, "When the police did finally get Sauceda out of the bathroom, they pepper-sprayed him, shot him with a pepper ball gun and wrestled him to the ground." WOW. The police probably did it for no reason. I'm sure the Honduran immigrant who speaks no english and has the mind of a child was totally cooperative. I'm sure the police probably just got done watching porn in their cars and decided to kick the crap out of a brown person. Very compelling human story.
You and other Liberal minded folk often speak of revolution, not in the war sense. But that each individual is responsible to guard our freedoms and not let the government take that away from us. News flash........most people are sheep. They are scared. They want to wake up, drink their coffee. Put the kids on the bus, go to work and not be bothered. I, like you desire change. But our children are raised to be politically correct and passive. Do you think our Founding Father's were passive??
No, i don't think they were. They believed they could make a difference, they could stand with other Patriots and fight off oppression and tyranny. That passion is gone. Most don't have the intestinal fortitude to fight. I served my country in the Marine's and have a deep love for this country, as you do. Today I serve the Commonwealth as a State Trooper, and have been one for nine years. I have a wife and 3 children. I do it because hopefully i can make a difference and ensure a brighter future for all of our families. But sometimes when i read your paranoid articles about the police and how they misuse their power, it makes me mad. I am not blind to police corruption. But most of us are good honest people. Who love this country. But it is a difficult job. Especially when people don't trust us.
I look forward to hearing from you. I know this was a little sarcastic but obviously we have different point of views. I respect your views and agree that our government may not always be on our side. But the police are pawns in a bigger struggle to take this country back. I desire a revolution. One that will change our government. But I, like most other Americans, have jobs, families and have bills to pay. So i guess it will just have to wait.
I will continue to read your articles.
Sincerely,
Matthew
Mr. Whitehead,
I read today your excellent column in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. Very well said. I have added you to my short list of modern-day American Patriots. At this point my list includes You, Deroy Murdock, A. Barton Hinkle, and the entire Richmond Times-Dispatch Op/Ed staff.
"The similarities to pre-Revolutionary America are startling." What is even more startling to me is the complacency of a people that call themselves free. You are right. This persistent creep of tyranny has been so slow that it has lulled us to sleep. So many of us have ceded our free will -- to the common good-- for so long, we no longer recognize tyranny. This theft of liberty, and autonomy, is exactly the same type of violation that ignited the American Revolution. Yet, today, we shrug it off as if it were nothing.
"Every successful revolution puts on in time the robes of the tyrant it has deposed." Barbara Tuchman
I eagerly await your next column. Godspeed my friend.
Sincerely,
Kevin
p.s. Please, if i might indulge you a bit further and quote Orwell. "Sometimes it is the duty of intelligent men to restate the obvious." Duty calls you sir. I humbly suggest that you get on with it.
"The U.S. Supreme Court effectively decimated the Fourth Amendment in an 8-1 ruling in Kentucky v. King by giving police more leeway to smash down doors of homes or apartments without a warrant when in search of illegal drugs which they suspect might be destroyed if the Fourth Amendment requirement of a warrant were followed."
This ruling is very disturbing. What is the point of having a 4th Amendment? how could 8 justices rule in favor of unlawful entry? What can we do to reverse this? I've lived in communist countries in my work, and it is normal for police to smash down doors whenever they like - and now the U.S. is no different.
Kurt
"In a very real sense, we truly are back to where we started in those pre-Revolutionary War days, seemingly having learned next to nothing from those early days of tyranny at the hands of the British crown." (The Plight of Marco Sauceda and the Loss of Our Freedoms)
Exactly. And it's been like that for decades, in my estimation. This is a major, major problem for Americans, even if few recognize it.
Not much difference in freedom from London, London Ontario, and Loudoun County.
Doug
Dear John
For some time it has seemed obvious to me that the goal of government was to criminalize the population. Once we have all been individually maligned, impugned or discredited we will distrust each other and view one another through a cloud of suspicion. This will allow the government, through legislation and a dependent, subservient police force to peel away the most egregious objectors to totalitarianism in the name of public safety. Even if we know that it is wrong, the pall of guilt cast upon everyone (aided by a complicit media) will paralyze us into inaction. As that begins to happen, Mr. Sauceda was just a "disposable" test case, I am going to miss you.
Sincerely,
Paul
USA is an evil torturing nation of it's own innocent citizens
And that is the damn truth.... 100% truth.
I am talking about many thousands of innocent Americans who have been put on a totally Unconstitutional 24/7/365 Patriot Act Sanctioned Organized Stalking Program-- where they not only surveil you, they vandalize your property, character assassinate you everywhere you go and in your home and hotels they bath you with painful directed energy weapon assaults. I have found numerous cops involved in this... retired cops, marines, former military and they have used these same type electronic torture weapons on my 78 year old mother when I stayed at her home in San Diego for a time after getting driven out of my home in Nashua, NH by extremely painful directed energy weapons. So don't tell me this is a good country.... we have an evil Government and through decades past the government is no better than the people who have been in charge. In the United States today--- across the entire nation, Americans charged with no crime, under investigation for no crime are having National Security Letters issued against them and mostly for vigilante- vendetta reasons that has nothing to do with terrorism. This can be kicked off by people in the government who are using the program that was most likely developed to deal with sleeper cell terrorists as a vendetta tool for gripes they cowardly cannot handle as a man or woman so they have their adversary in some non terrorist related issue put on this fucking program from hell. There is a shitload of people going through this. I am only one. And I am not putting up with i,t I can guarantee you that.
Once the Posse Comitatus Act was suspended in 2007 this kicked into high gear by war mongering self righteous evil bastards who think they are protecting America from terrorists when in reality they are torturing and harassing innocent Americans.
A bogus SAR report and the an NSL is issued... you have no day in court and then you are put on this goddamn program. God Bless Stasi America.
This Government is torturing thousands of their citizens.... You tell me that is a good government. There are a lot of websites that explain what is happening with this. This one I think is the most accurate. The website is by married couple with 3 children and they too have had to move around the country to try to get some relief. Which really doesn't work.
Sheriff Bill Gore in San Diego said " his name does not come up in my computer", after he ran my dob, ss#. drivers license number. And yet in San Diego I was hit with both government sponsored Patriot Act organized stalking 24/7/365 and painful directed energy weapons torture for hundreds of night and watched my 77 year old mother as she would be crying from the pain saying, " why did you bring this to my house." Captain Peter Segal of the Nashua, NH police Dept said " you are not under investigation for any crime." And my story is one of many thousands.. and growing Americans being put on this harassment, provocation, torturing 24/7/365 program.
So you look into this you moral high road truth seekers-- And let's see what the hell you do with the SPIN on this --- and then you will find out if what I am saying is the fucking truth or just stay Government Propaganda Specialists.
http://www.torturedinamerica.org/
Jeff
Just read this Op/Ed from August 1, 2011. Thanks for speaking up. I am really upset at the destruction of our personal liberties. The strip searching at the airports is one example. The government using imminent domain to steal people's property is another. The city of Raleigh sends letters to elderly in their 80s threatening a lawsuit if they don't sign over their property for less than 50% of the value the city assessed the property for tax purposes. They always time these letters to arrive right before a long vacation like Thanksgiving or Christmas to torture the recipient to the max. The reason for the imminent domain - to build a 50 foot wide bike path down the center of their property.
How's this: I'm driving down the Interstate. A driver in a one ton pickup truck who had been going 85 mpg earlier up the road is now blocking the highway, cruising at 55 (70 mph speed limit) is the left lane, neck and neck with another car in the right lane. I pull between the two lanes to try to see around the two vehicles. A state trooper pulls me over. First words out of his mouth: "Where are you going in such a hurry." Duh, I wasn't going anywhere, was I? So I answer "Nowhere." Answer seems obvious to me. I was going nowhere fast before he pulled me and nowhere at all sitting on the side of the road. So he gives me a ticket for following too closely. I'm wondering, what the hell does that mean? Where is his subjective data supporting that? I am 55 and have not had a traffic ticket in 39 years. Over the following days, I ask friends, including a coworker whose husband works with this state trooper, just what does that ticket mean. They are all amazed and say the only time they have ever heard someone getting a ticket for driving too closely is when they are involved in an accident. So I go to court, on my birthday, using up one of my valuable vacation days. About 80% of the people in traffic court are black. I am white. But I find it very suspicious that there is such an imbalance of blacks in the courtroom. I sit there all day. About 3 in the afternoon, the trooper comes in. He is frustrated to see that I came to court. There is a hurricane on the way. He tells me I can either come back another day (because the court will not have time to hear my case) or I can plead guilty to something about driving with improper equipment. So I can either lose another vacation day, or plead guilty to something I am not guilty of but which won't raise my insurance rates like following too closely will. What kind of choice is that? The other blacks I had been talking with over the day say to keep fighting because it is so bogus. But I decide I would rather pay the $100 court costs and keep my vacation day. It was so depressing and difficult to plead guilty when I was not guilty. I stood up there and cried. I looked at the clerk of court in disbelief and could hardly get the words out of my mouth. I was raised to tell the truth and here I was being forced to lie under oath. As I am standing there mute, looking at them, and the clerk is saying quietly, "plead guilty". It was such a violation. The one positive, now I understand why the jury found OJ innocent. I was treated better than alot of those blacks that were in the court. One man had driven over 100 miles to appear in court, and they were going to make him come back another day. My coworker whose husband is a state trooper with the man who cited me said he is known among his coworkers as an asshole. I wrote a letter of complaint to the state government. Nothing was done. This occurred in Halifax County NC. There is no justice in that county.
Here's another. We filed for our tax refund from the state of NC. They never sent it to us. We kept asking for two years. They sent a letter saying we owe them more money. Our attorney says to them, just deduct that from the refund you owe them. NC won't do that. My husband says he and the attorney will handle it. He still believes you can get justice from the government. In the end, the state of NC confiscated the money from my paycheck - over $2000. They still had three years of refund check they had not sent us. So I told the attorney I wanted to know why they took my money. I sat there in his office refusing to leave. He called the state of NC Revenue. Spent one hour getting bounced from person to person back to the original person to another person. They kept saying they had mailed the check but they could see it hadn't been cashed, but then they had mailed it again and so the check was in the mail. You and I both know there are lots of liars who say the check is in the mail when it isn't. But at least they finally put the three years of refund checks in the mail, because we got them within two weeks. I'm still out the fines and interest they had confiscated from me (the over $2000 stated above) and the attorney said they were wrong in their assertion that we owed more money. No one has told me just what the problem was. Another example of the poor tax code - in that same phone call, we clarified that we should not have to pay an additional $25 because the attorney had not signed on a line that the form said did not need to be signed. The government worker thought it still should have been signed but admitted that it was not required to be signed. So we won't get fined $25 and then get fined interest and penalties and get money confiscated etc.
And then they wonder why the TEA party is around.
Don't ask me for money. I just wanted to tell you my story. We are all slaves working to support "massa" government.
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