Government Goons Murder Puppies!The drug war goes to the dogs.

In the course of researching paramilitary drug raids, I’ve found some pretty disturbing stuff. There was a case where a SWAT officer stepped on a baby’s head while looking for drugs in a drop ceiling. There was one where an 11-year-old boy was shot at point-blank range. Police have broken down doors, screamed obscenities, and held innocent people at gunpoint only to discover that what they thought were marijuana plants were really sunflowers, hibiscus, ragweed, tomatoes, or elderberry bushes. (It’s happened with all five.)

Yet among hundreds of botched raids, the ones that get me most worked up are the ones where the SWAT officers shoot and kill the family dog.

I have two dogs, which may have something to do with it. But I’m not alone. A colleague tells me that when he and other libertarian commentators speak about the 1993 raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco many people tend to doubt the idea that the government was out of line when it invaded, demolished, and set fire to a home of peaceful and mostly innocent people. But when the speaker mentions that the government also slaughtered two dogs during the siege, eyes light up, the indifferent get angry, and skeptics come around. Puppycide, apparently, goes too far.

One of the most appalling cases occurred in Maricopa County, Arizona, the home of Joe Arpaio, self-proclaimed “toughest sheriff in America.” In 2004 one of Arpaio’s SWAT teams conducted a bumbling raid in a Phoenix suburb. Among other weapons, it used tear gas and an armored personnel carrier that later rolled down the street and smashed into a car. The operation ended with the targeted home in flames and exactly one suspect in custody—for outstanding traffic violations.

But for all that, the image that sticks in your head, as described by John Dougherty in the alternative weekly Phoenix New Times, is that of a puppy trying to escape the fire and a SWAT officer chasing him back into the burning building with puffs from a fire extinguisher. The dog burned to death.

In a massive 1998 raid at a San Francisco housing co-op, cops shot a family dog in front of its family, then dragged it outside and shot it again.

When police in Fremont, California, raided the home of medical marijuana patient Robert Filgo, they shot his pet Akita nine times. Filgo himself was never charged.

Last October police in Alabama raided a home on suspicion of marijuana possession, shot and killed both family dogs, then joked about the kill in front of the family. They seized eight grams of marijuana, equal in weight to a ketchup packet.

In January a cop en route to a drug raid in Tampa, Florida, took a short cut across a neighboring lawn and shot the neighbor’s two pooches on his way. And last May, an officer in Syracuse, New York, squeezed off several shots at a family dog during a drug raid, one of which ricocheted and struck a 13-year-old boy in the leg. The boy was handcuffed at gunpoint at the time.

There was a dog in the ragweed bust I mentioned, too. He got lucky: He was only kicked across the room.

I guess the P.R. lesson here for drug war opponents and civil libertarians is to emphasize the plight of the pooch. America’s law-and-order populace may not be ready to condemn the practice of busting up recreational pot smokers with ostentatiously armed paramilitary police squads, even when the SWAT team periodically breaks into the wrong house or accidentally shoots a kid. I mean, somebody was probably breaking the law, right?

But the dog? That loyal, slobbery, lovable, wide-eyed, fur-lined bag of unconditional love?

- I can only surmise that in your mind you've made a logical response to my last post.

If you ever get past surmising, you can start understanding it. I could outline a twelve step program for you if you would like.

Section. 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

The purpose of the 14th Amendment (1866), especially section 1, and especially the bolded section, was to address the issue of former slaves, who had been denied and were continuing to be denied the safe guards of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Not a single blue law was changed in any state in consequence to its passage. No one even considered it. Not one single person. To construe it as you have requires a concerted refusal of history and common sense. You are not only wrong, but so wrong that you will be spending the rest of your life arguing this in the abyss. Only a socialist judge, using French law, could twist this enough to bolster your point. Luckily for you some of these are on the bench.

Unfortunately for the case of denial of property without due process (which there is a case for in the WOD) you are the worst sort of ally, who just gives the opposition ammunition.

Sampleman; -- may I suggest that if you want to promote paranoid prohibitions about bestiality, incest, polygamy, religious human sacrifice (voluntary of course), etc... -- That you review our Constitutions 14th Amendment first?
You will find that both writing & enforcing such prohibitive 'law' violates due process, as prohibitions are repugnant to our basic Constitutional principles protecting life, liberty, or property.

Good of you to admit that States were violating individual rights.

Not a single blue law was changed in any state in consequence to its passage. No one even considered it. Not one single person.

The intent of the 14th is clear. No level of government was to "deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law".

To construe it as you have requires a concerted refusal of history and common sense.

Is it 'common sense' to reject the historical fact that this country was founded on protecting rights to life, liberty, or property for all?

You are not only wrong, but so wrong that you will be spending the rest of your life arguing this in the abyss.

Protecting our rights is arguing in the "abyss"? How?

Only a socialist judge, using French law, could twist this enough to bolster your point. Luckily for you some of these are on the bench.

How is it "socialist" to argue ~against~ prohibitionism, a socialistic disease? Prohibitionists like you argue ~for~ 'wars' on guns, drugs, sin, 'immorality', -- whatever.

Unfortunately for the case of denial of property without due process (which there is a case for in the WOD) you are the worst sort of ally, who just gives the opposition ammunition.

You admit I have a specific case, yet you oppose my overall cause. -- That's illogical reasoning; - as I noted, you have cognitive problems. Seek help.

SampleMan wrote:

With no forthcoming defense of your positions

You're a post behind, -- see my defense of the 14th at 223.

and an inability to infer logical linkage,

Your illogical attack on the 14th enabled my defense. That's how "linkage" works.

you appear to have the proverbial fork deeply embedded at this point, so I'll assume you're done. Let's see if you have the good sense to know it.

I'll never be done defending the Constitution from prohibitionists..

You may want to read tacticalogic's posts, he was arguing for legalization, but made much more logical sense than you.

I did read them, and noticed that he stopped arguing with you shortly after your diatribe at #185. -- That's one way to use logic -- I prefer however to meet prohibitionists head on.

You are still referring to me in the third person, while posting only to me.

Tpaine needs to address this issue.

Tpaine also needs to read up on substantive due process, as this is what tpaine is trying to base tpaine's case on, but doesn't appear to know it.

Substantive due process is a classic form of judicial activism, a process which itself makes a legally binding document (insert "Constitution" here) worthless, as its all up to the relative morality of five jurists. But at least you could then cite a few court cases that somewhat, kinda head down that path. You will find many, many more however, that drive a stake through the heart of substantive due process. Tpaine should find this troubling, as the subjective decisions of the judiciary is all that substantive due process is based on to begin with.

I hope this helps Tpaine, as Tpaine appears completely ignorant of the creation of the 14th amendment by it primary author, Rep. John Bingham of Ohio, the stated purpose of the 14th amendment, all of the debate on it at the time of its creation, the Courts rulings on the 14th amendment over the last 140 years since, and indeed of the meaning of many commonly understood words.

SampleMan wrote:

you appear to have the proverbial fork deeply embedded at this point, so I'll assume you're done. Let's see if you have the good sense to know it.

Answer: Nope.

SampleMan wrote:

You are still referring to me in the third person, while posting only to me. Tpaine needs to address this issue.

Weird obsession, this third person ~thing~ you have.

Tpaine also needs to read up on substantive due process, as this is what tpaine is trying to base tpaine's case on, but doesn't appear to know it.

"-- The Due Process Clauses of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee not only that appropriate and just procedures (or "processes") be used whenever the government is punishing a person or otherwise taking away a person's life, freedom or property, but that these clauses also guarantee that a person's life, freedom and property cannot be taken without appropriate governmental justification, regardless of the procedures used to do the taking. --"

Not at all, as the jurists themselves can be restrained by due process.

"-- The full scope of the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause `cannot be found in or limited by the precise terms of the specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the Constitution.
This `liberty´ is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on.
It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints, . .
Justice Harlan

But at least you could then cite a few court cases that somewhat, kinda head down that path. You will find many, many more however, that drive a stake through the heart of substantive due process. Tpaine should find this troubling, as the subjective decisions of the judiciary is all that substantive due process is based on to begin with.

That's the 'subjective line' put forward by prohibitionists. --- Prohibitional 'laws' violate due process.

I hope this helps Tpaine, as Tpaine appears completely ignorant of the creation of the 14th amendment by it primary author, Rep. John Bingham of Ohio,

Simply not true.

the stated purpose of the 14th amendment, all of the debate on it at the time of its creation, the Courts rulings on the 14th amendment over the last 140 years since,

Ridiculous claim. -- I uphold the 14th, and ~dispute~ the shyster-like "incorporation" and "substantive" doctrines that attempt to undermine it's clear words.

SampleMan wrote:
you appear to have the proverbial fork deeply embedded at this point, so I'll assume you're done. Let's see if you have the good sense to know it.
Answer: Nope.

Well? -- You wrote it, try to prove that you're "sticking the fork" to me.
Your assumptions are an obvious bit of ludicrous self hype.

Well? -- You wrote it, try to prove that you're "sticking the fork" to me. Your assumptions are an obvious bit of ludicrous self hype.

Well, I agree that they are obvious.

I've never been inclined to believe that being in the majority makes a person right, but when your reading of "due process" puts you in such a minuscule minority, you are going to have many burdens upon you in the discussion. One of those burdens would be proof.

If the "due process" clause of the 14th amendment applies as you believe it to, why didn't the author of the amendment push for the immediate dismissal of all such regulatory laws? Why didn't anyone? Why did it take 100 years for someone to "discover" what no one else appeared to be able to read in a well published document?

I don't like inventive readings of the Constitution. If it is not a clear and binding document, it is worthless, and subject to the whims of five jurors. Trying to torture the Constitution into saying something that has been rejected by the vast majority of this country for 220 years, so that someone can smoke a joint in peace is ludicrous. If you want legalization, then push for it on its own merits.

"-- The full scope of the liberty guaranteed by the Due Process Clause `cannot be found in or limited by the precise terms of the specific guarantees elsewhere provided in the Constitution. This `liberty´ is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property; the freedom of speech, press, and religion; the right to keep and bear arms; the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures; and so on. It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints, . . Justice Harlan

Be careful who you hold up as a sage.

"I believe that the Bible is the inspired Word of God. Nothing which it commands can be safely or properly disregarded -- nothing it condemns can be justified. No civilization is worth preserving which is not based on the doctrines or teachings of the Bible." Justice Harlan(1906)

Again, your entire belief system rests on the WOD being arbitrary with purposeless restraints. The vast majority of people, through their legislators have declared that they have a clear purpose. You can argue to convince them that they won't succeed at their purpose, but give up already on the "arbitrary" argument.

S-man speciously claims:

I've never been inclined to believe that being in the majority makes a person right,

Yet at #229, you argue your belief that: -- "The vast majority of people, through their legislators have declared that they have a clear purpose. --"
You can't even keep your story straight between two adjacent posts.

but when your reading of "due process" puts you in such a minuscule minority, you are going to have many burdens upon you in the discussion.One of those burdens would be proof.

The argument about whether States & local governments have to operate within Constitutional due process has been going on since the Republic was formed. -- That's a fact. - One that doesn't need 'proof', - not to rational people.

If the "due process" clause of the 14th amendment applies as you believe it to, why didn't the author of the amendment push for the immediate dismissal of all such regulatory laws? Why didn't anyone?

Because we had just fought a bloody war over the issue of 'States Rights'. -- In 1868 we we trying to reconstruct the Union under the original intent of our Law of the Land. [See Article VI]

Why did it take 100 years for someone to "discover" what no one else appeared to be able to read in a well published document?

'Jim Crow' was discovered, that's why.. The 14th was ignored, with the collusion of the Courts, Congress, & Executive.

I don't like inventive readings of the Constitution. If it is not a clear and binding document, it is worthless, and subject to the whims of five jurors. Trying to torture the Constitution into saying something that has been rejected by the vast majority [There you go again, "majority rules"] of this country for 220 years, so that someone can smoke a joint in peace is ludicrous.

The prohibitions you promote are far more serious than bans on smoking pot:
"-- This `liberty´ is not a series of isolated points pricked out in terms of the taking of property;
the freedom of speech, press, and religion;
the right to keep and bear arms;
the freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures;
and so on. It is a rational continuum which, broadly speaking, includes a freedom from all substantial arbitrary impositions and purposeless restraints, . .

As the second Justice Harlan recognized...

If you want legalization, then push for it on its own merits.

The initial prohibitions making drugs 'illegal' were unconstitutional. -- That's the "merits" of the issue.

I've never been inclined to believe that being in the majority makes a person right

Yet at #229, you argue your belief that: -- "The vast majority of people, through their legislators have declared that they have a clear purpose. --" You can't even keep your story straight between two adjacent posts.

Context. You don't seem to grasp it. The above statements are not even remotely at odds. The first was to state that I'm not basing my Constitutional argument on the fact that I'm in the majority (this was a nicety to you). The second was countering your argument that the WOD is arbitrary. A republican democracy debating a subject and then passing a law by majority, especially a set of laws over a prolonged period for an intended purpose can't be arbitrary. It can be wrong, but not arbitrary. Louis IVX's banning pineapples from France after taking one bite was arbitrary.

I don't know quite how to say this without being insulting, but my vocabulary is quite exact, my positions quite clear, yet you have shown an amazing inability to understand them. Mind you this has nothing to do with your agreeing with them, or who is right or wrong. You simply can't follow a line of thought, even when repeated.

Again I don't know how to say this without insulting you, but your debating skills are particularly weak. I'm confident that I already know the strengths of your position far more thoroughly than you do, or for that matter, you will ever be able to present them. Although there are some very good arguments for your position, you haven't made them, and I don't feel like arguing both sides.

Your parsing games have grown very old and juvenile. You continually parse my posts out of context, to attempt to show hypocrisy where there clearly is none. Sadly, I don't think you are doing this deliberately, but just honestly aren't comprehending my points. Others don't seem to have this problem with my posts on this thread or others (many disagree, but they understand and acknowledge my argument).

If you feel you need to parse this, consider it me giving you the last word.

SampleMan wrote:

I've never been inclined to believe that being in the majority makes a person right.

Yet here at #228 you approve of a "vast majority":

Trying to torture the Constitution into saying something that has been rejected by the vast majority of this country for 220 years, so that someone can smoke a joint in peace is ludicrous. -228-

You can't even keep your story straight between two adjacent posts.

Context. You don't seem to grasp it. The above statements are not even remotely at odds.

Sheer denial.

The first was to state that I'm not basing my Constitutional argument on the fact that I'm in the majority (this was a nicety to you).

Spare me your "niceties". Argue the point.

The second was countering your argument that the WOD is arbitrary. A republican democracy debating a subject and then passing a law by majority,

There you go, advocating that a democratic majority can pass an unconstitutional WOD "law".

especially a set of laws over a prolonged period for an intended purpose can't be arbitrary. It can be wrong, but not arbitrary. Louis IVX's banning pineapples from France after taking one bite was arbitrary.

Congress banning assault weapons from America was arbitrary. - Congress banning 'dangerous' drugs over a prolonged period for an intended purpose was arbitrary. Majority rule for 'moral' purposes is arbitrary.

I don't know quite how to say this without being insulting, but my vocabulary is quite exact, my positions quite clear, yet you have shown an amazing inability to understand them.

I don't know quite how to say this without being insulting, but I understand your positions quite clearly, -- and find them to be repugnant to our Constitution.

Mind you this has nothing to do with your agreeing with them, or who is right or wrong. You simply can't follow a line of thought, even when repeated. Again I don't know how to say this without insulting you, but your debating skills are particularly weak.

Yet you are the one failing to address the constitutional points I make in my posts. You ignore them in favor of making comments on "debating skills"

I'm confident that I already know the strengths of your position far more thoroughly than you do, or for that matter, you will ever be able to present them.

Unbelievable ego.

Although there are some very good arguments for your position, you haven't made them, and I don't feel like arguing both sides.

I just posted a link to a thread where I and others made many of those arguments, long ago. Read it.

Your parsing games have grown very old and juvenile.

You mischaracterize my comments as parsing, -- a juvenile act on your part.

You continually parse my posts out of context, to attempt to show hypocrisy where there clearly is none. Sadly, I don't think you are doing this deliberately, but just honestly aren't comprehending my points. Others don't seem to have this problem with my posts on this thread or others (many disagree, but they understand and acknowledge my argument).

Again, -- you simply can't see that the others give up on arguing with you because of your 'style'. -- I don't mind your style at all, as it gives me an opportunity to confront prohibitionism.

If you feel you need to parse this, consider it me giving you the last word.

Feel free to leave the field at any time.

How strange that you would show up, Mojave/Roscoe, just after I'd linked to this old thread:

The Judiciary and the Rule of Law [Free Republic]
Address:http://www.freerepublic.com/forum/a3b38b21f534e.htm

to: Okiereddust [from roscoe/mojave]

"The first amendment to the Constitution prohibits Congress from abridging 'the right of the people to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.' This, like the other amendments proposed and adopted at the same time, was not intended to limit the powers of the State governments in respect to their own citizens, but to operate upon the National government alone.
Barron v. The City of Baltimore, 7 Pet. 250; Lessee of Livingston v. Moore, id. 551; Fox v. Ohio, 5 How. 434; Smith v. Maryland, 18 id. 76; Withers v. Buckley, 20 id. 90; Pervear v. The Commonwealth, 5 Wall. 479; Twitchell v. The Commonwealth, 7 id. 321; Edwards v. Elliott, 21 id. 557.

It is now too late to question the correctness of this construction. As was said by the late Chief Justice, in Twitchell v. The Commonwealth, 7 Wall. 325, 'the scope and application of these amendments are no longer subjects of discussion here.' They left the authority of the States just where they found it, and added nothing to the already existing powers of the United States."

--U S v. CRUIKSHANK, 92 U.S. 542 (1875)
http://laws.lp.findlaw.com/getcase/us/92/542.html

152 Posted on 06/30/2001 10:22:17 PDT by Roscoe
[ Reply | Private Reply | To 151 | Top | Last ]

To: Roscoe

The SCOTUS has made many puzzling & contradictory decisions.. You posted two..

Does this posting mean that YOU advocate that individual states can ignore the Constitution and its amendments?

How do you interpret Article VI, -- the 'supreme law of the land' [2nd] paragraph?

153 Posted on 06/30/2001 11:45:17 PDT by tpaine

History is an obstacle to those who advocate judicial legislation via the 14th Amendment.

But perhaps the men who left their families for years, fought, and too often died to create the United States, did so in the hopes that a mystic time capsule could be written. So that hundreds of years in the future, when it was finally deciphered, their distant posterity could be free to have sex with goats, marry their daughters, and smoke crack. But of course, that must be it! Why else would they ignore such important freedoms for themselves, their children, and even their grandchildren?

Or maybe they were such dolts that they just didn't understand the term "miscreant behavior", and therefore didn't know how to clearly state that, "No miscreant behavior shall be infringed upon." But this confuses me, as the same people who wrote these amendments also wrote reams of laws against "miscreant behavior".

The only possible explanation for this strange behavior (not that there is anything wrong with strange behavior) is that they were all smoking crack, and that's it, the final proof that Thomas Jefferson and the rest of those dudes wrote the Constitution to ensure that crack heads would be free, everything else is fluff.

How did I do? Do I get my diploma?

roscoe/Mojave agit-prop:

History is an obstacle to those who advocate judicial legislation via the 14th Amendment.

S-man drinks up Moj's kool aid :

But perhaps the men who left their families for years, fought, and too often died to create the United States, did so in the hopes that a mystic time capsule could be written. So that hundreds of years in the future, when it was finally deciphered, their distant posterity could be free to have sex with goats, marry their daughters, and smoke crack. But of course, that must be it! Why else would they ignore such important freedoms for themselves, their children, and even their grandchildren?

Those who yearn to write 'law' prohibiting sex with goats, marrying their daughters, and smoking crack are free to try, -- if elected. - Granted, in "hundreds of years" far to many have succeeded.
We are long overdue for a general housecleaning of these bizarre 'legislators' and their equally weird laws.

Or maybe they were such dolts that they just didn't understand the term "miscreant behavior", and therefore didn't know how to clearly state that, "No miscreant behavior shall be infringed upon."

The first 14 Amendments pretty well outline what "shall not be infringed". The framers of those supreme laws were not dolts.

But this confuses me, as the same people who wrote these amendments also wrote reams of laws against "miscreant behavior".

Yep, men are funny that way. Power corrupts, and the power to prohibit corrupts [those who imagine they have it] absolutely.
That's why we have Constitutional restrictions on such powers. It's not confusing at all.

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