“You may not find use of technology to identify and locate these checkpoints ‘moral’ but as Martin Luther, Martin Luther King and many others in history have demonstrated opposing an immoral practice is right and necessary at times”.
Amazing; you are concerned about LOCAL police putting up DUI checkpoints based on drinking and driving problems at a LOCAL level, yet glorify a man that was responsible for doing away with states rights. You really should do your homework before you use a plagurizing, communist sympathizing, womanizing, non-Christian as a role model in a conservative blog relictele.(There are five aspects of the King career: his Communism, his violence, his plagiarism, the fact that he was a sexual predator who made Bildo Clinton, the Arkansas rapist, look like a cloistered monk; and the fact that he did not believe in Christianity.).
http://www.newswithviews.com/Stang/alan28.htm
(Pssssssst...you might want to look into the “legality” of federal civil rights legislation. I’m pretty sure the Founders would be dead against them).
“But to take up your reference for a moment, anyone who has dealt a little or a lot with the police whether they are on or off the job would hardly classify them as ‘God’s servants’ particularly in the case of one officer...”
How original, cop bashing based on someone that you knew of that didn’t live up to the responsibiliites of law enforcement.
Society in general would “classify” police officers as “God’s servants”.
They are selected from often times hundreds of applicants; given extensive mental/psychological, and physical evaluations, not to mention thorough background checks.
6 of “Gods servants” lost their lives in the line of duty in the two months here in the Pacific NW.
Just out of curiousity, since we’ve established that you’re not really concerned about constitutional rights, did a cop take away your doobie during a traffic stop?
1) You claim the Constitution is (or should be considered) a 'moral' document based on the writings and desires of one or more founding fathers.
2) If the 1st, 2nd, 4th, 5th and any other Amendments are integral parts of this Constitution then they are 'moral' as well as are the guarantees and protections contained therein.
3) Many, including me, believe that checkpoints or any other random (read: unreasonable) searches and seizures are a violation of the 4th Amendment and therefore immoral. The same would hold true of any attempt to stifle free speech rights or the right of free association.
4) If morality is a binary construct then to oppose any unconstitutional act is to oppose immorality. The goal, therefore, is to support and promote morality in the same spirit as the individuals and their ideas as cited by you.
That's it. That's all. Forget DUI, forget Twitter, forget iPhones. They are facts and circumstances and certainly part of our everyday lives but we are discussing principles and absolutism in terms of constitutional protections.
The Supreme Court has ruled that checkpoints are permissible provided they include advance notice, i.e., their locations are public knowledge. In my opinion the use of technology to increase this knowledge is equivalent to publishing it in a newspaper except it is far more efficient and current.
As for the remainder of your post, you are quite adept at moving the goalposts. First you claim the police are God's servants, then when factual evidence of their all-too-human failings is pointed out (strictly to counter your original contention) it's 'cop bashing' and you include some irrelevant tear-jerker about cops dying in the line of duty. Neither I nor anyone else has commented on cops' courage or lack thereof nor of their sacrifice. It's strictly a ploy meant, apparently, to introduce emotion to an otherwise logical argument. I am sorry, but your random fence-hopping between idealism and realism tends to invalidate your arguments on either side since the two are by definition mutually exclusive. Claiming to speak for 'society in general' is always a risky gambit given the almost infinite diversity of thought and opinion. The simple fact is you have no way of knowing what society in general thinks. If you wish to consider the police as 'God's servants' so be it but as you well know only God is omniscient can know what anyone and everyone are thinking at a precise moment in time.
As far as the police themselves are concerned, selection of personnel is hardly the science you claim it to be especially in smaller municipalities with limited budgets.
As for Martin Luther King he was cited only as an example of someone who at one time opposed an immoral practice. I did not and do not praise or glorify him as an individual (especially if he plagurized [sic]). I also referenced Martin Luther and could have used Gandhi, Jonah and many many others from history and/or the Bible. It was a shorthand reference not a celebration.
I'll not dignify your final (and fallacious) ad hominem attack with a response except to note that again you claim to speak for 'we' in the plural when you are expressing nothing more than your individual point of view and certainly not mine despite the use of the rhetorical device. As before it's a desperate, even cliched, tactic.
Any other information I've introduced has been by way of illustration and to provide a counter-argument. My concern was, is and will be the practices of the police as the most visible and tangible form of government as those practices relate to constitutional protections and violations thereof. I wish them no ill will or harm but they swear an oath to uphold those protections and my opinion in this instance they are violating that oath.