[supercat]

So to reverse the question, why would you want to completely deny this constitutionally valid tool from being used by trained officers?

The primary reason the cops receive so-called consent for such searches is that people perceive that the cop will make their life miserable if they don't consent. There are enough cops who behave in such behavior that such a belief on the part of citizens is emminently reasonable.

So-called "consent searches" should be forbidden for the same reason that even consensual sexual relationships are forbidden at most companies and universities between people who are in a boss-subordinate or teacher-student relationship. There is a clear imbalance of power, and there is no way to tell whether the subordinate person is freely consenting to the other person's behavior or whether they are going along with it because they feel intimidated.

[Mr. Silverback]

I know it has been almost a week since I posted this thread, but I had to wait for the sense of the surreal to wear off. “Surreal,” you ask? Yes, indeed, because if a visitor from another planet dropped in and read this thread, they would believe that these Earthlings called “conservatives” consider the conservative, duly-elected and recallable Sheriff of Milwaukee County to be a greater threat to public safety and freedom than a huge batch of murderous thugs. The paranoid rantings in this thread could (with minor editing) have been dropped into any speech by Dick “The Justice Department is in a conspiracy to stock the bench with evil judges” Durbin or Howard “If Bush gets re-elected, little girls won’t be able to go to school in America anymore” Dean.

There is nobody who is more pro-2nd Amendment than me. That’s why your posts disturb me. They are little different from posts claiming we have no real free speech not because we can’t yell, “FIRE!” in a crowded theater, but because an usher might throw a felon out of the cineplex for yelling “FIRE!” in a crowded theater. It was like reading a DU parody of FR, especially when budwiesest told us we can assume that “elder members in a gang” can be counted on to keep the other felons in line. Wow, that would make me feel safer, giving the protection of the Constitution over to the folks who oversee crack sales. Is that what the farmers at Lexington were dying for?

If we’re going to use the word “Gestapo” to describe officers asking you to do a search (ever heard of the Gestapo asking permission to do anything?) then why not apply the word to warrant searches? If we’re going to reject their use of a Constitutional tool because some nasty cop might abuse it, then why not take the guns away from the police? After all, I’m sure there are rogue cops who misuse their pistols.

Sure I would like it if every law-abiding citizen in Milwaukee bought a gun and knew how to use it, because more guns(owned by citizens and not criminals)=less crime. Sure, I agree that you should feel free to refuse a search of your vehicle. But the way we will protect the 2nd Amendment is by winning the argument by showing the bankruptcy and un-Constitutionality of gun control, not by hamstringing law enforcement. If the text of this thread indicates the sort of arguments you folks are using outside this forum, you might as well start sending donations to Jim and Sarah Brady and make it a complete package. You don’t sound like defenders of the Constitution, you sound like you work for the ACLU but momentarily forgot that they don’t like guns.