We decided to have an Open Mic Day. Many people here have talked about everything but the thread topic. When that happens, that usually means that you all have something on your mind that you need to talk about. So…here’s your chance. Put it here and let’s try to keep the threads to topic, or semi topic, if at all possible. Let’s roll.

65 Thoughts to “Open Mic Day”

  1. Lucky Duck

    Court ruling after ruling has set the law down. Driving is not a right that is guaranteed to all.
    Its a privilege that is earned via age and a test and kept based upon behavior standards set by society. Yeah, you can ride your bike, skateboard or anything else you want but you drive your car, you’d better have a license or you face the consequences that the public has decided you need to face so you don’t endanger everyone else.

    You do not legally have to carry ID walking around and nobody claims that is so. But to operate your vehicle under the privilege of driving, Virginia State law requires it. You don’t like it, don’t drive or move elsewhere.

  2. Lucky Duck

    So are we to assume that Black or Hispanic officers target Whites for enforcement? How do you account for that?

  3. More Authoritarian Psycho-Babble to get you to believe you need their permission to live your life. Most people would probably be ok with a drivers license being reduced to a paper card you get showing you completed a course somewhere. Unfortunately, most people have been terrorized into believing that we need a driver’s license to double as ID or else all the crazies would run rampant all over our neighborhoods. Much like the false ‘war on terror’, the Authoritarian Types use the same psychological approach. They terrorize you with false boogie-men in order to get you to give them more power over your life.

    A driver’s license should be just that…a driver’s license…and nothing more. But the Authoritarian Types have got us all believing that the sky will fall if it doesn’t also allow them to ID us. You’ve got to hand it to them. They’re good at what they do. After the next massive terrorist attack they’ll definitely try to trick us into having chips implanted. And who will have the courage to protest after Al Queda has killed hundreds of thousands of people? Hell, they tricked us into swallowing that crap called the ‘Patriot Act’ and 7 years later, we still haven’t reclaimed our freedom.

    Black and Hispanic officers are just as racist as their white counterparts if not more so. Racism is deeply ingrained in the psyche. You pick it up from the world around you without even knowing it. Back in the days of slavery, it was often the house slaves who would inform the master when the field slaves had a plan to escape. Their modern day equivalent, Black and Hispanic officers, have carried on this ignoble tradition. You could say it was a generational affair, passed on from parent to child.

  4. Red Dawn,

    The primary job of Police is to collect revenue for the state. They are glorified tax collectors.

    They actually have quotas they have to meet!

    Radar guns are just another tool they use to steal our money.

    Radar guns don’t make cops color blind. They just give them more ammunition to use against all of us. If a cop is on the corner with a radar gun and sees someone going 5 MPH over the speed limit, he’ll let them go if they’re white. But if it’s an expensive car full of young black males, this might happen:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RGe8fJ597w

  5. Isn’t Justice supposed to be blind?

    Alabama judge’s son gets special treatment for felony drug bust:
    http://www.capcityfreepress.com/opinion295

  6. Moon-howler

    Personalizing ‘they’ makes it seem like a conspiracy to have your license used as something else other than a permit to drive a car. I prefer to think of it as government and corporate streamlining . Many people reject the notion of a national ID. Since the driver’s license now replaces that concept, it can never more be just a paper card saying you past a test, or more accurately, have the government’s permission to drive.

    Before 9/11 and before DHS came into existence, a license was not nearly the big deal it is now.

  7. Mando

    Step away from the youtube Mackie. Get outside. Take a breath.

  8. Mando

    “Radar guns are just another tool they use to steal our money. ”

    If in “our” you mean the asshats flying down the residential street my house sits on then GOOD.

  9. Elena

    Mackie,
    In the beginning of Anti you were a staunch supporter of Chief Deane. What happened?

  10. Moon-howler

    Mando, I have to agree with you on that one.

  11. Elena,

    I think Chief Deane is a decent guy but I never forget that his interests and my interests are not the same and sometimes in conflict.

    I don’t know why you want to make this about Chief Deane since I almost never talk about him. Perhaps you’re trying to shift the debate onto more favorable ground.

    As to ‘what happened?’ I have to ask why are you in denial as to the fact that the police, as an institution, is not here to protect you? Every once in a while, they do something nice for you, but they are here to protect and serve the powers that be. They are here to protect the ruling class. They have every incentive to do so. Their paychecks depend upon it. Their promotions depend upon it. Their pensions depend upon it. They have mortgages to pay too.

    But you actually believe they will forsake all of that, they’ll put all of that at risk, in order to protect your constitutional rights?

  12. M-H,

    Mando, I have to agree with you on that one.

    M-H, be a leader. Not a follower. Or at least be original.

  13. Elena

    Mackie,
    I disagree with you on the intent of law enforcement. Your world view is very different from mine, that is clear to me. This is what I believe about my police force and Chief Deane exemplifies that kind of honor to me.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AT4iNhp59nE&feature=channel_page

    When it would have been easy to agree with the mob mentality, Chief Deane stood up to the Board and told them his view of their resolution, that it would have dangerous unintended consequences.

  14. Elena,

    I don’t deny that there might be very good people working in the law enforcement field. But I’m talking about the institution as a whole.

    You can sum up the police by what they do. They have no legal obligation to help anyone. The Supreme Court has ruled so. However, in many departments they are required to generate revenue for the state by filling quotas for traffic tickets. But every minute they spend generating state revenue, is one less minute they are cruising through our neighborhoods preventing crime.

    So why does generating revenue for the state come before making people safer? Because that is their primary purpose. They keep ‘order’. But it is an order that suits the ruling class. If we underlings get too rowdy and restless, like at the DNC or the RNC, the ruling class lets loose their hired guns. Then they charge us with crimes we didn’t commit in order to stop people from protesting.

    It’s amazing that the kinds of things that happened at the DNC and RNC are allowed to happen. In 2004, a group of journalist activists called I-witness video handed out videocameras to anyone who would carry them and bring back footage. Using that footage they were able to have about 400 cases thrown out of court. That’s 400 people the police charged with crimes for exercising their constitutional rights. In case after case, they caught police lying through their teeth in their reports.

    Elena, tell me, how can anyone possibly defend against police officers fabricating charges in their police reports?

    And if you can’t defend against it, how can you possibly embrace the illusion that the police actually are here for your safety. God knows how many lives these people have ruined with their lies. The word of a cop should never be enough to convict anyone.

    Maybe you need to find a way to push the envelope in terms of exercising your rights and then come back and tell me how the cops are here to protect us. Watch the Real Video Stream of this Democracy Now episode exposing how the police doctored evidence and fabricated charges against innocent people at the 2004 RNC protest. It’s 49 minutes long but well worth it.

    http://www.democracynow.org/2005/4/14/ny_law_enforcement_caught_doctoring_video

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