Where We’re Headed…

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I have a feeling that Refusenik types like me will be the next crop to be harvested. (The first being overt “threats” to the government.)

Everything’s already in place; the circle is closing. Soon it will be impossible to pretend we still live in an even semi-free country. 

I try to practice avoidance – for example, not flying anymore to avoid being scanned/felt up. But I know that eventually, it will be impossible – illegal – to avoid being scanned (and much else, besides). For example, they are going to require us all to carry a biometric National ID card – not merely a driver’s license. Without it, you will be unable to function (legally) and be subject to arrest merely for going about your peaceful, harming no one else business without it. Just wait. 

The choice will be: Become an outlaw – or submit.

We got a taste of this with gun control laws. The choice was: Comply with “the law” and render yourself defenseless, or become a Felon Walking for daring to refuse to comply by retaining a gun for self-defense. People who were harming no one – and exercising their basic human right to self-defense – were criminalized at the stroke of a pen. 

It was an easier choice to make, though, because as a practical matter your chances of being caught in defiance of “the law” were very slim and your illicit possession of a gun would probably only become an issue if you were forced to use the gun – in which case, better to be alive and dealing with “breaking the law” than dead but “law-abiding.”

But what happens when “the law” requires everyday, inescapable evidence of submission and compliance? When you have to submit to a scan/grope before entering a public building, such as the DMV or a courthouse, say?  

“The law” already requires submission to random roadblocks. Is it a stretch to imagine “the law” will take the next logical step and require us to submit to scans/gropes at these random roadblocks? What possible argument – based on existing legal precedent – can be made against it? Everything that matters has already been conceded. You, as an individual, no longer have any meaningful 4th Amendment rights when you are in your vehicle or on public roads. The Supremes have said so. You have given “implied consent” to random stops, interrogations and de facto searches.

Oh yes, there is still the fiction of probable cause prior to an actual search. But it is just that – fiction. “Probable cause” amounts to I want to search your vehicle. Virtually any pretext given after the fact will be sustained by the Volksgerichthof. Refuse the search and the cops will likely detain you anyhow – then search you anyway. Ask around. Check out YouTube. See for yourself. Here are some recent samples:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fizo-sOSE6o&feature=player_embedded#!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRWxm_oJfx8&feature=player_embedded#!

All it takes is being “uncooperative” – which amounts to such things as declining to answer the cop’s questions, or – much more dangerous – daring to question anything he does or demands of you. Do that, and expect the modern equivalent of a wood shampoo via Tazering.   

Imagine what will happen when they scale down the airport scanners and can mount them in a vehicle – like a cop car. There won’t be any “opting out,” then.

The point is, we (the lowing, beef-headed, football and celebrity obsessed oblivions who now constitute a working majority of the Anerican public) have already conceded the point. Everything that matters has been given up and gone for years – long before 9/11. In the name of the “war” on drugs, we accepted outrageous invasions of our private lives. For the sake of “getting drunks off the road” and “seatbelt safety checkpoints,” we cheered random dragnets that subject every motorist on the road to an East German Stasi-like once-over and ihre papierien, bitte!

Safety, safety – always more safety. In exchange for less and less freedom – and human dignity, too.

No longer can you enter the world as a man (or for that matter, a woman). As captains of our destinies, masters of our fates – beholden to none, free to go in peace. And even more important, able to talk back, to refuse, to question – and to demand to be left in peace if we’re not doing anything to cause harm to anyone else. 

We are all children now – fearful, obedient – and to be punished, if we’re not.

No freedom to make our own way and depend upon our own good judgment. We will be told what to do – and how and when. The “why” no longer concerns us. 

No more live – and let live. 

Submit. Obey. 

That is the New American – and the New America.

Throw it in the Woods?

14 COMMENTS

  1. I don’t agree with everything you say Eric, but in this post my agreement is 100%.

    Alas, I think we can all see the writing on the wall for humankind in the approaching years…
    Severe oppression (martial law)
    Global nuclear war
    More severe oppression
    The banning of religion

    I have sincerely tried to urge my brother, applicable to all thinking people, to abandon the city, even to abandon the US which it seems will be the storm-center, prior to the nuclear holocaust that appears to be fast approaching.

    Thanks for this article. I will try to placard it anywhere I think I may have the right to post.

    • Roger all that – agreement is not demanded (only a thinking response; which only a few Clovers can’t seem to gin up).

      We left an urban area back in 2004 because my Spider Sense was starting to tingle. The advent of The Chimp and his security state presaged the end of the country, in my opinion.

      The beginning is just starting, I think.

      • You must have seen 12 monkeys w/Bruce Willis . 😉
        I guess you did not need to wait for the other eleven to show up. 🙂
        ========================================================
        The White Mountains (John Christopher, © 1967) is an interesting book. In a nutshell, 3 teenagers are trying to escape to the mountains to be free from the tripods who control most important aspects of their society.

  2. The sad thing is even the older cops are afraid of the new breed of steroidal enraged enforcers. In my work I have had a lot of interactions with great cops and they hate the way this newer group will escalate situations for no reason. They have no ability or will to be anything except act like an occupying force. We may all live in Gaza soon!

    • Hey Bruce,

      I think you’re on to something there. I know a state cop; he’s about my age (40s) and not a dick. He even warned me about a “new guy” who is patrolling the county – a young guy – who’s passing out 60 in a 55 speeding tickets like confetti. I personally think the militarization of law enforcement is part of the problem. Ex-Army people, having spent years in Iraq or Afghanistan – where they learn the tactics of a brutal occupying force – come home, become cops and deploy the same mindset and tactics here.

      I think when the SHTF there will be a parting of the ways between cops like my neighbor and the New Breed.

  3. “The law” already requires submission to random roadblocks. Is it a stretch to imagine “the law” will take the next logical step and require us to submit to scans/gropes at these random roadblocks?

    Nope; it’s already happening at ‘no refusal’ DWI checkpoints in Texas and Florida, where an onsite rent-a-judge issues a jakeleg warrant for cops to throw you down and forcibly extract a blood sample to back up the Breathalyzer evidence. So much for ‘happy motoring’ …

    You’re quite right that the key concessions in abandoning all Fourth Amendment rights in public were made well before 9/11. But functionally, the USA Patriot Act is a declaration of martial law, indefinitely suspending the constitution owing to an emergency.

    Needless to say, a government unrestrained by a constitution is extremely dangerous. It’s only a matter of time until some new event leads to more drastic crackdowns. An obvious conclusion is that this isn’t really a safe place to live.

    • “Texas and Florida, where an onsite rent-a-judge issues a jakeleg warrant for cops to throw you down and forcibly extract a blood sample”

      Seriously?

      • Yes. The courts have already upheld this under “implied consent.”

        “But I’m proud to be an American, where at least I know I’m freeeeeee…. “

  4. I’d like nothing better than to just write about cars, do my work/projects around the house and enjoy the good life. I try to maintain perspective. But sometimes, I feel as though I’m screaming at a crowd of deaf people. How is that so many millions so blithely accept such outrages as being scanned/groped by TSA baboons – and don’t see it as conditioning, as training them to get used to the sort of “your papers, please!” degradations that were routine in places like East Germany and the old Soviet Union? This mentality of submission appalls me. Just bark “we’re fighting for freedom” and “protecting” you – and almost anything goes. They are literally in our pants now. How much farther will it go?

    And that’s just the civil liberties aspect. The economic aspect of current-day America is just as appalling. From heaf cayuh “reform” to the Fed’s bankster bailouts – where does it end?

    I wonder how much time we have left?

    • Very well articulated Eric, time will tell that history wil repeat itself over and over right here to the dismay of those who saw it on the horizon, like yourself.

      Eric, you are genuine stand-up guy, a clone of which everyman needs to have as his next door neighbor and every workin’ stiff’s pub buddy, together pushing back against the waves of abounding ignorance…

      Just perhaps Eric, you are ‘missing out on some of your calling’: To write much more on behalf of Lady Liberty from your unique perspectives, exposing the many facets of the duplicity and treachery surrounding each of our lives?

  5. Eric,
    I’ve long enjoyed your outside the box, amusing style of writing in reviews of the automotive world.

    But today, wading through and rereading again, your sorely needed 270degree detour into “Where We’re Headed” causes me to pause for a long introspective look as to what will life be like if…and what would I do when…

    Reality check : a cold, hard, Orwellian future apparently lies ahead. Must..not..ignore..the handwriting already on the wall – which you covered quite well in this post, Eric. Didn’t previously ever think of you as a ‘refusenik’ in any sense, but it demonstrates you are a thinking, libertarian man with his eyes wide open.

    To fall back acting as an ostrich or a sheeple about these things certainly would be a gravely erroneous position to take. Knowledge with regards to what the Constitution really says,and ‘know thy enemy’, seeking to learn basic ‘urban survival skills’, planning, and taking peaceable action -but action none the less to secure ones life, loved ones and livelihood would be a far saner and productive start.

    Its a well worn cliche but holds up very well to scrutiny for relevance today: “Prepare for the worse, but hope for the best.”

    – Benjamin Franklin well and accurately said “He who desires to voluntarily give up ‘a little liberty’ for the sake of a little selfish safety, deserves neither.”

    We cannot let the flame of true Liberty and Divine Providence over our lives ever be extinguished from our hearts, even when the SHTF day fully arrives.

    And we will be forced to drive (uggh), you will be made to review, some 21st century version of Gubmint Motors roller-skates not unlike the Yugo and Lada of the recent past. God help us all; please Lord.

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