Re Post 138 - And the Battle of Lexington and Concord tells the tale there.
The Founding Fathers were all set to again negotiate with the King, trying to avoid fighting by all means. The Battle of Lexington and Concord only occurred when it was learned that instead of negotiating the King sent troops to, guess what, confiscate the colonists’ guns.
Well, that was the last straw for they knew that without guns they were totally subjugated to the King. Thus, fight’s on. Those guys had some serious cojones.
@interesteddad in reply to your post 136 as a government employee who is familiar with civil forfeiture laws I have to say that Rand Paul is correct. They are abused and the entire idea needs to be shelved.
If people were aware of how they were used there would be an outcry to end the practice.
@awcntdb Have you ever thought about running for political office? I’d vote for you!
^^ I am not the politician type. Anyway, I would fire half the workforce because they are essentially useless, but then I would be blamed for the temporary spike in unemployment even though the jobs were unproductive ones. Thanks for the vote though.
What expertise do you have in regard to defining half the government workforce as essentially useless and unproductive?
So then, Idad, am I to take it that Senator Cruz as indeed filed an amicus brief before the court against New York’s Stop and Frisk practice? He certainly talks a good game in the above quoted essay, I’ll give him that.
poetsheart:
Stop and frisk was challenged and ruled constitutional in the Supreme Court case Terry v. Ohio. They are known as “Terry searches”.
Terry v. Ohio was decided in 1968, two years before Ted Cruz was born. and twenty-seven years before he graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard Law School. So, he didn’t have an opportunity to write an amicus brief on that one. 
He still joins with Senators in filing briefs fairly often. I think the most recent one he’s actually written was last year in the successful Hobby Lobby challenge to the mandatory contraception coverage in Obamacare.
http://www.cruz.senate.gov/?p=press_release&id=840
Terry v. Ohio requires reasonable suspicion that a crime has been, is being, or is about to be committed.
NYC’s own documentation of stops proves they were not legally stopping these people.
At the height of stop and frisk in 2011 there were 685,724 stops, with 88% resulting in no conviction. So are the cops idiots or were they stopping people illegally?
I’ll let the elected officials of NYC and the state of New York worry about their policing. I’m sure that De Blasio and Cuomo will give the people of New York the leadership they voted for…
I believe the standard in Terry v. Ohio “reasonable suspicion” is far less than “probable cause” for an arrest. As I read the arguments in the case, the idea is that, when a police officer wishes to question someone, it is reasonable for them to quickly determine whether the individual has a concealed weapon.
As for whether NYC police properly applied those standards, I have no idea. With an average of 100 shootings a month so far in 2015, it would seem that DeBlasio’s policies, whatever they may be, aren’t working very well, but the people of NYC might be happy with that. I don’t know. NYC is pretty much like Baltimore.There’s pretty clear accountability if the voters are dissatisfied.
Oh, well then I guess that settles it, in which case, the Dread Scott ruling, Plessy vs. Ferguson, Korematsu vs U.S., etc., should still prevail, shouldn’t they? And goodness knows, all those challenges to The ACA should stop immediately, right?
Well, it settles it until somebody challenges it in a way that it sufficiently novel or compelling to get it considered by an appellate court and then accepted by the Supreme Court. A more effective approach could be implemented much more easily – elected officials putting in place policy/conditions such that the police simply cut back an active presence in neighborhoods that don’t want it. That kind of policy has, for example, been implemented in Baltimore.
Apparently, DeBlasio ran on with commitment to curtail stop and frisk in NYC and, press accounts suggest that he had done so:
http://nypost.com/2015/05/31/new-yorkers-plead-for-stop-and-frisk-amid-murder-surge/
I don’t understand what this conversation about police policy in NYC has to do with kids on college campuses being able to have guns.
"Is that a personal opinion on who’s doing all the shooting, or is there some source for it?:
It’s strictly anecdotal but I don’t hear stories of nut jobs recklessly shooting people over parking spaces, or talking too loud in a movie theater, or because a driver cut some one off on the highway in NY. I do hear stories in the news about incidents like that all the time when I am in Florida visiting my parents. Like every day. We don’t have Stand You Ground laws in NY, either, thank goodness.
Also, I am not worried about being caught up in gang shootings and I don’t engage in criminal behaviors which could get me shot. I am worried about the nutjobs with guns who think they are John Wayne and/or hot heads who shoot without thinking.
“2nd Amendment- no right to possess a gun.”
Guns are not banned in New York. We just have stricter regulations in NY.
I know that people always say stricter regulations mean only the “bad” guys have guns, but every “illegal” gun was once a legal gun which somehow got into the hands of a criminal. They don’t have a manufacturing plant all their own and the guns don’t get into their hands by osmosis, either. It’s easy for “bad” guys to get guns from states with little regulation and bring them into states with stricter regulations. See the incident in Rochester, NY last year (or the year before) The guy’s guns came from Virginia, iirc, purchased for him by a friend.
Again, if I were a benevolent dictator I would ban all guns for civilians. I don’t give a hoot about the 2nd amendment.
There are so many regulations that guns are defacto banned.
WOW. Luckily you enjoy the right under the 1st Amendment to say stuff like that.
You go ahead and live on your knees. I’ll stay on my feet, come what may.
There is no such thing as a “benevolent dictator.” Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Our Nation’s founders understood this and gave the people powerful tools to prevent abuse of power by the government. Freedom of speech, freedom of association, freedom of religion, the right to bear arms, the prohibition against unreasonable searches and seizures, the right not to bear witness against one’s self and the prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment - the founders did not view these as privileges conveyed by a benevolent government, but rather as natural rights that any legitimate government must recognize and honor. We’ve seen countless dictators throughout history, and one of the first things every dictator has done upon seizing power is to disarm the populace. You may not “give a hoot” about the 2nd Amendment and the right to bear arms, but I suspect you care a great deal about many of the other natural rights recognized by the Constitution like freedom of religion, freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. The 2nd Amendment ensures that “benevolent dictators” don’t turn into tyrants who strip away those Constitutional protections to ensure they never lose their grip on power.
That is exactly what the King thought and tried to act on in 1775 and see what happened to him and his empire! 
“There are so many regulations that guns are defacto banned.”
That is hogwash.
"You go ahead and live on your knees. I’ll stay on my feet, come what may. "
I’m not living on my knees. Good for you.
"There is no such thing as a “benevolent dictator.”
There is always a first for everything.
The 2nd Amendment ensures that “benevolent dictators” don’t turn into tyrants who strip away those Constitutional protections to ensure they never lose their grip on power."
I believe in our great experiment will continue for hundreds of years to come. I think it’s laughable that people with guns think that having them would prevent a tyrannical gov’t with the power of the US military behind them. I also disagree with the recent interpretation of the 2nd. Gun owners are not part of the militia. The 50 state’s National Guard are the 'militia." not Joe Nutjob with a stash of guns.
Interpretation of the rights granted to us are constantly evolving and there are no rights which are absolute.
I could answer your question from a personal perspective, but a qualitative rhetorical question is more revealing.
That is, in all seriousness, do you really think it requires some special expertise to look at current politicians’ behavior, the disregard for the ever-rising, destructive debt, and the ever-growing waste and corruption reported by the GAO et al to reach the conclusion that there are too many in government doing too much of the wrong things?
I posit that anyone who pays taxes and pays attention to how those taxes are spent can see there is a problem of size and scope. And this goes infinitely moreso for those who run companies and have to interface with government bureaucrats who have nothing to do with their products, but place useless regulations in the way - thus raising the cost to the consumer and reducing efficiency across the board, while producing exactly zero in the process. The only skills required are logical thinking, basic math skills, and an understanding that what that bureaucrat is doing is impeding your ability, not helping it.
One sure way to improve the above is to reduce the amount of bureaucrats in a position to do said actions to the people and businesses. So yes, getting rid of half is a good start.
On a side note, the first thing I thought of when I read your post was the former Czechoslovakia. In the throws of their rebellion in the late 80s and early 1990s, your post was exactly what the State was using to try and influence people to stick with the regime. During many of the gatherings that turned in riots essentially, the government would hand out leaflets asking the people that if they changed form of government who would guarantee that the buses would run on time and who would make sure the markets had food. Yep, the government was telling the people that the opposition seeking democratic freedom had no expertise in running the country.
Such a false choice the Czechoslovakian government was giving the people, freedom vs. oppressive expertise. Similar to what I think your question implies. Of course, we are not a military regime, but there are too many government people who do not want to follow the Constitution or what is best for individual citizens. Thus, the fewer of these bureaucrats the better.
The modern US military is one of the most dominant powers the world has seen, but the English military in 1776 was even more powerful. It was defeated by a rag-tag group of colonists with little to no military training. The Soviet Union and United States spent over 30 years trying to suppress armed insurgents in Afghanistan. We both failed. How effective has the US military, with its superior weapons systems, air and satellite support been in Iraq? In each of these cases, a world power’s military was unable to defeat a smaller insurgent force employing guerilla war tactics. Now consider this: if you were to combine the US military with every federal, state and local law enforcement agency, your force would represent less than 20% (probably less than 10%) of the able-bodied adult population. If smaller insurgent forces in Afghanistan and Iraq can frustrate the US military, how do you think the US military (and law enforcement agencies) would do when they’re outnumbered by at least 4-1 and possibly 9-1?
Alas, fear is a good thing.
The issue is not whether it would be a tough fight, but whether the would be tyrant would take the chance. Anyway, the entire idea is to have the tools to stop the tyrant before he gets fully rolling. One shot takes care of that.
Interesting how you assume the military are mindless and would just follow the tyrant - almost sounds like a government bureaucrat thinking he controls people. I put money that more than enough in the military would defy orders to attack the American people (it is their families no less) and someone in the military would take out the tyrant himself.
Numerically though, the US military does not stand a chance against the number of individuals with guns. Not even close, and the military knows it.
“The modern US military is one of the most dominant powers the world has seen, but the English military in 1776 was even more powerful. It was defeated by a rag-tag group of colonists with little to no military training.”
If you think it could happen today (remember we spend more money on the military than the next 19 biggest spending countries combined) good luck to you.