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Yeller: His job isn't to nitpick over things that don't matter, such as tinted tail lights. It's to prevent crime by actively researching suspicious activity.
AMGoff: So you're ok with your wife being raped and your children being murdered. As long as the culprit is eventually caught. You say that is "Your America." I'd appreciate not being stacked in a mold of "you want to take away my freedoms and make me do things your way". No one in this country is more for individual freedom than I am. As long as certain fundamental rules are followed. Don't steal from anyone. Don't hurt anyone. Whatever else you do, I don't really care because if you follow those two rules it doesn't affect me. There are people throughout society, however, that are unable to follow those rules and who must be watched. A simple traffic stop which results in nothing but the checking of an identification is NOT INVASIVE. Your car wasn't searched, you weren't ticketed, nothing was taken from you, you weren't arrested, transported or told to do anything other than take five minutes out of your day to help ensure the safety of the community. How is that a bad thing? You want ultimate freedom and liberty and yet you're unwilling to sacrifice a few minutes of your precious life to make sure that every other deserving person is allowed their own freedoms. Skewed thinking, to say the least. A simple question and answer session with a few suspicious people a day would go a long way to prevent your "necessary" rapes and murders but you don't want even that to happen.
Yeller: His job isn't to nitpick over things that don't matter, such as tinted tail lights. It's to prevent crime by actively researching suspicious activity.
EXACTLLYYY!!!! his job isnt to nitpick over things that dont matter! like a damn liscense plate cover!
Yes.. you've nailed it.. I'm all for my wife getting raped.... come on... Living life worrying about every and anything that could possibly happen isn't a very good life. "My America" is a euphemism, let me make it clearer - the way I view America as it should be, which just happens to be the way it was for many, many years before government felt it must make it's presence known in every aspect of our lives. With my particular situation, as far as I'm concerned I wasn't doing anything suspicious. Had the cop seen me parked somewhere or meeting someone, or running in and out of some house, then that would be cause for suspicion... but simply driving? That's absurd. I also wonder had I been in some beater I would have been left alone. But no, I was in a nice car... so obviously I either bought the car with dirty money or I had enough money to indulge in questionable substances. Regardless of that... there was no reason why I was going to explain myself to this person when I had done nothing wrong, you may disagree with me, but it was none of his damn business. That badge is a symbol of the public's trust for that person to uphold the law... not be the law or be above the law. The last time I checked there is no law stating I can't drive my car... so as far as I'm concerned pulling me or anyone over for that is an abuse. If we allow police to start doing whatever they want based on nothing more than fleeting assumptions then we effectively become a police state. That entire premise is just as absurd as the concept of "preemptive" war.... which oddly enough, just from our conversation, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if you supported that as well, since it's but a mere extension of preemptive police actions.
EXACTLLYYY!!!! his job isnt to nitpick over things that dont matter! like a damn liscense plate cover!
...which is why you're not paying a fine on it. You don't understand that he used that as a tool to check your legitimacy as person, that he didn't care about the license plate cover and didn't ticket you for it because he was only using a tool given to him to look for real problems. He didn't care about the license plate cover. He cared about the possibility of the driver having a warrant. You didn't. Your freedom was sustained. It had nothing to do with the license plate cover, it had everything to do with seeing if you were wanted by the courts. He used the license plate cover to check you out and make sure you weren't causing trouble or wanted the same way you used a screwdriver to put the license plate cover on. As a tool, nothing more, nothing less.
Yes.. you've nailed it.. I'm all for my wife getting raped.... come on... Living life worrying about every and anything that could possibly happen isn't a very good life. "My America" is a euphemism, let me make it clearer - the way I view America as it should be, which just happens to be the way it was for many, many years before government felt it must make it's presence known in every aspect of our lives. With my particular situation, as far as I'm concerned I wasn't doing anything suspicious. Had the cop seen me parked somewhere or meeting someone, or running in and out of some house, then that would be cause for suspicion... but simply driving? That's absurd. I also wonder had I been in some beater I would have been left alone. But no, I was in a nice car... so obviously I either bought the car with dirty money or I had enough money to indulge in questionable substances. Regardless of that... there was no reason why I was going to explain myself to this person when I had done nothing wrong, you may disagree with me, but it was none of his damn business. That badge is a symbol of the public's trust for that person to uphold the law... not be the law or be above the law. The last time I checked there is no law stating I can't drive my car... so as far as I'm concerned pulling me or anyone over for that is an abuse. If we allow police to start doing whatever they want based on nothing more than fleeting assumptions then we effectively become a police state. That entire premise is just as absurd as the concept of "preemptive" war.... which oddly enough, just from our conversation, I wouldn't be terribly surprised if you supported that as well, since it's but a mere extension of preemptive police actions.
Sooooooo our only concern is WHERE the line of suspicion is drawn. As far as you're concerned you weren't doing anything suspicious. As far as HE was concerned you were. Alright. We're getting somewhere here.
i'm with you AMGoff ... Live Free Or Die!
(born and raised in NH and proud of it too!)
i also agree with what ewill3rd said about having a stock car so it's not a target i've only lowered my 97 cav an inch or so (only really noticeable if i'm next to another cav)
and spyder... please cool it with the emotional straw man rape case... please
it's not a good debate tactic (unless you're trying to win over the foxnews crowd or the quarter of the country that still approves of the president and his administration)
well as far as im concerned, id consider that harrasment, to a light extent. He pulled me over because he automatically profiled me when he saw my car. ok, so he pulled me over to check that i was legitimate citizen or whatever. I work in retail, how do u think the customers would feel if i asked to see an ID when they used a credit card, BUT i only asked minorities, such as asians, mexicans, or african americans...yea theyd be pissed. same thing, its profiling, and it should be illegal.
Sooooooo our only concern is WHERE the line of suspicion is drawn. As far as you're concerned you weren't doing anything suspicious. As far as HE was concerned you were. Alright. We're getting somewhere here.
Oh my friend... that's not our only concern here. My entire point of saying that was to show that all this cop saw was me driving nothing more nothing less. Even if he had seen me coming out of some house I would still take just as much issue with him pulling me over as I had still not violated any traffic laws. Frankly.. as far as I'm concerned, this cop better have seen me handing money/drugs over to someone in exchange for drugs/money for him to have stopped me. The fact remains he pulled me over for nothing. I see something horribly wrong with that and you don't. We could probably delve even further into what we both see as to what his true motives were for the entire situation. Regardless of that... it comes down to the fact that what you view as part of his job, I view as harassment. What you view as nothing more than a minor inconvenience, I view as an invasion of privacy. It doesn't matter how minor it was... once we start letting these things happen it becomes precedent and then the entire debate turns to where do we draw the line... unwarranted police actions, wire tappings, preemptive wars... what's acceptable, what's unacceptable?
The bottom line is, once we start debating where to draw the line then we've effectively conceded that the liberties so many have given their lives for are already being taken from us and that we're okay with that.
You might be okay with that... I just know that I'm not, nor will I ever be. I will never trade liberty for security, but maybe that's just me...
The part I find so amazing is that so many people can read the minds of the police officers that are pulling them over.
Are these cops actually saying "I pulled you over because you are in a Cadillac"?
I respect everyone's viewpoint, I'd just like to say that when you look back 20 years from now I'd best most of you will feel differently.
I know I do about when the cops were harassing me when I was in my late teens and early 20's.
40 is just around the corner for me.
I am one of those grumpy old guys who listens to talk radio and worries about elections. I am also obligated to hate what the young people are listening to and make fun of how they dress.
Don't hate me for it! lol
__________________ Views expressed by the author of this post do not necessarily represent those of the Lindsay Automotive Group.
I put a tinted plate cover on my 71 Camaro the day I bought the car and later that same night I got pulled over for it. He gave me the option of taking it off or getting a ticket. I took it off. I wasn't doing anything suspicious either. Just driving down the road. When he pulled me over I fully expected him to write me up for my LOUD exhaust, but he didn't even mention it. I knew the tinted cover was illegal in GA, but put it on anyways because I thought it looked good. I didn't think twice about him pulling me over for it. He was enforcing a law. End of story. Didn't matter if I was doing anything suspicious or not, he had the right to stop me for it. Him following you for a few blocks may have been him running your plate (if your cover was like mine you could still see the characters in the day) to see if there was anything outstanding on the vehicle or owner. And to say he was profiling or didn't have the right to check your info is just dumb. He had a perfectly good reason to pull you over, so there's no profiling involved. And once a cop stops you, there's very few times when they won't check your info. You'd be amazed at how may people that get stopped for simple traffic violations have expired licenses, ooutstanding warrants, or have broken another law in some other way (like DUI). "Preventative Maintenance" is a great way of putting it. This country would be a lot shittier than it is now if law enforcers all waited for crimes to be committed rather than attempting to stop them before they happen if they are able.
