Bloomberg's Police State. Not yet...

[Feuer Frei!]

The Mayor will have to wait a little longer to get his Police State up and running.

Or so it seems:

A U.S. judge ruled on Monday the New York Police Department's "stop-and-frisk" crime-fighting tactic was unconstitutional, dealing a stinging rebuke to Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who vowed to appeal the ruling.

SOURCE (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/12/us-usa-newyork-police-idUSBRE97B0FK20130812)

[Wolferz]

Bloomberg should have been stopped and frisked every time he walked out his door. Just so he would know what it was like to be harassed without genuine probable cause.
Props to the judge.:up:

[Skybird]

"People also have a right to walk down the street without being killed or mugged," he said at a news conference.


No, Sir, there is no such right. The right that exists - or at least should exist in form of a law - is that people have the freedom to defend themselves against a killer or mugger, and to resist to getting killed or mugged.

A small but very important difference with significant consequences.

That right is a natural right, turning it into a law is a mere formality.

Why is this important? It is important because human rights and the likes often are misunderstood to be something of non-material, idealized format. That way, they remain vague, sometimes self-contradictory, and can even assist in damaging the cause they claim to stand up for. But truth is: such rights - human rights - and all other rights in the end can only be clearly understood and precisely defined if seeing them as property rights.


Liberals generally wish to preserve the concept of "rights" for such
"human" rights as freedom of speech, while denying the concept to
private property.' And yet, on the contrary the concept of "rights"
only makes sense as property rights. For not only are there no human
rights which are not also property rights, but the former rights lose their
absoluteness and clarity and become fuzzy and vulnerable when property
rights are not used as the standard.

In the first place, there are two senses in which property rights are
identical with human rights: one, that property can only accrue to humans,
so that their rights to property are rights that belong to human beings;
and two, that the person's right to his own body, his personal liberty, is a
property right in his own person as well as a "human right." But more
importantly for our discussion, human rights, when not put in terms of
property rights, turn out to be vague and contradictory, causing liberals
to weaken those rights on behalf of "public policy" or the "public good."

[WernherVonTrapp]

Originally Posted by The Ethics of Freedom, chapter 15 (M. Rothbard)
Liberals generally wish to preserve the concept of "rights" for such
"human" rights as freedom of speech, while denying the concept to
private property.' And yet, on the contrary the concept of "rights"
only makes sense as property rights. For not only are there no human
rights which are not also property rights, but the former rights lose their
absoluteness and clarity and become fuzzy and vulnerable when property
rights are not used as the standard.

In the first place, there are two senses in which property rights are
identical with human rights: one, that property can only accrue to humans,
so that their rights to property are rights that belong to human beings;
and two, that the person's right to his own body, his personal liberty, is a
property right in his own person as well as a "human right." But more
importantly for our discussion, human rights, when not put in terms of
property rights, turn out to be vague and contradictory, causing liberals
to weaken those rights on behalf of "public policy" or the "public good."

The Proverbial "Wolf" in sheep's clothing.

[Bubblehead1980]

While I like the policy as it's effective , non pc, and targets the areas(heavily non white) where the crime happens, thus the large number of non whites stopped and frisked, I am glad the judge ruled against it, it is unconstitutional, and should never be considered acceptable.

[Ducimus]

Bloomberg is seriously the "Evil Mr Rodgers" from the movie Demolition man. Hell they even look alike. Image search "demolition man, Cocteau" as your keywords.

http://soentertain.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/cocteau-bloomberg.jpg

[Wolferz]

Bloomberg is seriously the "Evil Mr Rodgers" from the movie Demolition man. Hell they even look alike. Image search "demolition man, Cocteau" as your keywords.

http://soentertain.me/wp-content/uploads/2012/06/cocteau-bloomberg.jpg

Given their way, these two would fine you for cussing, make you listen to old television ad jingles and make you eat at Taco Bell. Moderate servings of course.

Who wants to be in a popsicle prison? That's where I would be because a cussing law would bankrupt me.

[Skybird]

Bloomberg is seriously the "Evil Mr Rodgers" from the movie Demolition man. Hell they even look alike. Image search "demolition man, Cocteau" as your keywords.

Actually that was a solid comedy that Sly did there. And yes, when thinking on political correctness, that movie occasionally has jumped into the focus of my thoughts...

[Onkel Neal]

https://www.propublica.org/article/philadelphia-homicide-surge?utm_source=sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=majorinvestigations&utm_content=feature

“I know they’re actively stopping people. Maybe I shouldn’t carry this gun today because I don’t want to get caught.”

This approach didn’t necessarily require steep sentences for being caught with an illegal gun. In the phrasing of the late criminologist Mark Kleiman, the key to deterrence was that punishment be swift and certain, not that it be severe.

It doesn't make sense to me, if you have laws against illegal guns, enforce them fully. It's not a housekeeping action, it's crime prevention.


The decline in violent crime in Philadelphia was not nearly as attention-getting as those in New York City and Los Angeles, but it was impressive in its own right. Between 1990 and 2007, Philadelphia averaged 382 homicides per year. Beginning in 2008 the numbers dropped steadily, and in 2013 and 2014, the city registered fewer than 250 killings each year. The decline coincided with a notable upgrade of the city’s prospects: the rejuvenation of Center City, the resumption of population growth. “I believe that there are some people probably still alive today because of many of the things we did back in those days,” said Michael Nutter, who served as mayor from 2008 to 2016.

In 2007, Philadelphia elected Nutter, a technocratic Black Democrat who put public safety at the heart of his campaign. “I talked about violence and talked about crime. And I talked about how it was ripping out the heart and soul of the city of Philadelphia,” he said in an interview for this article. “Too many people were dying in our city.”

The department adopted another approach in those years, too: the stop-and-frisk tactic most closely associated with New York City. In 2009, the year after Nutter and Ramsey took charge, the number of pedestrian stops by police nearly doubled from where it had been in 2007, to more than 250,000. Nutter said the goal was straightforward. “What I wanted was a change in behavior by folks who might normally carry a gun,” he said. “It’s a very simple theory: You can’t shoot somebody if you don’t have your gun.” Nutter said he wanted habitual gun carriers to think, before they left the house, “I know they’re actively stopping people. Maybe I shouldn’t carry this gun today because I don’t want to get caught.”

This approach didn’t necessarily require steep sentences for being caught with an illegal gun. In the phrasing of the late criminologist Mark Kleiman, the key to deterrence was that punishment be swift and certain, not that it be severe.

But not everyone was persuaded by Nutter’s justification of stop-and-frisk. In 2010, a team of civil rights lawyers brought a lawsuit against the police department, alleging that officers were disproportionately stopping Black and Latino residents. A year later, the department agreed to a consent decree requiring that officers make stops only when they have reasonable suspicion that a suspect is armed, dangerous and engaged in criminal conduct, and that the stops not be based on race or ethnicity.

Even as the police became more restrained in their stops, the city’s homicide tally fell to levels not seen in decades. The decrease mirrored what was happening nationally. Notably, the national decline had continued through the Great Recession, confounding the notion that violent crime was driven by economic distress.

During this period, the city experienced another major shift in leadership. In early 2017, the city’s district attorney, Seth Williams, was indicted on federal corruption charges. (He later pleaded guilty to bribery and served almost three years in prison.)

Among those running to replace him was an unlikely contender: civil rights attorney Larry Krasner, who had made his name bringing countless cases against the police department. Krasner ran on a revolutionary platform, pledging to overhaul from within a local criminal justice system that had left Philadelphia with some of the highest incarceration rates in the country. “Justice makes you safer,” Krasner said in announcing his campaign. “How do we achieve that? Well, number one, we have to decarcerate. We have to get people out of jail.”

Oh lord.

[Sean C]

No, Sir, there is no such right. The right that exists - or at least should exist in form of a law - is that people have the freedom to defend themselves against a killer or mugger, and to resist to getting killed or mugged.

Wrong. At least in the United States.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.

I don't know about other countries, but in the U.S. we actually do have the right to not be killed or mugged. And those rights were granted to us by our Creator - so no man can take them away, by law or otherwise. Seems rather common-sense to me, but I'm glad our Founding Fathers felt the need to put it in writing.

Our Constitution does not actually grant us any rights. It prevents anyone from taking them from us. And our courts have ruled that since these rights are: 1) granted by the "Creator" (who/whatever that is); 2) applicable to all men; and 3) unalienable - that these rights apply even to non-citizens. So, even if you do not have the right to life in your own country, you have it here.

The fact that various governmental entities are illegally violating these rights is the very point of the article linked above. And this is just one example among many.

Further, and to the point of this thread: everyone in the U.S. has the right "to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, [this right] shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."

[Ashikaga]

Blaming a Mayor for the fascist acts of his cops is ridiculous.
Yes he should have kept them in check with a firm hand because he has end-responsibility. But this rot inside the Police force has been going on since the 70's.

[August]

Wow this thread necro actually caused a shift in story location and nobody noticed! Well played Neal, well played! :)

[Buddahaid]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aWnFWclW0Qs