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

[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.

[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.

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."

[WernherVonTrapp]

Originally Posted by Skybird

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.

[Sean C]

Originally Posted by Skybird

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.

Originally Posted by Thomas Jefferson

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!