I’m not purposely trying to be dramatic. Almost daily I find examples of governmental abuse that would seem to indicate we are. Key to this is to remember that our Constitution, especially the Bill of Rights, lists the unalienable rights possessed by every man and bars the government from violating them.
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Today’s example is out of Texas where dashboard cams on police cruisers have recorded law enforcement officers searching the vaginal areas of women stopped for minor traffic offenses without a warrant or even a modicum of probable cause.
The officers make a pretense of modesty and protection of rights by having a female officer do the search. As if that makes everything alright.
It seems to me that the noose is drawing ever tighter and will continue to do so until we are choked into submission if we do not push back and demand our liberties not be so nakedly infringed (pun intended).
Here in Tennessee, and elsewhere, we have incredibly bad law which routinely violates the 4th Amendment rights of people to be secure in their persons, papers and possessions. We have laws which rewrite the definitions of words to make people criminals even though they are behaving responsibly. These sorts of things have to stop.
In Tennessee:
- Your blood can be forcibly taken from you to “prove” you are legally drunk just because an officer thinks you might be and wants the proof;
- You can be stopped and questioned and your vehicle searched in a DUI roadblock simply because you are driving on a particular stretch of road at the wrong time. Don’t even think of trying to point out to the cops that they really do need more than “I’m passing by here” as probable cause;
- If you are being responsible and sleeping off a drunk in your car you can be arrested for DUI simply because you have your keys on you and might drive;
- You can be arrested for POSSESSION of a weapon while intoxicated if a weapon is simply in proximity to you. This is true if you are drunk in your car and the weapon is in your glove box. This is also true if you are drunk at home, with your weapons locked in a gun safe but you have access to the keys or combination. Proximity = Possession. No word on how it is unarmed citizens stopped for DUI escape this one when the armed officer approaches them … ;
- The Granddaddy of them all, while not state or local law, is TSA. These federal employees are not even law enforcement and yet they can sexually assault you with impunity for your crime of wanting to complete a commercial transaction and take the plane flight you paid for.
Frankly, there needs to be more push back by citizens to outrageous, illegal and unconstitutional behavior on the part of government and its agents. I understand that the purpose of government is to secure our rights. However, if we do not object when government is the very one violating our rights, we will wake up in a not too distant tomorrow to find we have no rights left.
Eternal vigilance, indeed, is what is needed to prevent the reality of a post-constitutional America.
Ken Marrero is a Tennessee based conservative blogger who writes at Blue Collar Muse blog. Follow him on Twitter @bluecollarmuse.