Monday, December 29, 2014

Two reasons the "Don't worry, the State will take care of you" line is leading

right into a septic tank.  First, from Mexico,
“Mexico cannot go on like this”, President Enrique Peña Nieto said on 27 November, addressing the country from the National Assembly. Most Mexicans would agree, yet Mexico remains embroiled in a political crisis over the disappearance of 43 students, apparently at the hands of police and local thugs and assisted by city officials, in the southwestern state of Guerrero. Protests, sometimes destructive, continue, while on this issue the government seems paralyzed: Peña Nieto’s security and justice reform package is stuck in Congress and his approval ratings have sunk to record lows.
...
...Skepticism about the government’s version of events is high; leaked documents allegedly from government sources, published in the magazine Proceso, suggest federal and state police were alerted in real time about the students’ movements and their clashes with local police, but did nothing to stop the bloodshed. “It was the State” – a blanket indictment of all government institutions – has become a protest slogan and social media meme.
Yes, the State will take care of everything!  And if you actually believe that...
CC has a link to the whole article; gives an idea just how screwed Mexico is, and what the governments' answer seems to be: "We need more power!"



Second, in this country, the Supremes just- well,
In a blow to the constitutional rights of citizens, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 8-1 in Heien v. State of North Carolina that police officers are permitted to violate American citizens’ Fourth Amendment rights if the violation results from a “reasonable” mistake about the law on the part of police. Acting contrary to the venerable principle that “ignorance of the law is no excuse,” the Court ruled that evidence obtained by police during a traffic stop that was not legally justified can be used to prosecute the person if police were reasonably mistaken that the person had violated the law. The Rutherford Institute had asked the U.S. Supreme Court to hold law enforcement officials accountable to knowing and abiding by the rule of law. Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the Court’s lone dissenter, warned that the court’s ruling “means further eroding the Fourth Amendment’s protection of civil liberties in a context where that protection has already been worn down.”
When Sotomayor is the only dissent on something like this, we're in deep shit.  Aside from the possible removal of black robes from and flogging the guilty, my first thought is "Ok, so let's sue the ass off the state/county/city for NOT TRAINING THEIR OFFICERS TO KNOW THE LAW." 


So, next time someone tells you the All-Knowing and Caring State will take care of everything, show them these and tell them they're an idiot.

1 comment:

Titan Mk6B said...

Resonably mistaken? Who defines that? Talk about a slippery slope.

My eyes almost bugged out of my head when I read that Sotomayor was the lone dissenter.