Welcome Visitor! Please take a few seconds and 
woodyedmiston
Well-Known Member
First - Ranger Bum: Your conclusion is closer to agreeing with my point than anyone else and pretty funny besides . . .
Jim - We, the American colonists, were the domestic threat (we were not terrorists, although that's probably how the British looked at the Boston Tea Party) during revolutionary days. We became that threat before the Revolution and wrote the second amendment so we would always have the ability to be that threat to any government that would take away our freedoms. That is why our founding fathers wrote a law to prohibit the military from being involved in domestic law enforcement.
Responding to the threat is not an issue as much as having Fed. troops training and taking over traditional law enforcement roles. The threat that you speak of is actually a foreign borne threat, with sleeper cells loyal to another government or movement. And that is where the lines get blurred. Everyone, local, state, fed need to be aware of and defend against that foreign borne threat. But we don't want to lose one of our major protections against government intrusion in our lives in the process.
American law is based in precedent. Once you do something it is easier to do again later. Then it is easier to change that thing once again. Two examples: Being gay, when I began law enforcement was considered an aberration and a mental defect. Once we dropped the definition from the Diagnostic manual as a mental disease laws began to change and, we are, where we are, today. If you are pro-gay that's good, if you are not it's not good - but that's beside the point. The point is simply that a minor change in a Physicians diagnostic manual led to changes in the law and public opinion. In August of 1969, shortly after I began law enforcement, I arrested a man for having seven (7) marijuana seeds in his possession. At that time it was a Felony. In small bits the law changed over the years to the point that seeds cannot be counted in the overall amount of marijuana to establish possession. Today, law enforcement wouldn't even write him a ticket.
Now, with that as a background, your two points: In my experience, when the Fed Govt shows up in your local police jurisdiction, they take over. They run investigations in your area without your knowledge, they push the city administration out of the way during emergencies, and begin to assign tasks to your people. (Keep in mind those officer's first duty is to protect their local community who pays and depends upon them.) Having the Fed. Govt work with the local authorities would not seem to be that bad of a thing until you realize that our founders made laws specifically prohibiting it - because of their own experience with having govt meddle in their affairs. You can bet that the Kings men started out just being the "local law" and just 'helping the local authorities" in the beginning.
Local authorities are much more ready to deal with a domestic attack than most people give them credit for . . . but that response is much more often done by fire departments and state environmental people with the National Guard. If the Feds want to get involved at that level there is less concern. But to be involved in law enforcement has historically been prohibited . . . that would amount to an erosion of how law enforcement is done and would, I fear, establish a precedent into even more intrusions.
When the ACLU and the Cato Institute agree on the degradation of the Posse Commitatus provision in this deal you know there is something entirely different happening - and it will set a precedent for more things.
May we remain free as a people forever . . . and I'm not talking about your boxers.
Jim - We, the American colonists, were the domestic threat (we were not terrorists, although that's probably how the British looked at the Boston Tea Party) during revolutionary days. We became that threat before the Revolution and wrote the second amendment so we would always have the ability to be that threat to any government that would take away our freedoms. That is why our founding fathers wrote a law to prohibit the military from being involved in domestic law enforcement.
Responding to the threat is not an issue as much as having Fed. troops training and taking over traditional law enforcement roles. The threat that you speak of is actually a foreign borne threat, with sleeper cells loyal to another government or movement. And that is where the lines get blurred. Everyone, local, state, fed need to be aware of and defend against that foreign borne threat. But we don't want to lose one of our major protections against government intrusion in our lives in the process.
American law is based in precedent. Once you do something it is easier to do again later. Then it is easier to change that thing once again. Two examples: Being gay, when I began law enforcement was considered an aberration and a mental defect. Once we dropped the definition from the Diagnostic manual as a mental disease laws began to change and, we are, where we are, today. If you are pro-gay that's good, if you are not it's not good - but that's beside the point. The point is simply that a minor change in a Physicians diagnostic manual led to changes in the law and public opinion. In August of 1969, shortly after I began law enforcement, I arrested a man for having seven (7) marijuana seeds in his possession. At that time it was a Felony. In small bits the law changed over the years to the point that seeds cannot be counted in the overall amount of marijuana to establish possession. Today, law enforcement wouldn't even write him a ticket.
Now, with that as a background, your two points: In my experience, when the Fed Govt shows up in your local police jurisdiction, they take over. They run investigations in your area without your knowledge, they push the city administration out of the way during emergencies, and begin to assign tasks to your people. (Keep in mind those officer's first duty is to protect their local community who pays and depends upon them.) Having the Fed. Govt work with the local authorities would not seem to be that bad of a thing until you realize that our founders made laws specifically prohibiting it - because of their own experience with having govt meddle in their affairs. You can bet that the Kings men started out just being the "local law" and just 'helping the local authorities" in the beginning.
Local authorities are much more ready to deal with a domestic attack than most people give them credit for . . . but that response is much more often done by fire departments and state environmental people with the National Guard. If the Feds want to get involved at that level there is less concern. But to be involved in law enforcement has historically been prohibited . . . that would amount to an erosion of how law enforcement is done and would, I fear, establish a precedent into even more intrusions.
When the ACLU and the Cato Institute agree on the degradation of the Posse Commitatus provision in this deal you know there is something entirely different happening - and it will set a precedent for more things.
May we remain free as a people forever . . . and I'm not talking about your boxers.
