Puppycide Slippery Slope

[LadySmith]

If your dogs aren't licensed in Detroit, they're considered illegal contraband and you have no legal recourse if cops kill them.

http://reason.com/blog/2017/08/03/federal-judge-rules-unlicensed-dogs-aren

You also have no legal recourse if the cops consider it an imminent threat, like if it's closed up in a bathroom.

Is this ruling to keep the city from going broke from lawsuits over excessive dog killings?

[Hawkmoon]

So if I buy a $200,000 luxury car and park it in my garage without licensing it -- it's not my property? Even though I have a bill of sale and a title?

If I live in a house that I bought, but I'm behind on my taxes, is it no longer my property?

I can't even begin to comprehend the judge's reasoning in this case. I sincerely hope it gets appealed and reversed.

[RoadKingLarry]

If I live in a house that I bought, but I'm behind on my taxes, is it no longer my property?

Precedent on that is no, if you get behind on your property taxes they can and will take it. At the point of a gun if needed.

[Hawkmoon]

Precedent on that is no, if you get behind on your property taxes they can and will take it. At the point of a gun if needed.

But to take it they have to get a court order. A cop can't just walk up to the door and drag me out because he's there to talk to me about a busted taillight on my truck.

[RoadKingLarry]

Yet.

[BlueStarLizzard]

Sounds more like The War on Dogs instead of the War on Drugs. 

The judge may be correct on the interpretation of the Fourth, in regards to animals, however I'd like to see some consideration of animal cruelty laws that are most likely being violated by DPD.
I will also note that I doubt the officers checked the actual records on the dogs before shooting them, so I don't think defending their actions based on the fourth amendment is valid anyway. 
Maybe more body cams and footage like the video from the idiot that shot the dogs in the one woman's backyard will eventually cause enough public outrage to start curbing this *expletive deleted*it, though it is a sad state of affairs that is what it has come to.

The thing that really pisses me off is I actually don't have a problem with shooting an animal, especially dogs, if the animal poses an actual immediate threat. I don't have a problem putting down animals that constitute a future threat and are established as dangerous, but these cases are so numerous and have so many obvious flaws (like the animals were restrained or confined) that it has become obvious that the officers are shooting first and asking questions later, which is *not* acceptable. The complete lack of regard for animal life is usually a precursor to a complete lack of regard for any life. These are not people who I want running around with a gun and a badge.

[230RN]

Every law stands on the edge of a slippery slope.

For what is writ today, can be amended tomorrow.*

That's why I'm only half-kidding when I say every law ought to have an expiration date.  And only a quarter-kidding when I say that in order to pass a law, one must be repealed.

And only an eighth-kidding when I add, "preferably two."

 

Terry, 230RN

*I love to bring out an example at this point.

Originally, the Colorado seat belt law was presented as not being a primary traffic offense, meaning the PD could not pull you over just for not wearing a seat belt.  They could only cite you for it if they stopped you for something else.

Then it became a primary offense. They could pull you over for not wearing one and cite you just for that.

Now they are talking about requiring seat belts for rear-seat passengers as well.  There is the usual PR "push" for that going on right now.  It's the foot in the door political tactic.

See how that works?   Whether you are for or against requiring seat belts is immaterial.  The example is the thing.

Just one tiny sample of the technique.

[dogmush]

I don't think Law Enforcement really understands how bad their PR problem is getting.  I know that the vast majority of cops are, in fact, good folks doing their best, but the seemingly unending supply of videos of bullies and lawbreakers, coupled with unflinching support of said lawbreakers from the rest of law enforcement is really starting to wear down their support.  And no just in the normally anti-cop demographics, but among groups that historically supported Law Enforcement.

I fear the time is coming when a large majority of folks in the US will look antagonistically on cops at all times, and that won't be good for anyone.  Stories like this just speed that along, widen the rift, and reinforce the perception that cops are bullies that can do whatever they want and get away with it.

I used to sign my e-mails with a quote from The Gulag Archipelago.  I think local police forces and sheriff's need to realize that they are becoming the security operatives, in perception even though not in deed.

And how we burned in the camps later, thinking: What would things have been like if every Security operative, when he went out at night to make an arrest, had been uncertain whether he would return alive and had to say good-bye to his family? Or if, during periods of mass arrests, as for example in Leningrad, when they arrested a quarter of the entire city, people had not simply sat there in their lairs, paling with terror at every bang of the downstairs door and at every step on the staircase, but had understood they had nothing left to lose and had boldly set up in the downstairs hall an ambush of half a dozen people with axes, hammers, pokers, or whatever else was at hand?

[grampster]

You can thank the neoliberal left for what has and is happening in LE.  LE has been for decades now what that group of "enlightened"  are now doing with the military; Diversity.  When you lower the standards for an organization that requires a certain type of person you wind up with another certain type of person walking around with a badge and a gun who shouldn't be walking around with a badge and gun.

Our culture has been coarsened and diminished in many ways over the last 50 years.  At the same time we have lowered the standards for police officers.  That's a double whammy in my book and we see how that works out...at least those of us with eyes to see understand that.  Those who have coarsened our society and lowered the standards of LE, of course, can do no wrong and would never admit it anyway.

[230RN]

The main trouble is, grampster, that most folks don't have the long-term perspective of living history that we older folks do.

If an objectionable situation proceeds from 1 to 10 over 50 years, most people only see it from 9 to 10, and that seems OK.

People do not react to threats that arise gradually.

But we older people can remember when it was only 1, and the contrast is plain to us.

All this goes to more than just police aggrandizing their authority or the progression of seat belt laws... and gun laws.

Maybe that's why they call themselves "progressives."

Terry, 230RN

[MechAg94]

Every law stands on the edge of a slippery slope.

For what is writ today, can be amended tomorrow.*

That's why I'm only half-kidding when I say every law ought to have an expiration date.  And only a quarter-kidding when I say that in order to pass a law, one must be repealed.

And only an eighth-kidding when I add, "preferably two."

 

Terry, 230RN

*I love to bring out an example at this point.

Originally, the Colorado seat belt law was presented as not being a primary traffic offense, meaning the PD could not pull you over just for not wearing a seat belt.  They could only cite you for it if they stopped you for something else.

Then it became a primary offense. They could pull you over for not wearing one and cite you just for that.

Now they are talking about requiring seat belts for rear-seat passengers as well.  There is the usual PR "push" for that going on right now.  It's the foot in the door political tactic.

See how that works?   Whether you are for or against requiring seat belts is immaterial.  The example is the thing.

Just one tiny sample of the technique.

I like the automatic expiration, but it wouldn't prevent the mission creep as that could easily be added to the law as it is renewed.  However, I still like it as controversial laws would be easier to get rid of as you only have to prevent renewal rather than pass an entirely new law.  

I would add each law can only be extended via separate votes and not via some sort of package.  

[corrected wording]

[Pb]

Lawdog says police were a lot more abusive in the past.

[Jamisjockey]

So if I buy a $200,000 luxury car and park it in my garage without licensing it -- it's not my property? Even though I have a bill of sale and a title?

If I live in a house that I bought, but I'm behind on my taxes, is it no longer my property?

I can't even begin to comprehend the judge's reasoning in this case. I sincerely hope it gets appealed and reversed.

But 'murica! Freedom!

[TommyGunn]

Lawdog says police were a lot more abusive in the past.

That was when they got to beat people with night sticks for stealing apples.

[BobR]

That was when they got to beat people with night sticks for stealing apples.

Smith and Wesson sold a lot of pistols to the Police in the old days but they may have sold a lot more leather wrapped chunks o' lead (saps).

bob