Barney takes a bite out of crime
Our Greenwich boys in blue are back on the Post Road with another seatbelt roadblock this morning and it frosts my rear end. I wear a seatbelt – it’s the smart thing to do, but what possible business is it of anyone, particularly the state, whether I choose to wear one or not? This intrusive interference with citizens is the nanny state at its worst and shame on our police for engaging in it.
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It’s called enforcing the law – that’s the police’s job. Rather than criticizing them for doing their job, perhaps you should lobby the powers that be to change said law.
The Internet, which is never wrong, says the following:
Connecticut is a primary seat belt use state, meaning that police can pull over a motorist solely for not wearing a seat belt. The maximum fine for a first offense is $15. However, not wearing a seat belt does not constitute probable cause for a law enforcement official to search a vehicle, nor it can be submitted as evidence in civil legal actions under Connecticut state law.
When the cops just want to preserve their jobs and pensions by harassing the public with nonsense..it is just another sign of the fall of Rome or Greenwich.
The measure of any government is how it treats its public. The answer is BAD government in this town.
Come spend some time with me, and then re-assess the issue of motorcycle helmets and seat belts.
I-95 from Exit 5 to Exit 4 is especially fruitful in smearing the physical evidence on the pavement.
It’s also against the law to worry sheep in Connecticut. The police choose not to enforce that law – perhaps because of their own proclivvities? If our cops directed their energy toward stopping bad behavior that harms other people, I’m sure they could keep busy enough to justify their salaries.
The same logic would suggest banning motorcycles entirely doc. Again – I wear a seatbelt and I have not owned a motorcycle since I was 18 and invincible, but it’s none of my business if others choose otherwise, nor is it the business of the state.
Perhaps, by that logic, we should disband 911 and GEMS, except for taxpayers calling from home.
I think the point is that we don’t want the police to be enforcing laws selectively, do we? Who is to say which laws are worth enforcing and which are not?
To give a silly example, where’s the harm in drug dealing? If I sell something to you and we are both consenting adults, that in itself harms no-one, so the police should ignore it even if it is a crime.
Personally, I am happy for people to smear their brains all over I95, thereby removing themselves from the gene pool (although I feel bad for ER Doc and our first responders who have to p ick up the pieces of skull and try to put them back together again). But if you think a law is silly, then try to get it changed, rather than saying “Don’t you have anything better to do” to the police who pull you over (disclaimer – my brother-in-law is a state trooper in another state and he hears that about 50 times per day. nothing is more guaranteed to get you a ticket rather than a warning than saying something like that to a policeman).
Ah, Doc? We’re using different logic here, I think. I don’t see how your proposition flows logically from mine.
The days of Greenwich cops living in Greenwich and protecting Greenwich citizens are long gone. The Greenwich police are now more interested in making their quotas of fines than they are in protecting us. Thus goes the world I guess. Your friend Miss Tesei oversees the force and the chief. Keegan may have been doing the nasty with Sherry Breed, but he was the last in a long line of going after those outsiders who threatened our way of life rather than hammering on us citizens of the town who pay the stupid cops’ salaries.
In fact, Bored, I think we should legalize drugs and end the colossal waste of money we’re spending on such a futile endeavor, but to your point about selective enforcement of the law, the evil is when a particular law is enforced against one individual or group and not another: see, eg, cellphone use by police.
Choosing not to enforce a bad law against anyone is just fine with me. Our legislature passes hundreds of stupid, useless laws every year and most are not enforced, nor should they be.
Suspect most of the least safe, most distracted, most reckless of drivers tend to also be uninsured and have zero net worth, so ultimately the taxpayers (esp the top 1% who pay ~50% of taxes) end up paying for these losers’ mistakes and risky choices
Have no problem with reckless behavior (that doesn’t affect others) as long as one can pay for all consequences without a taxpayer bailout or lifelong welfare
And, yeah, make speeds unlimited on smoothly paved fwys, like the Germans; and legalize all drugs and prostitution…..will save billions in wasteful enforcement and imprisonment costs
Maybe you are right. Perhaps if all drugs were legal then they would be cheaper so people could buy more and kill themselves more quickly, and there’d be less crime associated with it. Not a bad idea actually. I’m in favor of anything which weeds dummies out of the gene pool. Conscription always seemed like a good idea to me, but only if you could pick and choose who came back in one piece and who didn’t. Just think of how much less we would spend on prison, welfare, etc.
Bored – we’re spending billions on the war on drugs, stopping, at best, 10% of the drugs entering the country, have seen Mexico corrupted and jammed our prisons with junkies. There are better ways to spend our money, like cracking down on seatbelt violators!
Please, stop responding to my drivel – I’m trying to work here and you won’t let me!
We need less spending on everything, not just failed drug policies and seat belt checks. We need to have fewer people in jail, fewer people on welfare, and generally spend a lot less money a lot more efficiently. We subsidize farmers for no good reason, mandate ethanol for our gasoline even though it takes more energy to produce it than it actually contains, and so on. The whole country is pretty f*cked up fiscally and there’s no end in sight.
Now, back to work, I only have an hour before my first scotch of the day.
All those advocates of “just go to the ER if you want care” should be drooling over a seat belt law.
Let it be noted in passing that today is the anniversary of Lincoln’s “a new birth of freedom” address at Gettysburg.
He foresaw a government that would bring true equality to all of its citizens, create a unified nation in which states’ rights were no longer dominant, defined democracy in terms of government of the people, by the people, for the people, and defined republicanism in terms of freedom, equality and democracy.
did someone say “scotch”?
)))
would that be “scotch” irish?
sorry, couldn’t resist, anthony..
ok, just a wee dram..its almost noon.
Um, did somebody say they’ve got weed?
This is why we have drug laws:
“Two senior Pennsylvania judges have been sentenced to seven years in prison for taking bribes from juvenile detention centers — in exchange for the bribes, the judges turned in guilty verdicts for the teens who appeared before them and sent them to juvie, thus enriching the operators of the kiddy gulag. For this, the judges received $2.6 million in kickbacks.” link: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/02/02/judges-jailed-for-ta.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/03/nyregion/03clarkstown.html
low pay nope u dopes
ER Doc seems never to have read the Gettysburg address. Nowhere does Lincoln even suggest that it’s the government’s job or mission to bring equality to its citizens, nor did he express any view on strengthening the federal government at the expense of the powers of the states. Read it; it will take only 75 seconds.
Agree 100% with CF regarding this nonsense of the law and consenting adults’ drug use. Yet there are liquor stores on every block and tobacco products everywhere. The government is more than happy to collect your tax dollars on those killers, though.
Ditto regarding prostitution. They don’t call it the oldest profession for nothing. Any vocation with that kind of staying power (sorry, I couldn’t resist) must have considerable appeal.