Selling Us What We Won't Make

Fred:  We must prevent Americans from buying cheap Chinese clothes and women's purses, and so encourage ...
Mike:  ... our bright young people to sew cheap American clothes and women's purses.

The Choice
10/14/10 - Cafe Hayek by Don Boudreaux

Mr. Boudreaux posts about the value of free trade.

[edited]  By buying products such as textiles, footwear, and luggage from China and other foreign countries, workers and resources in America are freed to work in fields such as bioengineering and artificial intelligence.

If we prevent the importation of “cheap Chinese goods,” we would require American industries to produce – what? – cheap American goods. How bleak.

The problem for the United States is not that the Chinese and others are supplying inexpensive goods to us. The problem is that we are preventing business development in the US that would employ our people to produce many things that we would like. We don't need to limit trade, we need to free ourselves from suffocating restrictions on being productive.

Read more ...

This comment by Dallas Weaver nicely presents this issue [edited].

Without China and others to actually manufacture our US designed high tech devices, none of our engineers, designers, and scientists would be needed. For example, i-Pad sales so far have utilized something on the order of 100,000 man-years of manufacturing employment. If this were done in the US, it would have been more automated, but still it would probably have required at least 10,000 man-years of manufacturing labor.

However, imagine trying to get permits from our bureaucrats to build or even refurbish a manufacturing complex for 10,000 jobs in this country on the required time-scale. The environmental impact report on traffic impacts alone would take several years, and a single law suit on one component of the supply chain would delay the entire project for years.

You cannot manufacture products in rapidly changing markets quickly enough in the US. The markets change far more quickly than our government permit system and legal parasites allow. These malevolent forces slow projects far beyond the point of responding to changed market demands.

This is the real world of the US. Every bureaucrat and nut group has the ability to delay any project. A good example is the attempt to get a permit for seawater desalinization in southern California using existing seawater intakes and using a site already covered with abandoned oil tanks. Many millions of dollars have been spent on the project over the past 8 years, but even the permitting process is not complete.

Another example in southern California. We have a coastline, and a market for fresh seafood of more than 20 million people. Studies show we could create a $2+ billion aquaculture business directly employing 10,000 workers, competing to replace the $8 billion of seafood we currently import, without significant environmental impacts.

As a consultant in this area, I have had to inform potential investors that permits are effectively impossible and that they should look outside the US for business opportunities.

Imports have allowed our society to delay facing the fact that we have evolved from a country which could do and build anything, to a country dominated and controlled by bureaucrats and lawyers. They are parasitizing and decreasing the productive sectors of our economy. Without imports, our system would have collapsed.

Our innovation has continued to move our country forward, because our innovative ideas have been actualized outside our country.

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Stop Bashing Business, Mr. President
10/15/10 - Wall Street Journal by Ken Langone.  (Via Chicago Boys)

Ken Langone is a former director of the New York Stock Exchange and a co-founder of Home Depot. He describes how the onerous regulation of business and a hostile attitude from government keeps businesses from forming.

[edited]  Mr. President, I am glad that you answered my question at the town-hall meeting you hosted on September 20th in Washington, D.C.

The event seemed more like a lecture than a dialogue. For more than two years, the country has listened to your sharp rhetoric about how American businesses are short-changing workers, fleecing customers, cheating borrowers, and generally "driving the economy into a ditch."

I asked why it was necessary for you to vilify the people who deliver econimic growth, at this time when investment and dynamism are so critical to our country? Instead of offering a straight answer, you informed me that I was part of a "reckless" group that had made "bad decisions" and now required your guidance, if only I'd stop "resisting" it.

I'm sure that kind of argument draws cheers from the partisan faithful. But to my ears it sounded patronizing. One of the chief conceits of centralized economic planning is that the planners know better than everybody else.

You insist that your policies are necessary and beneficial to business, but this is utterly at odds with what you and your administration are saying elsewhere.

• You picked a fight with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, accusing it of using foreign money to influence congressional elections, something the chamber adamantly denies.
• Preet Bahrara is your U.S. attorney in New York. He compared investment firms to Mexican drug cartels, and said he wants the power to wiretap Wall Street when he sees fit.
• You drew guffaws of approving laughter with your car-wreck metaphor. You recently told a crowd that your critics are "standing up on the road, sipping a Slurpee" while you are "shoving" and "sweating" to fix the broken-down jalopy of state.

You offer condescending encouragement one day and hostile disparagement the next. That short-sighted wavering creates uncertainty and economic paralysis, because no one can tell what to expect next. Any investor could tell you this.

If we tried to start Home Depot today, under the kind of onerous regulatory controls that you have advocated, it's a stone cold certainty that our business would never get off the ground, much less thrive. Rules against providing stock options would prevent us as a start-up from incentivizing worthy employees. We could not pay the incredibly high cost of regulatory compliance overall and mandatory health insurance. Still worse are the risks of loss imposed by ever-rapacious trial lawyers.

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Bourgeois Dignity
10/05/10 - Cato@Liberty by Jason Kuznicki

Chief Secretary of Economics:  Those miserable shopkeepers and small businessmen are not cooperating. We will have to lower their taxes, just a bit and for a short while, to get them to work harder and invest more. We will get all of that revenue back later when we introduce the new rules.

Apparatchik:  Do you think they might work less because they are despised?

Economist Deirdre McCloskey:  [edited]  The Big Economic Story of our time is that the Chinese in 1978 and the Indians in 1991 came to attribute a dignity and a liberty to the bourgeoisie [small businessman] formerly denied. Then, China and India exploded in economic growth.

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Drowning In Law
10/16/10 - Overlawyered by Walter Olson

Mr. Olson quotes an op-ed by Philip K. Howard in the New York Daily News. There is much more at the link.

[edited]  Employers face legal challenges at every step. This requires legal and other overhead costing 50% more per employee for small businesses than big businesses.

• Municipalities requires multiple and often nonsensical forms to do business.
• Labor laws expose them to legal threats by any disgruntled employee.
• Mandates to provide costly employment benefits impose high hurdles to hiring new employees.
• Well-meaning but impossibly complex laws impose requirements to prevent consumer fraud, provide disability access, prevent hiring illegal immigrants, display warnings and notices, and prevent scores of other potential evils
• The tax code is incomprehensible.

America will thrive only so long as Americans wake each morning believing they can succeed by their own efforts. Innovation, not cheap labor, is the economic engine of America. The Kauffman Foundation reports that the net increase in jobs since 1980 is attributed solely to newly started businesses.

The fatal flaw of the modern state is that it doesn't honor the human element of all accomplishment. Rules don't make things happen. Only people do, making fresh choices in response to the infinite complexities of daily challenges.

Nobel economist Friedrich Hayek warned us in 1960. "We are not far from the point where the deliberately organized forces of society may destroy those spontaneous forces which have made advance possible."

We may finally be there. Government is basically bankrupt, and the accretion of law is suffocating individual initiative. Nothing will work until we clean it out.

Legislative Language

3.7(b)(2):
No funds shall be used for pork roasting within any federal facility except in accord with the provisions of 12.14(f)(4).

12.14(f)(4):
Notwithstanding the language in 3.7(b)(2), pork roasting is approved in any amount, anywhere.

----------
5.   Restrictions

5.1   The President's authority under this bill is strictly limited to the explicit provisions of this bill, narrowly considered and constructed.

5.2   The sense of this section 5.2 is constructed from combining the language of sections 5.13 through 5.17 after striking out the words "dog", "cat", and "fish" wherever they appear in those sections.
. . .
5.13   The dog cat President fish
5.14   is fish hereby cat cat
5.15   cat dog empowered dog to cat
5.16   dog dog do dog dog anything cat
5.17   fish dog he fish cat wants. dog fish

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The Partial Veto In Wisconsin
January 2004 - Wisconsin Legislative Reference Bureau

[edited]:  In 1930, Wisconsin voters approved an amendment to the Wisconsin Constitution giving the governor authority to approve appropriation bills “in whole or in part”. Overrides of such vetoes have been rare, requiring a 2/3rds vote of both the Wisconsin House and Senate.

Governors have steadily increased the number of partial vetoes, and have have become progressively more creative.

In 1931, Governor Philip La Follette vetoed parts of a bill as small as a statutory paragraph. Two vetoes in 1935 affected individual sentences. In 1961, the governor vetoed part of a sentence. In 1965, the chief executive deleted one figure that appeared in a bill. Later governors have vetoed individual digits and letters, have edited the text to change its meaning, reduced appropriation amounts by crossing out one figure and writing in another, and altered the direction of an appropriation.

Digit Veto

Governor Lucey in 1973 reduced a $25 million highway bonding authorization to $5 million by striking the digit “2”. Objections failed, leading to the establishment of this type of veto.

Editing Veto

Governor Lucey in 1975 vetoed the word “not” in the phrase “not less than 50%”, changing a 50% floor on cooperative advertising to a 50% ceiling. The Wisconsin Supreme Court affirmed that the governor can change legislation in this way.

In 1977, Acting Governor Schreiber changed a law in a way that the legislature had expressly rejected. The legislature specified that a taxpayer could add $1 to his taxes to go toward public funding of political campaigns.

Schreiber’s partial veto changed the addon to a checkoff. The $1 would be paid from the state’s general fund rather than collected through individual tax returns. The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld.

Pick-a-Letter Veto

In 1983, Governor Earl arranged that appeals of Public Service Commission rulings would be handled by the courts rather than the PSC. His veto reduced a paragraph of 121 words into one sentence of 22 words. The legislature overrode this veto in this case.

Reduction Veto

In 1993, Governor Tommy G. Thompson crossed out nine dollar figures and wrote in smaller numbers. The Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld this use of the veto.

In 1995, Thompson reduced a revenue bond limit for transportation projects. The Wisconsin Supreme Court overruled because that amount was not an "appropriation".

This is madness. The ongoing interpretation of the Partial Veto converted a legislative process into an unlimited contest of political interests. The governor was enabled to change any legislation at the stroke of a pen. The only limits on a Wisconsin governor's power are the interests of his cronies and broad public sentiment. Restated, the only limits are those that apply in a tyranny.

The Wisconsin Supreme Court was content to make rulings around the edges, never bothering to limit the Governor's power to something close to the common meaning of a Partial Veto.

We see the same effects in 2012, where the continuing interpretation of the Commerce Clause of the US Constitution allows our federal government to do almost anything short of telling us what color underwear to put on.

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Ignorance is bliss! But see (hhh)(1) Subject to paragraphs (3) and (4)
08/11/09 - Classical Values by Eric

[edited] I finally understand why the Congressmen who are pushing the healthcare bill HR3200 have not read it, and have come up with something unreadable. It's quite deliberate.

If people could actually read it, they might learn too much. If they learned that a new cancer drug would not be available, or that their father's heart surgery would not be covered, millions and millions of ordinary people would be outraged and up in arms, and it would be very bitterly personal, like Mike Sola, the guy whose son has cerebral palsy and who learned he wouldn't be covered.

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A Few Words About Policy
Would Obama try to legislate from some scribbles on a cocktail napkin? Would he think "give me anything, we'll rearrange it later to do what we want"?

Join me in the demand to "Show me the policy paper!" If any politician refuses or says that it doesn't exist, then mock him with "Show me the cocktail napkin!"

A Few Words About Policy

President Obama recently held a prime-time press conference to present his desire to reform healthcare in the U.S. He suggested passing the bill in Congress, and asked for questions. He talked for about an hour and answered about 12 questions.

There has been a flurry of activity discussing what he said, whether there was any new detail, and criticizing some of his examples and facts. This told us very little about what is proposed in this sweeping grant of power to the government.

The press and the country are entirely wrong about what press conferences are good for.

Policy On Paper

Obama should have already released a detailed "white paper" describing his summary and justification for his health care proposals. (And such a paper for his other policy recommendations.) We need proposed results, methods, justifications, comparative studies, past successes, funding sources, the works.

Laws are not written as a random collection of thoughts, although they often look that way. They start with policies and reasons on paper. Legislator's staffs follow those policies when creating the details in these 1000 page bills. The white papers must exist, but they are not being presented to the public.

We should examine, verify, and criticize the policy documents, and then compare these to the details in the bills. Starting with the bills is like trying to approve a new building by looking only at the blueprints, without the purpose, graphics, and site requirements.

This is the United States Government, of, for, and by the People. The public cannot participate in a government that runs on policies that are hidden. The press and public should be able to review these undelivered documents. The government should be proud to display its carefully researched and supported policies. We deserve this as a free people.

The absence of these policy papers is appalling. Instead of open and proud policy, we have closed, imperial government. Sadly, we are controlled by a tyranny if our government sees no reason to explain and justify its actions. Are they ashamed or afraid of what they propose?

Be Informed

A press conference is supposed to question the President on his knowledge of the policy already presented in detailed, written form. The press conference is for the President to announce and defend the policy. It is to reassure the public that he knows about what he is proposing.

Instead, we have a few questions and vague speeches about what we would all like in a perfect world, and about the power and money that Obama wants ahead of time to work on it.

It is a magician's trick, to treat press conferences as if they could communicate the needed information, for either support or criticism.

We must ask our government for the important things. Among them is always a clear explanation of what the law will be, and why. If we ask and are not answered, then the responsible politicians must be voted out.

A Liberal Judge

I Don’t Know What Liberal Means
06/05/09 - National Review by Ed Whelan
Via PowerLine

Mr. Whelan fills in a weak area in Judge Sontomayor's knowledge, and offers a directory to her statements and opinions. [Quotes are edited.]

Judge Sotomayor gave a speech in January 2001, and provided this account. She explained her problems being confirmed to the Second Circuit court:

Senate Republican leaders believed that I was a potential for the Supreme Court one day. They also believed that I am a liberal, and therefore did not want the nomination to go through. I don’t know what liberal means.

Sotomayor was an assistant district attorney in 1983. Evidently she knew what “liberal” meant when quoted in a New York Times article.

I had more problems during my first year in the office with the low-grade crimes such as shoplifting, prostitution, and minor assault cases. In large measure, in those cases you were dealing with socio-economic crimes, crimes that could be the product of the environment and of poverty.

Once I started doing felonies, it became less hard. No matter how liberal I am, I’m still outraged by crimes of violence. Regardless of whether I can sympathize with the causes that lead these individuals to do these crimes, the effects are outrageous.

Sotomayor's phrase "No matter how liberal I am" is the same as saying "Even though I am very liberal".

Among other things, Sotomayor understood back then that a liberal "sympathizes with the causes that lead these individuals to do these crimes" and is inclined to explain crimes as "the product of the environment and of poverty."

But I think that I can offer Sotomayor even more help on what liberal means, at least in the context of judging.

A liberal judge thinks that it is proper to indulge her own identity in deciding cases.

A liberal judge celebrates "the importance of indefiniteness in the law" and the "unpredictability" that results when a judge "develops a novel approach" that "pushes the law in a new direction."

A liberal judge resorts to shenanigans to bury the claims of white firefighters that they have been discriminated against on the basis of their race.

A liberal judge favors campaign-finance restrictions over the First Amendment.

A liberal judge embraces novel equal-protection theories that would compromise public safety.

A liberal judge publicly cheerleads liberal politicians.

A liberal judge excuses her own acts of discrimination.

A liberal judge thinks that Supreme Court justices are entitled to make policy.

A liberal judge hides her support for racial quotas behind gauzy euphemisms.

A liberal judge commends lawsuits that promote abortion and illegal immigration and that undermine welfare reform.

First, Let's Pay All the Lawyers

A Stimulus You Can Believe In
05/29/09 - Overlawyered by Ted Frank

Opportunistic lawsuits are expensive for us all.

[edited] As I recently testified to Congress, I have formed a conservative estimate from these economic studies. Excessive litigation costs the economy $600 to $900 billion a year. The vast majority of this is simply wealth destruction. That is 4% to 6% of GNP, a tort (litigation for injury) tax of $8,000 to $12,000 a year for an average family of four.

A Revolutionary States the Essence of Law

Our favorite quotes: Thomas Jefferson
05/23/08 - Cornel.edu by "hear-hear"
From a comment by IronDioPriest

Thomas Jefferson. Letter to John B. Colvin, September 20, 1810, The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Paul L. Ford, vol. 9, p. 279 (1898).

A strict observance of the written laws is doubtless one of the high duties of a good citizen, but it is not the highest. The laws of necessity, of self-preservation, of saving our country when in danger, are of higher obligation.

To lose our country by a scrupulous adherence to written law, would be to lose the law itself, with life, liberty, property and all those who are enjoying them with us; thus absurdly sacrificing the end to the means.

Thomas Jefferson was a revolutionary. He chose to overturn the law he was born under in order to establish liberty under a new government.

There is no moral right in a democracy for some of the people to vote others into partial slavery, to vote to subsidize themselves by taxing others.

The purpose of government is to secure the liberty of all. The purpose is not to enable a majority to take the wealth, work, and liberty of a minority. A mob can do that quite well without the formality of a democratic vote.

Elevator Lawsuit Safety

Elevator Logic
02/18/09 - Throckmorton's Other Signs by Throckmorton

I suppose the legal theory of "attractive nuisance" is used here. Escape doors are so attractive and dangerous that people must be protected against themselves. There could be a sign "Warning: Only professionals should attempt to escape from this elevator." I have wondered, if I am supposed to escape, where is the ladder?

[edited] The hospital has fancy ceilings in their elevators, and I wondered what I would do if I got stuck. The maintenance man explained that the escape door was behind the lighted panel in the ceiling. It was almost impossible to get to, and the escape doors are locked from the outside. Someone has to let you out.

There have been lawsuits when people stuck in elevators have hurt themselves climbing out or when the elevator starts moving. So, the escape hatches are locked from the outside. If you are trapped in the elevator in a fire? He said, "Hope someone can get you out before you burn!"

It is even code to have the escape hatches locked! I wonder if the glass in the fire alarm box that states "break glass in case of fire" is unbreakable to prevent lawsuits because of people cutting themselves!

Modern Law Makes Us Powerless

How Modern Law Makes Us Powerless
01/26/09 - Online.WSJ.com by Philip K. Howard
We are only free if we can act in reasonable ways in life without the risk of being caught by this or that technicality.

[edited] Americans don't feel free to reach inside themselves and make a difference. The growth of litigation and regulation has injected a paralyzing uncertainty into everyday choices. There are warnings and legal risks all around us. The modern credo is not "Yes We Can" but "No You Can't."

Those who deal with the public are the most discouraged. Most doctors advise their children not to go into medicine. Government service is seen as a bureaucratic morass, not a noble calling. Make a difference? You can't even show basic human kindness for fear of legal action. Teachers across America are instructed never to put an arm around a crying child.

The idea of freedom as personal power is pushed aside by the rights of whoever might disagree. Daily life in America has been transformed. Ordinary choices are paralyzed by legal self-consciousness. Did you check the rules? Who will be responsible if there's an accident? A pediatrician noted "I don't deal with patients the same way any more. I wouldn't want to say something off the cuff that might be used against me."

The flaw and the cure lie in our conception of freedom as only political freedom. We're certainly free to live and work where we want, and to pull the lever in the ballot box. But freedom should also include the power of personal conviction and the authority to use your common sense. Alexis de Tocqueville: "Freedom is less necessary in great things than in little ones. Subjection in minor affairs does not drive men to resistance, but it crosses them at every turn, until they are led to sacrifice their own will. Their spirit is gradually broken and their character is drained of strength."

Law must affirmatively define an area free from legal interference. Philosopher Isaiah Berlin noted that law must provide frontiers that are not arbitrary limits, within which men should be inviolable.

Too Many Federal Prosecutions

Heritage Foundation challenges federal prosecutions
01/22/09 - DC Examiner Editorial

Former Attorney General Ed Meese is the Ronald Reagan Distinguished Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, and its Director of the Center for Legal and Judicial Studies. He is quoted:

[edited] The Heritage Foundation's goal is to restore the criminal law to what it has traditionally been used for, to protect the public safety and to deal with real crime. We want to avoid more of what has occurred, the multiplicity of laws and regulations that carry criminal penalties. These ensnare ordinary citizens for things that nobody would anticipate are crimes.

Many special interest groups have urged Congress to attach criminal penalties to regulatory legislation to "show its importance." Many of the worst examples involve obscure environmental regulations or business rules. The criminal process is abused when civil or administrative actions would suffice to protect public health and safety.

In one case, seafood importers spent eight years in jail because their lobsters were improperly packed in plastic rather than cardboard. “Zero tolerance” policies land children in jail for making paper guns in school, or having small knives on campus in the trunk of their cars after moving and opening boxes. A cancer patient aged 61 was jailed because her hedges were too high. This is law enforcement run amuck.

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Washington's Biggest Crime Problem
April 2004 - Reason.com by William Anderson and Candice E. Jackson. Just a small part of an interesting article.

[edited] The federal government's ever-expanding criminal code is an affront to justice and the Constitution.

In 1996 Edward Hanousek Jr., a road master for a railroad company running between Alaska and Canada, was convicted of negligently discharging a harmful quantity of oil into the Skagway River, a U.S. waterway, in violation of the Clean Water Act.

An independent contractor had accidentally ruptured a pipeline while attempting to clear rocks off the tracks. Hanousek was off duty and at home that day, nowhere near the accident site, and he had no knowledge of the pipeline rupture until after the fact.

The government nevertheless prosecuted Hanousek, a federal jury convicted him, and he received a sentence of six months in prison, six months in a halfway house, six months of post-release supervision, and a $5,000 fine.

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USDA: You sold too many bunnies. Penalty: $90,000.
05/20/11 - Big Government by Bob McCarty

Update:  USDA Responds to the pressure of publicity
05/25/11 - Big Government by Bob McCarty

[edited]  John Dollarhite and his wife Judy live in tiny Nixa, Mo. The USDA has fined them $90,000 by Monday, or they will face additional fines of almost $4 million. Why? Because they sold more than $500 worth of bunnies ($4,600) in one calendar year. They had made a $200 profit overall on the bunnies.

Eight weeks passed after some questions by USDA representatives. John called Colorado Springs, then a number for the USDA in Washington D.C. The lady he talked to was blunt.

She said, ‘Well, Mr. Dollarhite, I’ve got the report on my desk, and I’m just gonna tell you that, once I review it, it’s our intent to prosecute you to the maximum that we can, and we will make an example out of you.”

The USDA stands forthrightly against the tide of lawlessness represented by unlicensed rabbit breeding.

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How Corrupted Language Moved from the Campus to the Real World
02/23/10 - Minding the Campus - Reforming Our Universities
by Harvey A. Silverglate

[edited] George Orwell wrote his critique "Politics and the English Language" in 1946: "One must let meaning choose the word, not the other way around."   Administrators and legislators ignore this truth. They have crafted imprecise regulations which give campus disciplinary staff and federal government prosecutors enormous and grotesquely unfair power.

The Law is Going from Bad to Worse

The Law: Going from Bad to Worse
12/25/08 - Econlog.Econlib by Bryan Caplan

Maybe "The Law" is only a soothing idea to help us bear up in an arbitrary society ruled by political power and whim.

[edited] At the risk of offending many friends, I think the law is a shockingly phony discipline. Virtually everyone imagines that the law agrees with what they favor on non-legal grounds. Almost no one admits that many or most laws are so vague that there is no "fact of the matter" about what they mean.

Once in a while, a law professor has told me this verbatim, and then has gone back to arguing about the law. The philosopher in me insists, "If there's no such thing as unicorns, we can't argue about unicorns," but the Great Unicorn Debate never stops.

Never Talk to the Police

Never Talk to the Police
2008 - YouTube  (48:40)

•  Prof. James Duane of the Regent University School of Law
•  Officer George Bruch of the Virginia Beach Police Department

Prof. Duane explains why he is proud of the 5th Amendment, will never, ever talk to the police without a lawyer, and you shouldn't either. Don't take his word for it; he cites the advice of Nuremberg Trial Chief Prosecutor Robert Jackson and the U.S. Supreme Court. Prof. Duane is animated and interesting. This lecture is an eye-opener and goes by quickly.

Officer George Bruch candidly agrees in the second half.

Talking is dangerous because there are so many laws that you break every day. You are usually protected by invisibility. The police need to see "probable cause" to examine you further. You are clearly visible when they are asking questions, so watch out.

The power of government, the expansion of law, and the intricate rules governing your life make you the servant of government.

Don't Take Take A Breathalyzer Test
(Undated) - Darryl Genis  (Video 3:12)
Via Schneier on Security

This defense attorney demonstrates how breathalyzers can be mishandled to report alcohol levels that are twice the actual level, the difference between freedom and jail.

See also his website.

10 Rules for Dealing With the Police
2010 - YouTube  (38:40)

Baltimore trial attorney Billy Murphy gives advice. You may have seen him on "The Wire" on HBO.

The following are my notes. They give an idea of what is in the video, but I don't present these notes as being accurate or complete.

(1)  Always be calm and cool. No profanity, insults, or backtalk. Do not challenge the authority of the officer. Keep your hands visible. Turn on the car interior light, to show that you are not armed. Do not reach for anything until asked for your papers. You may frighten the officer and provoke a bad response.

(2)  You have the right to remain silent. Police do not have to read you your rights. Be polite, but do not make extra statements.

(3)  You have the right to refuse searches. Be polite but firm. "Officer, I have nothing illegal, but I don't consent to searches." Do not say "I know my rights" or be confrontational. Saying no may not stop the search, but it makes it possible to challenge the search later in court.

(4)  Don't get tricked. The police may order you out of your vehicle, so comply. Comply with all orders of the officer. The police may legally lie to you about what they might do. Remain calm in the face of threats, and continue to refuse a search when asked. The officer may not like this, but he will be more careful about violating your rights. This refusal is not evidence against you.

(5)  Determine if you are free to go. Ask the officer "Excuse me officer, are you detaining me or am I free to go?" This establishes that you are not staying voluntarily. Do not refuse any orders by the officer. Leave calmly if they do not specifically detain or restrain you.

(6)  Don't expose yourself to suspicion. An officer needs some reasonable suspicion to stop and search you. Don't show provocative bumper stickers, or for example, empty baggies (used for drugs), paint cans (vandalism), or items with price tags attached (theft).

(7)  Never run from the police. They may pat you down for weapons, and pull suspicious items from your pocket. You may refuse to present items. "Officer, I will not resist, but I do not consent to a search." Only refuse verbally, not physically, and follow all orders.

(8)  Never touch the officer. He may charge you with assault and arrest you just for that act. Respond to questions such as "You deal drugs, don't you?" with "I'm going to remain silent. I would like to see a lawyer." Do not be tricked. They may continue questioning you, but you need not answer, and should not answer. You cannot talk your way out of an interrogation or arrest, so wait to have an attorney as needed. Do not rely on the police to tell the truth about your situation or what will happen to you.

(9)  Report police misconduct. Remember as much as possible to be a good witness. Do not tell them that you might make a complaint. Remember their badge numbers, but do not ask them for these numbers. That will incite them.

(10)  You do not have to let the police into your home, and should not unless they have a warrant from a judge. Talk to them outside and close the door behind you, or use your chain lock to maintain a bar to entry. Say "I can't let you in without a warrant", even if they make the request again to enter and search your property.

If you consent to a search, you will be liable for any item that is illegal, whether you know about it ahead of time or not. Are you sure there is no marijuana cigarette lost in the couch cushions? If you agree to a search, they will stay as long as they want to, searching what they want to. You might ask them to leave, but they don't have to leave after a search has begun.

When the Police Question Your Child
03/01/11 - The Freeman by Wendy McElroy  (v)Via Advice Goddess

[edited]:  A family in Arvada, Colorado cooperated fully with the police. The police then arrested their 11 year-old son and led him from his home in handcuffs. He had drawn stick figures in school earlier that day, one with a gun. His therapist had told him to draw stick figures to deal with his emotions.

If the Arvada parents had followed the defensive rules below, their son probably would not be on probation with a criminal record for being a boy.

• Do not expect authorities to respect or inform you of your rights.
• Record the encounter if possible. Write down names and badge numbers and ask how to contact an immediate supervisor.
• Ask to see a search warrant before admitting police into your home. Once inside, police can search for weapons, observe possible violations of law, and collect evidence.
• Do not resist if an officer pushes in. Passively refuse to cooperate and call a lawyer.
• You need not allow any questioning without a court order, nor are you required to speak to authorities. Seemingly harmless information can be used against your child. State as often as necessary, “I have nothing to say.”
• Ask for the nature of the complaint and the number of the state statute or local ordinance they allege has been violated.
• Have a copy of your state’s laws on hand, as you might have a phone book or dictionary.

Flex Your Rights.org
A site devoted to the rights of citizens when dealing with the police.

Confused Liability Produces Bad Policy

A pizza delivery man for Pizza Hut recently used his own gun to defend himself against a robbery by shooting the robber. He was not charged by the police, who confirmed that he was defending himself. He was later fired by Pizza Hut for carrying a gun against company policy. The first reaction is to see Pizza Hut as heartless and stupid.

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The pizza companies are merely doing what the society wants, as expressed by the liability law. If they allow drivers to carry guns, then that is a corporate policy of allowance. They would be supporting the practice. Then, if a driver caused an injury with a gun, there would be a big lawsuit against Pizza Hut, which they would lose, if they couldn't prove that the third party had threatened the driver (and maybe even if they could prove it).

On the other side, some people think that Pizza Hut should pay damages if a robber injures one of their drivers, because Pizza Hut should protect their employees. Never mind that Pizza Hut has no power to issue guns to its employees, and it isn't clear what protection could be offered otherwise.

I think that Pizza Hut had to fire the employee, or some later lawsuit would claim that they condone their drivers carrying guns, even though they have a policy against it.

We have a society where companies are held liable for all bad outcomes, regardless of the good sense behind a policy. It seems that the best a pizza company can do is to hope that their drivers carry guns, hope that they don't find out, and to fire any driver who uses a gun even in self defense.

Comment by Say Uncle
Story by KCCI