"The rule of law -- the faint hope for the justice of a fair trial -- is no longer likely for the gun owners your agency selects as targets."
Um, I hate to break this to ya, but.... the rule of law - the faint hope for the justice of a fair trial - is no longer likely for ANYONE in this country.
Consider: The difference in treatment between those who used poor judgment and questionable ethics to make home loans and those who used equally poor judgment and questionable ethics to get them. The difference in treatment between a white male racist or sexist in the news and a female or minority member, even if they are equally, or MORE, racist or sexist. The difference in treatment between Christians and members of any other religion. The fact that if you go to court over a dispute between you and your landlord, you are nearly guaranteed to have the judge in your case be someone who owns rental property, yet this is not considered a conflict of interest. The fact that the police can stop you for no reason whatsoever and demand to see your papers. The fact that a policeman giving tickets for traffic violations is nearly guaranteed to be violating the very same laws he is ticketing others for (speeding, illegal lane change, illegal U turn, tailgating) and, not only is he not punished for his failure to obey the law, it is so commonplace as not to even be worthy of comment.
Justice. Rule of law. Shyeah right, pull the other one. When the rules are enforced upon strangers and those who are politically and economically unimportant, but are not enforced on the rule makers, the rule enforcers, their friends, allies and supporters.... that's just another gang.
Grumpy -- When has it not been like that? Historically, some group or other always gets the short end of the stick. Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I still think here and now it's better than it's ever been before or in any other place (with the exception of public education). At least until Obama gets elected.
And do cops actually ticket for tailgaiting? They'd make a fortune where I live.
Sarah, you are quite correct, it has always been like that in some fashion or another. And yes I agree, the US is still *less* subject to that than any place I know of. Although I must admit, I consider us to have largely *lost* ground for much of the last 50 years.
What gripes me is that, so far as I can tell, those who strive for the power to change things have (in my lifetime at least) consistently struggled to make this problem WORSE.
DJ -- Yep. And that other bon mot of his also applies: When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
Note:
All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost;
references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>
JS-Kit/Echo comments for article at http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2008/06/quote-of-day_29.html (6 comments)
Tentative mapping of comments to original article, corrections solicited.
"The rule of law -- the faint hope for the justice of a fair trial -- is no longer likely for the gun owners your agency selects as targets."
Um, I hate to break this to ya, but.... the rule of law - the faint hope for the justice of a fair trial - is no longer likely for ANYONE in this country.
Consider: The difference in treatment between those who used poor judgment and questionable ethics to make home loans and those who used equally poor judgment and questionable ethics to get them. The difference in treatment between a white male racist or sexist in the news and a female or minority member, even if they are equally, or MORE, racist or sexist. The difference in treatment between Christians and members of any other religion. The fact that if you go to court over a dispute between you and your landlord, you are nearly guaranteed to have the judge in your case be someone who owns rental property, yet this is not considered a conflict of interest. The fact that the police can stop you for no reason whatsoever and demand to see your papers. The fact that a policeman giving tickets for traffic violations is nearly guaranteed to be violating the very same laws he is ticketing others for (speeding, illegal lane change, illegal U turn, tailgating) and, not only is he not punished for his failure to obey the law, it is so commonplace as not to even be worthy of comment.
Justice. Rule of law. Shyeah right, pull the other one. When the rules are enforced upon strangers and those who are politically and economically unimportant, but are not enforced on the rule makers, the rule enforcers, their friends, allies and supporters.... that's just another gang.
Grumpy -- When has it not been like that? Historically, some group or other always gets the short end of the stick. Maybe I'm overly optimistic, but I still think here and now it's better than it's ever been before or in any other place (with the exception of public education). At least until Obama gets elected.
And do cops actually ticket for tailgaiting? They'd make a fortune where I live.
I consider Vanderboegh to be in Thomas Paine's league.
Sarah, you are quite correct, it has always been like that in some fashion or another. And yes I agree, the US is still *less* subject to that than any place I know of. Although I must admit, I consider us to have largely *lost* ground for much of the last 50 years.
What gripes me is that, so far as I can tell, those who strive for the power to change things have (in my lifetime at least) consistently struggled to make this problem WORSE.
Kevin has explained this. They keep trying, um, "harder".
DJ -- Yep. And that other bon mot of his also applies: When your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
Note: All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost; references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>