Economics & Political Vloggery 2010
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27 September 2010
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I went to
Colorado
to study the state's geology, but I found myself encounter a much deeper question: How much of a reduced standard
of living would I be willing to accept for more freedom? To avoid the cost of camping I spent most of the week sleeping in the back
of my minivan on the floor. It was less comfortable than my bed, but it didn't really bother me. When the police showed up at a rest
area where I was sleeping to harass someone else for who knows what, I could just start up the car and drive on to an abandoned
parking lot or side road somewhere else. This is in contrast to a house, where when the police are parked outside to to harass
someone else for who knows what, you have to come back after driving Alora & Brittan to school because you need to get Maxwell &
Zara ready.
How can you hold down a decent job? some might say. I don't know that I could get another job. The economy isn't that bad - you should be able to find something. For a criminal? Wait, you're a criminal? In 2002 I came to stay at my parents house after a wedding to discover my sister had had a party with her adult friends who were all over 18 but under 21. I didn't send them away, so when the police came I received 13 counts of providing alcohol to a minor for myself and the 12 others they arrested plus one count of disorderly house. I also got to experience being fondled, shackled, and threatened with rape if I didn't come up with bond money to get me out of the holding cell that night. Fortunately Nana had given me $500 as a present for my recent graduation from GA Tech so Cara brought that to bail me out. Oh yeah, why wasn't Cara arrested? Well, you can imagine the bureaucratic nightmare dealing with two sleeping 4-year-olds when you arrest both of their parents. Looking at a possible 14 years in prison I went to a lot of job interviews, but got no offers (they generally pay for a background check after interviewing before hiring). My parents helped me hire a lawyer. I got to do a "pretrial intervention", which is where you pay a private company a large sum of money to have the state drop the charges and you go to government re-education classes. Little did I know that I had just played my one get out of jail free card. I filled out the necessary forms to have my record expunged of the charges, but have since discovered that's fairly meaningless. The US system is unique with it's innocent-until-proven-guilty claim. My record is on Interpol for all to see meaning even a trip to Canada leads invariably to a long stay at customs, phonecalls to check out my background, and a search of my car. Since I couldn't get a job I went back to school while dealing with all this. Fast forward to 2010: I've got 2 more degrees, 2 years experience in corporate America and over 100 publications in the top peer-reviewed journals of physics. I got hit by cutbacks being in the wrong city (they closed the office & sold the building in Lincoln) this spring. Bad luck, but not the end of the world. I spent the spring doing Libertarian volunteer work in a campaign against the city which was trying to raise taxes to build a new sporting arena (we lost). Summer started, and I went out to a bar one night to watch a World Cup game with an Australian I'd met on twitter. Needless to say I was not fit to drive home afterward, so knowing public drunkenness was not illegal I set out to walk home. The disadvantage of living in place where everyone is white is that you're the same color as all the criminals. A white male wearing a white shirt had tried to break into a lady's house that evening and she'd smashed his right hand in the door, so it was wounded. I had scrapes on my left knuckles from where Zinny, my dog, had whacked them into a bookshelf that morning. Police are not known for being able to tell right from left. I'd like to believe they're not just dishonest. Either way their report when they picked me up stated that my right, not my left hand was injured. By that point it mattered little. I did not fight back against the police as they arrested me, but I did not help them either. When asked to put my hands behind my back, I did not so they forced them there to handcuff me. For this I was charged with "Failure to Comply". When asked to get into the police car I stood there. When they pushed me I fell to the ground. For this I was charged with "Resisting Arrest". For whoever tried to break into the lady's house I'm thankful they didn't get in, because I was only charged with "Disturbing the Peace" and "Trespassing" for that crime. Looking at 2 years in prison I hired a lawyer. It did not matter that I had photographic proof posted online that morning of my injured left hand or the Australian alibi. The case for me "Failing to Comply" and "Resisting Arrest" was airtight. They initially offered me pretrial intervention, but that was revoked when they realized I'd already used my get out of jail free card. The next offer was a plea bargain: if I agreed not to contest 2 of the charges, the City of Lincoln would drop the other 2. My lawyer recommended this as this best way to avoid prison time, as I would probably be given probation. I did, and I was. So here I am at the mercy of bureaucrats and their re-education programs. In the world of probation you give up all of your constitutional protections and more. I have been required to join a religious organization. I am forced to testify and submit physical evidence in the form of a blood test weekly against myself. The medical and criminal histories of my family members and friends decides the severity of my punishment. As does the incident in 2002 where all the charges were dropped. In reality the US system is no more based on innocent-until-proven-guilty than any other. In addition to federal, state and local income taxes, property taxes, sales taxes, government retirement in the form of social security and government unemployment payments we now have government healthcare. What exactly am I gaining to put up with the US police state which imprisons 1/100 US citizens overall and 1/20 black men aged 18-25? If you know me you know a victim of the police state. Don't let our country become all the things our ancestors came here to avoid. |