This week an officer was caught red handed planting drugs on the property of a suspect.
In the video, taken from the police officer's own body cam, one can clearly see him placing a tin can in the yard and then walking with the other officers back to the front of the residence. At this point, the officer appears to try to "turn on" his body cam. He immediately walks back to the spot where the tin can was placed and 'eureka!' he found drugs.
Watch it here:
This is not something new. This is not unique. It is a story as old as time.
For most of history, if you had something the king/governor/tax collector wanted, it was easy enough for him to take it from you.
Oh sure, he could buy it from you - but that could be costly. And what if you didn't want to sell?
No, the better way was to send the police. He'd give them a story to tell of how you resisted them, and he'd tell them to kill you on the spot.
For the governor, it's a win win. He gets your stuff, and keeps his money. Even better, he can proclaim to the rest of the citizens that a traitor has been caught and punished. Fear of the magistrate would increase and so would his power.
Now what I provided above is a specific example, but it is the pattern that matters. The systems of government allow for those in power to exploit the citizens. The justice system is broken in this kind of society. Security can only be found in pleasing the local authority and in being lucky they don't kill you anyway.
The founding fathers knew that this was a problem and they came up with a solution. The Bill of Rights. The first ten amendments to the Constitution.
In that document are enshrined the rules that government must abide by when punishing criminals. And if you are unaware of the history of government exploitation, then it may seem overboard.
In fact, it does seem overboard to a large number of modern Americans. These people see no problem in sacrificing the Bill of Rights if they are promised to be made more secure in the process. In what ways are we losing out Constitutional rights?
The government must give you a trial before locking you up. But not if you're being held in Guantanimo Bay.
The government must suspect you of a crime before searching you. But not for "stop and frisk". Not for "no refusal weekend". Not to be spied on by the NSA.
The government must convict you of a crime before depriving you of property. But not when it's civil asset forfeiture.
The sad fact is that your Bill of Rights protections are being sold down the river by well meaning idiots. These sheep have been programmed to fear. Fear. Fear.
They fear their own shadows. They fear terrorists. They fear guns. They fear drug users. They fear everything and because they fear - something must be done! You must sacrifice your liberties.
But that is not the American way. That is the cowards way. And it ends in the death of liberty.
"Those who would sacrifice liberty for security will lose both and deserve neither."
If we keep going in this direction, we are going to see more and more corruption. More cops planting evidence. More abuse of authority. But we wont SEE it, of course. They will get rid of the body cams. They will arrest you for filming.
But we will suffer it. When you are in court fighting that 5 years sentence for the cocaine they found in your yard - it will be your word against an officer of the law. He will have a better lawyer. He will have a badge and a uniform and the jury will have had years of conditioning to believe him over you.
This is the future we can expect if we don't turn the tides on fear. We need to convince our fellow man that Thomas Jefferson was right when he said:
"I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than those attending too small a degree of it."
I encourage you to stand with me and fight the fear. Fight the knee-jerk reactions. Fight for liberty.
The battle is not over. The battle is NOT OVER. We must persist. We must educate the uninitiated. We must organize behind the banner of freedom. And we must do it now - before it's too late.
But how do we do it? How do we make people understand what the Bill of Rights truly means and why it must be preserved?
I'm honestly asking. What is the best way to get this point across?
Please comment below with suggestions.