dksuddeth

Ok, so somebody explain to me why some animals are more equal than others? Like this Illinois State Trooper who just had his illegal posession of a machine gun charge dropped.

http://www.ilsd.uscourts.gov/Opinion...nting_MTDs.pdf

If this were any civilian, they'd be facing 10 years in prison for doing the same exact thing that this ISP officer did.

Tell me again, we're not a police state? or is it just Illinois?

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

The_Jazz

DK, the proof that we (both the US and Illinois) are not in a "police state" is the fact that this guy was brought up on charges at all. If he was above the law, they never would have bothered charging him with anything. When you read the decision, you'll note that the plaintiff is consistently referred to as "the Government" - that same government that you're intent on branding a police state.

I see this case as proof that your basic premise is wrong.

Are you going to call for the execution of this judge next, as is your usual style?

You're really stretching on this one. I honestly don't think that you bothered to read past the introduction of the decision, which is what you quoted above. This decision revolves around whether or not Vest had the permission to purchase and use the weapon in question as a part of his duties as the equipment officer for the Illinois State Police SWAT team and head rifle instructor for the department. There's also the question as to whether or not Vest's superior in the ISP had the authority to grant him permission to buy the gun or if the authority had to come from the Federal government. Given that the judge came down squarely on the side of states' rights, I would think that you would be pleased with this.

If you'd actually read the decision, you'd know that it's absolutely impossible for a civilian to "the same exact thing". The case revolves solely around Vest's employment with the State Police, which excludes civilians explicitely.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

dksuddeth

Jazz, per your inference, we are not a police state unless they summarily execute people accused of crimes. Fine, by that definition, we are not a police state. I can assume then, that at this point, you will consider nothing less to be a police state.

To refer to a individual policeman as 'the government' SHOULD equal out to an individual being 'the people'. That should categorically confirm, without a doubt, that the second amendment is then NOT a states right, but an individual right.

I read the whole decision. What I see is a federal judge utilizing particular statements out of context and then obfuscating terms of agency and trooper to clear one of their LEO's. This LEO, as an individual, authorized, bought, and transferred, without the express authority of the ISP department, a machinegun. If a civilian tried that, it would result in his immediate arrest.

I realize that this particular case means nothing to the statists, socialists, and communists around the country, seeing how you're completely fine with the government saying what you can and cannot do, and this is whats killing this country.

What will you do when the government tells you that the freedom of speech is now restricted to 'the people' only when authorized, or that the freedom of the press is limited to what the government allows them to print?

sad state of america.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

Cynthetiq

dk, by your same arguments, it's been a police state at least since Clinton, since he lied under oath and didn't seem to perjure himself.

Foxy Brown and Martha Stewart both went to jail for the same crime.

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dksuddeth

I'd agree, in so far as people in positions of the government were not held accountable for their crimes. Look at Janet Reno. Never charged for the murders at Mt. Carmel

But Bush's harken trade got a free pass. are we on the same side? sounds like it.

__________________
"no amount of force can control a free man, a man whose mind is free. No, not the rack, not fission bombs, not anything. You cannot conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him."

The_Jazz

DK, you're arguing so completely out of context that I'm having a very hard time believing that you've missed the basic tripping point of your arguement. You're far too intelligent to miss something this fundamental. Let's start this again.

The federal government brought the charges. To me, that fact in and of itself completely negates your arguement for the existance of a police state. If we were in a police state on a national level, as you posit throughout this thread, then the fact that the feds are bringing up charges AT ALL against an officer is hard evidence that there is no such police state. In my first post, I never referred to the officer as the "government" - that referrence was for the prosecution.

If you read the decision, I would love to know what other evidence, statements and testimony you are privy to that would allow you to say that the judge took them "out of context". Clearly you have hard evidence to the contrary, and I'd love to know what it is and why it wasn't used in court. If you have no such evidence or transcripts of the proceedings, then stating that he took anything out of context is a strawman.

Here's my favorite part of your post:

The judge's entire arguement centers around the fact that Vest did in fact have proper authorization. It seems abudantly clear to me.

Seriously, what purpose would it serve for a police state to levy accusations of this sort against members of the police?

Let me also point out that there is no execution inference in my post, and your statement that I implied anything of the sort just goes to show that you've completely missed the boat on this one.

__________________
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - B. Franklin
"There ought to be limits to freedom." - George W. Bush
"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

MoonDog

Police State
1) A state in which the government exercises rigid and repressive controls over the social, economic, and political life of the people, especially by means of a secret police force.

I'm not sure that we have anything that truly approaches the level of a "Secret Police" force in this country as of yet. I would also have to argue that the government does not yet exercise "rigid" controls on the social, economic, and political life of the citizens of the US. Not quite yet, at least.

2) A nation whose rulers maintain order and obedience by the threat of police or military force; one with a brutal, arbitrary government.
I don't we are here yet either. I don't think recent presidents have threated the use of police and/or military force internally to maintain "order & obedience".

3) A police state is an authoritarian state which uses the police, especially secret police, to maintain and enforce political power, often through violent or arbitrary means. A police state typically exhibits elements of totalitarianism or other harsh means of social control. In a police state the police are not subject to the rule of law and there is no meaningful distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the executive.

The police in the US are subject to the rule of law, and are most definitely distinct from our major, national political entities.

A government does not describe itself as a "police state". Instead, it is a description assigned to a regime by internal or external critics in response to the laws, policies and actions of that regime, and is often used pejoratively to describe the regime's stance on human rights, the social contract and similar matters.
I think that our international critics might accuse us of human rights lapses due to Guantanamo Bay, Iraqi prisoner abuse, etc. But those incidents, grouped as they are around the war, might not constitute the full range of such behaviors across our social spectrum to qualify us as a police state.