Excise a Gerp Today
Do our laws follow our religions?
This morning I received a call from a man in a different corner of our nation regarding the issue of police abuse. He insisted that I tell him the answer to "what's your jurisdiction," according to the primary and secondary definitions in Black's Law Dictionary. Black's 8th starts definint the term on page 2490 and goes on for pages, providing this first:1. A government's general power to exercise authority over all persons and things within its territory; esp., a state's power to create interests that will be recognized under common-law principles as valid in other states <New Jersey's jurisdiction>. [Cases: States 1. C.J.S. States §§ 2, 16.] 2. A court's power to decide a case or issue a decree < the constitutional grant of federal-question jurisdiction>. — Also termed (in sense 2) competent jurisdiction; (in both senses) coram judice.Pretty soon, I found out that the caller wanted to hammer me into submission with the assertion that the bible is the source of the law and jurisdiction comes from God.
I told him that law comes from man's observation of relationships which culminated in the Golden Rule, and has nothing in particular to do with God or the bible. I said the authors of the Bible lived under laws on that basis long before anyone wrote a bible. I did not get to venture further because the line suddenly disconnected.
Anyway, he seemed to want to know MY authority for demanding that Police treat me with love and respect under my normal condition of abiding by the law. I did not get to tell him that jurisdiction applies only to Government, and cops have only the authority to interfere with people under provisions of the law. I wanted to point him to the state constitution's guarantee of our right to privacy and to be let alone from intrusion of government into our lives except as specified in that constitution... and that explains why certain police behavior constitutes "abuse."
I wanted to explain that the people need to read the criminal laws regarding stop-and-frisk, and probable cause to arrest law breakers, and police powers to prevent crimes. And while abiding by the criminal laws, people should always demand identification and recitation of authority from cops, and sue and file internal affairs and criminal complaints against cops who violate their rights by exceeding that authority.
I suppose John Wolfgram could give him some lectures on that point, having suffered government thuggery and won in court against them.
How to Prevent and Eliminate Abuse by Government perpetrators of Crime ("Gerps")
But eventually, regardless of the source of abuse, whether from cops or criminals, people need to embrace a gradient scale of actions calculated to prevent and terminate abuse by government thugs. Unless of course, they like to feel and deal with bruises, cuts, broken limbs, bashed heads, black eyes, life-long disabilities, and death at the hands of government thugs.
1. Avoidance - keep out of harm's way.
- Don't smart off to or antagonize law enforcers
- Stay away from organized arrays of law enforcers
- ALWAYS have one or more "wing men" (and least one surreptitiously) nearby observing and recording
- Try to have several supporters in your company as witnesses, intimidating by mere peaceful presence
2. Physical force on-scene
- get a concealed carry or other gun permit and bear arms for defense of self and others.
3. Personal process - polite interaction with the abuser
- talk to the abuser in calmer circumstances
- coax, suggest retirement, offer a different job, explain the upshot of accelerating the issue, etc,
4. Administrative process
- write demand letters to legislators, mayors, police chiefs, news papers,and the abuser's family/friends/employers
- hire investigators and PR agencies to dig up and expose dirt on the perp to the news media
5. Legal process
- file internal affairs / administrative, criminal, and tort complaints, and prosecuting herding to resolution
6. Political process
- campaign for and elect politicians who will eliminate the abuse from within government
7. Public process
- rally, demonstrate, and march in parks, streets, public malls, etc., with signs, banners, flyers, etc.
- Excise the perp and any enablers/supporters from government or (if necessary) from the planet by any means deemed expedient.
- Use stealth to make detection and counter-retribution least likely.
- Exercise caution to avoid mistakes, for the process constitutes grave personal danger.
Cops - Only Human
We should realize that police work endangers the cop, and the cop's family. Dealing with sneaky, violent criminals imposes stress on cops that creates a fight or flight reaction tendency (PTSD), partly because the law constrains them not to kill the criminal on the spot except in certain circumstances. That makes it dangerous for ordinary non-criminals to come into the cop's immediate presence.Add to that danger the fact that many cops use drugs and have become criminals themselves by accepting bribes, stealing the contraband and loot of both criminals and the innocent, and committing rape, mayhem, robbery, murder, and a host of other crimes. They generally operate under an omerta-style code of silence in a good old boys network that protects the cops from exposure, arrest, and prosecution. Even "good" cops have fallen into that network and turn a blind eye to their fellow officers' bad behavior, so they have become part of the problem and citizens simply cannot trust them to do the right thing to rein in the abuses by bad cops. And, criminal cops have little compunction about hurting innocent people. They tend to see everyone as just another kind of criminal.
Our Duty and Its Source
All of us have the duty to eliminate evil, criminal, abusive people from government. I call them Gerps, Governemt pERPetratorS of crime. Sometimes we find it too onerous and burdensome to make the effort because so many Gerps exist and hurt others. We ought to feel compunction against such lethargy and dereliction of duty, but more than that, we ought to work together at home and in communities to excise crimes and Gerps from government, even if our favorite cops and politicians commit those crimes.At the same time, we should patiently exercise some restraint, realizing that people in and out of government might err in good conscience.
We should never feel disdain for those seeking to expose and excise crimes and Gerps from government. We should lend such justice seekers and their efforts our support, help fund their efforts, and join in to do the work as needed, as we prosecute our other ambitions in life.
You can ask whether the Bible or your religion endorses the above scheme of terminating abuse by cops and others in government, and excising the abusers from government. The bible says "an eye for an eye," justifying vengeance. It also says "love your neighbor as yourself," justifying tolerance. Jesus elevated those notions by saying "love one another as I have loved you" and "forgive others seventy times seven." And of course, the Golden Rule, a component of all religions, provides "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." So, clearly, justice-seeking has its practical, moral, and ethical limits, ending short of hurting others except in a just cause. Seeking justice becomes a balancing act.
Well, nothing I have written above violates the most enlightened of those principles. If you love your fellows, you will not permit government thugs and rogues to abuse them. You will not abuse them, except in the interest of prevention and justice, and you will not permit their abusing you.
If you have registered to vote, served in the US military or any other government job, or become a naturalized citizen, you have sworn an oath to support the US and state constitutions. Those documents impose limits on government and police power. The swearing of an oath has a religious nature, even if you don't add "so help me God" at the end.
Thus, you have both a legal and religious duty to enforce the imposition of those limits on the authority of government employees. You MUST, as both a good citizen and a child of God, eliminate crime and criminals from government by whatever means you deem expedient. So,
EXCISE A GERP TODAY.
Reference - READ THESE
Florida Constitution of 1838 Article I:
We the People of the Territory of Florida ... in order to secure to ourselves and our posterity the enjoyment of all the rights of life, liberty, and property, and the pursuit of happiness, do mutually agree, each with the other, to form ourselves into a Free and Independent State, by the name of the State of Florida.
ARTICLE I. Declaration of Rights.
That the great and essential principles of liberty and free government may be recognized and established, we declare:
Section 1. That all freemen, when they form a social compact, are equal; and have certain inherent and indefeasible rights, among which are those of enjoying and defending life and liberty; of acquiring, possessing, and protecting property and reputation; and of pursuing their own happiness.
Section 2. That all political power is inherent in the people, and all free governments are founded on their authority, and established for their benefit; and, therefore, they have, at all times, an inalienable and indefeasible right to alter or abolish their form of government, in such manner as they may deem expedient.
Section 21. That the free ... of this State shall have the right to keep and to bear arms, for their common defense.
Declaration of Independence of 1776, Paragraph 2:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights, governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. That whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such government, and to provide new guards for their future security. — Such has been the patient sufferance of these colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former systems of government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over these states. To prove this, let facts be submitted to a candid world.
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