By Eric Peters on 9.15.09 @ 6:07AM
Should police be allowed to draw the blood of drivers suspected
of drunk driving?
Next time you get pulled over by a cop -- or stopped at random in
a "sobriety checkpoint" -- you might want to remember the
following laugh line: It's called the Fifth Amendment to the Bill
of Rights, which reads, in part, that "No person... shall be
compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against
himself."
Ho ho ho!
It's a laugh line, because, like, so many of the other amendments
to the Bill of Rights, pleading the Fifth -- that is,
declining to assist the authorities in your own
prosecution -- is a sick joke.
Or like them, is about to become one.
Because cops may soon have the legal authority to forcibly
extract blood from you in order to use that blood as evidence
against you in DWI cases -- which are criminal proceedings.
Refuse to take a Breathalyzer (for whatever reason) or perform
the trained monkey act by the side of the road (perhaps because
you're not coordinated even if completely sober and probably a
lot less so under pressure and in the glow of a policeman's
flashlight) and you could find yourself thrown down across the
hood of a squad car while some cop jams your body with needles in
order to get the blood that will then be used as evidence against
you at your trail.
Oh, but they will be trained!
Well, sort of, kinda. A "compressed" version of the same program
taken by blood techs -- phlebotomists, in medical jargon -- will
be the curriculum vitae of these state-sanctioned thugs.
Feel better now?
It's all part of a
new federal program -- yes, another one -- the
stated purpose of which will be to determine how effective a
"tool" such tactics would be in the ongoing (and endless) crusade
against drunk driving. If it is deemed "effective" (do you doubt
it will be?), then it will become as commonly practiced across
this formerly free land as all the other outrages against
civility and basic legal due process we have already assented to.
The badge-lickers out there will see no trouble here, either.
After all, if you're not driving drunk, what have you
got to be worried about? Those nice cops would
never use force against an innocent person! They will be
trained! The lab people don't make mistakes, not even
every now and then.
And, of course -- drunk driving is a bad thing!
It makes me shiver with dread to see just how close to the abyss
we really are. The Masses -- or a great part of them -- have
become sickeningly compliant authority worshippers of the
late-Soviet or 1920s Weimar Germany type who submit to anything
demanded of them by the state. And who often bristle with
righteous indignation when the occasional semi-sentient citizen
dares to raise an objection. Such a person is either a
soft-headed "liberal" (if the objector is a badge-licking "law
and order" Republican type) or (if the objector is the liberal),
the person raising pesky questions is smeared as being opposed to
"safety" - or someone who favors (in this case) "drunk driving."
Neither sees -- or would give a damn about it, if they did -- the
point. Which is that empowering cops to physically hold
you down and draw blood from your body against your will -- to be
used as evidence against you in a criminal proceeding -- is to
rape the Fifth Amendment and thus, another basic and ancient
tenet of the late great tradition we used to call the rule of
law.
All in a good cause?
Only if you're a fool -- or the government, which knows what the
real payoff here is.
"Getting dangerous drunks off the road" is no more the issue than
the random stop and frisks we're now routinely subjected to when
traveling (and even when not) or the indefinite detentions of
anyone the government wishes -- with or without waterboardings --
are about "fighting terror."
The issue is teaching the people to Obey and Submit. To
condition them to accept the idea that anything the government
does, at any time and for whatever reason (or no reason at all)
is acceptable -- including the use of physical force against
people even suspected of having committed some offense.
And if you're not guilty of "drunk driving?"
Sorry about that, John Q. Be sure to hold that bandage against
your elbow for at least the next 10 minutes to staunch the flow
of blood.
Have a nice day.
As for due process: The Maggot Masses do not grasp the concept;
they are too busy watching football -- or keeping track of the
John and Kate plus Eight.
It's what really matters these days.
