Authored by Eric Peters via EricPetersAutos.com,
Did you know that when you’re stopped for no reason at a drunk
driving checkpoint – well, stopped for no reason having anything to do
with something you did to suggest you might be “drunk” – your refusal to participate in self-incrimination can result in your arrest, loss of your government permission slip to travel as well as the impounding of your car? Your “cooperation” is not only appreciated – it is required.
This not-much-discussed aspect of Checkpoint USA is arguably even worse than the existence of
Checkpoint USA – which came into being in the ’80s, when the government
decided to re-interpret the limits of its own authority (a problem with
government) by summarily decreeing it to be “reasonable” to randomly and arbitrarily stop people and treat them as presumptively guilty of having committed a crime.
The thing George Mason and others who insisted on the Bill of Rights
as their condition for reluctantly supporting the dodgy Constitution
(which was confected by an elitist minority, behind closed doors and
without any mandate from “the people” mentioned in the Declaration of
Independence) feared would come to pass had come to pass.
Despite the Bill and its very lucid delineation of the the lines
across which the government has no rightful authority to tread, the
government simply “interpreted” the line more to its liking – at its
pleasure.
The government became the arbiter of its own power almost as soon as
the ink on the Constitution dried – limiting first freedom of speech
(Alien & Sedition acts) and many other formerly sacrosanct rights of
the people – including freedom of association and the freedom to
actually own property – during the ensuing years. In the ’80s, it cast aside the Bill of Rights’ very clear prohibition of unreasonablesearches –
which by any etymological standard encompasses the arbitrary and random
searching of everyone who just happens to be available.
But it’s not just being forced to stop without your having given
reason to warrant it – or forced to submit to a search just because the
government is powerful and you are not. In many states, there is the additionalrequirement in law that, if ordered to do so by an armed government worker, you must perform gymnastics by
the side of the road to demonstrate you are not “drunk.” Or breathe
into a notoriously inaccurate device which provides evidence that can
and will be used against you.
If you decline to perform the roadside gymnastics – for any of
several practical and moral reasons, including perhaps because you
aren’t coordinated and are nervous and the prospect of stumbling in
front of the AGW, who will seize that as evidence of your “drunkeness”
alarms you . . . or decline to “blow” into the apparatus presented by
the AGW because you are aware of the notorious inaccuracy of roadside
Breath Tests and prefer not to participate in self-incrimination that
way … either is cause by itself for the AGW to apply handcuffs and take you to a cage and your car to an impound lot. It does not matter that nothing has been proved against you. Your refusal to provide evidence is the evidence.
You are effectively tried, convicted – and punished – for being uncooperative. This has become a very serious de facto offense, even in the absence of any statutory offense.
And the “conviction” sticks even when de jure innocence of
any statutory offense – including the “drunk driving” charge you were
cuffed and stuffed for – has been established later on.
They win, you lose – regardless.
The person who refuses to cooperate by self-incriminating or who simply objects to the idea of
cooperating with those attempting to incriminate him is automatically
subject, in many states, to the immediate forfeiture of government
permission to travel (i.e., one’s driver’s license) even if it is later
determined – as by forced blood draw while in the custody of AGWs – that
the victim had zero alcohol in his bloodstream. It’s only a little bit removed from water-boarding or the use of the Iron Maiden – both of which are probably coming.
The legal concept of subjecting a presumptively innocent person – which used to be every person not actually convicted of a criminal act by a jury after due process of law – to duress in
order to suborn his “cooperation” in his own prosecution is literally
Medieval. The sort of thing done in dungeons by black robed, hairy-armed
inquisitors in the employ of the Church or the King.
Today, the inquisitors wear body armor and have tattoos; are jacked
up on steroids rather than Jesus (though some of them profess that as
well) and the duress is administered in a euphemized and bureaucratized
manner intended to make it seem All Right. But it is not All Right for state authority especially to subject an innocent person – whatever you may think he’s done – to hot irons and thumbscrews or any other form of duress in order to make it easier to prosecute him.
And it is far worse to apply punishment to a presumptively innocent
person for objecting to being treated as though presumptively guilty –
who insists on being proved guilty of something other than being
“uncooperative” before the state applies punishment. * * * If you like what you’ve found here please consider supporting EPautos. We depend on you to keep the wheels turning! Our donate button is here.
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