Maybe I’m the last person to think of this, but… It finally dawned on me earlier, when thinking (for the four millionth time) “I need to call my congresscritters about that” – to PROGRAM THEIR NUMBERS INTO MY CELL PHONE.

No more “I’ll do it when I get home,” or “I need to go look that up” – bam. Right there between the in-laws and Pizza Hut.

Is Obama a natural-born citizen? Is there a big cover-up? Do you think it matters?

What say you, PGB readers? Are you ‘birthers?’

I just googled Jack Dunphy, thinking surely I cannot be a voice in the wilderness with my interpretation of what he wrote.

A-ha! Sure enough, Radley Balko saw it the way I did. I actually found this article first, which is his explanation of his characterization, and was amused that he had to break it down like I did.

I was going to link that over here, to say see, I’m not the only one – only to get to the end of the article, where Balko said:

“Finally, I’d add that I, Doherty, and L.A. Times editor Paul Thornton (also mentioned in Patterico’s post) were hardly the only ones who interpreted Dunphy’s post this way.“

Aaaand he linked back to PGB.

Great minds and all that, right? :)

After I posted “Jack’s” NRO piece last night, a friend asked me via IM what my problem with it was. I thought it was cut-and-dried, he saw it from a different angle, and I went to bed wondering what sort of comments my PGB readers would have left for me by morning. :)

Let me walk you through it, though if you want a quick version, Aaron pretty much got it in one in the comments.

You may be as pure as the driven snow itself, but you have no idea what horrible crime that police officer might suspect you of committing.

Expect cops to treat you like a criminal. Yes, I understand this to an extent. I do. Though most people are good, I understand that cops see the worst of society, and many are jaded, and they also have a vested interest in protecting their hide. Guess what? Though most cops are probably good, I’ve had a couple close encounters (and many vicarious close encounters) with bad ones. So, I’m jaded, and I have a vested interested in protecting my hide. Thus, even though Joe Trooper who pulls me over is probably a decent guy? I’m not going to talk to him more than I have to, I’m not letting him search my vehicle, etc. I have to assume he’s not interested in my rights, so I better mind them myself. Which brings us along to…

A passing police officer sees you and, asking himself how many 1932 Hupmobiles can there be around here, pulls you over.

Alright, scene established. The officer has pulled over a unique automobile, and is assuming the driver is the guy who knocked off the Piggly Wiggly. Officer presumably runs the plates, calls for backup, does whatever he feels the need to do.

At that moment I can assure you the officer is not all that concerned with trying not to offend you. He is instead concerned with protecting his mortal hide from having holes placed in it where God did not intend.

So, he cautiously approaches the vehicle, to find me in the drivers seat, perhaps a little annoyed he’s taking so doggone long but otherwise calm and quiet. He asks for my drivers license, registration, and proof of insurance. Here in Idaho, since I’m driving a vehicle, I do have to provide a license to drive that vehicle. I hand it all over.

If, at that point, the officer asks to “take a look in the trunk,” I’m telling him no. Why? Because I can. Because it’s my right. Because I have committed no crime, and I am not going to submit to an unwarranted search of my personal belongings. Period.

And you, if in asserting your constitutional right to be free from unlawful search and seizure fail to do as the officer asks, run the risk of having such holes placed in your own.

There’s my problem with Jack. I have just asserted my constitutional right to be free from unlawful search and seizure, which goes hand-in-hand with failing to do as the officer asked (search the car), and Jack is telling me I’m running the risk of being shot.

Maybe Jack just sucks at writing. Maybe what Jack really meant to say was, “If I approach your vehicle and you jump out, screaming in my direction about your ‘motherfuckin’ rights!’ and start advancing on me, you run the risk of being shot.” Maybe what Jack really meant to say was, “If I ask you to step out of the vehicle, and you say ‘make me, pig!’ and reach for your glovebox, you run the risk of being shot.” But where, in the scenario he provided, did the innocent driver of the lookalike car do anything “wrong” aside from asserting rights? The way Jack wrote his scenario, asserting your rights and failing to do as the officer asks are, essentially, one and the same. He says jump, you say “I have rights that say I don’t have to jump” and thus do not jump, and you shouldn’t be surprised to find yourself shot for that?

When the officer has satisfied himself that it was not you and your Hupmobile that were involved in the Piggly Wiggly heist, he owes you an explanation for the stop and an apology for the inconvenience, but if you’re running your mouth about your rights and your history of oppression and what have you, you’re likely to get neither.

So, while the officer owes you an explanation and apology, if you’re uppity you won’t get them. Jack should not have used the word owes here. Owes is mandatory, a duty, implying payment of a debt, or the like – not a courtesy. Apparently Jack’s standards for his fellow officers are pretty low, since he’s saying they’ll shirk a duty if pissed off.

This also says: Don’t question mah authoritah. If you’re a good little boy, I’ll tell you why I pulled you over out of the blue. If you’re not, and I don’t shoot you first, I’ll just let you go wondering what the papers-pleeze stop was all about. If Jack had any forethought, he’d realize the people who are “running their mouth” about their rights and a history of oppression are the ones most easily put in their place by a quick explanation and apology. A little goes a long way. I’m going to feel like an ass if I’m bitching about my rights, thinking I’ve been papers-pleezed, only to find I was stopped because of an Amber Alert matching my vehicle’s description.

As for my objection to Jack’s pseudonym – it’s exactly what I said. He talks a big game. He’s full of bravado for someone standing behind a nom de plume. No, it’s not original, but so what if they’ve been used since time began? That doesn’t automatically put someone who uses their pseudonym for anonymous chest-beating on the same level as Benjamin Franklin or Mark Twain. Ever heard of the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory?

Emphasis mine:

Sunday, July 26, 2009

Robert Gibbs on FNS    [Jack Dunphy]

On today’s Fox News Sunday, presidential press secretary Robert Gibbs admitted President Obama had been prepared to answer questions about the Henry Louis Gates arrest at his press conference last week.  Bret Baier, filling in for regular host Chris Wallace, asked Gibbs, “Before Wednesday’s news conference, did you prepare [the president] for a question about Henry Gates’s arrest in Cambridge?”

“Well, look,” said Gibbs, “Let’s just say it’s safe to say we went over a whole lot of topics that we thought might come up, and certainly this was a topic that was, has been in the news . . .”  He then went on to try to un-ring the bell by repeating the line that the president “hadn’t calibrated his words well,” and blah, blah, blah, beer at the White House, blah, blah, blah.

So now we know that President Obama didn’t properly “calculate” his words about the Cambridge police “acting stupidly” even after being prepared for such a question in advance. Thus is revealed the president’s tone deafness in failing to anticipate the backlash such an answer might provoke.

And now we are told, in a further attempt at damage control, that the Gates arrest can serve to educate all those mouth-breathing cops out there who may yet stumble into an unpleasant encounter with some other Ivy Leaguer. It’s our hope, said Gibbs, invoking that insufferable locution that one hopes will soon fade from common usage, that the Gates arrest can be “part of a teachable moment.”

So, since the president is keen on offering instruction, here is what I would advise he teach his Ivy League pals, and anyone else who may find himself unexpectedly confronted by a police officer: You may be as pure as the driven snow itself, but you have no idea what horrible crime that police officer might suspect you of committing. You may be tooling along on a Sunday drive in your 1932 Hupmobile when, quite unknown to you, someone else in a 1932 Hupmobile knocks off the nearby Piggly Wiggly. A passing police officer sees you and, asking himself how many 1932 Hupmobiles can there be around here, pulls you over. At that moment I can assure you the officer is not all that concerned with trying not to offend you. He is instead concerned with protecting his mortal hide from having holes placed in it where God did not intend. And you, if in asserting your constitutional right to be free from unlawful search and seizure fail to do as the officer asks, run the risk of having such holes placed in your own.

When the officer has satisfied himself that it was not you and your Hupmobile that were involved in the Piggly Wiggly heist, he owes you an explanation for the stop and an apology for the inconvenience, but if you’re running your mouth about your rights and your history of oppression and what have you, you’re likely to get neither.

— Jack Dunphy is an officer in the Los Angeles Police Department. “Jack Dunphy” is the author’s nom de cyber. The opinions expressed are his own and almost certainly do not reflect those of the LAPD management.

Hey, “Jack?” You talk a big game for someone using a pseudonym, chickenshit.

I can’t believe NRO published this drivel.

You’re (Probably) a Federal Criminal

(Hat-tip Oleg for the article.)

Read it and weep. Really.

I’d point out one line, though:

“With such a broad law, the second jury didn’t have much of a choice, and it convicted him.”

Clearly, more people need to be educated about jury nullification. Quick, fast, and in a hurry.

That, plus this:

And The Inconvenience’s decision not to go back into the USMC needs no further explanation.

For the record? I don’t think there’s any hope of fixing or rolling back of the federal government. There is only the reset button.

Of course, saying so is probably a felony.

My mom knows more about weed than I do. (See comments.)

*sigh*

I am guilty of getting very caught up in how bad we have it. There is a constant assault on my right to keep and bear arms. I live in a nation of lazy, cowardly countrymen, who would send bureaucrats wielding coercive power to make sure my fence isn’t too tall instead of just knocking on my door to talk about it. The federal government is doing its level best to tank the economy, stifle production, and ’save’ us with socialized healthcare.

It’s easy to see all that, and forget the bigger picture.

The other day, I bought an inflatable kiddie pool. It was about 6′ across and 16″ deep. I had it nearly filled before realizing there was a hole in it. It didn’t come with a patch kit, and it was just a cheap pool anyway, so I dumped the water out so I could take it back to the store.

As I did so, I realized I had just poured more clean, cool, drinkable water onto the lawn – in a matter of a few seconds – than some people see in a year. I have the luxury of turning on a spigot, and out comes perfectly safe water. I don’t have to ration it, I don’t have to save it. Sometimes I am even guilty of taking long showers and leaving the faucet on while I brush my teeth.

The World Health Organization recommends breastfeeding until at least two. I’m a big proponent of breastfeeding, so I think this recommendation is great. The reason for it, however, is largely due to the fact that so many peope in the third world lack access to clean drinking water. It is much safer for toddlers to continue nursing than to drink the available water. Can you imagine breastfeeding literally being a safety issue, a protection against toxicity and contamination? And I’m not talking about the better-than-formula kind of safety, I’m talking about the-water-might-kill-you kind of safety.

We need to buy a new Brita filter, because our old one broke and the water here tastes a little funny. That’s how good we have it – we have the luxury of discriminating over how our water tastes.

Anyway, I don’t mean to suggest that our political struggles aren’t important. They are. They’re crucial, in my opinion, to ensuring western civilization remains first-world. To ensuring we don’t have to worry about where our daily hydration comes from. But, I think it is important to remember that we at least have roofs over our heads, food in our bellies, and cold water to drink while we fight the good fight.

Me: California is talking about legalizing pot. Apparently taxing it could net like $1.4 billion per year, and they’re broke.
The Inconvenience: How much would they tax it?
Me: The article says $50 per ounce. Geeze, that’s expensive.
The Inconvenience: Is it? I don’t know how much an ounce of pot is, really.
Me: You know what? Me either.

I know, I know. We’ll hand in our libertarian cards on our way out.

Allow me to preface this with: I AM SO EXCITED.

Posting the legal marriage story, and the addendum about the birth certificate, prompted me to follow up on some unresolved issues.

When the Girl Child was born, we, after much discussion, decided to go ahead and get her a Social Security number.

She’ll eventually need one, we figured.

It’s easier to do it ‘automatically’ on the birth certificate than it is to go in and prove citizenship later, we figured.

We might as well get the tax credit, we figured.

As soon as I sent the birth certificate off, I felt awful. I immediately regretted signing my kid up for a system she may want no part in. What a golden opportunity – the chance to live without a number unless she chooses to – and I, the homebirthing mother who doesn’t believe in routine infant circumcision or ear-piercing because “It’s their choice!”, had just signed her up for a government-run Ponzi scheme.

HORRIBLE.

Fast-forward over six months now, and we’ve never received her national ID Social Security card nor any communication from the SSA suggesting they’re aware she exists.

So, I called. After finally figuring out how to talk to a Real Person^TM, I hesitantly provided her name and date-of-birth so he could check for her records. (The Real Person^TM was thoroughly confused by the whole situation, because why in the world was I only just now asking, and hadn’t the hospital handled this, and what, there was no hospital?) A couple minutes of silence on the line later, he informed me that no social security number had ever been assigned for my child, so I should probably contact the local office and start getting this all straightened out.

Next, I called the Idaho records department, to find out if her birth certificate had even been processed. (I learned a few months ago they don’t automatically mail one; you have to request it and pay the associated fee. I never did.) Turns out, there was a hold placed on it because of a perceived error with the birth address. I am sure they thought we screwed up, since the birth address and my address were the same. Once they figured it out, they forgot to remove the hold.

So, there it sat. I asked the lady I talked to if she would mind leaving the hold intact. She sounded confused, so I explained that we had checked the box for a social security number, but I had changed my mind and do not want to apply for one after all. “Well, if you intend to claim her on your taxes, I think you’re going to need that,” she offered.

I told her I knew that, and that I also knew we wouldn’t be able to open a bank account for her, or (very easily) do several other things. But, I’m okay with that. I want her to be able to make the choice for herself when she’s older. Can we reverse that, or not?

She had to go check, since she’d “never been asked that before” – but she came back saying yes, she could hold it until she received a notarized letter verifying the change, and upon receiving said letter they would process the birth certificate without a social security number.

Holy second chance, Batman.

Whoever forgot to remove that hold: THANK YOU.