Tag: civil liberties

The Cult of Officer Safety: How SCOTUS Legalised Fear

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In the great American theatre of liberty, there’s one character whose neuroses we all must cater to: the police officer. Not the civil servant. Not the trained professional. No, the trembling bundle of nerves with a badge and a gun. According to the United States Supreme Court, this anxious figure is so vulnerable that the Constitution itself must bend to accommodate his fear. I’m not sure I have less respect for these people than for most other professions.

Audio: NotebookLM podcast on this topic.

Let’s review.

In Pennsylvania v. Mimms (1977), the Court held that police can order a driver out of their vehicle during any lawful traffic stop—no suspicion, no cause, just vibes. Why? Because the officer might get nervous otherwise.

Fast-forward to Maryland v. Wilson (1997), and that same logic is extended to passengers. That’s right: even if you’re just catching a ride, you too can be ordered out and subject to scrutiny because, well, a cop might be spooked.

This isn’t law enforcement. It’s emotional support with a firearm.

The rationale? “Officer safety.” A phrase so overused it may as well be stamped on every judge’s gavel and stitched into every uniform. Forget that you’re a citizen with rights; forget that the Fourth Amendment was intended to restrain arbitrary power. If your mere presence makes Officer Skittish feel a bit antsy, the law now permits him to act like he’s clearing a war zone.

It’s worth asking – gently, of course, so as not to alarm anyone in uniform – why exactly we entrust our most coercive state powers to individuals apparently one errant movement away from fight-or-flight mode?

Rather than raising the bar for police conduct, these rulings lower the bar for constitutional protections. Rather than requiring police to be calm, competent, and capable under pressure, the Court concedes that they’re none of those things and therefore need extra authority to compensate.

We’ve effectively legalised cowardice.

So here’s a radical suggestion: What if “officer safety” wasn’t a get-out-of-liberty-free card? What if we demanded emotional resilience and psychological stability before issuing guns and power? What if, instead of warping the law around the most paranoid members of the force, we removed them from the force?

But no. Instead, we get jurisprudence that treats every routine traffic stop like a potential ambush. And to ensure our jittery guardian gets home safe, you, dear citizen, will be the one legally disarmed.

So buckle up – because your rights don’t mean much when the man with the badge is afraid of his own shadow.

Can One Obstruct Justice in a Place It Doesn’t Exist?

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ICE is out in force again, dragging brown bodies out of homes in Los Angeles like it’s some righteous carnival of due process. Another day, another federal theatre production titled Law and Order: Ethnic Cleansing Unit, where men with guns and names like Chad or Hank mistake cruelty for patriotism and paperwork for moral clarity.

Audio: NotebookLM podcast on this topic.

Naturally, critics of these raids are now being threatened with that great juridical cudgel: “obstructing justice.” Yes, you heard that right. If you interfere – say, by filming, shouting, refusing to roll over like a good little colonial subject – you are obstructing justice. As though justice were something you could actually put your hands on in the United States without a hazmat suit and a decade of appeals.

Let’s be clear. There is no justice here to obstruct. What you are obstructing is bureaucratic violence wrapped in legal latex. You are obstructing a system that functions like a vending machine for state-sanctioned trauma: insert immigrant, extract ruin.

Justice: The Imaginary Friend of Empire

Ah, “justice.” That hallowed ideal trotted out whenever the state wants to put a boot through your front door. The U.S. has long since traded its Justice for Security Theatre and capitalist choreography. The blindfold is still there, sure – but these days, it’s a branded sleep mask from Lockheed Martin, and the scales are rigged to weigh white tears heavier than brown bodies.

Let’s run through the usual suspects:

  • ICE – America’s own domestic Gestapo, but with better PR and significantly worse fashion.
  • CBP – Border fetishists whose job seems less about national defence and more about satisfying their Freud-bereft fantasies of control.
  • SCOTUS – That great moral weather vane, spinning wildly between “originalist necromancy” and outright lunacy, depending on how recently Thomas and Alito read Leviticus.
  • Congress – An assembly of millionaires cosplaying as public servants, holding hearings on “the threat of immigration” while outsourcing their lawn care.

And of course, the President – whichever septuagenarian husk happens to be in office – offers the usual bromides about order, safety, and enforcement, all while the real crimes (you know, the kind involving tax fraud, corporate pollution, or drone strikes) go entirely unmolested.

Can You Obstruct a Simulation?

If you stand in front of a deportation van, are you obstructing justice, or merely interrupting the bureaucratic excretion of empire? It’s the philosophical equivalent of trying to punch a hologram. The system pretends to uphold fairness while routinely violating its own principles, then charges you with “obstruction” when you call out the sleight of hand.

This is not justice. This is kabuki. A ritual. A performance piece sponsored by Raytheon.

A Modest Proposal

Let’s just be honest and rename the charge. Not “Obstruction of Justice”—too ironic, too pompous. Call it what it is: Obstruction of Procedure, Obstruction of Power, or if we’re being especially accurate: Obstruction of the Industrial Deportation Complex™. Hell, add a corporate sponsor while you’re at it:

You are being charged with Obstruction of Justice, Presented by Amazon Web Services.

Because when justice itself is a ghost, when the rule of law has become the rule of lawfare, the real obscenity is pretending any of this is noble.

Final Thought

So no, dear reader, you’re not obstructing justice. You’re obstructing a machine that mistakes itself for a moral order. And if you’re going to obstruct something, make it that.