Most liked posts in thread: Raped by the local goverment. Again!!!

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Matt

 

How does lack of training lead to a 6th amendment violation? Stay on target. Stay on target. You can do it Luke.

 

Could lead to a violation is not the same thing as is a violation. Honestly, do you really not understand that?

 

I think this has reached a point were certain parties do not agree and there is nothing either can say that will shed more light on this.

Many of us disagree with the state, or in the case of TX, local municipalities, changing statutes to suit the ability of 3rd party for profit entities to extract revenue from the citizens for minor infractions with automated processes. It starts with a red light camera, where does this end. Timing between lights to determine avg speed? How about checking the effluent of homes against a data base of prescribed drugs in the household to look for potential drug offenses.

The bottom line is we are giving up more and more of freedoms to people that are proving time and time again they are not capable. Our local, regional and federal offices are filled with elected officials that for the most part are in it for the money and power. Until we can get back to the point where we are "of the people, by the people, for the people" instead of this us vs. them mentality we are going to be royally screwed.

 

Maybe it's time for a rousing M/A rendition of Kum Bay Yah:smilewinkgrin:

Mark

 

Um..well...not really.

The intent is not to end the discourse. However, it was leading in circles with nothing new surfacing. I think we have done a great job here of disagreement without resorting to personal attacks and I thank everyone that has contributed for keeping emotion in check while still debating issues.

 

The point I'm making is that the possibility that a law may be incompetently enforced does not make the law unconstitutional. If it is incompetently enforced, you may be able to prove that your constitutional rights were viloted, but it would not be the law itself that was unconstitutional, it would be the actions taken to enforce it that are unconstitutional.

While people contracted by the government to enforce laws might be incompetent, it is also possible that they would be fully competent. The only way this would affect constitutionality of the law itself would be if there were no way to enforce the law without violating constitutional rights.

This is why the argument that outside contractors tend to be incompetent does not make the law unconstitutional.

These are elected officials. The way to fix the problem is to insure that people of good integrity are elected, they remain honest, and public pressure steers them towards doing the right thing. History shows that this rarely, if ever, happens. However, it is not a black and white thing, so we can push towards better government even if we cannot attain perfect government.

There are no RLC systems in my area. Either the officials here are too wise, or too lazy to go for them. If they were in my area, I would try to document whether the yellow duration had been reduced for RLC intersections. If they were not reduced, I would have no problem with there being RLC enforcement. Whether state employees were running the system, or it had been contracted out, would only concern me if it was handled badly. IMO, government employees can be every bit as poorly trained and incompetent as contracted services. It is the results that would matter.

If the yellow light durations had been reduced, I would do the research that shows this leads to an increase in rear-end collisions. With data to back me up, I would contact the agency responsible for the RLCs and try to make my point. If (as is likely) I made no progress with them, I could contact my local elected representitives and make the case. Then I would contact the local media and try to get them interested in the issue. If I could provide them with the material for a story, and the reason it would be of interest to readers, I suspect I could get them interested. I might put up a web page with the issues as well. Perhaps I'd go to an intersection with a particularly dangerous yellow duration and see if I could capture near miss accidents to show the reality of the problem.

The press is supposed to be the people's watchdog. One of their main purposes is to keep government honest. However, we as consumers of news have to provide the incentive for the press to do a good job. Lately, we have failed in this duty. We, as consumers, seem to be more interested in watching pundits tell us what we want to hear, rather than demanding high quality investigative journalism. Pundits are far cheaper than investigative journalism. So, instead of real news we get entertainment.

Without a serious press, politicians are not watched for the quality of job they do, but for sound bites that pundits can distort to make their shows interesting.

In the end, this is our government. We get the government we deserve. The frustrating part is that there are so many of us that it seems impossible for an individual to make an impact.

 

Actually, it is the reason for the 1st Amendment.

We don't disagree on this. The current state of the news media is not good. However, we as consumers are to blame. Since the corporations main goal is to make a profit, they will strive to give us what we want and are willing to pay for. This was part of my point. We control the quality of the press by what we consume. Unfortunately, what we want is mostly trash.

 

Speaking of the media, I just heard Micheal Jackson may have died

Mark

 

Is that right? Hadn't heard.

 

Very sad day, even the House led by Pelosi had a minute of silence in honor of this grest American hero......... But didn't say a word about the 6 soldiers killed that day defending their right to do it.

 

They leave that to the PBS Newshour (previously known as the Newshour with Jim Lehr).

 

These red light cameras are operated under contract by a few vendors (Redflex in AZ being a big one). Their people receive and do the initial review of the video. Anything that looks like a violation gets sent to the local PD in the area where the violation is alleged to have occurred. That police officer reviews the footage and decides if there is a violation. He hits the big money button on his keyboard and a citation is in the mail. The third party cannot issue the citation.