SWAT cops to ask for IDs from everyone in Arkansas town

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There isn't a lot to do in Paragould, Arkansas, but residents of the town of barely 25,000 seem to have no problem finding trouble. Now in order to curb the rising crime rate, the city is proposing heavily armed police patrol the streets on foot.

At a town hall meeting on Thursday, Mayor Mike Gaskill and Police Chief Todd Stovall endorsed a plan to send cops dressed in full-fledged SWAT gear and equipped with AR-15s into downtown Paragould starting in 2013.

The militarized police force will be tasked with trying to control a crime rate that has made Paragould an increasingly dangerous place to live in recent years. According to statistics collected by city-data.com, Paragould has had a property crime index rating more than double the national average since 2007. Rapes, burglaries, thefts and assaults per capita are also well above the mean there, statistically suggesting Paragould is perhaps the least-safe among area cities.

"This fear is what's given us the reason to do this. Once I have stats and people saying they're scared, we can do this," Stovall said, according to the Paragould Daily Press. "It allows us to do what we're fixing to do."

In order to bring crime down, residents of Paragould may soon have to endure police officers brandishing semi-automatic assault riddles on the regular. What's more, Stovall says, is he intends to have the cops collecting identification from everyone and anyone in an attempt to discourage criminal activity.

"If you're out walking, we're going to stop you, ask why you're out walking, check for your ID," the Daily Press reports him saying during last week's meeting.

"To ask you for your ID, I have to have a reason," he said. "Well, I've got statistical reasons that say I've got a lot of crime right now, which gives me probable cause to ask what you're doing out. Then when I add that people are scared"?then that gives us even more [reason] to ask why are you here and what are you doing in this area."

"They may not be doing anything but walking their dog," added Mayor Gaskill, "but they're going to have to prove it."

Soon after the Paragould Daily Press picked up the story, news of the small town's efforts to enforce martial law began making headlines outside of Arkansas. On Sunday, Stovall authored an explanation on the Paragould Police Department website to clarify how exactly the proposed Street Crimes Unit will interact with citizens.

"Most often, this identification process will be nothing more than making contact with a subject, handing them a business card, and asking if they live in the area and if there's anything we can do for them," he says. During hours in which crime seems to be more prevalent, however, Chief Stovall says their process "will become more stringent."

"We will be asking for picture identification. We will be ascertaining where the subject lives and what they are doing in the area. We will be keeping a record of those we contact."

Stovall adds that they program would not violate the constitutional rights of Paragould citizens, claiming, "Once we have an area that shows a high crime rate or a high call volume, it is our duty and obligation to find out why this is occurring and what we can do to prevent the trend from continuing. Therefore, identifying subjects in those problem areas help us to solve crimes, and hopefully to prevent future crimes."

Paragould has scheduled two more town hall meetings to discuss the Street Crimes Unit.

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I wouldn't deal with this shit, honestly. From their police website:

============
12/17/2012
Cancellation of Town Hall Meetings

In the interest of public safety, we have elected to cancel the remaining Town Hall Meetings.

We have corresponded with numerous residents and non-residents today alone who were both supportive and against our Street Crimes Unit and Town Hall Meetings. Some of the correspondance has caused us great pause in whether or not the meetings should remain as scheduled.

As the police department, it is our duty to protect ALL residents and non-residents from harm. We feel that with the strong feelings on both sides of the Street Crimes Unit issue, a safe and productive meeting would not be the probable outcome.
============

So it looks like they are scared, with their so called "probable cause". Good.

they turned the entire town into a gulag prison camp or if you like the term better. A modern day 'fema' camp. The only difference is it is the ''local'' boys imposing their will instead of those dreaded
feds.

these boys were voted for. people begged to be ruled at the polls. They got what they asked for. They are getting what they deserve for begging for a government master.

Who was it who said ' we just gotta get back to LOCAL politics'. 'get our locals to support our liberty'....what a hoot! Any time you elevate another human being above you and ask to be ruled this is the result. They always, without exception turn into monsters.

The true threat to humanity is the ideal of being ruled. The idea called government.

"Paragould has had a property crime index rating more than double the national average since 2007".
"Rapes, burglaries, thefts, and assaults per capita are also well above the mean there...".

Sad to say, but the "residents of the town" who "seem to have no problem finding trouble" have brought it on themselves.

When I say brouht it on themselves, I mean they've brought this SWAT police state thing on themselves. Act like a bunch of animals, expect to be caged.

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New Poll: Almost Everyone Thinks It's Wrong to Jail People for Pot

by Scott Morgan

Via NORML, check out this new data from an Angus Reid Public Opinion poll.

Majorities of respondents in the three countries (Britain 56%, Canada 68%, United States 74%) welcome the concept of using alternative penalties?such as fines, probation or community service?rather than prison for non-violent offenders. At least seven-in-ten Britons (70%), Americans (74%) and Canadians (78%) believe personal marijuana use should be dealt with through alternative penalties.

?And yet I keep hearing people justifying Obama's medical marijuana crackdown on the grounds that voters will be impressed by his toughness. How much more evidence do we need that huge majorities support less punitive marijuana policies? It's time to bury the antiquated, idiotic myth that the public supports tough drug laws. It's false and it's been false for a very long time.

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While at the Nashville Fair I saw 2 police officers catch a kid smoking a joint behind a truck... they gave him a lecture about the legality of the act... took his bag of weed and ground it into a mud puddle and let him go. I thought that was better than flooding the courts with what I considered a non crime.

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There Is An Evil 1%, But Everyone Is Getting Its Identity Wrong

by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

The "occupy" protest movement is thriving off the claim that the 99% are being exploited by the 1%, and there is truth in what they say. But they have the identities of the groups wrong. They imagine that it is the 1% of highest wealth holders who are the problem. In fact, that 1% includes some of the smartest, most innovative people in the country ? the people who invent, market, and distribute material blessings to the whole population. They also own the capital that sustains productivity and growth.

But there is another 1% out there, those who do live parasitically off the population and exploit the 99%. Moreover, there is a long intellectual tradition, dating back to the late middle ages that draws attention to the strange reality that a tiny minority lives off the productive labor of the overwhelming majority.

I?m speaking of the State, which even today is made up of a tiny sliver of the population, but is the direct cause of all the impoverishing wars, inflation, taxes, regimentation, and social conflict. This 1% is the direct cause of the violence, the censorship, the unemployment, and vast amounts of poverty, too.

Look at the numbers, rounding from latest data. The U.S. population is 307 million. There are about 20 million government employees at all levels, which makes 6.5%. But 6.2 million of these people are public school teachers, whom I think we can say are not really the ruling elite. That takes us down to 4.4%.

We can knock of another half million who work for the post office, and probably the same who work for various service department bureaus. Probably another million do not work in any enforcement arm of the State, and there?s also the amazing labor-pool fluff that comes with any government work. Local governments do not cause nation-wide problems (usually), and the same might be said of the 50 states. The real problem is at the federal level (8.5 million), from which we can subtract fluff, drones, and service workers.

In the end, we end up with about 3 million people who constitute what is commonly called the State. For short, we can just call these people the 1%.

The 1% do not generate any wealth of their own. Everything they have they get by taking from others under the cover of law. They live at our expense. Without us, the State as an institution would die.

Here we come to the core of the issue. What is the State and what does it do? There is vast confusion about this issue, insofar as it is talked about at all. For hundreds of years, people have imagined that the State might be an organic institution that develops naturally out of some social contract. Or perhaps the State is our benefactor because it provides services we could not otherwise provide for ourselves.

In classrooms and in political discussions, there is very little if any honest talk about what the State is and what it does. But in the libertarian tradition, matters are much clearer. From Bastiat to Rothbard, the answer has been before our eyes. The State is the only institution in society that is permitted by law to use aggressive force against person and property.

Let?s understand through a simple example. Let?s say you go into a restaurant and hate the wallpaper. You can complain and try to persuade the owner to change it. If he doesn?t change it, you can decide not to go back. But if you break in, take money out of the cash register, buy paint, and cover the wallpaper yourself, you will be charged with criminal wrongdoing and perhaps go to jail. Everyone in society agrees that you did the wrong thing.

But the State is different. If it doesn?t like the wallpaper, it can pass a law (or maybe even not that) and send a memo. It can mandate a change. It doesn?t have to do the repainting. The State can make you repaint the place. If you refuse, you are guilty of criminal wrongdoing.

Same goals, different means, two very different sets of criminals. The State is the institution that essentially redefines criminal wrongdoing to make itself exempt from the law that governs everyone else.

It is the same with every tax, every regulation, every mandate, and every single word of the federal code. It all represents coercion. Even in the area of money and banking, it is the State that created and sustains the Fed and the dollar because it forcibly limits competition in money and banking, preventing people from making gold or silver money, or innovating in other ways. And in some ways, this is the most dreadful intervention of all, because it allows the State to destroy our money on a whim.

The State is everybody?s enemy. Why don?t the protesters get this? Because they are victims of propaganda by the State, doled out in public school, that attempts to blame all human suffering on private parties and free enterprise. They do not comprehend that the real enemy is the institution that brainwashes them to think they way they do.

They are right that society is rife with conflicts, and that the contest is wildly lopsided. It is indeed the 99% vs. the 1%. They?re just wrong about the identity of the enemy.
__
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. [send him mail], former editorial assistant to Ludwig von Mises and congressional chief of staff to Ron Paul, is founder and chairman of the Mises Institute, executor for the estate of Murray N. Rothbard, and editor of LewRockwell.com. See his books.

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rapest,robbers,murderers,and thieves come from all walks of life and they will never change.most crime is made up by the powers that be,the rest the lack of personal responsibility. i started reading but it was the template sort of thing an accountant would say, wealth creator argument and all that.

there is technology, there could be employment for a minority. to model life on a monetary system or based on employment would be denying reality of the time. in reality and the reality of such systems is that pretty much all jobs are destructive.

You got it wrong Mr. Rockwell. A six grader has a better understanding of the world surrounding him than the one reflected in your article. FAIL! This posits that the "1%" named by Rockwell are independent: yet the richest 1% spends hundreds of millions annually on lobbying that ensures Rockwell's 1% do their bidding. The OWS have the right target. It is obvious if Rockwell's 1% ever stopped complying with the richest 1%'s wishes, they'd be shown the door via the elimination of their campaign backing and replaced by more biddable (n.p.i.) servants.

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