Got Papers?

There is a discussion going on at Captain's Quarters about Janice Brown and her ruling on a California trafic stop. Here is what I had to say on the matter:

I grew up watching WW2 era movies (a child of the 50s). In those movies the Nazis were always asking "vere are your papahs?". In the America of the day that was considered an outrage.

To watch "modern" conservatives support police measures that were considered even in war time to be an outrage is interesting. You are no longer free on the streets and roads of America if you can't prove your identity. You are not a legal person if you can't prove who you are.

We've come a long way baby.

Janice Brown may have been wrong in light of California law. She was not wrong in light of what used to be conservative principles. American principles.

And it is interesting to see here how many conservatives support the Government Cocaine Price Support and Terrorist and Gang Finance Program. A program that would have at one time been more comensurate with the USSR rather than the USA.

I suppose if the police can solve drug addiction we ought to put them in charge of cancer and heart disease. I'm surprised no one has asked them to solve the alcoholism problem.