Secret Service Interrogates Kid Without Parental Knowledge

What the hell is going on in this country when any government department takes a child, without parental permission or access to legal counsel, and interrogates the child?

In this case 13-year-old Vito Lapinta had posted on his Facebook page that the assassination of bin Laden could inspire retaliations and that Obama ought to be concerned about that. That is hardly earthshaking, Obama own people said pretty much the same thing.

But Vito was taken out of his classes by a Secret Service agent, apparently with the full cooperation of the school officials. The Secret Service are police agents, albeit of a special kind. And no police agent has the right to interrogate children without parental permission. Even kids have rights to legal counsel.

In this case the Secret Service said he was fine and released him. But his innocence is not relevant to issue that his rights were violated. What if he had said something that sane people, that is people who are not part of the political hysteria, would deem to be threatening? Anything he said could result in criminal charges being filed against him.

It is the possibility that criminal charges may result which is the reason that government thugs have no right to interrogate children without parents, or legal counsel, there to protect the rights of the child.

Vito says he was scared and that he will now be more careful about what opinions he expresses. That is sad, that is precisely the sort of response that government thugs want, but it the opposite of what we need in a free society. No child should be afraid to speak his mind, no adult either. Civil libertarians should be outraged.

I also feel it necessary to remind people that government schools are branches of the government. You can not expect government bureaucrats to protect your children from other government bureaucrats. Quite the contrary in fact. Every teacher and administrator has to be considered an agent of the state and it has to be assumed they will put the interests of the state ahead of the interests of your child. The great immorality of state education is the relationship it creates between educators and government. It makes them opponents of the best interests of the child, which ought to be their first concern.

10 Rules for Dealing with the Police

Buck the Constitution, full speed ahead.

Generally local prosecutors are petty politicians with ambitions. That makes them dangerous to the cause of liberty as well as to general human well being. The ambition means they tend to engage in actions that they feel will garner them publicity. The actions of one such politician, Ken Buck, of Weld County, Colorado interest me because his actions undermine the claims made by the Know-Nothing anti-immigration crowd.

Prosecutors thrive on scapegoats. Unfortunately, with all the rampant political correctness, it is has become more and more difficult to find a really good scapegoat. It used to be that you could just round up a “bunch of queers” and get the applause of the mob. In the South you had the option of lynching some “uppity nigger” and winning re-election handily as a result. Well, that’s another one of those time-honored traditions that bit the dust. Pinning the problems of the world on Jews, well that went out of style with the funny little mustache on Hitler. Thank God for “sex offenders” (just don’t define the term) and illegal immigrants. When somebody needs a good bashing for some premier political publicity you at least have them to go after.

And old Ken Buck decided to prosecute illegals. His problem was how to determine who was and wasn’t “illegal.” So Ken decided to cast a very wide net, and one that breaches the Constitution and the rights of his constituents in many ways. You can say that he really “bucked up” royally.

Buck knows something that the bigots he is appealing to don’t know—in my experience it is best not to spend too much time on what the anti-immigrant crowd doesn’t know, there is just far too much territory to cover in one lifetime. Buck knew that “illegals” do pay taxes. A good number of them file income tax forms every year, a habit I don’t like to encourage.

But tax records are confidential, even to law enforcement. The Feds are so greedy that they don’t want to do anything to discourage people from paying their bloody money to the vampires in Washington. So Buck decided to try to skirt around the law—odd how those who make and enforce the laws are so eager to find ways to make sure those laws don’t apply to themselves. So the old Bucker went and conducted a raid on a local tax preparation office and confiscated all their copies of tax returns that were filed.

This, of course, means they went in and took tax records for everyone, including the native born and legal immigrants. It is was a search for evidence on par with having police go through every home in a neighborhood because they suspect that someone in the area committed a crime. They confiscated all the records. They didn’t go in even looking for specific records that are explicitly named. Apparently the Constitutional protection about search and seizure was something that the old Bucker was willing to piss down the drain—hell, he had “illegals” to bust and why let some damn Constitution get in the way of that.

Local judges have ruled that Buck violated the Bill of Rights. He doesn’t care. What’s a Bill of Rights between friends anyway? Surely we can’t let Constitutional limitations on power get in the way of the police? Of course, I happen to think it critical that we put the Constitution in the way of all armed government agents. That was the purpose of the thing after all. Jefferson said that the Constitution was intended to “bind” down politicians and public officials, to prevent them from expanding their powers beyond those enumerated in the Constitution.

As a libertarian I’m not Constitutional Patriot, I support liberty. But to the degree the Constitution restricts state power I’m for it. Not old Ken, his view is “Buck the Constitution, full speed ahead.” Buck says he will appeal hoping that judges higher up will give him permission to ignore the Bill of Rights. By the way, Buck got his start working for Dick Cheney, so you know what sort of respect he has for limited government. He also likes to whine about “the assault on traditional moral values” so you know what sort of statist you are dealing with here.

It should also be noted, that while Buck is trying to get around the Bill of Rights and Constitutional limitations on his powers that he also presents himself as “small government” conservative. This hypocrite spoke at the Tea Party rally in Colorado where he screamed, “we hear the warning about extreme government, we hear the warning about extreme taxes, we hear the warning about losing our liberty. And we’re going to do something about that.” So what is this Bucker doing? He’s trying to get around the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.

And why is this old fraudulent loudmouth doing this? He’s planning to run for the U.S. Senate so he wants to bash immigrants, bash the Bill of Rights, bash the Constitution and, in the tradition of George Bush, present those views as the small government philosophy. The problem with the Tea Parties was they were infected with fringe, anti-freedom conservatives who are about as committed to individual liberty as Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama, George Bush and Benito Mussolini. I should note that when I started writing this, and said that Buck is clearly ambitious for higher office and more power, that I did not then know he was running for Senate. It just proves my case.

So conservatives, what do you do? We watched you guys roll over and present your ass (that’s arse for the Brits who read this) to George Bush for a good screwing for the last eight years. Will you at least defend limited government when the guy Bucking the hell out of your rights is some petty Know-Nothing official? Or, are you so used to being pimped out to every big government cause that comes along, that you’ll pull out the lubricant and smile?

Those who aren’t reaching for the KY jelly might want to email the old Bucker himself at WELDDA@co.weld.co.us.