(Link thanks to feministing 2007-09-27.)

Cops in America are heavily armed and trained to be bullies, and they routinely hurt people who pose no serious threat to anyone, in order to establish, maintain, or take control of the situation. People who complain about this kind of rough handling are treated like trash, as if any level of intimidation and violence whatsoever were obviously legitimate, and the victims are to blame for provoking whatever they get. This is especially likely if the victims have features that mark them as targets for the special concern of the police — if they are black, or poor, or young, or Muslims, or immigrants, or women who speak loudly and forcefully, or queer, or political activists, or for whatever other reason. And they are especially vehement and arrogant about this kind of behavior when civilians dare to watch, record, and/or object to how the cops are treating somebody else.

In New York City, a group of cops who were hassling a young black man were questioned by members of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project outside an East Village bar. The cops turned their violent attention on these peaceably assembled people, grabbing a couple of people for arrest and then spraying pepper spray, apparently without warning and without provocation, into the rest of the crowd. Here is what SRLP has to say about it:

The Sylvia Rivera Law Project is an organization that works on behalf of low-income people of color who are transgender, gender non-conforming, or intersex, providing free legal services and advocacy among many other initiatives. On Wednesday night, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project was celebrating its fifth anniversary with a celebration and fundraising event at a bar in the East Village.

A group of our community members, consisting largely of queer and transgender people of color, witnessed two officers attempting to detain a young Black man outside of the bar. Several of our community members asked the officers why they were making the arrest and using excessive force. Despite the fact that our community was on the sidewalk, gathered peacefully and not obstructing foot traffic, the NYPD chose to forcefully grab two people and arrested them. Without warning, an officer then sprayed pepper spray across the group in a wide arc, temporarily blinding many and causing vomiting and intense pain.

This is the sort of all-too-common police violence and overreaction towards people of color that happens all the time, said Dean Spade,founder of the Sylvia Rivera Law Project. It’s ironic that we were celebrating the work of an organization that specifically opposes state violence against marginalized communities, and we experienced a police attack at our celebration.

We are outraged, and demand that our community members be released and the police be held accountable for unnecessary use of excessive force and falsely arresting people, Spade continued.

Damaris Reyes is executive director of GOLES, an organization working to preserve the Lower East Side. She commented, I’m extremely concerned and disappointed by the 9th Precinct’s response to the situation and how it escalated into violence. This kind of aggressive behavior doesn’t do them any good in community-police relations.

In the comments at Feministing, a law student who was there when it happens, elaborates:

From what I could tell last night: a group of queer and trans people, many of color, were gathered outside the bar where the fundraiser after-party was going on, talking and having a cigarette. Some of the attendees noticed a young black man being stopped by the police, who began arresting him. I am not sure if this man was part of the party or not. The police became agitated when the attendees (many of whom are lawyers, law students and legal workers since this WAS, after all, a fundraiser for a legal nonprofit) began questioning them on the nature of the arrest. The police demanded that everyone disburse and pepper sprayed an arc around them, leaving a number of individuals, including those who weren’t involved in conversation with police, crying, vomiting, and collapsed on the sidewalk. After this, some people ran to get water, and others attempted (and eventually received) the badge numbers and names of the arresting officers, and asked bystanders to write them down. After this, Dean Spade asked the crowd to go back inside, and I walked away since it was getting close to bedtime for me. This is as much as I could tell.

I still do not know what the two attendees were arrested for, nor what the young black man was detained (and arrested?) for.

In an update to the original notice, the Sylvia Rivera Law Project adds:

We are getting word that the arraignments are likely to happen during night court tonight [Thursday 9/27] some time between 5pm and 1am. If you can, go to the court to show support!

The arraignment court rooms are at 100 Centre St (Directions: No. 4 or 5train to Brooklyn Bridge Station; No. 6 train, N, R or C train to Canal Street; No. 1 train to Franklin Street; M1, M6 and M15 bus lines are nearby. 100 Centre Street is one block north of Worth Street,three blocks south of Canal Street.) Ask for directions to the arraignment rooms at the info desk when you enter.

And:

If you would like to receive email updates, send a blank email to sept26-subscribe@lists.mayfirst.org

A couple years ago, the Virginia state legislature took bold action against a grave and gathering threat to democracy, freedom, and our way of life:

The House of Delegates voted 60 to 34 Tuesday to impose a $50 fine on anyone found wearing pants low enough that a substantial portion of undergarments is showing. Note the vote: It wasn’t even close.

…

About those pants: Lots of kids these days are conducting a large-scale experiment to see if trousers can defy gravity. This results in the widespread public exposure of underpants.

This greatly offends Del. Algie Howell Jr., a Democrat from Norfolk and author of the no-low-pants bill, which still faces a vote in the generally more skeptical Senate. People that live in my neighborhood don’t want to have to see undergarments, Howell told me. It’s not about individual rights; it’s about values. I own a group home; we take in kids who’ve been in trouble. Most of the men who come in in shackles and handcuffs are trying to hold up their pants. The way you dress does have something to do with how you behave.

Since the state has an interest in fighting unemployment and crime, Howell figures the state is right to ban a practice that he says makes young people less attractive as employees and more likely to turn to crime.

— Marc Fisher, Washington Post (2005-02-10): Droopy Drawers Drive Va. House To Distraction

Now here’s the latest from Delcambre, Louisiana:

The Delcambre Board of Aldermen outlawed indecent exposure in the form of sagging pants Monday, but not before several residents voiced their objections.

The board voted unanimously to make it illegal for anyone to wear clothing that exposes them or reveals their underwear in public.

The ordinance states, It shall be unlawful for any person in any public place or in view of the public to be found in a state of nudity, or partial nudity, or in dress not becoming to his or her sex, or in any indecent exposure of his or her person or undergarments, or be guilty of any indecent or lewd behavior.

It is punishable by up to a $500 fine or up to six months in jail, or both.

Delcambre Police Chief James Broussard said violators can be arrested if officers spot them while on patrol, or if another resident files a complaint.

— Jeff Moore, The Daily Iberian (2007-06-12): Sagging bagged by town

Radley Balko informs us that there is a movement afoot amongst the Real Americans, in both Red states and Blue:

Moreover, civic organizers in Atlanta, Detroit, Nashville, Tenn., and Birmingham, Ala., are planning antisagging rallies, says Pastor Dianne Robinson of Jacksonville, Fla., who last week handed out 78 donated belts at a belt rally. This sagging of the pants is to me a defiant act, and it has all kinds of implications, says Ms. Robinson, who is black. If you can’t get up in the morning and pull your pants up, that says a lot about you, even if I don’t know anything about you.

–quoted by Radley Balko, The Agitator (2007-07-20): Droopy Drawers Banners See Cracks in Opposition

Now that we already have a professional cadre of bureaucrats running behind us all, yelling You’ll put an eye out with that! and Don’t drink that, it’ll stunt your growth!, how could our statesmen and civic organizers possibly refuse their duty to set the Law running around after people wearing dress not becoming to his or her sex [sic!] and black kids committing defiant acts, screaming You’re not going out like that, are you?! and Don’t you take that attitude with me, young man!

A couple weeks ago I mentioned that I was working on an online transcription of Benjamin Tucker’s Instead of a Book, and had completed the introductory essays and Part I: The Individual, Society, and the State. I’m pleased to announce that Part II: Money and Interest — containing Tucker’s defense of free competition and radical laissez-faire in banking, his proposals for mutual banking, and several exchanges with Greenbackers, gold-bugs, defenders of interest, et cetera — is now also available in full online. For summaries of some of the essays, see Fair Use Blog 2007-09-07, 2007-09-15, and 2007-09-19.

Enjoy!

Today is the 220th annual International Ignore the Constitution Day!

In the United States, the federal government’s arbitrary laws supposedly mandate that over the course of this day, schools put on Spontaneous Demonstrations celebrating the founding of the federal government. (I suppose this is after the schools begin their day by ritualistically forcing students to swear allegiance to the federal government.) When Turkmenbashi did this sort of thing, it was called megalomania; when federal government of the United States does it, it is called civics education.

In this secessionist republic of one, we mark the day as a special reminder that the United States Constitution, in its origins, was an act of naked usurpation and an objective force for evil, imposed upon a great mass of people who never agreed to it (nor were even asked), and effecting genocide and the protection of chattel slavery at the point of federal bayonets. Today it is treated as the Enabling Act of a monster State, and as such is the begetter of war, the builder of prisons, the armament of professional thugs, the authorization of Presidential and Congressional power over the lives of innocent people, and all of it over people who have never given any meaningful consent to the arbitrary rule of Washington, D.C. Domineering presidents, legislators, and judges use the powers delegated explicitly or implicitly as an excuse to dominate, to ruin and to kill; cowardly or opportunistic presidents, legislators, and judges use the supposed separation of powers as an excuse to stand by and do nothing while the predators in other branches of government keep on dominating and ruining and killing. The Constitution is interpreted by the highest legal authorities designated by that very document as licensing imperial war, Star Chamber courts, domestic and foreign surveillance, the racist War on Drugs, ruinous taxation, corporate welfare, government cartelization and regimentation of every key industry, in direct proportion to its importance; and if the Constitution does not in fact state that these things are allowed, it has done nothing to prevent them. Some people who ought to know better pretend that a document such as this one deserves respect, or even that it should be taken as a source of our [marching orders][] in matters of life and death, substituting a genuflection to that damned rag in place of a moral defense of freedom and peace. Ignoring the Constitution is routinely used as a grave insult in political discourse — whether applied to the president, the legislature, or the courts — supposedly synonymous with arbitrary tyranny. As if slavishly complying with the dictates of a 220 year old edict, arbitrarily issued without the consent of more than a handful of scheming conspirators, and now laying its dead hands upon us without the consent of anyone at all, were any less tyrannical!

Today is a day to mark that nonsense for what it is. Tyranny is tyranny whether or not it is written into a document, whether that document is called Constitution or any other name. And justice is justice, whatever any document may say; it can stand on its own in arguments, and needs no authorization from any human-crafted covenant or edict, which can neither make nor unmake even one of the rights or even one of the obligations that inhere in justice towards free and equal people, prior to any agreement or act of will. Of course, when government officials ignore the Constitution, they almost always do so in order to usurp arbitrary power and inflict the worst sorts of injustices on innocent people who never did anything to deserve it. But when government officials obey the Constitution, they still almost always do so in order to usurp arbitrary power and inflict the worst sorts of injustices on innocent people who never did anything to deserve it. That is what government officials do, and it’s what government officials did at the time they made up the Constitution, too; and the evils of it have exactly nothing to do with whether or not those usurpations and injustices have been formally enacted according to the procedures set forth in the arbitrary United States Constitution. William Lloyd Garrison knew how to educate the people and celebrate the glorious achievements of that document:

The [4th of July 1851] rally began with a prayer and a hymn. Then Garrison launched into one of the most controversial performances of his career. To-day, we are called to celebrate the seventy-eighth anniversary of American Independence. In what spirit? he asked, with what purpose? to what end? The Declaration of Independence had declared that all men are created equal … It is not a declaration of equality of property, bodily strength or beauty, intellectually or moral development, industrial or inventive powers, but equality of RIGHTS–not of one race, but of all races.

—Massachussets Historical Society, July 2005

We have proved recreant to our own faith, false to our own standard, treacherous to the trust committed to our hands; so that, instead of helping to extend the blessings of freedom, we have mightily served the cause of tyranny throughout the world. Garrison then spoke about the prospects for the success of the revolutionary spirit within the nation, prospects he regarded as dismal because of the insatiable greed, boundless rapacity, and profligate disregard of justice prevalent at the time. He concluded his speech by asserting, Such is our condition, such are our prospects, as a people, on the 4th of July, 1854! Setting aside his manuscript, he told the assembly that he should now proceed to perform an action which would be the testimony of his own soul to all present, of the estimation in which he held the pro-slavery laws and deeds of the nation …

— from Thoreau: Lecture 43, 4 July, 1854

Producing a copy of the Fugitive Slave Law, he set fire to it, and it burst to ashes. Using an old and well-known phrase, he said, And let all the people say, Amen; and a unanimous cheer and shout of Amen burst from the vast audience. In like manner, Mr. Garrison burned the decision of Edward G. Loring in the case of Anthony Burns, and the late charge of Judge Benjamin R. Curtis to the United States Grand Jury in reference to the treasonable assault upon the Court House for the rescue of the fugitive–the multitude ratifying the fiery immolation with shouts of applause. Then holding up the U.S. Constitution, he branded it as the source and parent of all the other atrocities,–“a covenant with death, and an agreement with hell,”–and consumed it to ashes on the spot, exclaiming, So perish all compromises with tyranny! And let all the people say, Amen! A tremendous shout of Amen! went up to heaven in ratification of the deed, mingled with a few hisses and wrathful exclamations from some who were evidently in a rowdyish state of mind, but who were at once cowed by the popular feeling.

–from The Liberator, 7 July 1854 (boldface added)

As I said last year:

I think that legalism is an insidious error that liberals and libertarians alike are all too prone to fall into. In fact the rule of law is something to be hoped for only insofar as the laws are just: rigorously enforcing a wicked law–even if that law is duly published and generally formulated–is just relentlessness, not virtue. And in our bloodstained age it is as obvious as anything that many laws are very far from being just. But one way of trying to accomodate this point, while entirely missing it, is to throw your weight behind some Super-Duper Law that is supposed to condemn the little-bitty laws that you consider unjustifiable. Besides taking the focus away from creative extremism and direct action, and leaving power in the hands of government-appointed conspiracies of old white dudes in black robes, this strategy also amounts to little more than a stinking red herring. It diverts the inquiry from the obvious injustices of a State that systematically robs, swindles, extorts, censors, proscribes, beats, cuffs, jails, exiles, murders, bombs, burns, starves countless innocent people in the name of its compelling State interests, and puts the focus the powers that are or are not delegated to the government by another damn written law. As if the contents of that law had any more right to preempt considerations of justice than the subordinate laws supposedly enacted under its authority. Those who have spent their days trying to find a lost Constitution under the sofa cushions are engaged in a massive, sophisticated, intricately argued irrelevancy. I’d compare it to debating how many angels can dance on the head of a pin, but that would be grossly unfair–to Scholastic metaphysicians.

— GT 2006-09-17: International Ignore the Constitution Day festivities

And as I said in my first annual Ignore the Constitution oration:

You, too, can celebrate Ignore the Constitution Day! Today, completely ignore all claims to authority granted in the Constitution. Live your life as if the Constitution had no more claim on you than the decrees of Emperor Norton. Enjoy your rights under natural law; you have them whether or not the Constitution says one mumbling word for them. While you’re at it, treat the Constitution as completely irrelevant in political arguments too; instead of complaining that unbridled war powers for the President are unconstitutional, for example, complain that they are evil; instead of reciting that damn Davy Crocket bed-time story again and complaining that government-controlled disaster relief is unconstitutional, complain that government-controlled disaster relief is foolish and deadly. (If the Constitution clearly authorized unilateral war powers for the President, or abusive and incompetant government-controlled disaster relief, would that make it okay?) And, hell, while you’re at it, quit complaining that forced Constitution Day celebrations may be unconstitutional; complain instead that they force children to participate in cultish praise for the written record of a naked usurpation.

Just go ahead. Ignore the Constitution for a day. See what happens. Who’s it gonna hurt? And if your political reasoning becomes sharper, your discourse no longer bogs down in a bunch of pseudo-legal mummeries, and you have a pleasant day without having to ask anybody’s permission for it, then I suggest you continue the celebration, tomorrow, and every day thereafter.

— GT 2005-09-17: International Ignore the Constitution Day

Celebrations elsewhere:

• Kehlkopfmikrofon 2007-09-16: The Constitution of No Authority

Further reading:

• GT 2007-09-06: Marching orders
• GT 2007-06-23: The Show Pony
• GT 2006-04-09: Freedom Movement Celebrity Deathmatch
• GT 2006-01-05: An Open Question for Constitutionalist Liberals
• GT 2005-09-02: Definition 2
• GT 2005-07-04: Burn, baby, burn
• GT 2005-12-15: Bill of Rights Day festivities
• No Treason! 2005-12-11: Bush gets it right

Governments — local, state, and federal — spend a lot of time wringing their hands about the plight of the urban poor. It’s never hard to find some know-it-all with a suit and a nameplate on his desk who has come up with a government program that will eliminate, or ameliorate, or at least contain, the worst aspects of grinding poverty, especially as experienced by city folks, and especially as experienced by black people, brown people, immigrants, or other people marked for the special observation and solicitude of the State bureaucracy. Depending on the frame of mind, these programs may be more aimed at doling out conditional charity to deserving poor people, or they may be more aimed at bringing more at-risk poor people under the surveillance of social workers and medical experts, or they may be more aimed at beating recalcitrant poor people up and locking them in cages. (Most programs involve a combination of at least two, and possibly all three.) But one thing that they will never, ever do is just get the fuck out of the way and let poor people do the sort of things that poor people have done from time out of mind to help themselves scratch by.

There are too many ways to list them all here. But one notable example is the way in which city governments constrain and control taxi cabs. In principle, anyone who needed to make some extra money could start a part-time cab service with a car they already have, a cell phone, and some word of mouth. That’s good money for honest labor providing a useful service to willing customers, all under the direction and control of a single independent worker, who can put as much or as little into it as she wants to in order to make the money she needs. And so what do the statesman in city governments do? They create tightly regulated, tightly restricted cartels on taxi service, impose arbitrary numerical limits and financial barriers to entering the cartel, and hit anyone they catch operating outside of the cartel with exorbitant fines or jail time.

One of the worst offenders is New York City, in which all taxi service are regulated by a central city commission, and the city enforces an arbitrary cap on the number of taxi cabs that can pick up passengers off the street. The licenses (medallions) for serving willing customers without John Law punching your head are closely controlled by the city government; a handful of new ones are occasionally auctioned off by the city, and existing ones can be bought and sold by existing license holders — usually at a cost measured in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. Lots of poor people have a car laying around that they could use; not a lot have a few hundred thousand dollars.

Just in case those expenses and legal barriers to entry weren’t enough, I find that Mayor Bloomberg has decided that your taxi needs high-cost high-tech GPS and payment systems — whether or not you, as a driver, wants to lay out the time, money, and lost work to install and maintain it, and whether or not you, as a rider, want to pay the fares needed to cover the expense. Why would they need that? Well, hell, why not? Bloomberg knows what you need or want to pay for better than you do, anyway.

Right after Labor Day, a slew of New York City taxi drivers protested plans to roll out credit- and debit-card payment systems in the back seats of all 13,000 medallion cabs.

They feared they would lose money on tips if passengers didn’t pay in cash.

But proponents, including Mayor Michael Bloomberg, outnumbered the protesters.

Supporters say the ongoing program will better serve customers and actually help bring in more money for cabbies.

— Investor’s Business Daily (2007-09-06): Wireless, Cashless Payments Come To The World Of Taxi Drivers

So, thanks to the supporters, the cabbies will be treated like imbeciles who do not know how to conduct their own business, and also like conscripts who do not have any say in the conditions of their own labor. Well, in any case, somebody is sure to get a sweet deal:

It certainly will help bring in more revenue for San Jose, Calif.-based VeriFone Holdings (NYSE:PAY) PAY. The company is a leading maker of point-of-sale terminals and wireless systems.

VeriFone — in partnership with MasterCard’s MA PayPass — was the first firm approved to provide the wireless systems in New York’s cabs. The systems make use of an ATM-style interface to accept credit and debit fare payments.

The company’s back-seat screen monitors also deliver news, weather and tidbits on restaurants, night life, hotels and other attractions. An extra bonus: Like billboards, they bring in revenue-generating ad money.

Every year, we find a free ride on a new segment of the economy that is going electronic, said Doug Bergeron, VeriFone’s chief executive.

— Investor’s Business Daily (2007-09-06): Wireless, Cashless Payments Come To The World Of Taxi Drivers

In this case, it is a free ride indeed. Who needs to actually go out and sell a product when you can get government cartels to force clients to come to you?

I wish the independent cab drivers well. If Bloomberg shoves this corporate welfare screwjob through, I would encourage them all to go on a permanent strike from officially-licensed cab driving. New York City already boasts a vibrant and growing fleet of gypsy cabs, and an influx of new labor and resources into the counter-economy would be something to welcome.

(Link thanks to Austro-Athenian Empire 2007-09-07: Unto Him Who Hath.)

Further reading:

• Fair Use Blog 2007-09-03: The history of the Black Metropolis, the inner city, and the underground economy in Southside Chicago (from Sudhir Alladi Venkatesh, Off the Books)
• GT 2007-05-29: Bentham quote for the day
• GT 2007-05-15: Cocaine sí ¿c?@c3;b3;mo no?
• GT 2007-01-13: The tall poppies, part 2: food, drugs, and female sexual slavery in Afghanistan
• GT 2006-06-14: Enclosure comes to Los Angeles
• GT 2004-11-20: The tall poppies
• GT 2002-05-19: Government and the pink-collar ghetto
• GT 2001-09-03: Barriers to independent farmers