It occurred to me that you don’t even need to put a real bulletproof vest on your dog. It just needs to look like one to get the conversation started.

Not sure you’ll read this old, but OK, you sold me on the idea.

Holy Christ! Did the internet just work?

The followup unintended consequence of guard dogs (especially, but of course non-guard dogs could wear them too) wearing bulletproof vests would be legislation promoted by police unions outlawing this on the basis that it would threaten officers’ safety in dangerous situations.

Of course, I am all in favor of police being as vulnerable as possible — just outlining where I think this would go given society’s perverse priorities and top-down social order.

Thanks for the feedback, old. It surely is a sign of the times that it appears you are advocating private citizens equipping their dogs with bullet-proof vests! My opinion is that it’s totally unfeasible and undesirable (forgive me if you were being hyperbolic, it’s hard to tell sometimes).

I am advocating exactly that. If enough dog owners were walking their dogs, and the dog was wearing a bulletproof vest, with lettering that spelled it out, and enough people asked the dog owner, “Why the vest?” and the dog owner could reply “Did you know police shot x number of dogs last year alone?” Something along those lines. Get the conversation going, then get into no-knock warrents served on wrong houses where the dog was shot, or the right houses, where the dog was shot. I am not saying it would work, but it might get a conversation going at the dog park.

The cases of Cory Maye and Ryan Frederick represented gross violations of civil rights. Do you think the ACLU cares?

A little disclosure: I am not nor have ever been a dog owner, so I am not particularly inclined to dedicate a significant part of my life to creating the organization I have conceived. I am suspicious of established organizations like PETA — they are institutions and exist to serve themselves first, then their members.

My latest wrinkle is to involve schoolchildren in a kind of Children’s Crusade (with a happier outcome), a reverse DARE program where the kids go to police stations and ask officers all sorts of uncomfortable questions about why police shoot dogs who aren’t hurting anyone and are no threat, why police don’t employ safer means of arresting suspects than breaking down doors of private residences where dogs are likely to be, etc. I am fearful that I would be labeled an exploiter of children, though, and I don’t want the headache.

I still believe police officers are human beings with consciences, and imagining the emotional impact on an officer of a child asking such simple questions, I can’t help but be optimistic that more than a few minds might be changed.

I know this is a stretch of an overactive imagination, but aren’t the police subject to the law, just like the rest of us?

Even without killing yet another of man’s best friends, this still pisses me off. Not much doubt why the approval rating of cops, in general, is in the same neighborhood as congress.

You might try to get PETA and Ben Roethlisberger on board. PETA is looking to do something with, or to, the NFL since Michael Vick to increase their profile, and Roethlisberger buys bullet proof jackets for police dogs. Also, the Animal Planet people, and anybody that owns a dog. I don’t know how much a bullet proof jacket for a dog costs, but with all the purchases it would have to drive the price down after awhile.

I am no master tactician, but if I know the guy owns a gun, and think he might have stolen another gun, I would probably follow him to work the next morning, watch him go into work, see if it looks like he is strapped, if no, go in talk to the person in charge, get that person to call the guy over and slap the cuffs on him then. If he runs, then you have the guys in the SWAT van chase him. If he doesn’t run, you serve the warrent, and go search his house.

I saw a commercial on Spike TV the other day for a show where they follow D.E.A. agents in New Jersey, and I thought I bet this shows up on The Agitator sometime. Watch Spike for twenty or thirty minutes sometime today, and I guarantee you will see the commercial. It is the perfect accompaniment to all these stories.

I would also like to echo the comment that this series of articles could be a book. Hell, you could have a book for each year, because it will be difficult to find a cut off date.

It should give law enforcement leadership pause when the most law abiding and formerly unquestioningly supportive among the populace starts hoping to see them die in great number. If those citizens see you as being evil and engaging in evil maybe you should stop and reexamine what you’re doing.

Step #2-Throw frisbee.

Step #3-Arrest suspect.

Step #4-Go home and beat wife.

If any serious and well-grounded person ridicules the idea that America may become a police state in the near future, do not waste another breath discussing the matter with them. America is *already* a police state; a largely “friendly” and benign one at this point, but a police state nonetheless.

Hannah Arendt points out in her seminal work _The Origins of Totalitarianism_ that one of the hallmarks of a burgeoning totalitarian regime is numerous overlapping security and intelligence organizations. Radley does outstanding work here highlighting the ongoing militarization of the police, but we should also note the “policification” of the military; abroad they are used for nation-building, and domestically for “civil emergencies”. Attendant to that is the collusion and cooperation between the two, as well.

Collectivism changes different aspects of its outward appearance such that we differentiate and isolate its various forms with few able to note the underlying structure. Fascism, National Socialism, and Communism seem locked in a distinct, distant past, and associations between those well-known historical forms and our present situation only highlights the differences,and so undermines our ability to call attention to the present destruction of our culture and “constitution”.

Taking a cue from Orwell I’ve labeled our present condition “AmSoc”, and it’s true nature is becoming more and more obvious.

Strap in, my friends. It’s going to be a wild, weird ride.

Weird.

The more things change….

I used to be anti-ACLU because I thought that they were about destroying religious traditions. Then I found myself in a coalition which included religious pro-life people and the ACLU!

I certainly don’t agree with every position they take (I think that local chapters have a certain level of autonomy, though), but I’ve learned to become less susceptible to propaganda and to stop demonizing people merely because of differences in philosophy as a result of working with people in the ACLU.

As a Christian, I’ve become less apt to jump on the bandwagon when our religious symbols are removed from public places because I now think that the biggest enemies of Christianity exist within the Christian community. I’m specifically talking about those who choose to walk with Caesar rather than with God. (war mongers and the like) Of course, Jesus had this figured out from the beginning. His wrath was directed at the religious Big Dogs of the day–not the petty sinners.

Such a declaration would make all honest people safer. Too bad it’s not policy.

The problem with the ACLU is that they’re not interested in criminals having the same rights as the law-abiding. They want criminals to have more rights.

If government practices reasonably honor the rights of law-abiding people, but are eroding the rights of criminals, it would be right and proper to protect the rights of criminals since, if they weren’t protected, law-abiding people could be next.

On the other hand, when governments routinely attack the rights of law-abiding people, efforts to protect the rights of criminals while ignoring those of the law-abiding will not protect the rights of the law-abiding. To the contrary, such efforts to protect crooks will encourage the government to target the less-well-protected rights of law-abiding people.