Imagine an iPhone app that would give you real time updates about the location of violent gangs that want to rob you at gunpoint and mess your life up as much as possible. \u00c2\u00a0Gangs whose members are known for committing murder and getting away with it. \u00c2\u00a0Gangs that use tazers on old people and children and anyone else they feel like zapping. \u00c2\u00a0How could anyone object to such a useful app?<\/p>\n
Several such apps exist and congress weasels Charles Schumer, Frank Lautenberg, Tom Udall and Harry Reid are so upset about them they’re demanding Apple remove them from their app store, because the gangs this protects us from are the police.<\/p>\n
The Weasels claim making this information available is a threat to public safety. That requires believing the fiction that the police have something to do with public safety. \u00c2\u00a0Road blocks are nothing more than revenue generators. \u00c2\u00a0The same goes for the enforcement of most traffic laws \u00e2\u20ac\u201c they are there to make money, not to keep the roads safe.<\/p>\n
A while back I was stopped for not wearing a seat belt. \u00c2\u00a0I was driving from one parking lot to another, down about 50 yards of road, at a slow speed with no one anywhere near me. \u00c2\u00a0I usually wear my seat belt religiously, but neglected it this time. \u00c2\u00a0I was given a ticket, of course. \u00c2\u00a0The ticket was for $25, a slap-on-the-wrist punishment that fit the “crime.” \u00c2\u00a0But there was an $85 surcharge attached to it, making it a $110 fine. \u00c2\u00a0Can anyone, even a congress weasel, claim a 340% surcharge is about public safety?<\/p>\n
The next day I was in the same shopping center, wearing my seat belt, and went to cut behind the shops. \u00c2\u00a0I stopped when I saw the area was thickly infested with state troopers, stopping everyone and handing out more tickets. \u00c2\u00a0Since that area wasn’t public property none of those tickets, if they were for moving violations, were valid, and the cops had to know that. \u00c2\u00a0But most drivers wouldn’t, and the cops were using that ignorance to increase the state’s revenue.<\/p>\n
The days of the cops being your friends are long gone (if they ever existed). They are a dangerous occupying army, and anyone who values their safety, property, or lives avoid them as much as possible. \u00c2\u00a0Apps like this are not a problem \u00e2\u20ac\u201c they are a solution.<\/p>\n
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