Happy Monday! Hope everyone had a good weekend. This Monday’s post comes to us from Mrs. P. Thank you, ma’am. Enjoy!
I cannot believe I spent time out of my day to argue against the so called “Stop and Frisk” law enacted by New York Mayor Giuliani and continued under Mike Bloomberg against Constitutional conservatives. Even President Trump when asked agreed that it was something, he was okay with them having implemented. How can people who believe in the Constitution of the United States believe that stopping minorities just because they fit the crime statistics is okay; because it doesn’t affect them, or it does in some other places and that makes it ok. Since when did it become okay for conservatives to like gov’t overreach. Apparently, they forget the rhetoric of not giving up liberty for security when it comes to our police. Police and the Supreme Court have a history of getting things wrong. Here, they are wrong. This post is about why.
The right-wing side of America politics are supposed to believe in individual freedom, small government and personal liberty. That seems to go out of the window when discussing this law. For some reason, a few argued, the Supreme Court ruled this law Constitutional in 2013. However, did conservatives forget that the Supreme Court has been wrong on several occasionslike regarding education, abortion and slavery. Saying something is the law, is never an excuse to allow injustice. And it is usually conservatives that argue with progressives about this, except here. Importantly, just because something is a law upheld by the SC and the POTUS doesn’t mean it is morally right. America have fought unjust laws throughout its history many times over and here is another such time.
“Stop and Frisk” was designed to help assist with non-intrusive police stops. However, the fourth amendment to that Constitution is supposed to be applied and is to prevent government agents from stopping anyone unless they have a reasonable suspicion. The words, “Probable cause” are not written but many believe this to be what it means. Just being a Blackmale is in a highly black dominated city and fits a description of the majority of criminals, is not reasonable suspicion to hound him. Terry vs Ohio, a 1968 court case, defined reasonablesuspicion as when an officer thinks their own life, or the safety of others is in danger. Walking and minding one’s own business isn’t a danger to society. Yet, both Giuliani and Bloomberg stopped minorities at random for almost any reason. And many on the political right, including President Donald Trump agreed because the law worked. Whether a law works or not is irrelevant when the rights of American citizens are infringed.
Mayor Bloomberg is in a new light when video recording of him discussing this law was released. He is currently running for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States and his thoughts on this issue are important to policies he would allow or push forward under his administration. This is also how I became involved in the heated discussion with conservatives on Twitter this week. The law target only minorities in New York whether they did anything or not. And it seems that Mayor Bloomberg’s belief system is the cause of many violations of the fourth amendment to reduce inner city crime. In fact, Bloomberg said on the video recording,
“95% of your murders murderers and murder victims fit one M.O. You can just take the description, Xerox it and pass it out to all the cops. They are male, minorities, sixteen to twenty-five. That’s true in New York and true in virtually every city. And, that’s where the real crime is. You got to get the guns out of the hands of the people getting killed. You have to be willing to spend the money to put a lot of the cops is the streets. Put those cops where the crime is, which means in minority neighborhoods. So, one of the unintended consequences are people saying, ‘Oh my God. You are arresting kids for marijuana they’re all minorities’. Yes, that’s true. Why? Because we put all the cops in minority neighborhoods. Yes. that’s true. Why? Because that’s where all the crime is. And the way you get the guns out the kids’ hands is to throw them up against the wall and frisk them. And then they start ‘Oh I don’t want to get caught’. So, they don’t bring the guns. They still have a gun, but they leave it at home”.
Bloomberg and whomever else that agrees are essentially saying that violating individual liberty is okay because it reduces crime, and therefore, the place is safer. That is not how our rights work. Liberty is more important than security.
His statistics are correct in highly minority inner cities there is more crime. But instead of addressing that bad economic policies made crime and drugs more beneficial financially then going to get a low paying job; politicians are violating innocent people’s privacy. What Bloomberg believes, (and it is caught on the same video that will be posted below), is that the rights of society are more important than an individual. That is backwards to the foundation of America. That is why we have minority rights in this country.
And when I say minority, I do not mean by race but by number. The individual is the smallest minority that exists. It is not because I am Black that I argue against stop and frisk in practice and in theory, although it does play some role, but because I am a Conservative, right leaning thinker. As a conservative, we are to believe that the individual matters more than most of the society or all the majority must do is outnumber any of us, and they will always win. Fortunately, laws are not always right just because it benefits more people. That is why we fight in court and again if they get it wrong.
No one (and some tried to argue because it happened to white people as well) should be accosted by police just because of the color of their skin or some such other arbitrary reason. And yes, it is arbitrary even if a big number of Black people commit crime. At the end of the day, I am an individual just as I am Black, so my race does not mean I am a criminal. Furthermore, White men and women in highly meth trafficked areas or Hispanics in an opioid area should not be stopped just on what they look like alone. That is unreasonable search and seizure, a violation of the fourth amendment.
Sources: Youtube audio recording https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aiSRSaVXqqM
Cornell Law Schoolhttps://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/stop_and_frisk
