The other castle doctrine

The Indiana Supreme Court says it's just being hip in wiping out another snippet of the Constitution of the United States. The Hoosier Black Robes shat on several centuries of common law in ruling that cops can kick down your door and wave guns at your wife and kids -- and you have no right to resist. Search warrant? Who needs that kind of niggling paper work?

 In a 3-2 decision, Justice Steven David writing for the court said if a police officer wants to enter a home for any reason or no reason at all, a homeowner cannot do anything to block the officer's entry.

"We believe ... a right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence," David said. "We also find that allowing resistance unnecessarily escalates the level of violence and therefore the risk of injuries to all parties involved without preventing the arrest."

"Modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence"  justifies an illegal and violent home breakin for "no reason at all?"


We have fallen far from the roots of our liberties, from the vision of guys like William Pitt (the elder.)

The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail -- its roof may shake -- the wind may blow through it -- the storm may enter -- the rain may enter -- but the King of England cannot enter! -- all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement!


Or is it declasse to remember what some of those old dead white guys said?


If anyone is collecting money to make air space over the Indiana Supreme Court a no-fly zone, put me down for a hundred bucks.


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H/T Roberta

Dreamland

I should not have stolen the lever-action Winchester hidden under the pair of shorts on the bar stool while I was looking for my trench coat. I was pleased when the girl driving my getaway car flashed a CIA driver's license at the cop who chased us down. I was sad when I lost the rifle at a house party I threw for people I haven't seen since grade school, especially since it had an interesting  action built around a double-barrel S/W Model 25.

Your lesson here is that even a half-rack of the ribs at McKeen's Pub is too much if you intend to retire early.
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Mr. Goodwretch Works Here

Further exciting adventures in automotive technology.

1. The battery charger now charges batteries in the same sense that Harry Reid thinks, that is, slowly and well below advertised specifications. I'm on my way to the city where I hope to find a heavy DPCO switch which might bring it back.

2. The truck stasis is due to a probably bad battery born in 2002 or 03  and a definitely bad alternator.  I'll  pick those up too and try not to dwell on the cost measured as a hefty fraction of another 1911.

I offer a word of thanks to the Sperry folks for making their Snap 6 ammeter (Model OHM-525).  A handy way of discovering that your alternator is gasping out only seven amps at speed is a tool to be cherished, however seldom used.

Why we're broke

I cherish scenic by-ways. I find them all by myself and am hardly ever devastated to learn that they are not official scenic byways.

But I must be in the minority because my leaders in Washington continue to suck money to pretty up scenic by-ways with official signs telling us we're on scenic by-ways.

Of course, it isn't quite that simple. Before you can declare a scenic by-way official and put up signs, you have to study the matter to make sure you don't screw up and put signs on a scenic by-way that maybe ain't.

Read it carefully, translate the gobbledygook, and you may conclude that we've just bought $61,680 worth of paper saying how scenic and by-wayish this chunk of back road really is. Only later do we borrow some more money from the Chinese to actually put up the signs.