A friend just popped up on IM to tell me quite a story…
*my friend*: hey, you there??
*my friend*: you won’t believe what just happened to me. I called Ted Leiu’s office this morning (our state sen here in El Seg [actually an Assembly member…A.L.]) to complain about the new budget bill. The woman on the phone was totally dismissive of me and literally hung up on me. So i called her back to ask her if she hung up on me. i made standard comments about how she worked for the people and that was no way to treat people who have an opinion. She asked me for my name, address and phone number and i gave them willingly.
*my friend*: Just now, a uniformed CHP officer showed up at my door to ask me some questions about the call. Ted Leiu’s office called the CHP and said that i was some sort of danger. When asked if i had been aggressive or used profane language, they said no, but we are worried about him. So the CHP officer, who was very nice and totally understood my position, said that since they turned in a complaint, he had to follow up on it. And that the visit would require a notation in their files about the visit.
*my friend*: the reason i had called to begin with was to tell Ted Leiu that I was strongly considering moving out of the state based on this new budget and the lack of seriousness in Sac. Now, i am really thinking about it
*me*: I’m here….
*me*: reading…one sec
*me*: that’s fricking outrageous…
*my friend*: yeah. kinda funny but really kind of scary
*me*: worse than that….
*me*: gut check…you can be intense
*me*: what was your affect on the phone??
*my friend*: the cop even told me that he asked them if i was threatening or profane and they said no.
*me*: wow…that’s outrageous…
*my friend*: i was pissed off when the woman hung up on me and i called back to ask if she had done that. i used the old line about, “Don’t you work for the people?” and i think that pissed her off
*me*: tough
*me*: she needs thicker skin
*my friend*: i was not mean or rude but i was angry that i was being dismissed
*my friend*: i really think it is time to leave. i dont want to be the “last jew out of prague”
*my friend*: when you see a large CHP officer at the door asking if you are the one who called your senator’s office, that is scary
I’ll restate my real-time reaction – that’s fricking outrageous. I’ve sent an email off to Lieu’s office and will post any response I get.
But here are the facts as I know them. A fellow constituent – I’m in Lieu’s district as well – calls to register his unhappiness with the new budget (I’m working on a post about it – personally, I think it’s a pretty good one under the circumstances, and disagree with my friend), and feels blown off by the person whose job it is to listen to him and communicate his views. She hangs up on him, and when he calls her back to challenge her on her behavior, she uses the power of the state to send an armed state law officer calling on my friend.
Absent some pretty significant bad behavior by my friend – and I’m guessing he’s honest enough with me that in a personal communication like the one above, he’d have acknowledged it – there is simply no excuse whatsoever for this.
And these are the people you want controlling your health care? Say what you want about your HMO, i doubt they send armed men to squash dissent. This isn’t an aberration, this kind of thing is guaranteed to grow proportionally as the power of government expands.
Somewhere along the line in our discourse this nation has lost sight of the fundamental truth that the scariest words in the English language should be ‘I’m from the government, and i’m here to help’.
I’ll tell you, my mind hasn’t been this clear about why i’m a conservative for many, many years (if ever). I don’t know if there is a time in history when the power of government has grown so hugely in so short a period of time in so many ways. The bureaucrats are feeling their strength.
We can also talk about this California budget. The biggest tax increase in state history in the middle of a recession? Brilliant. Next years will be even more impressive as producers flee the state. A governor with any nuts would tear up the budget and tell every department to go back to 2005 spending levels. But of course the spending ‘cuts’ were the smallest part of the project. Reprehensible. But also a sign of things to come nationally.
All hail our Sacramento Overlords.
After all, they’re certified Nice People by our real masters, the civil-service unions.
I’ve been reading comment threads in the Sacramento Bee and the civil-service types are shocked that people would rather lay them off than pay “just a bit more taxes” on top of the massive taxes they already pay. And they don’t seem to get that much of the private sector of the state has gone through layoffs, business failure, etc – and wonders why it’s a huge frickin’ disaster for government to contemplate doing the same.
For what it is worth, state senators are protected by CHP officers (much like secret service for the president). As a State Officer myself, I can tell you that we get calls every day from people (who feel important in their job for whatever reason) who tell us they have been threatened because someone showed normal anger or irritation toward them. I will bet you dollars to donuts that officer was mandated to follow up after the lady your friend spoke to defended her behavior to her boss by saying he was scary and mean. That would be the only defense she could use for being rude to a constiuent and she had to head him off before he made an official complaint that could get her in trouble. The only comfort I can offer in this is that most law enforcement officers are very sensitive to the constitutional rights of citizens and will do no more than talk to the “suspect” to make certain they are no threat. This incident was most likely about someone who didn’t want to own up to her bad behavior rather than a descent to the Police State. That officer was just doing his diplomatic best to deal with what for him, was a political issue as well.
Now it is Nineteen Eighty-Four
Knock, knock on your front door …
It’s the Suede-Denim Secret Police!
They have come for your uncool niece!
Come quietly to the camp,
You’d look nice as a draw-string lamp …
California Uber Alles, Uber Alles!
(The Dead Kennedys, California Uber Alles)
I’ll tell you, Glenn Reynolds is probably just overwhelmed with all his ‘The told me if I voted for McCain’ shtick. It’s kind going from funny to creepy.
Obama’s “transportation”:http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/wire/sns-ap-lahood-vehicle-mileage-tax,0,6754105,print.story secretary wants to put GPS chips in every car so they can tax us by the mile.
Seriously. If GW Bush so much as dreamed of tracking every car in America… I mean honestly.
Sometimes the people of California exhibit behaviors that really scare me. They remind my fellow Europeans.
(My excuses if someone felt insulted)
In the beginnig, the Big Problem with electric cars was energy storage. In the end, it might be taxation.
The world may change a lot if there is an energy revolution at the same scale the electronics’ one, if inexpensive power can be produced from fusion reactors.
#3 TK “The only comfort I can offer in this is that most law enforcement officers are very sensitive to the constitutional rights of citizens and will do no more than talk to the “suspect” to make certain they are no threat. ”
Then, you make sure there is a notation in the suspect’s (no quotes needed, really) dossier about this that ends up in every government database known to mankind. Now comes the “step aside, please” at the airport. Now come the delays for “license checks” in traffic stops. Now come the turn-downs for new jobs.
As for your comfort in knowing how sensitive you and your fellow officers are about our rights, I’ll believe that when I hear it from your fellow officers on SWAT teams that break down doors, shoot dogs, break up furniture, and scream obscenities at people, then find they were in such a hurry to play cowboys and indians that they raided the wrong house.
Dear Mr. Grizzly,
You caught me. I am an agent of * (if I put the name in print the universe will implode). We are behind the conspiracy to take over your lives, bleed you of independent thought, and turn your children into zombies to fight wars for our sick amusement and to help us keep your numbers in check. You saw right through me, my associates are part of a well organized secret force of jack booted thugs without love, compassion or any other positive emotion or the slightest understanding of the human experience of family, loss, grief or suffering. In truth,we aren’t human at all. We are merely mimicking human form to appease the masses while we slowly take over the planet and turn you all into our slaves and of course a primary source of sustenance. And Mr. Grizzly, I caution you not to try to expose our true purpose, lest we target you specifically. We already know where you live.
Since when has anyone in Sacramento felt the need to respond to the public in a civil manner? They no longer work for “us, the voters” they work for the Unions and the State Employees who continually do their dirty work.