For spring break I took my family down to south Texas for a week and had a wonderful time. One thing about deep south TX is that they don't get in a hurry for much...

Went down to South Padre Island for a day at the beach...beautiful day, 80s and windy. The dunes had blown over the road so we could not go up very far but no problems.

On the way back to Kingsville we were stopped at the Border Patrol check point north of Harlengen. Three cars ahead of us. The same scene played out on all. Cars drove through a video survelence lane with more camaras than a Hollywood production. Stopped behind a barrier and approached by a officer. Dog walked slowing around the car. Doors and trunk were opened and dog siffed into the car while more officers walked around and looked though the car. A bit more conversation and then waved through for a repeat of the same.

We pulled up at the stop. Approached by an officer..dog began walking around car. Officer asked "Are you a US citizen"..."you bet"...."where are you going"...my sisters in Kingsville"..."where do you come from...South Padre"..."do you have weapons in the car"..."I am licenced to carry and I am"...."Thank you, drive safely".....

I guess the blue eyed guy with the crewcut and sunburned red headed children put us on a different list...

Byron

I go through Border Patrol checkpoint weekly and have been through that checkpoint at Sarita hundreds of times. I have to go through such a checkpoint on my way back from the shooting range.

Those types of questions tend to irritate me. It is an immigration checkpoint and they can inquire about my citizenship. It is NYBD where I am going and where I have come from. It certainly isn't their business if there are weapons in the car.

I have only been asked about weapons once and I told them I had several. It is legal in Texas to have any number of weapons in the car and you don't need any kind of license or permit.

When the ask where I am going, I just point ahead and say North. When they ask where I have come front I point back and say South.

I really shouldn't say anything except affirm I am an US citizen. I mostly just respond to such questions with "I am a native born United States citizen and am in full compliance with all Federal and State laws.

I have been hassled only once, and then I told them, I am a lawyer and I want to his supervisor here forthwith as my rights were being violated. The "L" word was all it took and I was waved on through.

Too many good people have fought and died for the United State Constitutions to let these Migra pricks play fast and loose with it. I am always polite and respectful, but won't allow them to run loose with my rights.

All of us who live down here on the Border get very tired of heavy handed Federal police very quickly and come to resent them. Some of us, including me won't let them get away with rounding off the corners of the Constitution. Piss on em!!

pisses me off. The other stop and question the "DWI" Checkpoint is a real canker too. A

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Of the Troops & For the Troops

I have(had) brown hair and brown eyes. I have a healthy dose of exotics in my family tree that cause me to tan quick and dark. I spent one summer in my youth working outside and was well browned up, and fit as a fiddle. Myself and Powell walked across the bridge at Matomoros, and got hot, sweaty, and covered in a layer of fine dust while thorougly enjoying ourselves. Back across the bridge, cheesy grins from the Mexican side, and as we approached the US, the nice guard asked if we were US citizens. Feeling my oats and cracking wise, I said "yeah, I guess so". Wrong answer! I was whisked into a little room, joined by several more guards, and ask in no uncertain terms for every scrap of paper on my person that could prove I was a US citizen, instead of "guessing". I shelled out everything I had, including my Texas DL. Then they left to "run my numbers", and marinated me in that room for a good half hour. One guard came back with my License, told me to get out, and "no more guessing!" Powell thought it was all quite entertaining, and became fast friends, speaking spanish with the gang on the bus bench. He observed that I apparently had no idea how much I looked like a Mexican, and a rather seedy, suspicious one at that.

JLF

I have come to believe that the mind is a magnet and a radio....example...if one has ever been a relationship that had long since gone south but you continue to stick it out until one morning you see the light and get your mind right that it is OVER!!! You go to work at the same time, stop for a cup of coffee at the same place, talk to the same people and basically do everything exactly the same and them realize that by the time you get home you have been asked out on 3 dates.....only difference between yesterday and today was headspace...your mind is a magnet and a radio...that can be trained....

Without question when one pulls into an interaction with anybody with "piss on them" floating around in the back of their minds...everyone around that is paying attention will hear it and react accordingly...the dynamic will instantly change...

When at Sea World last week with my kids, I ignored the sign that there were no weapons allowed in the park and entered carrying a large folding Cold Steel Tanto in my pocket. After we had been in the park for a couple of hours I noticed that I was being flanked by two San Antonio PD. I turned to them and smiled and opened my body language and said "Hey guys"...they approached me on both sides and when close asked if I had a knife. I said "sure" and was told that "it should have never made it into the park." I ask them how they wanted to handle it and was told to drop it into my pocket where it did not show and wished a pleasent visit.....I am sure that if my reaction had not be quite so calm, confident and open they would not have responded so.

I personally had no problem chatting with the polite heavily armed men at the check point because they instantly caught the vibe that I was comfortable with them...

The difference here was you knew you were breaking the rules and decided to do it anyway and got caught. You made somebody uncomfortable and they called the police on you. If I did that I would be all sugar and nice also, hoping for some mercy and a break also. They had you dead cold to rights as a scofflaw. The park was within their legal rights to band weapons there.

When I drive down the highway, I am just doing what all Americans are entitled to do unhindered by Federal police. I don't need their good will and approval to go on down the highway. They are hindering me with questions that have no legal right to ask and I have no legal obligation to answer.

These are not comparable events.

I am respectful, polite and even warm as long as they stay within the law and their authority. When they stray over those limits I am still polite and respectful, but stand my grounds on my rights. I don't care how many guns and badges they have, I will not be intimidated.

There is no radio or magnet or old bad experience tapes running. I have never been detained or arrested in my life. I am the paradigm of a good citizen at age 70. But as a lawyer, I have seen police of all stripes run rough shod over the Constitution when they think they can get by with it. I have known them, on repeated occasions to abuse the Constitution and deny the rights it affords to people. If that is a radio, I have it turned to their station. I have been on both side of the criminal justice bar, both prosecution and defense and have seen way to much stuff up close and personnel. These folks are looking for the easy way to do their job and catch the bad guys. If they have to round off the corners of the Constitution to do that, most are OK with doing so. They are not entitled to do that just because they are "heavily armed men". I repeat..piss on them.

I dare say if you were not down here on a lark with the kids, but were subjected to a half century of such stuff, you would have a different point of view.

Years ago you and I had a similar discussion about the law "stepping" on peoples toes and violating their rights...that discussion got nowhere so this one will probably be no different.

Still, my take on things is more about getting what I want instead of fighting city hall and as such I approach it differently.

Years ago I mentioned that every Christmas I gave all the deputies a bottle of Crown "as a token of my esteem"...your said that was wrong because it put them in a compromizing situation...for crying out loud...I want them to know me and owe me...

Regarding DUI checkpoints being a inconvienence....in most cities after 1800 half the drivers on the road are drunk and should be stopped....it is worth it to me to have to roll through a stop and have a cop shine a flashlight in my face in order to get some of these clowns off the road...I consider it the price of doing business...

The Border Patrol stop was the same...we all agree that the present state of border security is a matter of national security....as poorly as they do at stopping the flow of illegals and contaband into the country....this stop clearly would be a problem for someone with a trunk load of dope....

Again, a different take on things...if I had been through a checkpoint "100s" of times I would know the names of everyone there, all their children and all their birthdays....and they would all know mine....it was no skin off my nose for them to ask me where I was going...

To me they just seemed to be guys trying to do a job standing in the sun....not oppressive Federal Police to piss on (and piss off)...

Cheers,

Byron

Yes...a different point of view based on different experience. I have seen stuff done by Federal, State and local police that would make the SS proud.

There are many fine folks in law enforcement including members of my family, but human nature being what it is, many of them will step over the line from time to time if they think they can get away with it. Most often they get away with it and nobody is wiser.

If there were not folks holding law enforcement accountable to the Constitution abuse would be rampant and not just common. I happen to be on of those folks who will hold their feet to the fire on the issue of the Constitution. Somebody has to do it or else we would have a police state. There are things far more important that being considered a "hale fellow well met" by the cops.

Yes, we have lost all perspective when it comes to common sense.NM law says you have to be 21 to buy adult beverages and or tabbaco products. I've usually been known the past 20 yrs or so as an old fart.
However at the local fast stop I have to show my DL to get a can of Grizzly. Thought I'd fool them the other day and flipped out my CCL with photo ID like DL. They said NO, DL only.But an illegal can get a DL w?o ANY ID. I.ve been asked twice in the same day at the same store same cashier. ARE WE duming down the masses or what

When asked for driver lisence I said "ain't got one...they took it for driving drunk"

...others accept being subjects. Let your conscience be your guide.

I think 'dumbing down' is part but not all of it. Another thing is make-work, which I also think is a natural by-product of our so-called 'service' economy.

In certain cases, the make-work has all but taken over the job. For example, at the hospital. I was there for a couple of outpatient days in January for an exam, and the staff was great, but they were utterly bogged down with all the make-work.

An almost unbelievable amount of make-work.

This leaves little if any time for the patient, of course, but The System couldn't care less: It just wants that make-work done, and I mean right now.

Increasingly, you see the same sort of thing at places like the local Stop-And-Rob: No time for the customer − no time for even thinking about what they're doing − just time aplenty for all the make-work.

Collectively, I think people have generally lost sight of who they really work for: Each other.

More and more, people work for The System, if only because there's hardly time for anything else.

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I get questioned some 70 miles from the border, I am always cordial, and when asked citizenship I answer, anything more than that, I ask them if I'm free to go. At what point do we draw the line? DUI checkpoints, doctors asking my kids if I have guns at home, asking me to pop my trunk at the BP checkpoint? I am much more willing to live with the risks associated with being free, than I am with the ever increasing invasion of my privacy. I really don't understand why our checkpoint isn't manned by DEA, they haven't caught an illegal in years, it's all about drugs, money, and scaring the crap out of people who have had treatment involving radiation. Those are my views, and I respect others right to have theirs.

That is where we are today and I firmly believe much of it is by design. Thinking people are free people and free people tend to be thinking people. Keep them running someone else's rat race and they will have neither.