… the news headlines could have read if I was an actual terrorist.

I was on my way out of the office and heading for the South Ferry 1 train. I noticed a group of three NYPD officers standing to the right of the turnstiles with their sign saying they can ask to search bags leaning up against the decorative gating. I see this from the bottom of the steps at the old N and R entrance and so I prepare myself for the possible bag search request.

Lately there has been an obvious increase in the frequency of these stations. Perhaps its a result of the grants from the federal government to expand the city security theater or something related to the recent stimulus bill. I don’t know and I’m not going to chat it up with one of the blue light gang to see if they know either.

So I always carry with me a cheap digital camera just in case I need to snap a photo of the growing police state or an official abusing their so called authority. Near the Metrocard machines at the N/R entrance I took the camera out of my pocket, made sure it was on video mode, and turned it on. Or so I thought.

As I walk toward the turnstiles and the officers a young woman with a large bass in a case with a single wheel walks out in from of a pillar and I pause to let her go around me. As that is occurring I’m tucking my copy of Ludwig Von Mises’ Socialism under my left arm pit so my left hand was free to take the Metrocard out of the sheath I keep in my right pocket in which I store my work ID and government transportation cards. Before the woman is able to get around me I hear: “HEY BUDD!” I know its directed at me since a prior survey of those walking with me showed no one else with a bag. I ignore it and continue to reach for my card but have yet to move forward again from stopping for the bassist. “HEY!” I hear again. I hesitate for what was not more than 500ms but surely felt longer in order to decide if I should respond or play deaf. I turned and with a innocent but slightly concerned and questioning look said: “Excuse me?”

I don’t recall if it was “Can we” or “We need to” “check your bag.”

I’ve gone through this situation before and in one case a far more intimidating scenario where I had already gone through the turnstile and was absolutely the only person around except for the officers standing three feet in front of me demanding to look through my things. So I’ve done mental exercises in hopes of better handling a similar encounter in the future. Maybe something to the effect: “For what reason? Under what authority? Do you have a warrant? Why can’t I use the subway? What if I just go down the street to the next station? What’s your name and badge number?” Unfortunately that all went out the window when I was in the spotlight and it came time for my response.

I say with a completely different demeanor from a second early, one of seriousness and likely contempt: “No.”

“You’re going to have to leave the subway then.”

Acting ignorant… “Can’t go over there either?” Pointing to the N/R entrance.

“No. Gotta go outside.”

“Hmm… OK.”

While this back and forth occurred I had turned to the right to face them and meandered a little to their left. To collect myself and put away my Metrocard. I notice the other office who was not behind the table talking to me but to his left was getting real close to me as if to escort me out. He didn’t lead me out but did follow me as I slowly walked toward where I entered. I kept peaking back and he eventually stopped and starred me down as I walked up the steps.

I started down the street toward the Bowling Green station. Turning back occasionally to see if I was being followed. After less than a block I decided I wasn’t in the mood to put up with that or take the Green line to Grand Central Station and then go to Port Authority by way of the Shuttle. I was already running late and given that the news of the MotorhomeDiaries crew’s arrest and imprisonment was still trickling out I wanted to get home as soon as possible.

So I turned around… headed back down the steps carefully checking to see if the officers were watching for me or in my direction. The way they were positioned give them the ability to see all those who entered so if I was going to get onto a train I needed to be careful or face arrest. So I waited a few minutes for a crowd to come down the steps and followed it to the turnstiles of the N/R and walked through down to the platform and onto the train. There was a slight scare when a couple stops down the train was held for several minutes without a reason and I noticed some officers on the south bound side looking around. But the doors eventually shut and I made it home with an elevated heart rate but otherwise untouched by the actors of the police state that is NYC.

So as I and many others have said hundreds of times before… baggage checks are nothing but security theater. In this instance I pushed it and entered the same station secretly but other times before the new South Ferry 1/N/R station combo I would be denied entry to the 1 and then just walk back across the street to the N/R and head uptown without a hitch. It’s extraordinarily ridiculous. If I’m rejected at 1… I’d suspect I’m not legally allowed to enter the N/R or any other station. Do they expect that once you are denied entry once that you can never ride again? If I’m a terrorist and am on my way to blow some train station up and am actually stopped… what keeps me from just going to the next station or waiting a few minutes and hiding in a crowd as it enters? Shouldn’t that officer followed me until I was off the island? It’s a big joke… on the public. They get to pay taxes to further oppress themselves with absolutely no gain. At least in Benjamin Franklin’s quote he assumed that the individual was giving up freedom for more security. In our case it is freedom for less security and explicit tyranny.

So my camera turned out not to be recording for the beginning of the brief conversation. I caught only the last of it and then I have a bunch of subway noise from when I made my reentrance. In the future I’ll just turn it on before I go in and leave it on. I’m thinking a digital audio recorder with an extended mic with a clip that I could have on my shirt would be better or maybe an audio/video recording wrist watch.

I’m going to try to better prepare myself for my next encounter by going over my script more and when I see the officers stationed in front of the enterance again I will pause, collect myself, go over the plan, start the recorder, breath deeply, and then go in. We’ll see…

http://www.nytimes.com/…

On these taxing days, when we become a defiantly bipartisan nation of whiners convinced that we are handing over to the Internal Revenue Service our blood and sweat and mother’s milk, our pound of flesh and firstborn young, maybe it’s time for a little perspective.

Legions before us have donated all these items and more to the public till, and not just metaphorically speaking, either. Benjamin Franklin was right to equate paying taxes with a deeply organic behavior like dying. It turns out that giving up a portion of one’s income for the sake of the tribe is such a ubiquitous feature of the human race that some researchers see it as crucial to our species’ success. Without ritualized taxation, there would be precious little hominid representation.

Moreover, plenty of nonhuman animals practice the tither’s art, too, demanding that individuals remit a portion of their food, labor, comfort or personal fecundity for the privilege of group membership. And just as the I.R.S. depends on threat of audit as much as it does on anybody’s sense of civic responsibility, so do other toll-collecting species ensure compliance by meting out swift punishment against tax cheats.
Read More…

http://www.time.com/…

At various times in American history, public service and private effort

went arm in arm. After Pearl Harbor, Rosie the Riveter and Uncle Sam exhorted people to help the war effort, and Americans responded. But since F.D.R., and especially since J.F.K.’s launching of the Peace Corps, national service has been seen by some as a Democratic or liberal idea. In the ’90s, Newt Gingrich argued that the rise of big government programs robbed people of their initiative to volunteer. After Bill Clinton signed the bill to create AmeriCorps in 1993, then Senator John Ashcroft called it “welfare for the well-to-do.”

But these days there is a growing consensus on Capitol Hill that the private and public spheres can be linked. Democrats understand the need to support programs outside of government; Republicans understand that voluntary programs can be helped by government. In his first State of the Union address after 9/11, President George W. Bush called for Americans to give 4,000 hours of service and established the USA Freedom Corps. One of the early critics of AmeriCorps, John McCain, has since become a devout supporter. “National service is an issue that has been largely identified with the Democratic Party and the left of the political spectrum,” McCain wrote in a 2001 Washington Monthly essay. “That is unfortunate, because duty, honor and country are values that transcend ideology…National service is a crucial means of making our patriotism real, to the benefit of both ourselves and our country.”

THE PLAN

So what would a plan for universal national service look like? It would be voluntary, not mandatory. Americans don’t like to be told what they have to do; many have argued that requiring service drains the gift of its virtue. It would be based on carrots, not sticks — “doing well by doing good,” as Benjamin Franklin, the true father of civic engagement, put it. So here is a 10-point plan for universal national service. The ideas here are a mixture of suggestions already made, revised versions of other proposals and a few new wrinkles.

1. Create a National-Service Baby Bond
2. Make National Service a Cabinet-Level Department
3. Expand Existing National-Service Programs Like AmeriCorps and the National Senior Volunteer Corps
4. Create an Education Corps
5. Institute a Summer of Service
6. Build a Health Corps
7. Launch a Green Corps
8. Recruit a Rapid-Response Reserve Corps
9. Start a National-Service Academy
10. Create a Baby-Boomer Education Bond

Voluntary? Really? How long would that last? How voluntary is the collection of funds to pay for all this proposed government expansion.

Read More…

• Debate started at approximately 9:00PM EST
• Ron Paul, the only doctor on the stage, was ignored when the question of abortion came up
• At 9:32PM Ron Paul is given his first real question after all other candidates were given a question and some more. The question about his comment on how letting the passengers on the 9/11 flights to have guns may have prevented the hijacking.
• 9:45PM 2nd Ron Paul question: about the war in Iraq
• 9:47: Paul mentions taking marching orders from the Constitution which receives a round of heavy booing mixed with applause. The booing while talking about following the Constitution was unnerving.
• 9:51PM still on the Iraq war question Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul go back and forth in the most entergetic moment in some time in any debate. Huckabee says regardless of whether invading was a mistake we must keep our honor and see it through which receives a large applause as does Paul’s reply that it’s just trying to save face and we need to correct the mistake.
• 10:02PM: Romney talking about bugging mosques. “Some people say, but wait, we have civil liberties” and goes on to imply that those liberties aren’t as important as the one he expects the government to protect most and that being life. The second unnerving moment. Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety. –Benjamin Franklin
• 10:13PM: Giulani, talking about why he hasn’t and won’t sign the pledge that he won’t raise taxes like 6 others running have, says the only pledge that matters is the one about supporting the Constitution. Article 2, Section 1: I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Funny, I heard all kinds of unconstitutional things coming from his mouth.
• 10:18PM Paul gets 3rd question: Talks about getting rid of government programs/bloat. Getting rid of the IRS while Huckabee just advocated the Fair Tax. Approximately adjusted for inflation. We could have the same budget we had in 2000 and completely eliminate the private income tax. At about $1.1T in private income tax subtracted from the nearly $3T for next year’s federal budget with the 2000 budget at $1.8T. It’s definitely the case if we go back to 1995. So while a consumption tax would be better (though the 23% quoted for FairTax is misleading) it’s not as good as a complete removal of the private income tax.
• 10:26PM: 4th Paul question on Iran. Big applause.
• 10:32PM: Huckabee makes similar comment about supporting the Constitution.
• After Debate on H&C: Rudy Guilani makes a smartass comment about Ron Paul not belonging on the stage and how a Paul vs. Gravel debate would be entertaining to watch. “Lots of boos”
• Hannity makes several complaints about Ron Paul’s score in the text message poll Fox is running. Says that the Paulites must be voting multiple times. This however is a lie. You can only vote one per phone and this was confirmed personally. While it is possible Paul supporters could have multiple phones… so could any other candidate supporter and I find it unlikely that people would be hording other’s phones to do this.
• Ron Paul won the text poll with 33% of the votes.