Skip
to navigation

Skip
to content

Skip
to sidebar

Celebrate Ludwig von Mises Birthday all
month with 15% off everything in our Store!

The Ludwig von Mises Institute

Tu Ne Cede Malis

Advancing the Scholarship of Liberty in the Tradition of the Austrian
School

Store

Academy

Community

Wiki

Home

Daily

About

Blog

Literature

Media

Events

Donate

Previous

Mises Daily Index

Next

How I Learned the Truth about the State

Mises Daily: Thursday, June 16, 2011 by Stefano
R. Mugnaini

Article

Comments

Also by Stefano
R. Mugnaini

A

A

I'll never forget my last visit to lovely Hinesville, Georgia. For it was
there that I learned a valuable lesson, one I shall never forget: in a police
state, we're all criminals.

Think about it — how many laws have you broken today? This week? This month?
Have you changed lanes without a turn signal? Exceeded the posted speed limit?
Hired a neighborhood kid to cut your grass and then paid him under the table?
Engaged in commerce with someone who is in the country illegally? Bought
lemonade from an unlicensed "dealer" in the form of an innocent child?

In Hinesville, I was accosted for "animal cruelty." We were traveling to
visit family in the southwestern part of the state. In the car were my wife, my
two young daughters, and our two dogs, Methuselah and Garibaldi.

The older of my two daughters had a rash, so we stopped at Walmart to get her
some antihistamine cream. We emerged from the store, just under 20 minutes
later, to be greeted by an animal-control officer and the stereotypical police
officer, complete with a Napoleon complex and cheesy mustache.

You see, we left the dogs in the car, with the windows down and a dish of
water to drink. A noble citizen watched us emerge from the car and promptly
called animal control. An agent was dispatched to rescue our persecuted
beasts.

I was informed that I was being charged with criminal animal cruelty, subject
to appear in court at a later date. Apparently, the fact that my dogs were
panting was proof positive that they were at death's door. Never mind that they
always pant, even in an air-conditioned house.

The officer informed me that I was going to have to take the dogs to the vet
to be checked out before we were allowed to continue on our way. I am reasonably
sure that such a request is outside of their official authority, but I agreed to
comply upon the premise that they would drop all charges when the dogs were
given a clean bill of health. As I suspected, they balked at this idea.

I tried another tactic. I calmly explained to the animal-control officer that
we were not from the area, and asked if he could simply levy some kind of fine,
rather than require a court appearance. This is when things got fun. "Animal
cruelty is a warrant offense," I was told. It requires a court appearance and
carries the threat of jail time. Then I made a crucial mistake; I asked a
logical question to a law-enforcement officer.

"At what point," I asked, "was I in violation of the law?" "When I left the
car? Five minutes later? Ten minutes?" I wanted a specific definition for the
cruelty in which I was supposedly engaged.

He couldn't answer, but the heroic policeman — let's just call him "Vic
Maldonado" — sprang into action. This innocent question left him no choice but
to pull out both his baton and Taser and charge toward me. When I raised my
hands as if to say, "I am unarmed, and that is an unnecessary show of force," I
was ordered to turn around and place my hands on the police cruiser. I asked
why; no answer was given, except to radio for backup and claim that an officer
had been "assaulted."

To this day, I am glad that he didn't take the additional step of searching
my car, wherein were two legal, loaded pistols. I shudder to think what might
have happened.

I was cuffed and escorted to the back of the squad car. I sat in the car for
half an hour, while my wife and children sat and watched. When the backup
arrived, I watched and listened through the open front window as "Maldonado"
reenacted the confrontation. I was particularly interested in the part where I
physically slammed the officer against the car and he somehow found the
restraint to not shoot or taser me.

Eventually, I was let out of the car and cited for disorderly conduct. The
animal-control officer apologized for harassing me and promised to see to it
that the judge dropped all animal-cruelty charges. He was clearly shell-shocked
by the escalation he had witnessed. The fine for my "disorderly conduct" was
$300, and the court date was set for 7:15 a.m.

This made it reasonably certain that, even if I chose to fight the charge, it
would require an overnight stay, the hiring of a lawyer, and the incurrence of
expenses far exceeding the cost of the fine. I think this was not a coincidence
but rather a calculated way of raising funds.

I intended to pay the fine in legal-tender pennies, but was dissuaded by my
father-in-law, who informed me that a Georgia judge had held someone in contempt
of court, subject to another fine, for just such an offense.

Melodramatic prison movies always use corny lines like "prison has a way of
changing a man." I didn't experience a prison visit, but my brush with the law
certainly changed me. The last shred of the veil of naïveté was lifted; the myth
of "Officer Friendly" was banished forever. What was once merely a vague sense
of distrust has given way to a much stronger feeling: I hate the
state.

The irony in all this? My family and dogs sat in a hot car for over an hour
while the police harassed me. Apparently, animal cruelty can only be perpetrated
by citizens, not the soldiers of the crown.

Stefano R. Mugnaini is the minister of the Essex Village Church of Christ in
Charleston, South Carolina. He holds a master of divinity from Amridge
University. See his blog.
Send him mail.
See Stefano R. Mugnaini's article
archives.

You can subscribe to future articles by Stefano R. Mugnaini via this RSS
feed.

You can receive the Mises Dailies in your inbox. Subscribe or
unsubscribe.

Print

Add
to MyMises

RSS
Feed

Full-text Feed

Subscribe

Share
|

Find us on
Facebook

Follow us on Twitter

Subscribe to our RSS feed

Mises on
Amazon.com

Mises YouTube
channel

Mises as
Picasa

Markets and Data

Mises on iTunes U

Mises channel
on YouTube

Get
articles and news in your inbox

Browse the Daily

Album View of Mises Daily
Articles

List View of Mises Daily
Articles

Mises Authors

Subscribe
to the Daily Audio Podcast

Subscribe to the
Daily Daily Feed

Subscribe
to the Daily Daily Full-Text Feed

About the Author

Stefano R. Mugnaini
View Author Archive

Stefano R. Mugnaini is the minister of the Essex Village Church of Christ in
Charleston, South Carolina. He holds a master of divinity from Amridge
University. See his blog.
Send him mail.

Mises
Blog

User
Blogs

Forums

Mises Blog

A Brief Thought on the
Libertarian Message 9/3/2011 6:43:10 PM by Jonathan
M.F. Catalán

The great debate: Smith and
Murphy 9/3/2011 1:51:10 PM by Jeffrey
Tucker

The Cost of War – 2011
Edition 9/3/2011 10:28:11 AM by Christopher Westley

Gordon, coffee and quiet
9/2/2011 3:26:05 PM by Jim
Fedako

The hard-side briefcase
9/2/2011 2:47:07 PM by Jeffrey
Tucker

The new store! 9/2/2011
2:41:46 PM by Jeffrey
Tucker

view
all… mises blog rss

Community Blogs

El gran
centralizador: Lincoln y el crecimiento del estatismo en Estados Unidos by
9/3/2011 3:20:00 PM by euribe

New
lows? Sure new lows !! by 9/3/2011 10:28:00 AM by FDominicus

Esta
noche: Duelo a muerte en la jaula de la econom&#237;a by 9/3/2011
8:19:00 AM by euribe

El
hombre frente al estado del bienestar by 9/2/2011 1:04:00 PM by euribe

El
redescubrimiento de las obras maestras de Hayek by 9/2/2011 12:53:00
PM by euribe

Encontrando
el lugar de nacimiento de Ludwig von Mises by 9/1/2011 11:13:00 AM by
euribe

Los
interminables sufrimientos de Cairo, Illinois by 9/1/2011 11:06:00 AM
by euribe

El auge
del capitalismo by 9/1/2011 11:00:00 AM by euribe

El
tsunami monetario est&#225; llegando by 8/31/2011 1:40:00 PM by euribe

The
chances and risk for Lybia by 8/31/2011 12:57:00 AM by FDominicus

El
triunfo de la tecnolog&#237;a sobre la planificaci&#243;n
p&#250;blica by 8/30/2011 1:08:00 PM by euribe

De
repente, vuelve la edad de piedra by 8/30/2011 1:06:00 PM by euribe

La
depreciaci&#243;n no es nada nuevo by 8/30/2011 1:04:00 PM by euribe

&#191;Puede
el estado mejorar un mundo hobbesiano? by 8/29/2011 9:30:00 AM by euribe

La
conquista de Francia por Smith by 8/29/2011 9:24:00 AM by euribe

view all…
user blogs
rss

Mises Forums

view all… forums rss

Literature
rss

Collected
Works of Carl Menger (in German) Volume IV by Carl Menger

Collected
Works of Carl Menger (in German) Volume III by Carl Menger

Collected
Works of Carl Menger (in German) Volume II by Carl Menger

Collected
Works of Carl Menger (in German) Volume I by Carl Menger

The
Transformation of the American Economy, 1865-1914 by Robert
Higgs

The
Great American Land Bubble: The Amazing Story of Land-Grabbing, Speculations,
and Booms from Colonial Days to the Present Times by A. M.
Sakolski

The
Myth of a Guilty Nation by Albert Jay Nock

view all…

Upcoming Events
rss

view
all…

The Quotable Mises

Ludwig von Mises: "Imports are in fact paid for by exports and
not by money." - The Theory of Money and Credit

RSS Feed for Literature

Literature

Collected
Works of Carl Menger (in German) Volume IV by Carl Menger

Collected
Works of Carl Menger (in German) Volume III by Carl Menger

Collected
Works of Carl Menger (in German) Volume II by Carl Menger

Collected
Works of Carl Menger (in German) Volume I by Carl Menger

The
Transformation of the American Economy, 1865-1914 by Robert Higgs

The
Great American Land Bubble: The Amazing Story of Land-Grabbing, Speculations,
and Booms from Colonial Days to the Present Times by A. M.
Sakolski

The
Myth of a Guilty Nation by Albert Jay Nock

RSS Feed for Audio

Audio

Clarence
Darrow Puts the State on Trial by Doug French

The
Smithian Conquest of France by Murray N.
Rothbard

8.09.
Risk, Uncertainty, and Insurance by Murray N.
Rothbard

8.08.
The Entrepreneurial Component in the Market Interest Rate by Murray N.
Rothbard

8.07.
The Progressing Economy and the Pure Rate of Interest by Murray N.
Rothbard

8.06.
The Beneficiaries of Saving-Investment by Murray N.
Rothbard

RSS Feed for Video

Video

Bad News for
Our Money by Thorsten
Polleit

Honest
Banking in the UK by Toby
Baxendale

The
Worldview of Murray Rothbard by Gerard N.
Casey

Currency and
Economic Collapse by Philipp Bagus

The
Life of an International Economics Student by Xavier Méra

The
Life of an International Economics Student by Lucia Manzi

"Nationalist policies, which always begin by aiming at the ruination of ones
neighbor, must, in the final analysis, lead to the ruination of all."

— Ludwig von Mises, in Liberalism

518 West Magnolia Avenue • Auburn, Alabama 36832-4501 • Phone: 334.321.2100 •
Fax: 334.321.2119
[email protected]

• [email protected]

• Save
to MyMises • Site
Map • Open Source • Mobile