Archive for July, 2009

People of Heath, OH here is a little something about your newly erected Photo Enforcement Program. What your city government has done to you is an outrage, they have traded your safety for money and additionally traded your money for their own as well they have disgraced our for fathers and trampled your constitutional rights.

Here is what I mean lets start at the beginning;

Safety

Your Mayor Richard Waugh Spouts your safety and the safety of your children as his motivation for this new program, When I spoke with him the other day he told me that they have quite a bit of children coming out of the pool on any given day. I agreed stating the my 7 year old son is one of them. Now for those who have never been to Heath, OH swimming pool let me draw you a mental picture. The pool sites every bit of 300 yard off of the state route where these cameras are installed, tell me how that has any effect on the safety of the children. Another safety concern that I have that the Mayor and other who had these cameras put in, don’t have, is that the installation of these cameras create a major safety concern with rear-end collisions from the person afraid to get a ticket (because no one has and extra $100.00 to burn) and the other driver not expecting someone to come to a screeching halt at a yellow light. Conveniently RedFlex has it in their contract absolving themselves from legal responsibility should anyone be hurt or killed because of their cameras being installed. but I digress back to point. Safety the mayor and council spout that the speeding on SR 79 is so dangerous that they had to put these in. but by the mayors own admission people are allowed to speed on SR 79 without a ticket  since the speed limit on the cameras is set to 46 miles an hour and the speed limit is 35 in those areas. The Mayor mentioned that they were even considering raising the Speed limit to 45MPH but in his defense they were not thinking of raising it to 46MPH.

Equality

We have all heard all men are created equal and the US Constitution affords us all the right to have the law equally applied to us, but as mentioned before you can speed and not get a ticket in Heath, OH just not 46 or above so you are not having the law applied to you equally you are committing the same offense as someone else who has no consequences for their actions and you do. There is a reason that Speeding is a MINOR Misdemeanor , in the big picture of crime it is very minor.

Now for those of you that have your endless bantering rebuttal to the above statement try this one on additionally from the Mayor’s own admission he is advising the Hearing Officer that is if you have multiple violations he should enforce one and let the others go for the first month, sounds like he is trying to be fair, but he is once again not applying the law equally, if I have 12 violations and you have 8 then you are compelled to pay your fine as am I. but if you compare the 12 and the 8 should you not have to pay your fine since you should have a surplus of four and not even have to pay your fine? you can not grade speeding on a curve like that and be fair.

Unconstitutional

Here is why the whole Photo Enforcement Program should be “scraped” not just in Heath, OH but all over the country, as it will be before we are all done.

Under the US Constitution Amendment 5  – Trial and Punishment, Compensation for Takings.

Amendment 5  – Trial and Punishment, Compensation for Takings. Ratified 12/15/1791.

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The reason that this program is in violation of that amendment is that you are compelled to be a witness against yourself.

They are also in Violation of

Amendment 6  – Right to Speedy Trial, Confrontation of Witnesses. Ratified 12/15/1791.

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

The reason that they are in violation of this amendment is that you are convicted by a police officer and a private company (who have a vested monetary interest in writing as many of tickets as possible, I never received a commission for writing a ticket when I was a police officer) not a court of law and you are not able to confront your accuser or any witness against you.

They are also in violation of

Amendment 7  – Trial by Jury in Civil Cases. Ratified 12/15/1791.

In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.

The reason they are in violation of this Amendment is much like above you are convicted by a police officer and a private company not by a jury or any type of court. What kind of United States would we live in if a Police Officer becomes not only the arresting officer but also the Judge, Jury and Executioner, especially when the only proof he needs is a company which I have mentioned before has a monetary interest in the officer being right.

They are also in violation of

Amendment 14  – Citizenship Rights. Ratified 7/9/1868.

1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

The Reason they are in violation of this Amendment is because they have convicted you with out due process, No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law otherwise meaning they can not take your money before giving you a fair trial or enforce any law that violates your rights under the US Constitution.

Now folks where is the burden of proof, it should lye with the state (in this case the municipality) they have no proof that you are the driver of the vehicle in the picture, if your car was used in a robbery do the police come out and haul you off to jail? No they have to prove it was you that you had some type of involvement in the offense nor do they conveniently haul you off to civil court either.

In Closing remember the best way to vote these cameras out is to Vote out the people who put them in. The November Elections are coming up soon and I encourage you to get out there and vote. Additionally they camera issue will be on the ballot as well, weather you are for or against the cameras you should vote, but remember for those of you who think Big Brother is a good Idea, if you vote away more of your civil liberties remember the words of our fore fathers those who give up civil liberties for saftey will get nor deserve either.

Live your life without Fear!

Ryan

Written by Doug Patton on Jun 29, 09

Like much of the country, you may have spent your time last week snickering about the peccadilloes of yet another hapless politician who couldn’t keep his pants zipped. Or maybe you were captivated by the untimely but predictable passing of the most talented musical freak of the last quarter century. Perhaps while watching the ABC-Barack Obama dog-and-pony show purporting to deal with the future of your health care system, you were deceived into thinking that this was the big issue of the week. If so, you would be wrong. Make no mistake, it is on the agenda, but the real threat of the moment was simmering up on Capitol Hill in the United States House of Representatives.

Far too many Americans were distracted by other things to notice that on Friday, June 26th, 211 House Democrats and 8 Republicans defiantly thumbed their noses at the will of their constituents and passed the largest tax increase in the nation’s history.

The “Cap-and-Trade” bill will likely kill two or three real jobs for every so-called green job it creates. If this bill passes the Senate, the president’s signature will make it the law of the land. If that happens, look for your utility bills to increase by fifty percent. Expect gasoline to rise to last summer’s levels and above. Count on the cost of food, clothing and anything else affected by fuel prices – in other words, everything – skyrocketing. In fact, “skyrocket” was the exact word Obama himself used last year to describe the inflationary effects of this legislation, even as he promoted the idea during his presidential campaign.  Obama told voters at that time that his cap-and-trade proposal “will necessarily cause energy prices to skyrocket.” That was a striking admission from a presidential candidate, on a par with Walter Mondale’s startling statement at the 1984 Democratic National Convention that he would “raise your taxes.” (The fact that John McCain is no Ronald Reagan has a great deal to do with Obama not losing every state but his own like Mondale did, but that’s a column for another day.)

As we look back on Barack Obama’s first six months in office, one of two things must be true: the man either believes his policies are good for the country (in which case he is a fool), or he knows those policies are destructive to our economy and he is promoting them anyway (in which case he is every bit the autocrat and Marxist many of us warned he was during the campaign). I have come to believe the latter, but either way we have a long, expensive ride ahead of us.

For those who supported this president out of frustration with either John McCain or with George W. Bush, is it not obvious to you yet that Barack Obama hates America? Those of you who thought Jeremiah Wright was an anomaly in this man’s life, can you now see that this preacher of hate was just part of a long chain of negative, anti-American influences on Obama?

Rather than the Founders of this country, Barack Obama’s heroes have always been terrorists, felons and anarchists. Where most presidents revere Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, and James Madison, the father of the Constitution, this president’s role models have been domestic bomber Bill Ayers and Marxist Saul Alinsky, whose “Rules for Radicals” contains the blueprint for tearing a free America from its underpinnings and replacing it with a repressive nanny state.

As militant as this president is, he is not alone in his extremism. The Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, a woman two heartbeats away from the presidency herself, is perhaps even more radical than Obama, if that is possible. Pelosi and her counterpart in the Senate, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-NV, have thus far done this president’s bidding. That may change, especially in the Senate, but one thing is clear. These people hate the America you and I love, and they will do whatever they can to alter it forever.

Written by Doug Patton on Jun 29, 09 © Copyright 2009 by Doug Patton

Doug Patton is a freelance columnist who has served as a political speechwriter and policy advisor to conservative candidates, elected officials and public policy organizations. His weekly columns are published in newspapers across the country and on selected Internet web sites, including Human Events Online and GOPUSA.com, where he is a senior writer and state editor.