Erecting a monument to tasering in Seattle

Ah, the blood pressure read of the day is the article about the pregnant women tasered for refusing to sign her traffic ticket. A beautiful story of moral idiocy, state power overreach, and what happens when you fill the courts with idiot judges.

Here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/15/us/police-taser-use-on-pregnant-woman-goes-before-supreme-court.html?hp

This article is a regular mine for the satirist who lives away from the home of the free. There's the idea that tasering is a “a useful pain technique,” rather than a useless one - both of which are beloved by our boys in blue!

There's the quote from the 10th district judgem Alex Kozinski, a real prize from the Reagan era, who said, of the three cops who tasered a pregant woman for not signing her traffic ticket for going 12 miles above the speed limit in a school zone: “They deserve our praise, not the opprobrium of being declared constitutional violators. The City of Seattle should award them commendations for grace under fire.”

Of course, the clever satirist can not only delight in Judge Kozinki faschisty-moronic sense of who the City of Seattle should honor and what 'under fire' means, but can dig deeper into his recent history and - strike gold! Here's what our Kozinski does in his spare time (Wiki quote):

"In 2008, according to The Los Angeles Times, Kozinski "maintained a publicly accessible website featuring sexually explicit photos and videos."[5] In response, Kozinski called for an ethics investigation of himself.[6] In July 2009, Kozinski was admonished by a panel headed by Judge Anthony Scirica.[7][8]"

Surely Scirica could have asked for some pain control in this case.

Another judge, however, deserves a pitying look - pitying because obviously, competing with Kozinski for the moron accolade is difficult:

Another dissenter, Judge Barry G. Silverman, said “tasing was a humane way to force Brooks out of her car.”

“There are only so many ways a person can be extracted from a vehicle against her will, and none of them is pretty,” he explained. “Fists, batons, chokeholds, tear gas and chemical spray all carry their own risks to suspects and officers alike.”

This woman had to go to the bathroom. One of the ways of extracting said person would be to wait fifteen minutes. Of course, you could also explain why she needed to sign the ticket, and even encouraged, as one helpful NYT commentor observed, to write, My signature to this ticket in no way acknowledges my guilt. But why do that? She 's black, she's pregnant, she's taserable.Times a wastin'. And there's this controlled pain technique that the cops are just itching to use on a pregant women. It will be, well, scientific good fun! Meanwhile, the elderly judges, like some grotesque George Grosz tableau, will clap their bony hands together, or get bony in other parts of the body (after which, of course, they will investigate themselves), at the creamy dreamy thought of the boys in blue bein'... boys.

A good case for the current Supreme Court to extend the "fan club for police" ideas that have had a long, long tradition there, since the days when the drug war demanded that we toss aside any of those frivolous protections to our privacy, property, and dignity in order to allow the state to claim your endocrine system as its property. Tasing, keeping prisoners in solitary for forty years, and the general torture machine of the American penitentiary system have long been kept going by the creepy people who inhabit the upper reaches of the judiciary.

Which is why I, a lefty, was totally down with Newt Gingrich's suggestion that the Supreme Court be subordinated to Congress. In fact, I think the Supreme Court should simply be abolished. I don't see the need for it.