Watch out!!

It is so frustrating to see how our lives are limited by government intervention. First of all, I believe in government and support government. I even believe in taxes and laws and punishments, what I don't believe in is when the system grinds up the little guy without any thought to his/her life.

Case in point: Cops are our 1st Judges.

We often don't think about the extreme amount of power a cop is given. I am going to use a couple of recent examples from my own life. About a month ago, I crept out a little way into a busy intersection and when the light turned yellow, and then red I was already blocking traffic and had to move on through. A police officer following behind me stopped me and took down all my information and then gave me an unofficial warning and no citation. Now, what I mean by power, is that he could have decided there was probable cause, searched my vehicle and even incarcerated me if he had even the slightest provocation. He was my first judge, by deciding to let me go he made a judgement and I was found innocent. Not by a jury of my peers, but by a single individual with a relatively limited amount of training. (Now, I have several friends in Law Enforcement and I am not shorting any officer of the law, but they aren't required to have even a Bachelor's degree in most states just Police Academy Training initially)

Why did this guy let me go? Who knows, He liked my looks, I was polite, I didn't have any recent infractions, or he was just to busy, something came up, he didn't feel like it. He obviously judged that I had broken a law or he wouldn't have even stopped me, or maybe he was just gambling that I would have expired registration or insurance or something else.

Another case in point,

Just two weeks ago in a different city, I was pulled over but this time instead of a warning I got a ticket, why the difference, was this guy behind quota, was he mad at his kids, or did he just not like my looks, and then on top of this instead of giving me a ticket for going 47 in a 35 mile Zone he has the autonomy and authority to alter that to 40 in a 35 and still wrote that the radar clocked me at 47 on the citation. The technology is trusted and assumed to be correct, what am I going to say to argue with the radar? But still why does this one individual have so much authority. It's a lot of authority, particularly when you look at the system closer. When the ticket is first issued I have the choice of paying the ticket ($82.00) or paying a fine and enrolling in traffic school for a fee ($22.00 + $60.00= $82.00) This amount is just enough to really cause some economic pain (and I actually think if someone is going to be punished it should hurt) but small enough to not be worth fighting. If I do fight it, I am going to have to take of a full day of work and go down to the court and then if I lose I still have to pay the ticket. Am I going to gamble that the cop won't show to testify and it will get thrown out, especially when I know for sure I am losing a day's pay, probably not. Plus, If I chose to fight the ticket I forfeit the right to have the citation erased off my record by attending traffic school. The system is structured so that an individual police officer has the authority and autonomy to be judge, jury, executioner and in this case fee collector since the police department gets the $60.00 traffic school fee.

It looks like a corrupt system to me. The cop decides whom to ticket and whom not to ticket and then his program is benefited by the fees collected and the fees are structured so that to fight it is just risky enough not to be worth it. It gets even worse when confiscated money's and goods are kept by the police departments. See a recent series on NPR for further info.

Dirty Money



Flawed? Yeah, I think so!!! So Watch out!

Back from Kanab

I just spent this last weekend flying down to Phoenix and then drove home through Kanab and did some training. There are some beautiful spots on the drive up 89. Go ahead take your Rout 66 but give me HWY 89 any day.

LDS Church encouraging Members to interact positively online

What an interesting perspective. Elder Ballard is commenting in the same age old way (that while old and somewhat trite, it is nonetheless true) Fire is not dangerous, it is the way you use it. Fire can bring warmth and cook food or can destroy a home and kill thousands. The internet is the much the same. There are some really positive ways to interact and I am only sorry, that I have waited until now to really start to try and develop my own voice. I have said before that there are lots of back roads, dead ends and potholes on the information superhighway, but for the most part we can find some truly valuable things here. In our modern day you are a click away from edification or degradation.

Tuesday Thoughts

I have been setting up a few accounts on the web lately.  I have a relative that works for myspace and even though I haven't been very fond of it from a philosophical sense I decided to open an account.  My wife also has friends on facebook so I opened a facebook account too.  What has always struck me about these social networking sites is that they seem so much like a shopping market (or more accurately, an online catalog)  of friends.  It seemed to me that shopping for friends based on a classified ad they placed on myspace was deeply shallow.  I think it actually goes beyond that.  We have an innate, and instinctual desire for community.  So much of what we want in our lives is a sense of belonging.  When we are young, we hope and desire for a friend.  Most of us remember the days of "who's your best friend" and the social drama of our youngest years and the desire for friends.  I even remember as young as 2nd grade wanting to have a 'girlfriend.'  These were not just silly childish behaviors, but our yearning for connection to community.  I was just looking at my wife's facebook page and underneath her Status (married, thank you!)  it says looking for: friendship.  Mine says the same thing.  I guess in a way it could be  interpreted as sad, but really I guess it's not.  We are all looking for friendship.  We desire community.  We want connections to people.  In former times we had this community, because we lived, worked, learned, married, raised families and died largely in place.  Now, there has always been movement of people.  The 1860's through 1890's saw many families and communities moving westward.  Most of these families had only recently left Europe, but in the 400 years before the 1700's you had seen families living within 100 miles of where they were born.  Although there have always been the pioneers, the explorers and the settlers of new lands, our basic human desire is for connection to community.   This community is moving online and can be fantastic.  

I logged on and suddenly dozens of my fellow students from Snake River High where I grew up were there for me to reconnect too.  I could immediately see the appeal of being able to reconnect with a community that a person had lost contact with.  

Aren't most of us looking for friendship?

Check out what I'm looking for on:

 http://www.myspace.com/mitchelljorgensen

My Face Book

Traveling in Phoenix

Hey, I am travelling and in Phoenix. Why, oh, why, oh why, did I come to Phoenix in July? What would possess me to do such a thing. Oh, yeah.......my wife asked me to. That must be real love. But it is actually really nice here (hot, yeah, like the surface of a rocket pad after launch) But we have got to spend time with her family and visit some new places.

A new and great way to make extra money and get your exercise

If you haven't heard there is a great way to earn extra money and get your exercise. It is stealing manhole covers. The manhole covers weigh around 250 pounds a piece and to steal them you have to pry them out of the street with a crowbar while outrunning traffic and then throw them in your car or truck. All this for a whopping $15.oo (yes, fifteen bucks). Almost enough to pay for a half a date (if you consider dinner and a Wendy's combo meal a date). Maybe it's just me, but lifting 250 pound manhole covers and carting them to a scrap dealer for a $15.00 sounds a whole lot like work.

Anyway learn more here:

Spate Of Manhole Cover Thefts Poses Problem