|
They may be right but you do it anyway. City Of Sioux Falls Bureaucracy Has Run Amuck Too Long Are We A Herd Of Sheep Afraid Of the Wolves?
Once you make a complaint or demonstrate standing up for what you think is right, and if there is any media coverage, then the entrenched government officials have to take a stand and show and demonstrate their power and show that citizens are not allowed to do something unless it meets with their "approval" since they "run" this town. So the more publicity there is the more likely they are going to "hit back" with all the "legal" police powers they have to SHOW the public they are in "charge" so there are no more of these "upstarts" like you questioning their "power".My experience is that when you bring up "constitutional rights" to most local government employees, they laugh at you. They have gotten away with doing whatever they are doing so long that the very idea that somebody would think they could put a stop to that kind of treatment (claiming constitutional rights) is little more then a joke,like you still believe in the "tooth fairy" story. Example..About 15 years ago I installed a newspaper machine on the sidewalk in front of the post office in Deadwood. 30 minutes later I came back and my machine was gone...so went over to the combo police and fire station and there it was inside..the building..about five guys in there police, firemen etc. I said I want my machine back on the street. They said you do not have permission to put it on the sidewalk. I said i have been doing this seven years in 9 states and I never get permission, it is a protected right that you can distribute your views and ideas on the public sidewalk. (I had a court order regarding newsracks on sidewalks at post offices all over the US I had won in court of appeals.) They laughed and laughed ....boy they said you got a lot of guts thinking you can come in here and do that with out permission. You got another think coming...So I said...okay..went to Rapid, filed a federal action over the matter. They hired a big city attorney..from Rapid who wrote them a note that said save your money, you can not win this, settle it. So when contacted I settled it for $750.Now you ready for the last laugh..?. All winter it snows like crazy in Deadwood and the post office people scoop and sweep down to the last flake...and dumped snow all winter right on top of and buried my rack...so all winter every time I came around once a month I had to find it and uncover it and hardly never sold a paper...til spring.... could have gone back to court over that but never did. Ten years later the state of SD after starting the "taxing" newspaper sales thing was making me pay like 15 cents sales tax (which was maybe okay) on my sales in some little SD town or in maybe 40 towns and the bookkeeping was costing my like $4 each town to keep track and the filing for each little town destroyed my ability to distribute in those towns. So I refused to pay $28 worth of sales tax and filed notice of destroying my first amendment right to distribute.. I had to be made an example of.... I got thrown out of federal court where I know how things work supposedly on the grounds it was a local tax matter. (do my own legal work without an attorney)The Argus did a big write up and I was in BIG trouble... In state court constitutional rights mean nothing... my usual contitutional pleadings went nowhere, including the SD court of appeals. They do not even respond to "constitutional claims" like you never even filed them. I was fined over $8,000 dollars including "costs" and sentanced to 24 hours in jail...declared a "felon" lost my hunting license and right to vote... That was my big life time loser....stay out of State court with constitutional claims... the snowball in hell odds thing... In Abiliene Kansas I was thrown in jail for 4 hours... (over refusal to remove a newspaper vending machine off the sidewalk,) to make a long story short I filed for violation of my rights, they hired the most expensive attorney in Kansas City and six months later they settled out of court for $8,000 when it bacame apparent they were going to lose. Six months later another town did the same thing and eventually they also setlled for $8,000. out of court. Had one other early on when i was not too savy. where i was thrown in jail in Phoenix Arizone for one day...sold an arilcle about that to the Phoenix Sunday magazine newspaper insert about that jail experience and shortly after the judge in that one was fired though i m not sure I can claim any credit. No, I am not asking you to take any such risks... and will stop telling you storys... actually I think if we ever got this to class action we can supena city records of all the names they have hassled and you do not have to volunteer for anything.. and the court will decide if it is entitled to a class action on everyones behalf. > But we would appreciate it if you tell others about this site, that may have been hassled about this....Let us wake everyone up...and say enough is enough...together... We are feeling kind of lonely here. |
|
|
| |
|
|
||
|
|
||
|
|
||